LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLL ON LEASES.
[To THE EDITOR OF TRI9 " BPEOTATOR."]
Sin,—The Duke of Argyll, in his letter in last week's Spectator, referring to a communication of mine in your publication of the previous week, denies that it is " a common thing for tenants to have their improvements confiscated to their land- lords at the end of their leases ; " and maintains that, at the end of the lease, " the owner has a just right to share in the results which have arisen mainly out of the capital which his ownership has supplied." The owner, doubtless, has a just right to share in results so arising, but only in so far as they are the result of his own capital,—not that of the tenant.
In his Grace's " Essay on the Commercial Principles Applic- able to Contracts for the Hire of Land " (p. 27), he defines the ownership of agricultural land to consist "in nothing else but the ownership of its productive qualities," and "it is this which he hires out to other men, when he lets it." Such being so, the owner surely cannot claim more for the use of these productive qualities than the stipulated rent, which is the price paid for the use of them, and their restoration at the end of the lease unimpaired ; but if the tenant, in addition to the rent, has expended money in draining, enriching the soil, adding to the buildings, or in other improvements of a permanent kind, being under no obligation to do so, and at the end of the lease restores the holding to the landlord, not merely unimpaired, but increased in value, without getting compensation for his im- provements, so far as they remain unexhausted at his removal, the landlord gets more than his own; and it is surely not too much to say that if the law allows tenants' improvements to be appropriated in this way, it sanctions the confiscation of the tenants' property. His Grace, however, takes a different view.
He holds (" Essay," pp. 38-39) that for these improvements, " in every ease any direct payment to the tenant by the owner at the close of their contract with each other would be a transaction enabling the occupier to recover his capital twice over,—once in the form of profits, and a second time in the form of compensation for having made them ;" but this is a view which, I venture to say, cannot be sustaiued. It is not those who claim compensation for tenants' unexhausted improvements that seek twice payment for them, but it is his Grace, who, in denying the validity of the claim, commits the mistake of taking credit for the owner's capital in the soil twice over—once in the form of rent, and a second time in the form of tenants' unexhausted improvements, which he has not paid for, and so ends by "counting it twice over," as you very clearly and tersely point out, in your editorial note appended to his Grace's letter. As regards the extent of tenants' im- provements, that can only be authoritatively ascertained by proper evidence. It neither depends on my assertion that it is great, nor on his Grace's that it is small ; and as this is a very important point to be determined in discussing the Land-laws, it is to be hoped it will not be overlooked by
the Royal Commission, whose field of inquiry seems sufficiently wichi to embrace it, but that it will receive from the Com- missioners that attention which its importance merits.
I shall not venture to encroach further on your valuable space than to refer your readers to a criticism of his Grace's essay, in
the form of " Remarks," by Mr. William Goodlet, farmer, Bohlen (Seton and Mackenzie, Edinburgh), published with the approval and at the request of the Scottish Chamber of Agri- culture, of which his Grace cannot be ignorant, and which, those who really care to see the subject discussed from a Scotch tenant's point of view should read, as a companion pamphletto
his Grace's essay.—I am, Sir, &e., A SCOMI FARMER.
[We do not like the word "confiscation," which implies moral wrong. While the law gives the value of improvements to the owner, in the absence of special contract, they are his. It is the inexpediency of the law, of which we complain.—En. Spectator.]
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