13 APRIL 1872, Page 2

The last question is making rapid strides. In Scotland it

will turn the next elections, and in England we see that at least one great landlord expects a change in the law. Lord Lansdowne, as appears from his letter in the Times, would give the tenant compensation for perma- nent buildings, reclamation of waste land, and unexhausted improvements as the Irish Land Act does, and would, we suppose, include among unexhausted improvements any permanent increase of value added by the tenant's good cultivation to the soil. Opinion upon this subject is not yet quite clear, but the object of reform is at all events ascertained. It is to weight the landlord against capricious changes of tenancy, so that he may be induced to let farms as a city landlord voluntarily lets houses, without reference to his tenants' personal independence of himself. No other tradesman objects to his customer's doing as he likes in politics or society.