'THE LORDS ON THE AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS BILL.
TORD SALISBURY cannot bear to give with a good grace. In the case of this Agricultural Holdings Bill, which no one, so far as we know, regards as anything but the most moderate of measures, he might have very well enjoined on his followers to earn, if possible, some small stock of that supererogatory merit on which he will certainly have to draw freely enough next Session, if he deals with the Government's Reform Bill as Conservatives in general appear to expect. He might at least have posed before the country as saying to his followers, ' See how moderate we Peers are, when the Commons know how to be moderate, too ! Here is a Radical Government in power, and they propose to compel landlords to compensate farmers for their improve- ments; we are almost all landlords, and are the persons on whom the cost of compensating them will fall ; but the Govern- ment have brought in a measure distinguished by unexpected moderation, and what is the result The result is that we have accepted the measure in the frankest way, only making a few formal alterations.' Surely Lord Salisbury would have been wise in taking up this attitude. But he has done nothing of the kind. He has given the farmers good reason to think that he will deprive them of any advantage he can, and the House of Commons good reason to believe that he will thwart them where he can, without asserting a single principle for which any one even supposes that he himself cares seriously to contend.
Let us see what amendments Lord Salisbury used his majority to carry. The first was the amendment extending to all tenants' improvements the condition already conceded as regards draining, irrigation, fencing, and improvements of that kind, that no increase of return reasonably ascribable to the inherent qualities of the soil are to be valued as due to work done by the tenant. Now, we have always asserted the general reasonableness of this condition. It is perfectly obvious that a rich soil spoiled by water, or trodden down by cattle, might yield indefinitely more when properly drained or fenced than a poor soil would, if improved in the same way, and obviously enough the difference between the effect produced on the good soil and the effect produced on the poor soil ought to belong to the landlord, not to the tenant. And the same might be said of all improvements, but then there are many kinds of improvements with regard to which the attempt to discriminate between what is due to the soil itself and what is due to the operation performed on the soil, is almost hopeless, especially as the effect produced, whatever it is, is exhausted within a very limited period. Such improvements are those in the Third Part of the Schedule,—the higher manuring operations, boning, chalking, clay-burning, liming, guanoing of land. The good effects of these operations is exhausted within a time tolerably well known, and within that time the attempt to discriminate what is due to the inherent qualities of the soil, and what is due to the artificial aid lent it, must be highly conjectural. Any effort to distinguish them will be certainly regarded by the tenant as an effort to deprive him arbitrarily of an increased production fairly earned by his own expenditure. If Lord Salisbury had been wise, he would not have endeavoured to direct the minds of the valuers to attempt a discrimination highly problematic in itself, and certain to be looked upon by the tenartt as a mean attempt to depreciate the effect of what he, by his own expenditure of capital, had fatly earned. If a soil that had previously yielded barely enough to pay expenses, yielded foiSsome years after such an operation as this a large profit, it it is reasonable to assume that the difference, so long as it lasts, will be due to the opera- tions effected by the tenant. But Lord Salisbury was inexorable, and defeated the Government by 82 against 51, on an issue which he must know himself to be of the smallest possible importance ; and, indeed, chiefly important because it betrays the bias of the Tory Peers. Lord Salisbury will certainly not venture to throw the Bill out, if this amendment is dis- agreed to by the Commons, as no doubt it ought to be and will be.
Still more foolish was the attack on the Land Commis- sioners,—really on Sir James Caird,—no doubt for having advocated the cause of " the sitting tenant." Lord Salisbury moved an amendment to Clause 11 to the effect that if any party
to a dispute concerning compensation arising under the Bill did not like the umpire appointed by the Land Commissioners, then the umpire should be appointed by the " Council of the Institute of Surveyors." This was a mere slap in the face to Sir James Caird. No one has ever challenged the impar- tiality of his proceedings under the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1875, and Lord Salisbury would not have suggested that he might be fairly objected to, if Sir James Caird had not endeavoured, with all who care for the better class of tenants, to find a mode of satisfying the sitting tenant that his rent shall not be unfairly raised on his own improvements, even though he give no notice to quit. We have declared the problem to be, in our opinion, an insoluble one, except by the natural good-feeling existing between landlord and tenant ; but none the less, Sir James Caird would not have been the man he is, or trusted by all parties as he has been, unless he had desired to satisfy the sitting tenant without compelling him to give notice to quit. This mere snap of Lord Salisbury's at Sir James Caird is very childish, and again will betray to the tenant-farmers, as nothing else could have done, the temper of Lord Salisbury's altera- tions. Once more, there is the attempt to water-down the concession made in the second clause of the Bill to tenants who have made before the passing of this Bill a class of improvements for which at present they are not entitled to be compensated, but for which this Bill would concede them a compensation. This is to be done by providing that " no compensation shall be claimed under Clause 2, in contravention of any specific agreement existing between the parties in reference thereto," a trivial endeavour to provide against the claim for compensation in those few exceptional cases of hardship in which the Bill is to apply to improvements effected before its passing, as in general it will not do. As the Government said, the valuers are directed under Clause 6 to take into account any set-off against the tenant's claim which can be shown by the landlord, and that is sufficient guarantee against any abuse of this particular section. But Lord Salisbury would not be satisfied without making it plain in every sentence that he regards the tenant as the aggressor, against whom every conceivable precaution is to be taken under the Bill. The effect of that amendment,--to which, like the rest, he will certainly not care to adhere, if the Government resist it,—is simply to tell the tenants how profoundly the landlords distrust them, and how they desire to shut out every conceivable loophole against their disposition to rob the landlord. That is not the spirit in which a serious Tory leader should have dealt with aBill of this sort. Finally,Lord Salisbury struck out the right of the allotment men to com- pensation. As we said last week, he has this excuse, that the right of the allotment men for compensation may so frighten small owners, that they will grant no allotments after the passing of a Bill which would give the allotment men a claim fm compensation. And that, doubtless, would be a very pernicious effect of the clause. Still, we doubt if it will really have enough effect of this kind to undo the good of putting the allotment men on the same footing of justice as the larger .tenant. On the whole, we may safely predict that Lord Salisbury's work on Friday week will result—so far as it has any result,—only in discredit to the Tory party in the country, as well as in some loss of dignity to the House of Lords.
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