The House went into Committee on Tuesday afternoon on the.
Agricultural Holdings Bill, and the great question of "the- sitting tenant's" claim for improvements was raised pretty early by Mr. Borlase. The complaint is that a tenant who is. not willing to leave his holding rather than have his rent raised,. is liable to have that rent raised (so far as it may be raised with- out driving him to the expense of removal) on his own improve- ments, a condition of things for which Mr. Borlase desires to- find a remedy, but for which, as we argue elsewhere, and as was. indeed admitted in the House by some of the best friends of "the sitting tenant," there is hardly any conceivable remedy short of a Court to fix a fair rent, such as has been establishes/ in Ireland,—for which in England nobody wishes. Even though a remaining tenant were allowed on the raising of his rent to claim a sum down as compensation for his improvements,. the landlord could, of course, always raise the rent so far as. not only to cover the interest on that compensation, but some- thing more as well, representing the intensity of the tenant's. reluctance to leave. The House saw this, and the amendment. was negatived by 196 to 45.
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