A LANDLORD'S GRIEVANCE.
[To THZ EDITOR Or TH5 " Srzeuroa.1
SIR,—The publicity which you have given to the letter of " Small Squire " in your issue of December 17th, may possibly spread an erroneous view of the existing law with regard to settled land. I therefore ask your permission to make the fol- lowing comments. Your correspondent, after stating that he desires to build a house on the settled estate, and that if he should do so his expenditure will not profit his family of daughters, but will enure for the benefit of a nephew, pro- ceeds thus :—" I might, it is true, borrow for drainage, but I cannot for building a house or ornamental planting ; yet without the two latter I must be an absentee, and spend the income derived from the land away from it." Your correspondent, however, is apparently unaware of the existence of statutes which enable him to do all that he requires, By the Limited Owners' Residences Act, 1870, and the amending Act of 1871, he may, with the sanction of the Land Commission, erect his house, and charge the cost thereof (so long as it does not exceed two years' rental of the estate) on the inheritance. By the Improvement of Land Act, 1864, the operation of which is extended by Sections 30 and 25 of the Settled Land Act, 1882, he may in like manner charge the inheritance with the cost of planting. If be objects that neither of these Acts enable him to get water at the cost of the estate, I would refer him to the Limited Owners' Reservoirs and Water-Supply Act, 1877. "A Small Squire" also asserts that Lord Cairns's Act (the Settled Land Act, 1882) " has done very little real good, and it leaves too much to private trustees who may always be trusted to fear responsibility, and thus prove obstructive." This assertion shows that your corre- spondent has entirely misapprehended the scheme of Lord Cairns's Act Except with regard to a sale of the principal mansion house, the trustees have no power of proving obstruc- tive. Their consent to a sale or lease is not required, and their dissent would be a matter of indifference. Their principal function is to receive and invest the purchase-money ; and even there, within the limit of the prescribed securities, they most obey the directions of the "limited owner."
The allegation of your correspondent that the Act has done little good (by which I understand him to mean has been little need), is quite contrary to the everyday experience of practical lawyers. On the contrary, Settled Land Act sales are extremely numerous, and the Act has, after five years' experience, been found to work very smoothly and successfully. No doubt, like every important statute, it has had, now and again, to be con- strued by the Court; yet having regard to its novel character, it is really wonderful that so few difficulties have arisen in the working of a statute which, in spite of the opinion of "A Small Squire," is an honour to the man who conceived it, and the man who put that conception into its present admirable form.—I am, Sir, &c., Lincoln's Inn, December 20th. ARTHUR UNDERHILL.
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