In a letter to the Town Tenants' League, Mr. Asquith
has added an important point to his recent speech on urban leases. He says that the Government intend, subject to all necessary reservations for the protection of the reasonable interests of the landlord and of the community, "to give to tenants of business premises, though their leases or tenancies may be for leas than twenty-one years, the right to submit their case for an extension to the Land Commissioners. The Land Com- missioners should have power to grant such extension, or, in the alternative, to give such compensation as the equities of the case require." In other words, the land-bursting campaign has become, among other things, a contract-bursting campaign. To say that in short leases an owner cannot enter into a bargain that seems to both parties desirable with any assur- ance that it will be held binding is to do a very serious injury to commercial confidence, and therefore to the prosperity of the State which rests on that confidence.
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