THE FARMERS' ALLIANCE LAND BILL. [To THE EDITOR OF THE
“spEcrsvos.-]
Sia,—Allow me, with all respect, to point out that, in criti- cising the Farmers' Alliance Land Bill, you argue as if no such measure as the Agricultural Holdings Act had been passed, and proved to be an utter failure. You strongly desire that tenant- farmers should have security for their capital, and yet you object to the only means by which they can get it. For more than forty years they have demanded it, in vain. Over thirty years ago, a Parliamentary Committee declared it to be so highly desirable, that they were convinced it would be gained by mutual agreement ; yet, from that time to this, even the insuffi- cient tenant-right custom of Lincolnshire has not spread into three other counties. In 1875, the Agricultural Holdings Act, a measure providing for compensation to tenants for their unex- hausted improvements, was passed. It was not compulsory, and therefore it was almost universally treated with contempt by landlords. Then, when you express the most earnest desire to give tenants security for their capital by a permissive law which never will give it to them, tenants might fairly reply, "Thank you for nothing." Even ultra-Conservatives, like Mr. Chaplin and Mr. Staveley Hill, have got beyond the Liberal Spectator on this point, as they introduced Bills last Session setting aside freedom of contract in the most decided manner, and giving tenants an indefeasible claim to compensation for improvements.
You say, "We look, we confess, with extreme jealousy upon the prohibition of contracts, except when the contract is either wrong in itself, or contrary to public good." So do the mem- bers of the Farmers' Alliance, and their whole case rests on the argument that contracts setting aside a tenant's right to com- pensation for his improvements are contrary to public good, and therefore wrong in themselves. It is humiliating to those of us who for year after year have been setting forth the enormous national loss arising from the insecurity of tenant- farmers' capital, to find that even now there are intelligent men who cannot see it. What miserably poor advocates we must be ! If you admit that security for tenants' capital is essential to the highest welfare of the nation, whose prosperity depends so largely upon the full development of the resources of the soil, surely you cannot let a mere superstition in favour of freedom —or, rather, licence—of contract stand in the way; and, I repeat, the necessary security never can be obtained in this country with what is called freedom of contract.
How do I prove this ? First, by history ; secondly, by showing that real freedom of contract cannot exist in the long- run between landlord and tenant in this country, because there is no equality of contracting power. Thirdly, by pointing out that even if we had real freedom of contract, it would be abused, to the public disadvantage. As to my first argument, I have already cited the experience of the last forty years. With reference to the second, I need only say that wherever there is bread-and-cheese to be got by farming—just now, agricultural affairs are in a state of ruin which is quite exceptional—land- lords, in a thickly populated country like ours, and landlords, too, who have such great wealth, power, and esprit de corps, must have the upper-hand, in contracting with those who wish to hire their land. It is all very well to say that men must be fools to hire land without full security for their capital. If it be fair to say so, it only proves that only fools can be farmers, and that is not particularly advantageous from a national point of view. But it is not true, and this brings me to my third plea. A man may take a farm without security for his capital, and yet not be a fool, because he may take care not to risk his capital in improvements of a lasting or slow-returning character. This shows how even real freedom of contract for the hire of land may be abased, to the serious loss of the nation ; for whether a -tenant is prevented from having security for his capital, or freely foregoes that security in consideration of a low rent or 'other advantage to himself, it is all the same a bad thing for -the country. Some of the poorest of farmers have saved money, simply by keeping down expenses, starving the land, employing very little labour, and producing small crops at little cost. I have known men who have got rich, in better times than these, by farming on this system, but each was a curse to his parish --and to his country.
It is really wonderful to me that any one who does not object to interference with freedom of contract between railway com- pany and passenger, or between cabman and "fare," should -demur to a demand that those who have the stewardship of the nation's land—and no one has a more personal estate in land than that—shall be prohibited from letting their land on terms which virtually prohibit its proper cultivation, and prevent its greatest productiveness from being developed.
I fail to see your distinction between "unexhausted improve- ments" and "the whole improvement." An improvement that as exhausted has ceased to exist. The Alliance Bill seeks only -to secure to tenants the full value of their unexhausted im- provements.
Under the system of licence of contract, the only agreement partially justifying a tenant, in the interest of himself and his family, in farming really well, is an agreement for a long term -of years. But a lease can never confer complete security upon -a tenant, unless he has either the right to consign and bequeath it, or compensatory provisions in case of having to give it up Lefore it expires, or at the end of the term. Under the Scotch lease system, the landlords have gained enormously by pure con- Tfiscation according to law. Where tenants have farmed well 'nearly or quite to the end of their leases, they or their succes- sors have been rented on their improvements. In these cases, they have " scourged " the land during the last few years of their terms, leaving an uphill job to their successors to restore fertility.
I have left myself no space in which to show that the need -of compulsory compensation for tenants' improvements being granted, the plan of Free Sale, as it is termed (it is not free, -because limited by the landlord's pre-emption), as adopted in -the Affiance Land Bill, is the best for all parties concerned The necessity of controlling licence of contract in the case of &and may, without any offensive intention, be described as the pons asinorum of land-tenancy reform ; and until that is passed it is useless to proceed to other propositions.—I am, Sir, Stc., WILLIAM E. BEAR. Farmers' Alliance Office, Clement's Inn Passage, W.C.
[We have admitted to the full the claim of the tenant to be protected against himself by forbidding contract, as regards the -value of unexhausted improvements. If the Affiance are only asking that, cadit quaestio. We understand them to ask some- thing more,—a right to compensation for good cultivation ; and we doubt if that is needful enough to justify the suspension of freedom of contract.—En. Spectator.]
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