The Government Bill for Tenants is, at all events, a
success in one respect. All parties accept it as a reasonable compro- mise. On Tuesday, the Bill passed its second reading without a division, and, as Sir M. Hicks-Beach said, amid "practical unanimity." The severe discussion will, of course, be in Com- mittee; but the Government, through Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, ex- pressed a clear intention of adhering to the Bill pretty much as it stands. The agrarian Radicals will, however, move several amendments, and two of them, we confess, though we are not inclined towards double proprietor- ship, have our sympathy. One is the total abolition of the law of distraint, the first effect of which is that the decent farmer is always liable to be overbid by the speculator, who can offer any rent, because he means to pay nobody but the landlord, who, but for this law, would not accept him. The other is the protection of the sitting tenant, who may have his rent increased on him in consequence of his own improvements. One remedy for this is Mr. Bonamy Price's, quoted last week, but a simpler one might be devised. Why should not a rise of rent without formal notice to quit be made illegal ? The notice need not be acted on, but the farmer's right to compensation would at once accrue, and could be settled as he and his landlord pleased. The Peers, however, who are submitting to universal redactions, in hope of better times, will certainly reject any clause benefiting the sitting tenant, and the farmers must fight it out with them. The debate was one of the forgotten kind,--solid, temperate, and instructive, and without a single reference to the wrongs of Ireland.
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