The Law of Compensation

FOR

UNEXHAUSTED IMPROVEMENTS.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

as to

ments.

ONE of the main causes which prevented the full development of the agriculture of this country was the want of security for any capital the tenant might invest in improving his holding. The law of England fully recognizing the principle "Quid- Old law quid plantatur solo, solo cedit," gave a tenant who improvehad spent money upon his holding no legal right to recover à sixpence. A landlord might stand by, see the tenant lay out large sums in permanently improving the landlord's property, give the tenant six months' notice to quit, let the farm for an increased rent in consequence of the tenant's improvements, yet the tenant could not recover any compensation. It is true that in certain parts of the country, by local custom, compensation was occasionally made to the tenant, but these customs were only of a very partial nature, and differed not only in almost every county in England, but frequently also in different parts of the same county. A committee of the Central Chamber of

B.

B

to com

Customs as Agriculture, in 1874, prepared a most valuable pensation. and exhaustive report upon these customs, and thus give the result of their inquiries:

Mr. Pusey's Committee, 1848.

"From the variations in practice occurring within comparatively limited districts it is evident that customs cannot be correctly defined and classified as 'County customs;' that so far from each county possessing a distinct and peculiar usage co-extensive with its area, a map of England, in which the prevalence of each custom should be represented by a distinguishing colour, would exhibit a series of most irregularly-shaped and unequally-distributed patches, the most conspicuous feature being the very small proportion of the surface of England enjoying any custom of adequate compensation, even for purchased feeding stuffs and manures."

The injustice this state of things inflicted on the tenant had long attracted the attention of agriculturists; as far back as 1848 the late Mr. Pusey obtained a select committee of the House of Commons to inquire into the question. The Bill that was based upon the report of that committee failed to become law, but indirectly that report has been the origin of the whole of the modern customs as to compensation for unexhausted imProgress of provements. In many parts of the country since

the cus

toms allowing

compensation.

that report, customs have arisen allowing some compensation to an out-going tenant. The Chambers of Agriculture, soon after their formation in 1867 and 1868, vigorously took up this question; it is to their labours that the subject first received legislative recognition in 1875. The report in 1874 of the Central Chamber is the most complete

Vict. c. 92.

and reliable account in existence of the different local customs throughout England; it at once proved the need of a general law for the whole country. In the year 1872, and again in 1873, Messrs. Howard and Read introduced a measure Mr. Howard's Bill, upon the subject; in 1874 the heads of a measure 1873. were prepared by a committee of the Central Chamber of Agriculture, and the Marquis of Huntley introduced a Bill into the House of Lords that was rejected on the second reading; in 1875, Lord Beaconsfield's government introduced and carried the first Act of Parliament that gave the tenant farmer the legal right to claim a return of the capital he had spent for the landlord's benefit. That Act-the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1875 38 & 39 —was far from being either a complete or satisfactory solution of the question. Its great value was, that it was the earliest legislative recognition of the principle that the tenant is legally entitled to have either the repayment or the value of the money spent by him on his holding, but the cases in which it gives compensation are few, and hampered with many restrictions. Its great defect was, that it was not a measure of universal application, but merely a permissive law, giving both parties the option not to adopt it, and to a tenant the option of claiming compensation under it or under the custom of the country; in many cases the tenant got more under the much-abused custom of the country than under the Act. As a foundation for future legislation-the thin end of the wedge-it was most valuable; as a solution of the question, it was worthless.