I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a second time."

In doing so I will do my best to show to the House why such a measure has become necessary. It is proposed by this Bill to extend the provisions of Section 11 of the Agricultural Holdings Act to the determination of tenancies in connection with the sale of holdings. The Agricultural Holdings Act to a very great extent contains the terms of tenancy of a farm as between the landlord and the farmer. That Act defines and sets out the compensation payable on the determination of the tenancy, but, of course, there may be, in addition to the Agricultural Holdings Act, a written agreement of tenancy, and failing a written agreement of tenancy the farm is subject to the custom of the country, and the custom of the country applies to the holding. Those customs vary to a very large extent in their character. They are founded on no uniform principle and they differ very widely throughout the country, and there may be different customs in the same district of the country. Section 11 of the Agricultural Holdings Act, which is the Section which it is sought by this Bill to extend, gives compensation to an outgoing tenant where the landlord gives notice to quit without good and sufficient cause and for reasons inconsistent with good estate management. This Section 11 also provides for compensation where a notice to quit is given with a view to obtain an increase of rent by reason of improvements made by the tenant farmer. This compensation for unreasonable disturbance is limited to the loss or expense directly attributable to the tenant quitting his farm and which he may unavoidably incur in connection with the sale or removal of his household furniture, his implements of husbandry, and the produce and stock of his farm. This compensation, in default of agreement, is to be settled by arbitration. This Bill is for the purpose of giving this compensation for unreasonable disturbance in cases where notice is given by the landlord and the tenant has to quit his farm, with a view to a sale. It was considered by many people connected with agriculture that notice to quit, in view of a sale, was already provided for and that compensation for unreasonable disturbance could be given under the Section as it stands. A case was however brought in the County Court in 1911 to determine this particular question. The judgment was fully reported and was to the effect that a notice to quit, given for the purpose of sale, did not entitle the tenant to compensation for unreasonable disturbance. This judgment has been acted upon and no compensation is now paid for unreasonable disturbance in the case of sales. In 1911 the President of the Board of Agriculture appointed a Departmental Committee, of which Lord Haversham was Chairman, and the reference to that Committee was:

Which Report is that?

This is the Report of the Haversham Committee. Paragraph 20 of the Report states:— still causing, much anxiety among farmers, and their difficult position is intended to be met to some extent by this Bill. Compensation for unreasonable disturbance was given by the Agricultural Holdings Act for the benefit of the tenant farmer, and where a tenant is disturbed in his holding by reason of a sale, it may well be conceded that he is certainly entitled to the limited compensation given by Section 11 of that Act.

With regard to the present Bill, I think it deserves the consideration of this House, and I believe it will receive support from Members of all parties. It is in no sense brought forward as a party measure. On the contrary, it is brought forward at the request of Members on both sides, and it is proposed in the interests of the tenant farmer and of agriculture. I hope the House will consider the Bill from that point of view. I have had correspondence which goes to show that this measure is a very limited one. I have intentionally limited it to this one particular section, because to have included various other matters concerning the tenant farmer and the landlord, which are ripe for settlement by Parliament, would have been simply to have had a discussion in this House with no real hope of such a measure being passed into law. Such questions as the wages and the housing accommodation of the agricultural labourer, and the proposals which are mentioned in regard to giving security to the tenant farmer, raise great and important issues. But my opinion is that it will be a bad day for agriculture if the various proposals with regard to the industry, the agricultural labourer, the tenant farmer, and the landlord are thrown into the arena of party politics. There are many questions affecting agriculture on which both parties are agreed. Why then should there not be some arrangement or some inquiry to find out what is best in the interests of agriculture itself? It is from that point of view I have endeavoured to bring in my small measure, and it is with the full assurance that the House of Commons will give fair and equitable consideration to it that I now move the Second Reading.

I beg to second the Motion for the second reading of this Bill. The object of this measure is confined to a very small compass, though I think it is a very important measure for the farmers of England. I should like to thank my hon. Friend, on behalf of the Central Chamber of Agriculture, whose Bill this really is, because, having been so fortunate in the ballot, he has brought forward this measure, and I venture to think that those thanks will be re-echoed by every farmer in the country. The object of the Bill is to make Section 11 of the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1908, apply to tenants who are given notice to quit for the purpose of sale. I do not know whether, when that measure was before the House, this point entirely escaped notice, or whether Members thought that it was covered. Unfortunately my hon. Friend was not a Member of the House at the time, otherwise I feel sure his eager eye would have detected the point by means of some supplementary questions.

I was a Member of this House, but there were no sales of any moment taking place.

The hon. Gentleman perhaps was, but my hon. Friend near me (Mr. Bathurst) was not. Suddenly and unexpectedly the County Court Judge at Shrewsbury decided that a sale was not such an unreasonable disturbance so as to entitle a tenant to compensation. By the Bill we say that for this disturbance—it is obviously a disturbance to the tenant, for he is put to all the inconvenience, expense, and trouble of changing his farm—he shall be compensated, unless, of course, he is removed for bad farming. My hon. Friend pointed out that the Haversham Committee suggested that this compensation should take the form of an extended notice. For my part, I cannot think that compensation can be worse, either from the tenants' point of view, or from the point of view of the landlord or of the agricultural community, than that you should encourage the man to do what is known as "farming to leave." This Bill only deals with one point, and the reason of that is that had my hon. Friend produced a more ambitious Bill there would not have been the slightest chance of it getting through as a private Members' Bill.

Two problems always present themselves to anybody who desires to amend or improve the Agricultural Holdings Act. The first is how to secure real compensation for everything that a good farmer has put into the farm, and so increased the value of it; secondly—equally important and equally difficult—how to secure effective delapidation from a bad farmer or landlord. My hon. Friend has confined himself to one point, and I venture to say that that point is not an unimportant one. As the House very well knows—and I do not propose to weary the House with figures—we have had an extraordinary number of sales of agricultural land throughout the country during the last few years. In my own county of Cheshire, north, south, east and west, all around my own home, and in that part of the county which I have the honour to represent, it would be almost true to say that we have had sales in every parish. There is no doubt that, as the hon. Member has just said, we shall undoubtedly have a great many more sales in the future. Everybody knows the reason. It is mentioned in the Haversham Report, though that Committee was not in some ways very united they were united on this point: that the reason of these sales was the lack of confidence that was going on in the country. That Report was made almost three years ago. No one can pretend that there is more confidence in the country as regards agricultural land to-day than there was then. That, is why we particularly want to get this Bill through as soon as we can, or undoubtedly we shall have more sales in the future.

I should just like to mention—I think it is only fair to do so—that in many of the sales which have taken place in recent times that landlords have acted with the greatest consideration towards the tenants. In sales near my own home some of the landlords I know have advanced the tenants money at a very low rate of interest, 3½ per cent. or so, to purchase their holdings: this money the landlord could have invested in absolutely sound securities at a very much higher rate of interest. There have been undoubtedly painful exceptions. There have been cases of landlords selling their land to syndicates, a process I have not the slightest sympathy with. I am very glad to know that in cases of that sort, at any rate, this Bill will apply. This Bill, I venture to think, will be welcomed alike by good landlords and by good tenants. Personally, everything I possess is in agricultural land; therefore I should not recommend this Bill to the House unless it were absolutely fair so far as the landlords are concerned. One word with the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Agriculture, whom I hope has recovered from his illness. The right hon. Gentleman visited Cheshire some few weeks ago. He gave us, if I may say so, several very interesting speeches on agriculture, in return for which we gave him a somewhat indifferent dinner, and I am afraid a very bad attack of influenza. At the end of one of his speeches someone asked him a question relating to land tenure, and this is what the right hon. Gentleman replied:—

I should like to say a few words for the measure now before the House. Speaking as a landlord I am inclined to think that this Bill does not go quite so far as I should like to see. I know, in my own Division, many very serious cases of hardships have occurred from the sales of estates which have taken place during the last few years. I could give instances of hardship for which no compensation has been given. For instance, there is the sale of a farm where a farmer has got a valuable connection for the sale of milk. If he moves away to another farm, although he may take his cows with him, yet his contract to supply milk which is valuable to him is not likely to help him in the future. Again, there is the case of a man whose farm is sold, and who is engaged in the growing of fruit or hops. It may be extremely difficult for him to get a farm which would give him the opportunity of using that knowledge and experience that he has been so successful with in the past. It may therefore be a very great hardship. In my own Division I have known cases where a man and his forbears have been tenants of a holding for over a hundred years; yet owing to the sale of the property he has had to find some other farm and has not had real compensation for the improvements, to which, to my mind, he was entitled. We have to remember that in a great many of the cases where farms are sold they are outlying bits of property where the tenants in most cases do the whole of the improvements, and it is in these cases great hardship most often occurs. I am not going into the reasons why the sale of this property is taking place. Of course, I think it is within the knowledge of Members of this House that it is largely due to the speeches by responsible and irresponsible persons, and also public bodies outside, that has had the effect of causing a feeling of insecurity, and, what is far worse, causing the supply of capital put into agricultural land to be dried up. The consequence is owners are inactive and we have the difficulty we have discussed on many occasions in this House, of insufficient building for the accommodation of agricultural labourers. I take it the effect of this Bill will be that tenants will get compensation for the cost of their husbandry and for all improvements done with the consent of the landlord. I should like to know whether things like wirework for hops and fruit will be included.

Wire-netting.

And if the tenants' fixtures would be included in this compensation. I must say I think in connection with this compensation at present given, that the onus of proof when the improvement has been carried out with the consent of the landlord should be removed from the shoulders of the tenant and put upon the shoulders of the landlord. I can conceive, especially in cases where the properties are detached away from the main property in small farms, perhaps many miles away from the place where the agent of the landowner lives, great delay might be caused by the owner or agent withholding consent, either by neglect or otherwise, to improvements on the farm, and I think in the event of sale it is very hard to put the onus of proof which is to be in writing on the tenant. It would be better and fairer if the onus were put upon the landlord. I think if the landlord does not make his protest against improvements, such as the planting of fruit trees and of hops, within a period of three years before the date of the sale, it should be taken that silence means consent, and that the tenant should be entitled to compensation for the improvements he has effected. I rather think at the present moment what are called soft wood trees—currants, raspberries and strawberries, and so on—are not included in the list for compensation. I am not quite sure, but I cannot help thinking that these trees and shrubs which, as they are perennial, ought to be as much included for compensation as hard wood. While I sincerely believe that this Bill is a step in the right direction, I think the hon. Member was right in not burdening it with too much matter that would be contentious. It is a step in the right direction, and I hope it will pass through all its stages both in this House and the other.

I am very glad to find that this Bill has got so much support on both sides of this House. I am one of those who served upon the Committee on the Agricultural Holdings Act, and I must say at that time I thought that Act would cover these cases. It was a very great disappointment to many of us when we discovered by the county court action to which my hon. Friend has referred, that these cases were not covered; and I cannot help feeling this is a much easier way out of the difficulty than adopting the suggestion of the Haversham Committee, and giving the farmer a three years' run on his improvements. The only point upon which I differ from hon. Gentlemen who spoke upon the other side of the House, is with respect to the general damage which they allege is done by these sales of land. I do not think there is any real damage at all. I believe these changes of property from one set of owners to another is on the whole a good thing. That is my impression. I went very closely into it in my part of the country and I have come to that conclusion. I might give a case in point—the Thorney Estate of the Duke of Bedford. That was a very fine estate which the duke sold to such tenants who wished to purchase, and where they did not wish to purchase, he sold to private persons. What has been the result? I am quite convinced the standard of farming has tremendously improved on the Thorney Estate in the last three years. Men have had to set their wits to work; they have in some places broken up the grass lands, which, hitherto, would not pay, and are now growing potatoes and doing much better all round.

Is not that a strong argument for occupying owners?

No, that is another point to which we may come one day. I am discussing the point whether on the whole it is bad for the country that these sales should take place. My argument is that it is good for the country. I think we get a higher standard of farming and I instanced the Thorney Estate. Anyone who knew that estate ten years ago and visits it to-day must recognise we are getting a higher standard of farming now, and I say that is because more competition is taking place and better farming is taking place, and they are farming the land upon better conditions. What is the result now that many of these people have bought their farms? They are quite content to sell again at a profit. Many of them have done so. Certainly one-third of the land has changed hands a second time at a profit of about £10 an acre. That has found work for surveyors and for lawyers. New cottages have been built by the rural authorities and by men who have purchased these holdings, and I am quite confident also that the amount of produce sent away from these two or three railway stations in the neighbourhood has very much increased in the last two or three years, so I am not against sales of these estates. I think, on the whole, they are a good thing. The last speaker said that the supply of capital for the land has dried up.

For building.

I do not think that can be proved. It is not my experience in the eastern counties. On the contrary, when men purchase their holdings they at once spend money upon them which they never would have spent during the time they were merely tenants. At the same time, having said that much I do agree it is very hard for tenants upon an estate for many years to be suddenly told that your estate is going into the market. Those men have a right to compensation. I am inclined to think that they will not get quite as much by this Bill as they have been led to expect. I do not think for a moment that this will cover compensation for soft fruit.

I think soft fruit is already provided for.

There will be no further compensation under these conditions. I trust that this Bill will meet with the acceptance of the Government, and that we shall all agree to put it on the Statute Book during the present Session.

The hon. Member who has just sat down appears to me to hold a true Liberal attitude to-day towards land. I do not want to introduce unnecessary partisan political feeling, but from the remarks that have fallen from the hon. Member he seems to adopt an attitude absolutely inconsistent with the party to which he belongs in regard to land tenure. The hon. Member says that he sees no harm in all these large sales of agricultural estates, but at the same time the party to which he belongs refuses to have anything to do with the recommendation of the Haversham Committee to deal with the land question on the lines of occupying ownership. I cannot say how those two attitudes can in any shape or form be held consistently by one and the same political party. I agree that there are too many large landowners and too few small owners, but as far as this Bill is concerned I could not support it, because I do not believe the farmers are suffering any hardship and I wish to maintain the attitude which was taken up by me throughout the deliberations of the Haversham Committee.

This is merely a grievance caused by the attitude of the Government during the last few years, which has aroused fears, rightly or wrongly held, among the landlords as to legislation on the same lines. All you are now doing is simply endeavouring to provide a local cure for what is really a disease over a very much larger area. If you first remove the disease of insecurity, the difficulty will remedy itself. There are a certain number of hon. Members who say, "Oh, yes, this feeling of insecurity, after all, may exist to a certain extent, but that is not the reason why farms are sold." The right hon. Gentleman opposite said the other day, "Surely these purchasers are not such fools as to pay all this money if they are not getting some security for their investments!" The actual facts are these. I will give one piece of evidence from the Departmental Committee and another from my own experience. Mr. C. B. Hall came before us on the Haversham Committee as the representative of the Land Agents' Society. He was asked, "If we had not had recent legislation, would we have had all these sales?" And his answer was "No." In 1909 one of the owners of an agricultural estate for which I was the agent came to me and said, "These fellows seem to be out for blood, and I am not going to be shot at. I have never handled a shilling out of my property—in fact, every shilling was returned to the property in improvements, from the tenants' point of view, over and above the agricultural requirements and in making the labourers in their homes more comfortable." That man had this apprehension, and the result was that he preferred to relieve himself of those obligations, and he sold his estate. If you go now and ask the tenant farmers who own those farms whether they are as well off as they were under the previous owner, I know perfectly well the answer they will give you. There is a typical instance of the cause of the sale, which was simply and solely through the attitude of the Government.

There is no possible doubt that the disease which you are trying to cure in a small way has been caused simply and solely by the attitude of the Government over the last few years. I feel that the compensation which the tenant farmer is to receive under this Bill for unreasonable disturbance is worth very little. I have been told that the compensation under Section 11 for unreasonable disturbance has not been more than £1,000 ever since that Section has been in force. A large arbiter told me that seven-eights of the cases which came before him he had to rule out because the landlord had nearly always been able to show that there had been something done inconsistent with good estate management. It is almost trivial for the House of Commons to spend even one afternoon in passing a measure which, after all, is going to relieve only a local disease. This measure is being supported from the point of electioneering expediency. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] At any rate, I cannot help feeling that this is so from the Government's point of view. Look at the whole attitude of the Government since they have had the Haversham Committee Report. Because occupying ownership did not fall in with their vote-catching views, they left it over for a year, and introduced a measure in the House of Commons which was snowed under in adverse criticism. They then leave the whole question until they feel that the tenant farmer has to be given something, and that is left to a measure introduced by a private Member on a Friday afternoon. I feel that this Bill does not really deal with the basis of the difficulty. We should not have this disease to cure if it had not been for the insecurity. Give back to the industry of agriculture the security you have taken away from it—give back the opportunity both to the landlord and the labourer of putting their capital into it, and you will not require anything of this sort. There is another aspect of it. Obviously this is going to place a further burden upon those who happen to have their money invested in land. I say that you have no right to interfere with a contract. The Haversham Committee say:—

Why?

It is the first charge on the estate, and obviously the security of that property is not worth as much as before the passage of this Bill. Agreeing as I do that the farmers, through no fault of their own, have a grievance, I say that this is not the way to remedy the grievance. I want, in conclusion, to associate myself with the remarks which fell from the hon. Member who moved at the end of his speech. He made a very strong, and, to my mind, a very sound appeal for the whole of these questions being dealt with from a purely non-political and non-partisan point of view. I agree absolutely. I feel that enormous harm is being done to the whole of the agricultural industry by it being used as a football by political partisans, but I cannot help feeling that, holding the position he does, not only in this House, but also outside amongst the agricultural community, he should use his abilities and influence with the Government of the day. They have refused either an impartial inquiry or a Royal Commission. I feel that all these questions, like the one which we are discussing to-day, can only be dealt with if we have a thoroughly impartial Commission composed, not of politicians, but of practical agriculturists.

1.0 P.M.

The hon. Member has brought some controversy into the discussion, but he has done so, I am sure, without any offence to anybody on this side of the House. He has told us the tale of a landowner who was constrained by the exigencies of his time to sell his estate, but I observe that in his case, as in so many others, he sold it to considerable advantage. If there is a lack of confidence in some agricultural quarters there seems to be a spirit of over confidence in others. Whenever I hear of these sales of landed estates, I observe that there are always those ready to purchase. The hon. Member complains of this Bill as being a very small Bill, and he twitted the Ministerial side of the House with an anxiety to catch votes by it. Might I point out to him that the only compensation farmers enjoy at the present time is attributable to an Act passed by a Liberal Government. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO, no!"] I may qualify that by saying that a considerable instalment of the security they enjoy has been conferred upon them by a Liberal Government. I rejoice that by this Bill it is proposed to extend, ever so slightly it may be, this principle of compensation.

The consequences of the present system are, I think, patent to anybody who has any knowledge of the countryside. I do not profess to be an agriculturist, but I have the honour of representing an important agricultural constituency, and I observe that these consequences flow from the farmers' present lack of security. He is in a very peculiar position when there is a break-up of an estate, for he is not only deprived of his holding but also of his livelihood. He loses the fruit of his industry, and, this is remarkable, the better farmer he has been the more he loses. It also follows, I think, that he is tempted to purchase his holding, and I have myself known of cases where the desire to remain in his holding has led him to pay an exorbitant price and an uneconomic price. Perhaps the greatest aggravation of all is that the good farmer is constrained under the present system very often to buy back his own improvements against himself at an enhanced price, and, as an hon. and gallant Gentleman below the Gangway observed just now, there is a matter in regard to which it would be very difficult to furnish any compensation at all. I mean the case where a definite kind of goodwill attaches to a certain farm. There is the case where a farmer has a milk round. I do not know that this Bill or any other Bill can fairly compensate him.

I might give an instance from my own Constituency. There has been quite recently a breaking up of an estate, not in consequence of the wild, whirling language of Gentlemen occupying the Treasury Bench, but on account of the death of the proprietor. Here are some cases. It will be observed that these occupancies are not in general as long as in some cases, but they do run to a considerable number of years. There is the case of a farmer on this estate who in two years has sunk £l,000 in his farm. There is another farmer who has occupied the farm for seven years, another for three years, another for forty-four years, another for fourteen years, another for twenty-five years, and so on. No less than eleven fanners are at present suffering under these conditions which it is hoped in some measure to remedy by the present Bill. This is with these farmers a very serious grievance. They have even done me the honour of approaching me in the matter. It is the first time that I have ever been approached by them as their political representative, and I may say our relations, though superficially cordial, are not politically friendly. I believe that this modest Bill—and it is an extremely modest Bill—will serve a useful purpose. It will serve in some slight degree to steady an industry which has in the past suffered greatly from a sense of insecurity. I regard it myself as a modest instalment. I should like to see the farmer given greater security in his holding than he has under existing legislation even with the additional security that this Bill will afford him. Experienced agriculturists will support me in the view that nothing is so bad for the agriculturists of this country as this prevailing sense of insecurity—a sense of insecurity not due altogether to the possibility of the estate being sold and the farms changing hands, but due in a much larger measure to the fact that under present conditions, unless under a very good landlord—and there are many such I am glad to say—a farmer has no real security at all. I do not want to occupy the time of the House. I only wish to say that I trust this Bill will pass with the cordial good wishes of all parties, and will find its place on the Statute Book this year.

I rise to support the Bill like the hon. Member who has just spoken, but I do not know I am quite prepared to endorse all he has said, especially in the concluding part of his observations. First of all I would like to refer, as some other hon. Members have done, to the reasons for sales which have taken place. If the House will read Paragraph 7 of the Report of the Haversham Committee, it will see that, in the opinion of that Committee, the insecurity which is so prevalent throughout the country had a very considerable amount to do with the enormous sales which were taking place. But they also point out other reasons which are perfectly true.

Will the Noble Lord give us the reasons for purchasing.

I was going to give my explanation of that in a moment or two. Other reasons are set forth in paragraph 89 and these also are sound and do not, to my mind, vitiate the fact, which everybody knows, that people who are selling their estates are doing so largely because of the insecurity they feel and the threats of legislation made by the party opposite. Hon. Members think that they have put the whole matter right, and that they have shown us to be entirely wrong, when they ask how it is there are purchasers. The fact is, the ownership of land still has a great many amenities, in spite of hon. Members opposite, and it will continue to have such amenities; therefore people who have made their money in other ways continue willing to invest a portion of that money in land—not by any means the whole of it, they are too careful for that—but in a certain amount of land. We also have the competition of those who are already farming the land and do not want to be turned out, as has happened in many cases. This must inevitably tend to increase not only the price but the number of purchasers; but those who have got all their eggs in one basket, and have no other money except what they derive from the land, do suffer a sense of insecurity, and feel that they would probably be in a position to leave their descendants better off if they took some of their money out of the land and put it into other undertakings more safe and away from the reach of right hon. Gentlemen like the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This largely explains the fact that you have insecurity on the one hand, and certain willingness to purchase on the other, and the inconsistency in that respect is not so great as hon. Members opposite seem to imagine. I do not agree with hon. Gentlemen who have said they do not think there is any damage to agriculture by these sales. I myself regard them as deplorable. The hon. Member has stated that the Thorney Estate of the Duke of Bedford has shown very great improvement since its sale. I have heard exactly the contrary. I do not say that with authority, and I have not been on the estate, but unless the hon. Member knows for certain, I should suggest that his remarks on the point may be regarded as a little doubtful, unless indeed he assures us that he speaks of his own personal knowledge.

I do. I have lived for seven years within 20 miles of the estate.

Of course, as the hon. Member assures me that he speaks with personal knowledge, I will accept his statement. But that these sales are not harmful is not the opinion of the majority of the witnesses who gave evidence before the Haversham Committee. Paragraph 10 of the Report of that Committee says the witnesses called before it were practically unanimous in expressing the view that the tenant farmers on the large estates of England and Wales desire nothing better than to remain as tenants under their present landlords, and in view of the remissions of rent by landlords end the execution of repairs and improvements over and above the strictly agricultural requirements of a farm, the position of a tenant under a good landlord was apparently a satisfactory one. The evidence went to show, as a matter of fact, that there is no wish on the part of the great bulk of the tenant farmers of this country to alter their present position on the large estates. We know as a matter of fact farmers prefer to get on large estates rather than small ones, because they are more likely to be let alone, and not so likely to be harried and bothered on large estates as on smaller property. Hon. Members opposite think it is a capital thing for agriculture to be worked on a commercial basis, and that the rent should be high in order that the farmer may be thereby induced to devote greater skill and attention to the cultivation so as to improve the agricultural holding. I do not share that view: It certainly is the case that when an estate is sold rents are apt to go up and the estate is put on a more commercial basis than before. But I do not think that farmers throughout the country welcome that change or that in the long run it has any beneficial effect on agriculture.

The relationship between landlord and tenant must be one of give and take, and you cannot run it on a hard and fast commercial basis like other businesses are run. The Haversham Committee suggests that these sales could be largely put an end to if there could be some assurance given that land will be left alone. The answer to that request has been the land campaign of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer; these sales therefor are likely to be even more frequent in the future than in the past, and we shall have the Chancellor of the Exchequer very largely to thank for it. Hon. Members opposite seem to think that security of tenure, which has been a long time their cry, arises from the sales of estates, and that security of tenure can actually be given by legislation. I venture to dispute that view. If you are going to give the tenant farmer absolute security the only way to do it is by the system of ownership. I do not say that ownership, taken on its merits, is a better system of agriculture than tenancy. Some of my hon. Friends go too far in that direction. Tenancy in many cases is of very great value, but if you say you must give a tenant farmer absolute security of tenure the only fair, right, and possible way of doing that is to give him an opportunity of becoming the owner.

You cannot by mere legislation give the tenant of a holding all the rights of a freeholder. If you do that you are first committing an injustice, and secondly, attempting to do something which you cannot carry out save by all sorts of devices, such as land courts. Even then you will find that what you have done is not to the advantage of agriculture but to the disadvantage of the land which the tenant farms. You cannot have the advantage of tenancy and the advantages of ownership combined in the same system. You must have either the one system or the other. If you have the ownership system there will be absolute security, and if you have the tenancy system you must to a large extent have that good will which is necessary between landlord and tenant. One of the main reasons why you cannot give absolute security by legislation is that you cannot do it without giving the tenant at the same time the right to negotiate the right you are giving him. If you give the tenant absolute security of tenure, it is only logical that he should have the right to sell his right to sit upon the farm. I regard that as fatal to agriculture. The net upshot of it will be that the incoming tenant who is taking the farm has to pay something to the outgoing tenant for going out and giving up his right of sitting on the farm, for which the incoming tenant gets practically nothing in return. It saddles him with a large amount of capital which is of no value whatever to him, and is a great handicap to him in his farming operations. Free sale, however much the Land Committee report against it, must inevitably come if you try to give any thing like fixity of tenure, and that is why I oppose that policy.

Having said so much, I do not quite agree with my hon. Friend who said this Bill should not be supported. This Bill is far better than the proposal for two years' notice which was suggested by the Haversham Committee. It is a practical proposal to give a certain amount of compensation to a man who, through no fault of his own, does suffer a hardship. It is quite true that the compensation does not amount to a considerable sum. It practically represents the out-of-pocket expenses he incurs through leaving the farm. He is certainly entitled to that amount under the circumstances. I do not share the view that it will have such a prejudicial effect upon the owners of land as some people are inclined to suppose. I cannot see why it is necessary that an owner of land, when putting it up for sale, should give his tenants notice. The increase in the price he would get for the land with a chance of immediate occupation as against the land occupied by tenants would be inconsiderable, if anything. The land would be just as likely to sell for a fair value, if it is sold with the occupations which are on it for the year, as if it were sold vacant. If I were selling property I should think it would be a hardship if I gave notice.

The purchaser could give notice.

If the purchaser gives notice the burden will fall on him.

It makes no difference to the tenant.

I was assuming that it would be disadvantageous to the landowner. The new purchaser, if he requires possession and if it is necessary for his purposes to give the tenants notice, will have to pay, and that is perfectly fair. It is for that reason I support this Bill. In doing so I am glad to have had the opportunity of entering a caveat against the arguments of hon. Members who suggest that no system of tenancy can give absolute security of tenure. The Bill will be of considerable use. It will be welcomed by the farmers who, no doubt, have suffered from the sense of insecurity owing to these sales. I trust that the hopes expressed by the hon. Member for the Buckrose Division (Sir Luke White) may be fulfilled, and that we shall be able to discuss the question of agriculture in a reasonable spirit without that party conflict which sometimes takes place in the country. If agriculture is discussed in the spirit of party and legislation is introduced in the spirit of party it will do infinite harm to that great industry.

I agree with the hon. and gallant Member for Horncastle (Captain Weigall) that a great deal of valuable Parliamentary time has been occupied in dealing with very trifling problems. Nevertheless, judging from the speeches to which we have listened, I presume that the promoters of the Bill have confined it to a small point because of the unanimity that exists upon it. I am not going to disturb the harmony that undoubtedly exists. I am free to acknowledge that this Bill is honestly designed to deal with an admitted grievance. Such being the case, those with whom I am associated are prepared to support it. I happen to be in the very fortunate position that I am not appealing for agricultural votes. I come of agricultural stock, but happen to represent an industrial constituency, and can therefore claim to be able to take a detached view of these matters. The main purpose we all have in view is security of tenure and compensation to the tenant in the event of disturbance. That is a fair statement of the general purpose of all parties in this House. There are varied views as to how security of tenure is to be obtained. The hon. and gallant Gentleman himself said that however we might deal with the problem on the lines of this Bill, we should not reach the desired haven. I am prepared to acknowledge that there is a great deal of force in his contention. He set out to argue in favour of State-aided purchase. Those with whom I am associated consider that if the State is to find the money the State ought to retain the freehold, and if we have an opportunity of arguing the question I believe I can set up a pretty strong case in favour of that policy for getting the security of tenure we all desire. It is quite true that this problem has recently assumed an aggravated form. Hon. Members opposite allege that that is attributable to the legislation of the party in power. Nevertheless we are aware that there is a great willingness on the part of the landowners to sell. Statistics can be produced to prove that they are selling on very good terms. The particular cause for it is difficult to locate. In my opinion there are a number of causes responsible for it. A great change has taken place in society. The Noble Lord has referred to the fact that people who make money in trade buy up estates because of the amenities of land ownership.

They do not buy up whole estates, but only parts of them.

On the other hand, there are those who have all their eggs in one basket, and that is the landowning class. They think more money can be made by investing in other forms of industry, and, therefore, there are great changes taking place. Then, again, there are world changes, and in my opinion land culture in this country is certain to become again a very profitable undertaking. After all, the Haversham Report goes no further than to say that this unrest is attributable to apprehension of something which may come. It does not say it is due to anything that has happened, but to something which will happen in subsequent years. As to whether that apprehension is well founded or not resolves itself into a matter of personal opinion. I think the agitation that some people connected with the party opposite have so very largely embarked upon is a considerable contributory cause of it. My colleagues, if they were present, would say that the proposals which have been foreshadowed are not likely to be of such a drastic character as to disturb the foundations of landlordism in this country. That is the point of view of a considerable section in the community. It is not altogether one that I am prepared unreservedly to adopt, but there is considerable apprehension in the minds of the landowning classes, and I believe it is very largely due to the principles of taxation which have been laid down, which they fear may be extended to their detriment, and, unfortunately, of course, to a political agitation which has been very largely manipulated during recent years. I happened only last Saturday to be spending a day with a friend who is a practical farmer. He does not hold the same political views that I do, in fact he votes for an hon. Member of the other party, but nevertheless we are good friends. It would be a very bad thing if we came to adjust our friendships according to our political opinions. Some of my best friends are my keenest political opponents. It is well that we should get amongst them in order to gauge their point of view. My friend has had two very unfortunate experiences. He has taken a tenancy of a farm. He has devoted himself to the improvement of the farm, and he is generally acknowledged to be a skilled and successful cultivator. On both these occasions, as soon as he has improved the value of the farm he has received notice to pay a higher rate, and on his refusal to pay it, he has received notice to quit. I am quite aware the Noble Lord will point out that he is entitled to compensation in respect of improvements that he has himself effected, but this enlightened farmer, who can read and write well for himself, was totally unaware of the provisions of that Act. I was not able to quote exactly what the powers were, but I was amazed to find that he was not aware that legislation existed for this purpose which would partially protect him. The representation I wanted to make to the President of the Board of Agriculture was that he might very well devise some means of making the tenant farmers of the country acquainted with the powers they possess under legislation.

Was it a small or a large landed estate?

I think he is under an estate agent, and is not acquainted with the landowner himself. He has had two experiences in the matter. He wants security of tenure. He is anxious to continue farming. I asked him if he desired to purchase. He said, "No. If I was under a considerate landlord, I should prefer a tenancy." I am prepared to acknowledge that there is a fair number of considerate landlords in the country. I have never subscribed to the theory that because a man is a landlord, necessarily he must be an enemy of the tenants of the community generally. I have my own speculative views upon the fundamental principle of land-ownership, but I have never made the sweeping statement that because a man is fortunate enough to possess land, necessarily he must be an enemy to his tenants. There you enter immediately upon the practical difficulties of even State-aided ownership. He would have to pay a deposit. That would lock up a proportion of the capital now available for the purpose of equipment and cultivation. All he wants is security of tenure and compensation in the event of his being disturbed in the occupation of his farm. I agree with the Noble Lord that absolute security of tenure is almost impossible of realisation. From my own point of view I feel that the national ownership of land would bring us nearer to it. I feel that were Parliament to lay down absolute security of tenure, that is to say, forbid a landlord turning out a tenant until such time as the tenant was willing to go, you are interfering with what, after all, are the legitimate rights of a landlord, and if you once get to the point where you were going to enact that principle it seems to me that it would only be justly and fairly done by the State assuming the ownership of the land, and accepting all the responsibilities attendant upon that principle of absolute security.

After all we believe there is a fair and reasonable point which may be attained. You have no right to say that under no circumstances shall a landlord give notice. You have no right to say that under no circumstances shall he sell his land, but, at any rate, we say that the tenant under those circumstances is entitled to fair and legitimate consideration, and therefore the only point involved in the Bill, in my opinion, is that he shall receive such due and proper notice as will allow him to make such arrangements as will enable him to continue the customary form of occupation in which he has been engaged. Only this morning I had a letter placed in my hands which convinces me that this Bill is designed to deal with a very substantial grievance. This deals with an estate in the Melton Division of Lincolnshire. It is stated that sixty-two tenants on the estate are to be evicted from their farm, their homes broken up, and their cattle scattered, without the slightest consideration or compensation beyond the ordinary tenant right valuation. The letter goes on to relate that some of these farmers and their forefathers have occupied these farms for years, have devoted their industry and their skill to the improvement of the farm, and naturally feel a very considerable grievance that they should now be under very short notice to move. The letter concludes with the request that my colleagues and myself will support the Second Reading of the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for the Buckrose Division.

Has that estate just been sold, or is it going to be sold?

I will hand the letter to the Noble Lord. If he will read it, he will see that I am correctly quoting from it. The letter has only just been handed to me, and I have not had time to inquire into it myself. Here is a case where a representative body of sixty-two tenants feel that they have a strong grievance, and this Bill, if it becomes law, would be very welcome to them. For these reasons I have to say, on behalf of those with whom I am associated, that although we consider this measure rather trifling, and that Parliamentary time might have been devoted to a wider purpose, we feel that it deals with a substantial grievance, and we will support it.

I wish first of all to apologise for the smallness of the Bill. Most of us who support it on both sides of the House would like to see more done for agriculture than is done by this Bill. But the smallness of it is the result of wishing to get something done at once. The Noble Lord opposite (Viscount Helmsley) said he was in favour of the Bill, and he stated, further, that great difficulties have been caused by the Government interfering with land.

If the hon. Member is quoting me, I do not recognise having said that.

I think the Noble Lord said that there was a want of confidence and an unwillingness to invest in land, and that that had been brought about by the Government interfering with land. And yet he supports this Bill. When my hon. Friend quoted a hard case, the Noble Lord jumped up at once and interrupted him, saying that the tenant was protected.

The hon. Member seems to be rather misrepresenting my view. I do not think I said anything to indicate that I was against all interference with land by beneficent legislation. The Unionist party has passed much legislation of that kind. What I was afraid of was the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his proposals.

I understand that the Noble Lord's point is that anything passed by others may be good, but that anything proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer may cause damage. I thought we were going to discuss this Bill from other than the party point of view, and to try to get some agreement upon it. The discussion has gone a little further. We should try to get some uniformity with the view to providing better security of tenure—not absolute security of tenure, because we know that that is not possible. We were in hopes that there would not be any pronouncement, such as that which was made just now by the Noble Lord, that security of tenure was bad. We thought it was one of the things agreed upon by both sides that security of tenure was a good thing. This Bill certainly provides safeguards for the tenants in one way. I wish it went a great deal further. I wish we could persuade hon. Members on the other side to accept a very much further instalment of legislation to provide security of tenure. I know that some of my Friends on the other side are anxious to do a great deal more. One thing is quite clear, and that is that the apprehension as to what is going to be clone about land has produced sales and want of confidence, and that that is owing to what has been said about the suggestions as to the improvement of conditions with respect to land made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

By the Budget of 1909.

That Budget imposed taxation, and I suppose we are all agreed that taxation is bad, and that whatever it falls upon suffers from it. It is a contributory element when you tax anything, and that thing falls in value. In this case there has not been a fall in the value of land, and, in spite of the taxation which was imposed, the value of agricultural land has improved rather than gone down. Might I suggest that the apprehension has been caused, not by the Chancellor of the Exchequer's suggestions, or anything we on this side of the House have tried to do to give better security, but it has been caused by the agitation which has been going on—I do not say for what purpose—and saying that everything is insecure, and that the Government, or perhaps the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is leading us into a state of insecurity all round. It is not because of what we have done in the case of agriculture, nor is this Bill going to do any harm to the landowner. It is on account of the agitation that people rise up in opposition even to such Bills as this, and say that it deteriorates the value of the land. I might point out that, even if it has done one thing, as has been suggested, and persuaded the large landowners that they ought not to keep all their eggs in one basket, that would be a good thing. I think it is a general maxim that it is the wisest thing not to keep all your eggs in one basket, and if legislation has brought that home to the large landowners, instead of doing harm it has done good. It cannot possibly have injured the landlords. If they have discovered that they were doing an unwise thing in keeping all their capital in one form of investment, that cannot be a great injustice, considering that at the same time values have gone up, and that purchasers are to be found at higher prices than before. I hope the House will pass the Bill, and that in Committee it will be allowed to go through without much alteration, so that we shall get this slight addition in the way of security of tenure—meaning by that greater protection for the farmer in the carrying on of his industry. This is required in the country, and I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will unite in trying to carry forward such legislation as this.

I am delighted to hear the unanimity with which this Bill has been received in all quarters of the House. I was especially interested in the speech of the hon. Member for Norwich (Mr. Roberts), and I wish to refer to one or two of his remarks, and more particularly to what he said about the willingness to sell estates at the present moment. I do not agree with that. Personally, I think that anybody owning land is most unwilling to sell from his own personal point of view. The first reason is that it has been in his family for generations, and he does not want to part with it for sentimental considerations. The second is that it would bring to an end the relations which have existed between landowners and their tenants for such a long period. They are most reluctant to bring about such a result. Then there is another point of view. The hon. Member said that the prices which we get at the present day are good. I can only speak from my own experience, as I take a great deal of interest in these matters, and it is not quite the same. Of course, you may get twenty-three or twenty-four years' purchase, but the point to consider is—what are the rents? The Prime Minister said the other day that half the land in this country is under-rented. In many districts the rent is 25 per cent. below what it should be from the economic point of view. Therefore, in considering the number of years' purchase received by a landowner when selling you must inquire whether he has been receiving an economic rent. The reasons why I support this Bill are, mainly speaking, two First, because I think it is admitted that there is a grievance which wants a remedy; and, second, because I think that the remedy proposed in this Bill cannot be said to be inequitable. When this Act of 1908 was passed the matter which we are now considering cannot, I think, be said to have been present at all, because, judging from my own experience, tenants really had at that time a good security of tenure—I do not say legally, but in practice. I see opposite one or two hon. Members who have practical experience of agriculture, and I would ask them whether it is not a fact that in those days the object of a tenant was to become the tenant of a large estate, because he knew that, if he did, first of all there was more probability of plenty of capital being forthcoming if required for the farm?

Less so then than now.

That is somewhat of an admission towards the point of view which I want the hon. Member to take. The tenant could stay as long on the farm as he liked, as long as he farmed properly, and for all practical purposes he was certain of remaining there just as his forefathers had been on the farm before him, and just as, in all probability, his descendants would have been on the farm after him if matters had been left alone. I suppose that everybody in this House who has any connection at all with agriculture can point to instances in which the same family has been farming the land for generations. The one thing that has brought about the sense of insecurity to which the hon. Member opposite referred—I could not be quite certain whether he was speaking about it from the point of view of the farmer or of the landlord—

The farmer.

I rather gathered that that was so. Before the present state of affairs was brought about the farmer had no sense of insecurity. He knew perfectly well that he would be allowed to remain on the farm as long as he farmed properly and did well with the land, but a sense of insecurity has been brought about perfectly recently from the point of view of the landlord, and he has had it brought home to his mind that he is going to have more burdens put upon his land than have been put upon it already. We all know what has been the effect of the Death Duties. I have in mind one estate which has gone down from one brother to another. The result has been, as they were somewhat elderly men when they come into possession, that the amount of Death Duties which had to be paid during the last few years has been perfectly appalling. That is the kind of estate which cannot be held by one man any longer. He has had to sell, much against his will That is the way in which a sense of insecurity has been brought about. If it was not for this, so to speak, compulsory sale, which neither landlord nor tenant wants to see take place, there would not be any sense of insecurity at all. Therefore, I support this Bill, which has been brought in to remedy a grievance that is admittedly existing at the present moment. Though it is a matter which affects only one section, it is important. I agree with the hon. Member for Norwich that perhaps it might have been better to proceed on broad lines. But, first, we want to get unanimity, and the next point is the question of time. The second reason for supporting the Bill to which I wish to refer is this: I do not think that this remedy is inequitable. Although it proposes that the tenant is to get compensation, it is only if the loss or expense is attributable to his quitting, and it has to be loss or expense which he unavoidably incurs. If it is attributable to any other cause except the fact that he is given notice to quit in view of, or in consequence of, a sale, he would not get compensation. And the compensation which he is going to get is for the sale or removal of goods, implements and farm stock in connection with the holding.

I quite agree with the Noble Lord that if I were going to sell land I should not give notice to my tenants. I do not see why I should. But, on the other hand, there are cases where the landlord wants to give vacant possession. There axe all sorts of conditions which may make it necessary to give vacant possession. The main reason is that the landlord wants to get a better price. If he is going to get a better price by giving notice to his tenants, then it does not seem inequitable that he should make compensation for loss or expense to which the tenant may be put in consequence of the notice to quit. I may, by way of analogy, refer the case of a man who wants to sell his property which is the subject of a lease and wants to give vacant possession. He goes to the leaseholder and proposes to him that he should make him compensation. If he wants to have vacant possession he has to make his terms with the leaseholder. I do not say that this is a case on all fours, but it is an argument which may be adduced for the purpose of saying that this compensation is not inequitable. In conclusion, I only want to say that I welcome with the greatest pleasure what was said by the hon. Member for the Buckrose Division (Sir Luke White), and it is what I have said with regard to this matter on the platform. This question of agriculture never ought to be made a party question. Everybody connected with agriculture ought to pull together, and, if they do not, I am perfectly certain in my own mind that nothing will be attained. There are some Members who have, and some who have not, in the party opposite approached this question apparently with a view to making an attack upon some of those who are interested in the agriculture of this country. If that course is pursued I am perfectly certain that it will be detrimental, not only to agriculture, but to the country, and I hope that the principle laid down by the hon. Member for Buckrose will be followed by many hon. Members of this House, apart from political considerations. I sincerely trust that the Bill will be read a second time to-day.

2.0 P.M.

The Mover and Seconder of the Bill have clearly and ably put before the House the views of the tenant farmers in support of the Bill. I am satisfied, and there is general agreement in the House, that circumstances have arisen which require the taking of some steps such as proposed in this Bill in the interests of tenant farmers. I quite believe that what was said by the Noble Lord below the Gangway and other speakers, that the abnormal sale of land has been brought about by a lack of confidence in the holders of land which has been created by the speeches and by the action of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and there is no doubt whatever that that is the reason why there has been so great a disposal of land. It may be that the dangers are exaggerated. I am inclined to think that they are, because those people who attempt to interfere and set class against class amongst those connected with the ownership and cultivation of the soil, are beginning to find out that they are making a mistake. But there is no doubt that in the meantime what has been done is increasing the sale of land, and it has also resulted in the discontinuance of the expenditure of so much money in building and in drainage and in other improvements in the soil which are absolutely essential for the prosperity and interest of the tenant. But we are face to face with the question that a large quantity of land has been, and probably will be, sold. Many occupiers of that land are not in a position to buy their farms, and have to leave them, not, knowing where they can obtain land to cultivate. This is causing great distress. There is happily in the breast of many, I think I may say most, English farmers a love for the holding which they occupy. It may be that some of them were born in their holding, which have come down from generation to generation, son succeeding father, and the severance of old and tender associations is painful in the extreme. The farmer would buy, if he had the means, but not having the means he has to run the risk of being dispossessed of the home he loves and the farm he has hitherto cultivated. I feel that the proposal in this Bill is only a palliative and not a remedy. As a palliative I support it. But I would like to be allowed to point out to the House that the only remedy for this sort of thing is to assist land purchase, that is to say, where a fair price is agreed on between the seller of the land and the purchaser, the State should advance money to the tenant to secure the holding, principal and interest to be repaid by annual instalments over a given number of years. That would be a real remedy for this difficulty. The Bill at present would not save the tenant from being turned out. The suggestion of assisted land purchase would give him permanency of holding, and though I support this Bill as a palliative, I venture to add that no real settlement of this question, no real security of tenure, can be given to the occupier of the soil except by a system of land purchase.

Where is the State to get the money?

The State credit could be used to secure money at a lower rate of interest than that at which the private purchaser can possibly secure it. This principle has been given effect to in Ireland, and it has regenerated the whole country, and caused the prosperity of many of the agricultural classes settling there in a greater degree than could have been anticipated a few years ago. I do not advocate assisted land purchase that would be unjust to the State. We only say that such conditions must be imposed as would secure the rights of the State, and also secure the taxpayer from any loss in the transaction. But I am satisfied, again, to urge the point that the only real settlement of this question will be assisted land purchase. The hon. Member for Norwich (Mr. George Roberts) emphasised the fact that land was selling better than it was. No doubt there has been in the last few years some recovery in the position of agriculture and consequent increase in the value of land; but, if you compare present prices with what they were forty years ago, they are not higher than they were then.

Lower.

They are lower, as my hon. Friend says. I do not want to encourage anything that would give an artificial and non-economic value to land; but we do say that those who invest their money in the soil, in the interests of the country, ought not to be dealt with in a different way from those who invest their money in any other trade or industry. On that point, the hon. Member for Norwich, who is a very able representative of the Labour party, and is jealous of the rights of labour, made some observations. I agree with him, and I try to support him whenever I can. When I cannot it is only because I differ as to the process and the method he is pursuing. My desire is quite as enthusiastic as his, but sometimes I think I know better how to give effect to it than he does. The present value of agricultural land is only the fruit of the labour expended on the bringing of that land from its prairie state into a state suitable for food production—that is to say, the cost of the erection of the buildings and of the fences, and the cultivation by many of the present or past owners, is equivalent to the present value of the land. Therefore, the agricultural value of the land is as much the fruits of labour as the artisan's wages, or as the manufacturer's profits in the development of his industry. We do not claim favouritism on this ground, but we do ask that justice be done in connection with money used in the development of our country.

Agriculture is not an unimportant branch of industry. It occupies more people than any other industry in the country, and we say that the money expended in the improvement and cultivation of land should not be dealt with on different terms from money invested in any other branch of industry. I feel that in one sense there is a real hardship on the landlord through this Bill. He is selling his land, not that he has any inherent desire to do so, but owing to stress of circumstances, and it is rather hard, on the face of it, that in addition to having to part with his land—by a threat, if you like, of unfair treatment—that he should have to pay compensation to the tenant. But, still, though the landlord has no little reason to complain, my opinion is that the tenant has a still stronger case for help in these circumstances. Therefore I support this Bill. I like it all the better for the spirit of moderation which the Mover has shown. I am sure that it will be more effective, and that its moderate character will commend it and result in more good coming from the measure when it is passed, as I hope it will be, than would be the case if there were any drastic or unfair proposals contained in it. I hope the Bill will do something to meet and to relieve the painful position in which many tenant farmers find themselves by being unable to buy their holdings, though, as I have said, the real remedy is for the farmer to have State assistance to buy his holding, and thus avoid any eviction, yet I hope it will not be very long until this Bill is adopted, and I think it will be of some good.

As vice-chairman of the Central Chamber of Agriculture, and as this is a Bill of the Central Chamber of Agriculture, I warmly support its provisions. The hon. Baronet the Member for Lichfield (Sir Courtenay Warner) suggested that the Bill ought to go further. I entirely agree, and, in fact, I have myself introduced a Bill into this House which does go considerably further as to the basis of compensation which, under the events contemplated both by this Bill and by Section 11 of the Agricultural Holdings Act, ought to be paid to the tenant farmer. But we all recognise that the exigencies of the present political situation, and the pressure of other work on this House, would not admit of a Bill more heavily weighted being carried in the course of the present Session. The hon. Baronet suggested that large landowners were unwise in having all their eggs in one basket. I most cordially agree with him. I do not hesitate to say that in my opinion it would be for the advantage of agriculture if there were fewer very large landowners, and if there were fewer very large agricultural tenants, since the fact that land is, practically speaking, in a small number of hands means that the effect of pressure which can be brought to bear on Parliament in the interests of the industry is not as great as it should be in this country, and nothing like as great as it is in other countries where the proportion of persons, both of those who own and those who occupy land, is very much larger than the proportion in this country. The hon. Member for Norwich (Mr. G. Roberts), whose speeches personally I always enjoy, suggested that the problem treated in this Bill was a trifling problem. I do not agree with the hon. Member in that statement. The problem to my mind is a somewhat serious problem under existing conditions, that the solution sought in this Bill is admittedly only partial and somewhat inadequate. He also suggested that landowners at the present time—and in my observations to-day I hold no brief for landowners—were selling on good terms. I think that that suggestion, which is repeatedly made nowadays, is not strictly accurate. My own view is this: Bearing in mind that there was a very serious fall of rents between 1879 and the middle of the nineties on account of the serious agricultural depression, and the reluctance of landowners ever since that time to raise their rents, the result has been, when agricultural estates are nowadays put on the market, a considerably larger number of years' purchase is offered for those estates on account of the fact that the annual value of the land is in fact greater than that represented by the existing rent. The hon. Gentleman smiles, but I think all the large auctioneers and estate agents in the country are prepared, without any political bias, to admit that something like three-fourths of the agricultural land in England is underrented by something like 15 per cent. below the rack rent. He then said that there was some apprehension in the minds of landowners as regards the security of land ownership. I think that that is the case, but I think that there is far greater insecurity in the minds of tenants as the result of these estates being thrown upon the market in such large numbers under conditions so unfair to the tenants. I entirely join issue with my hon. Friend who suggested that this measure was introduced with a party object. There is, in my opinion, and I have had considerable experience of the attitude towards agricultural questions of the hon. Member for the Buckrose Division (Sir L. White), and I say it whole-heartedly, no more disinterested friend of agriculture sitting in this House than the hon. Gentleman who introduced this Bill. I am quite confident that such a consideration did not enter his mind when he brought forward this Bill, and most generously—and I believe in the best interests of the industry—invited Members sitting on this side to join with him in making it a non-party measure. I agree with the statement made by many Members that the grievance of the tenant farmer consequent on the sale of estates is much better met by the provisions of this Bill than by any of the recommendations of the Haversham Committee. I felt some sympathy with the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Sir R. Winfrey), when he stated what in regard to the tenant farmers had been the result of occupying ownership consequent upon the sale of the Thorney Estate. It only shows that there is a tendency on the part of those who own the land which they occupy to throw a greater amount of industry and, what is equally important, a greater amount of capital into the more thorough development of agricultural land and the greater production of the nation's food. I wish that all the agricultural policy embodied in the Bills of this House followed the lines suggested by this interesting development in the county of Norfolk.

It is not fixity of tenure that the farmers of this country require. Most farmers, if you offered them fixity of tenure, would not take it at a gift. What they want is security of tenure, which is quite a different thing. There is no doubt that security of tenure was not sufficiently provided for when the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1906 was passing through this House, in consequence of a state of affairs not then contemplated but which has arisen since. I am not going to yield to any partisan temptation to indicate in any way what may be the reasons why there has been this increased restlessness on the part of those interested in the agricultural industry, but the fact is undoubted that a new kind of unreasonable disturbance not contemplated by the Agricultural Holdings Acts, 1906 and 1908, has come into being, and ought in fairness to the tenant to be dealt with at least in as generous a measure, and it is not an over-generous measure, as that provided by Section 11 of the Act of 1908. A serious feature, at any rate, in the South of England, of this modern tendency to give notice to quit upon the sale of an estate is that so many of these estates are bought by land-speculating companies, and the estates having been so bought, a pistol is held at the heads of the unfortunate tenants, with a threat that they must purchase their farms at the enhanced prices demanded by these syndicates or quit their holdings for ever. The result has been that a large number of tenants have, in fact, under pressure and threats, purchased their holdings at considerably more than they are actually worth—not to the advantage of their former landlords, but to the considerable advantage of these speculative companies. To this a stop ought to be put.

The custom which has arisen, and which I regard as a fad on the part of auctioneers and land agents, of advising vendors of agricultural estates to give notice to their tenants prior to sale, is, I think, quite unnecessary, and inflicts an injustice which certainly could never have been contemplated in the old days, when, on the occasion of the sale of landed estates, nobody ever thought of giving such notice to all the estate tenants. Personally, I am sufficient of a Tory to appreciate the older traditions which existed on landed estates a great deal more than some of the newer customs which have resulted from a more commercial and wealthier class being brought into the ownership of agricultural land. Surely there is no reason whatever why agricultural estates should not be sold subject to tenancies as in the case of leases—in fact, the annual tenancy of an agricultural holding is almost as valuable as a lease. It contains, in the eyes of the agricultural tenant, most of the advantages of a lease, without some of the more serious drawbacks, such as that of landing a farmer's family, in the event of his death, with an unprofitable property which it might be found difficult to work or of which they could not dispose. Agricultural tenancies in Great Britain under the Agricultural Holdings Acts being in effect almost equivalent to leases, there is in principle no reason why all such sales should not take place subject to such tenancies.

I do not think that it is altogether an evidence of good landlordism to escape the odium which might result from the landlord himself raising the rents prior to sale by instructing his agent to give notice to all the tenants prior to the sale, in order to obtain an enhanced price for the property. In any case, where the result of such a process means increased financial advantage to the landlord and financial loss to the tenant, as a matter of principle some adequate compensation ought to pass from the landlord to the tenant. That is a state of affairs which exists in the case of every one of these sales which are now taking place. The proposal put forward by the Government two years ago, providing that in effect two years notice should be given in the event of all such contemplated sales, would, as many farmers all over the country have pointed out, have only prolonged the anxiety and suspense, and resulted in letting down the land, to the decrease of national wealth and to the hardship of the incoming tenants. I am inclined to think sometimes that farmers know their own affairs rather better than either House of Parliament, and certainly as regards recent legislation they have expressed on their own behalf a far more enlightened view through their various organisations than has been expressed through any of the Government Bills submitted to Parliament.

This is a non-partisan measure, and I hope that it may be treated as such. Agriculture has recently, to my mind most unfortunately, been dragged into the political arena, not by one party only, I frankly say, but by both parties. I cannot conceive anything more calculated to injure the best interests of our greatest national industry than by making that industry the shuttlecock of party politicians. The result may be some temporary advantage to the one side or the other—though I do not say it will—but eventually it may be the ruin of a great industry. I am glad that this instalment of justice to agricultural tenants is brought forward in a non-partisan spirit. I hope that it may be accepted as such by the President of the Board of Agriculture. I hope, also, that it may be evidence to the outside public of the existence of some sincerity in the sympathy of this House with agricultural grievances, and so remove the ever-increasing impression that party politicians are only ready to use agricultural grievances as a mere party cry with a view to a mere party advantage.

The Bill we are discussing to-day differs materially from the measure introduced by Lord Lucas into the House of Lords. That Bill was based on the recommendations of the Haversham Committee. Although but of three or four Clauses, and although it received the unanimous support of the members of the Haversham Committee, it was shown, I think, in subsequent discussion outside the House of Lords, by farmers' organisations and elsewhere, that the Haversham Committee had totally misjudged the problem. This Bill deals with the same grievances intended to be met by Lord Lucas's measure, but in an entirely different way. I think it is only fair to the House to say that this Bill does not give, and cannot give, security to the tenant farmer. Just as Lord Lucas's Bill, as I think the hon. Member who has just sat down said, "only postponed the agony," so this Bill in the same way defers to a later date the peril the farmer thinks he is in—if he is in peril at all! But the object of the Bill is good. I hope, therefore, the House will give it a Second Reading, and allow it to go to Grand Committee, so that we may dispose of the matter as rapidly as possible. There is really no serious contentious matter in the Bill. But I must point out to the House that some of its provisions will not only be ineffective, but may in themselves defeat the very end we had in view. Note Clause 1, Sub-section (1), paragraph ( a ), where it is suggested that we shall meet the case by providing that, in view of a sale, when notice is given to quit,

"in view of and given within one calendar year before the sale or offering for sale any part thereof"

compensation for disturbance shall be paid. The custom now is to give notice at one Michaelmas and take possession at the next Michaelmas, and the sale takes place, as a rule, in the middle of the summer, about May or June, which is the fashionable season for the sales of big estates. Paragraph ( a ) as it now stands can be got round quite easily by the vendor giving notice, not at Michaelmas, but in the preceding April. If that is done paragraph ( a ) will not operate, and the tenant farmer will be in exactly the same position as now, namely, that he will not get compensation for disturbance any more than if we left the law as it is, and the notice were only given as at Michaelmas. I think we must, if we can, devise some means to get over that difficulty, and to prevent that very obvious evasion of the object of the Bill. Then Sub-section (1), paragraph ( b ) appears to me to cover far too wide a ground. The House has talked this afternoon as though this Bill was meant to deal only with the break-up of large estates. As it stands, it means the sale of any agricultural land, as, for instance, when a local authority wishes to widen a road. If, under the Housing and Town Planning Act, it wishes to acquire land on which to build cottages, if a local authority wishes to cut a sewer across farm land, or land which is at present farm land, in any of these cases I believe that paragraph ( b ) operates, and would operate, unjustly. I feel quite sure that the House has no intention of dealing with cases of that sort. I believe the House has no intention whatever of legislating in such a way as to put difficulties in the way of a local authority. In any one of these cases that I have mentioned which are not comparable to solely agricultural land and are not indeed the same as the sale of large estates which gives a general feeling of insecurity as to the future, which is alone a problem that the Bill is to meet.

Why treat local authority and landlord differently?

The hon. Baronet says why should not the landlord be treated in exactly the same way as the local authority.

No, the other way about.

The hon. Baronet can have it so. I am quite prepared to meet him. The problem which we are discussing this afternoon is not that which I have just stated; it is not for the sale of small freehold rights, for instance, in the case of a local authority running a line for a water pipe, or cutting a sewer below the surface of the ground, or widening the road, or acquiring some little strip of land. As it is now drafted the Bill would place great difficulties in the way of local authorities. Local authorities should not have less powers than they now possess. My observations also covers the case of a tenant farmer who has occupied land which he knows within the very near future is likely to become building land. I have not conferred with my hon. Friend (Sir Luke White) on this subject, but I take it what he really intends is that the practical farmer, whose expectancy of security is disturbed, should be protected. If the tenant farmer is obviously farming the land which in the very near future may become building land, it is hardly right that he should be treated in exactly the same way and that obstacles should be placed in the way of the landlord; and that he should be under exactly the same circumstances as though he were an ordinary farming tenant with his expectancy of security being disturbed, which is the case in nearly all agricultural England. I have mentioned these smaller things to point out that if the Government thinks it well to suggest Amendments to the Bill in Committee that they will not be understood to indicate hostility to the Bill, but only the fact of the circumstance of the enormously varied conditions which apply throughout the whole of England, and especially those portions of rural England which are on the borders of our larger and smaller towns.

The discussion this afternoon went outside the narrow limits of this Bill, and the small problem—for it is a comparatively small problem—although it is a very large problem to those farmers who come within its purview—to deal with the whole subject of the sale and break-up of estates. I have no desire whatever to introduce a controversial word into our discussion, but I noticed that hon. Members opposite, while deprecating every intention of introducing controversy in the discussion, scarcely made a speech without pointing out that calamities which have come to the farmers we are now endeavouring to protect, are entirely due to the Government of which I have the honour to be a member. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] That is how hon. Gentlemen opposite succeed in keeping the controversial note out of their speeches. It is suggested by them that estates, since the Budget of 1909–10, have been sold purely because of the passing of that Budget. Is it suggested that there never was an estate sold before that Budget? Is it suggested for a single moment that estates have not been sold over and over again? I say scores of them have been sold during the last four years for reasons which have had nothing whatever to do with any Budget. On the deaths of owners properties have had to be broken up to be divided among several children. The desire of getting rid of embarrassments where some landlords have fallen upon evil days and were unable to pay the mortgages has led to the breaking-up of many estates.

Yes, because of the Government.

The hon. Baronet is nothing if he is not consistent, and I am not sure that he would not put down every misfortune that came to the farmers, even the bad autumn weather, to the Government. Let me suggest there is another reason why men are selling their estates apart from these, purely accidental and personal reasons, and that is the inducement of prices. There is no doubt that for a long time until a few years ago agricultural property was from the point of view of sale a drug on the market. It was almost impossible to sell at a reasonable price, and in many cases the landlords were unable to get enough to clear their mortgages. Just about the time of the Budget, 1909–10, a large number of buyers came into the market. You may say they came from the farming classes, and it has been suggested by some hon. Members that they came from the commercial classes who wanted to enjoy the amenities of landlords. But, at any rate, a very large number of buyers came in, and prices, although not as high as in the 'seventies, greatly improved. There is little use in trying to deceive ourselves that all these rises and falls are due to political causes. They are far more due to economic causes. And if I may make a suggestion it is this, that agricultural land is a long way more prosperous in the last three or four years, because of the high prices of grain and stock, than for the past twenty years. That has had a much more practical effect upon the price of agricultural land than other things.

Mr. Hall's evidence before the Haversham Departmental Committee absolutely establishes the contention that but for the apprehension caused to landlords by reason of legislation and the apprehension as to future legislation, this land would not come into the market at all, even with the enhanced price of agricultural stock. What would have happened would have been this, the farmers of the country would have remained as tenants below economic rents and the landlords would not have offered their estates at all, and any of the depreciation would have gone to the tenant farmers.

If the hon. Gentleman, who I know takes a very fair view of these agricultural questions, endorses the view of Mr. Hall that sales were due to apprehension, I must join issue with him. I was about to say that over and above economic causes there may be many owners who are apprehensive about the security of land, but they are more than counterbalanced by new purchasers, who, instead of having fears, are confident that the land is going to be a lasting security. It is absurd to go on talking always as if in the breaking up of estates the only thing that happens is the sale. I must remind the House again that there is no sale without purchase, and although there may be an element of fear in those who sell there is an element of confidence in those who buy, and, at all events, it is clear that they have sufficient confidence in their security to put their money into it. The Noble Lord the Member for Thirsk (Viscount Helmsley) suggested that one of the reasons why purchasers were to be found at present is that they wished to purchase the amenities associated with the ownership of land. I quite agree; I quite understand that. There is no more delightful property to hold, certainly in this country, than land, and the associations that grow up with the ownership of land cannot be estimated in so much per cent. There is not the least doubt about that, and I have not the least doubt about it that there are large numbers of successful commercial men who put their money into land because they like to own property in the country as well as the town, which is one of the joys of large possessions. That is not altogether a misfortune. It has been pointed out by one of my hon. Friends that when large capitalists purchase estates it is not an unfortunate thing for the farmer. One of the greatest misfortunes agriculturists suffered in the 'nineties was that so many of their landlords were short of capital, and the large increase in capital coming to farmers in the last ten years has had a great deal to do in helping the farmers to embark upon now methods and to develop their farms more than ever before.

I have great sympathy and liking, if I may say so, without presumption, for the old-fashioned landlords, but, from the point of view of the farmer, it is better he should be under a wealthy landlord with sufficient capital to restore the amenities of the farmer than under a benevolent gentleman who may not have had enough to improve the estate, and there are many farmers who would be sorry to disturb the old relationship but who are well aware of the fact that more capital is needed if greater prosperity is to be brought to the dwellers upon the estate. The other reason which I put forward for the sale of land in large quantities in the last few years is that agriculture is a recovering industry; there is more money to be made out of the business of agriculture now than for twenty years. It is absurd, of course, to suppose all farmers are prosperous, but taking things as a whole, farmers are making more money now out of the business of agriculture than for twenty years.

Out of stock.

It is not only out of stock. Mr. Strutt read a most interesting paper before the Fanners' Club showing remarkable profits made purely out of roots.

Mr. Edward Strutt stands absolutely alone in this country as regards the production of wheat and the profits to be derived from it.

The reason I refer to Mr. Strutt is that he is one of the agriculturists that keeps his accounts on a scientific basis, and we can draw more accurate inferences from the accounts kept by Mr. Strutt than others. I think the hon. Gentleman fell into an error that is common, not only on this side of the House, but on the other side also—that is to say that he is too ready to generalise upon agriculture in England. I have been long enough in my present office to know that you cannot lay down any general rule that will apply to every farmer. It is therefore not altogether accurate to say that the prosperity of agriculture has been due entirely to the rise in the value of stock, because nearly everything else produced on farms has become more valuable. Fanners themselves in many parts of the country quite recognise that they are paying less in the way of rents than the economic value of their farms. They do not wish their rent to be disturbed. The object of this Bill is not to deal with a great problem like the fixing of rents and not to give to the farmer a chance of going on comfortably at the same rent, but to deal with a very small grievance. When estates are broken up they find that they have to leave their farms because of some large commercial transaction generally conducted by wealthy and prosperous citizens. Whenever I have spoken upon the economic aspect of the breaking up of these estates, I have generally stated that in my opinion such sales have not altogether been a public misfortune. Those who have been compelled to sell have had to break sentimental and personal connections of the greatest value to them, and it has parted them, in many cases, from the hills, streams, and woods which they have known from childhood. Just as the owners cling closely to their old connections, so do the tenant farmers, who do not like being parted from the hills and the woods they have known. It is because we wish to pay as much respect to those tenants as to the landlords that we ought, if we can, to increase the security of these tenant farmers, and produce that confidence which will enable them to produce from the land that which is for the benefit of the country as a whole, as well as themselves individually.

I was delighted to hear the President of the Board of Agriculture give the blessing to this Bill that it deserves. We now feel that this Bill will go forward and shortly become an Act of Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman said that Members of the Opposition have said that the reason for some of this unrest is Liberal legislation, such as taxes on land, and the Death Duties, and such like; but he must not forget that those are the reasons given by the Departmental Report, and therefore we cannot be told that we are dragging in party politics if we bring forward the verdict of that Report in some of the remarks that we put before the House in advocating this Bill. This Bill has been primarily brought in by the hon. Member for Buckrose (Sir Luke White) on behalf of the Central Chamber of Agriculture, and that chamber has done most excellent work. I should like to say on behalf of the National Farmers' Union, a body which now represents somewhere about 30,000 farmers pure and simple, at every meeting and at every time when this matter has been brought forward, the whole of the members of the Farmers' Union have respectfully asked that a measure such as this shall be brought forward. I do not agree with one or two of my hon. Friends on this side of the House that the cause is the new taxes on land directly. The person who sells land under this measure, if it becomes an Act, need not give notice to the tenants to quit. I have had to do with the breaking up and selling of estates, and I do not believe that giving notice to the tenants adds very much to the amount of the purchase, and the notice could easily be given afterwards by the person who buys if he wishes to gain possession of his own holding.

We consider it only fair and just that the expenses directly attributable to the quitting should be given to the tenant farmer, and the landlords also agree in this. We do so for the reasons that have been given to-day namely, the great difficulty a farmer has in getting the farm suitable to his own line of fanning after he has been disturbed. The case of the milk walk was quoted, and there is also the case of the cheese-maker and the fruit grower. In every single case of farming different classes of employment are required, different kinds of stock, and different implements, and I think I am right in saying that no one has yet been able to find two farms exactly alike. Therefore, if that be the case, and if tenant farmers are disturbed, they should be met in a fair and equitable manner. I think this is a small measure that will work out fairly over and above the compensation for unexhausted improvements which a farmer should undoubtedly have. I am not going to burden the House with remarks that have been made over and over again in favour of this Bill, but I hope we shall now be able to send this measure upstairs with the blessing that has been given to it by the Minister for Agriculture, and I trust that it will become an Act of Parliament in the very near future.

My hon. Friend who has just sat down has told us that he does not see how this Bill will in any kind of way add a new burden to the landlords. May I point out a very simple way in which this Bill, if it becomes law, will add a burden to the landlord? At the present moment, as the law stands, if a landlord for any cause desires to sell his land, and if he thinks that he can obtain a better price by selling it not as a whole estate but in portions, and by giving possession of those portions to the prospective buyers, he can do that by giving notice to the tenants. Under this Bill he will not be able to do that. I think it is admitted by everyone who has studied the results of sales of estates during recent years that where an estate has been sold in portions instead of en bloc, and where possession can be given to the purchasers, a better price has been obtained. That, of course, is only common sense, because a person who desires to buy a farm may wish to have it as a residence, and to breed a few horses, or go in for a little farming on his own account, and unless he can obtain possession it is no use to him. Anyone who desires to purchase under these circum- stances will not be able to do so under this Act, because he must wait until he has obtained possession of the farm and then he will have to give notice to quit, and will probably have to pay compensation, because that notice may not have been given for reasons consistent with good estate management. Therefore, the result of the Bill will be that a landowner selling will get a lower price for his estate, and in that way it is absolutely correct that the security for the mortgagee is lessened. That seems to be absolutely certain. My hon. Friend, who said that he was sufficiently a Tory to do certain things, said that this was an instalment of justice. Whatever it may be, it certainly is not an instalment of justice, because justice has nothing whatever to do with this particular Bill.

Let me point out what the effect of the Bill will be. Two people have entered into a contract, and the contract is that one shall let and the other shall take a certain portion of land for the year, and that the tenancy shall continue from year to year, unless either of the two parties give a year's notice that they desire to determine the tenancy. One of the parties who has entered into this contract belongs to a small class without many votes; the other party belongs to a larger class with a considerable number of votes. The party with the large number of votes says, "It is quite true that I entered into an agreement to do certain things, but I want now to break that agreement without your consent." Now hon. Members on both sides of the House, in view of the fact that the party wanting to break the contract has the larger number of votes, come down and talk about an instalment of justice. The very first thing that I was taught, and the thing which has implanted itself more than anything else in my mind, is that if you want to be successful in business, and agriculture is becoming more and more a business, the first thing you have got to do is to see that the rights of contract, unless they have been entered into by fraud, are maintained by both parties, and that neither party should be allowed to break that contract to the disadvantage of the other party and without his consent.

3.0 P.M.

It might be said that the wicked landlord has refused to give to the tenant anything but a yearly lease, and that, as land is a limited commodity, the unfortunate tenant farmer has been obliged to take this land on a yearly lease because he could not get it on any other terms. The fact is that the tenant farmers have insisted upon yearly agreements, and have refused to take leases. Now, hon. Members say that the yearly agreement is to be arranged in this way: If the tenant farmer desires to carry out his contract and to give up his farm he may turn to the landlord and say, "I give you a year's notice." Sometimes they do not even do that. In two cases within my own knowledge in the last two years tenants have said they do not want to go on, and they have added, "Of course you will not require a year's notice." In one case, the tenant having been on the estate for a considerable number of years, and being an old man, who had had some little dispute with his neighbours which had injured his health, the landlord, who was a strong Tory, said, "Certainly, you can go whenever you like." In the other case he did say, "It seems to me a little hard that you should want, not only to give up your farm, but to give it up without the year's notice. If I can find another tenant, you can do so." He did find another tenant, and he allowed him to go. In that case the landlord was not only expected to abide by his contract, but he was expected to do more, and give more advantage to the tenant than the tenant could have received under the contract. When, owing to a variety of circumstances, farming has become good, and the landlord—perhaps the tenant has not been a very good farmer—wants to take possession of his land, the farmer turns round, and hon. Members on both sides of the House say, "Yes, he must not be turned out, although he has entered into a contract that he must go under certain circumstances, and certain notices being given." It may be expedient, but it certainly is not justice, and neither is it business. Prior to the 'eighties there were leases in existence, but when the bad times commenced in 1879 those farmers who had unfortunately had leases were in many cases ruined. It is the remembrance of what happened in those years which makes farmers desirous of having yearly agreements and not leases. The hon. Gentleman who is in charge of the Bill—and I have no wish to cast any doubt upon his sincerity—said that in 1906 this particular aspect of the case escaped the notice of the House. I was a Member of the House in 1906, and I took a particular interest in the Bill which was introduced in that year. I had some previous knowledge of the Bill, because it had been introduced for six or seven years prior to 1906, and I do not mind confessing that I had the honour of stopping it on every occasion. It was a Bill first introduced by the present Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. George Lambert); but the hon. Member for Cornwall introduced it in 1906. I do not say it with any want of courtesy to the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, but it was an absurd Bill.

The Second Reading was passed in a hurry, and it went upstairs to one of the Grand Committees, and I have a keen recollection of what took place when it came down here. The two Law Officers sat upon that bench, and with the Bill on their knees they practically redrafted it; we with that forbearance which distinguishes us, allowing them to do so. That is how that Bill was dealt with. To some extent it established the principle of dual ownership. This Bill goes a little further, because it says that under certain circumstances the land does not belong to the owner, and compensation must be paid if he requires to take possession again of what is his own. It may be he is a wicked man who had a father before him from whom he inherited certain property, and no doubt hon. Members below the Gangway will suggest that he will be lucky if he is allowed to keep a little of that property and he will still be better off than if he had not inherited. There may be some men foolish enough to have invested money in the land itself, and, if there are, Bills of this sort will not encourage them to go on doing so. After all, what is really necessary is that there should be more capital put into the land, and not less.

Let me go back to the question of dual ownership. That was chiefly the point upon which the objections to the Bill of 1906 turned. We all remember what took place in Ireland when dual ownership was provided for in the Land Act of 1870, when compensation for disturbance was given. At that time the same arguments were used by Mr. Gladstone and other supporters of that measure as are advanced now. Dual ownership was then created in Ireland, but we have had to spend large sums of money in order to do away with it, because it has been found to be such a very bad system. Why, then, should we attempt to perpetuate it now? I was sorry to notice the hon. Member who introduced the Bill, at the end of his speech, said that there were other questions ripe for settlement by Parliament regarding the tenant farmer. I hope my hon. Friends who are in favour of this Bill will remember that utterance, because it means that this is merely an instalment, that there are other matters coming, and that this will then be used as a precedent in order to deprive landlords of still more of their property. I repeat that what agriculture wants is to be let alone. It does not want Parliament continually interfering between the different classes who are interested in agriculture—the landlord, the tenant, and the labourer. So far as I know the tenant farmers are perfectly well able to look after themselves. Generally they get the better of the landlords. The hon. Baronet the Member for Lichfield (Sir T. C. Warner) commented on the fact that there had not only been a great number of sales, but that there were also buyers of land. Of course there are. You cannot have a sale unless you have a buyer. Why have there been buyers? Because, owing to a variety of circumstances, chiefly owing to the increase of population in the world, there has been a great demand for agricultural produce, and the great fall which took place in the price of land in 1879–80 now shows a slight rally. I can give instances of that from my own personal knowledge. There was a property sold somewhere in the 'nineties which had been bought sixty or seventy years previously for £90,000. It only realised £27,000, and it fetched that after it had been in the hands of certain people trying to sell it for a period of ten years. No doubt that property is worth considerably more than it was. I should put its value at from £45,000 to £50,000, but when you get a fall from £90,000 to £27,000, you will have people desirous to buy, especially if you have an increase in the price of the farm produce.

But the real reason for this Bill is to be found in the legislation of hon. Members opposite. The sales of these estates would not have been brought about unless hon. Members opposite had, by increasing the Death Duties, made it difficult for people, where there were frequent deaths in the family, to continue to hold their property. Another reason is to be found in the constant attacks on land, notably by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is, I think, the worst offender in that respect. I believe that all hon. Members, even the hon. Gentleman who talked about hares, and made statements which to a certain extent were erroneous, are responsible for casting fear into the minds of people who have been foolish enough to purchase land, or unfortunate enough to inherit it. My own belief is if you have got any money in land the sooner you take it out of the power of hon. Gentlemen opposite the better it will be for you. I do not mind owning that I have acted on that principle. I want to know why an attack has been made upon syndicates. I am not interested in a syndicate, although I am unfortunately the owner of a little land, but if there is to be a buyer of it I have no objection whether it be a syndicate or anybody else. I only want to know whether the buyer's credit at the bank is good and if his cheque will be honoured. What you want to know when you have something to sell is whether the prospective buyer is solvent and can carry out his agreement. I do not see why a syndicate should be treated as a sort of leper simply because he is tempted to invest his money in land. I admit it is not a good thing for the tenant farmer to have the land bought by a syndicate, or even by other people, who have not the same ideas as the old-fashioned landlord.

There is another reason why there are at the present moment a certain number of buyers. The great majority of the farms of England are let under their value. I should not like to say how much. One of my hon. Friends has put it at 15 per cent. I should have thought it was 20 per cent. But whatever the figure may be, there are a large number of people who will come in and buy on the chance of being able to exact a higher rent. Personally, I should have preferred the land of England to remain in the old hands. But it is hon. Gentlemen opposite who do not want it to do that. For the life of me I fail to see how it is they do not realise the irony of the situation. I have heard them say that the land of the country is different to any other kind of property. I am not sure that the hon. Member for Leicester has not said it. He must have said it over and over again. It is said that the land is a monopoly, that there is not sufficient of it to go round, and that the people who want to buy it cannot get it. That was one of the reasons why hon. Members advocated the Budget of 1909–10. It was going to bring more land into the market. Now it has brought more land into the market, a Bill is to be brought in to neutralise the effects of the Budget of 1909–10. The right hon. Gentleman, who has a very long face on him at present, probably because he is convinced of the truth of my arguments, has to come down and say—he did not say it, but he ought to have said it—that we must not make this a party question, and that we must all support the measure because it is so necessary for the farmers who are being injured by the legislation of 1909–10. I thought when I came down to-day that hon. Members would have the courage of their convictions, and would have had admitted that that was the fact, instead of which one after another they have been getting up and saying it is not so and trying to find excuses for their bad deeds.

I listened with very great pleasure to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for the Horncastle Division (Captain Weigall). He has had a very great experience in these matters, and sat upon the Haversham Committee, which was appointed to investigate this very subject. That Committee was by no means a party Committee; in fact, there were a very large number of gentlemen of the same political belief as hon. Gentlemen opposite upon it. That Committee to a very great extent endorsed the views so admirably put forward by my hon. Friend, and their views of the position are certainly not those advanced by hon. Gentlemen opposite. I should certainly have voted against this Bill had there been a Division. I do not think it is going to have a very great effect, unless it is used as a stepping stone to other measures. In some ways there has been a little advantage got out of the Bill, because we have spent three or four hours in discussing it. It is not going to do very much good, and it is not going to do very much harm, and as on a Friday, as a rule, the Bills which are introduced are likely to do a very great deal of harm, I do not think we have wasted our time in considering this particular measure. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have urged that agriculture should not be made a party question. One hon. Member said it should not be made a football to be kicked about between Members on either side of the House. I quite agree with that. I should like to make a strong appeal to hon. Members to carry out that principle. My idea of carrying it out may not, perhaps, be the same as that of hon. Members opposite. My idea of not making the matter a party question is to leave it alone and not to bring it into Parliament at all. We generally make mistakes at the present day when we legislate, and if we are really desirous of treating agriculture on a non-party basis the best possible thing we can do is to leave it severely alone and direct our attention to Insurance Acts and other measures of a similar character. I have endeavoured not to make a provocative speech or to say anything which would hurt the feelings of hon. Gentlemen opposite, but I must say that I believe the only object of the introduction of this Bill—I am including in this remark hon. Members on both sides of the House—is the view that an election cannot be very long delayed, in order that it may be certain that a certain number of their constituents will not vote against them, or that it shall be said they did not in any way advance the best interests of the particular class interested in the land which has the largest number of votes.

I would not have missed for the world coming down to the House to-day and hearing the speech of the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) on this agricultural question. It is a case of Jekyll and Hyde. It is most refreshing and interesting to see the acute man of business of former days struggling with the generous landlord of the present. I know of no man more acute in business or more indulgent with his tenants than my hon. Friend. It naturally follows that his opinions as regards the contracts between landlord and tenant should be somewhat different from those held by an old-fashioned Tory like myself, and different from the opinions of those who have been longer associated with the land than he has. He cannot understand why we should object to the purchase of land by syndicates. I object to it very strongly, and I should object to selling any of my land to a syndicate, even though I was sure that the money would be paid down before the land was delivered, because my feelings must follow the tenants. I cannot dissociate myself from them, and I should feel they wore not likely to go on so well under a syndicate as they had done under the old landlord. I feel bound to say a few words in furtherance of the object of this Bill, because it reflects opinions which for the last few years I have constantly expressed at Farmers' Union dinners and other agricultural meetings throughout my Division of Essex. I am glad to think that my friend, Mr. Strutt, who has been quoted here this evening and whose opinions upon the subject are the most valuable in England, holds views thoroughly consonant with the Bill. The Minister for Agriculture was quite right when he pointed out that even if this Bill passes the House it must not be looked upon as a measure which will give security of tenure to the tenants. Neither is it a Bill which can be expected to pass through Committee without any Amendment. On the contrary, paragraph ( a ), to which he referred, will require the most careful looking into.

It is true the Bill is a small one, but, small as it is, it contains an element of justice—there, I am afraid, the hon. Baronet holds a different opinion—it removes what the tenant farmers believe to be an injustice under which they have been suffering for some time past. The view has been expressed on both sides of the House that agriculture should not be made a political question. I am afraid my experience of the House leads me to say that such an appeal on such a subject is futile. I am invariably finding fault with my opponents on agricultural questions, and I know perfectly well they are doing the same with me. When any measure is brought before this House in regard to agriculture, I believe it is perfectly impossible, and I do not think it is desirable that political feeling should be entirely done away with. I cannot help thinking that the other Members of the House who are not present must have come to the conclusion that both sides were ready to fall upon each other's necks upon this measure, and that is the reason for the very sparse attendance, today, because the subject, even to men outside the agricultural counties, must be an interesting one. They must have known that both parties were practically agreed upon the Bill, and that there would be no Division taken. There have been some startling statements made, and I am sometimes alarmed at the advanced opinions expressed on agriculture on my side of the House. I think the hon. Member (Mr. C. Bathurst) said he was a Tory, which at once surprised and delighted me. During the early part of the sitting the hon. Member (Sir R. Winfrey) said he considered it was a good thing that land should change hands. On that particular proposition I am not all anxious to disagree with him. I think it is a good thing from time to time that changes of ownership should take place; but are you quite sure that the tenants think the same as the hon. Member on the sale of land to syndicates. Are the tenants of England to take the same view that they are better off under a syndicate than they were under the landlords?

Then, again, that leads to a controversy on the subject whether there is a market in land. We are all agreed that at present there is a great market in land, and a great quantity of land is being put into the market. I acknowledge that to be right, but I believe it is not a free and a natural market. I believe it is engendered by the fear of future legislation, which will affect our security of tenure. That has affected me myself. I was anxious to get rid as soon as I possibly could of land in the Principality, which I did with great advantage to myself and disadvantage to the tenants. Hon. Members talk about the anxiety of the State to make small holdings. What would they have done in this case? My few tenants in Wales begged me, considering the time they have been tenants of the family, not to sell the land, because they said they would be worse off if they had to borrow the money or go under a fresh landlord. It being evidently the wish of the Government that estates should be broken up, I must fall in with these views, and I sold the land, but I certainly regret it, nor do I believe it will do the tenants any ultimate good. This Bill, of course, is a very small one in its way, but I do not think it will often be put into operation, but I did not quite follow the right hon. Gentleman's view that local authorities would be placed in an unfair position by this Bill. I do not see why a local authority should be in a different position from a landlord. The one deals with his own money and the other with borrowed money, extracting a good deal from the unfortunate landlord, but what is right for him should be right for the corporation as well. I do not see why the Bill should be amended in that direction, but taking it all round, I wish to express my approval of the Bill and the approval of those for whom I act, and I trust that we shall have no Division.

I think if the Bill is passed in its present form, it will make land an even more un-negotiable product that it is at present. I wish the House to take into consideration the position of the poor mortgagee. When people lend money on land, they are not always money lenders. Money is often lent from trust funds by people who are dependent entirely on their mortgage interests, and when these people lend money on land, they naturally consider the value of the land and the value of the money which they are going to lend on the land. They have in addition to this to consider what will happen if they have to foreclose, and what possible compensation they may have to pay to the tenants. It will make them very chary of lending any money at all. It seems to me that all these extra charges on land will make it worse for the tenant in future times, because if the landowner wants to raise money on his land for improvements or for other purposes, the mortgagee will say, "It is all very well, I may be able to lend you money on that land, and on perfectly good security, but if when I foreclose I have to consider the problem how much I may have to pay to the tenant for being evicted it becomes a very serious consideration."

The Bill ought to be made a little more definite as regards what is to be paid to the tenant for disturbance if he is turned out in the case of a sale. If there was any definite amount, say, two years or three years locus, anything as long as it is definite, it would be a much more reasonable proposition, but at present the landlord never knows what he may have to pay a tenant if he finds it necessary to give him notice for any purpose, especially for this purpose of sale. There will be no proper decision of the Courts as to what he may claim. He may say he had a farm in the South of England, and he can only get a farm in the North of England, and he might claim compensation for removing his furniture, and family, and stock to the North of England. It is an absolutely vague proposition, and I think this very vagueness will make it very hard to negotiate land in any way. At present land is very much handicapped in every way, both by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and other people who play at finance, and play at what they know nothing about. If in addition to this we have to stand the risk of paying an unknown compensation to the tenant when you want to sell an outlying farm anywhere it becomes a very serious handicap indeed, and I beg the House that they should make it more definite as to what compensation is to be paid to these tenants, so that you can have a definite proposition before you. A mortgagee lending money on land can then calculate exactly how much the land is worth and how much he will have to pay for compensation. I ask the House to consider that very seriously, because, after all, property has certain rights. It is not always necessary to catch votes, and the House might reasonably consider that before they pass this Bill.

I understand that as the Bill now stands, in the case of a county council compulsorily buying a farm for the purpose of small holdings, no compensation will be given to the tenant. I cannot see equity or justice in that. If it is considered equitable that the landlord, or any other purchaser of land, has got to compensate the tenant for disturbance, I cannot see what justice it is to the landlord, or what consolation it is to the tenant, if the purchaser is a county council in preference to a private individual. I very strongly resent the idea that a county council, or any other public body, shall be put in a more favoured position than any other purchaser or landlord.

The hon. Member is under a misconception. Under certain circumstances a tenant on being dispossessed of his farm for the purpose of forming small holdings is entitled to compensation, and the Clause in this particular Bill is to the effect that if a tenant is dispossesed on the sale of land and receives compensation under the Small Holders Act, he should not receive it under this Bill, but if he does not receive it under the Small Holders Act, he will receive it under this Bill.

I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for the interpretation he has given. I hope that is so, but I think the Clauses will require careful examination in Committee to see that there is nothing in the Bill which the House does not really desire. As to the Bill, I do not attach much importance to it one way or the other. I do not think it will incur a large expense on the landlord, and, on the other hand, I do not think it will give very much satisfaction to the tenant farmer. I have always thought that the real grievance the tenant farmer suffers under when his farm is sold over his head is not so much the actual money loss as the impossibility of obtaining the farm he wants within the time at his disposal. I have always thought that the better solution of the problem is to increase the time given to the tenant, from twelve months to two years. I know that a great many agriculturists do not agree with me in that, and I am therefore not prepared to vote against the Bill. I only hope it will have the effect which the promoters think it will have, and that it will not have the effect which I am rather inclined to think it will have.

I wish to meet the argument advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Douglas Hall). He says there is a greatly enhanced value given to land which is the subject of leases or tenancies. If my hon. Friend had been in the House and heard the speech of the hon. Member for the Wilton Division (Mr. Bathurst) he would not have taken that view. I think there is no doubt that from the mortgagee's point of view, his security is not really substantially depreciated if the land passes subject to current tenancies. That in itself meets the argument advanced by my hon. Friend. There was one objection taken to the Bill by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, namely, that it is not sufficiently stringent, and that it would be possible for a landlord to get round its provisions by giving notice on Lady Day that a sale was going to take place in the summer, the notice to run from Michaelmas. I would point out that a very large proportion of land is held on yearly tenancies on Michaelmas agreements, and that it would be quite futile for any landlord, indeed, it would be impossible, to get round the provisions of this Bill by giving notice on Lady Day with regard to a Michaelmas agreement, from the fact that any such notice would not be operative.

Another point made by the hon. Gentleman was with regard to the advantage which accrued to agriculture generally through the breaking up of some of the larger estates, or through land changing hands on account of the increased capital poured into the land by the new purchaser. It would have been interesting if the hon. Gentleman had been able to elaborate that point, because I think that in a large number of instances where land has changed hands owing to what I might almost describe as the recent panic among landowners, the exact opposite has been the result. We know that in many cases land has been bought by the sitting tenants, the farmers, who would infinitely have preferred to continue their holdings under their old landlords. One of the results has been that the sitting tenants have not had as much capital to put into the land as was available when they held under the old landowners, and they have had to borrow money in order to find the bare capital necessary for stocking the farms. My last point is in regard to what has been said on the subject of the profits of growing corn. A great deal has been made of the interesting papers put forward by Mr. Edward Strutt. Nobody who knows Mr. Strutt, or is acquainted with the circumstances under which he carries on farming operations, would think of challenging the figures he gives, but the point I wish to make on that subject is that it is impossible to generalise as to the whole of England from what Mr. Strutt is doing in Essex. In that case you have got a man of high scientific attainments, and a large amount of capital at his disposal, approaching agriculture from an entirely different point of view, and in a different spirit from that in which it can be approached by a large proportion of the farmers of England, and it is not surprising that a man with Mr. Strutt's capital and ability should be able to show profits on corn growing which the average farmer could not hope to approach. Therefore it is absurd to attempt to generalise from Mr. Strutt's experiments, and to put forward the argument that corn growing in England is, for the present at least, going to be as profitable as dealing in stock.

I rise for the purpose of eliciting information on a particular point. I may say as regards the desirability of the Bill that I am entirely in sympathy with it. I should rather like to know how the provisions of the 1908 Act affect this Bill. The 1908 Act deals with cases of unreasonable disturbance and compensation for improvements, but so far as my memory serves me, I am not quite certain as to the manner in which these two particular points are to be settled between parties. I think that probably it would be by arbitration. It seems to me that the point is of considerable importance in this Bill, because the manner in which the amount is to be settled for unreasonable disturbance or improvements would be a serious calculation with any intending purchaser. I think we are all agreed that in many cases it is desirable that land should change hands, but it would be advisable, if possible, that an intending purchaser should be able to get at the proximate amount he would have to pay for evicting a tenant after he got possession of the land. That may be fully provided for, and I wish to know if it is provided for in this Bill?

The provision in the 1908 Act is that in the case of a purchase any accrued amount shall be ascertained by arbitration, and the amount under my Bill would be assessed in the same way.

That is what I expected. I suppose, then, it would be possible in every case of sale for an intending purchaser to know what he would be called upon to pay for the eviction of a tenant, supposing he wished to occupy the holding. I gather that that must be the case at present. This arbitration, in the case of Section 1, Sub-section ( b ), could not possibly take place until after the sale.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a second time, and committed to Standing Committee.

I beg to move, "That this Bill be now read a second time."

The discussion which we have had to-day on a non-party measure has resulted in so great a measure of agreement among all parties in the House that I am encouraged to bring forward this small Bill. This Bill has already been before the House on several occasions. It passed its Second Reading in the years 1906, 1908, and 1909. It went through the Committee stage in 1908 and 1909. It was unopposed two years on the Second Reading, and on the third occasion it was carried by 116 votes against 13 votes, which shows what the feeling of the House of Commons has been in the past with regard to this Bill. I hope that the same feeling will be shown to-day. Since then the Bill has passed in another place without opposition, in 1911 and 1913. It went before a Committee presided over by Lord Alverstone. On both occasions certain Amendments were suggested, and these Amendments by the House of Lords Committee are now incorporated in this Bill. I think that this is some guarantee that gentlemen who own land need not fear that the provisions of this Bill contain anything which will in any way interfere with their enjoyment of their rights or with their amenities, because it has absolutely an irreproachable past, and it comes with the guarantee of the House of Lords behind it. Coming to the objects of the Bill, I will first say what it is not intended to do. It is not intended to set up for the public any new rights against landowners. It is not intended to take away any rights and amenities at present enjoyed by landowners. On the contrary, in one respect at least it puts the landowner in a better position than he is in at present, and that is with regard to giving notice. But it will put an end to uncertainty and litigation which arise on many points at present. It will not give the right to any single soul to go on land on which he does not possess a right to go at the present time.

The object of the Bill is to simplify the law on one point. I need not go into the question of how rights of way came into existence, but the cases in which trouble really arise are those in which land has been settled for a considerable number of years. Two opposite views with regard to those cases have been taken by distinguished judges. Some judges have held that where land has been under settlement for a long time and where there has been an uninterrupted user by the public, that user for a lengthened period is sufficient presumption that dedication has taken place at some previous period. Other judges have taken precisely the opposite view. I will give one case. Lord Alverstone heard a right-of-way case in connection with land at Trentham. The case was heard before a jury. It was proved by the evidence of old inhabitants that the right of way had existed for a period of upwards of eighty years, and the jury found that it was a public right of way. Lord Alverstone was about to enter judgment for the defendant on that verdict when it was argued by counsel that this land had been under settlement from the year 1760 to 1893. Lord Alverstone then took that point, and that having been proved to his satisfaction, said that, in spite of the fact that the right of way had been enjoyed by the public for eighty years and upwards, he was obliged to find against the public right to use that way. In that case undoubtedly a great injustice was done to the people of the district, who lost the right to use this footpath which had been used for eighty years.

These disputes, which are very frequent, do not arise in the majority of cases in reference to old owners of property. On the contrary, they arise nearly always in the case of gentlemen who may be described perhaps as the nouveaux riches. Gentlemen who have enjoyed property for a long time in the country in nearly all cases deal fairly and generously with the people, and do not attempt to take away from them rights which they have enjoyed. There are still many thousands of public footpaths in the Kingdom. These cases come up so frequently that the Commons Preservation Society deal every year with an average of something like 330 districts with regard to footpaths. This shows that some definite reform is highly desirable. At the present moment that society has before it no fewer than 123 cases of footpaths in reference to which this question of family settlement is the real crux of the whole case. In reference to the position of the owner, enjoyment for a very brief period has enabled the public to set up a right of way. If this Bill passes, in no circumstances will a shorter period than twenty years enable the public to obtain a right of way. The method by which this Bill seeks to obtain its object, is the method already in existence with regard to private rights of way.

It is proposed in this Bill to assimilate the law with regard to public rights of way, and the law with regard to private rights of way in this country, and the law which exists in Scotland at the present moment with regard to public rights of way. There is a great demand by the public for this Bill. Upwards of 600 corporations and urban district councils have petitioned in its favour this present year, besides the County Councils Association, the Association of Municipal Corporations, and various other bodies. I do ask the House, in view of the history of this Bill, which has been three times through the Second Reading in this House, and has been twice through the House of Lords, to give it favourable consideration, and harmoniously agree to its Second Reading.

I beg to second the Motion.

4.0 P.M.

It seems to me to be a grave anomaly in the law that the public should not have the same rights in this matter as private individuals. As my hon. Friend said, under the Prescription Act of 1832, proof of enjoyment of an easement, such as a right of way, by private individuals for forty years, gives an indefeasible title; but, in the case where a family settlement has existed for many years, the tenant for life has not been able to dedicate a public right of way, and judges in some cases, although the user of the road has existed for some time, have held that it could not have been dedicated by the landlord. Under the Local Government Act of 1894 the local authorities are bound to maintain the public footpaths rights. But under present conditions they dare not face the expense of litigation to prove the public right. A case in point was given by Lord Eversley in another place. In a certain county in the South of England there was a local inquiry held by the district board, and they proved conclusively that the path had been open for fifty or sixty years. This right of way passed over the land of a noble duke, who wrote to the district board saying that, in his view, it was a public way, that he had always recognised it as such, and that he wished it to remain open. A stranger to the neighbourhood bought an estate there, and he also purchased a piece of glebe, over which the path went. Naturally, under the state of the law at present the incumbent, being only the tenant for life, could never dedicate the way over the glebe. Therefore the legal adviser to the authority recommended that under these conditions they had better not fight the case owing to the enormous expense that would be incurred and the absolute uncertainty of the decision. Several neighbouring landowners signed a protest, and this is what they said:— day, when the roads are so much frequented by motor cars, which render pedestrianism on the highways so disagreeable.

I beg to move to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."

This is one of those little Bills which to superficial observers may appear acceptable, but which is absolutely contrary. The hon. Member who introduced the measure stated that it had been on two or three occasions before this House and also before the House of Lords. It is true that in 1906 and 1907 it slipped through this House on the understanding that it would be amended in Committee; and in 1911 in the Lords it was stated on the Memorandum of the Bill that it was substantially the one which had been approved by the Standing Committee in the House of Commons. It was nothing of the sort. It was the original Bill without Amendment, and therefore I do not think that, under those circumstances, it can be said that the Bill has really received the approval either of this House or of the other House. The hon. Member who spoke last said that this Bill was going to give some advantage to the person whose estate was not settled, because it gave him twenty years as the period during which the right of way had been in force, whereas much briefer periods had been held to give a presumption of dedication. I asked an hon. and learned Friend of mine, whose opinion is one of the best in the country, as to the twenty years, and he tells me that is the period now.

He is wrong.

What is a period now?

The position is this: If any man who has the absolute disposition of an estate in his control by any act dedicates a right of way to the public and the public use it, that becomes a permanent public highway for the rest of time, and that is independent either of the length of the acts by which the owner dedicates or the length of the user by the public.

That is not the point at all. The hon. and learned Gentleman interrupted me and said I was wrong, but he has not given any argument to show that I am. What he says is that at the present moment where a person is the owner of an estate which is not settled dedicates a right of way that becomes a right of way. I never said it would not.

What I understood the hon. Baronet to say was this: The first Section of this Bill provides user for twenty years, and it was pointed out that that was a concession to landowners. I understood the hon. Baronet to say it was not a concession because twenty years was already required, and that statement I said was incorrect, and in my judgment it is.

Twenty years is required if the owner does not dedicate.

You did not say anything about that.

Of course, I am not a lawyer.

I thought your friend was.

Yes, and my friend gave an opinion which I venture to say is correct. I will now put the whole case so that it cannot possibly be misunderstood, as if I were addressing you, Mr. Speaker, as "My Lord" in the Chair. We will suppose that a person is the owner of an estate, and that estate is not settled. He allows the public to walk over a portion of the land, and that becomes a public right of way, but he does not like the people walking over the land, and does not intend to dedicate it, but he takes no steps, because he is an easy, good-natured man; and at the end of ten or twelve years some one comes forward and says, "This is a right of way, because it has been used for ten or twelve years." Then the owner comes forward and says, "No, because I have never committed an act of dedication, and therefore it is not a right of way." That is all I said, or what I meant to say, and it was perfectly well understood. The hon. and learned Gentleman shakes his head at that. What is the advantage, then, to the owner of the land under this Bill? The hon. Gentleman who seconded, made the distinct statement that under the Bill an advantage was given, which did not exist at the present time to the owner of the estate which was not settled.

What I did say was that at present, a much briefer period than either twenty or forty years, as the case may be, has been held to give the presumption of dedication.

Hear, hear.

My hon. Friend behind (Mr. Pollock), who is, I believe, learned in the law, tells me that it will remain exactly the same. Therefore, I venture to say my original contention was right and that the Solicitor-General was wrong. Clause 1 (3) has been held out as a concession to the landowner, and as a Clause which will prevent any injustice occurring to the owner of an estate. It is a most extraordinarily and clumsily worded Clause, and of practically no use whatever to landowners. What occurs in an ordinary country district? Some person, probably a labourer, walks over the portion of an estate on his way to work, or a labourer of a neighbouring farm walks over the land on his way to the village. Even on a small estate of two or three thousand acres, how as the owner to know that this person is walking over a portion of his land? It is not as though it were in a town, where there are a large number of people. In the country an owner does not really know who walks over his land. No landowner would think of preventing an ordinary labourer from walking over his land for any innocent purpose. Something occurred in my own case which bears very well upon this question. I put a gate in a hedge adjoining land belonging to somebody else. The particular farm on which I put the gate happened to be in my own hands, or I should not have heard of the incident. My foreman came to me and said, "I cannot make out who is using that gate; somebody is using it, and going over the land." I asked, "How do you know? Have you seen anybody?" He replied, "No. I have looked early and late, but I have never seen anybody. I know somebody is using the gate, because the horses from the next farm are continually coming on the land through the gate being left open." If those horses had not come on the land we should never have known that anybody was crossing over the land. Under this Bill, if that went on for twenty years, unless I put up a notice, I should have nothing to say about it, although I never intended that it should be done.

It must be remembered also that these notices are valid only in the absence of proof of contrary intention. That would be a very difficult thing to signify. Supposing a person died, and was succeeded by his heir, if the person who died had not taken any steps to preserve the right of way, and the heir was not aware of that fact, it seems to me that the right of way would be established. The public seem to think that a right of way is a harmless sort of thing, which does no harm to the owner of the land, but does good to the person using the right of way. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, as I have already said, no owner of land would ever stop a neighbour from walking across the land in an ordinary way, provided nothing was going to occur—provided he is not going to lose anything. If those concerned are going to lose anything, then it is a very different thing. With the increase of population in England and the development of the towns, if this Bill becomes law, and unless the owner of land is careful to keep someone always on the watch, if he wants to sell the land for development purposes, he may find that he cannot do it, or that the value has depreciated, because rights of way have been set up of which he knows nothing. Hon. Friends may shake their heads, but what I state is the fact. A very serious loss may ensue to the owner, and possibly a very serious loss to the public, because, owing to rights of way having been set up, land near a town which would have been developed will not be able to be developed.

It seems to me that, under these circumstances, there is no need whatever for this Bill. It will do much more harm than good. What are the arguments advanced in favour of the Bill? So far as I can remember, only one case or instance was advanced, that of an estate settled for a period of eighty years. The judge was going to give the case in favour of the people, who maintained that they had a right of way, but when he was told that the right would not extend over eighty years he gave his verdict the other way, and against the right of way. Because there has been one case which may be a hardship—I do not know whether it is or not, because we were not told that the right of way had been stopped, or that the people were not still allowed to go along the road—but suppose there was one case of hardship, and the people were not allowed to walk over a particular field, there is always the road on which they can walk. Is it wise to make a law which will injure a man and prevent him being able to sell his land for building purposes? A case has been given to me in which the tenants of a London mews allowed certain people to walk through those mews. One of the borough councils claimed a passage through, saying there was a public right of way. It was pointed out that the tenants had no interest in preventing persons passing freely through, while the owner had no occasion to check those in the mews. This occurred in connection with a previous Bill, and my informant says that the promoters of that Bill were clearly nonplussed by the point, and did not take the Bill further. I give the information as it was given to me, but it shows that this is not merely the question that it appears to be on the face of it, but that it really deals, not with people who want to stroll about in the fields in an evening, but that it is the very much more serious measure, and may imperil the rights to their property of the owners of great estates.

Clause 3 of the Bill has been put in as a safeguard. On the face of it it seems to be a reasonable provision, and one that is a protection to the owner. It is not, and for this reason. It does not say who is to be liable in the case of an accident, or who is to be liable for the maintenance or repair of the ground over which the person walks, or the fences over which somebody may have got. In fact, it only leaves the landlord, who is in possession, in exactly the same position as he is now. I would like to ask the Solicitor-General this: Supposing this Bill became law, and that there was a right of way over certain fields, and there was a hole in the ground, or a jagged piece of fence, and somebody passed over the right of way, and put his foot in the hole, and broke his leg, or fell over the fence and injured himself, would the owner be liable to pay compensation under this Act? The Act would not protect him in any kind of way. So what would happen? Of course, if a path becomes a public way it will naturally be used to a greater extent than if there was no right of way, and the mere fact that a considerable number of people are using it intensifies the risk of accidents. Here is a Clause apparently put in to meet an evil, but, in my opinion, it does not meet it as far as I can see. We have had a fine afternoon in which we have not done very much harm. We have done a little, from my point of view, and I said so when I made a few remarks on the previous Bill. But let us, at any rate, be satisfied with what we have done, and let us not make matters worse by passing a Bill which I venture to say is going to do good to nobody, and is going to harm many. Let me ask one question before I sit down. Why does not this Bill apply to Scotland?

Because it is the law of Scotland already.

If that is so, it is a good reason, but I would like to be sure that that is correct. I should like to have some evidence to show, not that there should be a law concerning footpaths in Scotland, but that there actually is a similar law to that contained in this particular Bill. In order to make it quite certain that those of us who hold the views which I do shall not have it said that we have not the courage of our opinions, I beg to move the rejection of the Bill.

I approach this subject from a rather different point of view. I should like to say at once that I sympathise entirely with the promoters of the Bill in wishing to provide against the closing of footpaths of which there have been some very bad cases recently following the sales of great estates. The hon. Member who seconded this Bill pointed out with perfect truth that the reason why these footpaths in many cases are allowed to be closed is that the local authorities hesitate to incur the expense and risk of taking action. This Bill will not alter that in the least. The real effect of this Bill is simply to do away with the protection which the existing law provides for reversioners, or in the case of tenants for life or years against those who proceed him. That is, as I understand it, the principal results of this Bill. I do not believe it will protect the public in their legitimate grievance against the deliberate closing of footpaths except possibly in a few isolated instances. I believe that it may in a few instances inflict a good deal of hardship on reversioners.

The public in general get a great advantage from the fact that the tenant for life or years cannot benefit. It is owing to that fact, and the knowledge of that fact, that perfect freedom of passage from place to place and wandering about is afforded to the public in many of the great parks, and other properties of the country, and in many cases that privilege is one of the most valuable possessions of the inhabitants of some of our towns. I cannot conceive anything more likely to stop those privileges than a passage of a Bill of this kind, and that loss would far outweigh any gain which the passage of this Bill is likely to provide. The hon. Member who seconded the Motion for the Second Reading tried to make a case which, to my intense astonishment, appears to have been supported by the Solicitor-General to the effect that Clause 1 was to extend the period of dedication. It does nothing of the kind, and it does not alter the power of the Courts in the slightest degree. At any time an owner in fee simple can dedicate, and the Courts have held that certain actions of certain owners have amounted to acts of dedication. This twenty years does not apply to acts of dedication, but it applies to cases where there is no act of dedication, and therefore that is a false argument. I hope the Solicitor-General will not rely on arguments of that kind. Surely it must be open to the Courts in the future, as in the past, to say to a man, "You have, in fact, performed an act of dedication." Take an individual case. Supposing a private carriage drive were used by the public for passing to and fro, and that periodically the owner in fee simple, wishing to protect himself, instructed his servants to close that carriage drive, we will say for one day a year, and then on one or two occasions in successive years he gave instructions that the gates were not to be closed as usual, the Courts might quite rightly hold that to be an act of dedication, and they would be able to hold that exactly the same under this Bill as under the present law. It docs not give the slightest protection. Section 4 makes that perfectly clear. It is not from that point of view nor from the owner's point of view that I oppose this Bill. I believe the public in many districts are likely to lose very valuable privileges, and that the public loss will be much greater than the public gain.

It is not much that I wish to say in recommending this Bill to the consideration of the House. It has been attacked by people who have, to a large extent, I think, misunderstood its provisions. I think that when once those provisions are realised there will be very little objection to the objects which it is desired by this Bill to effect. It may be necessary, first of all, to say just a few words as to what the position is to-day, the position which this Bill would change. At the present time long use by the public of a footpath in the country, or what is apparently a public highway in the towns, however long continued, has no effect at all in establishing a public right if the property over which that right has been enjoyed happens to be subject to settlement. It has been argued as though the whole of this Bill were directed to footpaths in the country. It is not so. The same thing applies to footpaths in towns. Sometimes great hardship is inflicted upon the neighbourhood where they exist. Let me give one or two instances. Take the case where a square has a path round it, paved, lit, guarded, and even repaired by the public authority. Yet, none the less, because the soil over which that path runs has been subject to settlement during the time that those beneficial acts for the public good have been exercised, no public right is thereby gained. I cannot help thinking that everybody must realise that it is eminently undesirable that property should apparently be in the management of the public when in reality the public use can be stopped by the mere accident of the property being subject to a settlement of which no one knows.

Is that a reported case?

I think it was a case in St. Pancras; it was a case I was in myself. I think the hon. Member will realise at once that that principle of law is just as applicable to places in town as in country. The question what makes a highway is simply and solely a question of dedication. The idea that a public highway is obtained by user is a profound mistake; the only object of the user is to afford evidence of dedication; therefore, if a person over whose soil the privilege has been enjoyed is, in law, deemed to be incapable of dedication, it makes no difference where the soil is, or how long the privilege has been exercised. Let me say a word or two about the position in the country. The hon. Member who spoke last suggested that the effect of this Bill would be to make people who are jealous of their rights instantly prevent the public from using the pathways they now enjoy. If he looks at the Bill, he will realise there is no need for any such action at all. A notice by the owner of the land over which any such way passes, inconsistent with the dedication of the way as a highway, placed and maintained in such a manner as to be visible to those using it, shall, in absence of proof to the contrary, be evidence to negative intention to dedicate. If, therefore, a man is anxious that people shall enjoy the pleasure of using his land and is at the same time uneasy of the owner's user, all he has to do is to put up a notice explaining that it is by privilege that the user is enjoyed.

Did anyone suggest otherwise?

The hon. Member for the City of London did not hear the speech of the hon. Member who supported him or he would have been aware that that support was on the ground that, directly the Bill was passed, people over whose land a passage was now enjoyed would instantly close the pathway, and that they could not do that unless they knew it was enjoyed. Instead of closing the pathway, however, all they have to do is to put up a notice explaining that the pathway is used as a privilege and not as a right. That disposes of the idea that the result of this Bill would be instantly to prejudice the public, that it would result in the instant closing of pathways, and means of access to great estates, which, I am thankful to recognise, are frequently permitted now by the liberality of the great landlords.

Supposing the right of way is one solely used for passage to a farm, how is a landlord to know if the public generally are using it as a right of way to the farm and nothing else?

An accommodation road to a farm cannot be a public right of way; it is access to a particular house, and that is quite a different thing. You may use it, but the public will acquire nothing. It is a private right of way to a house, and there is no dedication of it as a highway. A highway must go from a place to a place. I am quite sure the Noble Lord is as anxious as other hon. Members to secure two things: first, that the public may enjoy, as far as possible, the benefit of the land which great landowners occupy, without interfering with any of the rights that the landlord does enjoy, and secondly, so far as it is possible, that they may be permitted to pass and to repass, without doing damage or harm over the paths, fields, moors, and meadows of a great estate. I believe I would not be overstating the case if I said the desire to encourage and not to hinder that is a desire which a great many landowners share with hon. Members of this House. That being so, surely hon. Members ought not to object to the passage of this Bill. The passage of this Bill will not interfere at all in any such privilege or generous permission. In all such cases the barest notice will prevent the privilege from ripening into a right. The only thing this Bill will secure is something which, after all, is surely a desirable thing to attain, namely, that what has been exercised as a right to the knowledge of the succeeding owners of estates, I will not say from century to century, but certainly from decade to decade, should, for the future, be permitted as a right, as it would have been if any one of the owners of the estates had been the owner in fee simple, instead of being, as he happened to be, the owner for life.

I have only one further word to say with regard to what the hon. Member (Mr. Courthope), who unfortunately has now left the House, as to the effect of Clause 1. I think he is under a misapprehension. As I said just now highways, and the right to use highways, are obtained by dedication. It is perfectly true that Clause 4 provides that what is required as dedication now will be sufficient afterwards. What I think the hon. Member who seconded the Bill meant was that Clause 1, as it stands, provides a standard of evidence of dedication which is a higher standard than that which exists at the present time. That is the real difficulty. It may be that that will require some modification in Committee. This is a very small and very humble Bill, intended to secure to the people of this country some of the amenities which in many cases are being fast lost, not always by the niggardliness of the landowners, but often of people who have come into the possession of estates without any inherited traditions, as to the way in which they should be used, and who have used them, possibly at once, to avail themselves of what I think is a pitiful legal technicality, namely, the fact that the land has been in settlement for a long period of time prevents the user over that land from ripening into a right that would exist had the user been over unsettled property.

I hope the House will read the Bill a second time. I thought it was a perfectly harmless Bill until I heard the observations made by the Seconder, but I do not want to make any captious observations on that head, because there is really no difference on the question of law as expounded by the learned Solicitor-General and the views held by any lawyer on this side of the House. It is a very simple Bill, for the purpose of making more simple the evidence that is required when it is attempted to establish a public right of way. As the Solicitor-General has clearly pointed out, the public cannot gain any rights by prescription; they can only gain their rights by dedication. In the case of a right of way which the public have used for a great number of years, if the land has been the subject of settlement, then the law preserves the rights of the private owner, although he may have taken no steps to safeguard his rights as he ought to do and as he would have been required to do if he were the absolute owner of the land. In fact, the man who is enjoying land only for a life tenancy has an advantage which the absolute owner of land has not. If a man is the absolute owner of his land he must take steps to safeguard his rights, and if, being absolute owner, he finds a certain number of persons who are members of the public making use of rights of way over his land, he must take steps, either by notices or closing the way on one day a year, in order to be able to produce evidence showing there has been no dedication. That is an obligation the law lays upon persons who are absolute owners of their property. And in the case of persons who are only enjoying a life tenancy the law prevents them from being able to dedicate, and discharges them from the duty which they would have had to fulfil if they had for absolute owners and safeguards their rights, although they had taken no interest in safeguarding them themselves. I regard that as unfortunate.

Supposing this Bill passes, and in a case of settled property the tenant for life is a foolish sort of person who allows himself to be imposed upon he may injure the estate to the detriment of his successors.

I think, probably, an enlargement of that Clause is necessary, but in a case where the land is the subject of a tenancy the reversioner can interfere and put up a notice. I think it may be necessary to enlarge that Clause, but the principle is clearly safeguarded in the Bill, that if there are interests which belong to the reversioner, and are not properly safeguarded by those who are in possession, the Bill gives power to those in reversion to step in and safeguard those rights. That really is the principle of the Bill. It is not to give something which is at present not allowed at all. It is rather to take away an imperfect right which has been given in the Courts of Law to those who do not safeguard their rights. Whereas the absolute owners ought to, and do, take care to preserve their property; in the case of a life-tenant, either he or the reversioner will take steps to safeguard the rights, and in the absence of those safeguards the public will acquire what they have always imagined they acquired, the right by prescription. Inasmuch as this is a Bill really for what I should call enlarging the rights of prescription, I do not see any objection to it. I welcome the premiss on which this Bill is based. The Mover of it said that now when estates are being broken up and passing into the hands of new owners, and are no longer in the hands of the older occupiers and owners of land, it is necessary that the law should step in in order to make it possible to do what the old traditional owners of property have always done out of courtesy and out of good will. When I hear that statement made on the other side of the House, and welcoming, as I do, the statement, and knowing that it must be from certain instances which have arisen from owners of property in the home counties and elsewhere, and particularly that class who, I believe, do not as a rule share the opinions of hon. Members on this side, I welcome this Bill as a proof of the necessity of the law stepping in to do what I believe has been done by persons who have tradition behind them, and have for long generations endeavoured to make use of their property not only for themselves, but at the same time for the advantage of the community as a whole.

The genial Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) told us we had not done much harm this afternoon, and congratulated us on the fact. We all acknowledge his vigilance in preventing the House doing any harm, especially on Friday afternoons. I hope, having heard the illuminating speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Pollock), he will withdraw his opposition to this very mild and moderate measure. It has been looked upon favourably by the House of Commons and the House of Lords in past years, and if passed it would remedy a grievance that, perhaps, does not very often arise, but, when it does arise, is of a peculiarly irritating character. I understand that if an ordinary footpath near a village has been twenty, thirty, forty, or even eighty years—I do not know how long prescription is necessary—used by the public, a new owner, when the property changes hands, can stop up the footpath and create great inconvenience in that way. All we want is to extend and simplify the terms upon which prescription or dedication may be assumed. I hope the hon. Baronet and his Friends will not oppose this measure, lest they should give support to the idea, which is pretty prevalent, that private rights are looked after on the opposite side of the House and public rights on this, side.

I venture to hope that the hon. Gentleman will not associate all the landowners on this side of the House with the Whiggish notions of the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London. The scope of this Bill is small, and the apprehensions of some of my Whiggish Friends are, in my opinion, not well founded. I, for my part, give the Bill my hearty support. It is necessary, particularly in the country districts, which are being gradually urbanised, and in which new industries are springing up, to make certain of the existence or the non-existence of a public way in such a manner as to obtain the knowledge of old persons within their lifetime, and to bring that knowledge to bear to prove the truth of the existence or non-existence of such paths. I should like to ask the Solicitor-General whether he would consider further the provisions of Sub-section (2) of Clause 1 of this Bill, because it appears to me that it does not provide for the case of two or more successive infant tenants for life where there may have been no person during a period of forty years either to dedicate a right of way or to interrupt the enjoyment of a right of way, and I venture to suggest to him that it would not be unreasonable to add to that Subsection, after "forty years," the words "and for at least five years of that period the property traversed by such way has belonged to a person or persons having the power to dispose of the freehold."

What the hon. Gentleman suggests is a reasonable matter for consideration.

I only wish to point out that, if left as it is, it might operate unfairly in the case of the settlement of successive life interests where there has been no power or opportunity of dedicating or interrupting such right of way. As to Sub-section (4), I would like to point out the possibility of difficulty where, in fact, the freehold reversioner has no existing right to interfere with the occupation or business of the leaseholder, and who may, under this Sub-section, be attempting to exercise such right and seriously interfere with that occupation or business. After all, he cannot put up a notice in the middle of a right of way, particularly an ordinary path, because he would interfere with the use of the right of way. I hope that no one is going to be so foolish, as under this Section, to put up that misleading notice, "Trespassers will be prosecuted," knowing perfectly well that it is quite impossible under English law for any such process to take place. The only other Clause to which I wish to refer is Clause 3, which I hope will be strengthened materially in the interests of the public and of owners of property. As it stands it provides that the owner of the land over which the way passes shall not be subject to any liability for the maintenance or repair of such way. There are many rights of way, or alleged rights of way, in this country which cannot at certain times or in certain conditions be made use of owing to their state of non-repair. It is no one's business to repair them. The public are inconvenienced, and there is an encroachment upon the neighbouring land of the landowner, to the disadvantage of the occupier of such land. Surely the right hon. Gentleman might carry this just a little bit further, and do what has long been needed in these cases where the right of way has actually been public—make it incumbent upon the local authority to maintain that right of way. With these few observations, I have the greatest pleasure in supporting this Bill.

It seems to me that this Bill is a very reasonable one, and I shall certainly vote for it, but I hope to have the assurance of the Solicitor-General that it will be carefully considered in Committee. For instance, the hon. Baronet the Member for the City of London pointed to the case of a supine tenant for life allowing a right to grow up when there might be a reversioner who might be anxious to stop it. In cases like that there should be power in the Bill to enable the reversioner of an estate for life, if he wished, to step in and prevent a right growing up.

Personally, I think that this Bill requires a little more examination than can be given to it this afternoon. The hon. Member who seconded the Second Reading said that this Bill was going to save a great deal of expense, and he mentioned several instances. He referred to the Irton case, which he said cost £15,000. I happened to be in that case, and if this Bill had been in force as an Act of Parliament at the time of that case not one single farthing of expense—

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question put, "That the Question be now put."

The House divided: Ayes, 162; Noes, 52.

Question put accordingly, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 199; Noes, 7.

Main Question put, and agreed to.

Bill read a second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.