The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1861-03-26 00:00:00

SUPPLEMENT TO THE

DORSET CO'-..:NTY ;_:TXP.RESS

SECOND EDITION.

BLANDFORD FARMERS' CLUB.

o:maimed from eh Page.)

lass dependent upon the influence he may have over all
conaerned with it, as oceepiers, labourers, and other.,
will more or less be the visit's of his-real ps.sition as its
central head. Poseessing might involve • Lugo amount
of free power of action. It is this which gives to whst
Is called territorial position its great value. Just as this
right of action on the part of the owners el land is
restricted on any portion of his estate, in no (sr he cuts
off from himself power to control its general economy,
. is much the less will be his social importance in regard
to hi* property, and therefore his direct power,
through it, to effect good. If an estate, however, wcro
viewed simply with reference to the utmost rent it
e °old yield, the agent and the solicitor, properly in-
ttructed, could do All that was . It would lie
o matter of letting by tender, on skilful y• drawn cove-
mints, professing to cover all the claims of a long lease,
bringing all contingencial on either aide down to • line,
beyond which neither party was legally liable. The
landlord could then argue"l know the rent I min to
receive, subject to a well-ealaulated foreseen expend'.
tuns, under heads laid down in legal phrase." The
tenant would say " I have my farm almost in fee, for •
considerable number of years; I hold in writing, under
seal, the utmost of my liability to my landlord, and his
to ore; I can repel all inteference ; the matter of my
business is wholly sny own; I have bought it at its
highest value ; I must stand or fall by the very letter
of the conditions of my purchase." Such • tenant will
only have obtained his farm by outbidding other com-
petitors for it. We all know the weakness of human
nature when exposed to the allurements of • aale by
auction; how men will buy for the mere sake of buying,
with little reference to the question of value,
what is bought. When the lots some home,
then comes the hour of reflection, of conviction
of fully. (Cheers.) A landlord by the tender
system may obtain • very high rental; there
will be competitors who, wanting farms, may have
studied the real value of those offered, anal every clause
of the oovenanta under which they are BO offered;
exposed to the competition of others who, like them.
wolves, are seeking to settle in life, to invest their capital
in that particular bossiness in which alone they have
been bred ; it is a race in which all run with their eyes
open, but the very eager, and perhaps the best men will
for the time have their understandings blinded. They
listen to the eneouraging statement of the agents, they
become deaf to the less loud prompting* of their own
prudence, seeing the wish of the offer they make, but
hoping against hope, they bid high that they may not be
out-bid—they gain the prize. Now comes reflection.
The lease is signed, the lot has come home ; they cannot
get rid of that which they deliberately purchased; It Is
not • chest of drawers or an unsound horse, obtained
at an auction in the market pleas, but • large farm
taken on • twenty-one years' lease. I say, the occupier
of such • farm may be • good farmer, and what is
called • good fellow; I do not believe he will he, in my
sense of the words, a rood tenant. He is the voluntary
victim of a very hard bargain; no mercy was shown
Lim ; from the very nature of the system under which
he purchased he had no title to expect any- he will not
be asked for anything beyond the letter of his lease; he
can ask for nothing else himself. Now, I say it is the
duty of a landlord to abstain from this luster's of letting.
Lila a virtual surrender, in many a case for the probable
period of his own life, of every farm on his estate so
let. He becomes at once as one with little, if
anything, more than a mere rent-charge on his own
freehold-. He must, moreover' well understand that •
tenant so leased can have little real respect for his land-
lord, no one inducement to treat him in any way different
from that in what a tenant of a house in • square in
London may treat, if he knows him by tight, tho land-
lord to whom he pays, through the agent, his ground.
rent. With whatever ability • lease may be drawn,
legal covenants of this nature, however well defined in
words they may appear, are but too often subject to more
or leas dispute as to their real constructi on —circumstances
will often arise between landlord and tenant, against
which no human foresight could provide ; these beams
not only grounds for mutual initiation, but very fre-
quently for • prolonged and acrimonious litigation.
Where the tenant rents under the competitive tender
system, he will very naturally be found to take and
contend for the interpretation of every letter of his lease
in his own special interest. Again, I hold that a land-
lord in duty to his proper position should not only
roped how snob • irises of letting tends to lower that
position. but also how it tends to cripple the tenant in
his power to carry out the duty of his position. Such a
tenant can only hope to get any return for his capital
during his long tenure,by • course of hard practice in all
his business transactions; he must get his labour at the
lowest possible rate; economise every farthing ho can
in every direction •, with all he employs, or with whom
lie deals, he must do as he has been done by—obtaining
every sixpence that he legally can; sweating under the
hard pressure of the tender system, he must work out
his root upon the same exacting principle. A man who
lives on from year to year the victim of his own folly,
is little likely to be a friendly neighbour to him who is
reaping the benefit of it. I will only add, on this sub-
ject, that in my opinion, if it is the duty of landlords to
study the best means of preserving the honourable
rank in society their class most justly enjoys; they must
see that it becomes them to avoid a course which ap-
pear' more in character with the spirit of • speculating
trader than • country gentleman. I sun well aware
that in some parts of the kingdom this letting has been
widely carried out, and has almost superseded any other
mode; that it will be said,for instance, that in Scotland
this is the mai, and no real evil follows from it. It may
be so. lam arguing against the principle. I cannot
say how, where it has become general and not unpopu-
lar, it may or may not have been qualified by particular
provisions in the lease*, or by the weight of long-exist-
ing understood interpretation, giving to it a very differ-
ent complexion from what it may appear to possess. In
parts of Ireland, tenant right has obtained • settled and
recognised position • landlord and tenant are content
with it- in other Pula of the same country it is de-
nounced as confiscation. With regard to the question
of leasing at all, or the letting of farms,
as is the custom on many estates, from year
to year under agreement, I cannot say that
any principle of duty is at all concerned, it is clearly at
the landlord's option to grant • 'sue on fair terms, or
to trait himself ea he would have his tenantry trust, to
the operation of a mutual good feeling, giving to •
temporary agreement all the reasonable stability of
tenure to be desired on the one hand by the tenant;
all security for proper cultivation of his land, and good
tenant faith drable by the landlord on the other. I
have known many estates on which tenants of the same
families have rented their farms for many generations,
(gluing always up to the highest existing standards, on
vskich no lease has been granted. I believe the rents
tva boen as punctually paid, and all that either side
d have wished of real good-will has existed, to as
t an extent as any leas* could have secured.
ting, then, the full liberty of the landlord to let
b land by lease, or under any other form of less por-
mutant agreement, we have yet to regard his duly to
the tenant in either case. The two parties to • lease, to
any covenant of tenure, are equally bound to be truthful
as to how far either party is really committed by its
terms. On the part of the landlord there should be no
reserve as to the construction he puts upon the terms on
which he lets his land; the real meaning of everyclause,
to its fullest extent, should appear, so far as plain words
can give it; and this applies especially in the case of
what are known as "compensation °lassies." If there
AM any such clauses they should be drawn with the
greatest oars, in 'engage admitting of none but the
' most evident interpretation. It should be clearly under-
stood that fair claims under theee clauses are as clearly
the right of the tenant as the rant he is to pay is that of
his landlord; that demands made under them are not
to be taken as proofs of discontent, or an endeavour to
excite undue gam. The same reasoning applies in the
ease of all agreements as to draining, building, repair-
ing, and other more or less contingent prong one in •
lease or !agreement. I am quite aware these obser-
vations may appear as trifling with my subject, but I
am satisfied that the greater portion of the illwill and
antagonism which arises in many counties between land-
lord and tenant has ite source from clauses in heme or
agreements, which,with some reason,have from their ob-
scurity, been open to two different interpretations.
A great deal of discussion has arisen of late on the
glaciation whether • landlord ought to bind a tenant as
to the mrumer in which he crops his land, I can hardly
my it runs within the strict lino of my address to you.
I may, however, perhaps be allowed toobeerve that in
the present day it appears to me almost • duty on the
part of the landlord to have the tenant altogether un-
fettered in the metier. Just as the cultivation of the
soil, the management of stook, the nature of agricul-
tural machinery is certain to improve as more capital,
more scientific knowledge is devoted to these ends, it
would appear but • wise and just course to allow the
tenant the fullest liberty to make the most Mai from
the capital embarked in his farm by availing himself
of every discovery which may fairly promise, in the
matter of cropping and other parts of hie business, to
give him great advantage. (Cheers.) In toying this,
however,! must be understood as nmenring to the land-
lord full right to take precautionary security as to the
condition in which • farm is given up by the tenants,
under any condition of an agreement, or at the expira-
tion of a lease. I must now proceed to touch on • few
points of • somewhat delicate natore, and I fear calcu-
lated from the remarks I feel bound to make to give
some offence. It will be unintentional. In evading
them I should betray my own sense of duty. I for one
hear it asked, "Is • landlord justified in getting rid of a
tenant on pounds which only affect their tenant's moral
character!" I hold it as a rule, that it would be
as impertinent in • landlord to take notice of the
domestic life of • tenant as it would be in a tenant to
do so in regard to his landlord. But there may and
'ill unhappily be, exceptional caves, in which inter-
ference on • landlord's part may not only not be impro-
Pee. Inat in my opinion imperatively demanded. Where
a knee', ima be open, notorious dishonesty, or con-
tinued oPen profligacy in his daily life, become solar a
disgrace on the estate that Wilhite on it openly defying
the laws oteomaion decency and morality; an example
of •violi • dielence to his owns slam, I d o think it is the
duty the landlord to meow, Lyra I now to
he next queseion, to • Pus on
up preservation of game.
tis the fashion of the del ko a the high pre.
ervation of Pao as if it Wee* loos new thing. Tbie