The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1875-03-16 00:00:00

Burt Couutg exiiress.

TUIEDAY. MARCH 111. 1815.

NOTES OF THE WEEK.

The Government has produced its promised
measure for dealing with the tenant fanner
question, and it is the first English Tenant Right
Bill whieh has ever been preseuted as a Minis-
terial meaaure. It is open to queen ~,, whether
die liill itself will prove of se li importance
as the fact that at last a Government, and that
distinctively a Guvennnent of the landed classes
has recognised and asserted the principle as a
guide now for all future tune, that the tenant
has a right, and as good a right as his landlord.
We think this of inure consequence than the
Bill and its provisions for many reasons, which
all more or less relate to the sufficiency of the
proposed measure. The main object of the Bill,
as stated by the President of the Council, is of
course to give the tenant of a holding security
for the capital he invoice in the soil. The principle
of it is that when the farmer makes any of
certain improvements which are classified, and
fails to reap the full value of them by reason of
a termination of his temetcy, he is to be entitled
to compensation. The Duke of Richmond divi-
ded the improvements subject to • imusation
into three classes. Thu first class is for improve-
ments made by rectal' tt ill g, making, or improv-
ing watenammes, ponds, wells, or reservoirs,
making roads or bridges, erecting or enlarging
I buildings, planting orchards or making gardens,
The second class is where improvements are
luaille by liming, claying, chalking, marling ikc.
The third clans is improvement by means of
feeding sheep, cattle, and pigs with oil-cake and
other stags, or the MS of artificial nianurea. He
explained that in regard to the first class the
improvements must have been made within 20
years of the tenancy, and with the written con-
sent of the landlord • the second class of improve-
ments must have been made within seven years
of the termination of the tenancy, and the third
clans within two years id the same period ; but
the second and third class of improvements might
be made without the written consent of the land-
lord. The compensation to be given to the
tenant is to be equal to the capital sum repre-
senting the unexhausted improvements at the
end id the tenancy. It has been foreseen that
a project of this kind, dealing with two parties,
must affmt both in equal degree. What is here
given as meat for the tenant is also to be feed
for the landlord. The owner of the soil may
claim from his retiring tenant on account of certain
specified acts of damage, such as deterioration
of holding, or over-cropping, and thus impover-
ishing the ground. Provision is made for the
machinery by which the amount of compensation
is to be settled, and an appeal from the arbitra-
tors is given to the district County Court judge.
So far as this portion of the Bill is concerned, it
dots not seem capable of improvement The
grave defect of the Government measure, it
seems to us, is that the tenant is left free, if he
will, to contract himself out of the benefit of
the law. The Duke of Richmond stated dis-
tinctly that the Bill did not propose to interfere
with freedom of contract, and a bill so hampered,
if it passes into law, will I- rove inoperative in
Just those cast* where the tenant most requires
protection.
The resignation by Sir J. S. Shaw Lefevre of
the Ansi of the Clerk of the Parliaments creates
a vacancy in a valuable appointment, and there
are, no doubt, many aspirants to the post, con-
sidering that the duties are not very heavy, and
that the salary is—namely, 1.2,500 a year. He
has a deputy, Sir W. Rose, at £2,000 a Year, 8')
that the work will not be neglected pending the
appointment of a principal Clerk of the Parlia-
ments. Another important vacancy, occasioned
by thu death of Sir Arthur Helps, is filled by
Mr. Charles Lennox Peel, the Duke of Rich-
moud's private secretary. The salary of this
office is £1,700 a year, and the Clerk of the
Council has a deputy at }.1,300 a year. The
gentlenuin who fills the latter position is Mr.
S. Harrison. There will be still another
' appointment—by no means a had one in its
way—to be tilled up after the Easter recess.
Mr. White, the senior door-keeper of the House
of C 11111 l nous, after 20 years service, has sent in
his resignation, owing to those two publicans—
' in parliainentuy language, strangers--getting
into the Muse the other night, and taking their
seats on the Opposition hunched. The berth is
worth some £3OO a year.
The latest news from South Wales forbids all
hope of that unforumate lock-out coining to a
speedy termination. Whether the masters are
right in insisting on a reduction of 10 per cent.,
or whether the men are right in refusing to
accept it, we du not argue; but it is with deep
ex.rrow that we read of the distress that is setting
in in the Aberdare and Rhondda Valleys. This
distress tin the nature of things increase,
and when the dispute is ultimately settled, will
the men be the gainers by the course they are
now adopting I Certainly not, even it the
ministers give way as to terms, ski gh that
seems unlikely. How
case of the miners if they have after all, to
submit to the proposed reduction