Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-04-05
FRANCE TOEND
A MORATORIUM
Will Abrogate Ruling on
House Rents in Effect
Since War Began


to house rents which has existed
in France since the beginning of the
war is to be abrogated. The French
Parliament has lively discussions on
the subject daily without arriving
at anything definite for an excuse
for either abolishing or sustaining
1t. The public-and there are two
distinct elements of the public; chat
which collects rents and that which
pays rent-has its own views and
expresses them. This will doubtless
aid the legislators.
For the moment rents In France
are like bad plays in the theater-
they don't produce receipts. The
small landlord says he can't pay
taxes and make repairs if he does
not get his rents, ard many of the
small renters say that they have no
resources with which to pay the
rent. The Government, originally
recognizing the possibility of this
as result of the war, clapped on
the moratorium. and all but the
landlords were satisfied.
The moratorium applies as we'll
ais as it does to dwellings. This
has brought up debate as to which
of these classes should be sustained
If the other was to be abolished.
The small shopkeeper or manutac-
turer manifestly might find himself
in position where he could make
enough to buy food and clothing
for his family and even to pay house
rent, but if he had to pay rent for
his business premises he could not
pay the house rent.
Landlord May Protest Either Way
The landlord in either case is
hardly likely to approve one ruling
or the other. AS it is under the
terms of the moratorium neither the
dwellinghouse landlord nor he of
the business premises can collect if
the locataire can make a good case
as to why he should not pay. The
landlord can take measures to get
him or her out, to break the lease,
but the court judges are not liber-
ally disposed to the landlords side
of the case, and accordingly he mas
not always found this practicable,
and then again he was in many eases
held back by the fear that he might
not find another tenant.
More than all else, if the tenant
was IN obilized-and about five mill
lion of him are-he could not be
touched until after the war, when il
he could pay he could be called in
referee and made to pay at least
part of what he may have owed
in back rent.
With the possibility of this in
view many landlords foresaw a di-
minution possible in the rents that
they might have considered due as
whole and have sought to bargain
and make new leases since the mo-
ratorium, which affected only the
original contract, went into effect.
If this bargain was made since that
fateful August day in 1914 the ten
ant was bound to adhere to its pro-
visions as he would any other con-
tract in peaceful times. A cut of a
quarter or a third or even a half
gave the landlord sure chance of
getting in something regularly each
quarter.
This as the better part of Nalor
many landlords adopted. Not always
was it possible, and not always
could the small landlord, whose sole
income perhaps was from the rental
of his single tenement house, do .his
and still be in a position to buckle
the budget himself. But it was done
in many cases and seems by far to
have been the best solution.
Howl by Realty Men Probable
All rent paying and rent collect
ing Paris is agog as to what the
provisions of the decree will be
which will abrogate the moratorium.
If it wipes out all past debts for
rent there will be howl from the
landlords, though ii is sine uqa
non of the rules of war finance that
each has to pay his part
One possible solution of contention
between landlord and tenant in the
new law, which has already passed
the Chamber of Deputies, is that the
tenant is free to depart if he chooses,
whether back rent be paid or not,
leaving the actual settlement to be
arranged in conformity with the
future regulation. This gives the
tenant a chance to move into more
modest and less expensive quarters
if his landlord will not come down,
which in many cases is physical
impossiblity if the latter in turn is
to meet his own obligations.
During the Franco-Prussian war
there was a complete eXoneration
of rents in Paris during the siege,
and it is possible that there are some
who may be in a position to pay
under the present moratorium but
who have not paid in the hope that
something may turn up to favor of
them. From indications and from
the accepted standard of financial
economics it does not appeal, though,
that any but those who are actually
mobilized or their widows have any
chance now of profiting by a COM
plete exoneration. In fact the whole
base of the discussion in the pres
ent law lies with those who nay
have the manifest right to exemp-
ton as compared with those who
have only quasi right or no right
at all to consideration in this new
moratorium legislation.