The Evening Star TUESDAY, JUNE 29, 1875.

Evening Star, Issue 3852, 29 June 1875, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, JUNE 29, 1875.

Although customs have grown up in England regarding land tenure, and laws have been enacted regulating the relations between landlord and tenant during a historical period of eight hundred years, as in her Colonies, the land question there is still unsettled. When the last mail left there was a Bill before Parliament intended to establish equitable conditions in favor of agricultural holders. Everyone in the Colonies knows how slight the tenure was by which the majority of the tenant farmers of England held their farms. Although in the northern counties, during the Anti-Corn Law agitation between 1842 . and 1848 a few landlords were willing to grant leases of land for a term of years, in the main, the tenant farmers worked the ground practically on sufferance, liable to be dispossessed of their holdings at a few months' notice, without being able, legally, to claim compensation tor improvements made by them. This system is not even yet put an end to ; but the injustice and impolicy of it have been so urgently forced upon public attention that from time to time concessions have been wrung from the landlords tending to render investments on the part of the tenants at will more secure. So accustomed are we in the Colonies to consider that every occupier of land has a right to deal with it as he thinks most

to ms own interest, that there is some novelty m reading of the restrictions by which landlords at Home seek to preserve the fertility of their estates. Jrossibly, as population increases and land advances in value in the Colonies more care and attention will bp mG&ns for increasing or *, * • denov , - ,,es « enera| ly there is a tenc“rZr? eXhm3t the !oil V “mg ®H •’ af * er cra P 0® it, until all the oon stituents necessary to robust vegetable T lthdl ' aWn - Then the s abandoned, because it is cheaper to ,;ay the price of fresh land than to renew the fertility of that which has been utilised In South Australia this is

notoriously the case as well as in Yictom, in both which colonies the average produce per acre of cultivated land hie declmed gradually for some years paßt and . there is reason to fear that a similar system is followed extensively m many parts of this Colony. Persons who use and m this Wand-easy way would not readily submit to the restrJ tions and conditions under which it is proposed to r;,a ce agricultural tenantfarmers at Home. Although they f'" * n man 7 cases, more WW °"‘P» acre *» P... , ‘ae laud here, they are not p rnuttei, to do as they choose with it. f ",f -! ' ! ' c required by the landlord to _ i a o ' a P resci ‘ihed method, to keep P tlm fertility ot the soil by judicious t .T™* , ma^ta in fencing, and j.toooci; plantations of forest trees, bfside m many cases feeding the land- < lord s game. The design of the By 4

before the Imperial Parliament was to induce farmers-, whether tenants at will or leaseholders, to continue to farm well, uj> to the very period of the expiry of their tenancy, as the tendency towards the end of a lease naturally is to restrict investment of money in improvements from which the farmer is not likely to derive benefit. The improvements for whieh compensation may be claimed are classified, ’and in some classes the concurrence of the landlord is to be secured by giving a specified term of notice. But it is not so much to the positive as the negative side that we would draw attention, for those practises for which it was proposed by the Duke op Richmond to debar a farmer from compensation are precisely those which prevail to a very great extent in the Colonies. They are “ causing or permitting land to be foul or neglected, damage to plantations, coppices, or timber included in the bolding; neglect of drains, outfalls or watercourses; neglect of gates or fences j neglect of repairs of buildings for which the tenant is liable ; neglect of roads; poaching of meadows by cattle after floods.” Then follows a statement of what shall be “deemed

waste ” on the part of the tenant, as diminishing the letting value of the holding, except done with the previous consent in writing of the landlord, via.“ Loss of manure by hay, straw, roots, or green crops removed off the holding; loss of manure not returned to the holding in lieu of produce sold off, subject to the manure being brought back ; mowing, burning, paring, or breaking-up of old pasture ; mowing of meadows other than water-meadows without manuring; over-cropping by the taking of too’ many successive white straw crops.” It might be supposed that in the Colonies, where moat men farm their own land, self-interest would suffice to prevent praetices so ruinous, but unfortunately they prevail to too great an extent. There are exceptions, we are glad to know, and we trust their number will increase annually; but a drive through even the finest farming districts of this Province will show that vast improvements must bo made in farming practice before the standard aimed at by the Bill in question is realised in the Colonies.