EXCLUSION    OF    SITTING    TENANTS  1 57

owners,   who    promptly    repudiated    the    debts    which
should  have  been  paid  by  the  old  owners,^

On  the  other  hand,  if  the  new  rent  represents  the  full
market  value  of  the  farm,  and  thus  includes  the  remain-
ing value  of  the  improvements,  as  is  probable,  it  is  clear
that  the  incoming  tenant  is  paying  twice  over  for  the
improvements.  Such  a  diminution  of  his  capital  must  be
prejudicial  to  agriculture,  as  well  as  inherently  unjust.
Thus  the  intention  of  the  Act  to  secure  to  the  tenant
a  full  property  in  the  value  of  his  improvements  has
been  defeated,  both  for  outgoing  and  incoming  tenants,
by  the  blunder  of  leaving  an  important  reform  in  the
hands  of  valuers  of  the  old  type,  who  were  habituated
to  the  working  of  the  old  system  which  the  Act  was
meant  to  supersede.  The  proper  course  would  obvi-
ously have  been  to  create  a  new  machinery  adapted  to
carry  out,  instead  of  leaving  the  new  principle  to  be
perverted  and  evaded.
The  much  more  serious  defect  of  the  Act  of  1883
was  that  it  limited  the  principle  of  property  in  improve-
ments to  tenants  who  were  quitting  their  holdings,  and
made  no  provision  for  giving  a  similar  security  to
tenants  remaining  in  their  holdings.
Sir  James  Caird  protested  in  1883,  when  the  Bill  was
brought  out,  against  this  limitation,  the  effect  of  which
was  that  Parliament  was  legislating  not  for  the  best  but
for  the  less  deserving  tenants.-  The  evidence  brought
before  us  certainly  shows  that  the  forecast  of  Sir  James
Caird,  of  the  results  of  excluding  the  cases  that  ought  to
have  been  provided  for,  has  been  verified.
