LAW OF LANDLORD AND TENANT. (Hansard, 29 February 1848)

§ MR. NEWDEGATE

moved for a Select Committee— To inquire into the law and custom of different parts of the United Kingdom between outgoing and incoming tenants, and also between landlord and tenant, in reference to unexhausted improvements or deteriorations of land or premises occupied for agricultural purposes. It would give real pain to him if it should be thought that he desired to forestal or interfere with the Bill of the hon. Member for Berks (the Agricultural Tenant Right Bill). He was quite certain that the House could not safely proceed to the discussion of this important question without appointing a Committee to obtain information; and he hoped for the assistance of the hon. Member for Berkshire upon the Committee. This question had now for several years been agitated and discussed by the agricultural tenantry of the country, and had led to much controversy and much misstatement, and he was quite certain that it was most unwise to leave the question in the state in which it was. He had not the slightest intention of infringing the rights of property or contracts between men and men. He was aware of the unanimity which subsisted between landlords and tenants, and that they were rather to be considered as copartners. At the same time he had seen particular cases of hardship arising from the agreement between the landlord and tenant being undefined in some cases, and in others from the impossibility of carrying out compulsory provisions, and both parties were injured. He hoped Her Majesty's Government would not refuse to sanction the consideration of this great subject before a Committee.