Page:Agricultural Holdings Act.djvu/64

60 life. On the first principle, as has been already shown, page 19, tenant entitled to £170; but the person paying the sum is tenant for life, and consequently obtains from the County Court a charge on the holding for repayment of principal and interest (5 per cent.), limited to seventeen years only. The tables show the annual charge would be £15 5s. (nearly). The improvement effected only adds £10 a year to the letting value. In such case he will be for seventeen years £5 5s. a year worse off than he would have been had he not been compelled to pay for the improvement. If the first principle of compensation alone prevail, this mischief can be remedied by repealing the provision for limitation of charge in the case of tenant for life, the charge remaining (as in the case of absolute owner it may) perpetual, with power for the absolute owner to purchase such charge, at a capital sum payingper cent.

Of the two principles on which compensation is given, the latter seems the better. In the first, a case may be supposed where a tenant may lay out money without sufficiently regarding whether it will pay a fair per-centage or not; and, although the objection may be raised that the landlord need not give his consent to an injudicious outlay, yet, as in many cases he may not be the person who will ultimately