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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 PRICE SIXPENCE. 
 
 LEASEHOLD 
 ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 BY 
 
 ARTHUR UNDERHILL, M.A., LL.D., 
 
 OF LINCOLN'S INN, BARRISTER-AT-LAW, 
 
 Late Lecturer on Equity to the Incorporated Law Society ; and 
 
 Author of Treatises on "The Law of Private Trusts" 
 
 "The Settled Land Acts" "Freedom of Land" &c. &c. 
 
 GOLDEN UNCONTROLLED ENFRANCHISEMENT!" 
 
 — : — ~ — "■ ' ' ' — »-~....Rteik.iL r i. 3. 
 
 PROPERTY PROTECTION SOCIETY 
 
 CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited 
 
 LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK & MELBOURNE. 
 [ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HAIX. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. J
 
 ■:
 
 LEASEHOLD 
 ENFRANCHISEMEN1 
 
 ARTHUR UNDERBILL, M.A., LL.D., 
 
 of Lincoln's inn, barkister-at-law, 
 
 Late Lecturer on Equity to the Incorporated L.rw Society, and 
 
 Aut/i r of Treatise, on " The Tare of Private Trusts" 
 
 "The Settled Land Ads," "Freedom of Land," 
 
 d~"r. C~c. 
 
 C A S S E LL & COM P A X Y, Limite l> 
 
 l.OXDON, PARIS, XEW YORK', $; MELBOURNE. 
 
 [KNTL'UKD AT STATIONERS HALL.
 
 .
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 A leading article on the subject of Leasehold Enfran- 
 chisement appeared in The Times of the 15th inst, founded 
 on a "Statement on the questions referred to the Select 
 Committee on Town Holdings." That " Statement " has, 
 however, never been issued to the public (as assumed by 
 The Titties), but was prepared as a digest of the arguments 
 and evidence relied on by those who opposed the schemes 
 foreshadowed in the questions referred to the Committee. 
 The Times leader has, however, aroused so much interest in 
 the matter, that I have thought it might be acceptable were 
 I to put together, in a more concise and handy form, the main 
 facts and arguments in relation to Leasehold Enfranchise- 
 ment contained in the Statement above mentioned, together 
 with some few other considerations which have occurred to 
 me during the considerable period in which I have been 
 studying and working on this important subject. Since the 
 following pages have been in type, Parliament has met, 
 and Col. Nolan has given notice of a motion to reap- 
 point the Select Committee on Town Holdings. Notices 
 have also been given by Mr. Lawson and Col. Hughes of 
 Bills to enable leaseholders to acquire the freehold of their 
 property by paying compensation or (at the option of the 
 freeholder) a perpetual rent. This is a modification of the 
 former Leasehold Enfranchisement scheme, but does not 
 materially affect the arguments adduced in this pamphlet.. 
 
 A. U. 
 
 8, Old Square, Line Jilt's Inn, 
 January, 1SS7.
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 For some time past, an agitation has been in progress Question 
 with regard to town holdings, and has so far succeeded, referred to 
 
 Committee 
 on Town 
 
 that in the month of March, 1886, a Select Committee 
 of the House of Commons was appointed, under the Holdings 
 presidency of Mr. Goschen, to inquire into the subject. 
 The Committee was directed to make three inquiries, 
 viz, (1) An inquiry into the terms of occupation and the 
 compensation for improvements possessed by the occu- 
 piers of town houses and holdings in Great Britain and 
 Ireland; (2) An inquiry into the question of imposing a 
 direct assessment on the owners of increased values 
 imparted to land by building operations or other im- 
 provements ; and (3) An inquiry into the expediency of 
 giving to leaseholders facilities for the purchase of the 
 fee-simple of their property. 
 
 To a mere lawyer, who takes only a languid interest 
 in politics, the lightheartedness with which these three 
 great questions were pitched at the head of the Com- 
 mittee is somewhat amusing. For great questions they 
 undoubtedly are, affecting large classes of Her Majesty's 
 subjects, and threatening alterations in the law which, if 
 carried out, would affect property to the extent of many 
 hundreds of millions of pounds sterling. 
 
 But although the haste of those who have procured the 
 appointment of a Select Committee on Town Holdings 
 
 " Expecting all things in an hour " 
 
 is amusing, it is very desirable that no rash legislation
 
 8 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 should be attempted, and that whatever view may ulti- 
 mately be adopted by Parliament, the question of town 
 holdings should be thoroughly thrashed out. 
 
 Holding that view, I consider that however irksome 
 may be the duty, a duty is nevertheless cast on those 
 whose avocations necessarily give them a practical ac- 
 quaintance with the subject to do their best to make 
 the matter clear to those who will have to vote upon it. 
 I confess that I have undertaken that duty with some 
 reluctance, because I well know that the would-be re- 
 formers will hold me up to public reprobation as a narrow, 
 technical, and not altogether unselfish lawyer, for that is 
 the stock argument of all persons who desire to minimise 
 the effect of legal criticism. 
 
 It is not for me to decry their intelligence in adopting 
 such a method of controversy, but I do say that the 
 reasons which they allege against professional criticism, 
 viz., that it is prejudiced by the fear that legal profits will 
 be decreased, is founded on an entire misconception. 
 
 If any sweeping change in our land laws were made, 
 it is certain that it would create for the present generation 
 of real property lawyers a large increase of business, and we 
 are not so unpractical a class as to concern ourselves over- 
 much with the prospects of our professional successors. 
 
 A radical change in an extensive field of law cannot 
 be brought about without affecting the rights of many 
 persons ; and in the clash of conflicting interests lawyers 
 are not likely to find lack of work. Every new statute 
 requires judicial interpretation, for Parliamentary wisdom 
 does not usually manifest itself in perspicuous diction, and 
 so far as I know the Legislature has never yet succeeded 
 in giving birth to an Act which is free from ambiguity. 
 
 I venture, therefore, in spite of the objection to legal 
 comment, which I foresee, to handle the third and last
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. Q 
 
 of the questions which were referred for inquiry and 
 report to the Select Committee on Town Holdings. 
 The resolution of the House, with much naivete, refers 
 to the Committee " the question of the expediency of 
 giving to leaseholders facilities for the purchase of the 
 fee-simple of their property ; " but in reality the question 
 referred is the expediency of giving to leaseholders 
 compulsory powers of purchasing, at the market price of 
 the day, and without compensation for severance or forced 
 sale, the fee-simple of the property of their landlords. 
 It is this question which is popularly known as u Lease- 
 hold Enfranchisement." 
 
 The sudden dissolution of Parliament in June last Committee 
 prevented the Select Committee from concluding their f.nish their 
 inquiries, and making their final report ; but they reported j^ ours , 
 the evidence already taken before them to the House, and dissolution, 
 recommended the appointment of another Committee, 
 with the same objects, in the new Parliament. 
 
 Although the evidence taken by the Committee forms 
 a bulky volume, it mainly relates to the question of town 
 holdings in Ireland, a phase of the question with which 
 I do not propose to deal ; and the English case was 
 only just opened by the evidence of Mr. Ryde, formerly 
 President of the Surveyors' Institute, in favour of the 
 existing law, and by that of Mr. Charles Harrison, solici- 
 tor, in favour of the changes advocated by the reformers. 
 The evidence of these two gentlemen fairly represents 
 the respective views of the opponents and advocates of 
 the proposed reform ; but it is well known that, if the 
 Committee had not come to a premature end, a large 
 number of witnesses would have been called, including, 
 oil behalf of the opponents, representatives of great 
 estate-agents, surveyors in London, Birmingham, Liver- 
 pool. Manchester, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Preston. South-
 
 LEASEHOLD EN FRANCH ISEM EN' 
 
 Unprece- 
 dented cha- 
 racter of 
 Mr. Broad- 
 hurst's Hill. 
 
 port, and Swansea, and several of the managers of Indus- 
 trial Dwellings Associations whose property has been 
 built on the leasehold system. 
 
 The question of giving to leaseholders facilities for 
 the purchase of the fee-simple of their properties was 
 first reduced into the form of a Bill in the year 1883, and 
 in the following year no less than three Bills were intro- 
 duced into the House of Commons in relation to the 
 subject. 
 
 Of these, what may be called the official Bill of the 
 reformers was introduced by Mr. Broadhurst, M. P. ; 
 and as this Bill has been publicly advocated in a small 
 work by Mr. Broadhurst, M.P., and Mr. R. T. Reid, 
 M.P., Q.C., it may be assumed that these gentlemen 
 have there stated all the arguments which can have any 
 weight in favour of their bantling. 
 
 Now, in effect, Mr. Broadhurst's Bill provides that 
 any holder of a lease of any building, the grounds con- 
 nected with which do not exceed three acres, and having 
 an unexpired term of more than twenty years, and in 
 certain cases any holder of a lease for lives, may com- 
 pulsorily purchase the freehold reversion (that is, in plain 
 English, the beneficial interest of his landlord) at a price 
 to be fixed by the County Court judge of the district, 
 sitting either with or without a jury ; such price to be 
 assessed on the basis of what it would fetch in the open 
 market without any compensation being ?nade to the land- 
 lord for forced sale. The Bill also prohibits landlords 
 and tenants contracting themselves out of its pro- 
 visions. 
 
 Such legislation is, to say the least, of a very unusual 
 nature. As a matter of fact, it is wholly unprecedented 
 in this division of the United Kingdom, for although, 
 under the Artisans' Dwellings Acts, landlords may be
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. TI 
 
 compulsorily expropriated without compensation for 
 forced sale, those Acts only apply to properties where 
 sanitary regulations have been utterly neglected, and 
 only then when it is for the public advantage that the 
 land should be acquired by the local authority. The 
 Leasehold Enfranchisers, on the other hand, propose to 
 expropriate landlords who may have in every respect 
 done their duty by the public, their property, and their 
 tenants, and to expropriate them, not for the benefit of 
 the community, but for the sole behoof of tenants who 
 got possession of the property under a distinct and 
 solemn covenant that on the expiration of the term 
 granted by their lease they would quietly deliver it up 
 to their landlord. 
 
 A more open violation of the principle of the sanctity 
 of contracts, of the honest performance of obligations 
 solemnly undertaken, has, I think, seldom been advocated 
 by serious politicians, in England at least. That the 
 performance of obligations may be dispensed with by 
 Parliament it would be absurd to deny. Sahts Refiublicce 
 sipre/na lex, and one can imagine cases of exceptional 
 hardship where the legislature might reasonably step in 
 ex post facto to modify the terms of a bargain. But here 
 it is proposed to give to a whole class the right to com- 
 pulsorily purchase the property of their neighbours, at 
 their own time and at their own convenience, at that 
 state of the house market which suits them best, and at 
 the market price of the day. 
 
 I have heard it said that if we have Copyhold Copyhold 
 Enfranchisement why not also have Leasehold En- chisemem 
 franchisement ? There is, however, no analogy. For the ls nopre- 
 
 ' _ ^ J cedent. 
 
 interest of the lord of the manor in the copyhold lands 
 is, practically, only pecuniary. He has no real reversion 
 in the land itself.
 
 12 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 Moreover, the interests which would be affected are 
 vast in the extreme. It has been computed that in 1 7 
 towns in Lancashire (exclusive of Liverpool and Man- 
 chester) the value of property subject to building leases 
 amounts to over 50 millions sterling. If we consider 
 that nearly all London and a great part of Liverpool and 
 Birmingham are built under the leasehold system, it will 
 be seen that the Bill would affect property worth at least 
 many hundreds of millions sterling. 
 
 A right so extraordinary, so unsupported by precedent, 
 and affecting vested interests of such immense importance, 
 ought surely not to be conferred, save for the strongest 
 reasons. Do such reasons exist ? I contend not, and I 
 propose, in the first place, to examine the arguments put 
 forward in favour of the Bill by its promoters, and then, 
 having shown the entire fallacy of some of them, and the 
 inconclusive nature of others, I shall adduce some very 
 cogent reasons why the Bill would inflict the gravest 
 injustice on landlords, and would, so far from being bene- 
 ficial to the public, prove injurious to its best interests. 
 
 I. — The Reasons in Favour or the Bill 
 Examined, 
 
 The following is, I think, a fair summary of the 
 arguments advanced by Messrs. Broadhurst and Reid. 
 According to them all leaseholds, with the exception of 
 very short terms (which, however, they do not define), 
 are extremely prejudicial from a public point of view. 
 They contend that it ought to be the direct pecuniary 
 interest of some one, that every house in England should 
 be kept in proper condition : that, if any house becomes 
 too old to be habitable, there ought, in every case, to be
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 13 
 
 some person whose pecuniary interest would be served 
 by having it re-erected so as to be habitable ; and they 
 say that when the ownership of a house is divided, so 
 that the fee-simple proprietor has only a reversionary 
 interest, and the leasehold proprietor has only a tem- 
 porary interest, there is no sufficient inducement to 
 either party to keep the house in that state in which 
 it ought to be kept. 
 
 It is further contended that the system of building 
 leases is radically inequitable, inasmuch as the lessor 
 or those claiming under him, on the termination of the 
 lease, step into a property the capital value of which 
 has been increased, not by any expenditure or any care 
 on their part, but exclusively by reason of the expendi- 
 ture and thrift of the lessee. It is also alleged that it 
 enables landlords to force upon tenants unconscientious 
 and exorbitant terms, more particularly where an old- 
 established business has been carried on upon leasehold 
 premises, which business, although in no way built up 
 by the landlord, has imparted a fictitious value to the 
 premises which give him the opportunity of wringing 
 from the tenant a largely-increased rent, or, in the 
 alternative, of refusing to renew his lease. A still 
 more serious allegation of the reformers is, that the 
 system of building leases is one of the main causes ot 
 the many evils connected with overcrowding, insanitary 
 buildings, and excessive rents in relation to artisans' 
 dwellings. In short, the alleged evil effects of the 
 system are summarised by Messrs. Broadhurst and Reid 
 as follows : — 
 
 (1) It causes houses to be cheaply and ill built, 
 because they ultimately become the property of a person 
 who does not build them. 
 
 (2) For the same reason, it prevents old houses
 
 14 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 being pulled down and new houses being put in their 
 place. 
 
 (3) That, accordingly, it condemns many persons to 
 live in houses which are not fit for their habitation. 
 
 (4) It makes occupiers grudge repairs, for the same 
 reason that they grudge to rebuild. 
 
 (5) It conveys to one man the fruits of the outlay of 
 another. 
 
 (6) It lays whole towns and villages at the mercy of 
 one or two men, who can wholly prevent, or impose any 
 terms they please on, the building of new houses. 
 
 (7) It perpetuates, for a long period, any restrictions, 
 however unreasonable, which may have been imposed 
 years ago on the use and enjoyment of a house. 
 
 (8) It deprives men of that incentive to industry 
 and thrift which is afforded by a prospect of acquiring a 
 house really their own. 
 
 (9) It confers upon the landlord a degree of authority 
 and a right of interference in regard to the homes of the 
 people which is unendurable in a free country. 
 
 Objections It will be seen that all these charges relate to bricks 
 
 fill relate to , . , , . , . 
 
 l.uiidini,' and mortar — that, in short, the reformers do not object 
 leases. tQ p^seholds per se, but to the leasehold building system, 
 
 i.e., the system under which land is hired for a long term 
 at a low rent, on the condition that when the term has 
 expired the landlord shall be entitled to receive back the 
 land covered with houses of a specific quality. 
 Various In order that the reader may be able to appreciate 
 
 the arguments for and against this system, it is desirable 
 that a short account should be given of it, and also of 
 the other systems under which building land is developed 
 in this country, viz., the freehold purchase system, and 
 the freehold chief rent system. 
 
 >v.-tem 
 
 Idinc* 
 ,1 is 
 
 eloped.
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANXHISEMENT. I 5 
 
 The leasehold system of building may be subdivided The lease- 
 
 , n j r t i ■ j 1 holdbuild- 
 
 into leaseholds for a term of years certain, and lease- j ng sys tem 
 holds for a term of lives (usually three). The latter is described. 
 now rapidly dying out, but the former prevails almost 
 universally in London, and to a very large extent in 
 Liverpool, Birmingham, Brighton, Eastbourne, and many 
 other important towns. Let us then examine the nature 
 of the leasehold system for a term of years. 
 
 The reader must not, however, imagine that land is, A building 
 
 ...... agreement 
 
 except in the rarest instances, let on building lease to a always pre- 
 private individual for the purpose of building his own j^^ the 
 residence. That is not done in one out of 500 cases, which are 
 
 ...... . . only grant- 
 
 What happens in the odd 499 is that an entire estate is e d after the 
 developed en bloc by a professional building speculator, completed, 
 not under one building lease but under a building agree- 
 ment. By this agreement it is provided that the builder 
 may enter on the landlord's land, and, under the super- 
 vision of the landlord's surveyor, erect a specified number 
 of houses of a specified character. In order to recoup the 
 builder his outlay with profit, the landlord agrees that he 
 will, as the houses are completed, grant leases of them to 
 the builder or his nominees, for a term varying in different 
 localities from 99 to 72 years (or in exceptional cases, 
 where land is very valuable, for shorter terms), at a 
 ground rent for the entire estate. This ground rent is 
 usually about one-sixth of the rack rent of the houses 
 when built, and the agreement provides that it shall be 
 distributed among the different houses as may be after- 
 wards agreed. The form which each lease is to take is 
 usually appended by way of schedule to the agreement, 
 and contains various restrictive covenants, i.e., covenants 
 restricting the user of each house, so as to prohibit a 
 residential estate being spoiled by the incursion of a 
 manufactory or trade which might cause a nuisance to the
 
 1 6 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 residents and the like, and also covenants by the lessee 
 to pay rent, rates, and taxes. Usually, during the build- 
 ing operations, the rent is nominal, so as to safeguard the 
 builder from paying rent until he himself begins to re- 
 ceive some profit from the estate. Sometimes the land- 
 lord agrees to construct roads and sewers, and in that 
 case the ground rent is usually larger than when the 
 builder agrees to make them. 
 Net result The net result of a building agreement under the 
 
 of a build- , , , . ... . . _. .... . . 
 
 ing agree- leasehold system is, m lact, this. 1 he landlord, on his 
 
 merit under , )arr aL n-ces to forego the natural increment of value on 
 
 leasehold . 
 
 system. his land for the whole term of the lease, in consideration 
 
 of receiving a low rent well secured, and of getting back 
 
 his land at the expiration of the term greatly increased 
 
 in value. The builder, on the other hand, agrees to cover 
 
 the landlord's land with houses, in consideration of having 
 
 the exclusive use of the houses so built and of the land 
 
 supporting them for the term of the lease at a low rent. 
 
 The The freehold purchase system of developing a building 
 
 purchase estate is not so simple as its name might lead the inex- 
 
 buildmg perienced to conclude. It is rarely that the builder 
 
 system L . J 
 
 describee!, simply purchases the land out and out, and thus becomes 
 
 the unfettered proprietor. Very generally a freeholder 
 
 who wishes to sell his property for building purposes finds 
 
 ltler it necessary in the first place to construct roads and 
 
 u.-auallv . . 
 
 linkc" sewers in order to induce builders to look at it. Few 
 
 roa< 
 
 builders find it convenient to purchase freehold building 
 estates en bloc. That would lock up capital at a low 
 rate of interest which they want to turn over at a high 
 rate in bricks and mortar. 
 
 Freehold building estates are therefore usually sold 
 in plots, and intricate arrangements are thus rendered 
 ally eu Hoc, necessar y \ n relation to roads and sewers. Moreover, 
 
 but in plots. J 
 
 for the same reason (or if the landowner retains adjoin- 
 
 Freehold 
 building 
 not erener-
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 17 
 
 ing land), restrictive covenants are necessary in order 
 that the buyer of one plot may not irretrievably injure 
 the entire estate by the erection of mean dwellings or 
 manufactories, or shops of a low character. 
 
 Very generally, too, the builder, unwilling to lock up 
 more capital than is absolutely necessary, stipulates that 
 the greater part of the purchase-money shall remain on 
 mortgage of the land ; and if, after this, he requires (as 
 he very generally does require) to borrow further sums 
 for actual building, he has to borrow it on second mort- 
 gage, which, being a risky security, necessitates the 
 payment of a large rate of interest. 
 
 In practice, therefore, under the freehold purchase 
 system the builder is not the free and unfettered owner 
 of the land, but is subject to the restrictive covenants 
 entered into with the landowner, and to one or two 
 mortgagees. 
 
 But, it may be said, what about landowners who 
 build on their own land ? The answer is that, as a 
 matter of fact, landowners scarcely ever develop their 
 land as a building estate. Of course, I do not mean to 
 say that a landowner does not frequently build himself a 
 dwelling-house for his private habitation ; but landowners 
 rarely have the knowledge, the capital, or the desire to 
 enter into a building speculation. 
 
 Building is, in truth, a trade of itself, requiring a 
 technical education of a somewhat elaborate character, 
 and any amateur who rushes into it is more than likely 
 to prove the truth of the proverb that " fools build 
 houses for wise men to live in." 
 
 The freehold chief rent system of building is the 
 same as the freehold purchase system, with the exception 
 that, instead of receiving a lump sum for the purchase of 
 the land, the landowner reserves a perpetual chief rent, 
 
 Freehold 
 builder has 
 usually to 
 mortgage. 
 
 Freehold 
 builder not 
 free and un- 
 fettered as 
 supposed. 
 
 Land- 
 owners 
 rarely 
 engage in 
 building 
 specula- 
 tions. 
 
 The free- 
 hold chief 
 rent system 
 of building 
 described,
 
 I 8 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 or rent charge. Very frequently, however, the purchaser 
 at a chief rent forms the roads and sewers, and then sells 
 to another builder at an improved chief rent. Thus two 
 or more chief rents become secured on the same property, 
 and each chief rent being dealt with as a substantive 
 property, the title becomes greatly complicated. 
 Objection 1 ne great objection to perpetual chief rents is that, 
 
 '" thiS on property becoming depreciated, the rent imperceptibly 
 
 gets to bear a comparatively high proportion to the rack 
 rent, and the owners of the land then inevitably grumble 
 at the burden, and cry out for ex parte legislation releas- 
 ing them from their bargains. 
 Examinn- \x\& now, having given a sketch of the various build- 
 
 tl ' in ot ing systems, I propose to examine seriatim the arguments 
 
 Broadh'urst of Messrs. Broadhurst and Reid against the leasehold 
 arguments, building system, as compared with the two freehold 
 
 systems. 
 Leasehold One of the chief reasons against the leasehold build- 
 
 not^as °' S ing system put forward by those who support the Lease- 
 alieged, en- ] 10 i c i Enfranchisement Bill is, that it causes houses to be 
 
 coura.° r e 
 
 jeny build- cheaply and ill built, because they ultimately become the 
 
 ing ' property of a person who does not build them. Now 
 
 this argument sounds at first hearing very specious ; but 
 
 the fact that it is seriously pressed and relied on by 
 
 Messrs. Broadhurst and Reid shows a want of practical 
 
 acquaintance with the practice of the building trade not 
 
 altogether excusable. Its entire force, in fact, rests on 
 
 the assumption that builders develop estates in order to 
 
 Builders, keep them ; whereas, as a matter of fact, a builder under- 
 
 freehoid or takes the development of an estate, not to keep it as an 
 
 leasehold, income-bearing investment, but in order to sell it as 
 
 build for . ° 
 
 sale and quickly as possible as a commodity, so as to get back his 
 
 vestment 1 ' capital, with a reasonable rate of profit. He is, in fact, a 
 
 house-manufacturer; and it is as immaterial to him that in
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 19 
 
 ninety-nine years the house must return to the lessor's 
 successors as it is to a timber-merchant that, in a limited 
 period, the timber which he sells will in course of time 
 become rotten and worm-eaten. 
 
 He builds in order that he may sell ; and in order 
 that he may find a purchaser he must supply a good 
 article. The purchaser, on the other hand, buys a lease- 
 hold house without so much expenditure of capital as he 
 would do were he buying a freehold, inasmuch as in the 
 latter case he would have to add to the value of the house 
 a further sum equal to about thirty years' purchase of the 
 site. What he purchases is really the use for ninety-nine 
 years, at a trivial ground-rent, of a good house. By not 
 being obliged to lock up capital in the site at 3 per 
 cent, he makes 6 or 7 per cent, out of the occupation- 
 rent of a leasehold house, where he would make less 
 than 5 out of a freehold one of precisely the same 
 character. 
 
 That this is so is evident from the evidence of Mr. 
 Ryde, given before the Committee of 1SS6.* 
 
 But in addition to the foregoing considerations, 
 Messrs. Broadhurst and Reid ignore the fact that the 
 builder, under the leasehold system, is not allowed to 
 run up "jerry" structures at his own sweet will. Apart 
 from the provisions of the Metropolitan Building Acts, 
 and local statutes of a similar character in force in all the 
 great towns of England, the builder is subject to two 
 checks. In the first place, his building agreement binds 
 him to build a house under the superintendence and to 
 the satisfaction of the landlord's surveyor. The free- 
 holder, therefore, has quite as much to say to the efficient 
 building of the house as the builder has ; and it must be 
 remembered that the lease is not granted until the house 
 
 Purchasers 
 insist on as 
 good a 
 house 
 
 underlease- 
 hold system 
 as under a 
 freehold. 
 
 The 
 lessor's 
 surveyor 
 superin- 
 tends the 
 building, 
 and insists 
 on good 
 work before 
 granting 
 the lease 
 
 See question 7875, el set/. 
 
 P, 1
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 Examples 
 of first-class 
 leasehold 
 buildings. 
 
 The lease- 
 hold system 
 does not, 
 as alleged, 
 encourage 
 dilapida- 
 tions. 
 
 is built. The builder, therefore, does not build for him- 
 self alone, but for himself and the landlord, under a 
 quasi-partnership as to the enjoyment of the profits. The 
 landlord insists upon a good house being built, because 
 on its goodness depends the security of his ground rent. 
 
 As Mr. Ryde puts it in his evidence (8106) — "The 
 control which the freeholder has over the lessee is some- 
 thing in addition to the parochial authority or the public 
 authority, and whatever that control amounts to, it is 
 something that the freeholder, building himself, is not 
 subject to." 
 
 There is this further important consideration to be 
 borne in mind. If the lease is the usual long lease, the 
 interest of the lessee far outlasts his own life and probably 
 that of his children, and as men are constructed, they do 
 not carry caution to such a height as to starve expendi- 
 ture on a property which will cease to be theirs in 80 or 
 90 years. If, on the other hand, the term be a short 
 term (as sometimes happens in the re-erection of City 
 offices, where the value of the site bears a large propor- 
 tion to the value of the bricks and mortar), then the 
 landlord may be trusted to see that the builder does his 
 work efficiently. 
 
 Moreover, as a matter of fact, the best buildings in 
 London, Birmingham, Liverpool, and other large towns 
 are built on the leasehold system. For example, 
 Grosvenor, Berkeley, Eaton, and Belgrave Squares, 
 Regent Street, Oxford Street, Piccadilly, and Cromwell 
 Road, are built almost entirely on the leasehold system. 
 
 The second, third, and fourth arguments of the 
 reformers arc, in effect, brancb.es of one allegation, viz., 
 that because the houses built on the leasehold system 
 ultimately become the property of the landlord, that fact 
 prevents old houses being pulled down and rebuilt, or
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 even repaired, and thus condemns persons to live in 
 houses unfit for habitation. 
 
 Now, with regard to this, it is clear, I think, that 
 Messrs. Broadhurst and Reid confine themselves to what 
 is called artisan property. It is not to be supposed that 
 they refer to the houses of the middle and upper classes, 
 for the simple reason that a lessee of house property in 
 good neighbourhoods would never get a tenant either for 
 a worn-out house or a house in a state of disrepair. 
 Such tenants do not care two straws whether their 
 landlord is a freeholder or a leaseholder. They will 
 offer the same rent to and demand the same accommo- 
 dation from one as from the other ; and if a lessee does 
 not afford what they demand, his house will remain 
 void. 
 
 But with regard to artisan property, the case is, 
 unfortunately, somewhat different. In the first place, an 
 artisan must live within convenient distance of his daily 
 work. His choice is limited by that consideration alone 
 very materially, and that gives owners of artisan dwellings 
 a decided pull over their tenants. The demand, in short, 
 exceeds the supply. In the next place, artisan property 
 is not a desirable investment. The better class of in- 
 vestors in house property will not touch it. The col- 
 lection of the weekly rents, the continual necessity of 
 evicting tenants who will not or cannot pay, the difficulty 
 in preventing injury to the property, all these things make 
 the management of such property unpleasant, and, con- 
 sequently, it has fallen into the hands of men who 
 look to make a high rate of profit, and who manage 
 the property personally. Where the house is built on 
 the freehold system such men are the freeholders. 
 Where it is built on the leasehold system they are often 
 called middlemen. 
 
 The 
 
 allegation 
 can only 
 refer to 
 artisan 
 property. 
 
 Case of 
 artisan pro- 
 perty is bad 
 both under 
 freehold 
 and lease- 
 hold 
 systems.
 
 22 LEASEHOLD EXFR.ANXHISEMENT. 
 
 A freehold Now the question to be considered is whether a free- 
 
 owner Of , . . . Til 1 
 
 artisan pro- hold owner of artisan property is more likely to keep it 
 perty not so j n „ 00i \ repair and condition than the middleman, or 
 
 likely to & ' ' 
 
 repair as a owner of a similar class of leasehold dwellings. For it 
 will be the middleman and not the artisan occupier who 
 Artisans will become the freeholder. That this is so is quite 
 te\he ley plain from the fact that the right to enfranchise is only to 
 owners of oc incident to a lessee of a term exceeding 20 years, and I 
 
 their own . 
 
 houses. have yet to learn that it is the custom of artisans to take 
 a long or, indeed, any lease of their dwellings. Their 
 tenure, in fact, is almost exclusively weekly. 
 
 The question, therefore, as I said before, is whether 
 a leasehold middleman, were he converted into a freehold 
 owner, would be more likely to keep his property de- 
 cently than he is now accustomed to do. What does 
 theory say to this, and what does experience teach us? 
 
 Neither In theory, both freehold owner and middleman are 
 
 not likely to spend more money on their properties than 
 is absolutely necessary to obtain the usual class of 
 
 artisan pro- ... . . , 
 
 perty will tenants. It they spent! less than that amount, in either 
 
 freeholder 
 nor lease- 
 holder of 
 
 case they will be losers: but the leaseholder will be the 
 
 spend mo 
 than he is 
 
 absolutely greater loser, because he will still have to pay his ground 
 
 obliged in & , ., 1 • ■ 1 , , • ■ ■ 
 
 order to get rent, while his property is untenanted, and his interest in 
 tenants. it daily diminishing. 
 
 Lease- Moreover, in the case of the middleman, the agent 
 
 haveTthe of the ground landlord (freeholder) is always holding the 
 
 lessor's whip over him, and will not permit him to break his 
 
 survevor to .... .... 
 
 keep them covenants and allow the property to get into disrepair. 
 
 duty the ' r The P rom oters of Leasehold Enfranchisement dwell 
 
 on the inducements to a freehold owner to keep his pro- 
 perty in repair, and draw a pretty idyllic picture of 
 the oppressed but apparently fraudulent lessee who 
 will not do his duty because it does not pay him 
 to do so ; but they ignore the fact that in the case
 
 LEASEHOLD EXFRAXCHI3EMEXT. 23 
 
 of leasehold properties there is a freehold owner in the 
 background, whose interest it is to insist on the lease- 
 holder keeping the property in repair ; and that as he can 
 insist on this being done at the expense of the lessee, a free- 
 holder in reversion is much more likely to see that the pro- 
 perty is kept in repair than a freeholder in possession who 
 would have to pay for the repairs out of his own pocket. 
 
 Xo doubt in a few old leases the covenants were so 
 badly drafted that dilapidations cannot be prevented ; 
 but now that the system is so thoroughly perfected and 
 understood leases are so carefully drawn as to render it 
 almost impossible for lessees to avoid their duties. 
 
 So much for theory. What does experience teach us Experience 
 on this point ? Particulars of houses taken from official confirms 
 returns of the Metropolitan Board of Works show that thls " 
 of 2,581 houses condemned as "insanitary," 1,126 were 
 freehold and 1,355 leasehold. 
 
 Now leaseholds in London are seven times as Examples 
 
 , , , , - , , , of freehold 
 
 numerous as ireeholds, and yet we find that tiiere were an d lease- 
 nearly as many dilapidated freeholds as leaseholds. If hold build " 
 
 J J ' ingsinsame 
 
 the reformers were right in their contention, there ought neighbour- 
 ed 1 o , . 
 
 to have been more than 7.SS2 insanitary leaseholds to 
 balance the 1,126 freeholds, a fact which speaks volumes. 
 Another example is the now demolished district 
 called Bedfordbury in St. Martin's Parish, and the 
 neighbouring Bedford Street. Both were created out 
 of pasture land between 1620 and 1630. Bedford- 
 bury was built on the freehold system, and Bedford 
 Street on the leasehold. Freehold Bedfordbury began 
 with shanties and alleys, and continued to deteriorate 
 until it became a public nuisance, and was swept away 
 eight or ten years ago at an immense cost to the rate- 
 payers under the provisions of the Artisans' Dwellings 
 Act. Leasehold Bedford Street, on the other hand, was
 
 24 
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 well planned, and has from time to time been rebuilt as 
 the leases fell in, and is still one of the best built streets 
 in London. 
 
 The district south of Oxford Street, between crown 
 Street and Poland Street, embracing the north side of 
 Broad Street, Edward Street, the east side of Wardour 
 Street, Compton Street, and the north side of King 
 Street, is all freehold, and a more shabby, worn-out, and 
 dilapidated district it would be difficult to find. 
 
 Compare this with the Portland Marylebone lease- 
 hold estate on the north side of Oxford Street, and the 
 difference is striking in the extreme. The fact is, that 
 not only are leaseholds well kept up during the lease, 
 but on the leases falling in the houses are almost in- 
 variably pulled down by the landlord, and the sites let 
 on new building leases. So far therefore from the lease- 
 hold system fostering old houses, it almost insures that 
 a district shall be entirely rebuilt en bloc every So or 
 90 years. With the freehold system a district which has 
 once fallen can never be rehabilitated, for no one can 
 deal with it en b/oc, and no individual owner can, with 
 any hope of success, build a really good house in a 
 discredited district. Is it conceivable that any free- 
 holder in Seven Dials would have dared to erect a 
 really good dwelling house before the clearance recently 
 made by the Metropolitan Board? His money would 
 have been simply pitched into the gutter, the neighbour- 
 ing squalor effectually keeping away desirable tenants. 
 But now that the site of this district has been cleared 
 the area has become some of the best property in 
 London. Under the leasehold system that could have 
 been done by the lessor ; under the freehold system 
 it has had to be done by the Metropolitan Board at 
 a huge expense to the ratepayers.
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 25 
 
 Moreover, it is found that in insanitary metropolitan 
 areas small freeholds are the plague spots which have 
 corrupted the adjacent leaseholds. 
 
 It is also to be borne in mind that if a lessee ever 
 is tempted to neglect repairs, that temptation comes to 
 him in the last 10 years or so of the lease; but (i) the 
 Bill only gives him a right to purchase the freehold when 
 there are upwards of 20 years unexpired, and (2) a 
 lessee under a short lease of 14 or 20 years would be 
 just as likely to shirk repairs as the owner of the fag 
 end of a long one. Unless, therefore, all leases zuhich 
 provide for repairs being done by the tenant, however 
 short, are made illegal, no good in this matter can be 
 effected. 
 
 The next argument stated bv Messrs. Broadhurst and The lease- 
 
 t, • j • 1 1 1 , 1 1 ' 1 holdsystem 
 
 Reid is that the leasehold system gives to one man the does not, 
 fruits of another's industry. It is difficult to regard this as alle s ed ' 
 
 J _ & give to one 
 
 argument as intended seriously. Surely, wherever a man the 
 
 . , . , . .... . . fruits of 
 
 capitalist puts out his capital, whether it consists 01 another's 
 
 monev. of machinery, of raw materials, or of land, he mdustr >'' 
 J ' except so 
 
 is sharing the fruit of the industry of the labourers whom far as even' 
 he employs. It may be considered by some that I am does so. 
 applying Jovian or Saturnian arguments to mundane 
 affairs, but political economy is not quite dead among 
 us, and the right of a capitalist (at all events of one who 
 lives on this side of St George's Channel) to share the 
 profits earned by the labour of those whom that capital 
 employs has never yet been seriously questioned by 
 practical politicians. 
 
 Why, then, should a landlord be debarred from en- 
 joying a part of the fruits of the labour of the speculative 
 builder whom he enables to make a good profit by let- 
 ting him have the use of his land for a long term of 
 years ? Where is the unfairness of a bargain to the
 
 20 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 builder under which such industrial princes as Cubitt, 
 Freke, and Seth Smith have made colossal fortunes ? 
 Messrs. Broadhurst and Reid are certainly not so simple 
 as to suppose that London has been built by credulous 
 and deluded tradesmen, who have been sacrificed to the 
 rapacity of the great landlords, but they apparently 
 calculate that their readers will be caught by this clap- 
 trap, arid as some persons may have been, it is as 
 well, perhaps, to take some pains to undeceive them. 
 What In the first place, then, if it is (as assumed by the 
 
 has the ° Leasehold Enfranchises) so unfair that the landlord 
 the Se fee° should have the house at the end of the lease, on what 
 simple of principle of natural equity (if there be any equity in 
 
 the land . ... . . . 
 
 than the nature, which is one of the increasing assumptions ot 
 thefee- flabby-minded philanthropists which is not quite so 
 simple of ^ obvious as it may be thought), on what principle of 
 equity, I say, is the housebuilder to be presented with 
 the land at the end of the lease ? Why should he have 
 a prior right to the ultimate ownership of house and 
 land rather than the owner of the land, to whom, 
 moreover, he has solemnly, and as a condition of 
 his being allowed to use it, covenanted to sur- 
 render it ? 
 
 Again, as I have said before, a builder does not build 
 as an investment. He builds as a manufacturer of 
 houses, which he forthwith endeavours to sell. \\ "e may 
 be quite sure that he does not build to sell at a loss, and 
 in fact if he has, like any other shrewd tradesman, 
 calculated correctly, he sells his commodities (i.e., houses) 
 at a fair profit as soon as he can dispose of them. Where 
 then is the unfairness to him ? Whether the land be 
 freehold or leasehold is all one to him. He would make 
 his profit, and no more than his profit, whatever the 
 tenure of the site may be. 
 
 the houses ?
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 But it may be said it is unfair to the purchaser, as it 
 gives what he has purchased to the landlord at the ex- 
 piration of the lease. Such an argument is almost too 
 absurd to need refutation. If I pay ioo guineas for an 
 opera box for the season, is that to give me a right of pre- 
 emption of that box at the market price? If I purchase 
 a life annuity, is it unfair to my children that the capital 
 sum which I expended on the purchase of the annuity is 
 lost to the family when I die ? Is a person who buys a 
 ship, or expensive plant, or any other commodity which 
 wears out, treated unfairly because when that commodity 
 has worn out he will have lost the capital which he em- 
 barked in its purchase ? And if none of these things are 
 unfair, why in the name of common sense is a man 
 unfairly treated when he gives ^1,000 for the use 
 of a leasehold house for ninety years, or sixty years, or 
 thirty years, or whatever the term may be. In all the 
 cases above mentioned he is buying a wasting property, 
 and he is buying it with his eyes open, and he pays a price 
 calculated on the ground of its being a wasting property. 
 
 If this be doubted, the reader has only to walk into 
 the first house agent's office, where he will be sup- 
 plied with printed tables compiled for the very pur- 
 pose of estimating the selling value of leasehold 
 interests. If the lease is short it is generally a very 
 profitable investment, yielding a very high rate of interest. 
 If it be for 70 years, a sinking fund of less than a penny 
 in the pound of capital, accumulated at 3 per cent, com- 
 pound interest, will repay the capital. 
 
 Indeed, there is actually a society in existence called 
 the '•' Leaseholders' Fund Corporation, Limited," the ob- 
 ject of which is to secure to lessees the return of their 
 capital by the yearly payment of a trifling premium. 
 One of the examples given by this corporation in their 
 
 No more 
 unfairness 
 to the pur- 
 chaser of 
 leaseholds 
 than to the 
 purchaser 
 of a life 
 annuitv. 
 
 Tables in 
 existence 
 for estimat- 
 ing the 
 value of 
 leasehold;.
 
 rents. 
 
 2 8 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 prospectuses is also an excellent example of the folly of 
 the "injustice" argument of the reformers. The example 
 to which I refer is as follows : — 
 
 " A leasehold house worth a net annual rent of £~o, 
 " held for a term of ninety-nine years at a ground rent of 
 " J^ 10 P er annum, is purchased upon the 6 per cent, table 
 " for ^1,000. 
 
 Annual rent (after deducting the cost of 
 
 repairs) ^70 o o 
 
 Deduct ground rent ... ... V^io o o 
 
 Policy (,£1,000) premium at 
 
 3/8 per cent, per annum ... ^1 16 o 
 
 (Or in one sum ^57 143. 2d.) 11 16 o 
 
 Net income ... ... ... 5^> 3 4 
 
 " The net income is equal to ^5 16s. 4d. per cent, upon 
 " the purchase-money, and the investor will get the 
 " whole of his money back at the end of the lease." 
 Ground Moreover, it is well known to those who deal with 
 
 lease- land, that the ground rent charged for land let on build- 
 
 holds less mS r lease is always less than the "round rent charged for 
 
 than free- & . . 
 
 hold chief land let on the freehold chief rent system ; simply because, 
 in the former case, the interest of the tenant is terminable, 
 and in the latter case it is not. The landlord, therefore, 
 is willing to take into consideration the fact of his ulti- 
 mate reversion in computing his present share of the 
 income. 
 
 It may also be suggested that if the leasehold build- 
 to lessee, ing system is unfair to the lessee, on the same grounds 
 
 If buildin; 
 lease unfair 
 
 mining 
 lease unfair 
 
 the mining lease system must be unfair to the lessor, 
 to lessor. j n short, the leasehold system is in effect the union 
 
 of capital by the lessor and the lessee — the one con- 
 tributing the kind, the other the bricks, mortar, and 
 labour.
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 2 9 
 
 The partnership lasts until the end of the lease, one 
 partner taking a small but fixed sum annually as his 
 share of the profits, but with an increasing interest in 
 the capital, and the other partner taking the residue of 
 the profits with a diminishing interest in the capital. 
 
 It is sometimes alleged that there is a tendency to 
 grant building leases of shorter terms than formerly. 
 This is, however, one of those numerous allegations 
 which spring from an elementary knowledge of the sub- 
 ject. Virgin building land is still let almost invariably 
 for 99 years : but land which is situated well within the 
 urban boundary, being far more valuable, one of two 
 things must happen, viz., either the lease must be shorter, 
 or the ground rent must be higher. But if the ground 
 rent be higher, the proportion between it and the rack 
 rent becomes small, and the consequent security for the 
 ground rent less valuable. Hence it happens that in 
 the reconstruction of old districts the leases are shorter 
 than 99 years. In fact, in Birmingham, lately, I believe 
 that building leases have been granted by the Corporation 
 of less than 40 years, because the sites are so valuable 
 that the rack rentals for offices and warehouses built on 
 them will soon recoup the outlay on the buildings. 
 
 So much for the fairness of the leasehold building 
 system, which I have dwelt on at some length, because 
 my experience is that it is the chief difficulty with that large 
 class of persons whose chief ability is amiability, and who 
 would probably like to enforce that quality on their 
 neighbours by writ of attachment. 
 
 Let us now proceed to the examination of Messrs. 
 Broadhurst and Reid's sixth, seventh, and ninth argu- 
 ments, which are merely paraphrases of the allegation, that 
 the leasehold building system gives too much power to the 
 landlord, or, as they rhetorically state it, "confers on the 
 
 Effect of 
 
 leasehold 
 
 system is a 
 
 partnership 
 
 between 
 
 landowner 
 
 and builder. 
 
 Alleged 
 shortening 
 of building 
 leases 
 explained. 
 
 The lease- 
 hold system 
 does not, 
 as alleged, 
 give undue 
 authority to 
 landlords.
 
 30 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 landlord a degree of authority and a right of interference 
 in regard to the homes of the people which is unen- 
 durable in a free country .' " 
 
 Now, before we go into this question let us just 
 consider this last phrase a little carefully. Interference 
 in regard to the homes of the people unendurable in a 
 free country sounds serious, but I have ever found that an 
 advocate's verbal temperature bears an inverse ratio to 
 the strength of his case ; and this sentence, calculated to 
 make the blood of the worthy artisan voter " boil in his 
 veins,"' as the saying goes, is an instance of this. For what 
 possible degree of authority has a ground landlord 
 beyond that possessed by any landlord ? As a matter of 
 fact, his authority during the continuance of the lease is 
 infinitely less ; and after the termination of the lease he 
 becomes an ordinary landlord, and no more. Unless 
 Messrs. Broadhurst and Reid are prepared to make 
 every man his own freeholder, it is difficult to under- 
 stand what they complain of. 
 Messrs. Put, curiously enough, Messrs. Broadhurst and Reid 
 
 Broad] ..... i . 1 
 
 and Reid stultify their own argument, and at the same time prove 
 suppiytheir m \ nc p v enumerating, on p. 71, amongst the evils of the 
 
 own reluta- J D x ' ° 
 
 tion. leasehold system, the want of control by landowners who 
 
 have granted long leases ! What are we to think of an 
 agitation which can only be supported by the use of 
 arguments mutually destructive ! 
 
 The degree of authority of a landlord and his right 
 of interference are undoubtedly in the exact ratio of the 
 flimsiness of the tenant's interest. Xo landlord has such 
 a degree of authority and interference as the landlord of 
 property let on weekly tenancies, for if his tenant dis- 
 pleases him in any way whatsoever, he can turn him out 
 hv a week's notice. But the landlord of a yearly 
 tenant cannot uet rid of his tenant without consider-
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 3 1 
 
 able difficulty ; and the landlord of a long leaseholder 
 cannot get rid of him at all so long as he pays his rent 
 and observes his covenants ; and even if he does not 
 observe the latter, he cannot always be ejected now, 
 and in no case can he be ejected without expensive 
 litigation. 
 
 The " decree of authority " and " right of inter- The P eo P le 
 
 J ° as a mass 
 
 ference " possessed by a ground landlord is, therefore, must 
 ridiculously small compared to that of a landlord of su bject to 
 yearly, and still more of weekly tenants. Yet the a landlord, 
 
 . . . and are 
 
 abolition of long leases would not do away with yearly never now 
 
 or weekly tenancies. For, if long lessees were converted t he J ground 
 
 into freeholders they would still, as they do now, let their lesc;or hm 
 - , J , to the 
 
 property for short periods "to the people." lessee. 
 
 " The people,"' in fact, cannot afford to be the owners 
 of their habitations. Here and there, no doubt — perhaps 
 in one case in two or three thousand in country districts 
 — a working man owns his own cottage. But such a 
 person is a vara avis in tern's. The great bulk of the 
 people live under weekly or monthly tenancies, and 
 the great bulk of the middle class live under yearly or 
 three-yearly tenancies, and they would do so if long 
 leaseholds had never been thought of. For, as Air. Ryde 
 puts it in his evidence before the Committee on Town 
 Holdings, it is not the interest of most occupiers to be 
 also the owners of their houses. " First of all, if a man 
 '•follows an occupation the locality of which changes 
 ••from time to time, it is a very convenient thing indeed 
 "for him to be able to live near his work. If he was the 
 " owner of his house, he would be to a certain extent tied 
 " to one locality, and that might be very inconvenient. 
 " Then any one of those men might, from various reasons, 
 " have their work changed. They might get promotion, 
 " or get better employment elsewhere. If they had to 
 
 O
 
 32 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 " move from one district to another, and were living in 
 "their own freehold houses, they would have to sell their 
 ■'•'own freehold houses to get rid of them. They could 
 "not afford to have two houses, and it would be, perhaps, 
 " a disastrous thing for a man to have a house which he 
 " could not get rid of at short notice. I do not even 
 "think that it is limited even to artisans. Even among 
 "professional men I have seen instances of it. I have 
 " seen where a man has started, say, in the medical 
 " profession, and has bought his house. He has found, 
 '■after a few years' experience, that he is in a wrong 
 " position, and that if he would go into another part of 
 "the same parish he would be in a better position." 
 
 Oddly enough, I myself have a case now in my 
 chambers of precisely this character, where a medical 
 man is trying to get rid of an agreement to buy his 
 house, because he finds it does not suit him. 
 
 But in addition to interference with men's '•homes, - ' 
 there is a point which I have reason to believe creates a 
 great deal of discontent with the leasehold system, viz., the 
 fact that on the termination of a lease of trade property 
 (such as a shop or a manufactory) which has acquired a 
 fictitious value to the occupier by reason of the goodwill 
 of his trade, the landlord can, and in some cases does, 
 raise the rent — not on the basis of the actual value of 
 the property in the open market, but on the basis of its 
 value to the occupier, having regard to the goodwill of 
 his business, an increment of value in no way due to 
 the landlord, nor one which the tenant was in any way 
 bound to create. Now I am not going to say that such 
 cases are not very hard. They are, I am assured, very 
 rare, but that they do occasionally occur is beyond 
 question. But the point is, whether if a property has a 
 special value to a particular occupier, that gives him the
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. $$ 
 
 right to insist on a perpetual tenancy at a judicial rent, 
 or in the alternative a right of compulsory purchase of the 
 freehold? For that is the only way out of the difficulty. 
 
 It seems to be assumed by the philanthropic school 
 of politicians that want of generosity ought to be made 
 a criminal offence. If one trader wants an article of 
 which another has the monopoly, I have never heard it 
 said that the latter ought to supply it at a fair rate of 
 profit, without regard to the buyer's necessity. In fact, 
 trade is only buying in the cheapest market and selling 
 in the dearest. We have heard of " cornering" ; but 
 it has yet to be suggested that because occasionally 
 people are ruined by "a corner," every one should be 
 entitled to buy everything he wants at a fair price. 
 
 Moreover, as I have shown before, a landlord under 
 a seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years' lease would be 
 just as capable of squeezing an increased rent out of a 
 tenant with a valuable goodwill as the landlord of a 
 long lease : and, therefore, unless you give every occupier, 
 hotvever short his term ?/iay be, t/ie right of compulsory 
 purchase of the freehold, you cannot prevent a tradesman 
 being occasionally victimised. And the shorter the trades- 
 man's tenancy, the more frequent is the landlord's oppor- 
 tunity for taxing his goodwill. The only difference 
 would be that a rapacious landlord would effect a series 
 of small confiscations at frequent intervals, to the con- 
 stant worry of the tenant and landlord alike. 
 
 The system, in short, on which building] land is de- 
 veloped has no effect whatever on the degree of authority 
 and right of interference to which the occupiers may be 
 subjected. Occupiers can only in the rarest instances 
 be also owners ; and unless they are owners, they will 
 always be subject to the authority and right of inter- 
 ference of a landlord, and it does not matter a brass 
 c
 
 34 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 farthing to them whether that landlord is a leaseholder 
 or a freeholder. 
 The lease- "\Ye now come to Messrs. Broadhurst and Reid's 
 
 holdsvstem . . . 
 
 does not, last argument — viz., that the present system deprives 
 as alleged, men f ^^ incentive to industry and thrift which is 
 
 deprive J 
 
 men of an afforded by a prospect of acquiring a house really their 
 
 incentive to 
 industry. own. 
 
 It would have been a novel argument, until within 
 the last ten years, that one class of her Majesty's lieges 
 should be expropriated as an incentive to the practice of 
 thrift in another class : but tempora mutantur, and it is, 
 alas ! necessary nowadays to meet even so flimsy and 
 immoral an argument as this. 
 
 The answer, then, is as follows. — (i) It is not to 
 the interest of the working class to purchase their own 
 houses, as has already been shown ; (2) A working man 
 who wishes to purchase a town holding can do so now, 
 under the leasehold system, at a far lower rate than he 
 could purchase a freehold house, even after pro- 
 viding for a sinking fund. Of course it is not ab- 
 solutely his own, but it will probably outlast his time, 
 and that of his children; (3) It is not to the interest of 
 the community that town holdings should be split up 
 into minute freeholds: (4) A working man who wishes 
 to build himself a house on freehold land can do so now 
 in hundreds of English towns ; but, as a matter of fact, 
 except in the rarest cases, he abstains from doing so. 
 Xo doubt a working man sometimes buys small houses — ■ 
 not, however, with the sentimental object of having a 
 " house really his own," but as a speculative investment, 
 and very generally he makes a very good thing out of 
 it, by extracting the utmost farthing from his tenants. 
 But such a man, who goes in for leaseholds, is merely 
 the buyer of a business, which pays him a far larger
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 35 
 
 interest than a corresponding freehold would do, and 
 which, therefore, is to him a far more desirable invest- 
 ment. 
 
 Before parting with the objections to long leaseholds, The_"Fons 
 I think I ought to mention one which, although not malomm." 
 formally avowed, is, I feel very sure, one of the main 
 springs of the agitation, viz., the assumption that at the 
 termination of the existing leases a few noblemen who 
 own some of the large London estates will receive a 
 great accession of wealth by coming into possession of 
 what is known as the unearned increment. This as- 
 sumption is, however, far from correct ; for the necessary 
 reconstruction referred to at page 24 will swallow up the 
 greater part of the increased value. It is, too, forgotten 
 that these gentlemen have, during the 99 years for which 
 existing leases were granted, been deprived of this same 
 unearned increment, which has been going into the 
 pockets of their lessee-, and that if, instead of granting 
 these long leases at small ground rents, they had kept 
 the property in hand, they would have now been possessed 
 of the fortunes which have instead enriched the Frekes, 
 the Cubitts, and the Seth Smiths. The profits, of which 
 they have deprived themselves, may fairly be set off 
 against the improved value of their estates at the end of 
 the leases. Moreover, I have shown that it is not unfair 
 to the lessee or his assigns. If it be answered that it is 
 unfair to the public, although I entirely dissent from that 
 proposition, I need only say that Leasehold Enfranchise- 
 ment is not the proper remedy, for it will only benefit 
 the person who has purchased from the lessees. 
 
 And now, having disposed of Messrs. Broadhurst and 
 Reid, let us consider a few positive reasons why the 
 present freedom should not be curtailed. 
 
 c 2
 
 36 
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT, 
 
 II. — Reasons against the Bill Stated. 
 
 Leasehold 
 Enfran- 
 chisement 
 would 
 cripple the 
 building 
 trade, raise 
 rents, and 
 deteriorate 
 dwellings. 
 
 In the first place, then, if Leasehold Enfranchisement 
 became law, the leasehold building system would be dis- 
 couraged to such an extent as to be practically extin- 
 guished. No owner of land would let it en bloc at a low 
 ground rent, when he might be called on to sell it piece- 
 meal to the various assignees of the builder at judicial 
 prices, ascertained by a series of expensive litigations. 
 He would, therefore, not be likely to let on building 
 lease at all. 
 
 On the other hand, he would not be at all likely to 
 engage in building speculations, for as Mr. Ryde said in 
 his evidence (7850) — as a rule, landowners have neither 
 the capital, skill, or knowledge requisite to cover their 
 land with buildings. "The system which has grown up 
 and which has now become almost perfect, almost 
 amounts to a partnership between the owner of the land 
 and the builder who is going to develop it." 
 
 Then would the building speculator buy it ? He 
 might do so, but if he did, the enormous capital which 
 would have to be locked up in the purchase of the site 
 at 3 per cent, would so greatly cripple him, that unless a 
 man of great capital, he could only carry on a fraction 
 of the operations which are now open to him : and 
 his profits would of course be immensely curtailed, 
 so much of his capital only returning a low r rate of 
 interest. 
 
 The result would be — 
 
 (1) The building trade would suffer, and many 
 thousands of men would join the ranks of the unem- 
 ployed.
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 37 
 
 (2) The supply of houses would not be so great, and 
 any system which facilitates the supply of houses must 
 benefit tenants as a class, and as Mr. Ryde puts it 
 (7,861), "must be especially for the benefit of opera- 
 u fives : I mean it must be beneficial to them that there 
 ' ' is a sufficient number of houses which they can inhabit ; 
 " and if there were an insufficient number, of course a 
 " higher rent would be demanded of them than they could 
 " afford to pay. It does tend to lower rents undoubtedly ; 
 " but it affords facilities for getting land covered which is 
 " suitable for buildings, and which no other system, in 
 " my opinion, affords to the same extent." 
 
 (3) The supply of houses being restricted, the de- 
 mand would exceed the supply ; and the want of com- 
 petition would necessarily decrease the quality of the 
 houses built. 
 
 Another reason for rejecting leasehold enfranchise- 
 ment is the gross injustice which it would inflict on 
 landlords. As I have already shown, leasehold estates 
 are developed en bloc, and at the end of the lease return, 
 in a large number of cases in London, to the landlord 
 en bloc. 
 
 By that time the existing houses have ceased to come 
 up to modern requirements, consequently the landlord 
 almost invariably clears away the whole of the buildings, 
 and lets the sites once more on a new building agree- 
 ment. 
 
 But under Leasehold Enfranchisement any one of the 
 500 or 600 tenants might turn his house into freehold at 
 a judicial price ascertained on the market value of the 
 freehold of that one house, without compensation for 
 severance. The result would be a loss to the landlord 
 by reason of the depreciation so caused to the rest of his 
 property, which is not susceptible of valuation, but which 
 
 Would 
 inflict 
 grievous 
 injustice on 
 landlords 
 by not 
 giving com- 
 pensation 
 for sever- 
 ance.
 
 33 
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 might easily amount to many hundred times the enfran- 
 chisement money. For he would lose the power of 
 dealing with his estate en bloc, and would receive in 
 return the price which a willing vendor might be pre- 
 sumed able to arrange with a willing purchaser — the 
 price, that is to say, which would be given to a vendor 
 who had no adjoining property. It is not too much to 
 say (I am particularly desirous of not overstating the 
 case for the leasehold system) that no more cynical or 
 dishonest proposition for deliberate robbery of private 
 proprietors has ever been seriously enunciated. 
 
 The promoters of the Bill are well aware that com- 
 pensation for severance would almost always far exceed 
 the market value of the reversion if sold by a willing 
 vendor, and hence their extreme anxiety to limit the 
 compensation to that market value. If they passed their 
 Bill with an amendment giving the lessor the right to 
 full compensation for severance, they know that their 
 clients would feel — 
 
 "Altera manu fert lapidem, panem ostentat altera." 
 
 For the price which would have to be paid for enfran- 
 chisement would be simply prohibitive. I say, therefore, 
 that either a gross robbery of the lessors must be sanc- 
 tioned, or the proposed right of enfranchisement made 
 inoperative, I leave my enfranchising friends to impale 
 themselves on whichever horn of this dilemma they 
 please. 
 
 The gross injustice of assessing compensation on the 
 value of the ground rent would be accentuated by a fact 
 of which the godfathers of the Bill appear never to have 
 heard, but which is well known to real property lawyers, 
 and to all who have to do with building leases.
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 39 
 
 The fact to which I refer is the universal custom Ground 
 of distributing the sum of the ground rent payable for equally dis- 
 the entire estate, ////equally between the several houses. tnbuted 
 
 1 ' over an 
 
 For instance, if ^ioo per annum were the ground rent estate, 
 specified in the building agreement for an estate on 
 which fifty houses were to be erected, each house being 
 of the same actual value, the ground rent would not be, 
 as might be naturally expected, £2 per house, but some 
 houses might have a ^5 ground rent, others a 5 s. rent, 
 and so on. ;: The ground rent, therefore, would afford no 
 just criterion of the value of the lessee's interest, and any 
 system of purchase based on the ground rent would be 
 most fallacious. 
 
 But in addition to the injustice which would be in- Injustice to 
 
 n . . , , ., , , . . , . the small 
 
 nicted on the landlord who wishes to preserve his estate investor of 
 intact, a more widespread injury would be suffered by ^ r n ) !i nd 
 the prudent and thrifty, who invest their savings in 
 purchasing ground rents. Trustees, professional men, 
 tradesmen, insurance companies, and other persons and 
 corporations who desire a secure investment, paying a 
 small but invariable rate of interest, with a capital in- 
 creasing in value, are large investors in ground rents ; 
 and these people collectively form a very numerous class, 
 exceeding in number the great ground landlords many 
 thousands of times. Any depreciation of the property of 
 this class, deliberately inflicted by Parliament, would 
 have the worst effect, and would not only inflict grievous 
 
 * The reason for this apparently eccentric procedure is as 
 follows : — The practice is to secure the total rent payable to the 
 landowner as early as possible, by apportioning comparatively high 
 rents to the houses first built ; the consequence of course being 
 that, as the agreement is gradually worked out, very low or even 
 nominal ground rents are reserved in the leases of the houses last 
 built ; and thus two identical houses on the same estate are often 
 subject to widely-different ground rents.
 
 4-0 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 injustice, but would in numerous instances cause real 
 hardship and even ruin. That such depreciation would 
 be caused if the proposed Bill were to pass is certain 
 from the following considerations. In the first place, an 
 investment of which the investor can be compulsorily 
 deprived at any time on payment of the market price, 
 ascertained by a tiresome litigation, cannot in the nature 
 of things be of the same value as an investment which 
 cannot be disturbed, and which increases in capital value 
 deanno in annum as the expiration of the lease approaches. 
 Hence the market price of ground rents must fall as a 
 necessary consequence of such legislation. The Act, 
 therefore, which gives the lessee the right to buy com- 
 pulsorily at the market price, will itself reduce that 
 market price to a large extent ; and not only would the 
 owners of ground rents be compulsorily expropriated, but 
 the very fact of the liability to expropriation will lower 
 the compensation which is to be given by the expro- 
 priator. 
 
 A freeholder will, therefore, not only have to part 
 with his investments bit by bit, but will necessarily be 
 bound to accept less purchase money than he would 
 have been able to get in the open market if the proposed 
 Bill had not been passed. The Bill would, therefore, 
 inflict a twofold wrong. It would first depreciate a 
 man's property, and then hand it over to another at the 
 depreciated price. 
 
 Moreover, the vexation and expense incident to the 
 enfranchisement of ground rents would be a heavy burden 
 to the holders of them. For on ever)- enfranchisement 
 there would be the litigation in the County Court : and 
 although the owner of the ground rent would get his costs 
 from the enfranchiser, lie would not get "solicitor and 
 client cost*,'" but only taxed costs between " party and
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 41 
 
 party," and the costs of his expert witnesses might be 
 extremely heavy. In addition to this, only one set of 
 costs is to be allowed by the Bill to the whole of the 
 persons interested in the reversion, and, as it is often 
 mortgaged, and as there are frequently several leasehold 
 interests between the occupying lessee and the ground 
 landlord, it is not difficult to see that " one set of costs " 
 would not recoup the expenses of all parties so interested. 
 
 If, too, each householder is to be allowed to en- 
 franchise, a person who has invested in the purchase of 
 the ground rent of a block of houses would find his invest- 
 ment being repaid in dribblets, with the consequent 
 trouble and expense of having to re-invest small sums 
 at different times. 
 
 An even more serious objection occurs where a free- 
 hold reversioner has mortgaged the property ; for in that 
 case the mortgagee may find his security compulsorily 
 enfranchised, at a price which will not realise what he 
 has advanced ; and if the mortgage has been made on a 
 block of houses he will be repaid his mortgage, whether 
 he likes it or not, in small sums, as each house is separ- 
 ately enfranchised, with all the consequent annoyance of 
 having to find new securities for trifling amounts. More- 
 over a mortgagee is now entitled to six months' notice of 
 an intention to pay him off. Is he to be deprived of this 
 right, or is the unfortunate freeholder to be obliged to pay 
 him six months' interest because the lessee desires to en- 
 franchise ? What person would, under such circumstances, 
 advance money on mortgage of freehold ground rents ? 
 
 In short, it is not too much to say that if the proposed 
 Bill were passed, freehold ground rents, instead of being 
 the best of investments, would become almost unmarket- 
 able, and a large number of respectable and thrifty 
 persons, and a still larger number of widows and children
 
 42 
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 dependent on trust funds, would be reduced to penury. 
 And for what end ? Simply in order that a person who 
 has hired a plot of land under a distinct promise to return 
 it to the owner may gratify a dishonest desire to break his 
 contract and possess a " home really his own ! " 
 
 Another reason which may, perhaps, have more 
 weight with those faddists who ignore the interest of all 
 classes except the artisan class, is that the leasehold 
 tenure makes possible the erection of what we now know 
 par excellence as " artisans' dwellings." by which I 
 mean model dwellings for the artisan class. In this 
 matter I am not speaking theoretically, but on informa- 
 tion supplied by gentlemen who have the management 
 of the largest metropolitan associations for building 
 artisans' dwellings. Their unanimous opinion is, that 
 they can only build en bloc, and that if they had to buy 
 out a multiplicity of small freeholders, in order to secure 
 a site, they could not possibly do so. 
 
 The leasehold system also ensures that estates shall 
 be well laid out with good width of streets and air 
 spaces. A freehold estate is almost invariably over- 
 crowded because the builder is unrestricted, and having 
 had to lock up a large capital in the site, he naturally 
 objects to waste any part of that site in unremunerative 
 streets, squares, or even gardens. Preston (which is a 
 freehold town) is an instance of this. 
 
 Again, the leasehold system permits of great public 
 improvements being carried out at no expense to the 
 ratepayers. For when the leases fall in the freeholder 
 can, and almost always does, clear the whole estate, and 
 re-let the site on a new building contract, making new 
 streets, squares, or other modern improvements. 
 
 This is no theoretical idea, but has been actually 
 put into practice on many occasions in London and else-
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 43 
 
 where. On the other hand, in one large provincial town 
 with which I am acquainted, where the leasehold building 
 system is unknown, over ^250,000 had to be expended 
 out of the rates in order to buy out a large number of 
 freehold owners of insanitary property under the Artisans' 
 Dwellings' Act. 
 
 Another very important incident of the leasehold Covenants 
 
 t t 01 ICtlSG 
 
 building system is, that it ensures the regulation of every prevent 
 part of an estate in the interest of the whole, by provid- 
 ing for the easy and certain enforcement of what one 
 knows as restrictive covenants. 
 
 No reasonable man would dare to buy a plot of 
 highly-priced ground, and build a fine house on it, if the 
 adjoining land might be sold for the erection of inferior 
 dwellings, or possibly a manufactory ; but under the 
 leasehold system persons build with confidence, because 
 they know that nothing will be permitted which could 
 create annoyance, or depreciate the value of houses 
 already erected. 
 
 If it be objected that such covenants might be used, 
 and, in fact, are used, with regard to freehold land, I 
 answer that restrictive covenants are practically in- 
 operative with regard to freehold land ; for they are 
 made with the landlord ; and when he has sold all his 
 land to various builders, he obviously has no interest in 
 enforcing them. Moreover, the legal difficulties are so 
 great as to prove almost insuperable ; whereas a lessor 
 of a leasehold estate has merely to threaten a forfeiture 
 for breach of covenant, and the nuisance is at once 
 stayed. 
 
 The advocates of Leasehold Enfranchisement not in- 
 frequently remind us that other European cities of great 
 beauty have been built on the freehold system. These 
 gentlemen, however, quite forget to add, that (as pointed
 
 44 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 out by Mr. Woodward in a letter to the Times) in such 
 cities a bureaucratic control exists, to which the restric- 
 tions exercised by London freeholders are but milk and 
 water. 
 Leaseholds Another argument in favour of leaseholds is, that 
 
 afford a . ° 
 
 desirable they suit the investing public, by providing some with a 
 investment. j Qw rate Q ^ int - erest an( j p er f e ct security (ground rents), 
 
 and others with a high rate of interest and a terminable 
 
 property. 
 Leasehold Lastly the leasehold building system is the result of 
 
 result of the free right of contract. It is the outcome of custom and 
 free play of not f j aw landlords are unable to impose on builders 
 
 economic _ L 
 
 forces. tenures which the latter may dislike. In some neigh- 
 
 bourhoods where land is cheap, builders will not look at 
 leaseholds, and consequently in such places leaseholds 
 are unknown. 
 
 In other neighbourhoods where land is dear, the 
 freehold chief rent system, or what is now practically 
 equivalent, the 999 years leases, prevail. In other 
 places again, where land is dearer still (as, for instance, 
 in the great towns of London and Birmingham), the 
 leasehold system seems to be forcing the other systems 
 out of the market. In short, it is the landowners who 
 have to meet the fiitblie demand, and not the public 7, 'ho 
 hare to knuckle under to the landlords. The public 
 demand is determined by a multitude of factors (as, for 
 instance, the value of land, the purpose for which it is 
 required, local prejudices and customs, and so on), but 
 however formed, the landowners must meet it. 
 Criticism of I have now concluded the examination of the question, 
 
 Mr. 'Broad- " of the expediency of giving to leaseholders facilities for 
 hurst's Bill. t ] ie p Ur chase of the fee-simple of their property," but 
 before concluding I would call attention to a few short- 
 comings in the details of Mr. Broadhurst's Bill.
 
 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 45 
 
 In the first place, although it gives lessees power to Ought to 
 
 °"ive lessor 
 
 purchase the freehold, it gives no power to the freeholder reciprocal 
 either to compel such a purchase or himself to purchase n§ °,j. 
 the leasehold interest. It inaugurates, in fact, a statutory enfran- 
 
 r ... . _ i-i 1 ,,1 chisement, 
 
 game of " heads I win and tails you lose between tenant a3 j n case 
 and landlord. Surely, if such a Bill were ever passed, it j^f^f 3 " 
 ought at least to be provided (as it is provided in the 
 Copyhold Enfranchisement Acts) that the landlord shall 
 have an equal right to enforce enfranchisement by the 
 tenant as the tenant may have to enforce enfranchise- 
 ment on the landlord. 
 
 Again, the tribunal (the County Court) which is to 
 assess the purchase-money is most objectionable. A 
 County Court judge may be, and doubtless is, a very 
 competent legal tribunal for settling disputes of law and 
 fact, but no more incompetent tribunal could have been 
 chosen for assessing land values. That is the business 
 of surveyors, and not of lawyers, and the question of 
 compensation ought clearly to be referred to two com- 
 petent practical land valuers or their umpire. 
 
 Again, the Act provides for the purchase by the lessee 
 of the freehold, but dees not define the term lessee. Now 
 it is almost invariably the case that there are between the 
 actual occupier and the freeholder several intermediate 
 lessees and sub-lessees. Which of these is to be entitled 
 to enfranchise ? Only the occupier ? The Bill does not 
 say so ; if not, then the Act distinctly favours the ag- 
 grandisement of middlemen, where the actual occupier 
 has a term of less than 20 years. 
 
 But, in truth, the draft Bill is too crude, and too 
 hastily drafted, to be seriously criticised. 
 
 To sum up, I object to the principle of Air. Broad- 
 hurst's Bill on the following grounds : — 
 
 (1) That the reasons adduced by its supporters are
 
 46 LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT. 
 
 untenable, and that the onus lies on them of conclusively 
 proving the case for a change so vast and so contrary to 
 all established principles of legislation in England. 
 
 (2) That it is cruelly unjust to landlords, particularly 
 in not providing for compensation for severance ; but 
 that if that were conceded, it would make the Bill 
 unworkable. 
 
 (3) That the leasehold system has many and great 
 advantages, which are not possessed by the freehold 
 system : notably the facilities afforded for public im- 
 provements at no cost to the ratepayers, and for the 
 erection of artisans' model dwellings, and ensures wider 
 streets and large gardens, &c. 
 
 (4) That the proposed Bill would seriously cripple 
 the building trade, a branch of industry already much 
 depressed, and would produce a scarcity of houses and 
 an increase of rents. 
 
 (5) Last, but not least, that the present practice of 
 developing land ripe for building, differing widely as it 
 does in different localities, according to the wants and 
 wishes of the inhabitants, and being the result of agree- 
 ment between men of business competent to deal with 
 one another, ought not to be rashly restricted by amateur 
 and immature legislation. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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