HASTE AND ITS RESULT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 99, 23 October 1942, Page 4

HASTE AND ITS RESULT

The danger of rushing legislation through Parliament without giving members and the public an adequate opportunity of studying its implications has been exemplified in the Fair Rents Bill, which, from the point of view of public interest, was the most important legislative business of the session. Although the Government claimed that the Bill had been under discussion for several months, it was found* during the comparatively short time devoted to its consideration in the House that there were weaknesses in several of the clauses and that the effect of others was, to say the least of it, obscure. In some respects improvements have been made; in others there is still doubt as to how the provisions will work out in practice. The amendment made by the Legislative Council, and subsequently approved by the House, protecting the rights of servicemen, both landlords and tenants, is more satisfactory than no safeguard, but even now there is an element of doubt as to whether the legislation will have the effect that Parliament wishes. The clause granting protection to sub-tenants is also most complicated. There is a case for such protection, but under the clause as approved the purchaser of a house which has been sub-let may find the effort to gain possession like an attempt to capture a Russian city —fighting for it room by room. Yet there may be reasons, in the public interest, why the property should change hands. Then, again, there is the section which places on the defendant, in the event of a prosecution under the clause prohibiting an owner from refusing to let a dwelling-house to an applicant with children, the burden of proving that the refusal was for some other reason. Apart from the fact that this reverses a vital principle of British justice, the section is not calculated to encourage people to enter the business of letting houses. They will feel that they are in constant danger of committing an offence, even if they conduct their business in a reasonable way. Parliament has no reason to feel happy about the latest amendments to the rent restriction legislation. At best, they are patchy and complicated; at worst, they may lead to all sorts of fresh anomalies and injustices, involving more revision later on.