PASSING NOTES.

Thames Star, Volume XX, Issue 4663, 14 July 1888, Page 2

PASSING NOTES.

[By.Ramblbb.J :

. After reading the report of the case in the Court the. other day,, which brought up the qnestion of the leaseholds on Block 27, 1 took a walk up there,the following day, and when I saw the delapidated condition of most of the houses on the Block, with their shingle roofs patched here and there with bits of old iron, fences pulled down, Ac, it set me thinking about the leasehold law which bad brought about such a wretched state of affairs., I was particularly pleased with the Block itself, possessing as it does such, {{rand sites for residences, and being in what may be almost regarded as the country, though with easy access to the town ; but to see it in its present condition gave me a heartache when I thought how different things might have been under a better au'd more equitable law. I will not here'refer to the old swindles «bat were worked in the early days in connection with the Block, for it would bo outside of the question on which I wish to speak, viz: tbe iaw' of leaseholds, to which alone is attributable the present condition of the Block. The law was made by landlords for landlords alone, end for their benefit only. In this Block, a man takes up on lease fur a term of year? a, piece of waste, virgin !aqd, fences it, plants fruit trees thereon, and builds a house for himself and family. He pays a | small rental—that I admit—during his | term of lease, but on tbe expiry of bis lease he finds that all the labor and money he has expended go for nothing. He loses all, and has to step out of the property at tbe end of the lease exactly as he went itito it, the whole fruit of his labor going to the landlord. This is the law, certainly, bat I maintain it is a most iniquitous law. The landlord must have his rights,, biit we want a modern Portia' to show that he is only entitled to his "pound of flesh, and, not a drop of blood." Tl}e law as it now is helps him to take away the property of another; but. if justice, were the real object of tbe law, as it should be, it should pro-

tect the man who has paid for the buildings upon the land, and not allow the landowner to take id without paying for it. No, law passed by man should affect the immutable, laws of God. The Decalogue is the same now as when first given forth. "Thou shalt not steal," is intended for all men who take from other men their property without paying for it, and wrong can never be right under any circumstances. "

Heading up the law of leaseholds in regard to fixtures, I find that though it diners, a little, in England and Scotland, the tendency is the same in both countries, and I presume the same law applies in this colony. Whether it does or not, I -find a very singular anomaly in it which at once prores the injustice of the law on this .'point of fixtures, and .the urgent necessity for a bhange. In the case of leases of farms on which there are already buildings erected, the tenant of course cannot iojure or remove these buildings; but for any farm buildings put up by the i tenant during his occupancy, the landlord | has the option given him of purchasing the same at a valuation to bo determined by .arbitration, and in the event of his declining, the tenant can remote them. If a landlord must,'pay for farm buildings put up by a tenant during his lease, why should he not with equal justice be made to pay for a bouse put up on his land under a building lease P The tenant at the end of his lease should have the right to sell the building he may have erected upon another man's land, the land* lord to have the first refusal. If it would be unjust to take his land and give it to the tenant, so would it be equally unjust to give him 1 his tenant's house without paying him for what he is taking. It is a monstrous injustice that a man shoutd have no claim for compensation for money spent in the erection of a house or upon its improvement. . Surely, looking at the question, in a fair and equitable view, it should be sufficient for the landlord after getting his rent for so many years, to get back his land as before; but what right has he to take the house erected thereon P This may be a legal right, but most undoubtedly is not an equitable one.

Coming back to Block 27, while I was surveying the district and the delapidated houaies|-many.i of .them now empty and others being about to be girea up at the end of the present year, when the leases will be up, the tenants seeking after freeholds, from which they cannot be turned out, and which they can really ea 11 their own — the past history of the Block passed through my mind. I recalled the various phases through which it had passed, the various owners and leaseholders, and I could not help asking Myself what good any of those who were parties to the swindle by which it was originally acquired had derived from it, A fatality seems to have followed all who were concerned, in the wrong that was then perpetrated, for nearly, if not indeed every one of them, are at the present moment, if riot'penniless, very near it. I hope that the present owners may be fortunate enough to escape the fate that has befallen their predecessors.

The oppressive and iniquitous character of the leasehold system is at the present moment the subject of serious consideration at Home, and when such an ultra Conservative paper as the London Sunday Times has been devoting several columns" weekly for some time, exposing the crying injustice which the system has wrought ou the tenants of the great landlords of London, it is a siga that the end of the system is at hand. The landlords have had a good innings ; they hare reaped the benefits of the progress of the age and the enterprise and the industry of a busy and hard-worked community,. They will, now h*re to step down''from^ their present, position to one of equity, and be content to allow the workers, the tenants, hare their just share of the benefits accruing from their enterprise. " Land in London must not have all the benefit. Bricks and mortar must come in for a just divisien ; bricks and mortar, advertising, good-will, and all' that, belongs to the activity of a commercial, community." This system against which the cry is going np from hundreds of thousands of tenants in London, and against which so many in this colony are also protesting—the tenants of Block 27 as an example—may possibly not hare been objectionable a hundred years ago, but it is entirely out of harmony with the spirit and progress of the present age.

What is asked for in order to sweep away I the existing system of legalised robbery by landlords, a system organised for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the very many, is by no means any innovation -in legislation of a . revolutionary character. Tne present owaers of Block 27 are Scotchmen, and therefore I will simply give tbe Scotch system. In Scotland there is no such thing as a building lease. A Scotchman would scorn the bare idea of erecting a house on ground that he could, only bare for 99 years. Even the offer of 999 years has been rejected with disdain, and so tbe landlord has no choice but to sell his ground by what is called in Scotland " feu contract.'.' The essence of a feucontract is that the tenant, or " feuar," agrees to. pay a fixed sum yearly to the owner of .the land, or his heirs and assignees, and so long as he does that— be it to all eternity—the land and every thing on it is his own to let, sell, or use as he thinks proper. Should he fail to pay. the ground-landlord can, after due legal process, resume possession, and the resumption of possession for default of payment includes the right to- seize anything built on the land. There is no hardship there, for the land has not fallen in value, or if it has. h,a,d buildings erected on it of a.oy value, the landlord's right of resumption never gets a chance to take effect, for the feuar, or his creditors in bankruptcy, can always sell tbe land and buildings to sqtqe qn,e who Will take poaseqsiqn a.nd pay the feu, duty.