Dillon, who was away in America
while the Conference sat, it was evident that, if dual ownership was to
be abolished, our choice was confined to two courses. We could, on the
one hand, pursue, under the guise of purchase, the metaphysical and
costly distinctions between landlord-right and tenant-right, which Mr.
Gladstone had established under the guise of rent-fixing; or else, as
the only alternative, we had "to cut the cackle" and get to business.
Under this head the House of Commons--Mr. Dillon ingeminating
dissent--decided in so far as landlords and tenants were concerned, two
things: (1) It was agreed that where the tenant-purchaser's instalment,
after purchase, was substantially less than his statutory rent revised
at great cost--L140,000 a year for Land Courts--then, in those cases the
State needed not to inquire at further cost and delay into either its
own security in the holding, or the metaphysical distinction between
value due to the landlord's ownership of the soil and value due to the
tenant's improvement of the soil. This close approximation to unanimity
will not surprise those who grasp that every landlord and tenant was to
make a voluntary bargain on precisely those terms which the
representatives of their classes had combined to obtain from the State.
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