Until recent years the whole tendency of the law was to favor the landlord as against the tenant, and even now the law can hardly be said not to lean in the landlord's favor, particularly in allowing him the right of distress for rent. In the exercise of this right, contrary to the general principles of English law, a landlord whose rent is in arrear can without the judg ment of any court seize and sell any chattels of any person, whether his tenant or a stranger, that he can find on the premises, and thus pay himself his rent. Recent legislation (The Con veyancing and Law of Property Act 1881) has, however, interfered against the landlord, who, whatever the terms of the lease, can now no longer forfeit a lease for a casual breach of covenant not deliberately persisted in by the tenant.
This leasehold system in and near towns, though frequent, is not by any means universal. especially in the north of England; there, a common plan is to sell land for building pur poses out and out, in consideration of a per petual rent reserved to the vendor. Further, the simple plan of the sale of building plots for a lump sum is probably growing in favor, par ticularly in suburban districts developed by land companies. A company of this kind has no family pride in the preservation of its estate, nor does it wish to realize an improved value after three generations.
(2) In the country districts the long leasehold system is unknown. The ordi nary English farmer usually does not hold a lease for any fixed term of years, but has merely a tenancy from year to year determin able by 12 months' notice. As a rule all the farm buildings have been supplied by the land lord. The tendency of modern legislation is to give the agricultural tenant security for the value of his improvements, but the old law, which treats whatever is built or planted on land as an accretion to the land, and therefore the property of the landlord, still governs to a large extent the relationship of landlord and tenant.
The tie of landlord and tenant in the country districts is, for good and for evil, not merely economic. The landlords are the social mag nates of the countryside. As unpaid magis trates they have had up till within recent years practically a monopoly of the ordinary dispen sation of all minor criminal and some civil justice. On the other hand, in bad years they are expected by the common opinion of the countryside to allow and do allow considerable reductions on the agreed rent. A °good land lord* is the man who is always ready to aid his tenants in sundry ways. On well-managed estates, the system works easily. The system, however, is one which for its success depends on the peculiar social conditions which have hitherto prevailed in rural England, and its transplantation to Ireland, where these condi tions did not exist, had results disastrous for both countries.
Sporting Rights.— In England the love of sport has been a prominent characteristic of the landholding class throughout all history; it is practically the universal custom for a landlord to reserve the sporting rights over agricultural land. If he does not exercise them himself, he lets them to some other person. Where sporting rights are reserved the tenant has no right to kill pheasants or partridges, but the Ground Game Act of 1880 empowers the tenant himself, and one other person authorized by him in writing, to shoot hares and rabbits on his land whether sporting rights are re served or not, and whatever the terms of the tenancy agreement.
Land and the State; The taxa tion of land is a question that is complicated by some historical anomalies. (1) Land Tax. — The burden commonly known as Land Tax represents historically the surviving portion of a general tax in the nature of an income tax imposed both on real and personal estate in the year 1692; but it has for many years been a mere stereotyped incumbrance redeemable by the landholder, and charged on the value of the land as in the year 1692. On most urban land the tax has been redeemed. The Finance Act of 1909-10 (introduced in 1909) effected a revolution in land taxation and provided for (1) Duty of 20 per cent on unearned incre ment accruing from land; (2) reversion duty of 10 per cent on value of benefit accruing to a lessor on determination of any lease of land; (3) an "undeveloped land* duty of a half penny Der f on site value of land not built on or used for any industry other than agriculture (payable by owner) ; (4) mineral rights duty of 5 per cent on rental value of rights to work minerals and all mineral wayleaves. (2) In come Tax.— Incomes derived from land, i.e., the net rent of land, are liable to income tax equally with incomes derived from other sources. (3) Death Duties.—Before 1894 land escaped the greater part of the death duties imposed on personal property, but since the Finance Act of that year all species of prop erty are in this respect on an equality. (4) Local Taxation.— On the other hand a man's liability to local, as distinct from imperial, taxation is estimated by the value of the real property (i.e., land and buildings) which he occupies, no account (in spite of some earlier statutory provisions to the contrary) being taken of his personal property. On agricul tural land, by an act of Parliament passed in 1896, only half the ordinary rate is paid. But no contribution is made to local taxation in respect of the capital value of land, or of land which is not occupied, however high may be its value. As a war measure the Budget for 1918 19 introduced a considerable increase in both direct and indirect taxation.