when a lease is nearly run out, the lessee gets rid of it by letting it rather low to a man unable to lay out money on it, but who, as he has nothing, is not afraid of being called on for dilapidations. Mr Boodle, agent of the Duke of Westminster and the Marquis of Northamption, admitted that on the Northampton estate repairs and sanitary improvements required by the leases were not always insisted on, when the lease was renewed. If it was a short lease, on a higher rent, the improvements might be dropped to secure the higher rent. As Mr Boodle frankly put it, "ventilating the soil pipes, and disconnecting all the waste pipes is found to be a very expensive business." This explains the insanitary condition of so many houses in the "slums." Mr Boodle, it should be mentioned, was a hostile witness, and finding that the Supplementary Report stated that his evidence condemned the leasehold system, he sent a public protest to the papers. It should also be said that he asserted that "no well-disposed landlord would attempt such a thing," as resuming possession on any breach of contract whatever, as allowed by the lease. He laid on the middlemen the blame of everything that went amiss; they it was who broke up houses into tenements, and Lord Northampton intended in future to collect the rents directly through a lady visitor. Mr Hunt, surveyor to Lord Portman's London estate, declared that it was easy for a working man to buy a leasehold house, and he would be quite as well off as if it were a freehold. Asked whether an applicant could purchase a freehold, he replied that he had never been applied to for one, and when pressed harder admitted that the reason "probably" was that it was known the application would have been useless. Again asked why, he replied that it would not be to Lord Portman's advantage: "It would be a loss to Lord Portman probably, and no sufficient gain to the purchaser." "But if it is good for Lord Portman to hold freeholds, why is it not good for the tenant of a house?" To this awkward question, Mr Hunt replied: "I am travelling rather outside what I came here to answer."
The evidence is most instructive reading. Not only do many facts come out, illustrating the working of the system, but the opinions of witnesses who represented the great ground landlords show how they understand what they are always calling "the prosperity of the country."
