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that the cost of improvement must fall on the land exclusively. The second does, indeed, throw upon the ground landlords the duty (which we do not deny) of seeing that their leases are properly drawn, and that the covenants in them are observed. But would Mr. Chamberlain propose, for instance, to make it a universal covenant in every building lease that the building lessee shall not sublet? That could hardly stand. Is the building lessee then to be bound always to covenant with his sub-lessees not to sublet? If not, where is the line to be drawn? One correspondent of a daily paper has, indeed, suggested that ground landlords ought to be held responsible for seeing that the repairing covenants in their leases are properly observed, and that the houses are kept in good order throughout the tenancy, instead of being merely repaired at the expiring of a lease. This is very well as far as it goes; but it does not meet a great deal of the case, and it would be very hard to carry out. It does nothing to check overcrowding; and it does not touch a certain aspect of matters pointedly referred to by Mr. Chamberlain in the passage quoted below.[1] In these words we have another instance of the curious inability of the Socialist theorist to see the practical aspect of his
- ↑ "There is a certain class of property always found in these unhealthy areas and used for immoral purposes actually prohibited by the law. The illegal occupation is, however, the justification of the exorbitant rents demanded from the wretched occupants by the persons who trade in their vices. A house which for honest occupation is worth £50 a year will bring in double or treble to an owner who winks at the traffic which it is permitted to shelter. When this house is required by the local authority, the demand for compensation is based, and often allowed, on an income which represents not a fair return for an investment but the profit on complicity with vice. The same result obtains where tenements which could properly accommodate a single family are made to do duty for three or four times as many persons as can be decently housed in them. The income derived is proportionately increased, and compensation follows as a premium on evil practices. Accordingly men are found to speculate on the probability of interference, and they buy up in anticipation property which is likely to provoke the action of the local authority. If they succeed in aggravating the nuisance till it is intolerable, their fortunes are made. The ratepayers at large must bear the cost of putting an end to this detestable business, and are expected at the same time to reward munificently all who have been engaged in it."
