Journal entry – John Grey – 12 Sep 1833

Thursday 12th September 1833



Price of Lead

No definite arrangement having yet been made for determining the average price of Lead for the quarter ending the 1st of July last, I wrote to Mr Parker, the only person conversant in such matters with whom I am acquainted asking him to have the goodness to meet Mr Crawhall upon the subject.  Went out to give directions as to the repair of the Snokoe road, and see if the rains of yesterday had produced any supply of Water to Mr Leadbitters reservoir, which I found still nearly empty.  Similar complaints of a deficiency of Water are made respecting the Machine at Coastley which has been recently erected.  



Letting Farms etc

My attention having been called by Lord Auckland in a Letter I had the honour to receive from his Lordship a few days ago, to the most advisable mode of letting the farms which have been given up, and of dealing with the present circumstances of the Tenants generally, and his Lordship having requested to know my opinion on the subject, I shall venture to make a few remarks upon it, altho’ I must confess that I find it so beset with difficulties, that any opinion which I may hazard, is given with diffidence.  That the Agricultural interest is in a very depressed condition, is undoubted; and it is equally true, that the Hospital’s farms are too high rented, for the present prices but some, more so than others, & those entered to last May, the least so in general.  To give an uniform rate of abatement can neither be just in principle nor politic in effect, because it gives equal relief to the cheapest farm as to the dearest, and affords the same encouragement to the bad tenant as to the good.  It precludes also the introduction of any improvement in covenants, which resorting to a new bargain would admit of.   On these accounts, I should advise, before relief is given, to require an actual surrender.  In this case, it would only be fair, where the tenant is a desirable one to afford him who has had a losing bargain, the chance of repairing his loss,  by letting him the farm, upon proper covenants, without subjecting it to competition, and on such farms as those in Bambroshire, where the Tenants are men of Capital, there could be little difficulty in making such an arrangement.  But in the districts where the farms are small and the competition for them great, on account of the little capital they require, to treat with one tenant privately and reject another, would I foresee raise a world of clamour against the Receiver, and give rise to endless appeals to the Board, against his decisions, on the score of partiality in one case and of harshness in another.   For however good his reasons might be, for preferring one tenant to another, at even a less rent offered, that ground of preference would not be acknowledged by the rejected party, whose feelings of disappointment and hard treatment would be keen, in proportion to his inability to go elsewhere for a farm, & the want of qualities to recommend him to another Landlord.  



[faint and illegible paragraph inserted in pencil  in the margin here, the LH edge of which is lost in the binding.] 



I presume too, that in case of adopting a system of private letting, it would be necessary to give the Receiver power to do so at once, for if he were to report the particulars of every negociation respecting a number of small Farms to the Board, & await their decision, the parties would often be found to have changed their minds, in the interval and so the matter would have to be begun ‘de novo’ which would lead to frequent disappointment & much delay.  Such a mode too would invest the Receiver with a power & subject him to a responsibility neither proper nor desirable.  And if no other objection existed against it, my acquaintance with the people in the country, their connections & circumstances, is as yet too limited, to render me competent to make the best selection at the present time.  Perhaps the mode the most calculated to obviate difficulties on the one hand, & to do some measure of justice to a deserving Tenant on the other, might be to accept of his proposal among others, but in consideration of his having paid too high a rent previously, or by leading to buildings or any other improvement, having put it in the power of others to offer more money than if such improvement had not taken place, to give him a preference over the highest bidder, by such an allowance from the rent for so many years from the commencement of the term, as might be considered adequate to his previous loss, or outlay in improvements.  This would be subject of agreement with him.   And if he declined the terms offered, then the most eligible tenant could be accepted, and in cases where it was more desirable to get rid of a tenant than to retain him, an opportunity would be afforded of doing so.  How far it may be in the power of the Board to act upon such a plan, is not for me to determine but in the choice of difficulties this seems to follow something of a middle course.