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In South Australia the solution will probably be in superior facilities for opening up the interior or unoccupied lands, greater fixity of tenure to the leaseholders, restriction of the land open to the operation of the system of selection, easier terms to the selector, and greater encouragement to both selector and leaseholder to improve their holdings.
Thus far the farmer, who so far as the evils of subdivision or subletting are concerned is at one with the great landed proprietor, who, thanks to the recklessness of his predecessors, sees his efforts to improve his property paralysed, and his own personal honour and reputation endangered by the acts of the leaseholders or fee-farm, renters over whom he has no power whatever.
Should the perpetual leaseholders retain the right of converting at any time their leasehold into a freehold by paying down the cash value of their farm, or should the State always retain the fee simple? Next, if the State should retain this, ought there to be periodical revisions of the rent, so as to reserve the unearned increment for the public?
Seats for boroughs, appropriately called "rotten," were frequently put up to sale; otherwise, they were reserved for young favourites of the proprietor. Neither yearly tenants, nor leaseholders, nor even copyholders, had votes for counties.
However, when the purchasers started work, it was soon discovered that the golden floor to the golden hole only continued golden to the depth of three or four inches, to the despair of the promoters and unlucky shareholders, as well as of the numberless adjoining leaseholders, through whose property this rich reef had been traced.
All the fanciful and antiquated franchises which had prevailed in the older boroughs were swept away to make room for a levelling £10 household suffrage, the privileges of freemen being alone preserved. The rights of 40s. freeholders were retained in counties, but they found themselves associated with a large body of copyholders, leaseholders, and tenants-at-will paying £50 in rent.
All leaseholders whose leases would expire within ninety-nine years after the passing of the Act have the option of going into court and getting their contracts broken and a judicial rent fixed. No equivalent power is given to the landlords.
The Assembly of March 1655, for the first time in Virginia's history, restricted the voting privilege to "housekeepers whether freeholders, leaseholders, or otherwise tenants." Freemen who could not qualify as householders, even though they may have been grown sons living in their father's house, could not vote.
There were many grants of one thousand acres or more, and Maryland "lords of the manor" became quite common. These "lords" were the official heads of numerous tenants and leaseholders who were settled on their large estates. Yet the manor, as a free-governing community, was a stronghold of liberty.
Hitherto members of the Upper House had been elected for ten years, the qualification for the electorate being the possession of property of the rateable value of £50 a year. Now the electoral qualification has been reduced to £10 house and £20 leaseholders, and the tenure is for six years.
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