A Christian Directory, Part 4: Christian Politics

by Richard Baxter

Tit. 2. Cases of Conscience about Oppression, especially of Tenants.

Quest. I. Is it lawful for a mean man, who must needs make the best of it, to purchase tenanted land of a liberal landlord, who setteth his tenants a much better pennyworth than the buyer can afford.

Answ. Distinguish, 1. Between a seller who understandeth all this, and one that doth not. 2. Between a tenant that hath by custom a half-title to his easier rent, and one that hath not. 3. Between a tenant that consenteth and one that consenteth not. 4. Between buying it when a liberal man might else have bought it, and buying it when a worse else would have bought it. 5. Between a case of scandal and of no scandal.

And so I answer, 1. If the landlord that selleth it expect that the buyer do use the tenants as well as he hath done, and sell it accordingly, it is unrighteous to do otherwise (ordinarily). 2. In many countries it is the custom not to turn out a tenant, nor to raise his rent; so that many generations have held the same land at the same rent; which though it give no legal title, is yet a half-title in common estimation. In such a case it will be scandalous, and infamous, and injurious, and therefore unlawful to purchase it with a purpose to raise the rent, and to do accordingly. 3. In case that a better landlord would buy it, who would use the tenant better than you can do, it is not (ordinarily) lawful for you to buy it. I either express or imply "ordinarily" in most of my solutions; because that there are some exceptions lie against almost all such answers, in extraordinary cases; which the greatest volume can scarce enumerate.

But if, 1. It be the seller's own doing to withdraw his liberality so far from his tenants, as to sell his land on hard rates, on supposition that the buyer will improve it. 2. And if it be a tenant that cannot either by custom or any other plea, put in a claim in point of equity to his easy-rented land. 3. And if as bad a landlord would buy it if you do not. 4. If it be not a real scandal: I say if all these four concur; 5. Or (alone) if the tenant consent freely to your purchase on these terms; then it is no injury. But the common course is, for a covetous man that hath money, never to consider what a loser the tenant is by his purchase, but to buy and improve the land at his own pleasure; which is no better than oppression.

Quest. II. May not a landlord take as much for his land as it is worth?

Answ. 1. Sometimes it is land that no man can claim an equitable title to hold upon an easier rent, and sometimes it is otherwise, as aforesaid, by custom and long possession, or other reasons. 2. Sometimes the tenant is one that you are obliged to show mercy to; and sometimes he is one that no more than commutative justice is due to. And so I answer, 1. If it be an old tenant who by custom or any other ground, can claim an equitable title to his old pennyworth, you may not enhance the rent to the full worth. 2. If it be one that you are obliged to show mercy as well as justice to, you may not take the full worth. 3. The common case in England is, that the landlords are of the nobility or gentry, and the tenants are poor men, who have nothing but what they get by their hard labour out of the land which they hold; and in this case some abatement of the full worth is but such a necessary mercy, as may be called justice. Note still, that by the full worth, I mean, so much as you could set it for to a stranger who expecteth nothing but strict justice, as men buy and sell things in a market.

But, 1. If you deal with a tenant as rich or richer than yourself, or with one that needeth not your mercy, or is no fit object of it; 2. And if it be land that no man can by custom claim equitably to hold on lower terms, and so it is no injury to another, nor just scandal, then you may lawfully raise it to the full worth. Sometimes a poor man setteth a house or land to a rich man, where the scruple hath no place.

Quest. III. May a landlord raise his rents, though he take not the full worth?

Answ. He may do it when there is just reason for it, and none against it. There is just reason for it when, 1. The land was much underset before. 2. Or when the land is proportionably improved. 3. Or when the plenty of money maketh a greater sum to be in effect no more than a lesser heretofore. 4. Or when an increase of persons, or other accident, maketh land dearer than it was. But then it must be supposed, 1. That no contract, 2. Nor custom, 3. Nor service and merit, do give the tenant any equitable right to his better pennyworth. And also that mercy prohibit not the change.