The Rent Protests at Leeds The differential rents scheme which
is leading to disputes between the Leeds Corporation and its tenants is thoroughly sound in principle, but its success is endangered by the methods with which it is being applied. The. subsidy of about five shillings per tenant which is granted to reduce the weekly rents of these houses is intended to make them available for poor persons who cannot afford to pay more. If better-off tenants live in them they tend to keep out those for whom they were erected ; and it is therefore perfectly fair to charge the whole economic rent to tenants who have sufficient means to pay it. It would be a comparatively simple matter to impose this condition on new tenants coming in. But it is quite another matter to impose the system on the present occupants of existing houses— which is what the Corporation is now doing. To the aggrieved tenants it appears to be assuming the rights of an inquisitor, applying without lawful authority the whole machinery of the Means Test. Would it not be wiser, in the ease of the existing houses, to arrange a moratorium, at the expiration of which tenants might be given a choice of paying the full rent, stating their means if they claim a lower rent, or going out ?
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