to have been a great object with the framers of this bill. But the two systems would gradually correspond; and we hold that there is a principle of justice involved in the upholding of contracts, the objects of which are as yet unfulfilled. Where an English settler has limited lands to a man for life, remainder to his first and other sons successively in tail, he knew, at the time of making the settlement, that it was liable to be barred with consent of the eldest son on his coming of age. But it was not so with a Scotch settler who executed a deed of tailzie to several brothers as successive heirs-substitute; and the legislature has no right, without the gravest public cause, to step in and defeat his intention.

But the bill, though intending to give far greater liberty to the owner of an entailed estate than Mr. M'Culloch does, or as we think is consistent with justice, sets about affording him aid in the most ambiguous and misty manner conceivable. The 2d clause enacts that the heir of entail in possession, born after the date of the act, may disentail in the manner provided by the act; and an heir of entail born before the date of the act may similarly disentail," with the consent (and not otherwise) of the heir-substitute next in succession, and heir-apparent under the entail of the heir in possession," he being born after the date of the act, and capable of contracting.

We should recommend the tenant in tail to be very cautious how he attempts to "acquire his estate in fee-simple" under the provisions of this clause. He is to obtain the consent of the heir-substitute next in succession. So far his course is clear. But the same person is also designated by the term "heir-apparent under the entail of the heir in possession." Now, is this a qualification of the general term "heir-substitute next in succession," and must such person, under the act, be also heir apparent? If so, what is the particular qualification required of him under the expression "heir apparent?" Adhering to the use of the phrase in popular language, we must take, as the only circumstances under which the next heirsubstitute and the heir-apparent are one and the same person, the case in

which the first estate under the entail is limited to a man and the heirs of his body, and the second to his second son and the heirs of his body; then, supposing the eldest son to die in the lifetime of his father, the second son would be both the next heir-substitute and also the heir-apparent. Is this, therefore, the only case within the act? Scarcely, we should think, was it so intended. Are we, then, to interpret the word heir-apparent in the sense in which the phrase heir-presumptive is generally used; and must we suppose that the cases indicated are those in which there is no issue under the first entail, and therefore the next heir-substitute is what we should call heir-presumptive to the person in possession? If so, what is to become of the numerous cases where there is issue to take under the existing entail-act? Or can it be that the issue in tail is altogether forgotten by this act, and that the person whose consent is required is merely the next heir-substitute in any case? We are inclined to think this the most probable explanation of this unfortunate clause, but can scarcely imagine that it will be suffered to pass into a law. A further ambiguity, however, arises with respect to this term heir-apparent, from its having a peculiar technical meaning in the Scottish law. "He who is entitled," says Erskine, "to enter heir to a deceased ancestor is, before his actual entry, styled, both in our statutes and by our writers, apparent heir." If the bill intends any reference to this legal acceptation of the phrase, we can only understand the person whose consent is required, to be such person as, being next heirsubstitute, would, on the immediate decease of the possessor, be his apparent heir, or entitled to enter on the lands. This, again, shuts out all those estates where the possessor has issue in tail, and would, consequently, limit the operation of the bill to exceptional cases. We think we have said enough to convince our readers that this clause is not likely to set free many entailed estates in Scotland-at all events, not without a chaos of litigation, in which the elements of profit will have a tendency to range themselves on the side of the lawyers.

The person whose consent is to be

obtained (whoever that mysterious person may be) is, as we have seen, to be born after the date of the act. In conformity with this principle, one would have supposed that where the next heir-substitute shall have been born before that date, then it should be necessary to obtain the consent of the first person entitled to take per formam doni, who shall be born after this date, together with the consent of all those who are to take before him. The third clause, however, introduces a new form of protection to the settlement, and merely enacts that, in such cases, the consent of a certain number of the heirs-substitute is to be ob tained (the blank left for the number was filled up with the word "three"), in committee of the House of Commons. Nothing said about the issue in tail, as before.

Where the main enactments of the bill are so comprehensible, it is useless to dwell on its details. We can only say, that whatever evils may be shown to exist under the present law, they will not only fail to be cured, but must be aggravated tenfold, by such a product of off-hand legislation

"Sent before its time

Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable," that it must necessarily die of its own deformity, unless the law-courts will lick it into shape by their decisions, a shape (as it must be) in which its own parents would not know it again. The law of real property in France exhibits a system so distinctly antagonistic to our English and Scottish law of entail, that we cannot be surprised at the attention with which Mr. M'Culloch has investigated its influences.

According to the law of France, a person with one child may dispose at pleasure of a moiety of his property, the child inheriting the other moiety as legitim, or matter of right; a person having two children can only dispose of a third part of his property; and those having more than two must divide three-fourths of their property equally amongst them, one-fourth part being all that is then left at their disposal. When a father dies in testate, his property is equally divided among his children, without respect to sex or seniority. Nothing can be more distinctly opposed to the principles we have endeavoured to establish, and to

the system followed in this country, than this law. It is therefore lucky that it is now no novelty. It has been established for more than half a century, so that we may trace and exhibit its pracextensive population subject to its operation Such an experiment is of rare occurrence, but when made is invaluable. And if its results should confirm the conclusions already come to, it will go far to establish them on an unassailable basis."-P. 80-81.

tical influence over the condition of the

We have already seen how these results may be traced in the state of French agriculture. They may also, we think, be discerned in the relative position which the landholders of France bear to other classes in the social scale. These, numbering between four and five millions, ought, as a class, to constitute the leaders of the nation. So far from this being the case, they are perhaps the most inert and uninfluential portion of the community, having apparently had little or no voice in the two revolutions which have swept over their heads within the last eighteen years, and as little in the erection, maintenance, or downfall of the Throne of the Barricades. It yet remains to be seen whether they will continue to accept everything which the Clubs of Paris are willing to force upon them. As tax-payers and cultivators of the soil, it can hardly suit them to be propagandists; as men who have something to lose, they will not readily give in to the dictatorial vagaries of Ledru Rollin. If, however, they would hold their own, it is time for them to be up and doing. France has been governed by a minority before now.

We have always regarded it as one of the main advantages of a landed aristocracy, that it raises up a principle of social rank antagonistic to that of mere wealth. In France, the constant subdivision and transfer of land breaks down this influence, and causes land to be regarded as a mere marketable article and equivalent for money.

"In countries where the custom of primogeniture exercises a powerful influence, families become identified with estates-the family representing the estate, and the estate the family. The wealth and consideration enjoyed by the latter depend upon, and are intimately

connected with the possession of the lands which have descended to them from their ancestors. They estimate their value by another than a mere pecuniary standard. They are attached to them by the oldest and most endearing associations; and they are seldom parted with except under the most painful circumstances. Hence the perpetuity of property in England in the same families, notwithstanding the limited duration of entails; great numbers of estates being at this moment enjoyed by those whose ancestors acquired them at or soon after the Conquest. But in France such feelings are proscribed. Estates and families have there no abid. ing connexion; and at the demise of an individual who has a number of children, his estate can hardly escape being subdivided. And this effect of the law tends to imbue the proprietors with corresponding sentiments and feelings. Non seulement,' says M. De Tocqueville, 'la loi des successions rend difficile

aux familles de conserver intacts les

mêmes demaines, mais elle leur ôte le désir de le tenter, et elle les entraine, en quelque sorte, à coopérer avec elle à leur propre ruine.'"-P. 85-86.

But Mr. M'Culloch dwells more particularly on the injurious effects to agriculture from the parcelling out of the land into sinall properties. He shows that a small proprietor is not so efficient a cultivator of the soil as a tenant, in which doctrine Arthur Young had preceded him. He shows, also, that the subdivision of properties leads to the subdivision of farms, and urges that it is impossible to have good farming on small patches of land. Of the miseries of an agricultural system carried on by small farmers on petty holdings, we have already a sufficient example in Ireland. We cannot but think, however, that the progress of things in England has too much swallowed up those little farms of from thirty to fifty acres, which at one time were common over the country. Not but what capital is employed at a great disadvantage on these little holdings-but where there is a general system of good-sized farms, an intermixture of smaller farms is not attended with injurious effects proportional to those which arise where the whole of the land is split up into minute parcels. And then small farmers furnish a link between the yeomanry and peasantry, which it is useful to maintain, cheering the poor man's lot by pointing out to

him a path by which he may advance from the position of a day-labourer to that of an occupier of land. On the same principle we are rejoiced to observe the gradual extension of the allotment system; although it would have a still more beneficial effect, we think, if the land was granted in the shape of a croft about the cottage, thus giving the tenant a greater interest, and more individual sense of proprietorship, than when his piece of land is packed, along with a number of others, into a mass of unsightly patches.

In connexion with the small holdings in Ireland, it should not be forgotten that this subdivision of the land results mainly from the practice of sub-letting: and this again has arisen in a great degree from the practice of granting long leases, the want of which in England has served, among many other things, for an outcry against the landlords. Mr. M'Culloch has pointed out the evils of too long leases on the farming tenant, that they superinduce a sense of security which easily degenerates into indolence. But the influence on Ireland is even worse, by breaking up the land into small patches, on which the occupier can but just maintain himself, paying an exorbitant rent to the middleman. For it is not the eager demand for land amongst the Irish peasantry, as we sometimes hear, that has produced this subdivision of the land, but the subdivision that has produced the demand, by putting the cultivation of the land into the hands of a class who are unable, through want of skill and capital, to carry it on; who cannot, therefore, furnish employment for the labourers, and thus drive them to grasp at little parcels of land as their only means of securing a wretched subsistence; and this security, as we know, has more than once proved but a fancied one, as in the disastrous failure of the potatoe crop.

While we are on this subject, we may draw the reader's attention to a very able pamphlet by an Irish gentleman, on Irish matters, which, though we believe it has never been published, has had an extensive private circulation. We allude to "An Address to the Members of the House of Commons on the Landlord and

Tenant Question, by Warren H. R. Jackson, Esq." The work, though somewhat tinged with the hard politico-economical school, is written with great shrewdness of thought and freedom from prejudice, and is well worthy the careful attention of the honourable House. The writer, in discussing the vexed question he has taken in hand, fully coincides with the general principles laid down by Mr. McCulloch. ' This," he says (speaking of the subdivision of land), "is one of the monster grievances of Ireland, and you will do little good unless you abate it." This abatement he would bring about mainly by prospective laws, as by placing all contracts for subletting hors la loi, and so taking away from the first lessee all power of recovering his rent from the actual tenant. We cannot but think that this would be found a most salutary enactment. It should be remembered, that the occupier is responsible to the owner of the free hold by the power of distress vested in the latter, and it is but just that he should be relieved from the liability to pay two rents-a liability which it is manifest no good farmer would incur, but which the squalid ravager of the soil in Ireland is always eager

for.

It has been said that no further legislative enactment is required in Ireland, and that administrative wisdom must do what yet remains to be done. Mr. Jackson, however, shows that there are such deep-seated evils in Ireland as cannot be cured except by the direct interference of the legislature. But we think he expects too much from the Sale of Encumbered Estates Bill. An extensive change of proprietorship would, we are persuaded, be a great evil in Ireland. There is an attachment in general to the "ould stock," among their poorer neighbours, which would naturally be followed by a jealousy and prejudice against the new comers who displaced them. And this prejudice would of itself neutralize any efforts for improvement which the landlord might other wise be disposed to make-although, in most cases, we should not expect much effort in this direction from a stranger mortgagee, often an unwilling purchaser, who would naturally

be anxious to contract with those parties from whom he could obtain his rents with least trouble, leaving them to deal with the land as they liked, and thereby continuing and increasing the odious middleman system.

Mr. M'Culloch does not confine his examination of the compulsory partition in France, to its influence on agriculture. He has discerned certain political effects of that and the concomitant system of which it is a part, with a precision which subsequent events have elevated into a sort of prophecy. The preface to his work is dated December, 1847, and the work was published, we believe, early in January. There can, therefore, be no grounds for classing the following passage with those anticipations which are made after the event:—

"The aristocratical element is no longer to be found in French society; and the

compulsory division of the soil, while it prevents the growth of an aristocracy, impresses the same character of mobility upon landed possessions that is impressed on the families of their occupiers. Hence the prevalent want of confidence in the continuance of the present order of things in France. What is there in that country to oppose an effectual resistance to a France has been stripped of those old asrevolutionary movement? Monarchy in it derives almost all its lustre and supsociations and powerful bulwarks whence port in this and other countries. The throne stands in solitary, though not unenvied dignity, without the shelter of a single eminence, exposed to the full force of the furious blasts that sweep from every point of the surrounding level. There is nothing intermediate, nothing to hinder a hostile majority in the Chamber of Deputies from at once subtion, or changing the reigning dynasty." verting the regal branch of the constituP. 132-133.

Scarcely was the printer's ink dry on this passage when the Throne of the Barricades was gone. We have given our author full credit for his sagacity in penetrating into the future, but we think it would puzzle him to foretell what is to come next. We are disposed to doubt, however, whether an aristocracy could have preserved the throne of Louis Philippe. It is true that in our own country William of Nassau and George of Brunswick maintained their crowns by

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the aid of powerful sections of the nobility. But the revolutions which gave them those crowns were not the volcanic outbursts of popular force. Under such outbursts, no successful usurper, no Hero-king," no sovereign by the will of the people, has been able to devise a principle which shall establish his throne in security, and serve in the stead of that prestige of old hereditary succession, that grand feudal idea of kingly right, which is the essential fountain of the reverence that guards royalty. Louis Philippe would have confirmed his sovereignty by means of the influence exerted upon interested officials. No sooner was his power shaken in its unstable equilibrium than the men whom his gold had bought rushed to worship the rising sun of the young Republic. Napoleon, before him, would have built up a similar power on military glory; his doom was sealed when his eagles turned from the field of Leipsic. Cromwell employed religious fanaticism to the same end: the fanaticism lasted his time; but we will venture to say that, had he lived, his protectorate would not have reached the seventeen years allotted to the democratic King of the French.

Our author is of opinion that, after all, the system of compulsory partition will fail to guard what has since become the French Republic:

"But, though it were possible, which it is not, to obviate the mischievous influence of the French and other plans for preventing the increase and continuance of property in the same families, it may be confidently predicted that they will, in time to come as hitherto, wholly fail in their grand object of perpetuating the ascendency of the democracy. In old settled and fully peopled countries, where the bulk of the population is necessarily poor and dependent, an aristocracy is indispensable for the support of a free system of government

Il importe à tous les peuples qui ont la prétention de devenir ou de rester puissants,d'avoir une aristocratie, c'est-à-dire un corps héréditaire ou non, qui conserve et perpetue les traditions, donne de l'esprit de suite à la politique, et se voue à l'art le plus difficile de tous, qu' aujourd'hui cependant tout le monde croit savoir sans l'avoir appris, celui de gouverner. Un peuple sans aristocratie

pourra briller dans les lettres et les arts, mais sa gloire politique me semble devoir être passagere comme un méteore." CHEVALIER, Lettres sur l'Amerique, ii. 379," pp. 171, 172.

We have already said that we think England certain to have_an aristocracy of some description. The ambition of the people to advance themselves individually in the social scale will necessarily lead to a high value being set upon those advanced positions, and will tend to make them the fulcrum from which the country is governed. And we can conceive nothing more fatal to our national organization than the result which would follow indirectly from the repeal of these laws. It may be supposed at first sight that no very vital question is involved here. Let those who suppose so, take a view of the probable condition of society which would ensue. These, and other socalled feudalities, being swept away, land becomes a commercial article, according to the desire of the plutocratic reformers. Estates are trucked about in the market like bills of exchange; constantly changing hands, their owners have little connexion with them or the people that live on them, regarding them merely in the light of so much realized capital. The old families gradually become dispossessed; mere wealth is recognised as the sole qualification for rank and influence; and the leading class in the state is composed of men who are an aristocracy by virtue of ready money. Far be it from us to undervalue the enterprise, integrity, and industry of our merchant manufacturers and tradesmen. But we will say that when we meet with a man, as we often do among those classes, endowed with a broad range of thought and high and noble aims, we regard him as possessing these qualities not as a consequence, but in spite of a commercial training. The immediate effects of such training are to narrow the mind and cramp the soul, not in respect of domestic and social life-for in these, perhaps, the middle classes are unsurpassed by any other-but in the provinces of the statesman and the politician.

In these times, it seems to be com