The Press.
London, England, 1853-08-13 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

every kind which have been occasioned by
this institution. These consequences were,
perhaps, inseparable from the sudden opening
of the Irish land market at a time of unprece-
dented depression. Nor do we wish to make
any remarks upon the conduct of the officers
who have presided in the Court, because we
believe it to have been able and honourable.
But we object to the attempt to establish per-
"tually a tribunal the exclusive object of
, . -tie and transfer of landed pro-
Witten IN the... • .•- against improvi-
perty, without any seem ov the due
dent anti reckless litigation, or is.
distribution of the produce of the sales. And
we think that all its advantages, without any
of Its evils, might be attained by a moderate
Chancery reform.
The peculiar business of the Encumbered
Estates Commission is the speedy transfer of
real estate. To accomplish this object they
have been invested with powers of the most
arbitrary character, and they have made rules
contrary to all precedent. The rule of our
Equity Courts. and, indeed, of natural justice,
is, that a puisne encumbrancer shall not
attempt to sell tut estate without of to
redeem those paramount charges to which he
was content to be subject, and which he had
no right to disturb. But, as this salutary
safeguard against improvident and vexatious
suits tended to cheek the sale of the land, the
rule of the Encumbered) Estates Commis-
sion is precisely the reverse. Tile result
has certainly been to throw estates into the
market., but, at the same time, to suNect land-
owners and mortgagees+ to attattkot &am
parties front which the latter class at least
should bate been exenipt, anti to multiply
the order of " prowling assignees " of encum-
brances. Again, the rule of the Equity
Courts is, that, with the exception of the
general costs of the sale, each encumbraneer
receives his costs in the priority of his de-
mand. But the new tribunal, steadily keeping
in view its peculiar object, makes the peti-
tioner's costs the first charge upon the fund,
and thus offers a tempting lnibe to bring land
to the hammer. These two innovations are
the chief changes in the preliminaries of liti-
gation. In the conduct of a suit. for the sale
of an estate, the Encumbered Estates Commis-
sion has made an extraordinary revolution.
The Court of Chancery satisfied itself of the
rights of the parties and the ownerships of the
encumbrances before it sought to transfer to
another the fund which was their seeurity.
The Encumbered Estates Court, upon a prima
facie, and very often an exparie, statement that
an estate is in a certain degree of embarrass
ment, forces it into the market, and transfers
to the purchase-money the rights of the par
ties ; and finally, upon the completion of the
purchaser's conveyance, it puts him into
possession of the estate sold, by an indefeasi-
ble title, and summarily evicts any tenants who
may question the validity of proeeedings of
which they may never have heard.
No one can doubt that these changes have
tended to the speedy rode and transfer of
landed property in Ireland. But is it wise to
make them perpetual, and to establish for ever
a tribunal which acts net only inconsistently
with, but contradictorily to, our whole system
of ,jurisprudence? It is impossible to speak
too highly of one privilege of the Commission,
namely, its power of vesting in itself, by its
deeretal order, the entire estate of the vendors,
and of transferring it, by it simple and intelli
gible conveyance, to a purchaser. But this
privilege is merely applying to real estate the
law which, in bankruptcy eases, has long been
applied to personal estate, and might easily
be conferred upon the Court of Chancery.
There seems to be no reason for perpetuating
the other practices of this tribunal, and thus
far encouraging reckless litigation, endangering
the rights of suitors and tenants, and, for a
fancied expediency, cutting up justice by the
roots.

THE WEST INDIES.
TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRERs."

Sir,—Lord John Russell, in his statement last
week respecting the intention of Government with
restard to Jamaica, said, "that in British thliana and
Trinidad the exports of sugar, since 1840, had in-
creased from 8:3,000 cwts. to 1,321.000 cwts. in 184
more than 50 per cent. In Jamaica the export of

sugar in 1840 was M 7,000, and in 1852 it bad fallen
to 511,000, cwts. That Guiana and Trinidad had im •
ported 13,000 emigrant labourers, and Jamaica only
11,000;" and wound up by saying, •, that he had no
doubt but that Jamaica would now soon recover front
her depression, and become as prosperous as the
other colonie,.-

I would. sir, with your permission, put before your
reiltliTS, in as brief a spree as ro..ibh•, u differeut
view of this growing pru+tu•rity of his sanguine lord-
ship.

British littiana and Trinidad. after importing
73,(X10 labourers, increase their produetion of sugar
in twelve years -197,000 ewts., or 11,800 tons. In
18.11 the crop of sugar in Cuba was under 911,000
's
; in
18'5eini)t-owartinSolfitit less
W::;Nlitlialls.2. .):d'ttnl44l%) ttiit:lntsti;laaviel
inerefute nt., nduce with ease 2 tons of sugar an-
eat be made t 0 pa. live adult emigrant pro.
nuttily; Alla, allowhig that
• •e imported la.
daces one.half of that quantity, um..
on
boureN ought to have increased the proctuu. to
73,000 tons, instead of 2 1,t4:0) lona. This illereake to
only at the rate of about one-third of a ton per La-
bourer, or one. sixth of the production of a slate.
to the emigrants, Iterbice, which is a
part of tittiatio, has abandoned the whole of her
«states since 1841, the labour from which would also
be atonable for sugar. I.ord Harris, in a letter to
Earl tirey, dated lsth of December, 18.17, trout
Trinidad, informs hint, with reference to the coolie
emigrants, " that there is a dead low* on every Coolie,
man, woman, anti child, this year, of 101. ;" and it is
now admitted that the Indian Coolie does not Rower
well in the West I attics. And in the same bites.
Lord I larris further says, " 1 possess a detailed ae
count of the produce and expense of the same estate
befitre and later vinatteipation: formerly, sugar wits
made at 64 cents the luu lbs., it uow costa 0 dollar..,
or It. 0., 1441.

Jamaica, where the dearth of labour has heel
greater, from the facilities it offers to negro squatters
and from loss by eholern, than the other island', in
Isll7 produced 11 MI 14 tint" fibs. of claret., nail email/sod
at ithota ~tsJloo,ootillis. till the ctuancipation ; it not,
prialoves alsint 3,1tii0,011411115., or not ono-seventh ut
us shu• prowlnet ion. There have been abandoned in
the island `ll4'o the 01118111410$11 in %W WI MO coffee
and '!on sugar esian.m. The average produce or
sugar for the three your.: previous to the enuaneipa
tion was nearly 10,0011 tuns; it is tom, according to
1.44 rd .1. Unssell's statement, •25,5011 tons ; and not until
the fah of July, 1145.1, will the differential duty in
tu:,n of free labour sugar entirely CeaSi. ; and it has
been computed also that from the emancipation to
1N54) the loss to the planters and the island was not
less than 50,0110/. ; yet. still they struggle on, have
imported may 11,000 hilmitrers, and Lord J. Russell
tells John Dull that he has not the least doubt but
that—Walden will soon be as prosperous as British
I ;ninth' and Trinidad. 11f the latter, by the bye, 1
have sects a statement by Lord Mulls (though at
this moment 1 cannot put my hand upon it), that up
to a certain period the cost of keeping up the exports,
nv,T the profits, ails I,ooo,ooL—Viair obedient ser-
vant, AN (01.11 PLANTKR.

- .
St. John's-w►NHI, .11igust 9, INA.
P.S.—ln the Journoi of the Eastern Archipelago
and Eastern Asia, Marti!, IMIS, I find It paper written
by a gentleman of my acquaintance, Mr. Ilalasticr,
the United States Consul at Singapore in 1519, fry m
which I take the following extract :--" In the United
States, where implements of husbandry adapted to
this cultme (sugar) are freely used, and notwith.
standing the immature eondition of the clines when
cut—which, owing to the cold sense:), are bilged to
be immipulated at ten months old—ouch hand or lit-
bower (slave) on the estate, men, woaten, and
children, able to work, pmluro from live to seven
hogsheads of ljamilbs. each, according to the returns
made and published by Congress." This is on the
average 1 fiats 1:1 cwt. for each man, woman, and
child; and Lord .1101 in Russell's emigrants, by his own
showing, in prosperous Guiana and 'hinidiel increase
the production at the rate of about 7 cwt. each. Is it,
therelere, to be wondered at, even supposing that
the emigrant produced one ton, that the area of, and
the numbers of slaves thereon, are both rapidly
increasing?

A41%it.e,4 im *Ns:I of the 6th inht. announce
that. largo lionntitic. of corn are heing shipped for
Frattec and Italy.

I.citers from llesika Bay of the Wlth of July htato
that the greatest enthusiasm i:revailed among the
crewri of the duets of Great Britain and France.

It is hair' that a telegraphic ile4patch has been
rmeived from Vivant' announcing the acceptance by
the Divan of the Vienna proposals.

.1 new expedition is preparing l►y Russia againat
the condoms, to tie undertaken at the end of this
month. inol a fleet is arming in the men of Azof to
support the !wet operations. Since the quaint with
Turkey they.: has been great agitation in the Russet
Caucasian provinces.