The Press.
London, England, 1858-10-23 00:00:00

THE PRESS, OCTOBER 23, 1858.

1018

cumbered estates, as to their market value, was
clearly neither just to the latter, nor consistent
with sound public policy; and the result has
been the constitution, by the recent Act of the
Attorney-General for Ireland, of the Landed
Estates Court—a Court is which every owner of
land in Ireland may have his title certified and
made indefeasible. The practical working of
this Court, under the code of procedure already
prepared for it, will, in the opinion of the Noble
and Learned Lord, furnish a satisfactory solution
of the difficult and long-vexed question " how
"to simplify the transfer of land, with complete
" security of title, and without disturbing the
"settled foundations of property."

We have italicised the concluding words of
Lord Chancellor NAPIER'S observations on the
objects contemplated by this undeniably great
amendment of the law of real property, because
in them is contained the pith of the difference
between Law Reformers of the school to which

the Noble and Learned Lord belongs, and Law
Reformers of the school to which Lord JOHN
RussELL has given in his adhesion. The former,
while maintaining undisturbed the settled
foundations of property, aim at giving to that
property the protection of the law in the best,
the simplest, the least expensive, and the most
expeditious form. The latter strike at the
foundations of property; they would make short
work not only of the forms of law by which
property is protected, but of the very rights of
property itself. Lord Chancellor NAPIEICW
oration, which was to have been delivered on
the day after the opening of the Congress by
the General President, was, of course, prepared
long before the extraordinary doctrines pro-
pounded by Lord JOHN RUSSELL could meet his
eye ; but if he had designedly framed his remarks
with a view to controvert those doctrines, and to
rescue the " Social Science Association " from

the suspicion and reproach which they are likely
to bring upon it, be could not have done it more
effectually than by the following exposition of
the principles to be kept in view in any amend-
ment of the law of real property.

"In dealing:l the Noble and Learned Lord
said, " with the laws of property in a country
" whose social system is consecrated to order and
" freedom, we must proceed with cautious cir-
" cumspection. It is, doubtless, an easy matter
" to talk vaguely on making land a commercial
" commodity, and dealing with broad acres as
" with bales of merchandize. The practical
" solution is quite another matter. The question
" was put to Lord ST. LEONARDS when he at-
" tended as a witness before a Committee of the

" House of Commons, of which I was the chair-
" man. He was asked by a very zealous Re-
\' former, ' Why cannot you deal with land as with
railway shares ?" So you may,' replied his
Lordship, 'if you choose to ignore all the uses
"of land in our social system ; but if these are
" to be preserved, the difference and the difficulty
" exist in the distinctive nature and use of the

" things compared.' "
It must have sounded strange, we should
think, in Lord Jonx RUSSELL'S ears to hear his
own voice give utterance to sentiments so directly
condemnatory of the views on which he had ex-
patiated with so much point and complacency
only a few days before. For what becomes of
" the settled foundations of property," when
So estate can be settled " beyond the lives of
" two persons living at the time of the crea-
" tion of the estate, who shall live to attain
" their majority " ? With such limitations to
the process of " settling," what property could
ever acquire " settled foundations " ? The re-
servation about taking care not to " act too
harshly," or " sweep too widely," in particular
cases, will hardly protect Lord JOHN RUSSELL
from the imputation of having talked loosely on the
subject of the law of real property, before he had
given himself time to reflect on the social philo-
sophy of real property. Let him be content,
then, to sit at the feet of his sectional colleague,
and get by heart the lesson which, on his behalf,
he read to his Liverpool audience last Saturday
morning. " The common course of society;
continues the address of Lord Chancellor I'n-
PIER, " furnishes the most intelligible explana-
-44 tion. When industry or providence has accu-
" mutated capital, an investment in land is
" generally sought, not for commercial gain, but
" for social repose, for the position and the land !cps which belong to flied property. land

" has its local limits ; it is not capable of exten-
" sion. Commerce is co-extensive with the wide
" world. Land has its system of tenancies, its
" various easements, its subordinate estates and
" interests, its encumbrances and charges, its
" local duties which accompany its acquired
" rights. Its code of laws is more or less incor-
" poratecl with the delicate arrangements of
" family life. Is there any subject which ought
" to be touched with a more cautious hand ?"
Such is the question asked by Lord Chancellor
NAPIER. Lord Joitx RUSSELL'S question is,
" IVhy should not an old society be freed from
" the complications of our law of real property ?"
Let the public judge which of the two questions
is the more pertinent, the more statesmanlike.
We remarked on Saturday last on the indirect
advantages likely to spring from these quasi-
scientific associations. The little episode in the
proceedings of the " Social Science Congress"
which was going forward at Liverpool while our
readers were conning our remarks, goes a great
way to confirm the view which we then took.
Meeting with such opposite views on the floor
of' the House of Commons, NAPIER and RUSSELL
would have been engaged in a Parliamentary
duello of the fiercest character. How pleasantly,
on the contrary, all went off at Liverpool. There,
instead of firing away at each other, both fire
at the social science of real property, put up in
the shape of a target at a convenient distance.
When everybody has had his shot, both marks-
men and spectators run up to the target to see
how the shots have told. NAPIER'S, it appears,
has hit "the bull's-eye," while RUSSELL'S has
gone wide—we are afraid to suggest how
wide—of the mark. And if Lord Chancellor
NAPIER deserves great credit for the skilfulness of
his aim, a mitigated amount of credit is assuredly
due to Lord JOHN RUSSELL for the good nature
with which he has, in the present instance, acted
as marker, pointing out with his own finger the
hole made by his rival's bullet.

TIIE FACTIONS OF TIIE CHURCH.
3,11:cn, very much, have they to answer for who
originated, and, despite of many palpable proofs
of its mischievous tendency, persist in lbstering,
the Romanizing movement in our Church. To
instil into young men, raw from college, a notion
that their calling is, not to serve humbly in their
curacy, till they have learned something of the
responsibilities of the clerical office, and have
gained some experience of the human heart, to
influence whose inner workings is the object of
religion, but that they are to reform and re-
model their Church, and to purge out from her
the " Protestant leaven," is surely not the way
to train up a race of sober-minded and right-
thinking ecclesiastics. To lead them to suppose
that the most efficient method to bring about the
desired effect is to dress a la soutane, to hang the
churches with silks and satins of divers colours,
to burn candles in daylight, to put flowers on the
altar, to multiply crossings and bowings, genu-
flexions and prostrations, is as surely the way to
beget a race of clerical coxcombs. But to encou-
rage them to play at Popish priestcraff, to dress
and to undress men's and women's consciences,
as girls do their dolls, and to fancy themselves
spiritual guides and directors, when it is a hard
matter for them to keep their own feet out of the
ditch, is to substitute the arrogancy of human
folly for,the meekness of Divine wisdom.

It is no use to tell us that to assert that such
things are done in our Church is a most scan-
dalous exaggeration, a most foul slander. "By
" their fruits ye shall know them," is a test of
men's conduct, for which we have good autho-
rity, and which, therefore, we need not scruple
to apply. It cannot be denied, for it is a matter
of notoriety, that a goodly number of the men
who within the last twenty years have grown up
under the sort of training above indicated, have
deserted our Church altogether, and thrown
themselves into the embraces of Rome, in the
expectation that there they would find the
reality of what they have been taught to make a
plaything of as "Anglicans." Neither can it be
denied that the perverts are not all youths of
feeble intellect and weak character, but that
among them were men who, on the ground of