The Express.
London, England, 1847-06-22 00:00:00

member

shape, and, after all, it would have been • I root of the difficulty lies much deeper. It is entwined
partial
and
ivy...tract
measure in this respect. If with moat of the habits and prejudices of our law.
the private bill -business is to be put at all on a Balls- waking classes. The frame of our real property law
factory footing an entire revision is required. No is anti-commercial; the spirit in which land Is re.
department ofit can be made to work in a satisfactory ;carded by our proprietors is, to say the least, semi.
manner till the whole is reformed. Even the modicum feudal. The practice of family settlements, limiting
of good therefore that we recognise in Mr. Sratrres the estate to the remotest branches of the familystocki
bill, could only have been rendered efficacious by a entails ; the difficulty with which land was made
process of elaboration which it would be vain to ex- liable to debts ; the qualifications now or recently
pea from a house about to break up
.for the holidays. conferred by the possession of land, as to kill game,
Viewed in respect of its pretensions to take the to sit in parliament, to be in the commission
working of railways out of the heads of their owners, of the peace, and so forth, all point to something
we protested against the measure from the first. The besidis and beyond mere utility as connected "MR
only possible effect that government meddling with the possession of land. It is a dim shadow of the old
railway travelling could have, would be to make it feudal superiority which still haunts the minds of our
almost as bad as post-office conveyance, and to Masse land owners and real property lawyers, and prevents
railway proprietors and managers from the responsi- the intelligent application of sound economical prin.
bility which the public convenience and safety re- ciples to landed property. Let us consider the uses to
quires should be allowed to rest upon them. which land is applied, and see whether it differs in
Our gratification that the bill has been withdrawn any respect, except its permanence, from any other
might receive some allayment from Mr. Svnorr's object of convenience or enjoyment, from a bale of
threat to introduce another on the same principle Foods or a machine. Do you require land for build.
next year. But the circumstances under which the logs, for purposes of pleasure or ornament, as gardens,
declaration is made materially diminish our apprehen- shrubberies, parks, and so on? If so, you either buy
alone. It is like the valorous protest of a duellist, it absolutely, or hire upon such terms as will give you
bound over to keep the peace at Bow-street, that he will complete dominion over it for the objects you have in
invite his adversary to follow him across the Channel ; view. This requires no illustration ; every day's ex.
or the pathetic vows of a rejected lover, that he perienee in every city, town, and village, of the king.
will never desist from renewing his suit. All such dom furnishes instances in abundance.
promises are made with the mental reservation, "if Again, is land required for the commercial purposes
no excuse for breaking them ahall turn up "—and of manufactories, of market gardens, of public works?
such an excuse is invariably found. Here, too, we find it dealt with on purely commercial
principles. The owner tulle it, or lets it so that no
impediment exists to the best methods of using
it for the objects intended. But do you want
land for the purpose of farming, of making a livek.
hood by raising the daily food of the people? If 10,
you must at once make up your mind to abandon all
notions of mere utility, of adaptation of means to ends,
You have hired a farm on the estate of a game pre.
server, and you are overrun with vermin which des-
troy your crops, and are watched abeut your own
fields by gamekeepers who arc set over you to pro.
tect the vermin ; you are forbidden to mow your
wheat that a high stubble may be left to hsrboar the
game, as you are not at liberty to plough up you
stubbles till the end of October, full two months later
than the rules of good husbandry esquire. yogi
fields are of an inconvenient size or shape, they me
overshadowed by trees, they consist of permanent and
unprofitable pasture, but you can neither alter the
fences, remove the trees, or convert the useless pigmy
into profitable tillage land.
You want to adopt a course of cultivation not
usually pursued, but which peculiar circummances re
special opportunities have rendered most beneficial,
you find yourself stopped by the prescribed tomer of
husbandry marked out by the contract under which
you hold your farm. You have strong political or
religious convictions—you act upon them by support-
ing public men whose views accord with tour own,
and though your rent has been paid regularly, your
farm well cultivated, your capital sunk in the 64
you receive a notice to gait your farm because your
landlord's political or religious convictions differ from
your own. Is not this a true picture of the condition
of the men who live by farming other men's land?
Is it surprising, then, that land used for fuming in
England has its capacity for production only half de
veloped ?
Now, here there are no legal difficulties to contend
with. A rational lease is a very simple affair which
most landowners might grant if they pleased. But
they do not please so to do. They readily enough
adopt the commercial principle as regards rent, but
they try to retain a portion of that feudal superiority
which is inconsistent with a modern contract for
farming land, and with existing methods of cultiva-
tion. And see how this spirit affects the law of real
property, and prevents the adoption of cheap and
simple methods of transferring land. lira, the exist.
ing system of settlement and entail on an unborn ge-
neration compels adherence to the rule of our courts,
which requires for all land a sixty years' title. That
rule has reference to the ordinary duration of human
life, not to any period fixed by act of parliament, u
has sometimes been supposed. The probability ion
great as to amount to a practical certainty that, if DO
trace of a settlement be found during a sixty years'
posseeeion, an absolute title may be presumed.
But while the power of entailing on unborn lives
exists, we do not see how titles are to be shortened,
and if titles are not shortened, how can the expenses
of tracing a title be materially diminished?
Again, the great body of landowners have consider-
able repugnance to a register of title, because it would
disclose the large. extent to which the property,
nominally theirs, is burdened with mortgages and
incumbrances. Yet, without a general register there
can be no simple mode of transferring lead. It is
plain, therefore, that when we hear vehement decla-
mation on the expenses of conveyancing from lawyers
or legislators, who are still unprepared to look man-
fully at the real difficulties in the way of amendment
which are to be found in the habits, and fears, and
prejudices of the landowners, we must not be too
sanguine or expect very speedy or decisive results
We look chiefly to the pressure of the commercial
classes for the impulse which is necessary to bring our
law of real property into harmony with modem
civilisation.

LI V ERPOOL threatens to become another Alexandria.
That great emporium of trade—that great outlet by
which the riches of the east and south reached the
western world, became afflicted in the height of its
worldly prosperity by a thirst for polemical discus-
sions. Merchants gave up trade, and the people their
industrious occupations, to censure bishops and applaud
eremites; and, singular to say, religious furor waxed
strong as commercial prosperity decayed. In place
of its stores and factories, Alexandria raised up
churches and libraries—the latter chiefly of pole-
mical works. And the zeal of the inhabitants,
in disputing minute points of christian belief,
and interpreting abstruse passages of scripture,
grew more and more intense, as the power of the
great foes of all Christianity waxed strong in their
neighbourhood. The Alexandrians, however, had no
fears of the infidel ; all their terrors were reserved
for the peaceable schismatics of their own creed.
The result was the destruction of Alexandria, its
churches, and its polemics, by the blind disciples of

MAHOMET.
We do not pretend that Liverpool is threatened by
any such fate, and merely adduce the example to
show how great commercial cities, in different climes
and centuries, may indulge in tastes and tendencies not
generally considered incidental to a class busied in the
dealings between man and man. his certainly an inex-
plicable and portentous fact, thatthis great commercial
constituency, so much in the vanguard of English
constituencies that it singled out such candidates as
CANNING tad HUSKISSON, and was singled out by
them—it ie strange that this same constituency should
be now the most laggard in England ; that it should
be shunned, not only by the liberal, but by the mode-
rate; and that it should literally.be in quest of some
candidate, endowed with that quixotic stolidity, that
the world of English politics does not possess a fool,
antiquated and bigoted enough for their desires!
The explanation of such a phenomenon is, that
Liverpool, situated in face of the Irish shores, and
receiving every six or twelve hours importations of
moral and religious feeling from that country, in addi-
tion to pauperism and fever, is (righted from English
self-possession and self-propriety by. the eight of Irish
results ; the fear of the supposed Irish cause of these
results, and, lastly, by the adoption of Irish means
to combat these results.
The importations of Liverpool from Ireland
have unfortunately not been confined to specimens
of turbulent and indigent repealer'. It has de-
rived from the same source one of that species
peculiarly reared in Ireland to combat and pursue
the catholic. Unfortunately, this specimen of the
orange and high tory breed is a man of talents,
piety, and eloquence, by which he has been able to gild
and sanctify, in the eyes of the Liverpool. people, that
political religion which is fast dying out in Ireland, in
consequence of its having been so instrumental in
bringing that country to its present condition. It is, in
fact, this spirit, more than aught else, which has con-
*lidded to brutify and depress the Irish, and thus to
root catholicism stronger in the wrongs and in the
ignorance of Helotiem.
It is quite certain, that the followers of no creed or
heresy have ever been recovered from it by hatred
and abuse, even when that hatred was made to midi
the torture and the sword. When we Dave lbw
away the sword, it is more idle still to employ alai"
Ressosing is more courteous, but it is quite as idle.
llosipssomer aid physical condition of the lower
visaweek at reason, and of course those for whom
Elam lower orders constitute a constituency, an way,
se a support, are proportionately deaf. Yon can
disk them in the only way that a creed was ever
inemnefully attacked, by getting the population into
quite a new stage of civilisation, by enlightening
them through their interests, and altering their ideas
by their altered position. The growth of towns and
of a civic population in Europe begat. the reformatted.
The physical soil preceded the intellectual mei
dropped on it. Liverpool, therefore, was p
in the true way to combat Irish catholicism, whoa It
meted opposite to Irish shores a great centre of in-
estitry and trade, which would have long since
=its missionaries into Ireland, had not the mie-
es of litical and social disquiet been already
then, and . not the last quarter of a oratory
lam the epoch in which England thole to do jashos
the Irish, an 4 to restore then to equality of rights
sal hopes. The mere giving of thses 'boons, so
certain finally to afford the beet results, has, as yet,
produced the effervescence of the worst passions, end
unfortunately government stood in need of some of
these bed passions to aid their efforts.
For Liverpool now to insist on its represen-
tative pledging himself to oppose all measures
for the education and moral elevation of
the Irish catholics, is neither more nor less than 1,
for Liverpool to declare that catholicism, as
developed in Ireland, shall be eternal. We have no
objection to Liverpool displaying an anti-catholic
spirit, and to its taking the' beet and most en-
lightened means for combating and ccanteracting
the expansion and force of a creed, which it sup-
poses hostile to civil liberty and religious truth.
But let its efforts be those which become the wisdom
of an enlightened community. Let it not relapse
into old and exploded ways, of which the experience
of centuries has shown the futility and the folly. -If
Liverpool will engage in a crusade, let it at least be
a crusade of the nineteenth century; and let not the
epoch of one great commercial emancipation be also
t at of the restoration of intolerance.

- - -
THERE will be no more work got out of pailisment
this em-sioa. The elections are paramount in the
minds ef members, and the only thing thought d
is
to huddle up their work, and shove it aside in. the
way least offensive to common decorum. Minister.,
with all their influence as heads of an orgenned
party, will have enough to do if they get a few d
their own bills saved from the annual " massacred
the innocents:" reforms advocated by private members
have not a chance of a hearing.
Captain PECHELL and Mfr. Heise, thereto, if
they get the returns relative to the abeam of the
Vice-A,dmiralty Courts in the coloniee,
even bottle them up for another year. This
to be regretted : yet it reminds one of a nose
failing characteristic feature of " protected inters&
The so-called shipping interest is at this rowed
doing battle tooth and nail to maintain the very elm'
vocal protection of the Navigation Law. Yet thee
gentlemen who are so sensitive to the modifies d
their pockets as to weep and wail, bite and wreck to
keep alive exclusive privileges of which it O uneaten
whether they gain or lose by them, have for
quietly submitted to the enormous amount of Walk
mail annually levied upon them by the Colonel Yr*
Admiralty Courts.
An instructive illustration of the chewier ad
working of these courts is now before us. In his
1846, the good ship Margaret, of London, Itllde,
after undergoing a complete repair at Sy O,
(N. S. NV.), was about to pat to sea. The we
had all signed the usual special set'em'd
with the captain, called the articles of a shall
voyage, binding themselves to fish end ceeree76l
" catch" to London, and, on delivery there, to leo
payment by certain lays or shares set °ROW ti
each man's name. In Sydney, the cook deserted O.
vessel, and afterwards applied, through I solicitor, to
hie discharge. The captain refused to great it
man having become bound to return to Lech's, lasi
having drawn nearly all that was due to his milt
lay is advance. The solicitor next stunmoes4
the
captain to the police-Aloe, where the cede wee de
missed for want of jurisdiction. The solicits' thi
wrote to the captain in these words :
My client having an offer to atop in the ematrymill
health is quite restored without being put to my seZt,
hays,_ sevesd to aoospt 51. ss. so my colts, laws;
day ; sad my client will accept his discharge
on my being paid the sam.
The captain declined to pay costs which 11%
incurred in a vexatious action brought srldo,
without a shadow of right. Hereupon
caused his client to swear in the Nice-Abefif_„,
Court that he had a claim to the anamat etWI a
the ship, and the Margaret was in =rib
rested on the eve of sailing by the
court. Bail was put in, and a plea wetwastille
captain, bat after many delays the court
the " articles" were illegal, and that the plalew
a right to go fee wage, on a roseate me
supreme court was now inovg for a writ ef
lion to oust the jurisdiction of the Vi
Court, which was granted by the Chief J
hewn ...counsel -This demises pat es emit
and vexatious irreeLanir
Lr°l47al the sailing of
month, and cost the captain 751. he his
his own expenses alone.
But the luckless captain was not yet bill
his troubles. The solier.tor renewed his
Vice. Admiralty Court in the names of
the crew, who swore that they had chisel
Margaret, to the amount of 7501, wh
vessel wax again arrested. The

Tan society for promoting the amendment of the
law is producing a useful effect upon the public mind,
by preparing it for a considerable change in the law
of real property. But we do not as yet observe that,
beyond the recommendation of a general neater ell
titles, anything of much practical hnportance hes I
emanated from that learned body. The requirement
of the time is to apply tho commercial principle to
landed property ; to deal with land, not as the sacred
thing of a favoured caste, but as an instrument el
production, which society has a right to demand
should be used for its legitimate purpose. The pro-
prietor of land hu a particular and usufructuary
right of enjoyment, which is subordinate to the
general right to the community to require a reason-
able degree of cultivation.
The abstract proposition, once so importunately
urged by the protectionists, that the supply of the
nation's food is mainly dependent upon home produc-
tion, is unqaestionably true ; the mistake made by the
politicians who would have excluded foreign corn
was, in sup • the full admission of that props-
linen furnished any argument spinet permitting the
nation to seek an auxiliary supply from abroad.
Bat the fact that comparative plenty or scarcity will
ever turn upon the state of home cultivation and
supply does tarnish most conclusive reasons for als-
roganng all those laws and customs which tend to
deprive land of its utility—ite productive powers.
Now, nothing would have more powerful effect in
rendering land productive than to lures= the faci-
lity of dealing with it ; that it should pees readily
from hand to hand, as the exigencies of families or
individuals might require. And this is not a mere
matter of conveyancing, an affair between the lawyers
and the public, which most modern discussions on
the law of real property would seem to imply, The