The Express.
London, England, 1846-11-06 00:00:00

he eporto.

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will he made up on the morning of the 201 h November.

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LONDON, FRIDAY, NOV. 6.
THE gravest economical questions seem to have
become the chosen topics of popular discussion.
Nor is this surprising, for the recent anti-corn-
law agitation has so familiarised the public mind
with sound economical principles, that the or-
dinary newspaper reader is better qualified to
consider such subjects, than nineteenths of the
politically educated class were ten years ago. As
a direct result of that agitation, too, there has
arisen a very general desire to lessen the cost of the
conveyance of landed property. We say direct re-
sult, because one of the most important recommen-
dations of the Committee of the House of Lords,
appointed last session to inquire into " the burthens
on land," was that the costs of the transfer of landed
property ought to be diminished. This practically
involves the whole question of our real property
law. To render conveyances cheap, the law must
be simplified, and many of the most rooted preju-
dices of our landed proprietors and our lawyers must
be eradicated. This it is which causes so much dif-
ficulty in every step taken to reform the law of real
property. Changes arc proposed, which per se
li
the proprietors of land admit to be useful, but
they drag after them measures eminently t. dis-
tasteful to the same class of proprietors. In
calculating the amount of resistance to change
offered, too much has been attributed to the lawyers,
and far too little to the landowners. The fact is, that
the recommendations of the real property commis-
sioners, most of them eminent lawyers, which have
been before the public and the legislature for many
years, have never been adopted. A few of their
suggestions have, during the last twelve years, been
made the subject of distinct acts of parliament for
simplifying titles and lessening the intricacy and
costs of conveyances. This, so far as it has gone,
proved benef.cial, but the subject is one which,
above all others, requires to be dealt with by large
and comprehensive measures. Piece-meal legis-
lation with respect to it, is to be deprecated,
not only as ii,sufficient, but as courting and strength-
ening opposition. An objection to a particular
change is often unanswerable so long as other parts of
the system arc t) remain unchanged, and nineteen-
twentieths of the controversies which have raged
_ .

upon this subject have been caused by the hesitation
of the advocates of improvement to follow
out their own suggestions to their legitimate
consequences.
There is now a controversy going on in the news-
papers, which forcibly illustrates the truth of these
observations. Mr. STEWART, it commissioner under
an act fur enfranchising copyholds, who was by pro-
fession a conveyancer, and who, when in parliament,
introduced some partial measures for the reform of
real property, has addressed two public letters "to
the members of agricultural societies and others in-
terested in land," wherein he calls upon the owners of
landed property to come forward and concur in
changes he proposes, as essential to their own
interests. He begins with the observation that, as we
have free trade in the produce of land, we ought also
to have free trade in land itself,—meaning, that the
exclusive advantages which landowners had attempted
to secure to themselves by restricting the trade in corn
having passed away, they should no longer suffer
themselves to be embarrassed in their dealings with
their property by the expense and delay caused by the
intricacies of the law of real property. Ilethen proceeds
to show, in language somewhat inflated and metapho-
rical, that most of the complexities of our real property-
law are to be traced to the feudal system. This
assertion is to some extent, but not entirely, true.
The form, perhaps, more than the substance, of our
real property law is derived from feudal tenure, and
from the devices which successive ages have made to
escape from its 'rigours. The real difficulty in the
way of improvement is, that ideas, the offspring of
fcudality, form part and parcel of the landowning
mind. Territorial influence is that which it was an
object of the feudal system to secure to the lords of
the soil, and in utter forgetfulness of the real state of
modern society, our present landowners still cling to
the same idea. The practical effect is, that most of
the large landed estates of this country are, as com-
pared with what they might be, little better than
wastes; producing insufficient employment for la-
bourers, scarcely anything worthy the name of profit
to farmers, and but low rents to their owners. This
arises from two causes, anxiety to retain the nominal
ownership of a large area, though the substance may
be in the hands of mortgagees ; and an unwillingness
to grant such complete possession to occupying
tenants, as will induce men of enterprise and capital
to cultivate their land in the best manner.
Mr. STEWART, therefore,properly enough,addresses
his letters to members of agricultural societies and
others interested in land, though he shrinks, as we
shall presently show, from suggesting all that is requi-
site for the development of his own views.
Mr. STEWART says that if the present rules of con-
veyancing "are strictly carried out, they render many
small interests in land absolutely unsaleable ;" the
consequence is, that titles to small properties are, in a
great measure, taken on trust a position which
nobody, who has seen the stringent conditions as to
title on which real property is now commonly offered
for sale, will deny. The objects he proposes to attain
are these : 1. Simplicity and uniformity of tenure ;
2. Easy, cheap, and expeditious modes of transfer;
3. Shorter and more simple deeds; 4. Greater cer-
tainty as to time in completing the sale and mortgage
of land; 5. Some mode of shortening inquiry as to
title. And his suggestions for obtaining such objects
are threefold: 1. A general map of the country ; 2. A
general registry of titles ; 3. A consideration of the
whole subject by disinterested persons appointed by
the Government.
Now, each and all of these suggestions are clearly
indispensable to an effective reformation of the law of
real property. But are they alone sufficient ? And
until the subject has undergone more public discus-
sion, are the parties most interested, the owners of

• land, prepared to adopt these, which may be termeil
preliminary measures? Both questions, we fear,
must be answered in the negative. The Real Pro-
perty Commissioners long ago recommended a geuerdl
registry of titles, bat the landowners have hitherto
strongly objected to that which would be a disclosure
of the great extent to which their properties are in.
cumbered. A registry of titles, without a general
map and survey, by which every house and field
should be numbered and identified, would be only an
imperfect measure. With it, there is no reason why
some, and ultimately all real property, might not be
as easily transferred as Bank Stock or Consols. The
property which migkt immediately be so transferred,
is that which belongs absolutely to an indi-
vidual. Even now, such a transfer could be made,
independently of stamp duty, at no great ex-
pense. A very small proportion, however, of the
land of this country is in the possession of abso-
lute owners; and we believe that one-half or two
thirds of it is subject to family settlements, which,
so long as they exist, entirely preclude short titles.
And it is on these points that Mr. STEWART'S critics
take their stand. For instance, the correspondent of
a daily paper, who signs himself " A Conveyancer,"
and whose arguments are reiterated in a weekly jour-
nal, says :
"The true causes of the infrequency of alienation in this country, it
is soMnitted, are—lst, the practice of locking up estates in settlement,
which tipper to most of the large estates in the kingdom; and, 2ndly,
the strong disinclination ishklt exists on the part of landowners in
general to part with an acre of their inheritance. 11 is a well-known
feet, that a *UM will encumber his ',genie to the last farthing of its
value, and actually starre upon it, before he will permit a particle of
it to go into the market."
This is certainly true, though theassertion by which
it is followed, that the costs of conveyance do not re-
tard or prohibit the free sale and disposition of land
in this country, is, as regards small properties, quite
untrue. And the same writer adds:
" If landed proprietors would be Reigned with a simple ownership
In fee, the treader of land might be effected as .imply and perhaps
more cooreniently than a transfer of stock ; but if they are determined
to adopt a more ;now, .stive policy, they must submit to entail on
themselves and their pew erity the necessary comioquences of such a
course. It will be apparent, from what has been said, that as the
inordinate length to which conveyances of real estate are sometimes
extended, is occaaioned not by the specific effect of the form of trans-
fer, but by the number and intricacy of the intertsta involved, the
same result may be appieabla to dealings with personal estate.
We find therefore that in dispositions of personal estate, where
varied or partial intercats arc created or dealt with, there is precisely
the same necessity for lengthy and intricate assurances as in cares of
real estate."
And he then refers to the fact that the custom of
requiring a sixty years' title to an estate does not
depend upon any limitation by statute, but because
that period is assumed to be the ordinary duration of
human life. Now take the case of a person who is
tenant for life of an estate under a settlement by which
a great variety of subsequent limitations may have
been made, and who has enjoyed the estate for forty
or fifty years, how is the title to the entire interest in
the property to be ascertained except by going back
to the period when tie settlement was made ?
The most simple method of transfer, to be obtained
by the aid of a public survey and a registry of titles,
could not render the transfer of such a property a
simple affair.
To show how much more the customs of our land-
owners tend to the prevention of sales of land, than
the law of real property, it may be mentioned that by
law land cannot be rendered inalienable longer than
for a life or lives in being, and twenty-one years and
a few months afterwards, that is, until some person
defined but unborn at the time of the settlement
attains the age of twenty-one years. But practically,
the estates are inalienable for many generations, and
in this way : an estate is settled on the marriage of
its possessor, who takes under the settlement an in-
terest in the property for his own life ; after his death
the estate is secured to the first son of the marriage,
who, should he survive his father without having
joined in any re-settlement of the estate, would become
tenant in tail, and might, by a peculiar legal process,
obtain an absolute estate. During the life of his
father he can do nothing which will affect the estate in
the event of his dying in his father's lifetime. But the
father and son together, the son being 21, can defeat the
settlement, and acquire or convey to others an abso-
lute interest in the property. Of course the two may
sell the estate, and deal as they please with the pur-
chase money. But practically they deal with it to
re-settle it ; that is to render it inalienable until the
unborn son of the son attains twenty-one. And as
most of our landed proprietors marry early in life, the
majority of large estates will be found to be in pea-
, session of a tenant for life, who will be succeeded by
a tenant for life, to be followed by an infant tenant in
tail. And a variety of motives, besides family pride,
are constantly impelling landed proprietors to re-settle
their estates.

The tenant for life, whose son has just attained
twenty-one, may have large debts, on which, being
only tenant for life, he is paying high interest and
heavy life insurances ; or he may desire to charge the
estate with provisions for his younger children ; in
either case he has a strong motive for joining his son
in a re-settlement and re-arrangement of the property,
. .

in the course of which he gets his debts or his
younger children's portions provided for by a charge
on the property.
Again, the eon has usually motives which influence
him to consent both to the re-settlement and the charg-
ing of the estate. If a respectable youth, he probably li
desires to marry, or enter into political life, or for
some other reason to obtain the immediate means of
supporting an independent establishment ; if a roue, he
may have gaming debts, race-horses, and other items
of luxury to provide for, and, in either case, will con-
sent to re-settle the estate upon any terms. And each
successive generation is more strongly impelled to this
than the preceding one, inasmuch as, on each re-
settlement of the estate, additional charges are im-
posed upon it, and thus, on every devolution the
actual possessor is poorer than his predecessors. This
is the practical operation of the law of real property
in the hands of our landed aristocracy.
When, therefore, Mr. STEWART says, as he does in
his second letter—
" It peraon choose to entail their lands, I do not see why they
.hould not be allovred to do so, provided every tenant in tall may cut
off the entail at 21. This to now the law in this country, and I we
no maws for altering it," _ _ _

he altogether evades the main obstacle to the ready and
frequent transmission of land by sale in this country.
We have thus placed in juxtaposition the statements
of the advocate of reform in conveyancing, and those
of one of his opponents who speaks the language of the
rest ; and it is impossible, on a comparison of the two,
not to see that the difficulties lie deeply rooted in the
social habits and prejudices of our landholders. We do
not, however, despair of improvement. On the con-
trary, we believe that a full investigation of the sub-
ject will go far to remove the prejudices which are
impediments to the transfer, division, and diffusion of
landed property ; and that landowners will soon accept
as beneficial to themselves, a general registry of titles,
and a general map and survey, as the means of ulti-
mately giving simplicity to the tenure and transfer of
land.

SCARCELY a day passes but our columns are
occupied with the details of cases of poisoning, in
which the poisonous agents have been employed for
murder or suicide, or have been taken by mistake.
In most of these cases, we think it will be found that
some precaution in the sale of the drug, or ordinary
knowledge on the part of the vendor, would have
prevented the fatal issue. A short time since we
called attention to the poisoning canes at Ilappisburgh,
in Norfolk, and recommended that if arsenic must

be sold at all, it should be mixed with some
re-agent that would lead to its detection by its colour.
Since this tragedy closed, another, no less shocking,
has been perpetrated by the same agent, at Clavering,
in Essex, proving that the facility with which arsenic
may be obtained at druggists' shops in the countryhas
been one of the great means of producing these casual-
ties. It appears, however, from a recent case, that
although druggists may be careful in the sale
of arsenic, yet they will sell compounds of whose
composition they are ignorant, and which contain
this ingredient. A few days since a gentleman went
into a chemist's shop, in the Strand, and asked for
some arsenic, to destroy rats. The chemist replied