The Express.
London, England, 1851-10-22 00:00:00

OPYHOLDER.

THE CRY OFiTHE

TO TUE ZDITOB, OP THE ZIP2IIIB.
Sta,—Mr. Disraeli, who represents the g
lauded proprietors, the lords of manors, and owners of g lare
reat
estates, says" the land is a bad tax, for it is a tax on the
raw material of agriculture." I suffer too much from
another tax on the raw material, and upon the capital and
labour expended thereon, to dispute his assertion—but that
is a tax whirls presses--outrageously presses—on the
smaller landowner, and being for the benefit of the
larger landowner, is deemed unworthy of notice ;
I mean the tux upon land, capital, and labour
exacted from the copyholder, in the shape of fines and fees
on mere license% to lease, or of two years' improved value
on sale or descent, and accompanied with heriots and other
odious customs denounced by the present Lord Chief Jus-
tice in echo to Sir Robert Peel as " the barbarous remnant
of a barbarous age." The girds themselves up to the period
of the commonwealth, us tenants iu copier, were subject to
corresponding tines and burthens to the crown. King James
I. had proposed a land tax as a substitute for the revenue
the crown had derived therefrom, but in vain. At the
restoration, ere the King was warns on his scat, and
taking advantage of the troubles of the state, the
great landowners, on the ground that such Mira were more
grievous, burdensome, and prejudicial to the kingdom than
beneficial to the King (the rental of 12 Car. 11., c. 21), had
them entirely abolished—yes, fully, clearly, and absolutely
abolished; of course not withuat compensation to the
crown, nor without due consideration to the corresponding
burthens and fines of the copyholders--the fines payable by
the copyholder to the lord being, in fact, the provision for
the fines from the lords to the King. Yes, nothing passed
unheeded ; compensation was granted lotto:crown by a tax
upon beer and other liquors brewed for sale. The first of
the present excise laws and the tines from the cupyliolders
to the lords were by the 6th section expressly reserved and
continued to the lords.

Some members M the Lower Rouse inveighed in strong
terms upon what they considered the gross injustice of tho
act, but a majority of two in the Commons carried it up to
the Lords, where it passed through all the stages of an act of
parliament on one and the same day. This we poor copyl 'elders
think was somewhat unequal. Blackstone, the advocate
of the Lords, who wrete so feelingly of the pressure on the
great landowners, the tenants in rapite, but who never felt
the least sympathy fur us smaller fry, eulogises the act ; but
what, says Roger North, was the opinion of Lord Keeper
Guildford : " Ile bath said that the greatest trouble he had
in those affairs (meaning the stewardship of manors) was
to satisfy some greedy lords, or rather ladies of manors in
setting the tines, and in being iu some measure an execu-
tioner of their cruelty upon poor men. And in very good
earnest, it is a miserable thing to observe how sharpers
that now are commonly court-keepers pinch the poor copy-
holders in their fees. Small tenements and pieces of laud
that have been men's inheritances for divers generations, to
say nothing of the fines, are devoured by fees ; so that if
it were only to relieve the poorest of the landowners of the
nation from such extortions and oppression without more
there is reason enough to abolish the tenure. It was some-
what unequal when the parliament took away the royal
tenures can capita that the lesser tenures of the gentry were
left exposed to us grievous abuses as the former."
Rights of commons were deemed an interference with
the improvable capabilities of the Land : they may be abo-
lished, but although the interest of the great man, the lord
of the manor, is nominal, only with his consent : tithes
increasing in proportion to the outlay and improvements
were deemed by the great landowners a tax upon labour
and capital, and the lands have been enfranchised there-
from on fair compensation. Why have the repeated at-
tempts of us poorer nice, why have the claims of the com-
munity to have the power of applying capital and
labour, in agriculture, or in houses without an increase
of fines and fees to the lord of the manor and his
myrmidon the steward been totally disregarded, and that
I for ten years after a resolution that such rights ought to be
abolished on terms of compensation, was moved by the lute
Sir Robert Peel, and adopted by parliament, but through
the influence of the great landowners mutilated, with pro-
visions that enfranchesement shall only be at the wi lof the
lord.

Mr. Disraeli and his friends never trouble us with allu-
sions to the three great boons of enfranchisement of lands
from tithes, incloeure of commons, and a eopyhold commis-
sion paid by the public to effect enfranchisement in eases
only in which the lord consents, and according to the evi-
dence of Mr. White, solicitor to the Ecclesiastical Commis-
sioners, " manors are now much more valuable than they
used to be." On these points the great landowners follow
the advice of Sir James Graham, " to eat their pudding,
and hold their tongues."
AN OPPRESSED COPYHOLDER.

EMIGRATION FROM CALIFORNIA TO AUSTRALIA.—
Within a few weeks many ship-loads of passengers have
been despatched for the sunny South Pacific, where El
Dorado seems breaking out " afresh. Several vessels have
left this port, and a number are advertised bound for the
colonies and the rich gold diggings of South Australia. A
vessel containing some 60 males and a number of females
will leave this day for Sydney. This class of " departures"
front our shores will not leave a void to be seriously felt,
nor detract, as a species of depopulation, from the great in-
terests of Californian society.—Alta Calsfornia, Aug. 29.
RAPID I'ASSAGE.—The clipper ship Flying Cloud,
commanded by Captain Cressey, made a most astonishing
trip to San Francisco. She left New York on the 2nd of
June, at 6, p.m., and arrived at San Francisco on the 20th
of August, thus making the passage in the unprecedented
short space of 90 days--the shortest by six days ever mado by
a sailing vessel. She made Cape Horn in 59 days, and the
line Specific side) in 71 days. Her run from Cape Horn to
Ban Francisco was made in 39 days. Her best run in 24
beam tees 374 miles—the greatest run ever made by a sea-
ring visual, averaging 16, miles per hoar. While making
tiis ran she was carrying top-gallant sails, with the wind
cm point forward of the beam. She ran in three days 992
miles. On one occasion, during a squall, 17 knots of line
were found insufficient to measure her speed. Forty miles
were her shortest run in 21 hours. When ten days out she
her mainmast-head rendering the inset very tender 1314'
re urneit of the mess
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