The Express.
London, England, 1865-10-11 00:00:00

'OHN BROGIDINI3 GOLD ALBKRT CHAINS.

_
JOHNBROODENSGMDBROOCEICHAENB.

Ifitt OrpremS.

TO 00111LIBTONDZItTe.
Atlvertasentects Wooded tat " Tb• howele " London heating
, mat be se the Moe, S
howrettewlreet. by Two
do ow the day of publication.

HAYMARKET.
TRW Ewiidito, THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL Mown.
Twaddle, Compton. and W. Fannin: Mires Nell
Moore and
Snowdo and Iles. S. Sftawollatu.—LlND MK VII PHIL-
LIN OS.—n, And EM Mares T SHAVING. L Keeley andV Wright.

Tins Evicanto, IT IS NEV a TOO LATI TO =ND. Moans.
Vining, G. Melville, T. Mead, D. Muria', Is. Wham F. Vil-
liers, J. O. Shove, O. Murray, IL Mallon, C. Seems, and R. Cath-
cart , Miss L Moore end Min K. Rodgers.

serrairu.
nas LITAIAO. POUT. A DHOIL. lAsa—Doo MIAs.
...eignor Smut mad him AatomatA.—VANNY VOX.
Hll:syy.R. Miss Canoga Clinton.—And TEX WIN Tilt

HIGH WATER AT lONDON-BRIDGC.
MIS DIY Morning, IL Min.....Aßresoon, eL rem
J-3101.110W Morning. 7b. 610.

LONDON. WEDNESDAY. OCTOBER 11.

IT is inevitable that the Game Laws should
form a constantly recurring subject of discussion,
whether any specific measure for their alteration
be under consideration or not. The classes inte-
rested in one way or other in the matter are too
numerous, the inconveniences complained of are
too serious, the consequences to the public, in the
increased cost of repressing crime and maintaining
the families of the criminals, are too important to
permit the question to lie at any time long in abey-
ance. On the one hand we have " sport" pursued
to an extent and in a fashion altogether unknown
to our fathers ; it is no longer confined to merely
the landlord clam, and as it is now the universal
resort of the tolerably wealthy in every rank and
position, its maintenance enlists the sympathies of
a far wider circle than had to be considered
in any previous discussion. On the other hand,
the new method of " battues" has been introduced,
which demand for their condition the preservation
of game to an extent entirely novel. But simul-
taneously with these changes, which tend to
strengthen the position of the game owner and to
augment the energy of the game preserver, there
come opposite influences into play. The tenant
farmer has now to pay a higher rent out of lower
prices than before, and he naturally complains if
the crops which must yield it are destroyed by a
larger head of game. And it has been found by
experience that poaching, and the consequent de-
moralization and crime of a portion of the com-
munity, is not to be repressed by any increase in
the staff of gamekeepers or watchers which even the
most lavish expenditure can provide, but that it
bears always a distinct and almost constant ratio
to the amount of the more valuable clam of game
which is maintained.

It is abundantly hard to reconcile these con-
flicting considerations, and it is not wonderful
that they should provoke a variety of extreme
suggestions from one or other side. Bat some of
these may at least be dismissed, with the advan-
tage of leaving the ground • little clearer for the
rational examination of the subject. Mr. Hamar
has on his part lately addressed a letter to the
farmers, in which be bids them unite and send to
Parliament representatives of their own class, by
whose aid landlord legislation may be restrained.
But if we gather aright the further object Mr.
BRIGHT has in view, it is the substitution of
legislation scarcely less deleterious. He tells the
tenant farmers that they will never have achieved
their rights until they have secured that the pro-
perty in the game on their farms passes to them
during the term of their tenancy. But this is a
result which any tenant farmer may stipulate for
at present, with the option in his power that
if his terms are refused he may decline to
take the farm, or may throw it up at the
expiration of his present lease. And a change in
the law which would make this right his in default
of stipulation, would be quite ineffectual if it still
left to the landlord the right to stipulate that the
game should remain his own. Mr. BRIGHT, there-
fore, would seem to have in view a law which
should forbid the landlord to reserve his game,
and should compel the tenant to become its owner,
whether be wished it or not. Such • law of com-
pulsory bargain would, however, be contrary to the
spirit of civilised legislation, the essence of which
is, in the matter of contracts, to leave tho parties
at full liberty to adjust their bargain on their
own terms. Such a law would, moreover, be con-
stantly liable to evasion in a thousand obvious
methods. Finally, it would, even when enforced,
defeat its own objects, ea far as the diminution of
game and therelief of the farmerare concerned. The
tenants would bid a higher rent, and if, by keeping
up the game for which they would thus have to pay,
they could obtain some reimbursement on letting
it in their turn, they would undoubtedly become
preservers themselves. Nothing, therefore, would
be in any sense gained by compulsory legislation.
So far as the tenants are concerned, the examina-
tion of Mr. Bawler's scheme only shows that they
have no remedy beyond what they enjoy at pre-
sent, the power of making their own bargains ac-
cording to circumstances, of refusing to take at
any price a farm overran with game, of being shy
of • known preserver as a landlord, and of stipu-
lating for damages should the head of game be sen-
sibly increased during the currency of a lease.
But, on the other side of the question, it by no
means follows that the doctrine of the Times
is sound, that game is now mere property,
and must be protected by the law es if it
were the most valuable and unquestionable pro-
perty. Even if it be counted property, we have
still to remember that the doctrine that a
man may do what he likes with his own has long
been exploded. Public opinion sits in judgment
On the use a man makes of his property, and it at
least refuses to him the aid of the public funds,
and the protection of the public ministers of jus-
tice, in any case in which it deems that the evil to
the community of an abuse outweighs the advan-
tage of the use. Taking the very lowest estimate
of duty and morality, it will be hard to persuade
the nation that it ought to give aid to mane pre-
serving if it can be shown that the mischief and