The Sun.
London, England, 1852-05-26 00:00:00

THE MILITIA BILL.

The Marquis of BREADALBANE asked the Noble
Earl at the head of' the Government whether it was his
intention to proceed with the Militia Bill in this House
without laying before their Lordships the opinions of
the profeasiasal stadlotitfas on the subject. He con-
sidered it to be a sabject on which the House could not
legittlite without having before it the opinions of the
military and naval authorities.
The Earl of DERBY said it was undoubtedly the in-
tention of her Majesty's Government to proceed with
the Bill without taking any farther steps to inquire into
the present state of the defences of the country, con-
sidering that they had arready sufficient information on
the subject.
Lord BEAUMONT presented a petition from nume-
rous lords ,of manors against' the Copyhold Enfran-
chisement Bill, and praying to be heard by counsel at
the bar against it.
Oa the motion of Lord.MINTO the Burghs (Scot-
land) Bill passed through Committee after a short dis-
cussion.

ENFRANCHISEMBNT OF COPYHOLDS BILL.
Lord CRANWORTH, in moving the second reading
of this Bill, observed that it would be as useless as ab-
surd in him to prefect) the few observations which he
was about to make by anything like a discussion as to
the origin of copyhold tenure. It was a question which
had puzzled antiquaries, and might well be left to their
research while their Lordships applied themselves to the
practical grievances to be remedied. He should, there-
fore, very briefly call the attention of the House to the
evils of the law relating to copyholds, endeavour to
point cut what from time to time had been done with
the view of palliating those evils, and then direct atten-
tion to the Bill, which had received, he believed, the
very general sanction of the other House of Parliament.
The subject of the grievances arising out of copyhold
tenure was not of recent date. The attention of the
Real Property Commission, which had been issued
under the great seal in the latter part of the reign
of George Iv., had been directed to it, and in a
very elaborate report—the third which they had made,
dated 183 —they had carefully enumerated the evils
2
existing
in this part of our judicial system. The ge-
meral outline of these evils must be familiar to all their
Lordships, but it might not be without use that he
should shortly recapitulate some of the most promi-
nent. Copyholds were but the last fragment existing of
the laws of t•enutre that onee prevailed universally
throughout this country. There were tenures of chi-
valry under which great lords held great estates, there
was the tenure of free and common soc, commonly
called freehold tenure, and there was the copyhold
tenure. One of the very first acts of the Parliament
after the restoration of King Charles 11. was by legia-
latioa formally to abolish that which had practically,
daring the Commonwealth, been abolished already,
namely, the great tenures of chivalry, and to reduce
everything into what he would call our freehold, leaving
our copyhold untouched. It was a very old observation
made by a very accurate writer, and repeated in his
amusing " Life of Lord Chancellor Guildford," that it
was somewhat unequal, when the great men abolished
the tenure that pressed upon themselves, and substituted
for it an excise open the liquors which they consumed,
that they lett the minor temare of the poor people un-
touched, and open to the same abuses that existed pre-
viously. The consequences of this tenure were, prima-
rily the payments of fines, rents, reliefs, and so forth,
and a number of services and dues that were payable
from the tenants from time to time, calculated to inflict
upon them a serious prelatical grievance. In the first
place, there was that strangest of all anomalies which
went by the name of " heriot," which was a custom pre-
vailing in vary many manors, and in some places not con-
fined to copyhold tenures, that on the death of a person
holding land of that description the lord might seize the
best chattel he possessed. In some manors the best live
chattel only could be seized, and in some it must be the
best chattel upon the copyhold, but in others there was
no such restriction,—the lord might seize anything, and
anywhere. Now, if this were stated as being tho law
prevailing in Madagascar, would they believe that such
a thing oouhl posaibly exist where law prevailed at all?
—(Hear, hear.) He did not mean that this was practi-
cally a very great grievance, because human nature was
such that the right was usually waved. But instances
had occurred in quite modern times when that law had
been enforced so as to become a very grievous practical
leard3hip. He remembered that the faireoua racehorse
Smelenako, worth some 2,0001. or 3,0001. had been seized
upon the death of the then owner, Sir C. Banbury. A
somewhat similar circiamstance, he believed, had occurred
on the death of Sir G. Heathcote. About 30 years ago,
when the two Lord Abinger was on the circuit, it was
falsely rumoured that he had died, and the first intima-
tion which itirs. Scarlett received of the melancholy event
was from the agent of the lord of the manor, who
who went to seize three of Lord Abinger's horses. The
Pitt diamond was at one time pledged to a pawnbroker
who had a small copyhold tenement in Westmoreland
liable to heriot, and upon his death the owner of the
copyhold manor either did seize, or intimated to the par-
ties that he had a right to seize, and he (Lord Oran-
worth) believed that he had, that diamond. Another
curious illustration of the absurdity of this law was ex-
hibited by what happened to the late Sir R. Peel. The
Right Hon. Gentleman was the copyhold tenant of a
manor to which heriot attached, and he was in the great-
est apprehension that the celebrated " Chapeau de Paille"
might be se'zed in satisfaction. To avoid this Sir R.
Peel became the purchaser of the manor. Was not this
sufficient to make one startle at the absurdity of the law?
He confessed, however, that the greatest practical
grievances did not flow from this source, but from some-
thing of a much more ordinary and commonplace cha-
racter. The ordinary copyhold tenure required that
upon every death and every alienation the tenant should
pay to the lord a fine. Ia some cases it was what was
called " arbitrary," which practically meant either a
year-and-a-half or two years' improved value. In other
eases it was merely a nominal fine, 55., or 10s.' or
something of no real importance. About two-thirds of
the manors in England were under a fine arbitrary.
What was the consequence of that? Let their Lord-
ships reason upon it ri priori. If he laid out money in
improving his land, should he derive the benefit of all he
so laid out? Certainly not; for at his death his heir
would have to pay to the lord two years' improved vs.
lay. Mr. Blamire, a gentleman eminent in all agricul-
tural matters, who had been many years at the head of
the Tithe Oommission, and who was also a Drainage
Commissioner, and was therefore well competent to
speak upon this subject, had been examined before the
Real Property Commission, and he then stated that the
Drainage Commissioners never had an application to
drain copyhold lands; persona would not do it. The
very nines of it was repulsive to them. Every one who
wished to drain wished to drain something of which he
would have the entire and complete control.—(Hear,
hear.) Mr. Biamire's experience was that the profit
derived from laying oat money upon drainage was
from 12 to 20 per cent.; the tenant, then—the country
at large,—seas thus deprived of an immense annual ed-
yehtage by the operation of this tenure. And the
rO-1 was not limited to the non-drainage of copy-
hold:l lands merely, for these lands being so dispersed
a 11169 were, forming as they did in so vast a number
wecratdcp parcels of estates of which the other portions
cocupyrienx.l4°,lltd, thepracticalresultthat the tenant
was L.
porttou, staute.h estates, rather than drain the copyhold
Another great
from draining at all.—(Heer, hear.)
psded eyettic 0 improvement of feuds wee largely im-
ofpeation of this tenure,—building. By the
general law
etoceLleold, the copyhold tenant was not
even at liberty
still less, if possible, to pull
down buildings on
bitten was as widei,2'...!nd, and the effect of this proltd-
canschievous as the regulation with
regard to drainage;
in
the habit of not baicoPY.leold land was thus very much
trimen: of all parties colhuilt upon, to the infinite de-
mizht mention that some As in illostretion, ha
reinaiecneanear the Crystal Palace,
being copyhold, had
while
after year produc-
wiotheltlohuec•elaanatd
tive of only 301. per annum
eilleeaebdiountgilyt,
being freehold, was covered •
remunerative rents. A. length, by
arrangement be-
tween the landlord and the
fothri,s, land as en_
franchised ; it was itr.lllodiateltyenXlClt'
near, like the con4noeste.aonyears' pur-
chase, and was
with houses at corresponding covered
evils of These wore
among the leadizg e,ti' - system
there were innumer:ple of ices; b„t, „; and
were node besides the mystery niadi=
uthere
tainty attending the transfer of lands, otteatiori It.aer-
ea by
these complicated varieties of tenure, there Would
be
quite sufficient reason for correcting the evil.-..(ere
zr
hear.) He was not, one of those who were so
as I. ima;ine that the transfer of land might b
e mzrle
a matterda she n.angivr of steel., but there
Was he question that ehe transfix might be infinitely
simplitled„ and ho was very anxious that Parliament
should not deley to teke every practicehle step in that
direction.—(Rea;., hear.) The special customs which
exited in ,0 '
s''-'ettt a number'mber of cop.),etto'd estates wore
111 tnemseives a most serious. jay:ailment to this very
desirable olijece—(
Hear, hear.). Nobody knew but that
at tee very minmer.t,
after ininite trouble and exp,r,e,
he was on the point o: cempletieg the ptircba3u of
est.to supposed to Le ordinary copyhold, sow° Veeln-
cutitem mina} start up, wholly cterin, the case so far
as he was concernted. For example, tio' knew of one c9.51°
in valets a:gentleman, having all but cox:pieta' the
purchase of cc estate, which he had been assured, and
which cdi the-prorious evidence went to show,
was unC:l'
ordinary copyhold Mare, was laforzegd a tha last
moment that the tenure woe imeough Euelish—that vas
to say, went to to e younv:er and 11,): to the elder son—
and, la consinuence, all the trouble cod ail rho exnaanse
that had been Sf.? fist incurred were thrown away. An-
other vexetiun of the system was the requirem of
imposed upon the tenant of keeping the beunderies
distinct between his intermixed copyhold and free-
hold lends—a requirement very difficult to be observ, d,
bus which still lett an opening for considerable veeenien.
e
One evil which had formerly existed with reference to
sepybold land;, the difference required to be cbreree'no
in %es-
-amentary disposition,' as between them and been ebeiat free-
holds, had ed the
tL by the Wills Act. In 1838 the
subject of pyhold
tenures was referred to a Select
Committee of the
allouse of
presided over hy
pursaa:oe of the report of that
Committee, the nd
in
facilities for
the Act of 1841 was passed, which provided
veluntery enfranchisement copyholds,
and for the
atiou of heriots and other
serviees. There hati, b?,adiveravtv
been only two cases in
which the latter tleseripti„ro'f
400 iu which the formc_r, had takenelnutaZtnu, and Orly
place, tenants being
all rather &Arm's of waiting
st;b9ie enfranchisement.
would do in the way of e,,,,prZr6 vqh-4-t Parliament
Arid, in fact, there had been ne
which some portion of die time parrent Retion in
by individeat ...introduced
been occupied with the diecuetten of reeettlaraer4ll had not
for that purpose, all of them
Parliament, with the exceoen of that brought
of
rell&ht for-