The Sun.
London, England, 1860-12-06 00:00:00

THE At SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 6, 1860.

sale of land, though they would be felt less by the
members of land societies than by any other persons, I
But the troth of the matter is that Mr. Bright's
leading theory respecting the value of " small por-
'
tions of the soil" is 'altogether a mistake. Excepting
for incidettal advantages, a small piece of land is
of no use to anybody, and is decidedly a bad property
to hold. A man may buy it for the vote it carries,
or for a garden of paddock or poultry-yard, and, if
he has the money to keep it up, it will yield him a
good return in gratification or amusement. To
suppose, however, that the mere possession of an
acre or half an acre of the soil will confer upon a
man any peculiar advantage not derivable from its
equivalent under other forms of perperty is an utter
fallacy. In point of fact, such plots of land cost
money not only to buy, but to keep. They are little
luxuries ; very agreeable, but absolutely unremu-
, nerative ; and if a poor man had such a bit of pro-
perty the wisest thing he could do would be to sell
it at once. If he attempted to " lire on it" he would
find himself in the hands of mortgagees and money-
lenders before twelve months were over, as is seen
in France, where half the petty proprietors are held
in bondage by the tradesmen of the nearest towns.
The accumulation of land, in short, which after all
is not greater than the accumulation of money, is
so strictly consequent upon the very nature of
things that it requires arbitrary laws to prevent it,
and that fact ought to be pretty decisive of the
whole merits of the question.

(From the Horning Herald.)
John Bright is, for all his burly proportions,
shallow in heart, narrow in mind, poor in principle.
He has no deep thoughts, no enlarged views, no
ennobling aspirations. e has been little in his
whole career. Like a bluebottle, he has buzzed
about, making a noise and tainting whatever he
fastened upon. What in his entire lifetime has he
done ?In the corn-law repeal movement he was
only second fiddle, and this by an act of forward
presumption. He has sat in Parliament many
years, and he has not set. the seal of amelioration
or improvement on one page of the statute-book.
He has stedfastly withstood any real amendment
in the condition of the working classes. He opposed.
the Ten Hours. Bill, the Dyeing Works Bill, and
assisted with all his might in the ruin of the
Coventry weavers. His ideas are froth, and must
come uppermost. He talks well, as many such men
must, but there is no substratum of education,
knowledge, or sound intellect beneath. He has
just been effervescing in Birmingham. He had got
hold of a subject just suited to the grasp of his
mind. The abrogation of the law of primogeniture
is just such a matter as he could dwell upon. It
looks so equal and honest, so clear, simple, and demo-
cratic. What more easily comprehended by the
rabble than that property should be divided evenly
—that each child should carry off his stick, and
break and bend it as he pleased. Thus the bundle
might be got rid of, and the hated aristocracy fall
to pieces. He chooses to forget the old apologue.
He is for equality and independence, not strength
and union, He does not know that this usage of
primogeniture (we shall not call it a law) is deeply
seated in nature; that it arises from an intuitive
perception of the power of combination. A river
broken into rills, and scattered through meadows,
evaporates and is lost ; assets cut up into small
dividends become Id. in the pound ; when the
cake is sliced among the whole family, they can
each have but a morsel. And so it is with pro-
perty. What would be of real worth, bulk, and
use, if left to one, dwindles to almost nothing
when shared among Ihe many. If we go dividing,
subdividing, and retailing without end from
fathers to sons, the entire estate disappears. It is
worth nobody's while to look after it, and so it is
neglected and forgotten. We wonder considerations
as simple and ready as these, and withal so natural,
so forcible and reasonable, did not present them-
selves to the tribune's mind as he expatiated on the
rights of younger sons and the privileges of the
working classes. More begets more, and A left an
estate, has every motive and opportunity to im-
prove and augment it; but if it happened to be
separated into small allotments there would be no
means for proper cultivation, and the attractive and
accumulative force inherent in property must be
gradually weakened and finally vanish. If the
equal partition is so just and wise we wonder that
fathers should delay it for a single day. Why not
tell off eaca child's share every night, or every
week, or at least once a year ? Why go on gather-
ing, and hoarding and agglomerating till the hour
of death ? Justice and wisdom cannot come too
soon, and if the equal division is so good and pru-
dent in itself, it is cruel to postpone it so long. But
if, on the other hand, the accumulation is thrifty
and sound, it must be politic and sensible also to
perpetuate it for a reasonable number of years, by
the law of the land. Why:should a man's material
property die away with his death ? If he writes a
book, if he achieves a name, they live after him. Is
it asking too much that the result of his anxieties,
exertions, and labours for gain should not be en-
tirely snuffed out by the finger of death, as it would
be if the rule once got into vogue of infinitesimal
division ? Mr. Bright, in his narrow-mindedness,
is striking at the enterprise and prosperity of his
own order. If business men are to be the only class
of thriving mortals who are to build up nothing
for posterity, but to share their fortunes and di*,
what becomes of the motive to continuous labour ?
We shall have a nation of small people, a poor
country ; we shall have a level area just brought
down to the scope of universal suffrage and ab-
solute tyranny. America is no fair example. She
is young, and has boundless territories as yet to
grow upon. But France is before us; and to whttt
has its landholders fallen ? They are peasantry, not
gentry ; they are not placed to stand between the
throne and despotism, but to elect and promote
supreme and autocratic rule. There is too much
strong sense, to :deep a respect for natural ambi-
tion, too grateful a recognition of successful expe-
rience among Englishmen, to desire that the law of
primogeniture were swept away. With this would
go the power, the prosperity, the glory, and the
freedom of the country. We should all shrink
down to Mr. Bright's class, and become a very
small people. But, in truth, there is no binding
law of primogeniture; there is nothing to compel a
father to leave his real property to his eldest son if
he wills to the contrary. He may cut up his estate
into as many fragments as he likes and dispose of
it where he wishes. There is only the prescriptive
usage, which is, indeed, a very strong law. If the
parent does not will otherwise the eldest son will
take the real property ; and even if it is entailed,
the father, with the consent of the son or next heir,
can cut it off, thus leaving it free again for partition
or dissipation. Mr. Bright knows this, and has
admitted it, and yet he has the iniquity to parade
so wise, considerate, and equitable a dispensation
as a cruel injustice to the humbler classes.
The truth is. this, Mr. Bright is strenuously
labouring to destroy the constitution of this coun-
try. In his lifetime he would see a republic in
England. He would have the lumber of the Throne,
the Church, and the aristocracy swept away, and,
as a safe beginning, he wants to abolish what we
call the law of primogeniture. To effect this pur-
pose he hunts up his books to cram himself with
assertion or argument. He finds the " Encyclopedia
Metropolitana ' against him, and he runs across the
Atlantic to Bancroft ; this, too, not sufficing, he
dips into Eraser, and takes a gleaning from the
" Recreations of a Country Parson." The great
unwashed of Birmingham, are as a matter of course,
astounded at his information. That " one small
head could carry all" John Bright knows is, in-
deed, a prodigy, especially when Smith's " Wealth
of Nations" was added to the other learned cata-
logue. He had not a word to say to the condition
of the weavers, whether in Coventry, Lancashire,
or elsewhere. He did not sympathise with the far-
mers. His only bowels of compassion were for
those wretched slaves the agricultural labourers.
Their lot was, indeed, miserable, and to improve
it we must establish agrarian laws ; we must, in
fact, have a revolution. To make this clear to the
Birminghamites he ventured a plunge into the law
of real property, and had sunk far enough to get
into the mud, which he flang up plentifully to the
meeting. Mr. Bright has been long enough in the
House of Commons to know that no lawyer of any
weight or authority, or any landholder of respect-
ability and influence, defends the present state of
Ihe law in all its particulars, and that the mode of
conveying land is one of the subjects which is ad•
milted on every side to be largely capable of
improvements. It may be, too, that any peculiar
grievances of the freehold land societies might be
removed with general advantage, for these in them-
selves are excellent institutions. But all this, and
much more, in the way of law reform, we hope to
see effected without a revolution or any breach in
our constitutional safeguard of primogeniture. It
is not hard for Mr. Bright to talk down to the
capacity of the mob; but he must born again to
level the bulk of strong sense and respect for suc-
cessful usages inherent in Englishmen.

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IRELAND

DUBLIN, WEDNESDAY M)RNING.

DEATM OF LORD ROSSMOItE.

Thepapers announce the death of Lord Rossmore,
which took place on Saturday evening at his resi-
dence, Rossmore-park, county of Monagian. The
deceased nobleman had been an invalid for some
years previously. He is succeeded by his eldest
son, the Hon. Henry Cairnes Westenra, aged nine
years.

of O'Connell, and to endeavour to carry their
object only by the
‘force of public opinion,
and not to adopt any of the wild and impracticable
schemes which too ardent men would endeavour to
suggest.
Mr. LAWLOR, of the Queen's county, seconded
the resolution, which was carried unanimously.
Mr. UNDENWOOD, Presbyterian, moved that a
petition to both houses of Parliament be presented,
which was agreed to.
The meeting then broke up, but not before a
person on the platsorm, who had endeavoured to
ohtain a hearing, had received some rough
handling.