The Sun.
London, England, 1850-04-05 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

SlR,—Having just read a leading article in your
paper of yesterday, upon the subject of the Bill for
facilitating the sale of encumbered estates, brought
forward by the English Solicitor-General in the
House of Commons, on Monday night ; and agree-
ing in opinion as I do with you upon the useful
results that would accrue to Ireland, and in-
deed to the empire at large from the adop-
tion of a measure really calculated to attain the bene-
ficial objects which you have enumerated, I take
leave to forward to you a copy of a letter addressed
by me to Lord John Russell about eighteen months
back, and also a short article in connexion with its
subject, published in an Irish provincial paper ; and this
I do, Sir, in order to direct your attention to the par-
tial character of the Bill now proposed, and the gross
injustice it tends to work to owners of property in
this country, who are not within the jurisdiction of
that court, to facilitate whose operations it has been
solely framed. The object of the Bill in question is
confessedly to enhance the value of encumbered es-
tates, by giving them an artificial advantage in the
market. Were the object to restore the value of
land generally, for the purpose of facilitating its
transfer by sale, Irish proprietors could not complain ;
but this attempt to raise the value of encumbered
estates by means which must have the effect of
depreciating those which are unencumbered,
and of reducing the value of their secu-
rity below its natural level, is, in my
opinion, an exercise of legislative power alike highly
impolitic and unjust. Is it not most inconsistent in.
a " Free-trade Ministry" to thus grant a "bounty'
—for it is to do nothing less—to their own peculiar
customers ? What must be the effect of such a one-
sided measure on property other than that which
it is intended to favour ? Irish landlords are being
incessantly reminded that it is their bounden duty
to promote improvement, and to provide their
tenantry with suitable farm offices and such
other permanent conveniences as may be required for
the proper cultivation of the soil. I admit that it is.
Many of them have done this, more are doing it, and
still more are anxious to do it. Would you throw an
insurmountable obstacle in their way ? Supposing a
proprietor not encumbered with debt, yet desirous to
raise money on his estate, for the above-mentioned
purposes, brought into competition with mortgagors
under this Bill, would he not find it impossible to do
so, on the security he can offer, unless at a ruinous
rate of interest? Supposing another burdened with
debt, although to no extraordinary extent, might not
such
.a Bill, by inducing mortgagees to call in their
money, plunge him into difficulties, and thereby add
to the evil which it was the purpose of the framers to
correct ? Are the prudent and deserving individuals
of a class to be thus unjustly injured for the benefit
of its imprudent or less worthy members? and is a
moral and economical wrong to be perpetrated for the
purpose of propping up an imperfect and arbitrary
enactment ? These questions, Sir, I am induced to
address to you by the conviction in my mind that
much mischief would be the result of the proposed
partial application of principles, which, if judiciously
embodied in a legislative measure, to be extended
equitably to landed property in Ireland—if not in
Great Britain also—might be productive of all, and
more than, the advantages that you seem to antioi-
pate.—l: have the honour to be, Sir, &c.
C. H. BOWEN.
13, Longford-terrace, Monkstown, Dublin,
March 28, 1850.