lated in a great measure to that of England. There is, however, an exception which he would make to the rule against perpetuity of entails. It is with regard to the peerage, in which matter we cordially agree with him. There were, in ancient times, instances of barons who were degraded from their dignity on account of their lack of sufficient revenue to support their hereditary title. The independence and the dignity of the House of Lords would be alike maintained by an enactment enabling, or even obliging, all peers to tie up by perpetual entail a certain portion of their estates to accompany the title. Such anomalies as that of an Earl of Buchan (Lord Erskine's father, see Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors) living in the uppermost flat of a sixteen-story house, would thereby be avoided with considerable advantage to the national interests.

Mr M'Culloch, therefore, who quotes Sir William Temple and Dr Johnson on the same side, would preserve the law of perpetual entail for the Scottish peerage, and extend it also to that of England. In other respects he is, as we have above stated, in favour of a considerable modification of the Scottish law of entail. He admits, however, the difficulty of dealing with existing entails.

"These have established a right of property not only in the actual possessors and their families, but, speaking generally, in a wide circle of collateral heirs ; nor could the rights of the unborn heirs be affected without annulling the clauses in a great number of settlements, and also in marriage-contracts and other deeds inter ricos. It is, therefore, hardly possible materially to relax the fetters of entails with strict justice to all parties, though it might perhaps be slowly and gradually effected without inflicting any very serious hardship on any individual. We incline to think that this might be most easily brought about by saving the rights of living heirs of entail, and of such heirs as may be born under existing marriage-contracts. The interests of the possible heirs that might be prejudiced by the adoption of some such rule as this, are of so very unsubstantial a description that they might safely be neglected." P. 78.

At the time we write, a measure is pending before Parliament, entitled

"A Bill for the amendment of the Law of Entail in Scotland," and endorsed with the names of the Lord-Advocate, Sir George Grey, and Mr SolicitorGeneral for Scotland. Whatever difficulties Mr M'Culloch feels with regard to relaxing the fetters of entail, it is obvious that the contrivers of this bil are in nowise hampered by them. They go to work in the most off-hand manner possible. A short and unobtrusivelooking bill is to drive clean through all the existing settlements and deeds of tailzie, with their complicated train of clauses irritant and resolutive, as if no mortal was concerned in the matter, and estates were the proper toys of law-makers.

The fact of the quantity of alienable land diminishing in a commercial country, while trade and population are increasing, is no doubt a state of things which calls for a remedy, since there must at some period or another be a failure of land adequate to meet the requirements of realised fortunes. If, in the judgment of reasonable and practical observers, the difficulty could be met by making all future entails subject to be barred by a process analogous to that existing in England, we should think there could be no hesitation in affirming it to be the most just and most expedient course to introduce such a change, and leave the existing settlements in their contemplated perpetuity. If, however, it can be clearly established that already too much land is locked up in the northern kingdom, and that the soil now free from entail is insufficient to satisfy the requirements of future buyers, then we should say that the utmost care and skill were required in framing enactments which should adapt themselves to the justice of particular cases, and should, as far as might be, save existing and vested interests in their delicate multiplicity and connexion. If ever such care and skill were required, it would be in a measure which interferes more extensively with vested rights-usually with good reason a sacred thing in the eye of the law-than any which appears in the statute-books of the three kingdoms. A statute to convert the Irish tenants into owners of the fee-simple of their several holdings, (a project which has been talked of,) would

to have been a great object with the framers of this bill. But the two systems would gradually correspond; and we hold that there is a principle of justice involved in the upholding of contracts the objects of which are as yet unfulfilled. Where an English settler has limited lands to a man for life, remainder to his first and other sons successively in tail, he knew, at the time of making the settlement, that it was liable to be barred with consent of the eldest son on his coming of age. But it was not so with a Scotch settler who executed a deed of tailzie to several brothers as successive heirs-substitute; and the legislature has no right, without the gravest public cause, to step in and defeat his intention.

But the bill, though intending to give far greater liberty to the owner of an entailed estate than Mr M'Culloch does, or, as we think, is consistent with justice, sets about affording him aid in the most ambiguous and misty manner conceivable. The 2d clause enacts that the heir of entail in possession, born after the date of the act, may disentail in the manner provided by the act; and an heir of entail born before the date of the act may similarly disentail," with the consent (and not otherwise) of the heir-substitute next in succession, and heir apparent under the entail of the heir in possession," he being born after the date of the act, and capable of contracting.

We should recommend the tenant in tail to be very cautious how he attempts to "acquire his estate in fee-simple" under the provisions of this clause. He is to obtain the consent of the heir-substitute next in succession. So far his course is clear. But the same person is also designated by the term "heir-apparent under the entail of the heir in possession." Now, is this a qualification of the general term "heir-substitute next in succession," and must such person, under the act, be also heir-apparent? If so, what is the particular qualification required of him under the expression "heir-apparent?" Adhering to the use of the phrase in popular language, we must take, as the only circumstances under which the next heirsubstitute and the heir-apparent are one and the same person, the case in

which the first estate under the entail is limited to a man and the heirs of his body, and the second to his second son and the heirs of his body; then, supposing the eldest son to die in the lifetime of his father, the second son would be both the next heir-substitute and also the heir-apparent. Is this, therefore, the only case within the act? Scarcely, we should think, was it so intended. Are we, then, to interpret the word heir-apparent in the sense in which the phrase heir-presumptive is generally used; and must we suppose that the cases indicated are those in which there is no issue under the first entail, and therefore the next heir-substitute is what we should call heir-presumptive to the person in possession? If so, what is to become of the numerous cases where there is issue to take under the existing estate-tail? Or can it be that the issue in tail is altogether forgotten by this act, and that the person whose consent is required is merely the next heir-substitute in any case? We are inclined to think this the most probable explanation of this unfortunate clause, but can scarcely imagine that it will be suffered to pass into a law. A further ambiguity, however, arises with respect to this term heir-apparent, from its having a peculiar technical meaning in the Scottish law. "He who is entitled," says Erskine, "to enter heir to a deceased ancestor is, before his actual entry, styled, both in our statutes and by our writers, apparent heir." If the bill intends any reference to this legal acceptation of the phrase, we can only understand the person whose consent is required, to be such person as, being next heirsubstitute, would, on the immediate decease of the possessor, be his apparent heir, or entitled to enter on the lands. This, again, shuts out all those estates where the possessor has issue in tail, and would, consequently, limit the operation of the bill to exceptional cases. We think we have said enough to convince our readers that this clause is not likely to set free many entailed estates in Scotland-at all events, not without a chaos of litigation, in which the elements of profit will have a tendency to range themselves on the side of the lawyers.

The person whose consent is to be

obtained (whoever that mysterious person may be) is, as we have seen, to be born after the date of the act. In conformity with this principle, one would have supposed that where the next heir-substitute shall have been

born before that date, then it should be necessary to obtain the consent of the first person entitled to take per formam doni, who shall be born after this date, together with the consent of all those who are to take before him. The third clause, however, introduces a new form of protection to the settle

ment, and merely enacts that, in such cases, the consent of a certain number of the heirs-substitute is to be obtained, (the blank left for the number was filled up with the word "three in committee of the House of Commons. Nothing said about the issue in tail, as before.

Where the main enactments of the bill are so incomprehensible, it is useless to dwell on its details. We can

only say, that whatever evils may be shown to exist under the present law, they will not only fail to be cured, but must be aggravated tenfold, by such a product of off-hand legislation—

"Sent before its time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable," that it must necessarily die of its own deformity, unless the law-courts will lick it into shape by their decisions, a shape (as it must be) in which its own parents would not know it again.

The law of real property in France exhibits a system so distinctly antagonistic to our English and Scottish law of entail, that we cannot be surprised at the attention with which Mr M'Culloch has investigated its influencés.

"According to the law of France, a person with one child may dispose at pleasure of a moiety of his property, the child inheriting the other moiety as legitim, or matter of right; a person having two children can only dispose of a third part of his property; and those having more than two must divide three-fourths of their property equally amongst them, one-fourth part being all that is then left at their disposal. When a father dies intestate, his property is equally divided among his children, without respect to sex or seniority. Nothing can be more distinctly opposed to the principles we have

endeavoured to establish, and to the system followed in this country, than this law. It is therefore lucky that it is now no novelty. It has been established for more than half a century, so that we may trace and exhibit its practical influence lation subject to its operation. Such an over the condition of the extensive popuexperiment is of rare occurrence, but when made is invaluable. And if its results should confirm the conclusions already come to, it will go far to establish them on an unassailable basis."-P. 80-81.

We have already seen how these results may be traced in the state of we think, be discerned in the relative French agriculture. They may also, position which the landholders of France bear to other classes in the social scale. These, numbering between four and five millions, ought, as a class, to constitute the leaders of the nation. So far from this being the case, they are perhaps the most inert and uninfluential portion of the community, having apparently had little

or no voice in the two revolutions which have swept over their heads within the last eighteen years, and as little in the erection, maintenance, or downfall of the Throne of the Barricades. It yet remains to be seen whether they will continue to accept every thing which the clubs of Paris are willing to force upon them. As tax-payers and cultivators of the soil, it can hardly suit them to be propagandists; as men who have something to lose, they will not readily give in to the dictatorial vagaries of Ledru Rollin. If, however, they would hold their own, it is time for them to be up and doing. France has been governed by a minority before now.

We have always regarded it as one of the main advantages of a landed aristocracy, that it raises up a principle of social rank antagonistic to that of mere wealth. In France, the constant subdivision and transfer of

land breaks down this influence, and causes land to be regarded as a mere marketable article and equivalent for

money.

"In countries where the custom of primogeniture exercises a powerful influence, families become identified with estates-the family representing the estate, and the estate the family. The wealth and consideration enjoyed by the latter depend upon, and are intimately

connected with, the possession of the lands which have descended to them from their ancestors. They estimate their value by another than a mere pecuniary standard. They are attached to them by the oldest and most endearing associations; and they are seldom parted with except under the most painful circumstances. Hence the perpetuity of property in England in the same families, notwithstanding the limited duration of entails; great numbers of estates being at this moment enjoyed by those whose ancestors acquired them at or soon after the Conquest. But in France such feelings are proscribed. Estates and families have there no abiding connexion; and at the demise of an individual who has a number of children, his estate can hardly escape being subdivided. this effect of the law tends to imbue the proprietors with corresponding sentiments and feelings. Non seulement,' says M. De Tocqueville, la loi des successions

And

rend difficile aux familles de conserver intacts les mêmes domaines, mais elle leur ôte le désir de le tenter, et elle les entraine, en quelque sorte, à coopérer avec elle à leur propre ruine.'"-P. 85-86.

But Mr M'Culloch dwells more particularly on the injurious effects to agriculture from the parcelling out of the land into small properties. He shows that a small proprietor is not so efficient a cultivator of the soil as a tenant, in which doctrine Arthur Young had preceded him. He shows, also, that the subdivision of properties leads to the subdivision of farms, and urges that it is impossible to have good farming on small patches of land. Of the miseries of an agricultural system carried on by small farmers on petty holdings, we have already a sufficient example in Ireland. We cannot but think, however, that the progress of things in England has too much swallowed up those little farms of from thirty to fifty acres, which at one time were common over the country. Not but what capital is employed at a great disadvantage on these little holdings-but where there is a general system of good-sized farms, an intermixture of smaller farms is not attended with injurious effects proportional to those which arise where the whole of the land is split up into minute parcels. And then small farmers furnish a link between the yeomanry and peasantry, which it is useful to maintain, cheering the poor man's lot by pointing out to him a path by which he may advance

from the position of a day-labourer to that of an occupier of land. On the same principle we are rejoiced to observe the gradual extension of the allotment system; although it would have a still more beneficial effect, we think, if the land was granted in the shape of a croft about the cottage, thus giving the tenant a greater interest, and more individual sense of proprietorship, than when his piece of land is packed, along with a number of others, into a mass of unsightly patches.

In connexion with the small holdings in Ireland, it should not be forgotten that this subdivision of the land results mainly from the practice of sub-letting; and this again has arisen in a great degree from the practice of granting long leases, the want of which in England has served, among many other things, for an outcry against the landlords. Mr M'Culloch has pointed out the evils of too long leases on the farming tenant, that they superinduce a sense of security which easily degenerates into indolence. But the influence on Ireland is even worse, by breaking up the land into small patches, on which the occupier can but just maintain himself, paying an exorbitant rent to the middleman. For it is not the eager demand for land amongst the Irish peasantry, as we sometimes hear, that has produced this subdivision of the land, but the subdivision that has produced the demand, by putting the cultivation of the land into the hands of a class who are unable, through want of skill and capital, to carry it on; who cannot, therefore, furnish employment for the labourers, and thus drive them to grasp at little parcels of land as their only means of securing a wretched subsistence; and this security, as we know, has more than once proved but a fancied one, as in the disastrous failure of the potato crop.

While we are on this subject, we may draw the reader's attention to a very able pamphlet by an Irish gentleman, on Irish matters, which, though we believe it has never been published, has had an extensive private circulation. We allude to "An Address to the Members of the House of Commons on the Landlord and