and we shall limit ourselves to two results peculiar to the accumulation of landed property, which attend it in addition to all those evils that belong to it in common with undue accumulation of other property.

The first of these peculiarities is, that the accumulation of landed property gives to the proprietor an inordinate power over the natural rights and happiness of others, which does not attach, in any thing like a corresponding degree, to the great capitalist, however enormous his fortune. The landed proprietor, to whatever extent, has far more power over his tenants, and those who dwell on his land, and can exercise a greater influence on their happiness and wellbeing, than the capitalist can, over any class dependent upon him; while the latter have always a power of transferring their services, and of escaping from an attempted thraldom, from which the former are by their position in a great measure excluded. But the influence and power of the great landed proprietor increases with the extent of his property in a ratio far greater than that extent, so that when he comes to be the owner of a territory twenty, thirty, or fifty miles in length, or covering, as in the case of the Duke of Sutherland, nearly a whole county, it is practically irresistible; and if despotically, capriciously, or even ignorantly exercised, it is productive of the most grievous evils and oppression. As an instance of this, take the refusal of sites to congregations of the Free Church. Where the land of a district is divided into a considerable number of properties, the attempt to effect a combination by which these congregations would have been excluded from the possession of places of worship could scarcely in any case have been successful. But the proprietor of a territory twenty or thirty miles long, can at once, by the exercise of his legal rights of property, place thousands of the population under an absolute interdict against meeting to worship God according to their consciences, even in the open air, unless within high-water-mark, when the territory happens to be bounded by the sea-shore. Several thousands of the people of Scotland are at the present moment absolutely excluded, through the simple will of one man, from a roof to shelter them when meeting for public worship, and are only permitted to meet under the canopy of heaven by the mere sufferance of the proprietor, who, at his pleasure, may exclude them from even thus assembling upon the smallest spot on the surface of this earth in order to worship its Maker; and had the Duke of Sutherland adhered to his refusal of sites given immediately after the disruption, the inhabitants of nearly the whole of the county of Sutherland-of whom the great majority are members of the Free Church-would have been placed under this ban.

The care here instanced is indeed an extreme one; but it is a perfectly good illustration of the enormous power, in practical effect, which the mere extent of landed territory possessed by a single individual gives to the exercise, by him, even of his legal rights, beyond what could attach to it under a more generally distributed state of property, and beyond what could possibly follow from any use that a capitalist might make of his fortune, however enormous that might be.

The other peculiarity to which we refer, is the removal, throughout extensive districts, of any class intermediate between the single overgrown proprietor of the district and the cultivators of the soil. Nothing is calculated to have a more wholesome influence on the state of rural society than the presence of a number of resident proprietors of various grades, down to the bonnet-laird who cultivates his own little property. Everywhere, however, throughout Scotland, the large landowners are swallowing up and absorbing the smaller properties in their neighbourhood. Not only is the class of bonnet-lairds altogether disappearing, but the number of proprietors of moderately-sized estates is rapidly diminishing, and we doubt whether the number of separate proprietors of land be one-half or even one-third of what it was at the commencement of the present century. Now, almost every property so absorbed is at once riveted to some large adjoining estate by the fetters of an entail, never to be separated; and a state of matters highly injurious to the general wellbeing is rendered not only permanent, but of necessity progressive, its mischievous character augmenting even beyond the proportion of its extent.

It is scarcely possible to over-estimate the evils to society arising from the factitious encouragement afforded by entails to excessive accumulation, and the exclusion of the operation of all the natural tendencies to re-distribution; but we hasten on to some of the other injuries inflicted on the community by this most obnoxious system of entails.

The defective state of cultivation, and the consequent nonproductiveness of the soil, which is one of its natural results, is an evil not only to the proprietor, but to the community-the supply of food to which, as well as its general wealth, is thereby yery naturally affected. It is no doubt true, that there are many instances, from particular causes, of entailed estates presenting an appearance of improvement and cultivation equal to that of those held in fee-simple. But in general it is not so; and indeed from the circumstances in the condition of heirs of entail already noticed, and others connected with the terms of the leases they are able to grant, which we have not space to detail-it

Improvements obstructed-Capabilities unemployed. 459

cannot be so; and, accordingly, the evidence taken before the Commons Entail Committee of 1828 was conclusive as to the fact, that entailed estates might generally be distinguished from those that were not entailed by their external appearance, and their state of improvement and cultivation. Nor, it must be obvious, can any mere relaxation of existing fetters do much towards inducing a better state; for so long as the fundamental principle of entails, of preserving the estate itself for succeeding heirs, is maintained, all that can be done in relief of one heir, or to enable him to improve, is to throw the burden in a larger or smaller proportion on his successors, thereby tying up their hands more effectually from carrying forward the work of improvement which he has thus been enabled, to a certain extent, to commence. To make the land available, as it ought to be, for production to the extent of its capabilities, it is absolutely necesssary that the system be put an end to, and that the land of the country be made really free for the employment of capital in its cultivation and improvement.

Besides inducing diminished productiveness in respect of agricultural produce, by reason of defective cultivation and non-improvement, entails prevent to a great extent the other capabilities. of land being made available. There are capabilities which can only be brought into beneficial operation, by the expenditure of a large capital, as for instance the water-power arising from a stream, or from the formation of an extended reservoir. To make this available, in addition to any outlay for forming the reservoir or accumulating and regulating the supply of water, manufactories for taking advantage of it must be erected, or the water will continue to find its way to the ocean for ages without doing any service to man, or yielding any thing to the proprietor. But if the right of water, or even any portion of property required to admit of its being used for manufacturing purposes, is held under the fetters of an entail, no title can be given which would warrant the manufacturer to erect works attended with the outlay of a large capital. No feu can be granted, nor any lease even of the water for more than twenty-one years. On such a tenure as this no man would expend his capital, placing it and himself at the mercy of the heir in possession when it expired, in regard to the rent then to be demanded, or as to its being renewed at all. In the same way, as to mines and minerals, when the proprietor has not-as he rarely has the means of himself expending the capital necessary to commence the working of them, he can give no right to a third party capable of doing so, of such duration as would authorize the outlay, when that is at all considerable. Great obstructions are also placed in the way of the advance

ment and improvement of towns, which are unfortunately surrounded by fand held under entails; and we shall conclude this part of our subject by a representation of the evils thus occasioned, contained in a recent petition to the Legislature from the Town Council of Stranraer, against the present law of entail.

"The town in which they live has the misfortune to be completely enveloped by entailed estates, which extend for many miles round it. It is dependent for its supplies of water on springs which are situated on entailed lands, and at a considerable distance from the town. A Company was formed many years ago, and the necessary capital raised to bring the water into the town by pipes. The consent of the proprietors was obtained, and the work ready to be commenced, when it was discovered that the law of entail disabled the proprietors, even with consent of the presumptive heirs, from granting a title to the necessary ground for a longer period than nineteen years. The undertaking was thus rendered abortive, because an application to Parliament for a special Act would have cost more than the whole work; and, in consequence, the inhabitants are still dependent on a precarious supply, brought in carts, and retailed at a high price, as an ordinary article of merchandize.

"The public burying-ground, situated in the heart of the town, is crowded to an extent that is at once shocking to the feelings and dangerous to the health of the community. The nuisance becoming intolerable, a piece of land was obtained for the purpose from an entailed proprietor in the neighbourhood; but here again the Law of Entail interposed an insuperable barrier, because it was found that, even for this purpose, the powers of the entailed proprietor were limited to the granting of a lease for nineteen years.

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Nearly half of the town stands on entailed lands, the houses having been erected on building leases granted by the heirs of entail under statutory authority. There are entire streets where these leases are drawing to a close, which may easily be distinguished by their wretched and dilapidated condition. The over-lord, in consequence of the Entail Law, is deprived of the power to renew the leases before their termination, and a prudent regard to their own interest compels the tenants to withhold improvements."

The necessity of a remedy for the evils of the monstrous system we have been considering was long since perceived by thinking men, but the public have been very tardy in evincing that interest in the subject which the magnitude of the injuries occasioned to the community ought to have excited; and it is somewhat remarkable that the demand for a change in the law has proceeded most urgently from the proprietors of entailed estates themselves. These parties are now beginning to see the full extent of the bondage to which they are subjected. Their inability

Question of Abolition or Alteration considesed.

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to improve their estates-which if they cannot do, it will be impossible for them to maintain themselves at all on a level with fee-simple proprietors-has become more oppressive and hurtful to them since the recent more general application of capital to land, and the great strides in the science and practice of agriculture of late years achieved; and the effects of Lord Aberdeen's Act, only now beginning to come into partial operation, on the death of the heirs of entail, who were first able to take advantage of it, show them clearly how utterly helpless, hand-bound, and wretched the whole body must in a short time, become, if they cannot obtain relief of a different kind from these partial relaxations, which only lighten the burden on the heir who can first benefit by them, to throw it with accumulated weight on those heirs who are to come after him. Accordingly, a very urgent cry for the repeal of the Entail Laws has arisen from the very body for whose protection the entails were originally framed; and the attention of the general public has in consequence been called to the subject more impressively, and with a better prospect of a good result, than on any former occasion.

So far as regards the prevention of any further entailing of the already far too small portion of the fee-simple land in the country, there need be no difficulty whatever. The Act of 1685 ought to be repealed, and all future entails, such as it was meant to protect, should be declared unlawful and void. This, we doubt not, would be found in regard to them, at common law, if the question were now to be tried; but it would be preferable to remove all doubt on the subject by declaring them void by statute. A question was raised at the time of the committee of 1828, Whether, instead of an absolute and simple abolition of the Scottish system, that of England should not be substituted in its place? and this question will probably again be mooted. According to the latter system, a man may entail his lands, giving a life-interest or life-interests to one or more persons in being at the time, with a right over, in tail, to issue unborn; but through a legal fiction the first of this unborn issue, who succeeds as tenant in tail, may, on his attaining majority, suffer a fine, and, by a "recovery," disentail the land; or, indeed, he may effect this before he actually succeeds, with consent always of the tenant for life, in possession for the time. That this would be a vast improvement on our present system cannot be disputed; but we own we would not incline to admit the power of entailing at all. Unquestionably, every man must have the right during his life, to the very last moment of it, of conveying his property to other existing individuals in such shares, whether of parts, or of interests such as liferent and fee, as he