be created, would be an attempt to register the unregisterable. The true basis of reform is to be found in a fee simple being made the only recognised form of tenure either at law or in equity, and in the establishment of registry courts. There is, however, an objection often taken to the first of these suggestions, which it may be as well to consider before proceeding any further.

Why, it is said, forbid the settlement of land when analogous powers exist of settling personalty through the instrumentality of trustees, though not by carving estates out of it. Subject to the same rule of perpetuities as land, personalty can be settled on trust for the lives of any number of persons in being and twenty-one years after. Mr. Hayes also, in the paper quoted above, attempted to argue that it was possible to create an estate tail in personal property, because the proceeds of the sale of land directed to be re-invested in land, are held to be real estate even previous to their re-investment. The reason of this has been pointed out above. It is indeed true, that this device of directing the land to be sold, and the proceeds re-invested in land, is resorted to in cases where there is but a remote intention of investing as directed, and the phrase " entailed money," is consequently well known. It is, however, open to doubt, if the long delay which often takes place is really defensible according to the doctrines of equity, the risk of a fraud on the power or breach of trust being run; and the fact remains that it is only by having recourse to a very technical doctrine of equity that it can take place at all.*

Putting this particular point aside, the general argument from the settlement of personalty to that of realty assumes that the power of settling in the case of the former is a good thing; and secondly, that what is good in the case of the former is necessarily good in the case of the latter. Now, the first of these two propositions may well be questioned, but its discussion here would be irrelevant to the main issue. Assuming, then, that the power of settlement is a good thing when exercised on personalty, the fact remains that there is an intrinsic difference in the subject-matter of personal and of real property, which is quite sufficient to render that which may be good legislation in the case of the former bad legislation in the case of the latter.

There is to begin with that distinction which has of late been so much insisted upon, and also so frequently attacked, that land is limited in quantity, personalty or at least most kinds of it unlimited. It is objected that, practically speaking, land-the whole surface of the globe included-is unlimited. This may be true, without its

* See some remarks on this subject in Lord St. Leonards' Real Property Law, p. 223.

impugning the original position. What is asserted is, that land considered as a source of national wealth is limited in quantity. Land is one of the three great sources of wealth, labour and capital being the other two. Anything which interferes with the unfettered use of any of the three for productive purposes is an evil-except in a few exceptional cases-but an interference with the free use of that which is limited in quantity and cannot be replaced, is a double evil. If a man has a business and neglects it, a rival competitor soon steps into his place; but if a man allows his property to go to waste, another property cannot be brought on to the spot from a distance to replace it. There is an immediate loss to the wealth of the country. Again, the power which the mere possession of land gives to the landowner over the well-being of all connected with it, is a power to which nothing similar exists in the case of the possessor of personal wealth. It no doubt makes a difference to society if the possessor of a large sum of money squanders the income arising from it, a still greater difference if he dissipates the principal; but the evil consequences in either case are only indirectly felt, and are quickly repaired by the rapidity with which personal wealth is accumulated in a country such as ours. Not many persons beyond the immediate possessor and his nearest relatives perhaps have any very intimate connection with the squandered property. It is far otherwise in the case of land. There, if the owner is a spendthrift, a blight settles on the estate and all connected with it. From the largest farmer to the poorest labourer, all are alike affected. A mass of individuals are the comparatively helpless sufferers till the next change of ownership takes place. Since then so great a difference exists between land and personalty, there would be nothing in itself extraordinary if the law considered it to be of greater importance to protect the former than the latter from the dead hand of the past and the unborn child of the future.*

To return to the question of a land registry. The greatest divergence of opinion exists as to what is the best system. The Real Property Commissioners of 1831 suggested one scheme; the Commissioners of 1857 suggested another. Mr. Joshua Williams has proposed one of his own, resembling the former rather than the latter. The Commission, which quite recently reported on the causes of the failure of the existing Registration Court, suggested a fourth, to which Mr. Fowler, in the Cobden Club Essays of 1872, gives in a qualified adhesion. Other writers, like Lord St. Leonards, object to registration altogether. Speaking roughly, the different proposals mentioned above resolve themselves into those which

* See generally on this part of the subject Mr. Vernon Harcourt's Inaugural Address, p. 54.

propose a simple registration of title-i.e. of the right to convey, coupled to a system of notices to protect partial interests, and those which propose a register of assurances. The Report of 1831 and the plan of Mr. Joshua Williams incline to the latter; the Report of 1857 to the former of these alternatives. Again, these various schemes fall under different heads, according as they propose that the registry should be one of places, of estates, or of the names of the owners; according as they propose that registration should be central, or that it should be local, that it should be permissive, or that it should be compulsory. Whatever be the scheme adopted, the abolition of complicated interests in land would enormously facilitate its operation. If the register be one of assurances, their length and their intricacy will be diminished; if of title alone, the danger of litigation (owing to the diminution of the number of parties having possible interests) will be equally certain to become less.

It is not, however, the object of these remarks to urge the legal so much as the economic objections to complicated interests being carved out of land. The machinery of law is made to serve the general objects of civil society, and it is sufficient for the present purpose to prove that complicated settlements are bad from an economic point of view. Even if it could be shown that they were as easily registered as a fee simple, the case against them would remain intact.

The difficulty of starting an effective system of registration ought not to be underrated. Besides the points mentioned above, a variety of others at once suggest themselves; for example, the exact machinery to be adopted for the protection of partial interests, should constructive notice be allowed, should registration be noticed, should a guarantee fund exist to compensate the owners of partial interests which may have been injured, and fifty others. It would be presumptuous here to enter into the details of a legal reform, on which so great a diversity of opinion exists, and on which so much learning has been expended, hitherto unfortunately with little result beyond furnishing an armoury for the future use of reformers. It is sufficient to point out that men of the greatest professional experience, against whom the charge of wild innovation and reckless scheming can by no possibility be brought, have pronounced registration possible. Political economy follows in their wake, and declares registration to be necessary. It goes further, and advocates extensive changes in the law of real property itself, suggesting at the same time to the lawyers that it is the want of these changes which have hitherto rendered registration impossible.

Granting however to the fullest degree the difficulty of the task, it remains to be seen why England, a country where political education is more generally spread than in any other, and where

each day extends and adds to it, should be unable to do what other and less favoured nations have done. Every year adds to the necessity of facing this question, in proportion as the existing evils become more widely known and more keenly felt. There is another reason for doing so arising from the political character of the times. Schemes are abroad for treating this land question in a very different manner from that indicated here. The principles from which these remarks start are those which animated Mr. Cobden when, in the last public speech he ever made, he spoke of free trade in land. But now grand schemes for nationalizing the land and intercepting the increment of rent are put forward, the one unadvisable, as it would entail-unless accomplished by confiscation-a loss of £57,000,000 per annum, as recently shown by Sir John Lubbock, not to mention the fundamental objections to all landlordism on the part of the State; the other impossible, as no conceivable machinery for carrying it out could avoid introducing the greatest uncertainty, inequality, and injustice. Both schemes strike at the idea of individual liberty and individual property, ideas which go far in making up that complex whole known as the English character, and both are children of a second-rate continental philosophy, the teachings of which are alien to everything which has prospered on the soil of this country. Indeed the difference with which this land question is treated in England and abroad affords a good illustration of the characteristics which distinguish what may be called French Socialism from English Radicalism; the first springing from abstract ideas of the rights of man, the other inductive in its method and practical in its object; the first proud to forget everything before 1793, the second claiming as its own a long historic past, and liberties hardly yet securely gained; the one developing a succession of brilliant yet one-sided glories, the other in which no partial principle has ever attained an exclusive ascendancy; the one, finally, in which the gain of to-day is but too often obtained by the loss of the acquisition of yesterday; the other in which the present triumph may be less complete, but the seed planted in the past bears blossom and fruit, and does not wither. Progress constant yet sure has ever been the characteristic of our civilization, of our institutions, of our laws; and their characteristic it will remain, for national character in its broader features does not vary. Under its influence the land question will be solved, not by those who rush to seek some panacea sprung fully armed out of the head of an individual, but by those who seek to uproot, with a firm and unsparing hand, the parasitic growths which have overgrown and deformed the laws.

EDMOND FITZMAURICE.

DEAN STANLEY AT EDINBURGH.

DR.

R. STANLEY went down to Edinburgh in January, and four gave lectures on the history of the Church of Scotland, which have had, and are likely to have, a remarkable fortune. The admirers of the Dean as an historian have been disappointed with them. They say they are not up to his mark. We may, I think, find reason to believe that this is because they were not intended by him to be properly historical essays. Still, whatever be the reason, English readers have again missed what they have often desired, and what Dean Stanley could have executed for them better than any man living or dead-a short, complete, and luminously intelligible sketch by the hand of genius, unfolding once and for ever from within outwards that very tangled affair, the ecclesiastical history of Scotland. This has not been attempted, and has certainly not been accomplished. No one will come to understand Scottish Church History by reading the volume. It unfolds nothing, either in order of time or of principle. It is simply a picturesque pamphlet-four turns of the historical kaleidoscope, with the objects admirably selected and arranged for the purposes of the exhibitor.

But if Dean Stanley has in this instance failed in writing history, it is because he has been doing a more important thing-making history. The contents of his lectures are, according to Charles Lamb's translation of sermoni propiora, "properer for a sermon;"