perpetuate this unwholesome state of things.

4. It is at variance with the broad commercial principles that should govern all contracts between man and man; and

5. It is (particularly in its retrospective operation) most unjust.

It is scarcely necessary to make any allusion to the injustice per se of an ex post facto law. A tenant now dispossessed, would be entitled to compensation for a house he had erected twenty-eight or thirty years ago, while, from the deaths of parties and other causes, it would be quite impossible to prove, as the fact might be, that the erection of the house formed part of the consideration of the original occupancy, twenty or thirty years before, or was, perhaps, actually erected by money advanced by the landlord. Rights might also have been waived, in consequence of these improvements, rent abated, arrears remitted, and a variety of other small considerations extending over a series of years, paid by mutual agreement as full compensation. To rake up all such accounts, extending over so many years, would be only justice to the landlord, but would be, nevertheless, an intolerable nui

sance.

bill

In other respects, also, this provision is most unjust, and directly at variance with the principles of the itself. By it notice must be given to the landlord; and he has the option of taking the work into his own hands, or, at any rate, of watching its progress, and of afterwards contesting the certificate of completion. And this is the only means, in most agricultural improvements such as drainage, subsoiling, &c.-of determining whether the works are of any use at all, or a mere fraud, or loss of capital. A single rock left unblasted in a main drain may render abortive the expenditure of several hundred pounds upon thorough-drainage. To permit every tenant in Ireland who is dispossessed to send in long claims for all sorts of subterraneous improvement, would be to invite every description of dishonesty and fraud. We also fear that the proviso in this bill that deprives the tenant ejected for non-payment of rent of all claim for compensation, will have the direct effect of keeping up the system of "nominal rents and "hanging ar

"

rears," from which this country has so much suffered.

In the opening pages of this article, we traced the origin of all the social miseries under which Ireland has groaned for so many dreary years, to an all-pervading desire for the possession of land-a desire called into existence and fostered by an unwise legislation. We have no hesitation in saying, that the facilities for fraud, and the great premiums offered to the pauper tenant by this bill will have just the same calamitous effect as the Fortyshilling Freeholders' Act. It will throw back the country, stop progress and perpetuate, for a season, the cottier system, till, perhaps, another famine shall carry desolation over the face of the country, and engrave, in less transitory characters, the terrible experience which the first gleams of returning prosperity appear to have almost obliterated from our inconstant recollections.

The very extraordinary opinions entertained about land, paint, in strong colours, the inconsistencies of man's character. Those who are warmest in their support of the doctrines-now permanently established - of unrestricted competition in all commercial transactions, cannot allow themselves, for a minute, to apply the same principles to commercial transactions having relation to land. They will maintain, vociferously, that any legal interference or dictation is most prejudicial to the community when applied to any matter in which they are interested to the letting of lodgings, the hiring of a handloom, the agreement between the master and his workmen, the sale of a yard of cloth. But if you tell them that land is an instrument of production, and that a steam-engine is the same that both are hired, and that the same freedom from control should govern both transactions, they at once confess themselves in nubibus. Talk of tenant-right in a lathe, or compensation for "unexhausted improvements in a hired locomotive, they set you down at once as a bedlamite. They maintain, and correctly, that land is the most important interest in the empire; but they err when they say, that, therefore, it must be governed by a different code. The conclusion that follows from these premises, is directly opposed to theirs. If unrestricted competition be really

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advantageous in the lesser transactions in which the members of a community may be engaged, it must be of far greater importance when applied to

matters of vast moment.

But many who admit the accuracy of this argument, in an economic view, maintain that although the community would unquestionably gain by the extension of free trade" to land, there is another and more important side to the question. The people, they say, are too poor and too ignorant to take care of their own concerns, and the landlord having a manifest advantage over them, the laws must protect the weaker. The remedy for this appears plain. If education gives one an advantage, elevate the other in the social scale by the same means. But if it be the wealth of the landlord that enables him to tyrannise over the penury of the tenant, and to dictate terms to a starving man, the answer is still plainera starving man has no business with land, any more than he would have with a steam engine which he was too poor to supply with fuel, or too ignorant to turn to industrial ac

count.

In Ireland, not only our own popu lation, but the English tourists that annually visit our country, seldom look at a tract of dreary landscape without expressing their regret that land so capable of being reclaimed should still be suffered to continue in a state of nature. This they often ascribe to the want of some complicated bill, such as the one before us. But they seem always to forget that this cannot be done without capital; and that you cannot embark money in one channel without withdrawing it from another. Any legal enactment that holds forth extraordinary temptations for the investment of capital in land, might, with perfect truth, be called "an act for the discouragement of Irish manufactures and commerce." It is because the thoughts, energies, and capital of our country have long been too much fixed upon the land that our manufactures have made so little progress; and we have often speculated, as we looked from a distance at the tall dusky chimneys that told our approach to some English manufacturing town, upon the wonderful change that would have been produced had unseasonable Acts of Parliament diverted the capital there represented out of its natural channels

to the less ambitious pursuits of the cultivation of the soil.

The tenants in this country are now of a higher class; superior in educa tion, wealth, and skill. Legislation must acknowledge this. They are able to manage their own affairs. America holds out its temptations to them. Thousands are leaving our shores, large tracts of country are unoccupied. The farmer is at a premium-land at a discount. The landlord is in reality more in need of protection than the tenant. Under these circumstances it seems most unadvisable and dangerous to introduce such a bill as the one we have been considering, founded upon principles which appear, and we say it with all possible respect to the eminent gentlemen by whom the bill is introduced, to approach too closely to that broad line of demarcation that should ever distinctly define and boldly protect those private rights, without a hallowed respect for which prosperity and order must soon give place to anarchy and ruin.

The

The LANDLORD AND TENANT LAW AMENDMENT BILL is the last of Mr. Napier's four bills. Its object is to consolidate, amend, and simplify, the mass of confused legislation regulating the law of landlord and tenant in Ireland. These acts amount to nearly 200; all which, it is proposed, to repeal and wipe away from the statute book. object of this bill is, as far as possible, to present a complete code of law on the subject, in such a form as to be accessible and intelligible to any country gentleman or educated tenant. And as the other bills of the code are designed to facilitate contracts and create rights, the object of this bill is to facilitate the enforcement of those contracts, and the observance of those rights.

As this bill embodies most of the provisions of the present acts, relating to the tenure of land-a subject we have often considered in our columnsit is only necessary to dwell upon some of its principal deviations from former

measures.

It makes the assignee of a tenant liable to all the covenants in the leases as long as he continues in occupation; and it makes him responsible for the entire gale of rent, if any of it have become due whilst he was in possession, and before the registry of his assignment; and it liberates the tenant from all future liabilities, where his assignee

has been accepted and dealt with by the landlord. Where a tenant has underlet with consent, the sub-tenant is protected from the inconvenience of being harassed by two or more landlords; and whilst the head-landlord is pernitted to require the sub-tenant, if the premises be in arrear, to pay his rent directly to him, the sub-tenant is also permitted to elect to pay the head landlord. Where the lease contains an express covenant not to sub-let or divide the interest, it is provided, that, in case of intestancy, the landlord shall elect among the next of kin, as to which he shall accept as his tenant.

The laws relating to waste, have been a constant source of injustice and complaint. Several important alterations are made in the bill upon this subject. Hitherto, when a tenant was committing waste or dilapidation, the only remedies were by an action, &c., against a person almost always a pauper; or by an injunction in Chancery

a tedious and expensive process. By this bill the magistrates will be authorised to grant a warrant on affidavit against the offending party. It empowers local tribunals to enforce the covenants that in reality form the principal considerations in the lease; and a civil bill ejectment is given against the tenant, where he has forfeited his interest by assigning, under-letting, burning, or over-cropping. The process of ejectment in the superior courts is also simplified and stripped of much unnecessary prolixity.

The most extensive alteration effected by the bill is in the law of distress. Mr. Napier has made some most important reforms, for the benefit of the tenant; but we regret he did not go a little farther, and wholly abolish what we must consider the remains of feudal barbarism. Even if the power were never abused, there is something repugnant and humiliating to manly feeling to that independent spirit which it is the interest and duty of the legislature to foster and respect-in the knowledge, that if you have omitted to pay your rent, your landlord, without notice to you, or legal process, may seize upon, and place in the custody of irresponsible persons-selected by himself, perhaps all your earthly goods. It is a power that has been constantly abused in this country, converted into an instrument of injustice, and not only used as a hasty means of

redress, but often employed, too, as a vehicle of vindictive oppression. The late Attorney-General proposes that no distress shall be made for sums under £5, or for rent due more than one year and a-half before; and that the warrant shall, in every case, be granted before distress by a magistrate, or other person in autho rity, upon a proper affidavit.

These and other minor alterations are, doubtless, important and most be neficial changes; still we regret the measure was not a little more liberal. One step more would have wiped this blot out of the Landlord and Tenant Bill. The old law of distress was not only the cause of much injustice and heart-bickerings, but it also materially assisted in degrading the tenant classes. It gave the landlords such facile powers of recovering rent, that many soon ceased to care so much about the solvency or character of their tenantsmatters in which they were no longer so materially interested.

The proposed bill also contains some most judicious clauses, to facilitate and regulate the gradual growth among us of a class of cottagers, or labourers, as distinct from farmers, similar to the same class in England. The uncertainty of the law made it very difficult to give a house, and a small allotment of ground to a labourer, without his becoming at once a tenant from year to year, entitled to notice to quit, &c. These difficulties are removed by a few simple and mutually beneficial provisions. As already remarked, it would be quite impossible, as well as useless and tedious, to attempt to place before the reader more than a superficial sketch of this great measure that consolidates and repeals nearly two hundred heterogeneous acts upon the same subject. We believe, however, that we have drawn attention to those leading features, in which the public will feel most interest. Many questions that have been the subject of doubt and conflicting judgments, have been happily decided; law quibbles have been annihilated wholesale; the Augean stables have been swept; pro lixity, special pleading, vain repetitions, and endless recitals, have all been knocked on the head. These topics, however, are so surrounded with technicalities, and so intimately connected with court practice, that whilst the public will reap the

benefits, professional men alone would take an interest in their discussion.

In drawing this article to a close, it is impossible not to be struck with the boldness of the mind that planned a design so vast. For generations past, as alterations became necessary, each preceding statute was patched and tinkered by a newer one; till, at last, these acts formed a confused mass, such as few men had courage to plod through, and scarce one ability to master. Ireland owes a deep debt of gra titude to Mr. Napier, for the efforts he has made to bring the land question to a final settlement.

We cannot conclude more appropriately than by an extract from the right honourable gentleman's speech upon

the subject, in the House of Com

mons:

"I have endeavoured to meet the exigencies of Ireland in a liberal and generous spirit. In preparing this code-in considering every suggestion submitted-I have added many an hour of toil to a life of labour; and every suggestion which may hereafter be offered, from whatever quarter it may come, will be accepted, and considered in the same spirit in which the measure has been now submitted to the house. The voice of mercy has resuscitated Ireland; the flush and flow of returning life reanimates her frame; but still is she bound in the grave-clothes, in which severe policy and sore affliction have enwrapped her. Loose her, and let her go."