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1 Our Land Laws of the Past

handle is hein.beal/lndlwps0001 and id is 1 raw text is: OUR LAND LAWS OF THE PAST. IT is rather singular that the attention of the people of this country has not been directed long ago to the laws which regulate the settlement and sale of land. When one dis- covers that everybody else differs from him in some import- ant particular, surely it is time for him to consider whether he is not seriously in the wrong. Now, this is the position of Great Britain in clinging to what are really remnants of feudalism and the dark ages, and refusing to follow the example of those other European nations which, during the present century, have set themselves free from artificial hindrances preventing free trade in land. By legal devices which are not advantageous to the personal interests of the nominal proprietors, says an eminent living writer, nor to those of the people at large, these lands (4o,ooo,ooo acres in Great Britain) are, with insignificant exceptions, placed under permanent disabilities ; they are the preserves of entail, fenced with strict settlement; they belong to no man, and, to a certain extent, they are doomed to infertility, be- cause they are ever in waiting for the unborn hand of the next generation. That being so, the question not only be- comes a national one, but one of paramount interest to all classes of the community. The people at large have a right to insist that the soil of these islands should produce as much food as capital and skill in combination can bring forth, and any legal obstacles which tend to prevent so desir- able a result should be held as contrary to good manners, and therefore unsparingly swept away. The owner of land in a sense is a trustee, bound within reasonable limits to cultivate that land for the benefit, not merely of himself, but also of his fellow-citizens; and there

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