1 JULY 1876, Page 3

Mr. Potter on Wednesday moved the second reading of his

Intestacy Bill, which provides that when an owner dies without a will, his land shall descend like personalty. The debate was rather more imbecile than usual, Mr. Goldney asking if the House would abolish a law which had prevailed for a thousand years, Mr. Beresford Hope declaring that its object was to enable the plutocrats to gobble up the small properties of the land, Mr. Henley professing extreme anxiety for the fate of the small free- holders, and the Attorney-General asserting that a man who died 'without a will intended to leave his land to his eldest son. No one had the courage to say boldly that primogeniture helped to keep up a graded society, and they preferred that to an equalised society ; While, on the other hand, the Liberals repeated the argument about justice ad nauseam, never reflecting that if abstract justice 'is to be the rule, the claim of the mother for life is better than the • claim of the children. The division, however, showed unexpected progress, the Bill, though very Radical and directly opposed by Government, being thrown out only by a majority of 35, in a House of 385. The land questions are obviously creeping on.