The Daily News affirms, upon what it believes to be
full authority, that the Government intend to bring in a Bill which will cause landed property, in the event of intestacy, to devolve like personalty, and will allow the tenant-for-life to sell as if he were a freeholder. The effect of the first clause will be to abolish primogeniture, and of the second to liberate land from settlement, though it will not, of course,. abolish settlement itself. Both proposals are good, and if seriously brought forward, ought to be accepted by all Liberals. But this Government is so tricky, that it is difficult to resist a suspicion that they may not be brought forward as Bills, but only as advertisements. Suppose the Government to be- aware that the Peers will not pass them, then, when they dissolve, they can tell the farmers that they are for Free-trade in land as well as the Liberals, although the Peers threw out their Bill. Then, the county elections having been. won, the Bills can be comfortably pigeon-holed, like that Bank- ruptcy Bill which we are always to have, but which the City never gets.
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