A deputation from the Free Land League waited on the
Lord Chancellor on Tuesday, and elicited from Lord Herschel' some important declarations. He was evidently desirous . to abolish primogeniture at once, to enfranchise copyholds, and to change " customary tenure " into freehold. With regard to settlement, again, he would go farther as regards land than as regards per- sonalty. His ideal is a register of owners for all the laud in the country, and a law enabling the registered owner to give -a. title as perfect as an owner of Consols can.- He confessed, however, to one perplexity which, we are told, greatly bothers very advanced reformers. What is to be done with encumbered land ? Is that to be sold subject to encumbrances—which, in the case of patches, is impossible—or are the encumbrances to be peremptorily cleared off, possibly in a period of depression like the present? That would be very like confiseation—though it was done in Jamaica and Ireland—yet, if encumbrances are to bar sale, sale will be prevented by artificial encumbrances. Lord Herschel! is inclined, we see, to prohibit short leases of building- land in future, but not to invalidate leaseholds already existing. That, of course, is the just compromise, but that is exactly what makes modern democracy furious. It wants its material heaven now, without waiting, lest it should neverget it.
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