Congresses abound, and of all Congresses the most alarming for
the breadth and vagueness of its subjects is that of the Social Science Association. This was opened by the President of the year, Lord Napier and Ettrick, sometime our Ambassador in Russia, and more recently Governor of Madras, on Wednesday, in an able inaugural address, which dealt chiefly with the subjects of land tenure, settlement, entail, and primogeniture, on all which subjects Lord Napier is a bold reformer, greatly opposed to all laws which hamper the thorough cultivation of the land, and tend to accumulate it artificially in few hands. Not that Lord Napier thinks large estates an evil. He asserted that large estates are often the best managed, and admitted that, in Scotland at least, rigidly settled estates are often found cultivated up to the highest point, while estates perfectly free from all legal shackles are sometimes found in a miserable con- dition. Still he would, of course, do all in his power to discour- age settlements which prevent the tenant for life from getting the highest yield out of the land. He was hostile to settlements, but he did not say how he would enable the proprietor to provide for his children, on his marriage, unless Lord Napier meant that he would force him either to sub-divide or to sell the estate, if he wished to provide at all for more than one child. That would at present be so much against the instincts which treat an estate as a family home, that in some way or other the law would be-evaded.
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