Lord Carington's speech at Wycombe on Tuesday shows that the
Land-laws cannot much longer be kept up. Lord. Carington is not a political Peer, has belonged rather to the "party of pleasure" among the aristocracy ; but he made a most sensible and vigorous speech in favour of the enfranchise- ment of the soil. He showed how his father and himself had been cramped by settlements, until it was impossible to make improvements, ancd, in one instance a farm of hie own was so neglected that it was impossible to let it at any rent, and he could raise no money for improvements without sales forbidden by law. He believes, therefore, that settlement should be pro- hibited, and every landlord made lord of his own laud, able to sell when necessary, and so fight the bad' times with reduced acreage, but farms in thorough order. That is sense, even if,. as the lawyers allege, Lord Carington's powers of "taking up" money for improvements are, under recent statutes, larger than he imagines.
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