The tendency to look for the means of healing the
present distress and depression, which have attacked almost all indus- tries, in a reform of the laws relating to land-tenure, has received a fresh exemplification in the proceedings of the Trades Union Congress, which has been sitting throughout the present week at Edinburgh. All indications point to some largo measures of reform in the Land-laws, when the Liberal party shall be again in office, unless, which seems scarcely credible, the present Government takes up the question, and deals with it in a manner sufficiently broad to en- able them again to succeed in "dishing the Whigs." Mr. R. S. Wright, a well-known London barrister, in his speech at the Congress spoke of the laud question as "the foremost of the industrial questions of the day." He condemned the various hindrances and restrictions which hamper the transfer of land and prevent the outlay of capital upon agricultural im- provements, and mentioned a really good, because really simple, suggestion which had been made,—" that all settlements and mortgages should be charged, not on the land, but on its value or price." A resolution was unanimously adopted,— " That this Congress is of opinion that the Land-laws at present in force in Great Britain and Ireland are mani- festly unjust, and are opposed to the best interests of the people, by divorcing the peasantry from the soil, diminish- ing. labour, restricting production, and causing the nation to depend largely for the supply of food on foreign importations, thus wasting its wealth in the purchase of food from abroad which might with advantage be produced at home. We there- fore resolve that the reform of the Land-laws shall at once be added to our programme." Whether the ideas of the Congress on political economy are sound or not, its members may well be congratulated on the general fairness and moderation of tone which distinguish the labour-class of our Isles from that of so many continental States.
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