culated to develop to the utmost the productive capacity of the soil, so in the former case it is to be desired that the contract should insure the provision of as many well-built and durable houses as possible for the occupation of intending tenants. Now, it is obvious that a contract which associates the business of house-building not with the freehold, but with a mere terminable interest in the land, is on the face of it but ill-adapted to the attainment of this last-mentioned end. As it is the object of the lessee to secure as large a margin as possible between the ground rent which he has to pay and the annual return upon his invested capital, it is clearly his interest to expend, relatively to the rent he looks to receive for his house, the smallest possible sum of money on its erection. So long as it will hold together for the term of his lease, and be technically in a tenantable condition when handed over at the expiration of that term to the lessor, he need not trouble himself about it further. This temptation to sacrifice solidity to cheapness in house-building is, of course, theoretically held in check by the lessor's interest in the reversion; but, unfortunately, this, like many other theoretical checks, is not to be relied upon in practice. It may be, and often is, worth the

lessor's while to content himself with the reversion of an inferior house in consideration of receiving a higher ground rent, for which the lessee can in his turn recoup himself by passing on the loss to his tenant in the form of an ill-built and highly rented house. As to the tenant himself, whose term is merely carved out of the lessee's, he is manifestly under no sort of inducement to improve. Thus, what with the landlord, who need consider nothing but the ground rents; the jerry builder, whose only object is to turn over his capital at the best advantage and in the shortest time; and the occupier, who is here to-day and gone to-morrow, the whole series of influences to which the house is exposed under our English system makes steadily for its deterioration. In London these tendencies are accentuated, for in London the occupier population is more continually changing than is the case in the country, while the constantly growing demand for houses as the population increases enables the builder to pay, and in his turn compels him to demand, a progressively increasing rent in proportion to his expenditure on the house. The whole system operates, in short, as a discouragement to thrift and good workmanship, and to that wholesome pride of possession which law and

usage in every country ought above all things to

encourage.

"The economical objections to the system, however, do not stand alone.

It is open to serious political disadvantages also. A method so fraught with advantages to the freeholder in dealing with urban land has, of course, a direct tendency to keep such land out of the market, while at the same time the peculiar advantages which he derives from the retention of the freehold are of that precise nature which it is least desirable on political grounds that he should enjoy. We do not desire to revive old controversies about the right to 'unearned increment;' and, indeed, we are willing to admit that it is logically impossible to dispute a landlord's right to such accretions of value except by arguments which, if valid, would impugn the title to many forms of property which have hitherto passed unchallenged. But the fact remains that this peculiar variety of the wealth which increases while its owners sleep' is the most obnoxious to popular prejudice of all forms of property, the most difficult for the statesman and legislator to defend against attack, and therefore the least proper to be enlarged and extended by the operation of an artificial system of dealing with landed property

which prevails in no other country but our own. It would be easy to conceive a state of circumstances under which the development of the system might become a source of grave danger to the community. We are far from saying that such a condition has arisen at present, but it is impossible to shut our eyes to the fact that every year which passes brings such a contingency nearer, and hastens the approach of the time when the questions which would be raised by it will come distinctly within the range of practical politics. The rapid growth of the metropolitan population presents many serious problems for the consideration of statesmanship, and since some of these belong to the category of the inevitable, it becomes the more urgent to prevent any avoidable addition to their number. No doubt the legislative proposals which have hitherto been made with a view to the abatement of the evil are crude and unsatisfactory; but unquestionably legislation in some form will be necessary to reform a system under which ninetenths of the inhabitants of the metropolis have no interest in their own houses, and the soil of London is rapidly passing into the hands of a few millionaires."

LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT.

A just law to facilitate this change of investment would work such immense good for the country, that an Act of Parliament for the purpose should be passed as soon as possible. The lawyer and land-agent class would have a harvest of work during the change, and afterwards sales and purchases of house property would be very much more frequent than they are at the present time, and the monopolies of that description of business would be spread amongst the whole of the profession.

But the most important improvement that would result from this change of tenure from leasehold to freehold would be in the effect on the health of the whole population, through the sanitary state of dwelling-houses, stables, manufactories, schools, theatres, and assembly-rooms of all sorts. It would cause a more free expenditure on the costly work of draining, ventilating, warming, artificial lighting, fitting up baths, and otherwise rendering buildings more healthful. A man who will hesitate to spend money on his landlord's house will readily spend money on his own house, if he knows that his family will reap the whole of the benefit in the