and organize remunerative industrial enterprises, to the enriching of such capitalists.

By enriching the realm with a variety of industrial enterprises, in agriculture, manufactures, engineering, shipping, mining, and useful works which produce wealth, plenty of profitable employment would be provided for the whole population. The universal demand for labour would bring subsistence within reach of the abjectly destitute, and practically reclaim many of the idly dissolute.

Thus we see that, by breaking down the legal barriers by which owners are prevented from dividing excessively overgrown properties, the condition of the destitute and dissolute would be ameliorated, small capitalists would grow rich, and the whole country become more prosperous.

The accumulation of these excessively overgrown properties, by reason of the population increasing in compound ratio, while the quantity of land remains the same, becomes a national question of grave moment.

Let England pray that its land laws may be thoroughly reformed, before it is overtaken by some national calamity, such as drove Prussia after Jena in 1806, France after Waterloo in 1815, and Austria after the Revolution of 1848, to abolish

every remnant of the feudal land system, and this, not merely to save society from anarchy by removing the greatest cause of discontent, but to produce prosperity and patriotic loyalty among the people.

Sir R. B. D. Morier, C.B., in "Systems of Land Tenure in the Various Countries of Europe" (Cassell and Co.), describes the change of the land laws in Prussia in 1807 and afterwards. In Prussia, land is not allowed to be tied up by wills and deeds; it can be always freely sold and transferred, and mortgaged, by simple registration, quickly and cheaply; and that by any one, without professional assistance.

The national prosperity, resulting from the foreign land-law reform, is shown in the Government official reports on the land tenure of the several countries of Europe, obtained in 1869.

In the following scheme, it is proposed to divide the whole of the British Isles into provinces (not more than a score), for home government; the divisions to be as equal as possible. The Parliamentary representatives of the divisions of the kingdom will naturally form separate parties in the House of Commons, according to the interests of the divisions they represent. If the four nations -England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales-were

made the divisions for home government, then the four national parties in the House of Commons would be most unequal, and the stronger party might oppress the weaker. But, by reason of the more equal balance of the voting power in provincial than in national parties, provincial party feeling is less likely to interfere with the freedom of votes of members of Parliament on imperial questions which affect the whole realm. The formation of provinces for home government is a middle course, which admits of perfect organization, on the principles of "EQUALITY, SIMILARITY, and SIMULTANEITY."

SKETCH OF THE SCHEME.

The object of this essay is the removal of legal hindrances to the natural diffusion of landed property. The plan proposed is: (1) To divide the United Kingdom into provinces. (2) Raise a Government guaranteed fund at 3 per cent. (3) Loan out the fund to each province at 3 per cent. on the security of the taxes and property of the province. (4) For each province to advance money at 31

per cent. on freehold landed security within its own province, on the system of building societies, whereby occupying tenants might be enabled to purchase their landlord's interest in the freehold at a fair price; but only by voluntary means for the first five years of the Act. (5) After the fifth year of the Act, tenants, who have laid out more on the freehold than the value of their landlord's interest in it, to have power to compel the landlord to sell the freehold at a fair price. (6) And after the seventh year of the Act, then occupation for three years to entitle a tenant to purchase his landlord's freehold at a fair price.

Thus the public would deposit money with the Government at 3 per cent. on freehold mortgage security, the Imperial and the Provincial Governments each deriving a per cent. profit, to pay

expenses.

The land would gradually pass into the ownership of the occupiers, who would then naturally improve it; and the people would become prosperous and patriotic.

OCCUPYING OWNERSHIP.

Inasmuch as the FREEHOLD OWNERSHIP of landed property BY THE OCCUPIER is the strongest inducement to improvement in building houses, planting trees, cultivating land, and farming generally, if occupying tenants were enabled to purchase their landlord's interest in their holdings, the country would benefit by the change. A " Travelling Bachelor" of the University of Cambridge, in 1844, saw the thriving condition of Saxony through occupying ownership and education, contrasting most distinctly with the wretchedness and beggary in Bohemia through landlordism. When the eminent Professor Vehrli, at the training college near Constance in Switzerland, explained to him the cause of the success in those parts, he writes, “I was extremely surprised, and asked, 'Is it true, that actual ownership is such a wonderful stimulant to self-improvement, self-denial, and exertion?"" (vide "Free Trade in Land," by Joseph Kay, M.A., Q.C. ; with Preface by John Bright, M.P. Kegan Paul, Trench and Co.) Likewise the Right Hon. J. Goschen, M.P., said in his speech in Parliament (vide Times report, February 26, 1886), "It is de