mourner; but to this we would reply, surely a moderate independence is preferable to splendid slavery! Is not substantial ownership better than nominal sovereignty? Thus far regarding the proprietor; but we must enlarge our apprehensions, and take a proper view of the state of dependants under an improved condition of things. Tenants on the sold portion of an estate would of course follow its fortunes during their term of occupancy; but we are sure their lot would not be deteriorated; and as for the tenants who remained, they would not fail of deriving benefit from the enfranchisement of the landlord. Liberal concessions would be in the power of the freed proprietor, who, in tasting the sweets of liberty, would feel desirous of imparting advantages. It is absolute ignorance, mingled with folly, to expect that improvements of a permanent cast can ever take place on encumbered estates; for embarrassed landlords are almost certain to have a following of thriftless tenants. This is well and pointedly put by Mr Cal vert. "It has evidently been intended in all recent legislation affecting agriculture, that the application of science, capital, enterprize, and activity, shall bring all the inherent powers of the soil into action, and extract from it the largest amount of produce. But while a considerable portion of our landowners, crippled by the present restrictions of a tenancy for life, are checked in their attempts at improvement by a want of power to raise capital, our cultivation must remain in an extremely defective state. The evil consequences will continue to be felt by all classes; by the landlord in the amount of his rent; by the tenant in the amount of his profits; and by the labourers in the precarious supply of employment, and in the very low scale of wages. Were our law altered in the particulars which I have mentioned, I should venture to hope that a great amelioration would take place in the condition and prospects of all these classes. The tenant for life would be enabled to make himself the exclusive beneficial owner of all the property retained in his possession, to raise for himself funds for permanent improvements, or else to grant a term to improving tenants; and improvements in cultivation would produce an increase, not only immediate, but also permanent, in the demand for agricultural labourers." Such is the synopsis of Mr Calvert's sound suggestions, and we venture to predict, that at no distant day the Legislature will be employed in giving effect to the leading propositions which he argues with such unostentatious ability. The policy which professes to give freedom to trade, cannot stop short in its course; it must liberate land. Nor must it be forgotten, that although much of the mischievous restrictions which lie as an incubus upon land may be traced to the improvidence of successive proprietors, yet the subtle shackles forged by lawyers must not be omitted in an inventory of wrongs. It is plain to all men of sober judgment, that the mere re-letting of land can yield no real relief to a deeply embarrassed proprietor. We have taken the trouble to count the number of farms in Skye and North Uist, belonging to Lord Macdonald, and which his Lordship's Commissioner advertises to let ; and these farm, or parts of farms, amount to 75! Infinite oppression will attend every fresh arrangement; but does any one believe that Lord Macdonald will reap a particle of benefit from the changes now notified? And look at the public considerations which are mixed up with a proprietor's helplessness and insolvency. Behold, too, poor Macleod of Macleod's large territories ruinously ruled by some man of law, who holds a divan at Dunvegan Castle, while the exiled owner broods over the sorrows of sequestration in a Bayswater cottage! We pity Lord Macdonald; we deplore the fall of Macleod; and we shall perhaps ere long be called on to compassionate other aristocratic captives: and for the sake of society, which is endangered by their false position, we heartily invoke the aid of the Legislature to sanction the sale of their landed property, or such portion of it as may suffice to clear off their embarrassments. No tyranny under the sun is so terrible as that which is inflicted by the grinding of creditors who have a lien upon land, without taking any interest in its improvement. We will undertake to shew, in a future article, that a simpler measure than the Irish Encumbered Estates' Act would prove a blessing to the Highlands of Scotland; and that a new era of prosperity would take its date from the abolition of every legal restraint which keeps unfruitful landed property in feeble and fettered hands. THE PROTECTIONISTS. It is sometimes amusing, and sometimes a matter of melancholy, to note the convulsive efforts made by blind and misguided men to recover lost advantages—and to restore a state of things that has passed away for ever! They fret, and fume, struggle and strive now exultant-now despairing-but the decree of doom has gone forth, and the painful certainty becomes more mournfully manifest, that prosperity forfeited by abuse, cannot possibly be retrieved by means of violent resumption. These remarks have been forced from us by contemplating the course of agitation now vehemently pursued by the party named, or rather nicknamed protectionists in England and Ireland—for Scotland, to the credit of her quiet good sense, be it affirmed, has little or nothing to do with the existing hubbub. There is so much vain talking, and such an infinite quantity of vague scribbling on this said subject of protection, that we think we shall render some good service to our readers, by offering them a clear, intelligible synopsis of the question so hotly disputed. Even the bustling babblers of the protectionist school may derive some benefit from having the hopelessness of their case set honestly before them for surely, when men are fighting for fallacies, and beating the air, it is not an unfriendly part to dissipate their delusion. It is to the representative system of Great Britain that we must seek for the true origin of what is styled Protection-for was not the vast variety of direct and incidental privileges of possession or exemption afforded to divers sections of society, sanctioned by innumerable acts of Parliament? From the freedom of our institutions, it became not only a boast, but a sordid benefit, that every class of the community sent to the Legislature special advocates of their interests and expounders of their views—and the very tenure of seats in the House of Commons was insensibly connected with the peculiar gain of selfish constituencies. The mercantile bodies of the greatest commercial country in the world— every trading pursuit-every branch of manufacture-every learned profession-every open municipality or close corporation -every town or rural region, had, in short, their respective delegates in the Senate, who strenuously contended for partial, exclusive interests, instead of conjunctly labouring to promote the integral interests of the empire. This is the true solution of the mystery of Protection-which was, in truth, the creature of unjust legislation. Flaming in the van of these mischievously cherished interests was the banner of Corn Law Protection-a monstrous monopoly conceded to the powerful proprietors of the soil, at the expense of every other interest in the community-for, however men may contrive to forego their other wants-bread is a universally craved aliment, that cannot be dispensed with. By the churlish operations of the corn laws, the population of Great Britain was robbed of all the advantages of foreign supply, and nothing short of famine at home could abate the rigour of interdicted importation. Of course the vicissitude of annual production, or the competition among necessitous sellers occasioned variations in the price of grain; but of all years it might be fairly alleged that the British consumers were paying prices for the staple article of food, which in effect were frauds upon the whole community; and the certain, though frequently unremarked results of injustice stigmatized this vile system in the plainest manner. Of all the classes comprised in what is called the "agricultural interest," the class of agricultural labourers, the actual tillers, and food-producers of the soil formed by far the most numerous portion. Was their condition improved by the corn laws? Did they prosper increasingly, or even maintain the measure of their former comfort and competence? Quite the contrary. From the year 1815-the era of prodigal protection to the proprietors of land-the welfare of their dependent labourers visibly declined. While rents were exorbitantly raised, wages were distressingly depressed, and the chief agricultural districts of England shewed, and still shew, that where the rich are monopolists, the poor become paupers. Nor did agriculture itself thrive under the influence of these monstrous, exclusive encouragements. Take cultivation in the mass, and it will be found that farming improvements are lowest on the scale of advancement in all that relates to national progress. Indeed the slovenly, thriftless tillage prevailing in many parts of England, would hardly be credited by some expert Scotch cultivators. Who then, it may be fitly enquired, were the parties really enriched by the operation of the Corn Laws? To which question we would unhesitating reply, that no class from the peer to the peasant was ever solidly and permanently benefited by the prohibitory duties on foreign corn. The proprietors of the soil became enfeoffed with the power of raising their rents, but the luxury of the rich rose still higher than their resources; and even monopoly can be rendered poor by profuseness! The British aristocracy is not really wealthy, it is sustained by conventional credit more than by undoubted property; and the extravagant expenditure of fashionable life begets not only embarrassments but expedients which sap the foundations of all independence. If untoward events were to assail the coroneted possessors of land, how many haughty houses would swerve from their perpendicular, and perhaps fall as lowly in the dust as the prostrate Duke of Buckingham! After thirty years' enjoyment of exclusive rights and profitless privileges, the time at length arrived when the proprietors of the soil were to be stripped of their ungainful spoils. A crusade against agricultural monopoly was eagerly engaged in by the partisans of manufacturing monopoly, and with the aid of a Prime Minister pledged to uphold protection, the whole system of artificial enhancement, by which landed property was unjustly propped, fell prone to mother earth. The land must from henceforth protect itself by the skill, prudence, and frugal industry of its cultivators—and by the honourable liberality, instead of the shameful lavishness of its titled or untitled owners. Labour must have its honest recompence, instead of being robbed of its reward to enable farmers to pay extravagant rents—and here we come to the secret of the present protectionist agitation. The farmers of England find that the prices of agricultural produce are lower than even their fears foreboded—but that rents remain inflexibly the same as high as in the olden time. Here then is the poor farmer's perplexity, which lays him open to the tricks of jobbing agitators. Reduction of rent, puzzled Hodge cannot ask for-because he is sure to be supplanted by some competitor for land— who will promise to pay what Hodge cannot pay without a prospect of pauperism. Proprietors of the old orthodox stamp will not listen to the heresy of reduced rents-for diminished revenue must imply either retrenchment or insolvency-and no such vulgar alternative can be daringly whispered to ears polite! Such being the state of things, Mr D'Israeli, or some other political protectionist and amateur agriculturist, gets up a meeting of farmers half-fuddled after a market dinner-and speechifying begins in the most approved fashion of popular fraud and deception. The grand point is to relieve the poor farmers groaning under the intolerable burden of high rents-but as high rents are a consecrated part of conservatism-and are deemed the Palladium of the State H |