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enough parcels to admit of the creation of peasant properties. The system of registration in Scotland is better than our old system here, but far inferior to the improved system of map-registration provided for by Sir John Romilly's Act. Then there are incumbered estates under the control of the Scotch Courts, exhibiting, only in a less degree, the evil effects of attempting to manage estates under Courts of law. There is, however, no Incumbered Estates Commission, and no parliamentary title.
And here I mast notice a very common error respecting the legislative changes necessary to allow of the existence of peasant proprietors in these kingdoms, which has led to the formation of the Freehold Land Societies, Building Societies, and Farmers' Estates Societies.
The error to which I allude, is that of supposing that the whole difficulty of creating peasant properties is the single act by which they are first purchased; and that if this difficulty be got over by the system of sales with parliamentary title, or by the system of association, then all will be well. But the real impediment to the existence of peasant properties is not so much in their creation as in their continuance. What is the value of a peasant property to a man, if he cannot mortgage it to raise capital without ruinous expense; if he cannot sell it, if he cannot divide it amongst his children, without the risk of an equity suit to administer assets or for partition. Now it is against the profitable use of small properties, when in existence, that our present system of laws respecting property in land operates. On the Continent, where peasant properties prevail, there is a totally different system of laws respecting the mortgaging, sale, and disposition of property in land. All is done there by the prompt, cheap, and effectual system of transfer on a public register. Until our system of registration be modified, so as to admit of the adoption of that mode of dealing with small properties, the permanent existence of small properties will be impossible. They may be created in a moment of political excitement, as by the Freehold Land Societies in England; they may be created through the feeling of alienation and want of confidence between landlord and tenant, as in Ireland; but, until our laws respecting the mortgaging, sale, and transmission of landed property, be framed with the object and purpose of allowing of the existence of peasant properties, their permanent existence is impossible. The forces arising from the causes I have pointed out, making the proprietorship of land in small parcels less profitable than the proprietorship of land in large territories, will lead to the gradual absorption of the small estates. This effect has actually taken place in England to a very large extent during the past two centuries.
In this empire, although we have nominally equal laws, yet,
