did not desire to introduc into this country the Code Napoleon. What was the result of the state of the law in France? For it afforded a strong argument in favour of the position of his right hon. Friend (Sir George Lewis), that there ought not to be any interference with the right of free disposition. In consequence of the principle of equal division established by the Code Napoleon, the feeling in favour of equality was so strong in France that the instances were few in which the rule of equality was departed from. It operated, in fact, as a preventive to free disposition of property; and in this country, also, a similar effect would be produced by such an alteration in the law as that which was proposed. Again, if every estate, with regard to which there was no will, was to be equally divided, then in every case where a proprietor was a lunatic the estate would be broken up, for a lunatic was incapable of making a will. The right hon. Member (Mr. Lowe) had contended that the law ought to make such a disposition of the property as a good and wise man ought to make. That was just the point. The argument of his right hon. Friend would amount to this-that a wise and good man ought to divide his property. He was certainly of a different opinion, as he thought such a change would be equally opposed to the policy and the feeling of the country.

labour. The holders of these small allotments, instead of putting them into the market, and selling them at their fair marketable valne, would refuse to part with them except at fancy prices, and the consequence would be that they would be kept in an unprofitable, half-cultivated condition, which at every change of proprietorship the owner would descend three or four rounds of the ladder. The promoters of this measure could not stop at this point. There would soon grow up a feeling of injustice if a testator did not devise his property equally. In the United States the feeling was so strong, that although there was no law of division, no man dared to leave his land to his eldest son, and there was only one family in the State of New York who had had the boldness to disregard this popular feeling, and that one was of Dutch descent and had probably inherited the national obstinacy of Holland. In consequence of this there was an absence of those family ties and relations which existed in this country, and which tended so much to maintain its character and high standing. Nobody asked for this Bill. It was a mere crotchet of the hon. Member for Surrey. It inspired a feeling of injustice where none now existed-it roused the demon of jealousy where that evil genius lay dormant before; and all this merely to meet the possible case of a contingent grievance. Feeling assured, therefore, that the people at large did not desire it, he should feel it his duty to oppose its further progress.

MR. BERESFORD HOPE said, he wished to direct the attention of the House to one point which had not yet been taken -he meant the effect this Bill would have General THOMPSON believed there was upon the commercial value of land. Ad- a more general feeling in the country on mitting, for the sake of argument, that this question than hon. Gentlemen opposite this was a poor man's question, it was were aware of. Possibly they did not unquestionable that in the present state know where to look for it. At every meetof agriculture small estates, however they ing he had attended, of what for brevity might commend themselves to the poetical was called "the popular party," this subgentiment, were not beneficial to the gene-ject had been prominently brought forward ral well-being of the country. Any one also who was acquainted with the condition of England must be familiar with those small patches of land which "squatters" filched from the sides of woods and commons, and held, though without a real title, but still substantially as their own, and how difficult it was to get possession of them. Let them pass this Bill, and the estate of an intestate would be reduced to the condition of such holdings and be parcelled out among a man's hundred cousins, each of whom, occupying his small plot like an Irish "squireen," would reap starvation and a vote from it in lieu of gaining a comfortable existence by honest

under the title of the law of primogeniture. Indeed, so strong had been the excitement in those assemblies, that he had often been obliged to calm it down, by assuring them that, after all, the law left it optional with a man to do what he pleased with the property he had amassed, and did not compel him to give it all to his eldest son. There was also a prevalent impression, though perhaps somewhat exaggerated, that what these assemblies called the aristocracy, combined to support this law in order that they might have one stout representative of the family in a position to assist his kindred in quartering themselves upon the civil, military, or ecclesiastical service of

cessively and successfully introduced. In reply to the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman, it might be said that the effect of changing the law would simply be to compel a man to make a will. The testator would have nothing to do but to provide by will for what in the present state of things the law did for him.

man chose to throw way, to make ducks | been held with regard to every one of those and drakes of during his lifetime. Then, useful reforms which had latterly been sucagain, people talked of abolishing the law of entail; why, the whole land of France was entailed without the owner having any power to dispose of it, except, perhaps, to gamble it away. Having made this reference to the Code Napoleon, perhaps he might be permitted to say that before going to a division it was desirable that they should bring the question upon which they were going to divide within the narrowest possible limits. He would endeavour to state what those limits were. He conceived that the subject before them resolved itself into two questions. The first was, whether it should continue to be the policy of the law, as it had hitherto been, to administer the real property of intestates according to the custom of the country, founded upon the known wishes and intentions of the owners of such property in general; or whether such property should in future be administered in conformity with certain abstract theories of natural justice, upon which hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House (the Opposition) had so eloquently declaimed. The second question, which followed upon the first, and must be answered according to the decision upon that, was whether, dividing intestates into two classes-namely, those who were favourable to the continuance of the law as it was, and those who wished for a change, the responsibility attaching to not making a will should be thrown upon those who wished to keep the law as it was, or upon those who desired to alter it. These were really the two questions which they had to decide. If the House was of opinion-an opinion which had been almost unanimously expressed-that the general policy of the law should be to administer property according to the wishes of the testator, and not in conformity with any pre-conceived or arbitrary notions of ab stract justice, then he thought that the conclusion could not be resisted that the responsibility of making a will should be thrown, not upon those who were content to leave the la was it was, but upon those who wished to change it.

MR. GREER said, that the supporters of the Bill asked the House to redress a practical and tangible grievance; whereas those who opposed it had nothing to advance in auswer to the demand but certain prospective and, he believed, imaginary -evils. The House should recollect that exactly the same sort of reasoning had

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL said, if this had been altogether a legal question, he should have been content to rest his opposition to the Bill upon the earlier part of the able speech of his hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General; but as he considered that this Bill was more calculated to affect the constitution and well-being of the country than any other which had been introduced in our time, except the Reform Act of 1832, he should trouble the House with one or two observations upon it. His hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General, who had almost exhausted the arguments, predicted that if this Bill should pass into law, it would give rise to agitation for still further changes, the effect of which would be entirely to destroy the liberty of disposing of their property which had hitherto been enjoyed by the people of this country. That consequence had been denied and repudiated by hon. Gentlemen who supported the Bill; but the right hon. Member for Kidderminister (Mr. Lowe) had based his entire argument in its favour upon the ground that it was the duty of Parliament to take care that the property of an intestate was distributed as it would become an intelligent, a good, and a prudent man to dispose of it. If the right hon. Gentleman was correct in that assumption, would the passing of this Bill be anything but a legislative declaration that it was the duty of every honest, wise, and good man to distribute his real estate among his children as provided for by this Bill; and would it be possible that the consequence predicted by the Solicitor General, and of which we had an example in a neighbouring country, could long be deferred? In France the abolition of the law of primogeniture had been followed by the loss of power to dispose of property by will at all, and was there not reason to fear that if this Bill were passed the same consequences would at no distant period follow in this country? This question affected not only the upper and middle, but also the poorer classes. There were in this country many honest hardworking labouring men, who, having

struggled through life to support their fami- small as it might be, to go to his eldest son, lies, had become possessed either by their and it would be inflicting a great hardship industry or by inheritance of a cottage, and upon him to defeat his intentions merely perhaps an acre or two of land round it, because his inadvertence or want of means but had no other property worth speaking had prevented his making the arrangeof. As the law now stood such a man died ments which would set this Bill at nought. in peace without making a will, because he However, he founded his opposition to the was satisfied that his little estate would go measure upon higher grounds than that. to his eldest son, as he desired it should; He held that a constitutional monarchy but if this Bill became law, either he must required the existence of a landed arisincur the cost of employing a lawyer to tocracy-by aristocracy meaning landed make a will, or what little property he left gentry, whether titled or untitled. Unless would be swallowed up in the expenses of you had such a body, filling the intermediate administration, no provision being made place between the Crown and the bulk of for distributing it without that process. On the people a constitutional monarchy such these grounds, and on others to which he as that in England could not in practice need not then advert, he hoped that the exist. The moment that body sunk into House would not read this Bill a second time. insignificance you lost the controlling and VISCOUNT PALMERSTON said, that regulating power which was absolutely eshe objected to this Bill on every possible sential to the safe working of our repreground. The proposition contained in it sentative institutions. We had seen that in was at variance with the habits, customs, other countries where the equal division of and feelings of the people of this country, land prevailed the landed aristocracy, the and incompatible with the maintenance of landed gentry, had sunk into comparative a constitutional monarchy. That it' was at insignificance, because the importance of variance with the habits, customs, and feel the body must be the aggregate importance ings of the country was matter of public of the individuals who composed it. If you and common notoriety, because everybody had a peerage and a gentry reduced to inknew that among all classes of the com- dividual poverty it was impossible that they munity there was a settled disposition to could exercise those functions in the State make an elder son. The hon. and learned which were essential to the maintenance of Gentleman, the Attorney General, had re- a balance between the different Powers ferred to what had occurred among those which composed the fabric of our repreof the humbler classes who had acquired sentative constitution. He objected to the possession of a small piece of land. In his Bill, on that ground, and it was no answer own neighbourhood he (Viscount Palmerston) to him to say that this measure would still was acquainted with a striking instance of leave a man the option of disposing of his the feeling which pervaded those classes property as he pleased by will. If it were in regard to this matter. There was a true, as he believed it was, that a great small yeoman living on the borders of the constitutional principle was involved in the New Forest, possessing a cottage and a maintenance of landed estates, you ought few acres of land which he had inherited not to leave it to the accidental choice of from an ancestor who carried the body of the landowner whether or not his property William Rufus to Winchester. That cot- should descend in the manner most adapted tage and those few acres had descended to the maintenance of our existing institufrom father to son from generation to tions. In the uncertainty of life it might generation, and that man was as proud of often happen that a man intending to dishis position as the greatest peer or the pose of his property contrary to the prolargest landowner in the country. This visions of this Bill might be carried off Bill, if carried, would alter our existing unexpectedly, leaving those intentions unsystem, which was congenial to the habits fulfilled; under which circumstances the and feelings of the whole community. property, whether large or small, which was What was said by the hon. and learned essential to the maintenance of the family, Attorny General was perfectly true; how would, against his wish, be divided among could you expect the proprietor of a cottage a great number of persons. The present and a few acres of land to go to the ex-law, giving the succession to the eldest son, pense and trouble of a will? His ignorance, his want of foresight, or his poverty might prevent his calling in a lawyer to prepare such an instrument: he wished his estate, VOL. CLII. [THIRD SERIES.]

appeared to him to be a just one; but if any one thought otherwise, he might, by will, dispose of his property in any other manner he pleased, there was no constraint 2 P