But land
carries with it territorial influence, which the Legislature will not
interfere with lest it should be disturbed. Land is sacred, and must not
be touched.
The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade will
understand what I mean when I allude to the Land Improvement Company
which the Legislature is ready to charter for Ireland, but which it
fears to suffer to exist in England, lest the territorial influence
which ever accompanies the possession of landed estates should be lost
or diminished. But one of the difficulties to which a remedy must be
applied is the defective titles, which cannot easily be got rid of under
the present system of entails. This is one of the questions to which the
House of Commons must very soon give its serious attention. Then there
comes the question of settlements. Now, I do not say there ought not to
be any settlements; but what I mean to say is, that they are so bound up
and entangled with the system of entails as to present insuperable
difficulties in the way of dealing with land as a marketable commodity.
I have here an Opinion which I will read to the House, which I find
recorded as having been given by an eminent counsel: it is quoted in
Hayes' work on Conveyancing, and the Opinion was given on the occasion
of a settlement on the marriage of a gentleman having a fee-simple
estate:--
'The proposals extend to a strict settlement by the gentleman
upon the first and other sons of the marriage.
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