still subsists; and as, of all institutions, it is the most adapted to flatter the pride of the great families, it will be tenaciously upheld by the Aristocracy. In other respects it is an unmixed evil; it is even injurious to the real interests of the land owners; for nothing can be more contrary to the welfare of a numerous family than a right which, in order to " enrich one, beggars all the rest of the children;" and reduces them to the alternative of obtaining subsistence either as mendicants or depredators on the bounty and involuntary contributions of the community. 66 The same reasoning applies to ENTAILS, which are the natural consequence of primogeniture. They were introduced to preserve the lineal succession of which primogeniture first gave the idea, and to hinder any part of the original patrimony from being conveyed out of the proposed line, either by gift, devise, or alienation, either by the folly or by the misfortune of any of its successive possessors. When great landed estates were a sort of principality, such curtailed inheritances might not be indefensible. Like what are called the fundamental laws of some communities, they might frequently hinder the security of thousands from being endangered by the incapacity or extravagance of one man. But, in the existing state of Europe, when property is so well secured, when small as well as great estates derive their security from inviolable laws, nothing can be more absurd than such defensive restrictions. They are founded upon the most absurd of all suppositions, the supposition that every successive generation of men have not an equal right to the earth, and to all that it possesses; but that the property of the present generation should be fettered and regulated by barbarians, who died centuries ago. Entails, however, are still respected in Britain; and it is only in particular cases, by means of legal fictions, prompted by the spirit of commerce, and new views of social expediency, that estates tied up by them can be alienated. They are deemed essential to the maintenance of the monopoly of the aristocracy in the enjoyment of political power, honour, dignities, and offices; having usurped many advantages over their fellow-citizens, lest their poverty should render them ridiculous, it is thought reasonable that they should have others. It is, however, an oppressive and indefensible grievance. In the present state of society, there is no utility in guaranteeing to particular families the perpetual enjoyment of vast masses of property-that this property shall not be liable to the ordinary vicissitudes of life-that it shall not, like personal estates, either be devisable or saleable and that all, except members of the privileged order, shall be irrevocably interdicted from ever becoming proprietors of the soil-of that soil which is the common inheritance of the whole community. Primo Other evils result from this feudal institution. geniture enriches one, and leaves all the other members of a family destitute. Hence they are thrown, like mendicants, on the public for support; but they are unlike mendicants in this-that the public has no option, whether they will support them or not. The Aristocracy, usurping the power of the state, have the means, under various pretexts, of extorting, for the junior branches of their families, a forced subsistence. They patronize a ponderous and sinecure church-establishment; they wage long and unnecessary wars, to create employments in the army and navy; they conquer and retain useless colonies; they set on foot expensive missions of diplomacy, and keep an ambassador or consul, and often both, at almost every petty state and every petty port in the world; they create offices without duties, grant unmerited pensions, keep up unnecessary places in the royal household, in the admiralty, the treasury, the customs, excise, courts of law, and every department of the public administration: by these, and other expedients, the junior, as well as elder branches of the great families are amply provided for out of the taxes. They live in profusion and luxury; and those by whom they are maintained alone subsist in indigence and pri vation. It is only in the less civilized states of Europe, in Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, and Russia, that primogeniture is retained. Countries enjoying the benefits of political regeneration have abolished this remnant of feudality, and introduced the law of equal partibility. The happy effects of this reform are visible in the condition of France and the Netherlands; in the greater harmony subsisting among the different classes of society-in the absence of the miserable jealousy and exclusiveness that embitter domestic intercourse in England-in the public spirit, unanimity, and personal independence of the inhabitants, produced, no doubt, by a conviction of common interests, reciprocal obligations, and the equal participation in all the advantages and enjoyments of the social state. SECTION V. PRIVILEGES OF PEERS. THERE are some other laws originating in the same aristocratic spirit, and directed to the maintenance of similar exclusive privileges as those described in the last Section. Such are the Insolvent Laws. Lest the dignity of a peer should be violated, his person is privileged from arrest for debt. Why should this be tolerated? He is not ostensibly entrusted with representative functions, like the members of the Lower House. He represents only himself, with the exception of the sixteen Peers of Scotland and the twenty-eight Peers of Ireland. Why, then, should his person be protected from imprisonment, if he is so inexcusably improvident, with all the advantages he enjoys, as to incur debts he cannot pay? A Scots Peer, though not one of those sitting in parliament, is privileged from arrest, as appears from the case of Lord Mordington. This lord, who was a Scots Peer, but not one of those who sat in parliament, being arrested, moved the Court of Common Pleas to be discharged, as being entitled, by the Act of Union, to all the privileges of a Peer of Great Britain; and prayed an attachment against the bailiff; when a rule was granted to shew cause. Upon this, the bailiff made an affidavit that, when he arrested the said lord, he was so mean in his apparel, as having a worn-out suit of clothes, and a dirty shirt on, and but sixteen pence in his pocket, he could not suppose him to be a Peer of Great Britain, and, therefore, through inadvertency, arrested him. The Court discharged the lord, and made the bailiff ask pardon. A Peer, sitting in judgment, is not required to give his verdict upon oath, like a commoner, but upon his honour. What a stigma on the other classes of the community! Just as if a Peer alone had honour, and all others were base perfidious slaves, from whom truth could only be extorted when they had been forced into the presence of their Creator. A member of the Lower House is the deputy or representative of others, and cannot delegate his powers, but a Peer represents only himself, and may vote by proxy on any question, even though he has never been present to discuss its merits. If a thief breaks into a church, and steals the surplice or cushion, it is not like stealing a leger or cash-box from a shop or counting-house-it is sacrilege. If a man scandalizes a Peer, by speaking evil of him, it is not common scandal, it is scandalum magnatum, that is, great scandal, subjecting the offender to indefinite punishment. If a Peer jobs in the funds, as many of them do; or if he gets up bubble companies, as some of them have done, to dupe credulous people; and if he involves himself in debt by these fradulent practices, you cannot imprison him to enforce payment; neither can you make him a bankrupt, and sequestrate his estates. The property of a Peer, like his person, has a dignity about it, and must not be violated. You may knock down Nathan Rothschild, though he is a very rich man, or a worshipful alderman, or even a right honourable lord mayor, and the justices will only charge you a few shillings, for the liberty you have taken: but, if you knock down a Peer, though he is ever so insolent, it is almost as bad as murder. Peers being great landowners, therefore, their land, as well as their persons, enjoy immunities which do not attach to chattel property. A noble lord may run into as much debt as he pleases, and then, with impunity, defraud all his creditors. He may live in the utmost profusion; he may borrow money to support his extravagance, or for providing portions for younger children, making the most solemn promises, or even giving his written engagement to repay it; or he may raise loans, and with these loans buy houses and land, and when he dies leave the houses and land purchased with this borrowed money to whom he pleases: and in all these cases the lenders who have trusted to the honour of a Peer have no power to touch a shilling worth of his real estates. These are a few of the privileges of Peers; we shall proceed to illustrate other results of aristocratic legislation, SECTION VI. ARISTOCRATICAL TAXATION. THE annual income of a nation consists of the united produce of its agriculture, manufactures, and commerce. Taxes are a certain proportion of the annual income levied for the public service. In other words, they are a certain proportion of the income of the labourer, the farmer, the merchant, and manufacturer, abstracted for the use of government. The portion of income the different classes can appropriate to this purpose, without creating national poverty and misery, is limited. If taxation be carried beyond this limit, the necessaries of life of the labouring classes will be abridged, the profits of trade and agriculture will be so far reduced, that capital will diminish, or cease to be employed, or transferred to countries where it will be more productive. Britain, in the privations of the people-the protracted stagnation of industry, only interrupted by transitory gleams of prosperity-the embarssments of the agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing classes the emigration of capital-and the inability of the farmer, unaided by the artificial high prices produced by corn-laws, to cultivate the soil-exhibits all the evils of a country suffering from the pressure of overwhelming taxa tion. Some, indeed, contend that taxation has no share in producing these calamities. The fallacy of this will easily appear. Taxation being a certain portion of the income of every individual, the evils it produces will be obvious, by considering the different effects produced by this portion of the annual income remaining in the hands of individuals, and being paid to government. In the former |