THE LAW OF ENTAIL. (Timaru Herald.)

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1853, 22 May 1884, Page 3

THE LAW OF ENTAIL. (Timaru Herald.)

There is nothing moie unpopular, we suppose, among working men,— -thore certainly is no more favourite opjoct of denunciation among democratic politicians— than the law of entail It is only neces&ary, at a mass meeting, when the land question is on the tapis, to refer to "the giipof the dead man's hand," m order to send a thrill through the audience ; and anything like a spirited attack on the system under which a landowner has the power to dictate the ownership of the soil for geneiations after he shall have mouldered in his grave, is sure to be rewarded by a round of applause. The law of entail is, in short, the mo*t a«"»ravated form of that land monopoly asainst w Hlol* radical agitators are now directing their most strenuous efforts to arouse the hatred and antagonism ot the working classes. "It is bad enough, ' they say, "that; one man should hold dui'ing ins life-time land which belongs to the people and which would support a number of families in comfort ; but that he should be able merely by virtue of his wealth, to withold that lana from the people aiter his death, and after his son's and his son's son's death, is a relic of the dark ages. It is enough to make the blood boil in the veins of every man as is a man." (Loud and prolonged cheers, and cries of " So it is !" and " Shame ! !") The funny part of the thing is that when a working man by hard saving, cleverness, and enterprise, comes to be a landowner, his strongest impulse, in nine cases out of ten, is to hold on to every acre, and to add acre to Acre, so long as he ' is alive, and then, when he is dying, to fasten his posterity upon the soil, if possible, for ever. It » a well ascertained fftflt that the

moat recently acquired estates in England are the most strictly entailed ; andtiafc while the practise of entail is fust falling into disuse among the ancient aristocracy, the new landowners, whoso fathers, if not themselves, were tradesmen or macha-nics, habitually tar'the ingenuity of their solicitors to tie up their land so securely that it may never pass out of their line. We have been much struck by an instance of this which has just i occurred. The late Mr Thomas Knowles, M.P. for Wigan, was the son of a pitman, and was himself a collier's boy, working in the mine for half a crown a week. Ftom this humble position he rose, by his own unaided abilities and strength of character, to be the owner of cotton mills and ble.ich works, of a magnificent mansion in Cheshire, and a shooting box ill Scotland, of an immense fortune, a seat in Parliament, and, last but not least, a large landed property. He died in December last, and the particulars of his Mill have lecontly been published. The pmonul property alone was sworn ovci £104,000, including gieat sums of leady money, securities, valuable " gentleman's jewellery," "ladies' jewellery." plate, wines, hoises, carriages, and, in a word, evciy conceivable item in a superbly luxurious establishment. These— with an important exception — together with Ins nulls, taotoiies, and other permanent sources of wealth, he divided among his four children, his sister, sister-in-law, nephews, nieces, cousins and p.utioular fiiends. £3,000, or the unpaid balance theieof, he left towards the building of a church on his estate. But his land, his beloved laid, he bequeathed to his son " for life," with lpmainder to his son's sons successively, "accoiding to seniority in tail male." What ivS more, he did what we imagined to be a practice almost entirely obsolete ; he endeavoured, as far as the law would allow him, to entail a gre.it p.ut of ln-i peisonal cst.ite. Not only the lands of the o't.itc of Dainiial!, but actually " the furniture, plate, pictures, sculpture?, books and effects at Darnhall Hall," aic left upon trust ' so as to be enjoyed b\ the tenant ior life of the estate." Thi-> is "the gup of the dead man's hand"' with a vengiance. It is the >jii)> of the hand of a woihng man, svlio, had he not happened to become a l.md-ow noi, would piobably have been among the loudest to cheer the itnpabsioned eloquence of any demagogue who iniyht ha\e come down to the coal count! y to preach a crusade against land owneiship in general and the law of entail in paiticular.