LAW REFORM: COPYHOLDS.
THE newspaper criticisms, favourable or unfavourable, on the Con- veyancing Acts recently come into operation, denote a growing spirit of friendly attention to Law Reform. This is an indication of a turn in public opinion not to be overlooked by the noble and learned Lords who have made that branch of legislation their es- pecial care-more particularly Lord Brougham-the members of the Law Amendment Society, and other law-reformers in and out of Parliament. For some time past, law-reformers have wisely confined themselves to improvements in detail ; because the apathy of the public rendered the success of broad and com- prehensive measures, against the vis inertia opposed to them by custom, hopeless. But the success of isolated measures, the benefit of which is practically felt by clients, leads necessarily to a desire for more comprehensive ameliorations, while the experience of the profession that their personal interests do not suffer from law reform relaxes opposition. The very controversies awakened by the new acts extend the circle of interested auditors. The law- reformers, who have hitherto found it so difficult to gain the public ear, may expect to find every successful measure of par- tial reform creating new calls upon them. The dull and listless public will in turn become an exacting taskmaster. Luckily, in the Reports of the Law Commissioners there is large store of materials laid up, and there are parties among us able and willing to use them. One of those professional correspondents whose pens the Con- veyancing Acts have set in motion recently addressed a letter to the Times on reform in the law of Copyholds. In the course of our paper on Mortgages last week, we incidentally observed that a thorough reform in that branch of law would require modifica- tions of the law relating to landed tenures. This remark applies not only to mortgages but to almost every class of deeds affect- ing lands. Simplified tenures are a necessary part of any com- plete conveyancing reform. And perhaps there is no section of this department which holds forth more promise to reformers than the law of copyholds. The work has already begun. In the session of 1839, an ace was passed constituting the Tithe Com- missioners Copyhold Commissioners for a limited period, with powers to effect, by the voluntary agreement of parties interested, the enfranchisement of lands held by copyhold and customary tenure. The act admits the principle of compulsion to a slight extent. The operations of the Commissioners have been found beneficial in many instances ; and the mere passing of the act, by leading to a more rigorous exaction of arbitrary fines-the great source of profit to the lord, has created a pretty general desire to have the change of all copyhold tenures into common soccage summarily effected-to have the change in the law which has begun, and which must go on, completed at once. There is something in the actual position of the cultivators of land that renders the fulfilment of this desire highly expedient. The recent and impending relaxations of the agricultural mono- poly call for the removal of everything that impedes the most complete profitable use of land. On copyhold lands, timber and minerals are in a manner shut up from use. They are held to belong to the lord, but he cannot take them unless the copy- holder give leave. "The lord," says the Report of a Select Com- mittee appointed by the House of Commons in 1838,1- " cannot cut the timber growing on the land without the consent of the tenant, nor can the tenant cut it without the licence of the lord ; the lord cannot open and work a mine under the soil without the consent of the tenant, nor can the tenant open and work it with- out the licence of the lord. It is not surprising that, under these circumstances the mine remains unworked, and the timber has disappeared from the face of the land." The rights of the lord increase in amount and number with the value and division of the property, and consequently act as a bar to improvement. Heriots (chattels claimed by lords on the death of tenants, and in some places on alienation) have an entirely accidental value. The tenant by one contrivance or another generally manages to hand over a very sorry beast or other indifferent chattel to the lord, though in this he does not always succeed : the well-known race- * 4 and 5 Viet. C. 35.
t Sir Robert Peel, Sir James Graham, Sir E. Knatchbull, Lord Eastnor, and Sir W. Follett, were members of this Committee; and Sir John (now Lord) Campbell was Chairman.
horses Nonsense, Smolensk°, and Waxy, were seized as heriots. This risk prevents many persons from purchasing copyhold pro- perty. Lands subject to copyhold burdens almost invariably fetch less money in the market than freeholds in the same neighbour- hood. The copyhold tenure is moreover a frequent source of liti- gation. It is often difficult to distinguish freehold from copyhold; and almost every manor has its own peculiar customs,-that is, almost every manor has its own peculiar law of real property, varying more or less from the general law of the land. The in- jurious operation of the copyhold tenure is universally admitted : it is possible to ascertain the proper rights of parties and enfranchise copyholds with benefit to the persons interested in them and the community at large. Mr. Stewart, late Member for Honiton, who has devoted much attention to the subject, and who brought in the Copyhold Enfranchisement Act in 1839, and ultimately succeeded in passing it in its present form, states his belief that "the more enfranchisement proceeds, the more land will be brought into the market and rendered available for general pur- poses; the more the objects and uses of land, in agriculture and building, will be promoted ; and this with no greater injury to vested rights than takes place every day in making an enclosure or a railway. * * * Among other benefits that enfranchise- ment would confer, the increase and improvement of
holdings' would not be the least."*
* Suggestions as to Reform of the Law, p. 73.
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