property, and, in compassion, they might now resolve to set it free. Those who most largely deal with urban leaseholds will acknowledge all the evil that we have, with prudent reticence, described, and will, it may be hoped, devise and publicly promote the remedy. The age is one of law reform, and there are legists of supreme capacity to undertake the work. If such reformers will examine the three Acts for Copyhold Enfranchisement[1] they there will find the form and details for a bill to liberate all urban Corporate, and Church, and Charity estates from leasehold bondage. Mr. Gladstone's Irish Land Act[2] and the simple forms for mortgage and conveyance used by the Irish Church Commissioners, would supply additional suggestions for the scheme. For method and completeness, Mr. Coote's achievement in the Fines and Recoveries Abolition Act[3] would also be an excellent example.
The profession will not grudge so politic and generous a change, but, on consideration, will most gladly welcome it. Although their business costs on leasehold property are large, the gain is not a recompense for the discredit, wholly undeserved, and for the purposeless responsibility which 'lease-hold' lawyers and conveyancers continually suffer. And, besides, these gentlemen well know, by practical experience, that cumbrous documents and heavy costs are 'in restraint of trade.' Stockbrokers would account their occupation hopelessly oppressed if, for their simple transfers and their small commission of one-eighth per cent., there should be substituted various quasi-legal documents, with parchments, and instructions, and attendances, and fees, and corresponding charges. Lawyers are scarcely less discerning than financiers: they will be the first as a profession to repudiate the leasehold system, with its cares and complications and its ill repute, and will, as a Conservative reform, promote its gradual and complete extinction.
