administrative centre, the manor or family house. Lands with an acreage below 246 ac. are not expropriated. The churches retain land not exceeding the average size of a holding, including the build- ings. The owners of the expropriated properties are given a term of five months for the removal of their furniture. Liabilities arising out of agreements concluded after May 6 1915 are null and void if not sanctioned by the Government. All contracts of lease, exploitation of forests, waters and natural riches are cancelled. Firewood and timber felled during the period of the German occupation fall to the State. Compensation for the expropriated land and the cate- gories of land to be expropriated without compensation will be de- termined by a special lavv. The local market price will form the basis of the indemnity for the live stock and implements to be expropriated. Though radical enough, this Land Act was still not sufficient to satisfy the groups which came into political power on June 3 1921. Foreign Governments lodged protests against their subjects being dispossessed before obtaining adequate compensation. About 160 estates were not to be subdivided, but preserved as funds for schools, hospitals, local institutions, etc.
See The Latvian Economist, published monthly in Riga since May 1920. (A. M.)
LAUDER, SIR HARRY MACLENNAN (1870- ), British variety actor, was born at Portobello Aug. 4 1870. He was first a mill-boy in a flax mill at Arbroath, then a coal-miner, and finally took to the variety stage, where he soon became a great favourite on account of his Scotch songs, written and composed by himself on folk-song foundations and sung in character. In this career he earned enormous fees, and made a large fortune. During the World War he worked hard to assist recruiting, and the death in action of his only son in 1918 elicited widespread sympathy. He was knighted in 1919. Early in 1921 he had a season of his own at the Palace theatre, London.
LAUGHTON, SIR JOHN KNOX (1830-1915), English naval historian, was born at Liverpool April 23 1830, and was educated at the Royal Institution school, Liverpool, and Caius College, Cambridge. In 1853 he entered the navy as an instructor, and served during the Crimean War, afterwards entering the Mediterranean and Channel fleets successively. In 1866 he became instructor at the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth, and in 1873 was transferred to the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. In 1885 he was appointed professor of modern history at King's College, London, a post which he held until his death. In 1893 he founded the Navy Records Society, of which he became secre- tary, retiring in 1912. He was knighted in 1907. Sir John Laughton was also a distinguished meteorologist, and from 1882 to 1884 was president of the Royal Meteorological Society. His numerous writings include Physical Geography in its Relation to the Prevailing Winds and Currents (1870); A Treatise on Nautical Surveying (1872); an edition of Nelson's letters and despatches (1886); Studies in Naval History (1887); Nelson (in " English Men of Action," 1895) ; Nelson and his Companions in Arms (1896); A Life of Henry Reeve (1898); From Howard to Nelson (1899), and Sea Fights and Adventures (1901) He died in London Sept. 14 1915.
LAURANCE, SIR JOHN COMPTON (1832-1912), English judge, was born in Lines. May 30 1832. Called to the bar in 1859, he became Q.C. in 1877 and recorder of Derby in 1879. In 1880 he was returned to Parliament as Conservative member for S. Lines., and in 1885 was elected member for the Stamford division. He was made a judge in 1890, retiring in March i 1912. He died in London Dec. 5 1912.
LAURIER, SIR WILFRID (1841-1919), Canadian statesman (see 16.286*). In Jan. 1911 Sir Wilfrid Laurier was still Premier of Canada and had begun the official negotiations for reciprocity with the United States which were to bring about his fall. He was strongly opposed in the Dominion House of Commons. The terms of the agreement, announced in Parliament Jan. 26 1911, were debated throughout the session. Finally, on July 29, Laurier dissolved Parliament and in the ensuing general elections was decisively defeated. He never again held office, though, with the outbreak of the World War in 1914, he came once more into political prominence. No one could more eloquently have urged the justice of Great Britain's cause, or the whole-hearted determination of Canada to take her part in the struggle. But he did not see eye to eye with the Borden Ministry on the ques- tion of levies for compulsory foreign service, and in July 1917 he declined Sir Robert Borden's invitation to join a Coalition Cab- inet. He died at Ottawa Feb. 17 1919.
LA VERY, SIR JOHN (1857- ), British painter (see 16.293), was knighted in 1918.. Among his works since 1910 are portraits of Mr. Winston Churchill, Mr. H. H. Asquith, Lord Derby, Mr. John Redmond and Sir Edward Carson, besides " The Madonna of the Lakes "; " Canadians Embarking on the Western Front"; "Sir David Beatty Reading the Terms of the Armistice to the German Delegates " and " Fore Cabin, H.M.S. 'Queen Elizabeth,' Rosyth, Nov. 1918." He also painted a number of naval pictures of the fleet at Scapa Flow, which he presented to the Imperial War Museum.
LAW, ANDREW BONAR (1858- ), British statesman, was born in New Brunswick, in Canada, on Sept. 16 1858, the son of a Presbyterian minister, the Rev. James Law, by his marriage with Eliza, daughter of William Kidston of Glasgow. Though his early life was passed, and his education begun, in Canada, he, a Scot on both sides, came to Scotland when still a boy, and finished his schooling at the Glasgow high school. He entered at once into commercial life in Glasgow, and became a member of a kinsman's firm, William Kidston & Sons, iron merchants, subsequently joining William Jacks & Co., iron merchants. His success as an iron merchant led to his becoming chairman of the Glasgow Iron Trade Association. But success in business did not satisfy him. He retired with a sufficient competence, and went into Parliament in 1900 as Conservative and Unionist member for the Blackfriars division of Glasgow. His experience in business had led him to the conclusion that Free Trade, in the Cobdenite sense, was no longer beneficial for Great Britain. He made a distinct impression on the House by a speech on April 22 1902, in favour of Hicks-Beach's.cornduty, which was imposed in order to find money to carry on the Boer War. In that speech he predicted that, if the cry for protection were again seriously raised in Great Britain, it would not be in the interests of agriculture, but in those of working men, who saw their employment disappearing. The speech so much impressed Mr. Balfour that he introduced Mr. Law into his Government as Parliamentary Secretary of the Board of Trade; and Mr. Joseph Chamberlain's Tariff Reform movement, which was started in the following year, showed how right Mr. Law was in his diagnosis of the future. As the movement proceeded, Mr. Law was regarded as, along with Mr. Austen Chamberlain, the most decided Tariff Reformer left in the Ministry after Mr. Chamberlain's resignation. When he was accused by the Liberals in 1904 of being a Protectionist, he explained on Feb. 9 that he wanted, like Cobden, to improve foreign trade, but adapted his means to present conditions. The Government did not object to imports as such, but wished to see more raw mate- rial and fewer manufactured goods. He dwelt on the injury to the working classes caused by " dumping " and unfair foreign competition. He made several speeches in the country in this year and the next, of which the gist was that British trade policy must be relative to circumstances, which had wholly changed from what they were in Cobden's time. He saw the true field for commercial expansion within the Empire, and therefore advocated preferential duties.
There is no doubt that he chafed, in these years, at the slow rate at which his chief, Mr. Balfour, moved, in the direction of Tariff Reform; but, though he would have preferred a more whole-hearted acceptance of Mr. Chamberlain's programme, he remained loyal to the Prime Minister. He shared in the general rout of the Unionists in Jan. 1906, but returned to Parliament in May for Dulwich at a by-election. The withdrawal of Mr. Chamberlain from active work in Parliament, owing to ill-health, left the stalwart Tariff Reform Ministry without a leader; his son, Mr. Austen Chamberlain, was his natural representative; but Mr. Law, by a series of fighting speeches both in the House and in the country, made himself particularly congenial to the more prominent members of that section. In 1907, the year of the Imperial Conference, he pleaded strongly for Colonial Preference, a policy against which, in spite of the support which it obtained from Dominion Ministers, Sir Henry Campbell-
- These figures indicate the volume and page number of the previous article.
