little to do justice. A better answer would have been that in the great majority of cases the incoming is also an outgoing tenant, and that if he is a good tenant he will have received, as an outgoing, what he pays as an incoming tenant. But almost every witness stated that incoming tenants would much rather pay for improvements already made, than have to make those improvements themselves.

“That would be a very large sum to take out of the tenant's pocket who came to the farm,' said a member. 'He would be very glad to pay it,' answered the farmer witness. Another witness having said, a tenant would rather take a farm with those improvements than have to make them himself,' was asked (3965.), 'Why would a tenant rather, &c.? Because,' said he, 'where drainage is done, it is a very considerable cost; and it is perfectly well known, that, after land has been well drained a while, it is permanently improved; therefore he would be in a better condition to take it after four, or five, or six crops had been taken, than to outlay the capital. The incoming tenant never scruples at paying for those improvements.'

In truth, the incoming tenant gets improvements at second hand price instead of paying for them at first cost.

We have before declared our own preference of tenant right to leases. We are glad to see that the generality of the witnesses examined have the same feeling. Many of them declared that they did not like to be bound down to pay fixed rents for fourteen and twenty-one years, not knowing what changes might occur in prices. All, without exception, declared that leases did not ensure to the landlord his property being returned to him in a high state of cultivation; on the contrary, they said that the common system under leases was for the tenant to put as much into the land as he could in the early part of the lease, and to take as much out of it as he could during the latter part, so that, to use the phrase above quoted, the land was returned to the landlord "beggared out." This was done, whether the tenant wished to stay or wished to go; for if he wished to stay, he did it with a view to get his lease renewed at the old rent, and if he wished to go, he did it that he might get as much of his capital back as possible. The witnesses might have

added another reason,-that human nature revolts at injustice; and it is really injustice, that one man should derive the benefit of another man's outlay, unless it has been clearly and expressly stipulated for.

In conclusion, we will only observe that these are not times in which it is wise to perpetuate a system under which ill-feeling is likely to exist between landlord and tenant. There is a powerful class which cares little for either, which cares not from what source food comes so long as food is cheap enough to render low wages possible, and thus increase the sale of manufactures. If the views of this class are to be counteracted, it must be by making home-grown produce cheap, and that can only be done by that sort of improved cultivation which makes two blades of grass or corn grow where before only one grew. For this we must trust to the spirit and enterprise of cultivators. The owners of the land will ever be comparatively inactive. As a body, they are too wealthy, and too much engaged in the pursuits of pleasure to devote their whole energies to the subject. Some may, but the class will not. The result, therefore, must be looked for from the class of cultivators, and their enterprise and diligence can only be stimulated to the highest pitch by the law establishing, as its principle, that he who sows shall reap, not, however, interfering with the ancient maxim "conventio vincit legem."

Though the subject is very far from being exhausted, our limits compel us to stop; and we cannot, as we think, better conclude this article than by quoting the following questions and answers from the evidence of Mr. Smith.

"5105. You have described the system of giving compensation for various manures in your neighbourhood; has it a good effect upon the farming of your neighbourhood? It has a very considerable effect. On those estates where this kind of understanding has been encouraged, they have been improved much faster than others; where landlords have held aloof from the matter, there has been no such improvement; we could not compel our landlords to enforce this compensation where they have an objection to it; it is the custom of the neighbourhood, but there is no law to en

force it. There have been cases where confusion has been created; not very often, but it has been so.

"5106. Where the right is admitted, there is no confusion in adjusting it; but where the right is disputed, then that confusion is produced? - Yes; the landlord says, 'I know nothing but the law of the land;' and if you get a tenant who says, 'Well, I shall take no more than my landlord will take of me when I leave,' there comes a difficulty.

"5107. Where the right is admitted by the landlord, and it is a mere matter of settlement between the outgoing and incoming tenant, it is perfectly easy? - Perfectly easy; there is not the slightest difficulty, and there the estate is improved considerably.

"5108. Can you speak positively as to the high state of cultivation that prevails in those cases in your district? — All the estates that have upheld this principle improve faster than the others.

"5109. And those estates are in a satisfactory state for the landlord and for the tenant? Yes, and the rents have improved very considerably too; it must fall back into the fee of the land, the buildings, and the employment of manure; it must come to the benefit of the estate ultimately.

"5110. You can speak positively that not only the farming has been improved, and the farmers have done well upon this system, but that the landlords have done well too, by receiving an increase of rent? Yes, most assuredly; in some instances almost double, and the tenant has thriven too; wherever the tenant does well, the landlord does well; where the landlord is disposed to grind, the tenant does not well, nor the landlord; the more liberally the tenant is treated, the more confidence he has; and if there was a law so that there should be no difficulty in quitting, the district would improve much more than it has done, though it has improved so largely.

"5114. Mr. Newdegate: You have been speaking of customs; do they prevail only in certain districts? They prevail in our neighbourhood to the extent of forty miles.

"5115. They do not have the force of law?—None whatever, that I know of; that is what we are seeking; it is the want of the force of the law that creates the difficulty. We have no law; we have a custom that honourable landlords uphold; but if you get a landlord not disposed to uphold that honourable understanding, the law is dead against you."

ART. IX. - FRENCH AND ENGLISH LAW OF

EVIDENCE.

We have more than once or twice had occasion to remark upon the singular want of sound views on the all-important subject of evidence which the proceedings of the French courts hardly ever fail to exhibit. We now find that the same defect extends, as indeed might easily be supposed, into the proceedings of an inquisitorial or legislative or administrative description. The late report of the Commission of Inquiry is full of instances similar to those which a year ago we pointed out in the celebrated Praslin case.

We must begin by stating, that as regards the admission or rejection of proofs, a marked distinction is to be drawn, and to be kept constantly in view between proceedings for adjudication and proceedings of police. In the former, the strictest exclusion of rumour, hearsay, opinion instead of fact, is to be observed. In the latter, every thing may be received which can put the police and those exercising the functions of detectors and accusers, on the track in order to discover the offender, the corpus delicti. The ground of this distinction is obvious. Courts that adjudicate pronounce finally on the matter brought before them. Courts of mere inquiry do nothing of the kind; they only endeavour to find out what has been done and who did it. The former courts determine the question, guilty or not guilty? the latter only determine who is so far likely to be implicated that he may be tried. "Guilty or not guilty" is the issue in the one; "try or not try ” is the point in the other.

But then it will be said, why object to the late Commission of Inquiry that hearsay was allowed to be given in evidence before it? For this obvious reason, that it did a certain act and one of great moment; it was not satisfied with reporting an opinion, it reported all the evidence taken, and the whole was printed and published by the Assembly. Had it stopt short at merely giving its advice that MM. Caussidière, Louis

Blanc, and Ledru Rollin, should be tried, no one could have objected to their having taken hearsay evidence or grounded on it their opinion. They did much more, and by hearsay these individuals are held up to the country as guilty. Two of them, indeed, have chosen to fly from trial; they, therefore, may have little right to complain. But M. Ledru Rollin has unquestionably been aggrieved. He is all the more aggrieved because, not being put on his trial, his character is assailed in an official document, and he has no convenient opportunity of clearing himself.

We give one or two instances. The Commissioners allowed witnesses to tell them that being in the mob of insurgents they heard some persons say they expected Caussidière to come, and head them or help them. But Caussidière was not present when these words were spoken, neither was any proof given even to attempt bringing home to him the knowledge of any such words ever having been spoken. So his name being put on placards as fit to be raised high in office, is given without even the attempt to bring home to him the knowledge of any such placards.

In like manner, a witness says he had heard that Ledru Rollin took money from the treasury and sent it over to make purchases or investments in England. It is said, too, that his wife told some one of 14,000l. sterling being so sent, and a person is mentioned as able to tell all about it, but that person is not called and examined.

This is really intolerable. M. Ledru Rollin is now most properly bringing his action for defamation against certain editors and printers of journals for thus assailing his character. He has a right, therefore, to benefit by the presumption that he is guiltless. But he has also a right to complain of the Commissioners for having recorded and reported the charge.

Far indeed from our intention is it to pronounce any eulogy upon this noted individual. But it is exactly because he is tainted with other stains that attacking him becomes the more safe and easy; and the abuses, the perversions of the law are seldom ventured except on the persons or the characters of such men. We may add that it is remarkable how silent he was on this charge in his defence against other