the year above mentioned, the society influenced some spirited individuals to embark largely in fishing, and by example and employment of the fishermen, have improved the means and condition of the latter, and secured to them some of the advantages that had for so many years been reaped by strangers. Now there is a fleet of 50 sail of vessels of a much superior class, owing in a great degree to the loans from the society. At Skirries, a few years ago, they were all coasters, carriers from one place to another; but now there are about 116 vessels, 42 being first class, which will prove the advantages which have resulted by the granting of loans to the fishermen. Many other parts of the coasts-eastern, southern, and western-have been assisted, and have derived benefit to a greater or lesser extent."

Testimony as to the great desirableness of loans was given by several important witnesses before the late Select Committee, amongst them two officers, who, from their long connexion with the fisheries, ought to have great weight attached to their opinion-the inspecting commissioner and late inspector of fisheries. The former recommended "That, in addition to the enlargement of the Piers and Harbours Fund under the management of the Board of Works, there should be placed at the disposal of the Fishery Board a sum of money as a Fishery Loan Fund, to be managed under their direction by the staff herein proposed." The latter stated-" With reference to the loans proposed by the Bill, I am fully persuaded they would be of more benefit to the country than can be conceived, and I believe would not be attended with any loss to the State, if judiciously administered. I think the benefits loans derived from the former system more than counterbalanced the loss to the State, whatever it was, which the extracts from the reports of the commissioners who administered that fund will abundantly prove."

Nothing appeared more manifest from the statement of some of the most experienced witnesses at the late inquiry, than that owing to the variable and tempestuous weather prevailing the greater part of the year around the Irish coast, especially on the northern and western, fishing could, as a rule, be only successfully carried on by the coast population. At times, for weeks together, no fishing craft -no matter the size or strength of build-could attempt operations. Intervals of calm and tempest succeed each other so fast, that except in a few favoured spots, at particular seasons (such as on a portion of the east coast), it would never pay owners of large craft, or crews, to remain in harbour, watching for a chance to get a few hours' fishing. It is different, however, with the owner of a small boat, renting two or three acres of land for the grass of the cow, or the raising of sufficient potatoes for the use of his family. He seizes any good opportunity that offers for a day's, or even a few hours', fishing; and when not thus employed, he has occupation in looking after his little holding. The fish he captures, besides the benefit to himself, confers a great advantage to his neighbourhood. These coast fishermen bear a high character for their sober, peaceful, and

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industrious habits. Those who have not been able to purchase or keep their boats in repair, will give the more fortunate so much for the season for permission to assist in the working and to share in the capture of the boats.

If the fisheries were only to be carried on by large boats, say 30 tons and upwards, a large amount of the fish frequenting the coast would be left uncaught. The owner of a small boat, looking from the cliff top for a good chance, is able to get his craft afloat and make his fishing between storms before a large boat in some neighbouring harbour could muster her crew and reach the ground, only in time, perhaps, to be compelled to put back. Large boats owned by companies would not confer on the coast population anything like the benefits of small craft worked by themselves. From the non-success which has hitherto attended large fishing companies in Ireland, there is much to favour the belief that fishing enterprises are likely to succeed best when managed by a small proprietary living on the spot, having a knowledge of fishing, and either taking an active part in the working or looking very closely after it.

Should effect be given to the recommendations of the Select Committee, more especially with regard to loans, without which all else will be of little value, an efficient department for the direction and control of the fisheries will be manifestly a matter of absolute necessity. Indeed the first report of the Board of Works, after the fisheries were placed under it (see page 42), fully proves that the commissioners considered they could not, with their other duties, pay sufficient attention to the fisheries, if the latter required to be closely looked after. At present the Board is even less able than at any former period to pay due attention to this branch or to undertake increased duties with regard to it.

Not more than £1,300 is now devoted to the Irish fishery depart ment, exclusive of the outlay on piers and harbours-viz., salary of inspecting commissioners, £600; travelling expenses, clerk, &c., about £700 more.

The cost of the Inland Fishery Commissioners is nearly £3,000 a year;

With the termination of the present inquiry into the legality of weirs, there would not, of course, be a necessity for so large a staff. Still, one commissioner, secretary, inspector, and clerk should be kept up, which, with travelling charges, would involve nearly £2,000 a year. By combining the two departments, as recommended by the committee, the whole service relative to both branches of the fisheries could be efficiently performed for about £5,000 a year, including active inspection and the distribution and collection of loans:

The above estimate is assuming that the construction of piers and harbours would be altogether entrusted to the new board; the £800 put down for an extra commissioner, being an engineer, would be properly chargeable to the cost of harbour works. Deducting this £800, and about £1,500, which would be saved should it be determined not to combine the inland with the sea fisheries, the cost of the latter would not be over £2,700 a year, or not more than £1,400 beyond what it is at present. The trouble which would be saved to the Board of Works, and its being enabled to devote more time to its other onerous duties, ought to furnish an additional reason for a new department.

The loans are really the pivot on which everything with regard to the success of the fisheries depends. The dogmas of free trade and leaving everything to private enterprise may answer very well in a wealthy country like England, but to preach such doctrines to a people still suffering from the effects of "a desolation wider than any recorded in history or shadowed forth by tradition," is but another way of telling them to despair. The prospect of assisting, without the likelihood of a loss to the exchequer of anything worthy of consideration, in supplying two of the greatest requirements of Ireland -food and employment-ought to be sufficient to induce a trial of the means proposed for the purpose, more particularly as the success which has attended every similar experiment with regard to the fisheries justifies and encourages such a course.

To the statesman there are other important considerations. As a nursery for the royal navy and mercantile marine, the fisheries must always prove most valuable. It would appear to be a wise policy, too, by promoting the interests of the fishermen, to attach a portion of the population so likely to prove important in time of war or danger by the ties of gratitude to the government under which they live, by making them sensible that they owed their improved condition to its fostering care.

MISCELLANEOUS.

The Stein-Hardenberg Land Legislation; its Basis, Development, and Results in Prussia. By HENRY DIX HUTTON, Barrister-at-Law.

T the commencement of the nineteenth century the Prussian

A territory was divided between feudal landlords and peasant

farmers, who were either serfs, or, when free, weighed down by every sort of burdensome obligation. Cultivation was at the lowest point, and the population so little attached to existing institutions, that these fell to pieces on the first attack of the invader. At the present time the land is shared among proprietors, freed from all but public burdens. They own in widely different proportions; but, with few exceptions, both large and small owners cultivate without the intervention of tenant farmers; the larger under their immediate superintendence, the smaller by their own hands. Agriculture has already made great advances, and is steadily progressive.

A revolution so great and beneficent must excite profound interest, at once philosophic, historical, and practical. We naturally inquire, what was its basis, what its development, and what its results. A residence of five months in Berlin, Dresden, and other parts of Germany, with the valuable assistance kindly afforded by the best living authorities, both legal and agricultural, enables me to submit the following replies. In so large and complicated a subject our limits only permit a brief reference to the essential points.

It is nowhere denied that the main-spring of this reform lay in the Stein-Hardenberg land legislation. But English authors generally assume that it involved a setting aside of the rights of property, that its justification consisted in an urgent necessity. This view, however, is an entire misconception. The profound modifications introduced were, doubtless, greatly facilitated by the political crisis, but they were made with due regard, not merely to eternal principles of justice, but to existing, long established, mutual rights.

The situation in 1807 was shortly this-feudal tenures inherited from the Middle Ages modified by the monarchic authority, laws, and magistracy of the Modern State. All large properties comprised demesne land and peasants' land; the first being cultivated for the benefit of the landowner by peasants, who possessed and tilled the second for their own benefit. Each kind of land and each class of persons were in law distinct. The peasants' land was invariably subject to feudal dues and duties, embracing all agricultural operations and products, affecting nearly every human relation and event from the cradle to the grave. The larger peasant farms were, however, frequently the actual property of free cultivators; but the residue were occupied by serfs. The position of the serf-occupier was,

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nevertheless, totally different from that of a tenant-at-will. German Common Law established the principle that peasants' land must remain peasants' land. Though the individual peasant holder died or were dispossessed the landlord was bound to replace him with a tenant of the same class, and could not lawfully change the nature of the peasants' land by absorbing it into his demesne land. Moreover, the landlord was bound, in consideration of the feudal dues and services, to maintain the peasants' farms, and to relieve them in various emergencies of sickness or poverty. The servile holders also, in addition to such class rights, frequently enjoyed individual rights. Thus some held their farms for a term of years or for life; and the tenure of a large number had gradually acquired the stamp of an hereditary right, as fully as in the case of the English copyholder. To the above medieval constitution of the tenure of land the Modern State added an important element. The gradual disuse of military feudal services and the formation of standing armies necessitated taxation, and the weight of the taxes was thrown by the privileged aristocracy on the peasants' land. The great proprietors, also, were tempted by the increasing value of land to incorporate the peasants' land with their demesnes, in order to cultivate it either by serf labour, or by letting to tenant farmers. The German rulers opposed, with varying success, these efforts of the great proprietors, as being at variance both with established law and sound policy. Nowhere were greater efforts made than in Prussia, whose kings steadily pursued the twofold object, protection of the peasants' rights and their maintenance as an important class in the State.

Its

Despite, however, of law and authority, the peasants remained practically insecure, and, at the best, were loaded with feudal burdens which cramped their energies. From such dues and forced labour comparatively little advantage accrued to the proprietors whose situation, as feudal landlords, precluded a proper cultivation of their demesnes. In this state of things a disastrous war hastened what had long been felt as a necessity-the emancipation of the peasantry and creation of a free agriculture. The problem, however, and its solution, were regarded in two widely different lights. On the one hand existed a school much devoted to economic abstractions. adherents urged that it was vain to expect good agriculture without large farms and proportionate capital, and that the majority of the peasants did not realize these conditions. It was, therefore, they said, expedient to arrange matters so that only the larger and wealthier class of occupiers could become proprietors. The opponents of this view insisted upon its injustice as a violation of established rights; its superficiality as ignoring historic and existing facts; its impolicy as involving an abandonment of the State's duty and paramount interest in the mass of the people, the improvement of their condition, and, with that, the strengthening of their loyalty. Such were the convictions of the distinguished men whose counsels happily prevailed; foremost among them, Stein. Stein's comprehensive reforms prove that he understood and respected economic