ment for
that employed in effecting improvements or erecting houses. The latter
described as messuages were valued in 1794 at SIX MILLIONS per annum; in
1814 they were nearly FIFETEEN MILLIONS; now they are valued at EIGHTY
MILLIONS.

[Footnote--A Parliamentary return gives the following information
as to the value of lands and messuages in 1814 and 1874:

1814-15. 1873-74.
Lands, L34,330,463 L49,906,866
Messuages, 14,895,130 80,726,502

The increase in the value of land is hardly equal to the
reduction in the value of gold, while the increase in
messuages shows the enormous expenditure of labor.]

The increase represents a sum considerably more than double the national
debt of Great Britain, and under the system of leases the improvements
will pass from the industrial to the landlord class.

It seems to me to be a mistake in legislation to encourage a system by
which these two funds merge into one, and that hands the income arising
from the expenditure of the working classes over to the tenants-in-fee
without an equivalent. This proceeds from a straining of the maxim that
"what is attached to the freehold belongs to the freehold," and was made
law when both Houses of Parliament were essentially landlord. That maxim
is only partially true: corn is as much attached to the freehold as
a tree; yet one is cut without hindrance and the other is prevented.
Potatoes, turnips, and such tubers, are only obtained by disturbing
the freehold. This maxim was at one time so strained that it applied to
fixtures, but recent legislation and modern discussions have limited the
rights of the landlord class and been favorable to the occupier, and I
look forward to such alterations in our laws as will secure to the man
who expends his labor or earnings in improvements, an estate IN PERPETUO
therein, as I think no length of user of that which is a man's own--his
labor or earnings--should hand over his representative improvements to
any other person. I agree with those writers who maintain that it is
prejudicial to the state that the rent fund should be enjoyed by
a comparatively small number of persons, and think it would
be advantageous to distribute it, by increasing the number of
tenants-in-fee. Natural laws forbid middlemen, who do nothing to make
the land productive, and yet subsist upon the labor of the farmer, and
receive as re