ment of a very important
question, I shall consider my labor has not been in vain.

JOSEPH FISHER.

WATERFORD, November 3, 1875.

I do not propose to enter upon the system of landholding in Scotland or
Ireland, which appears to me to bear the stamp of the Celtic origin
of the people, and which was preserved in Ireland long after it had
disappeared in other European countries formerly inhabited by the Celts.
That ancient race may be regarded as the original settlers of a large
portion of the European continent, and its land system possesses a
remarkable affinity to that of the Slavonic, the Hindoo, and even the
New Zealand races. It was originally Patriarchal, and then Tribal, and
was communistic in its character.

I do not pretend to great originality in my views. My efforts have been
to collect the scattered rays of light, and to bring them to bear upon
one interesting topic. The present is the child of the past. The ideas
of bygone races affect the practices of living people. We form but parts
of a whole; we are influenced by those who preceded us, and we shall
influence those who come after us. Men cannot disassociate themselves
either from the past or the future.

In looking at this question there is, I think, a vast difference which
has not been sufficiently recognized. It is the broad distinction
between the system arising out of the original occupation of land, and
that proceeding out of the necessities of conquest; perhaps I should add
a third--the complex system proceeding from an amalgamation, or from the
existence of both systems in the same nation. Some countries have been
so repeatedly swept over by the tide of conquest that but little of
the aboriginal ideas or systems have survived the flood. Others have
submitted to a change of governors and preserved their customary laws;
while in some there has been such a fusion of the two systems that
we cannot decide which of the ingredients was the older, except by a
process of analysis and a comparison of the several products of the
alembic with the recognized institutions of the class of original or of
invading peoples.

Efforts have been made, and not with very great success, to define
the principle which governed the more ancient races with regard to the
possession of land. While unoccupied or unappropriated, it was common
to every settler. It existed for the use of the whole human race. The
process by which that which was common to all became the po