repayment, and reconveyance—goes to swell the
bulky rolls of deeds; and some fifty years hence,
when our heir John Styles the younger is hard
pressed for moneys, it shall be sent away in a cab
of the period, to be probed and peered through
by Serjeant Rebutter, the eminent opinion of
that day.

It is clear, then, that this primest of all
securities labours under practical disabilities.
There seems to be something unfair and very
partial in this treatment. Eliza Kempe (who
is Mr. Justice Blackstone’s figurative woman,
and lives and has her being in law only)
has what we may call a rent out of the Whiteacre
Junction Railway, as we have out of the
Blackacre estate. Yet may Eliza Kempe go
down to her banker’s, and in twenty minutes
have a loan advanced to her on deposit of her
scrip; or, if she prefer to sell, there are
Messrs. Omnium, the well-known brokers, who
will let her have the money in half an hour. So,
with the rent paid by the state in the public
funds; so, with mining, steam-packet, and other
shares. There is nothing adhesive in these
worldly treasures; they do not cleave to us
whether we will or no. Eliza Kempe may have
done with them for ever, as readily as she can
take off her shawl or bonnet.

The new scheme, then, for emancipation of
the acres of these islands, and turning them
more or less into that portable property which
Mr. Wemmick was partial to, is very simple.
Mr. Styles, our spectral legal man, may be
again requested to stand up for a moment to
bring his utopian estate with him, just to make
things clear. Perhaps Mr. Styles’s estate may
have been purchased but yesterday in the
Landed Estates Court, and his title is speckless,
virgin, and parliamentary; or, perhaps, being
of an older standing, it has been newly passed
through the rollers of that engine and been
made about as good as new. As the Messrs.
Erard will take home a veteran pianoforte and
revive and rebuff it, so may an ancient estate,
very lame and weak in its joints, be carefully
rebuffed, and turned out rejuvenescent in
this Irish court. Either case will do. It is
proposed, then, that when Mr. Styles is
receiving his little vellum strip which is his
title and conveyance, there should be handed to
him a number of little notes of parliament, to
be called debentures, printed and filled in,
according to a certain form. At that moment
they have no value; but they can be made
valuable at any moment. Take it that for
Blackacre there has been paid a sum of twenty
thousand pounds; then Mr. Styles shall receive
with his purchase, ten of these blank forms, or
notes, each for one thousand pounds, or
altogether equalling one-half the value of the
estate. These blank forms are put by in Mr.
Styles’s desk. By-and-by, when Mr. Styles becomes
pressed for moneys, and in that disagreeable
position that he must have two thousand
pounds before this time to-morrow; he takes
out two of his vellum debentures, has them
properly stamped and registered (there are,
of course, little technical guarantees against
fraud and forgery which are in this place
immaterial), and takes them, as he would railway
scrip, or stock, to a broker, to be converted
into coin, precisely like those other securities.
These land stocks, as we call them, will,
of course, fluctuate with all the agreeable
variety of the more established securities,
ranging from above to below par, according to
the usual laws. Interest at so much per cent
will be payable to the holder, as in the case of
the funds.

The advantages of this plan are very striking.
It will be observed, that as the debentures are
created along with the first possession of the
estate, and as they enter, as it were, into being
with it, there can be no charge or incumbrance
previous to them in date. Again, the existence
of the debentures and their number is carefully
noted in the body of the conveyance of the estate;
and, on the other hand, in each debenture is a
description of the conveyance. Thus any one
who would fraudulently try to raise money
after exhausting his debentures, would be
betrayed the moment he exhibited his conveyance.
Such precautions are pure matters of technical
detail, and present no difficulties. There are
abundant precedents and analogies in the
safeguards that hedge round railway scrip and
debentures in the funds.

It is surprising that this principle of converting
land into “portable property” should not
have obtained in England before now, a country
where no commercial element is suffered to
lurk undeveloped. This ready circulation and
prompt exchange is understood to be the basis
of successful trade and prosperity, yet it lies
here a neglected and unworked mine. Stranger
still, in foreign countries it has been in vigorous
operation, even on a gigantic scale, for nearly
eighty years; and brute inert land has long
been made to “fonctionner” according to the
French phrase, that is, forced “into function,”
and made to work, and shift, and fructify.
It is fairly naturalised in Russia, Prussia,
Poland, Austria, Bavaria, Belgium, Saxony,
Hanover, Denmark, and France. Such as would
have a complete tableau of these huge
operations over all Europe, should consult M.
Jossieu’s elaborate Report of the year eighteen
hundred and fifty-one. They will be astonished
by the extraordinary array of figures made to
“fonctionner.”

It is a remarkable proof of the substantial
character of these “territorial” securities, that
through all the German wars they were always
quoted at from eight to ten per cent higher
than the ordinary government funds; and at
the present day they keep steadily from two
to three per cent in advance of state securities
bearing the same rate of interest. There are,
however, some serious difficulties in the way, before
Judge Longfield’s scheme can be made to work
smoothly. For convenience’ sake, there will have
to be found some intermediate agent between
the public and the landowner, to whom buyers
of land scrip, changing every day and passing