should be a very stringent enactment to prevent any tenant removing his furniture, when rent was in arrears, to avoid payment of rent.

The Estates Tail Abolition Bill was intended to prohibit entirely the creation of an entail after the passing of the Bill, but it provided that the Act should not extend to any deed or will or other instrument made before the 1st September 1896.

Lord Cairns' Act giving tenants for life the power to sell settled estates except the mansion house and park has done much to remove the injurious effect of entails, and there seems to be no reason for further legislative interference with this particular form of settlement, which as now qualified seems to be open to no more objection than settlements of any other kind.

The Tithes Redemption Bill was intended to enable tithe-payers and tithe-owners to effect a voluntary redemption of tithe rent-charge at such prices as they may agree upon, instead of all negotiations for redemption being subject to the consent of the Board of Agriculture.

Such an enactment might increase and facilitate the redemptions of tithe, and in that way help forward a very desirable movement; but it would be necessary to retain a guarantee for a proper regard to the interests of their successors in redemptions of tithe agreed to by clerical tithe-owners.

The Conveyancing and Law of Property Bill proposed to repeal the exceptions in Section 14 of the Conveyancing Act of 1891 so as to prevent forfeiture of a lease on account of a breach of its conditions as to assignment without consent, or as to the bankruptcy of the lessee, or taking of his interest in execution, or (in a mining lease) as to the refusal by the lessee to allow

the lessor to have access to or inspect books or the mine, unless the court thought fit on the merits of the case to refuse relief to the lessee. Having regard to the extreme care of the courts to protect to the fullest extent consistent with justice the interests of lessees, it seems very doubtful whether this or any other further relaxation of their obligations on points which often seriously affect the interests of lessors is either just or expedient.

The Accountants Bill and Accountants Bill (2) have only an indirect interest for surveyors as an example of the steps thought necessary for the protection from the competition of unqualified practitioners of the members of another profession. The Bills provided for the registration of all properly qualified accountants, and prohibited any one not so registered describing himself as an accountant, or any person describing himself as a member fellow associate or student of any of the professional organisations unless he was really entitled to do so, under a penalty of a fine not exceeding £20.

The preamble of one of the Bills justifies it by stating that the profession of an accountant has attained such a position that it is advisable in the public interest that the legislature should exercise some control over itwhich appears to be a reasonable proposition. But if so, how much more important it is by registration or otherwise to prevent unqualified surveyors from hazarding not only the money but the health and lives of others by ignorance or incompetence, and most especially that they should be prevented doing so under cover of the use of letters describing them as members of the Institution when they are not so in fact.

The Surveyors (Dublin County) Bill was intended to confer the power of appointing one surveyor with

assistants for the whole county of Dublin, instead of two surveyors without assistants, and thus to put the county of Dublin in the same position in this matter as all other counties in Ireland. The Bill appears to be of exclusively local interest, and would little, if at all, have increased the salary of the surveyor appointed for the whole county, though it would apparently have made the position a better one.

The Old Age Pensions Bill would have provided that every person having attained the age of 65 years and being actually in receipt of a superannuation allowance of not less than 2s. 6d. nor more than 5s. a week in all from one or more Friendly Societies, shall be entitled to an old age pension of 2s. 6d. a week, the funds necessary for this purpose being provided out of Imperial revenue.

The Bill recognises the essential principle that this form of State aid should only be granted in age to those who by thrift in earlier life have made some provision for their own old age, by making the receipt of a superannuation allowance from a Friendly Society (which must necessarily arise from previous long sustained subscriptions) a condition of the receipt of an old age pension. But the method in which this is done. is open to objection. If the State enforces previous subscription to a Friendly Society as a condition of a pension in old age, it should guarantee the societies, or subscribers might be without any choice of their own put in the cruel position through the failure of their Friendly Societies of losing all benefit from their own savings, and at the same time their qualification for State aid. It would be better, therefore, that with a scheme for state old age pensions should be coupled a scheme for State insurance, under which a weekly payment out of wages would be made to the State for a

certain number of years to secure a pension at a certain age; and in this way the recipients of the pension would, in part, bear the cost of providing their own pensions.

The Bill has only an indirect bearing on surveyors' interests by the effect it might have had in increasing the security to real property afforded by a working population not harassed by fears of poverty in old age and having a direct interest in the stability and solvency of the government of the country.

Three Working Men's Dwellings Bills were intended to enable local authorities to advance money to working men for the purchase of their own houses. These Bills, or very similar Bills, have been introduced several times. previously, and commented on somewhat fully in previous numbers of Professional Notes. It is no doubt highly desirable that working men should own house property, and so have an interest in and responsibility for the prosperity of their district, but those urban working men for whom small house property would be a desirable investment are a small minority on account of the shifting places of occupation of the majority and the drawbacks and expenses of that class of property if let. Even in rural districts that objection applies to a considerable extent. Moreover, there are very obvious objections to a local authority becoming the mortgagee of its own constituents; and if the local authorities made the advances without at least one-third of the price being supplied by the workman himself, the burden on the rates in bad times would become ruinous; but if the purchasing working men were able and willing to contribute a much less proportion than this, existing organisations such as building societies would gladly find the money on fair terms.

The Acquisition of Land Bill would have authorised local authorities, having complied with certain conditions.

and satisfied the Local Government Board that the purchase of any land was for the interest of the inhabitants of their area, or that any lands should be valued for their subsequent purchase in that interest, to either compulsorily acquire such land or to have it valued and register the valuation as a land charge under the Land Charges Registration and Searches Act of 1888, and to purchase the land at any time within 20 years after the registration at its fair value at the time of the purchase plus any consequential damage actually caused to the vendor's other property by the purchase, but minus any increase in the value of the land since the making of the original valuation due to circumstances usually called unearned increment, or growth or development of population or business, and not to any improvement or management by the landowner. Whether or not the existing powers of local authorities to acquire land ought to be increased, it seems clear that they should not be empowered to select a piece of improving land, have it valued, and 20 years afterwards buy it at the amount of the original valuation and confiscate the improvement. Probably the promoters of such legislation did not realise to what an extent the exercise of such powers would raise rents by hindering the development of building estates in urban districts. The cruel injustice that would be done to the owners of the land is not a point the promoters of such a Bill would be likely to take into consideration.

Local Government Highways Bill and Highways Bill. The first was intended to transfer the maintenance of highways (excepting main roads) in every rural parish to the parish council or parish meeting-the cost of the work to be charged to poor rate.

The second proposed to give county councils power