232 Chap. XVI. Appendix , No. 1.

industry and outlay of his capital, must rest entirely upon bis »lease.

The Magna Charta of the Scots tenant’s security, is the act of the Scots Parliament 14-49, under the reign of James II. ,which secured the tenant in any length of lease, against any onewhatsoever in whose hands the property .might come to be vested,whether heirs or purchasers, by either of whom, it would ap-pear, he might formerly have been ejected, his right having beenconsidered rather as a personal right, good against the possessingproprietor who had granted ‘the lease, than as a real right, esta-blishing a lien upon the land itself. The subsequent act 1469,freeing him from being answerable for the debts of his landlord,((with whom he had been before identified), excepting insofaras he himself should be indebted to his landlord in rent by hislease, entirely completed his security.

A short-sighted avarice, defeating its own intention, mightstill, no doubt, have led illiberal minded proprietors to graspat the profits of improvement, by such extreme short leases asshould deprive the tenant of every rational inducement to makethem. These enactments had, however, given complete sanctionto every contract of lease, of whatever length of duration mightbe thought proper, to give the tenant an interest in the most li-beral outlay of his capital, and upon improvements of the mostpermanent duration. The Legislature had done every thing thatwas proper for the Legislature to do in this respect, for encou-raging agricultural improvement. The rest was left to the com-mon sense of interest in the parties.

Unhappily, however, the baleful entail act of 16S3, put it inthe power of every particular individual, possessed of land, en-tirely to defeat, as to his own property, the liberal intentions ofthese beneficent acts, by enabling him to force upon the adoptionof all succeeding generations, (which he was capable of precon-ceiving to exist), his own particular views, however illiberal andtinenlightened. And as dogmatic obstinacy and presumption aregenerally proportioned to the degree of narrow-minded ignorance,there was danger to be apprehended, as the lands might suc-cessively fall into the hands of such illiberal minded proprietors,that the whole lands of Scotland might, in process of time, bedoomed to a state of sterility and waste. In fact, it would ap-pear, that, in the period of 8.5 years of the continuance of theoperation of this act, so much of the lands had been placed underthe most absurd constitution as to the power of leasing, restrict-ing leases to very short periods, or debarring all leases for morethan a single year, that this daily increasing mischief* called loud-ly for the interposition of legislative redress ; and the palliativ*statute already mentioned was obtained. ' - -

Epithets applied to it in act 10th, Geo, III.