108 THE FISHERIES. 



with his great experience, and acknowledged abihty, 

 cannot frame a wise and equitable measure, from such 

 a mass of confused enactments, we might almost des- 

 pair. But we do not despair — we have confidence 

 in any workman who is master of his work ; but in 

 dealing with legal or social questions of great mag- 

 nitude and difficulty, the danger to be apprehended 

 always is — " lest fools rush in, where angels fear to 

 tread." Without in the least, by such quotation, 

 intending o^ence to the one side, or flattery to the 

 other, we think the land question has now a fair 

 prospect of judicious treatment ; and that the mea- 

 sure about to be proposed by the present Government 

 will be a wise, just, and impartial settlement of that 

 great question. 



Property is the very key-stone of the social arch 

 — the bond that holds society together. We regard 

 with suspicion every attempt to sap the rights of 

 the landed proprietor, or interfere with his just pri- 

 vileges : any such interference, disguise it as we 

 may, should be looked upon, as only a step towards 

 communism : theories that tend, not to improve, but 

 to reverse the relations of landlord and tenant, may 

 be " progress " certainly, but it is progress on the 

 I'oad to anarchy, for with very rare exceptions in- 

 deed, it will be found that those wiio assail the 

 rights of property, are those who have no property 

 themselves. 



The fisheries question will supply a useful moral : 

 that question, too, is a complicated one of property ; 

 but some theorists in 1842 — professing, by the way, 



