OX TFIE XATUUAL INEQUAL1TV OF MEN* vil 



my duty to see whether some thirty years' training 

 in the art of making difficult questions intelligible 

 to audiences without much learning, but with that 

 abundance of keen practical sense which charac- 

 terises English workmen of the better class, would 

 enable me to do something towards the counter- 

 action of the fallacious guidance which is offered 

 to them. Perhaps I may be permitted to add 

 that the subject was by no means new to me. 

 Very curious cases of communal organisation and 

 difficult questions involving the whole subject of 

 the rights of property come before those whose 

 duty it is to acquaint themselves with the condition 

 of either sea or freshwater fisheries, or with the 

 administration of Fishery Laws. For a number 

 of years it was my fate to discharge such duties 

 to the best of my ability ; and, in doing so, I was 

 brought face to face with the problem of land- 

 ownership and the difficulties which arise out of 

 the conflicting claims of commoners and owners in 

 severalty. And I had good reason to know that 

 mistaken theories on these subjects are very 

 liable to be translated into illegal actions. I can- 

 not say whether the letters which I wrote in 

 any degree attained the object (of vastly greater 

 importance, to my mind, than any personal ques- 

 tion) which I had in view. But I was quite 

 aware, whatever their other results, they would 

 probably involve me in disagreeable consequences ; 

 and, among the rest, in the necessity of proving a 



