Corresponding Societies. 8. Cork Literary and Scientific Society 11. Dublin Mutual Improvement Society 14. Kilkenny Literary and Scientific Institution 16. Kilrea Literary Society 17. Lisburn Literary Society. 18. Lurgan Literary Society 19. Mountmellick Mutual Instruction Society. 20. Newry Institute... 21. Royal Galway Institution 22. Wexford Mechanics' Institute 23. Banbridge Literary Institute.. 24. Dungannon Society for promoting Science, 25. Portaferry Mechanics' Institute 28. Ballynahinch Literary and Scientific Society. Corresponding Officers. Rev. William Quain. The literary and scientific societies and mechanics' institutes in Ireland are invited to form a connexion with the Dublin Statistical Society similar to that which exists between the Society of Arts and the literary and scientific institutions of England. The following are the regulations of the Council on the subject, under which the above societies have been for some time in connexion with the Statistical Society: 1. Each society, recommended for selection as a Corresponding Society, is required to forward the name of one of its members, to be the means of communication with the officers of the Statistical Society. 2. The Corresponding Officer, nominated by each Corresponding Society, is entitled to attend each meeting of the Statistical Society, to issue a ticket for one visitor at each meeting, and to apply for permission to present papers to be read before the society. He is also entitled to two copies of all the publications to be issued by the Statistical Society, which are sent to any address in Dublin that he may appoint. 3. Corresponding members are not liable to any subscription to the Statistical Society, nor entitled to any vote at its meetings. 4. Each Corresponding Officer is expected to deposit one copy of each publication of the Statistical Society in the library of the Corresponding Society, keeping the second copy for lending to its members. 5. Each Corresponding Officer is expected to furnish to the Secretaries of the Statistical Society two copies of the laws of the Corresponding Society, and of all annual reports and other publications issued by it. [95] JOURNAL OF THE Dublin STATISTICAL SOCIETY. JULY, 1855. I.-On the effect of the limitation of Parliamentary Title to Ireland, in promoting purchases of land by English and Scotch Capitalists.By W. Neilson Hancock, LL.D. GENTLEMEN, [Read 21st May, 1855.] When the sales of land first took place under the Incumbered Estates Act, it was expected that there would be a very large number of English purchasers. So strong was this impression, that one of the Commissioners was selected from the conveyancing bar in England, with a view no doubt to give confidence to this class of purchasers. This expectation was founded on two economic fallacies; first, that Ireland was suffering from a want of capital; and secondly, that it required a very large amount of capital to buy incumbered estates. The first of these fallacies I endeavoured to expose in a paper read before the the British Association at Ipswich in 1851, and published in the Transactions of this society. The second fallacy admits of an easy refutation. If we only reflect that the incumbrances on land in Ireland are generally held by Irishmen, under such circumstances the more incumbered the estates are, the less capital is required in the aggregate to purchase them. The produce of each sale being applied in paying off incumbrances, sets free nearly as much capital as is absorbed in the purchase. As capital was really abundant in Ireland, and as the incumbrances were chiefly held by Irishmen, it naturally followed that they should be the chief purchasers. Still the competition of En VOL. I. PART III. I glish and Scotch capitalists was in the first instance much less than the low price of land appeared to justify. This arose no doubt from the disturbed state of Ireland in 1848, from the repeal agitation of the years immediately preceding that period, and from the agrarian crimes which had from time to time prevailed to an alarming extent in particular counties in Ireland. The events of the past few years, exhibiting a cessation ofcrime and of agitation, have already changed the views of English and Scotch capitalists; and as the earlier purchasers of estates have realised large profits, the tendency now is towards increased competition for land. This tendency is much favoured by the high prices of agricultural produce. The proceedings of the Incumbered Estates Court have proved in a remarkable manner the correctness of the views of the economists, as to the effect of parliamentary title in increasing the attractiveness of land as an investment. The parliamentary title is besides peculiarly suited to a capitalist who buys with a view of being able to sell again, if the exigencies of his trade should lead him to require his capital, or if some more advantageous investment should turn up. The incumbered estates' jurisdiction, by bringing land so readily and in such quantities into the market, must make the supply of saleable land greater in proportion to the demand for it in Ireland than in a country where such a jurisdiction does not exist. As long, therefore, as this jurisdiction is not extended to England and Scotland, land having the same advantages in all other respects must, from this cause alone, be cheaper in Ireland than in other portions of the Empire. The effect of this relative cheapness, and of the attractiveness of parliamentary title, is to expose Irishmen to an unfair competition in buying land here, and to offer a bounty to Englishmen and Scotchmen to buy in Ireland rather than at home. The extension of an incumbered estates' jurisdiction, and of a parliamentary title to England and Scotland is as much required for the benefit of those countries, as it is in justice to the occupiers and purchasers of land in Ireland. The chief causes which led to the introduction of the Incumbered Estates Court in Ireland are in full operation in the Highlands of Scotland. There we have to the present day such chronic distress and such an incumbered proprietary as existed in Ireland before the famine. Then in England the desire for improved habitations amongst the working classes, and the want of a place to invest their savings, have led to building societies and freehold land societies. The desire for purchasing land thus indicated cannot be satisfied, nor the benefits to the poor realized, unless sales are made secure and transfer cheap by judicial sales and parliamentary title. Under such circumstances, it is manifest that the bounty or inducement which the present state of the law holds out to Englishmen and Scotchmen to purchase in Ireland, is in every way opposed to public policy. The duties of property are more likely to be zealously and efficiently discharged by a resident, acquainted with the character and feelings of the people, than by a stranger. In all the arguments on the absentee question, it never was proposed to create a bounty on absenteeism. II.-Maritime Captures and Commercial Blockades.-By T. E. Cliffe Leslie, Esq. Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Economy in the Queen's College, Belfast.* [Read January 29th, 1855.] THE chief object of this paper is to point out the system of maritime war by which the resources of this country will be least impaired by the contest in which it is engaged, and most effectively employed in bringing it to a successful issue. But although the questions involved must be discussed with especial reference to our present national interests, there will be occasion to show the necessity of bearing in mind that they are also questions of permanent importance in international jurisprudence. The rules of that jurisprudence have established a difference between the liability to capture during war of private property on land and at sea.† This distinction is generally defended on the grounds-first, that the citizens of an invaded country are regarded as subjects of the victorious state, and protected accordingly, but that as the capture of merchant ships does not subjugate the hostile state, as the taking possession of its territory does, the property in them is not entitled to similar protection; secondly, that in maritime hostilities there is no mode of obtaining victory and compensation by the seizure of public revenue, and in order to weaken the naval power of the enemy, it is necessary to attack his commerce and merchant navy. To the first of these arguments it seems a sufficient answer, that for many centuries private property on land has been respected in the case of military operations in an enemy's country, for strategical or political purposes, without any design of permanent conquest; and has, indeed, been least respected where the latter has been the object—as in Napoleon's wars; nor would it be regarded as a justification of pillage, that the sovereign of this pillaging army had no intention of reducing the inhabitants into subjection to his crown. The second argument assumes the very proposition at issue, that it is the interest of a great maritime power to exert its naval force, for the purpose of destroying not only the enemy's fleets and marine fortifications, but also his commercial intercourse with other countries. Besides, a military power might claim the same justification for confiscating all the property belonging to its enemy's subjects which its armies could reach, asserting that it was done for the purpose of bringing the war to a conclusion by diminishing the enemy's resources, abstracting his means of taxation, and convincing his subjects of the impolicy of continuing the contest. This argument may indeed be used with much greater This paper has been abridged for the press. † Alison's History of Europe, chap. xxxiii. force in the case of military than naval operations, for a victorious army can spread ruin through a country, and make war support war, in a manner impossible in maritime warfare. This is very clearly exemplified by Alison, in his account of the advantages which the French armies derived from their mode of making war in the Peninsula, and the difficulties to which the English were exposed from theirs. The historian adds, however, that honesty is the best policy in the end, and "the same moral law applicable to the private villain, and the public robber;" and in another passage observes, that "in warfare it is of the utmost importance that no attacks should be made, except upon public property or merchandize afloat, and that the piratical system of threatening with destruction a city not fortified, if it does not redeem itself by a contribution, should be avoided." But upon what principle is it justifiable to seize the entire property of a merchant when on sea, while it is a "piratical system to exact even a contribution if it happen to be on shore? What "moral law" sanctions the former, while it pursues the latter with an inexorable Nemesis? It cannot be upon higher ground than its expediency, that any one will defend the distinction. Its expediency is therefore the chief subject of our inquiry. At the outset it must be perceived that there is an objection to the capture of private property at sea quite peculiar to this mode of attacking the resources of an enemy. For it involves this dilemma, that if his subjects are permitted to export and import in neutral vessels, and only liable to capture in their own, provision is made by the system itself for defeating its object to a great extent. If, on the other hand, neutral merchants are prevented from carrying on the commerce of the enemy, and acting as agents on his behalf; if they are exposed to all the vexation and loss attending the promiscuous seizure of merchandize belonging to a state with which their own country is at peace; and if, added to this, their country is deprived of commodities which it has been accustomed to consume, or of a lucrative trade, it is the inevitable consequence that the system is likely to add to instead of diminishing the enemy's resources, through the active alliance of some, and the sympathy and moral support of other previously neutral states. In this dilemma the British government was placed at the commencement of the present war. It could not be forgotten then, that at the commencement of this century all the maritime states of the civilized world were at one time in arms against Great Britain, on account of the rigour with which she enforced the ancient usages of hostilities at sea; nor could the suffering and ruin occasioned by the American Non-Intercourse Act of 1811 be forgotten, followed in the next year by a sanguinary contest. In 1853 the value of our exports to America had risen to nearly £24,000,000; and even the loss of this market would by no means represent the entire loss arising from a rupture of commercial relations with the United States, for we import from them the most important materials of our trade with the whole world. Nor are indications wanting that a bitter recollection of the belligerent rights formerly asserted by Great Britain survives in the |