present powers of owners to tie up land legally should be very much
curtailed. It is a sad proof of the way riches cling to the heart of
man even when he is leaving this world, that, whatever powers of
tying up land are sanctioned, an owner will usually exert them to the
uttermost. He is leaving his property, but he will keep a hold on it
fifty years after he is dead if he can. He will, after exhausting his
powers in life interests, leave the residuum to an unborn child "in
strict tail-male so far as the rules of law will permit;" and he will
stick in a springing use to effect that, if his greatnephew, the Rev.
George, should ever from an Anglican become a pervert to Roman
Catholicism, he shall take no benefit under the will.

Now the fact is that all tying up is to the detriment of the public.
No man can provide for all contingencies. Indeed he can see so little
a way ahead that in a few years it frequently happens that all the
careful provisions of the will are working exactly as the testator
would have desired them not to work. Land tied up is always worth
less to the owner because it is tied up; and we have seen that the
interest of the commonwealth is the sum of the interests of all its
component members. When you tell me that an estate is now of small
value to its life-owner and unget-at-able for any public purposes, in
consequence of a will made by a man who died twenty years ago, it
appears to me that you shew me convincingly that we have not Free
Trade in land.

I would propose that, either by will, settlement, or other
instrument, an owner should be able to give any number of life
interests, and nothing more; all trusts being placed outside the law.
The first objection will be that if the powers of owners are so
restricted, the desire for the ownership of land will be lessened: