Transactions of the Manchester Statistical Society

Excerpt from Transactions of the Manchester Statistical Society: Session 1886-7, and Index If the laws of past ages have been unduly favourable to him, that should be a warning to us not to so lightly indulge in legislation, which may be as unjustly unfavourable. Lord Hartington's theory of the maximum of liberty and the minimum of law appears to be the mark which we should set before us. More injuries are effected by bad laws than are relieved by good laws, and probably greater success would attend our labours if we studied rather to eradicate unwise laws from our statute book than to burden it with additional enactments. I must guard myself from conveying the idea that I regard our laws relating to land as beyond improvement. Whilst far from adopting such a belief, I maintain that no law which interferes with proprietary right can prove in the long run beneficial to this or any other country. What is proprietary right is an inquiry which needs deep investigation and careful thought. It is a question as important to the tenant as to the landlord, and upon its right understanding depends the success of all land legislation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.