The Express.
London, England, 1853-03-07 00:00:00

of the future CIIANCELLOVS pTo-

fessional distinction. We cannot command the
limits of a law treatise, nor do we wish to inflict on
our readers the tedium of discussions which are a suffi-
ciently severe tax upon the patience of those victims
to a high sense of public duty who deem it incum-
bent upon them to sit out a law debate.
We shall therefore pass bya multiplicity of minor ob-
jections by which the stout ex-Chancellor assailed
the object of his twenty years' animosity, and confine
our remarks to two which, if well-founded, are un-
doubtedly too serious to be overlooked.
The first and gravest is, that the establishment of
a general Register of Deeds would very consider-
ably increase the expense of land transfers, especially
in the ease of smaller properties,where the frequency
of alienation is undoubtedly greater, and the propm,
tion borne by the registration fee to the total ex:
penes of the conveyance would, it is assumed, be
much higher than in the case of more considerable
estates. At first sight this objection seems plausible,
but it in reality admits of two sufficiently satisfactory
answers. First, it is not true that, with the present
facility and consequent cheaper of communi-
cation existing between all parts of the coun-
try and the metropolis, the expenses of
transmitting transfer deeds for registration
would form any very considerable item of cost, even
in the smallest conveyancing transactions. Secondly,
even were they not so, it would not be difficult 111
committee so to regulate, on an ad valorem soak, the
few payable on registration as to make them bear
with extreme lightness upon the sale of small pro-
perties.
The second objection to which we alluded is that
urged against the centralisation involved in the
reposed scheme. All deeds are to be re-
gistered in one general office in the metropolis.
No doubt to those who, Wm ourselves, are the firm
and unwavering advocates of local institutions as the
priceless nurseries of civic virtue and social develop-
ment, there is much that is ad captandum in such an
argument as this. But its force vanishes on closer
examination. The keel institutions that alone
are valuable are those which train citizens to the',
Rztliocils of citizenship—freemen to the privileges of 1
. The mere ministerial function of engrossing
and executing deeds in the offload country anomie@
is not one which it moms the common weal
to have perpetuated in provincial localities. Whether
indeed the machinery of registration shall be carried,
on in different local registries, or in one centralised
office in London—is a matter which it may be proper
enough to moot in committee on the bill, but which
must after all mainly on the question of re-
lative cost. The Commissioners of
18.10, after full tion of this point, re-
port that " the neoressey expense of one cen-
tral office would be less than the *Aggregate ex-
penes of numerous district offices.' They add,
moreover, as arguments in favour of the central
'theme, he following considerations, which are by
no means without their weight—viz. " The greater
security which would be afforded for edfeetive super-
intendence, and for uniformity of practice, and the
probability that the attention which would be natu-
rally directed to the 'Aloe embracing the business
of the whole landed property of the °wintry, would
ensure all the improvements, both in.prtheiple and
detail, of which a system of registration is suscep-
tible.'

The above are fair specimens of the objections
urged by Lord ST. LZONAILD'S against the bill re-intro-
duced by the present CIIANCELLOIL We cannot think
that the moon/renown he has pointed out u likely
to result from registration, are by any means suS.
cleat to outweigh the strong balance of opinion re-
corded in its favour by the many eminent jurists and
statesmen who had had the whole question repea-
edly brought before them and &lime with one uni-
form result. It seems clear that a general Re-
gister of Deeds would be a considerable improve-
ment in itself, and a step almost indispensable towards
still greater and morebeneflcial changes. Whether
such registration should be made by a full copy of
the deed, or by an extract, or whether a purchaser
should pert with the powe ion of his sheepskins,
are matters of detail to be dealt with in com-
mittee. But while admitting this, it must
not for a moment be supposed that we regarp
this measure as in itself sufficient to work a cure or
even any considerable amelioration of our English
system of land transfer. The Register is a preli-
minary to other improvements.
It must always be recollected that the proposed
general Register of Deeds leaves the principles and
even the practice of conveyancing unaltered except in
as far as it may in some degree lessen the costs of
search and abridge the prolixity of forms. It leaves
wholly unquestioned the wisdom of the principle

which compels the purchaser of land to require for
his own security what the purchaser of no other
commodity need trouble himself with—" proof of the
seller's right beyond the mere fact of his possession."
This species of proof is exacted in no other eountry.
England is the only part of the world where
the sale of land is encumbered with the
necessity of entering into all previous dealings with
it over a period of forty years. In France, Prussia,
Austria, Bavaria, and 1 uscany, a registered certificate
of ownership conveys as complete a title in the case
of land as it does in the case of railway stock, or
Government securities. Notwithstanding all the
grave dubiety of our legal Bratmoits, we can,
after much pains spent in the search, find no
single valid reason for thinking that what is possible
everywhere else, should be impossible iu England.
In spite of feudalism and family settlements, and
primogeniture and entails, we will not think so ill of
the ingenuity of our countrymen, as hastily to come
to the conclusion that a cheap transfer of land is an
achievement beyond their reach. The truth is that
in this matter the nation it ingenuity has never had
fair play. Those who alone possessed the skill to
make the experiment found it to their interest not
to do so, and those who had the interest lacked the
skill.

It is not, however, our present purpose to enter on
the consideration of this deeply important and inter-
esting question. Our immediate object is to point
out that no mere registration of deeds, as proposed
by the bill which har just been read a second time,
can ever produce a material effect in diminishing
the expense of land transfer, as long as the principles
of our English law of real property remain what
they are. It is to those principles that the studies of
oar legislators must be directed. A general registry
of deeds is chiefly valuable inasmuch as it helps us a
step forward towards the ultimate attainment of un-
restricted trade in land.