The Sun.
London, England, 1849-03-08 00:00:00

4e41,
4 '4'ilftt, 11 1,

LONDON, THURSDAY, MARCH 8, 1849.

Notwithstanding the opposition offered by the law-
officers of the Crown and other members of the Go-
vernment, the Hon. Member for West Surrey suc-
ceeded yesterday in carrying the second reading of his
Bill for facilitating the transfer of real property by a
majority of 10—the numbers being for the ATTOR-
NEY-GENERAL'S amendment 45, against it 55. A
stronger evidence could not be afforded of the general
anxiety that exists throughout the country for ex-
tensive measures of legal reform. The law of real
property must be simplified, the dust and cobwebs
that have accumulated during successive ages
must be swept away. There is no reason why the
titles to landed property should be rendered so ob-
scure and complicated that months would be con-
sumed, and a most tedious and expensive investiga-
tion rendered necessary, before it could be ascertained
that a person in whose family an estate had descended
for centuries, without question or doubt, was really
the bona-fide proprietor thereof, and could convey a
good title to a purchaser, or make it a valid security
for any pecuniary accommodation he might require.
In almost every other nation of Europe there are
facilities for transfer and a security of title
comparatively unknown in this country.
Even Ireland is far before us in that
respect, for every deed and instrument relating to
property must be registered, or the priority to which
it would otherwise be entitled may be forfeited as a
penalty for the negligence. The frauds and losses
to which purchasers, mortgagees, and others are ex-
posed in England under the existing system, and from
which no amount of precaution can effectually protect
them, is thus obviated in the sister kingdom. No
deed of importance can be effectually withheld or
concealed. Express notice is given of its existence,
and of the general nature of its provisions, on the
face of a registry open to all who choose to pay the
small fee of 2s. 6d. for liberty to search. Vast expenses
are incurred in every transaction relating to property
in order to guard against the consequences of possible
fraud or rnistake—expenses which in ninety-nine
cases out of a hundred are quite unnecessary, but still
they must be encountered. Every person about to
acquire an interest in property will fear that he may
be the one unfortunate person on whom the loss may
fall, and he will spare no expense to prevent the pos-
sibility of such an event. Sir EDWARD SUGDEN has
stated, in his great work on " Vendors and Pun
chasers " (11th Ed., p. 98G), that " the present
expense in regard to titles is, in forty-nine cases out of
fifty, superfluous," and Master SENIOR, in his evidence
before the Lords' Committee in 1846, said—" I think
there is little of really defective title. Titles almost
all seem to be safe ..for holding, 'out the difficulty is
to transfer them. There are many objections to title
as to marketabkness—few as to safety." Under such
circumstances, the suggestion made by the Hon.
Gentleman, "that substantial justice would be done
in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred, if they were
to pass a declaratory Act, to the efTTt that every
man should have a Parliamentary title to his estate,"
does not appear to be so very absurd, or to have
merited the derisive cheers with which it was received.
We believe that there could be nothing more bene-
ficial to the country in general than such a course,
by which the innumerable entails and contingent
remainders would be cut off, and a " free trade in
land," that cheap and expeditious mode of transfer
suggested and so powerfully advocated by Mr. JAMES
STEWARD, might be attained.
In all the arguments adduced in opposition to the
Artirs.p present Bill the great evils of the complexity
4104itin prevail in the established system were ac.
ged and deplored, The strongest opponent,'
"k, -
013 ill admitted the necessity of some great and
Z cw:FL. coulitehensive measures of reform ; but every attempt
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