The Sun.
London, England, 1832-03-22 00:00:00

(PRICE 7D

speak from thorough experience, when I state that a general
registry has all the advantages which local registers could pos.
ibly possess, while the latter never will have the advantages of
the former. To every person except those residing in the
places where the local registers happened to be kept, it would, I
conceive, be a matter of indifference, whether they sent their
deeds for registration by post to those places, or to London. In
other respects the registry proposed by Mr. Campbell will admit
of being consulted with ease, not through the expensive medium
Of an Attorney, but by simply addressing a letter to the Officers
of the registry, who will be bound to answer all reasonable
inquiries. The case of emergency alluded to by T.B. which
might not admit of this being done, will not bear the proportion
of one to the hundred of ordinary cases, and to satisfy himself
that the registry will be of a manageable compass, he will find,
on perusing the Bill, that in so far as direct conveyances are
concerned, it proposes to divide England and Wales into
districts.

I have always looked upon registration by memorials as very
objectionable. It may give certain particulars correctly enough,
but it does not explain all that I should be disposed to consider
of importance. For instance, it neither explains nor refers to
covenants and conditions of contingency, tending to limit or
even defeat theright itself. T. B. thinks (q. e. d.) that registration
by memorials would be sufficient to prevent fraud by suppression,
which he appears to consider the principal, and, I would
infer from other parts of his letter, the only object of a
registry; but here he commits a serious mistake, for I have been
taught by experience that it ought to be the object of a proper
registry to preserve conveyances (either by retaining the prin-
cipals or authenticated copies) as well as to publish them. He
believes, too, that all the good which can be effected by a re-
gistry will be to supersede the necessity and expense of co-
venants from holders to produce, &c. Here, too, he is in error ;
the peculiar usefulness of a registry such as the one proposed
by Mr. Campbell, consisting in this, that while it publishes
conveyances, it also serves as a repository, from which title
deeds, lost or mislaid, may be made up at any time. It thus
affords a remedy for what is a very serious evil, and one too of
frequent occurrence. Mr. C.'s plan is comprehensive, as it
ought to be; but if my reading of the Bill is correct, it does
not, as T. B. supposes, include leases at rack-rent, or for any
period under 21 years, where the possession goes along with the
property.

The proposal for making the property secondary to the title
deeds, and for holding delivery of the one as symbolical tradi-
tion of the other, is at variance with all experience. It would
be attended, amongst other things, with this disadvantage
(which is also occasioned as much by the want of a registry),
that the first mortgage would, in general, be the only one ;
whereas in Scotland, where no such practice is known, and
where the registers are the only tests of property, a proprietor
may borrow money upon his estates, in such sums, and at such
times, as may be called for by his necessities. It is no uncom-
mon thing, if he should fail in obtaining a loan of a sufficient
amount from one person, to make it up in smaller sums from
various others.

Nor would existing evils be remedied by declaring frauds, in
the transmission of property, to be felony, and punishing them
as such : that is a mode of legislating which can only be war-
ranted by extreme necessity, and when prevention was proved
to be impossible.
T. 8., and all others, may rest assured that there is not so
much difference betwixt English and Scotch conveyances, as to
render useless to the one what has been productive of so much
benefit to the other. Indeed the opposition which Mr. Camp-
bell's Bill has met with, is looked upon with the utmost sur-
prise in this country.
I am, Sir, yours, &c. A. D.