comes more careful, arm their merchant ships better, and render them not so easy to be taken; they go also more under the protection of convoys. Thus while the privateers to take them are multiplied, the vessels subject to be taken, and the chances of profit are diminished, so that many cruises are made wherein the expenses overgo the gains; and as is the case in other lotteries, though some have good prizes, the mass of adventurers are losers; the whole expense of fitting out all privateers, during a war, being much greater than the whole amount of goods taken. Then there is the national loss of all the labour of so many men during the time they have been employed in robbing, who besides spending what they get in riot, drunkenness, and debauchery, lose their habits of industry, are rarely fit for any sober business after peace, and serve only to increase the number of highwaymen and housebreakers. Even the undertakers who have been fortunate are by sudden wealth led into expensive living, the habit of which continues, when the means of supporting it cease, and finally ruins them; a just punishment for their having wantonly and unfeelingly ruined many honest innocent traders and families, whose subsistence was obtained in serving the common interests of mankind." 1 So also in 1785, in a letter to a private friend, Franklin says: "The United States, though better adapted than any other nation to profit by privateering, are, so far as in them lies, endeavouring to abolish the practice by offering, in all their treaties with other powers, an article engaging solemnly, that in case of a future war, no privateer shall be commissioned on either side, and that unarmed merchant ships on both sides shall pursue their voyage unmolested."2 ART. XI. -THE LAW REFORMS OF THE NEXT SESSION. 1. Report from the Select Committee on the Registration of Assurances Bill, with the Proceedings of the Committee. 1853. 2. A Letter to the Right Hon. Lord John Russell on the Transfer of Landed Property. By ROBERT WILSON. 1 Wheaton's International Law, p. 308. 2 Franklin's Works, vol. ii. p. 448. 1853. 3. On the Reform of the Law of Real Property, in a Letter to the Right Hon. Lord Lyndhurst. By H. B. KER. 1853. 4. Draft of a suggested Bill to facilitate the Transfer of Real Estate, and for the complete Registration of Assurances thereof. By JOHN FAWCETT, Esq. Carlisle 1853. 5. Observations on the Remuneration of Attorneys and Solicitors. By REGINAL PARKER. 1 vol. 1853. may It may now be well to consider in what way the reasonable expectations of the public as to further reforms in the Law be safely and properly gratified. This has now become a matter so important, that we shall look out for the budget of the Lord Chancellor with as much anxiety as for that of Him of the Exchequer, as he is elsewhere called. Each step that we take, in fact leads us to a higher point, and we are now able to see more clearly, and to take a wider view of all that is to be done. What, indeed, is more especially wanted, is the true appreciation of the occasion and the proper adjustment of the means to the great end to be obtained, -the complete Amendment of the Law in all its branches. First, then, let us turn to the subject which has already occupied so much of our space-the registration of dealings in land; and as to this, we have heard some disappointment expressed that no Act has yet been passed effecting a settlement of this question, and more especially as a Bill on this subject was introduced last Session by the Lord Chancellor, and passed the House of Lords without opposition. We think, however, that a little consideration will show that much real progress has been made, and that the Committee of the House of Commons, although it did not give its assent to that Bill, has greatly advanced the real interests involved. This Committee, in which were found collected all the members the best qualified to come to a sound conclusion, were engaged in considering a plan, the chief points of which have been repeatedly brought before our readers, and which is of the highest importance if it can be carried into effect. Speaking of the Lord Chancellor's Bill, the Report says,— "Your Committee find that the Bill contains within itself two distinct principles of registration: one, contemplating the registration of all assurances in any manner relating to land and the legal or equitable estates and interests therein; the other proposing that the legal title alone shall be entered on the registry, and that there shall be no necessity to register the instruments which declare or transmit the beneficial interests or equitable ownership. The two other Bills which have been referred to your Committee, proceed upon a principle similar to that contained in the first Bill, viz. the principle of keeping the registered ownership wholly separate and apart from the equitable right or title. "Your Committee, pursuing this idea and confining their attention to that principle, have examined some witnesses of high professional reputation, and had brought (under their notice a scheme for the registration of Title,' or of Legal Ownership,' which, if it can be fully developed and made capable of easy practical operation, would appear to your Committee to fulfil the most important conditions of registration, and to afford the means of ensuring great facility for the transfer of land, combined with great simplicity and security of title. "It has not been possible for your Committee, at so late a period of the Session, to extend their inquiry into all the details of this scheme, so as to present it in an embodied form, or to feel confident that they have ascertained all the difficulties which may attend its practical operation. They consider it worthy of further and more careful attention, and they are of opinion that registration will be practicable and useful if effected upon this principle. Your Committee therefore recommend the House not to proceed with the Bill for the Registration of Assurances; but suggest the immediate appointment of a commission for the purpose of considering the subject of registration of title, with reference to facilitating the sale and transfer of land, in order that a Bill for effecting that object may be brought into Parliament at the commencement of the next Session." We have here a most important principle recognised, which our readers will remember as that first advocated by Mr. Robert Wilson, and then chiefly with his assistance by a Committee of the Law Amendment Society', and afterwards by Mr. Cookson, in an able paper2, and which has been from time to time explained and enforced by other writers in this Review; and to these various papers we must Printed, 16 L. R. p. 361. 1 Report printed, 4 L. R. p. 351. refer those who wish to investigate the subject. We have always wished to connect this scheme of Registration of Titles with an Insurance of Titles; and this view, we are happy to say, seems also to have been favourably received by the Committee. In the paper brought before them, written by Mr. Bullar, and which was the groundwork of the proceedings of this Committee, we find this distinctly proposed. "51. Such a system of registration as is slightly sketched out by the suggestions preceding No. 82. would, in the course of, in most cases, about sixty years, make the register and the registered owners' single title-deed the only muniments of title affecting the registered ownership. As time passed on, the period before registration for which the earlier title would have to be investigated would be proportionably shortened, and, after about sixty years, it would rarely be requisite to investigate the earlier title. But that period might well be anticipated if the suggested NATIONAL WARRANTY OF TITLES were established. 66 “52. An insurance of titles is part of the scheme of at least one existing joint stock company; but the operations of any company must necessarily be limited by the amount of its capital, or of the value which landowners may be disposed to place on the security which it can effect. However respectable and responsible any number of title-insuring companies might be, it may be safely predicated that a general warranty of titles could only be effected by the nation. "53. The suggested warranty of titles has the advantage of precedent in its favour. Such a warranty has already been sanctioned by both Houses of Parliament, and is part of the law of the land. "54. See, for a precedent, the Act of 5 & 6 Vict. c. 94. ss. 5 to 15., both inclusive, by which a national warranty of lands sold by the principal officers of the Ordnance is established. "55. A parliamentary title,' such as is conferred under the Incumbered Estates Court in Ireland, is only a guarantee against claims existing at the time of the sale. The title to an estate bought in that court might, in the course of a few years, become so complicated as to require a second purification by being sold again in that Court. The suggested warranty would be free from that objection. "56. Without the proposed warranty, the suggested or any other scheme of registration would probably be found to be of such slight immediate value to landowners, as either to render Parliament comparatively indifferent to the passing of an Act to establish it, or to induce comparatively few to avail themselves of the prospective advantages held out by it. ❝57. With the proposed warranty, the certainty that the value of land would be enhanced to an owner by at least somewhere about the difference between the price paid by a purchaser and the net balance of it realised by the owner, after the deduction from it of his own and the purchaser's costs, would, it is probable, be a sufficient temptation to insure the adoption of the plan and its being acted on. "58. The cost of obtaining the warranty, irrespective of the premium, would be the cost of investigating the title once for all. The small premium suggested would perhaps be found more than need be charged. 59. The suggested mode of investigating the title on behalf of the registrar, is the mode which long experience points out as being sufficient for the protection of capitalists. A Court for the investigation of titles would not only be a novelty, but a costly novelty; and, after all, it would not afford any real additional security. When trustees lend money under the authority of the Court of Chancery, they do so, in the great majority of cases, on the opinion of a single conveyancing barrister. "60. There would, however, be cases where the person seeking the warranty disputed the accuracy of the opinion taken by the registrar. When this happened, the point in dispute might be submitted, as 'an A. B. case' for the sake of privacy, to a Court of Law or Equity. "61. It might be expedient that there should be separate indexes of warranted properties, and the owners of warranted properties; but this is a matter of mere detail, to be decided by the balance of convenience for or against multiplying the indexes. "62. It might be objected that the effect of the warranty would be to deprive persons, through the means of an ex-parte examination of the title to property in which they were interested, of their interests in the property, and to convert those interests into a right to a mere money compensation. "63. It must be granted that there would be a risk, notwithstanding all the suggested precautions, of some interests in the property, not discovered on the investigation of the title, being so far defeated: but that risk would not be a valid objection to the scheme. Under our present system of Real Property I.aw, where |