LAND TRANSFER ACT.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXV, Issue 3041, 3 September 1870, Page 9

LAND TRANSFER ACT.

&~- Posterity will wonder, that in so reforming an nge there should have existed up to the present time so much difficulty in conveying real property. A Rothschild may buy a million of three per cents, or a shipping company a whole fleet of ships with less expense' tli an Fanner Hodge can add ten acres to his farm. Nay more, poor Hodge may discover that after he has bought his land there is some legal flaw in bis title, which, if remediable at all, may take the price of his whole farm to rectify. The question naturally arises, how have the laws affecting real property come to differ so widely from those ailecting personalty ? The answer is not difficult. The land laws are founded on the principles and incidents of feudal tenure, now surviving only as legal fictions, and clogged with restrictions imposed subsequently, to prevent the lands falling into the hands of unscrupulous churchmen. They have not kept pace with the requirements of society, from fenr on the part of the landowners themselves, and partly, it must be admitted, from an interested professional opposition. The greater part of the mercantile law, on the other hand is comparatively modern, and has arisen, for the most part by, legal courts recognising and giving effect to usages arising from the transactions in daily business. With respect to real property, the law is chargeable with uncertainty, and, to use the epithet given to it by Bentham, incognoscibility. It was Lord Kenyon, we think, who advised a witness, confident of winning a suit, because his deeds were all in a box which he placed before the Bench, " You had hotter sit on the box and not open it." But not only is the law at fault, the procedure of the courts is tedious, vexatious, and expensive. The actual value of real property is thus diminished by two things, the difficulty in giving to the buyer complete confidence in his title, and the expense of the legal transfer, The owners

of property of course are the immediate sufferers. Yet strange it is, that at home, up till very recently, they resisted every effort to simplify the laws. Accustomed to numerous documents, proceeding from one another in a sort of Darwinian develop, ment, they could not conceive their property secured by a simple extract from a .Register. When a commission of eminent lawyers proposed a system of registration of contracts affecting land, the motion for adopting it, though introduced by Lord Campbell, was rejected in Parliament by so large a majority, that no effort was made till very recently to renew the attempt. Lord Westbury, however, after much opposition on the part of lawyers and landowners, succeeded in passing two acts, by which lands, houses, and estates, may be conveyed from vendors to purchasers by a simple deed of a few lines, and yet with perfect legality, certainty, and security. But these acts seem to have shared the same fate as similar acts in our own legislature. They are almost inoperative because of the complicated machinery they have created, and the high fees imposed under them by the Registrar-General. Lord St. Leonards emphatically declares that they are more objectionable than any preceding bill, as they " impose restrictions, duties and expenses upon the owners of land beyond anything previously attempted." In a letter (appended to his Handy Book on Property Law) dated 1863, he says "My advice to you is, not to entangle yourself in the meshes of the network of the Act, and I can assure you that I practise what I advise. I have not availed myself, nor do I intend to avail myself, of the privileges of the Acts, and yet I am as anxious as you can be to secure an indefeasible title to the properties which I possess." Yet will it be believed that this is the very Act referred to in Her Majesty's speech read by the Lord Chancellor, whose Bill it was, at the prorogation of Parliament in these words — " The Act for rendering more easy the transfer of land will add to the value of real property, will make titles more simple and secure, and will diminish the expense attending purchases and sales." If an Act made by one of the ablest Chancellors of England, lias so signally broken down in practice, our Government have shown a wise discretion in adopting in its integrity tho Torrens' Act, whose proved success after a twelve years' trial in the neighboring Colonies, has inspired a confidence which neither the Act of 1860, nor the Imperial Acts referred to, were able to command. We congratulate the colony on the prospect of this Act being put into force by the present Ministry. We have already shown that in this matter administration is at least no less important than legislation. The Premier and the Minister of Justice have long taken a great interest in this important question. In another column we give a history of the parentage of the Torrens' Act, and we only refer to it here as showing that one of the main causes of its success was its being put into force by its earnest minded author. A like success may safely be predicted for an Act whose leading principles were so clearly conceived by the Premier, and so ably advocated by the Minister of Justice, before the name of Torrens was ever heard in the matter. Had the advice given by Mr Fox in 1848, to the New Zealand Commissioners, contained in the despatch reprinted in our columns to-day, been acted upon, the owners of property in the colony would have been saved tens of thousands of pounds which have been spent in legal expenses, caused by litigation, which it would have prevented, and expense in deeds which it would have rendered unnecessary. To make land as easily transferable as stock, is one of the greatest boons that a new country can receive. Expensive transfers prohibit small purchases of land, and uncertainty in title discourages the expenditure of capital in its improvement. Immigrants will eagerly make for a country where land can be had so easily ; and capitalists will be induced to invest where the titles to their properties are so clear and inexpensive. The passing of this important measure is a further proof, if proof were wanting, that the real business of the country is receiving more attention from the Government and the House than in any previous Parliament. We repeat that for great measures the year 1870 is an Annus Mirattlis in the history of the colony ; and we are glad to see that, with one or two exceptions, the Press is ready to acknowledge it. One contemporary in the South sneeringly quoting our assertion, " the present session is the most potential for good," has been feebly echoed by one or two in the North. The policy of the Government seems too grand for them to comprehend, too patriotic for them to admire. Absorbed in petty questions and personalities, and incapable of rising above local influences, they seem neither to realise the usefulness nor the extent of the great economical reforms which the Ministry are unostentatiously conferring on the colony. It is gratifying, however, to add that these have been gracefully acknowledged at once by the leaders of the Opposition in the House, and by the most influential journals throughout the colony.