i'a%C.pJ"6f&rti6n *o< thp ;; cosß o?.t%"fe» simple^ and.if hi tfUjtfs :t?> 'btfrrow

money to complete Mb home, the fees for the mort gage and the release greatly aggravate the rate of interest. Mr. Torbeks, in South Australia, and Mr. Kei> IV, in Auckland, both profess to have anticipated >the recommendations contained in the report of, the commissioners appointed by Her Majesty to investigate the question of land transfer. The former avowedly constructed his scheme as amere adaptation of the laws relating to the sale of ship ping ; the latter claims to have gradually wrought out his system during six years' official practice as a colonial registrar of deeds. They both agree in substituting a register of letters for a register of deeds, in which respect they agree also with the recommendations of the Royal Commission. And by universal consent this seems to be the only di rection in which reform is possible. Every sys tem of registration of deeds breaks down with its own weight, and it is impossible to keep down the complexities and ambiguities that arise. The ad vantage of the substituted plan is, that it pre serves perpetually the pristine simplicity and soundness 6f the original title, and prevents that overgrowth of legal weeds under which the ques sion of ownership is too often concealed. The principal objection urged against it is, that it ia not competent to provide for some of the refine ments in the way^of settlements and encumbran ces that solicitors occasionally delight in, and that often grow out of the testamentary dispositions of property. But even supposing this accusation against tbe new system to be true, it is undenia ble that a registration of title provides effectively for the immense majority of ordinary cases of conveyance, mortgage, lease, and testamentary disposition, and it is therefore suited to the gene ral purposes of the community. And if it should be found difficult, or even impossible, to bring ex tremely complicated settlements under similar ar rangements, it would be better for the public at large that such isolated cases should be unprovi ded for, rather than that all should be heavily taxed by the retention of ponderous and irksome laws. But there is no sufficient ground for pre suming that the system of registration of title can not be made sufficiently elastic to provide for all contingencies. 