the register constituted by it closed, and a fresh certificate issued to, and a fresh folium opened for the transferee. If the "fee" or "life estate," in part only of the land included in a surrendered certificate be transferred, a fresh certificate is issued to, and a fresh folium opened for the transferor, for the portion retained by him. This, however, may be postponed in contemplation of further sales; in which case the original certificate is marked as cancelled in respect to the portion transferred, and the original folium is held open for recording future dealings. Memorials of leases and charges, if any, current and affecting the land, are carried forward on each fresh certificate issued and fresh folium opened.

Entail.-Entails are effected by a similar procedure, the registered proprietor executing a form of transfer to himself or any other person for life, with reversion to others in succession, with or without powers of appointment, and with remainder over as he may prescribe. In such case the existing certificate of title of the land is cancelled, the register folium closed, a fresh folium opened, and a fresh certificate issued for a life estate. Upon the death of the tenant for life this must be surrendered, and a fresh certificate issued to the next reversioner for the estate to which he succeeds in accordance with the terms of the instrument of transfer, executed by the original settlor, as will more fully appear when we come to treat of transmissions.

Settlements and Trusts.-No notice of trusts can be entered on the register; but a proprietor desiring to settle his estate, through the instrumentality of trustees, may transfer his estate to one or more persons by the procedure above described, and then deposit in the registry, for safe custody and reference, any instrument declaratory of trusts executed by the transferees, and by caveat prohibit the registration of any dealing, except in accordance therewith, or with the sanction of the Supreme Court. He may also direct the words "no survivorship" to be entered on the certificate of title, the effect of which will be, that without the sanction of the Supreme Court no dealing with the property can take place until any vacancy occasioned by death or otherwise in the original number of trustees has been filled up. Persons beneficially interested in any settled estate may, in like manner, by caveat, bar the registration of any dealing therewith, either absolutely or until after notice for a time specified has been lodged at an address given.

The cost of transferring the fee, or a life estate, including certificate of title, is but 30s.; the cost of transferring a mortgage or a leasehold interest, is but 5s.

The procedure above described has been found adequate to meet every requirement, without, in any appreciable degree, curtailing the freedom of action heretofore enjoyed by proprietors. The facilities for settling or charging estates without the intervention of trustees as described above, and under the head of charges, has, moreover, tended greatly to diminish the number of estates vested in trust.

Transmissions.-No interference with existing law, relating to the transmission of property upon "insolvency," "will," or " intestacy," is attempted. These events, and also the marriage of female proprietors, are merely required to be authenticated to the Registrar in order that he may be enabled to recognise the parties entitled to deal, and the procedure prescribed will be found equally applicable under any future modification of the laws of "inheritance," or "insolvency."

Loss of Instruments.-As under this system the register constitutes the title, the loss of instruments evidencing the registration is comparatively of little moment, and fresh or substituted instruments can be obtained at a trifling cost.

Official Mechanism.-We have already described the "Register Book," also the various forms of instruments which constitute the authority on which titles are registered when dealings take place. These instruments, when registered, are endorsed with the folium of the register, constituted by the certificate of title of the land, where the memorials of them will be found entered in the order of their registration. They are then numbered in consecutive series; one original of each is handed to the party whose title is evidenced thereby, the other is filed in the Registry Office. A journal is also kept for recording the day and hour on which each transaction is registered, with a reference to the instrument by number and symbol, and to the folium of the register where it is memorialised. Under this method accumulation of instruments with voluminous indexes, the fatal objection to other systems, is avoided, as each separate estate or interest in each parcel of land is represented, so long as it exists, by one instrument only, and as each instrument necessarily discloses the nature of the property held by the proprietor, with all that a party dealing can require to know, search is unnecessary, except to ascertain the non-existence of caveats; and even this is accomplished without reference to any index, as each instrument indicates the folium where the history of the title is recorded.

The system of registration is metropolitan. Under it a vendor meeting his purchaser, or a mortgagor meeting his mortgagee at York, would procure the prescribed form of contract at the nearest stationer's, fill it in and sign it in presence of a notary. The purchaser or mortgagee would see the exact state of the title upon the inspection of the certificate, and having ascertained by telegram that there were no caveats prohibiting the dealing, might, with perfect safety, pay over the stipulated sum in exchange for the contract of transfer, or of charge together with the certificate of title, which he would forward through the post to the capital for registration, with a Post Office order for the fees, and receive back the instruments endorsed, with certificate of registration. In such case, the sole advantage of "district" over "central" registration, appears to be represented in the cost of postage and telegrams.

As this central registration works satisfactorily in the widely

scattered population of Australia, there can be no doubt of its success in this country, where the facilities of communication are so superior.

Beneficial Results.-The procedure is so simple and ready of accomplishment that parties dealing for the most part transact their own business. A saving of nineteen shillings in the pound sterling has been effected in the cost of conveyancing. The wealth of the community has been increased by restoring to its intrinsic value, as building sites, land, which, deprived of that special character by imperfect evidence and technical defects in title, lay waste and unprofitable. The value of land as a basis of credit has been raised by the extraordinary facility and security with which equitable mortgages and registered charges are effected, and the ease and rapidity with which the title may be transferred from hand to hand. Through the simplification of titles, so that each freeholder stands in the same position as a grantee direct from the Crown, the risk of chancery suits have been reduced to a minimum, and a ready and inexpensive procedure in foreclosure and ejectment has been obtained. Frauds, such as those which recently occupied so much public attention in the case of Roupell, are rendered all but impossible.

Low as the charges may appear they already suffice to cover the expenses of the system. In Queensland it has entirely superseded the old process of conveyancing.

In South Australia the value of the land brought under its operation amounts to two millions and a half sterling. The amount of mortgages secured thereon is over three-fourths of a million. The number of voluntary applications to place land under its operation has reached four thousand, and the total number of transactions completed nine thousand five hundred.

In New South Wales and Tasmania, where the system has been more recently introduced, the results are equally satisfactory. In the former colony during the first six months 251 separate properties valued at £228,250 were brought under it.

In Tasmania, the Attorney-General addressing the House of Assembly with reference to this system, is reported in the Hobartown Mercury as follows:-" Applications almost innumerable had been sent in. In a word the Act was in a fair way of becoming the universal law of property." The advertisements of capitalists and loan societies in the colonial papers intimate, some that preference will be given to securities where the title is under the Torrens system, others that no advances will be made except on titles under that system. But perhaps the most conclusive evidence of the success of this measure is afforded in the enthusiastic expressions of satisfaction offered by those who live under it, in the shape of public demonstrations and addresses, and by the thanks of the Colonial Parliament.

Application of the System to Ireland and Scotland.-Unable to perceive any serious difficulty to interfere with the introduction of this system into this country or into Ireland, I have drafted a bill with that object. I have heard it argued that the success of this

measure in Australia affords no guarantee that like success would attend its application to this country, where the complication arising from different tenures, old settlements, and dealings extending over a period of forty years and upwards have to be encountered. I must here observe that although there appears nothing unreasonable in the assumption that titles which date back no farther than twenty years, must be free from the perplexities which involve English titles, such assumption is nevertheless entirely erroneous.

Settlements and entails are, it is true, comparatively unusual in Australia, but owing greatly to the more frequent dealings which obtain in new countries, and partly to the inferior skill of our conveyancers, complications and uncertainties no less grievous than those with which the English landowner is oppressed have, in the short space of a quarter of a century, been imposed upon our free tenures and originally clear titles by Crown grant.

The whole of the difficulties lie in the first placing of land upon the register with safety to the rights of all the parties who can, by possibility, be interested, and those difficulties have, with signal success, been encountered and overcome by the Estates Court, Ireland; which, I will here remark, appears to me an institution better adapted for the habits and circumstances of this country than the Australian Lands Titles Commission. In the bill referred to I propose to delegate to the Estates Court all the functions exercised by the Australian Lands Titles Commission, both as regards the first placing of lands upon the register, and also the registering parties upon transmission of estates by will or upon intestacy; the subsequent dealings by registration of titles being confided to a department subordinate to that court.

Lord Curriehill has kindly drawn my attention to certain peculiarities in Scotch tenures which appear to him prior to explanation to impose difficulties in the way of applying this system to Scotland. In so far as the superior holds any real beneficial interest in the lands, such interest would be protected when bringing such land under the system on the application of his vassal by reservation of the quit rent, mineral rights or heriots to the superior, but so far as regards mere ceremonial usages handed down from feudal times, the occasion of which has passed away, and which now have no utility, but, on the contrary, simply impede the transfer of land, the perpetuation of such ceremonials would clearly be inconsistent with the object contemplated by this measure. The same observations apply to the case of the mid-superior. The other remarks of

his Lordship respecting indefeasibility of title, power to entail, sufficiency of notices to parties interested in adjacent lands, and accumulation of documents, I have, I believe, sufficiently answered when explaining the procedure in placing land on the register, and subsequently dealing with it under the Irish Estates Court and the Australian systems.

As I before remarked, the title being once placed on this register, all difficulty is at an end-the holder of land by declaration of title

from the Estates Court being, as regards transfers and other dealings, in the same position to all intents as the holder of land under certificate of title from the Australian Commission, or under a grant direct from the Crown.

Conclusive evidence that this system is suitable for the requirements of old established countries is afforded in the fact that it has been in operation for over 600 years, in Hamburg, Frankfort, and other Hanse towns, and also with slight modification in Bavaria and in Prussia for over 100 years-affording the utmost security, facility, and economy in dealing, and regarded with the highest satisfaction by the people of these countries.

By

The Recent Statistics of Bankruptcy in Scotland.* GEORGE AULDJO ESSON, Accountant in Bankruptcy in Scotland.

I HAVE been requested to communicate to the Association the leading Statistics of Bankruptcy in Scotland, applicable to the period subsequent to 1856, when the Bankruptcy Amendment Act was passed. My official position affords me facilities for making this communication; and I readily accede to the request, because I am desirous of giving the Association, and, through them, the public, full access to the results of the operation of the amended law of bankruptcy in this part of the United Kingdom. It is a well-recognised fact that the social welfare of the community, especially the mercantile community, is affected, to an important extent, by the operation of the law of bankruptcy. This portion of the judicial statistics of the country cannot fail, therefore, to be of interest to those who seek to promote the great objects of the Association.

No steps have hitherto been taken in Scotland for arranging and publishing the Judicial Statistics in a complete system. It has recently been proposed that this should be done; and the proposal will probably form matter for consideration at the present meeting. In the absence of an official publication of the Statistics in Bankruptcy, it shall be my endeavour to record in this Paper, and in the Tables appended to it, the results which I consider most important and interesting.

At the meeting of the Association held in Glasgow, in 1860, I had the honour of reading a Paper on "The Expenses in Bankruptcy." The amended law had only come into operation in the end of the year 1856; and my field of observation under the new law was not then very extensive. A period of seven years has now nearly elapsed since the law was amended, and the effects of the amendment can now be better ascertained than when I last addressed myself to the subject.

For the whole subject of Bankruptcy, see Transactions Vol. 1857, pp. 103111; Vol. 1858, pp. 135, 186, 191; Vol. 1859, pp. 206, 259-268; Vol. 1860, pp. 167-217; Vol. 1861, pp. 227, 247-249.