coming upon the nations, and has yet far from attained its final development; his busy retirement, with the frustration of his earthly hopes, and his heart-broken and desolate old age, attended with all his glowing interest in the business of mankind, and all the overpowering brilliancy and matchless vigour of his gigantic intellect to the last-may, I believe, form together a noble and instructive spectacle, equal, if not superior in interest, to any that his career has yet displayed. Having endeavoured to follow him faithfully through the great historical scenes which have already been passed in review, I pause at the natural termination of the period with the death of Lord Rockingham, and the close of the American war. I hope, however, soon to resume the task, in itself no ungrateful labour, and reverently to accompany Burke to that last sad hour, when, amid the convulsive throes of agonized Europe, he bade to all human affairs a loving, anxious, and eternal farewell."-Vol. II., pp. 555-6.

Such is the conclusion of the present volumes of Mr. Macknight's work, and such the announcement of what we are to expect in that part which still remains untold by him of the life of Burke. We are anxious to part from Mr. Macknight on good terms; but we must confess that we do not look forward, in a very sanguine mood, to the history of the concluding years of Burke, written on the principle which his biographer has avowedly adopted. It is true, as he states, that the labours of Burke, which he has yet to narrate, require "impartial treatment;" but such treatment we are not inclined to expect that those labours will receive at the hands of Mr. Macknight. What we expect is, a zealous attempt to vindicate all that Burke did and said with reference to the memorable events amidst which the latter portion of his life was passed; and an unfair treatment of those who were the objects of his hostility, or who even differed from him in opinion. All the faults which we have pointed out in the part of the work now before us, are too likely to appear in an aggravated form in that portion which is still to come. Mr. Macknight has enough of ingenuity to make out a case in favour of Burke, and to give a plausible colour to his eccentricities. But in so doing, we are firmly convinced he will be unfaithful to the cause of truth, and will fail to render his work as instructive as it

Title Books versus Title Deeds, &c.

67

MICHIGAN

might otherwise be. Nor is it a small evil that, having brought so much ability and knowledge to his task, he will have foreclosed the subject against any other writer who might be inclined to treat it in a more judicious and profitable manner. If these expectations, however, should prove unfounded-if the proceedings and views of Burke, which are considered questionable by many of his strongest admirers, should be fairly examined-if the impeachment of Hastings should be candidly discussed-if the real advantages of the French Revolution should be impartially weighed-and, above all, if men who acted an independent and honourable part should be treated with becoming respect, we shall be compelled to speak in still higher terms, and with still fewer qualifications, of the concluding portion of Mr. Macknight's work, than of the volumes which we have now introduced to our readers.

ART. IV.-TITLE-BOOKS versus TITLE-DEEDS;

OR,

PUBLIC REGISTRATION OF TITLES SUPERSEDED.

A GREAT cry has been raised for Law-reform generally, and

for the reform of the law relating to real property and its transfer in particular. This cry has become too universal to be passed unheeded by. An elaborate Report has been recently made by the eminent and learned commissioners appointed to consider the subject of registration of title with reference to the sale and transfer of land; much interest has been taken in such Report, and considerable discussion has arisen upon the suggestions it contains. Indeed, there is no class unaffected by the questions mooted in that Report, from the highest to the lowest, -from the noble owner of the baronial hall of his forefathers, with its far-extending and luxurious estates,

"With shadowy forests, and with champains rich'd,
With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,"

down, through every grade, to the humble artisan, who, by means of his weekly subscription to the local building society, of a few shillings out of his toil-earned wages, erects a little dwelling for himself,

"And, woudering man could want the larger pile,

Exults and owns his cottage with a smile.’

All, all are interested in the preservation of the existing right of the English landowner to do what he will with his own,-in the securing the enjoyment of every estate, according to the owners disposition of it; in the reduction to a minimum of the expense and trouble attending the transfer of estates, so far as this can be done consistently with those rights and that security; and, in a decision of the question, whether or not it is necessary or expedient that the private affairs and pecuniary necessities of every landowner and every houseowner should be publicly recorded and made common stock to feed the idle curiosity of his neighbours and the public. As such is the interest of every class, so it is the positive duty of every lawyer and legislator to examine and consider for himself, fully and carefully, the plans of registration suggested, before allowing any one of them to become law; and to weigh well the advantages and disadvantages of each system proposed, and to be satisfied that the former must largely and inevitably preponderate over the latter, before assenting to the introduction of such system.

The governing principle in every great measure of law-reform should be that of effecting the greatest possible amount of sound improvement, by the simplest means, and with the least violation of established rights. Most persons, however, who have thought upon the subject, probably agree that the advantages derivable from the scheme of public registration of titles, recommended by those of the commissioners who concurred in the Report just referred to, will not adequately compensate for the complication and confusion of titles, the new and extensive restrictions upon the present powers and modes of limitation of estates, and the other evils which must inevitably attend the carrying out, or attempted carrying out, of such scheme.

The proposition of the commissioners involves at the outset

this conclusion, that we have arrived at such a stage of moral retrogression that it is necessary to proclaim, by legislative enactment, that there is so little honour or honesty to be found in an Englishman, an English landowner, that he cannot be longer intrusted with the custody of the evider ce of title to his own. domain. But have we arrived at this stage yet? Surely not. At any rate, every other available means for reforming and simplifying the transfer of real property, and rendering titles secure, should be exhausted, before resorting to a measure carrying with it such a conclusion. That such means have not been exhausted yet, scarcely admits of a doubt; and had the powerful inventive faculties of the lawyers been directed, as long and as keenly, to the devising methods for the simplification of real property-law, untrammelled by the preconceived notions of public registration, as such faculties have been to the devising methods for working out impracticable schemes for such registration, some more satisfactory result must, we think, have been arrived at ere this. For many years past, as soon as any well-meaning reformer has set himself down to study means for the improvement of real property-law, he has inevitably stumbled upon the great but untried registration plans of those who have gone before him, and had his ideas so taken up with public registration, as never afterwards to be able either to think unbiassed by it, or to reduce it into a practicable measure. The fallacy with the commissioners, and with law-reformers generally, has been the too readily admitting the assumption, that real property law-reform means registration, and that registration must mean public registration. The commissioners were, it is true, appointed to consider the subject of registration, and from the circumstances under which they were appointed, it was only natural that they should conclude that the registration referred to them was public registration; they, therefore, very fully considered and reported upon two extremes-the present system of secret title-deeds, and the proposed systems of public registration. It is to be regretted, however, that more attention was not bestowed upon the question, whether an intermediate system might not be introduced with advantage and worked with effect?

The plan we have to suggest has for its object the keeping

within these two extremes; and, considering the eminence, talent, and learning of the noblemen and gentlemen who have already, at different times, directed their attention to the question of conveyancing reform, and the industry and care they have bestowed upon the subject without satisfactory result, it may be presumptuous for us to hope for better success. If, however, we should only succeed in suggesting a new and hitherto unworked channel for the minds of those more competent to the task, some good may possibly result from our labours.

In considering the relative values of different plans for registration, it is necessary to keep distinctly in view, the difference between those alterations or improvements which belong to the particular plan of registry itself, and those alterations of the general law which are common to, or admit of being engrafted upon, every plan of registry. Without this consideration many of the advantages claimed by the commissioners for their scheme will appear to belong to the registration part of it, but which in fact may be as readily effected by alterations of the present law without any registration at all; for instance, the public registration of the ownership of the fee simple in land is not necessarily connected with the abolition of tenancies in common, the virtual repeal of the statute of uses, the reconversion of all uses into trusts, or the vesting in the holder of the legal estate, power to sell and give a discharge for the purchase-money, recommended by the Report.

1

In sec. 4 of the Report, it is shewn that repeated attempts have been made to introduce public registration, from the time of James the First to the present time; and that upwards of twenty bills have, within the course of the last twenty years, been brought into Parliament for the purpose of establishing systems of registration, without success. In sec. 5, these failures are attributed to the practical difficulties inherent in, or likely to result from, a system of registration of assurances; and the commissioners infer, "that the fear that such a system would be productive of evils as great, or nearly as great, as those against which it was intended to provide, was probably the main reason which induced the select committee of the House of Commons, in 1853, to pause." When, then, it is considered that, in addition to