2 THE SOLICITORS' JOURNAL & REPORTER. Jan. 3, 1857.
those who have the means of judging of them. In advancement of this object, it will be our duty to point out, from time to time, what has been done and is now doing by solicitors to amend our laws and the procedure of our courts. We shall show that while solicitors have opposed crude projects of law reform, their resistance has been grounded on true principles and not upon a short-sighted estimate of their own interests, as has been sometimes imputed to them. And we shall also show, that where judicious changes in the law have been at length effected, the movement has either been originated or materially assisted by that practical knowledge of the working of legal machinery which is the peculiar province of the solicitor. We shall urge upon parents who destine their children for solicitors, to take care that they prepare them for learning aright their professional duties by a good and complete preliminary education before clerkship. The solicitor often becomes in the course of business the confidential friend of men of the highest mental culture and refinement, and therefore he should be fitted by education to be a worthy depository of their confidence. And if the solicitor hopes to claim successfully a share of the higher honours and rewards that await the lawyer, he must ground his claim upon his professional attainments, and these upon a previous training of longer duration and wider scope than he has hitherto, in general, received.
That which is for the general good is best for individuals and classes, and the interest of the client is the same thing as the interest of the lawyer of every grade. By this principle we propose to try all questions, and, we believe that, if fairly applied, it will suffice for their solution. And if, in time, we can convince the public that this is the rule which guides our efforts, we shall be sure of obtaining for the body we undertake to represent, a fair and impartial investigation of whatever claims it may have to urge. It must always be remembered that the duty of this Journal is not only to convince solicitors that their demands are just, but to convince the world at large, and this we can only hope to do by establishing a reputation for full and free inquiry, for fair and unbiassed judgment, and frank uncompromising declaration of the conclusions at which we have arrived. And, lastly, let us repeat as distinctly as we can, that this Journal will study to represent solicitors generally, whether in town or country, and it will look to the profession everywhere for aid as extensive as the objects it proposes to attain. We confidently appeal to all provincial law societies, and to all solicitors individually, for that sympathy and co-operation with our Journal which will be the surest guarantee for its success.
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AMONG the projects of law reform which the new Attorney-General has pledged himself to introduce in the next session, is a comprehensive scheme of registration. If we were to expect only a repetition of the attempts which have been made and defeated over and over again during the last quarter of a century, we should not think the probabilities of success, or the value of the proposed change, sufficient to deserve any very lengthened consideration. The truth is, that the history of the various schemes which have been devised for the purpose of establishing a general registry of all assurances affecting land, proves only the extreme
difficulty—we might almost say the utter impractibility—of framing a working system, and the insignificance of the benefits to be derived from it when compared with the certain addition to the trouble and expense of investigating titles, which it would inevitably involve. But the movement has now entered upon an entirely new phase, and one which invites the special attention of all who are concerned in the intricate business of conducting the transfer of real estate. From the elaborate scheme propounded twenty-five years ago by that eminent conveyancer Mr. Duval, down to the last registration bill which was introduced by the present Lord Chancellor, every project which has been brought forward has been founded on the notion of having a complete registry, either central or local, of every deed by which property in land may be affected. If the mere mechanical and practical difficulties could be got over, the result of such legislation as has been proposed would be to load every abstract with a multitude of instruments which, when they have done their office, are on the present system kept off the face of the title. Once on the register a deed would be there for ever, and a purchaser would be compelled to investigate a long series of transactions for no other purpose than to see that they have ultimately produced no effect on the title to the land which he intends to purchase. It is not only in this way that the cost of conveyancing business would be increased, for on every purchase, however small in amount, there would be incurred the extra expense attending the act of registration, including, probably, the cost of a journey by a professional man either to London or, at least, to the central county register office, if a local system should be adopted. A further inconvenience of a serious kind would be felt in the publicity given to equitable mortgages, and in the necessity of a formal assurance in the place of the mere deposit of deeds with or without an accompanying memorandum by which loans to an enormous amount are now cheaply and expeditiously effected, without any revelation of the transactions to the curiosity of the world at large. The solitary advantages to be set against these serious evils is the additional security which would be afforded against one species of fraud—the suppression of deeds—which, as Lord St. Leonards, Mr. Jarman, and other men of the largest experience have testified, is of the rarest possible occurrence. These considerations are sufficient to show that the registration of assurances, if superadded to our present system of conveyancing, would have the effect of largely increasing the expense which even now seriously impedes the free transfer of real property, without affording any adequate advantage in return.
But this is by no means the only objection to such bills as that of Lord Cranworth in 1853. They are not only of very questionable utility, but they would be found impossible to work. It is true that we have partial registries at present, but these are acknowledged to be insufficient for the purposes contemplated by the advocates of a general registration of deeds, and no detailed scheme has ever been devised by which those purposes could be effectually attained. Indexing may be thought to be simple though laborious work, but a moment's consideration of the requisites of an index of assurances will show how vast are the difficulties which it presents. Let it be supposed, by way of example, that an estate was originally vested in A, that by his will he left it among his sons, B, C, and D for life, with remainders over to their children, and that he charged it with portions for his daughters E, F, and G. Each of the sons may make a new disposition of his interest on marriage, or may raise money upon it by a series of mortgages, or suffer judgments, or become bankrupt, and by every such step will introduce a new set of legal or equitable claimants on the estate. In this way we may soon run through a whole alphabet of names, all of
