Admitting freely that there are in this country some titles so defectively evidenced that it would be unsafe to place them on the register as indefeasible, I must remark that titles of the like character are by no means unknown in the colonies, and here as there they must be left to be cleared by efflux of time under the Statute of Limitations.[1] Such titles are admittedly rare and exceptional, and their existence is no argument against, but on the contrary a cogent reason in favour of, applying to the great mass of good holding titles a system which will guarantee them against ever falling into the like predicament. The conveyance or declaration of title issued by the Estates Court, and by the Church Commissioners in Ireland, together with the titles issued by the Copyhold Commissioners in England, and the parliamentary and judicial titles in both countries, place a considerable portion of the lands of the United Kingdom, to all intents, for the purpose of applying to them immediately the system of conveyancing by registration of titles, on all fours with Crown grants in the colonies.
Again, the comparative unfrequency of settlements and entails in the colonies is persistently dwelt upon, as evidencing that the system of conveyancing which works so beneficially in those countries cannot be successful in this country. The Parliamentary Committee in their report pronounce registration of titles to be "impossible in this country, unless an Act of Parliament be first passed prohibiting the owner of property from tying it up, or charging it, or dealing with it as his own;" and the learned chairman of that committee (Mr. Osborne Morgan) in an article in the Fortnightly Review, puts his argument thus: "Settlements are rare, entails unknown, and the devolution of title following upon the
- ↑ "The Real Property Limitation Act, 1874," shortens very considerably the time within which actions for the recovery of land or rent must be brought. Thus proceedings which must formerly have been commenced within twenty years must now be taken with.in twelve years, or the claim is effectually barred.
