and he doubted not that it would be found a safe and valuable addition to legislation on a subject in reference to which every attempt at change must, at the best, bo experimental.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL intimated that he had no objection to the Motion, stating that there was no differ. ence in substance between the present measure and one introduced by the Lord Chancellor. He took the opportunity of adverting to a suggestion made in reference to the Bill last under consideration, and which applied likewise to the present Bill -namely, that it should be referred to a Select Committee. He was quite sure that that suggestion was made bond fide, without any view to obstruct the passing of the Bill; but his present impression was that the adoption of the measure in the existing Session was not likely to be attained by the course recommended. It was often convenient to send measures of inferior moment to a Select Committee; but with regard to a Bill dealing with a question of such great and general importance as that under consideration, a question which had been before the public for a series of years, and upon which it was desirable to legislate during the Session, he thought a Committee of the whole House would be much the more fitting tribunal. His hon. and learned Friends, he had no doubt, would feel it their bounden duty to give that close attendance upon a Select Committee which would be requisite, though great sacrifices would thereby be entailed upon them; but, all things considered, he believed the gravity and importance of the subject would be better. consulted by considering the Bill in Committee of the Whole House.

SIR HUGH CAIRNS said, the Bill was an admirable one; the only point in which it failed was in making the Court of Chancery the medium through which the declaration of title was to be obtained. The Judges of the court would certainly not be able to undertake the duty; and if it were left to conveyancers employed by them, the weight attaching to the authority of the court would no longer exist. Before the next stage of the Bill, he hoped the Government would reconsider their decision in reference to a Select Committee. Only one or two of the principal points had yet been pointed out, but at the proper time he would be able to show that in every clause of the Bill there was ample ground for referring it to a Select Com

mittee, and to a Select Committee alone. His hon. and learned Friend had spoken of the gravity and importance of the subject requiring it to be discussed in a Select Committee; but not an hour previously, at the very crisis of the debate on this Bill, it was only by the exertions of the hon. Member for Lewes (Mr. Brand), whose energy was worthy of all praise, that the exact number of Members requisite to constitute a House could be brought together, and two-thirds of those had not heard any part of the previous discussion. He did not believe that the consideration of the Bill in Committee of the Whole House would save any time; on the contrary, he felt disposed to think that it would take up more days if that course were followed than it would if it were sent to a Select Committee.

MR. VINCENT SCULLY said, the Bill was not fairly open to many of the objections made. It was not intended for the register of assurances, nor yet for the registration of titles. It was simply a Bill constituting the Court of Chancery the Encumbered Estates Court for England; though seeing that three judges were required to do the work in Ireland, at least a dozen Lord Chancellors would be requisite in England.

Some of the clauses were borrowed from the Bill which he himself brought in, and which was read a second time in 1853.

Bill read 2o, and committed for Monday 16th June.

SECURITY OF PURCHASERS BILL.

[BILL NO. 103.] SECOND READING. Order for Second Reading read. MR. ROLT said, he rose to move the second reading of the Bill. Its object might be shortly stated. It enabled evidence of the clear and indefeasible title of any landowner to be perpetuated without a register. The Bill proposed that any owner who had obtained a declaration of title should be at liberty to endorse his purchase deed on the certificate of title, and so every succeeding purchaser would be entitled to endorse his title on the conveyance of his grantor, and thus by a series of endorsements every dealing with the land would be shown. The Bill also provided that no deed not memorialized should be of any validity against a purchaser for value. The only difficulty would be as to the means of getting access to the deeds for the purpose of endorsing the memorial

dependent on thirteen conditions, and quoted the opinion of the Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench in Ireland in favour of some legislation being absolutely necessary. Mr. Lane observed

"The importance of the communication made by the Chief Justice could scarcely be overrated, when it was known that out of 34,000 memorials, not taken consecutively, 1,100 were open to objection, and in an earlier part of the registry no error or omission which could be made, had not been made to render the registration nugatory." It was proposed by the Bill to declare valid, notwithstanding formal defects, all memorials hitherto registered except those which had been acted upon either judicially or privately as being invalid, to repeal all Acts which required these formal requisites, to substitute the execution of deeds with one attesting witness, and to leave all other matters to be governed by general orders of the Landed Estates Court, under the superintendence of which in future the registry would be kept. The next important point was connected with the principles upon which the registry was to be kept. It was the original intention of the statute of Queen Anne, and of all legislation upon the subject, that nothing should be registered except with reference to some particular lands which were bound or affected by the instrument. But the practice of registering deeds, which did not refer to particular lands, obtained, and it became necessary to keep a names-index without any reference to lands, and a lands-index which might or might not correspond accurately with the names-index. The consequence was that both indexes had to be searched, in some cases as far back as 100 years, and in twenty or thirty names, to see whether any memorial had been registered which affected the title. There was abundance of evidence to show that searches occupied a great deal of time and were very costly. This was partly owing to the omission to specify the particular lands in question in the register. The Act of George IV. required that that should be done, but the Act of 1832, by an ambiguity of wording, did away with the provision. Another great inconvenience was that at present there were no means of concentrating the search by referring to any one head under which would be found the lands of which the particulars were required. The denominations were exceedingly numerous, and, as some were in English and some in old Irish, the confusion was bewildering. The Commis

sion of 1854 reported that in their opinion the register of deeds, the Ordnance Survey, and the Encumbered Estates Court afforded the means of establishing an improved system of registration. The value and unexceptional accuracy; and Ordnance Survey was a work of great there was a general impression among those who had investigated the question that it ought to be made the basis of the register. Persons bringing memorials to be registered should be required to identify on the Ordnance map the particular locality to which the deeds referred. The next question was what division of lands should be adopted. After careful consideration, it had been decided that town lands, being the lowest unit of a known and fixed denomination on those maps, should be the basis of registration. The town lands were of unequal extent, varying from 12 to 7,000 acres, and averaging about 330 acres, the larger townlands being in the waste and mountain districts, and the smaller ones in the neighbourhood of towns. There were 63,000 of them, and the boundaries were most correctly laid down on the Ordnance maps. The only objection was that the names of towns on the map sometimes differed from the names which were used by the proprietors; but as that would not prevent them from being identified on the map, it did not matter. Baronies and parishes, on the other hand, were too large and unwieldy to serve the purpose. To recapitulate the main provisions of the Bill, it was proposed to abolish all the forms hitherto prescribed by Act of Parliament in the office, to simplify the form of memorial, and to place the regulation of the office under the Landed Estates Court, which, being a court occupied in the superintendence of the conveyancing of landed titles, most naturally would attract to itself the superintendence of a registry so intimately connected with its own operations. It was further proposed to validate existing memorials, however defective, unless they had been acted on as invalid; not to allow charges to be registered in the names-index only without a relative register in the lands-index; and to require that particular charges should be specified with respect to each of the deeds registered and with reference to the townland upon the Ordnance map, so that they might be registered in the name of every townland, and all subsequent dealings with respect to lands would appear col

a measure should pass without being subjected to the most minute examination. They were, moreover, wholly without reliable information on the subject. It was true they had the Reports of two Select Committees, but the evidence on which those Reports had been framed they had had no opportunity of examining or sifting. The provisions as to negative search and those requiring the specification in every registry of the town lands to which it referred, and giving to the Landed Estates Court power to prescribe the forms to be used, would require the most careful consideration. As the Bill stood it would, in regard to the effect of the certificates and other matters, occasion rather than prevent litigation. The index, which would be in fact the register, ought to be prescribed distinctly by the Act, and it was idle to ask the House to enter upon such a question at the length and in the detail required. He objected to confounding together the declaration of title and the registrations of the land, or leaving the two things in the hands of the same officer.

lected in the registry. It was also proposed to take those provisions of the Bill of 1850 which contemplated objects most useful in connection with the Encumbered Estates Court, namely, that the register should be good although there might be notice of an unregistered deed; and that all instruments affecting titles, such as bankruptcy decrees and orders of courts, should be memoralized on the register. Lastly, it was proposed that the register should be placed under the Encumbered Estates Court, and that all other forms of enrolment should be rendered unnecessary. He hoped the hon. Gentlemen connected with Ireland would give the Government every assistance, so as to ensure the passing of the Bill this Session; and he would deprecate the proposal that it should be referred to a Select Committee. The Bill had been carefully prepared by the officers of the Government in Ireland; and with a view to its being passed this Session he should deprecate a proposal, which he believed would be made, that it should be referred to a Select Committee. As he had said, it embodied some of the provisions that were approved by the House in 1850; and where it did not do so, it rather rested upon broad principles of which the House was a competent judge, than upon any narrow points of detail which would require jealous investigation. He thought the Bill would be found to be very useful; and legislation upon the subject was extremely necessary. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."

MR. HASSARD said, it was true that they had a registry in Ireland for 150 years, and they were anxious to make it as perfect as possible. They had not to find fault with it on principle, but in respect to matters of detail, the forms having become antiquated and incapable of being worked. He quite concurred in the necessity of some measure of the kind, but he hoped that the House would consent to refer the Bill to a Select Committee. The speech of the hon. and learned Member who had just addressed them was the best argument in favour of that course; for he was sure that no hon. Member who was not fully acquainted with the law relating to land in Ireland could possibly have followed the hon. and learned Gentleman in his observations, and the Solicitors' Society of Ireland had, after careful consideration, come to the conclusion that it was most dangerous that such

SIR EDWARD GROGAN said, he would admit that some legislation on the subject was indispensably necessary. The body of solicitors in Ireland, however, strongly objected to certain provisions of the Bill, but especially with regard to the omission as to negative search. He had no wish to throw difficulties in the way of the second reading; but he suggested that a Committee of the Whole House was the proper authority to enact rules and regulations upon the matters embraced in the Bill.

MR. MORE O'FERRALL said, there was a disposition on all hands to give a fair consideration to the Bill; but its complicated details could not be discussed by that House.

MR. GEORGE said, he objected to any summary disposal of a Bill which proposed at one fell swoop to do away with Acts of Parliament from Queen Anne down to the present time, and to alter a system which on the whole had given great satisfaction in Ireland.

At the same time, a large arrear of business had evidently accumulated, and it was necessary to expedite in some way the business of the office. He did not see why the Landed Estates Court should be selected for the registration of all estates; and the better course, he thought, would be to send the Bill to a Select Committee, in order to ascertain the best mode of dealing with the whole question.