{COMMONS} House that it was an invariable rule of their Lordships not to sit on that day. RED SEA AND INDIA TELEGRAPH THIRD READING PUT off. Order of the Day for the Third Reading read. THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN objected to a measure which proposed to sanction an agreement that was not set forth. In Bills of this kind, involving large sums of money, the agreement should be included in a schedule. THE DUKE OF ARGYLL said, that the agreement with the new Company had been laid before Parliament, and had been some months before the House. The Bill was not for the purpose of giving validity to the entire of that agreement, but simply to sanction the transfer of the cable and other property from the old to the new Company, and the conversion of the £36,000 into annuities. It was a Bill to make the best of a bad bargain. LORD LYVEDEN hoped the noble Duke would postpone the third reading, and consider in the mean time whether the agreement could not be introduced into the Bill. THE DUKE OF ARGYLL believed that the agreement with the new Company was a sensible one, and the question of scheduling it was a mere matter of convenience. LORD REDESDALE remarked, that the transfer of the property was made at a certain price, and that price was not mentioned in the Bill, as he thought it ought to be. THE DUKE OF ARGYLL said, it was really a question of form. The bargain had been made, and the only point was whether it would be advisable that the agreement with the new Company should be scheduled. He did not think it was, but he was willing to postpone the third reading for a week or ten days to obtain further information. Third Reading put off to Thursday next. House adjourned at Eight o'clock, HOUSE OF COMMONS, Monday, June 16, 1862. OMNIBUS FARES.-QUESTION. MR. DAWSON said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether, in the absence of any present limitation of Fares demanded by Conductors of Omnibuses in the Metropolis, it would not be desirable to place regulations as Hackney Carriages; and, these public conveyances under the same whether the Government would undertake legislation with that object? SIR GEORGE GREY said, it was impossible to adopt the same regulations with regard to rates and fares of omnibuses as were applied to Hackney Carriages. Omnibuses came under the general description of stage carriages that ran from one fixed point to another, picking up passengers along the route, and it was not possible to fix any general table of rates which could be applicable to them. There was, however, this regulation: that Conductors could only demand the rate (which must be uniform for all passengers) between certain within the omnibus, so that passengers on distances, which was conspicuously painted the journey might see the fare which the Conductor was entitled to demand. MR. DARBY GRIFFITH said, he wished to ask if omnibus proprietors could not be compelled to paint the table of fares outside the omnibuses as well as inside? SIR GEORGE GREY said, the law required that a table of fares should be conspicuously painted within the omnibus, the object being that passengers while sitting in the omnibus should have an opportunity of seeing the precise sum that could be demanded from them, and no more could be demanded than was placed on the table. MR. DARBY GRIFFITH said, he wanted to know whether the fares should not be put outside the omnibus, so that people might see them before they got in? SIR GEORGE GREY replied, that he had stated what the law actually was. EXAMINATIONS UNDER THE REVISED LORD ROBERT CECIL said, he rose to ask the Vice President of the Council on Education, Whether arrangements have been made at the Council Office for the appointment of Clerks and Deputy In MINUTES.]-PUBLIC BILLS.-1° Petroleum; Coal spectors to assist in the Examinations re Mines. 39 Discharged Prisoners' Aid. quired by the New Code; and whether, before such appointments are made, an 638 Estimate of the Expense to be incurred on Motion made, and Question proposed, that account will be laid before Parlia-" That Mr. Speaker do now leave the ment? Chair." MR. LOWE replied, that no such appointments had been made, nor was it expected that any would be needed during the current financial year. When the Estimates were presented next year, they would include a provision for any change which might be found necessary. QUEEN'S COLLEGES (IRELAND). QUESTION. MR. HENNESSY said, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, When he will lay before the House his Scheme for reducing the Professorships in the Queen's Colleges, and appropriating to other purposes the Grant now given for maintaining the libraries and lighting and cleansing the buildings. SIR ROBERT PEEL said, that now Parliament had consented to appropriate a certain sum, it would be necessary that the proposal for its application should be submitted to the Senate and the Chancellor of the University, and should afterwards be carried out by Royal Statutes. MR. HENNESSY said, he wished to know what reduction was to take place in the number of Professorships? SIR ROBERT PEEL replied, that nothing could be done in the matter until the Chancellor of the University had been consulted. CONSUL AT LAGOS.-QUESTION. LORD ROBERT MONTAGU said, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to explain (which the hon. Gentleman was not able to do the other evening) how it was, that although Lagos had been annexed by this country, there was in the Estimates a charge of a Consul at that place? MR. LAYARD begged to explain, in answer to a Question put to him on a previous evening, that the Governor of Lagos and the Consul were one and the same person. The Governor had consular powers in the Bight of Benin, and was paid £500 out of the Colonial Estimates, and £500 out of the Foreign Office Estimates. TRANSFER OF LAND BILL (LORDS). [BILL NO. 101.] COMMITTEE. Order for Committee read. SIR HUGH CAIRNS rose to move as an Amendment that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee. He hoped he need hardly say that he had no hostility to this Bill. On the contrary, he was most anxious that a measure of the kind should, in some shape or other, be passed; but it was a measure of such gravity and importance that he desired, that if it were passed, it should be made as perfect as possible. Some persons thought that this was only a permissive Bill. Although it was permissive in the sense that no person need take his title to be investigated and registered unless he chose, it was not permissive in this sense, that no sooner did any person take his title to be examined than there commenced a course of action which would bring him into conflict with all surrounding owners of land, who would have no choice or option in the matter. If any owner of an estate desired that his title should be registered, it would be necessary that the boundaries of that estate should be accurately ascertained, and all the owners of surrounding property, with whom there might have been disputes as to boundaries which had laid dormant for thirty or fourty years, must be placed in antagonism with him, in order to see that their property was not encroached upon. The same thing would occur as to rights of road, rights of way, rights of sporting, or rights of drainage. He did not say that this was improper-probably it was necessary-but at the same time it materially detracted from the permissive character of the Bill. In one respect, however, this Bill differed from all others which had been proposed; it provided that after a title had been registered, the contents of all deeds affecting the estate should be placed upon the register; and therefore the state of things which he had represented as arising upon the registry of the title would be reproduced upon the occasion of every subsequent dealing with the estate. The measurė, though permissive in terms, was really compulsory in substance. Moreover, the Bill was admitted by the Government to run entirely counter to the Report of the Royal Commission which considered this subject and made its Report in 1854. The present Lord Chancellor, the Vice President of the Council of Education (Mr. Lowe), and the present Speaker were Members of that Commission, and con- be the qualifications of these examiners, curred in that Report, and so did, with but he could find nothing except that the certain exceptions, the Advocate General. Lord Chancellor might appoint as many as The Commission made a Report totally he pleased; and, for aught that appeared condemnatory of a system of registration in the Bill to the contrary, they might be of deeds, as coupled with a registration of street-sweepers. It was not stated that titles, a system to which the present Bill they were to be conversant with the law, gave effect. Under these circumstances or what was to be their remuneration, he ventured to think that the measure which, of itself might afford some indicarequired very peculiar examination. It tion of the qualifications expected. Anowould doubtless be urged that the Bill ther provision was to the effect that no had undergone consideration in a Select title should be accepted for registration as Committee of the other House, and indefeasible, save such as a court of equity came down with the sanction of that would deem valid and marketable. That House. But in the first division, upon principle was wholly unknown in the counthe question whether there should be a try, Ireland, from which the present mearegistry of lands as provided by the mea- sure was professed to be taken; and the sure, there were in the minority some of principle laid down as the basis on which the most eminent legal Members of the the Examiners should proceed was entirely House of Lords. Therefore it must not wrong; for a court of equity, having two be presumed that there was anything like persons before it, the purchaser and seller, a concurrence of the legal Members of the might decide as between those two, and other House in the provisions of the Bill. these parties were bound by the decision; Another singular circunstance connected but it never decided as to third parties. with this Bill seemed to put an end to the The sixth clause provided that any quesidea that its provisions had been care- tion, doubt, or dispute as to any matter of fully considered; for there had come down title might be referred to such Judge of from the Lords another Bill, called the the Court of Chancery as the Lord ChanDeclaration of Title Bill; so that the cellor might direct. No idea was given of other House had passed two measures the sort of questions to be referred; so having identically the same object in that if the registrar or examiners were view. The Solicitor General intimated bold and rash men, they might decide matthe other night that he should be pre-ters themselves, according to their own pared at the proper time to incorporate discretion; and if they were timid or the Declaration of Title Bill with the pro- slothful, they might refer all manner of visions of the present Bill; but this, he questions to the court. The seventh was thought, would be rather a difficult thing a most strange clause, for it declared, that to effect. Of course, upon such a Mo- on investigation, if it should appear that tion as he now made, it would be im- the title was good and marketable, save in proper to go into a consideration of the respect of some contingency which had not details of the measure; but he would happened-why, whoever heard of a consimply refer to three or four clauses, tingency that had happened?-or of some and then ask hon. Members whether uncertainty which could not be ascertained the Bill could be satisfactorily discuss- -as if an uncertainty could be ascertained ed in the whole House. By the fifth-then it should be lawful for the Judge of and three following clauses it was enacted, that if any owner of property brought his title to be examined and registered, the title should be examined by the registrar and the examiners of title in such manner as a general order should subsequently direct. Therefore all the information vouchsafed was that the examination should take place in some way to be defined, not by Parliament but by a general order. Consequently Parliament had no security as to the mode in which this was to be done by the registrar and examiners of title. He had looked through the Bill to discover what were to the Court of Chancery to declare the title subject to that contingency or uncertainty. An owner, subject to the contingency, suppose, of his son attaining the age of twenty-one years, would, under that clause, have difficulties to contend with before he could have his title registered; and after he had succeeded in doing so, all the litigation and trouble should be gone through again by his son. But the climax was reached in the eighth clause, which provided, that if the title should be found to be good and marketable, the applicant should then furnish to the registrar, whose duty it was to examine and settle it for the pur poses of registration, an exact description of the lands to be registered, and also a statement of the person or persons who were or might become entitled to the lands, their respective interest in the lands, and the incumbrances to which they were subject. In other words, the title was, in the first instance, to be declared good and marketable, and then the owner was to produce proofs that it was so. How the title was to be declared good in the absence of those most essential matters which were not to be brought forward until the title was approved of, he could not see. Such a clause as that might be put into working order in a Select Committee; but could not, he believed, by a discussion across the floor of the House. It might be alleged, that referring the Bill to a Select Committee would occasion delay and inconvenience at this period of the Session. He was anxious that the Bill should pass, and pass this Session; but there was a more important consideration than the passing of a Bill, which was, that it should be made as perfect as possible in its details, and likely to prove as efficient as possible in its working. The principal object was not the passing of a Bill, but the passing of a good Bill. It might be inconvenient to members of his own profession to serve on a Select Committee at this time of the year; but he felt no doubt that referring the measure to such a Committee would economize the time of the House. He did not think it was open to Government to object to that course on the ground that it would cause delay, because the Bill had come down from the Lords as long back as the 2nd of May; and if the Government had been anxious to press it forward, they might have done so. Believing that all the objections to the measure might be remedied most effectually upstairs, he begged to Move that the Bill be committed to a Select Committee. Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "the Bill be committed to a Select Committee," -instead thereof. MR. COLLIER trusted that the House would not accede to the Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman even if the Government were prepared to do so. The intentions of the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite might be friendly, but his act would be fatal; he never remembered an instance of a Bill referVOL. CLXVII. [THIRD SERIES.] red to a Select Committee at this period of the Session having been heard of again during the same Session. This measure concerned more or less every Member of the House, and he therefore hoped that hon. Gentlemen who were not lawyers would take part in its discussion. There was nothing in it so abstruse that its provisions could not be comprehended by a House of landowners. What points had the hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned which could not be comprehended by any hon. Member? Moreover, it would be far more convenient to his hon. and learned Friends, who were engaged in their professional pursuits during the day, to consider the details of the measure in the evening sitting. He would not follow his hon. and learned Friend into his minute criticism of one of the clauses, but he put it to the House whether any one of the matters brought under their notice could not be discussed as well in the House as in Select Committee. One question to be determined was, whether the measure should be permissive or compulsory. Why could not any hon. Member take part in determining that question? One of the chief objections of the hon. and learned Gentleman to the Bill was, that it would appoint a new Judge. The House could determine that question, as it had a similar one when the Bankruptcy Bill was discussed. A reform of the system of transferring land was not a new question; it had been debated for upwards of thirty years, and during that period several attempts had been made to effect a reform. The time for detailed discussion had passed. There never was a Session in which the House had so much leisure as in the present; and when hon. Gen tlemen went down to their constituents in the autumn, they might have some difficulty in accounting for their time this Session. But he was in hopes that they would be able to say:-At all events we have passed one very important measure, which simplifies the title to land, facilitates its transfer, abolishes laborious investigation into the history for the last thirty years of every plot of land to be sold in the kingdom, decreases lawyers' bills, and increases the value of land. If the House would apply itself resolutely to the task, there was still time to pass that measure. MR. WALPOLE joined in the hope that the measure would pass during the Y present Session, but he was confident that in order that it might do so, it would be necessary to refer the Bill to a Select Committee in order that the details might be settled of that to which there was no objection in principle. He was certain that the Bill could be discussed upstairs in a few days, and put into such a shape that the House would be able to adopt it without much discussion. The Bills for the consolidation of the statute law had failed Session after Session till they were referred to a Select Committee, and then the House accepted without hesitation the points as to which it was reported that there was no objection. If the House went into Committee upon this Bill, they would be taking up by far the most extensive and important measure with reference to the landed property of the country which had been submitted to Parliament for a long period, and no effort should be spared to make it perfect. Other Acts might be passed, and if their operation proved unsatisfactory they could be amended in a future Session; but the difficulties which might arise under the operation of this Bill, if passed in its present shape, would be difficulties which could not hereafter be remedied, for they would be inherent in the subject itself. Much less time would be occupied in discussing the details in a Select Committee than in Committee of the Whole House. He ventured to say that by the adoption of the former course the Bills might be sent down again in the course of ten days; whereas if the House undertook the investigation, they would have to go through four Bills, two of which ought to be amalgamated, one of which, in his opinion, ought to be rejected, and the fourth, he believed, they might easily pass. MR. MALINS said, he was sorry to find himself compelled to take a different view of that subject from that which had been set forth by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Belfast (Sir H. Cairns) and his right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Walpole). If they wished to strangle the Bill, he thought they had better say so boldly at once, and refuse to proceed with it any further. He had already stated, on the second reading, that he thought the measure was one of no value whatever. He did not think it worth passing, and he believed that no Select Committee could make it worth passing. He was persuaded that any measure upon this subject that was not of a compulsory character would remain a dead letter. He was not, however, prepared to offer any active opposition to the measure. But as the Bill could, at all events, do no harm, and as many people thought it desirable that it should. be tried as an experiment, he felt it his duty to object to the Motion for referring it to a Select Committee, which would only have the effect of ensuring its rejection after a good deal of labour had been unnecessarily incurred. More important measures had been discussed in the House, amended, and adopted. The Probate Bill of 1857, and the Divorce Bill, had been passed without the intervention of a Select Committee, and he did not see the necessity in the present case for the proposed reference. He could not but ask himself what would be the effect of referring the Bill to a Select Committee, which could not meet before the end of the week, within a month of the time when it was expected that Parliament would be prorogued? Where were gentlemen of experience in connection with landed property to be found who could give their attendance on the Committee at this season of the year to put the Bill into a shape fit for its consideration by the House? Even if they decided on dealing with the Bill in a Committee of the Whole House, he thought there was no fear that they would be overcrowded. He entirely concurred in all the objections that had been taken to the Bill; he believed it to be ill-conceived and ill-executed but he would not offer any active opposition to its progress. The Bill came down from the Upper House recommended by the highest legal authorities. The Bill was a very favourite one of the Lord Chancellor's, for whose opinions he (Mr. Malins) had the deepest respect, and who had a theory that the transfer of land might be made as simple as that of money in the funds. The Solicitor General seemed to have adopted the same opinion, though not to the same extent. But, after all, it was an experiment, and an experiment which, with the machinery which would be necessary to put it in operation, would probably cost the country something like £10,000 a year. The real question, then, was whet! er it was worth while to spend that sum of money for the purpose of making such an experiment. Now, although he had the worst possible opinion of the Bill, he was yet not disinclined to allow the experiment to be made, seeing that it was a measure |