§ FIRST READING.
LORD BROUGHAMsaid, he had to lay before their Lordships a very important petition from nearly all the magistrates and landowners of the county of Cumberland, praying for an Improvement in the present Law respecting the Transfer of Land. They did not state, as they might have done, that the present Master of the Rolls, when examined before a Select Committee, gave it as his opinion that if that law had been designedly intended to make land an unmarketable commodity it could not have been more complete in its provisions. The petitioners prayed their Lordships to extend to all land of all tenure, freehold and leasehold, but particularly freehold, the custom of copyhold conveyancing which was known in their part of the country, and practised with perfect success. He had also a petition from a very learned Friend of his, a conveyancer of forty years' standing, Mr. Fawcett, who had been for thirty-five of those years steward of one of the greatest manors of the north. He stated his experience of that manor, in which there were about 500 tenements of various descriptions, and some of very considerable value and extent, and he said that during the whole thirty-five years, in which hardly one had not passed at least once, but many several time, by transfers 326 will, or mortgage, there had never been a single instance of a dispute raised on any question connected with those transfers of property. The expense of each conveyance was not more than 7s and the length never exceeded 200 words. It was natural that these petitioners should hope and pray that this mode of conveyancing might be extended to all real property held under whatever tenure. He (Lord Brougham) availing himself of Mr. Fawcett's experience, prepared and introduced a Bill on this subject last year and the year before; but it did not go further than its first stage last year. This was very much owing to his learned Friend Sir Hugh Cairns, then the Solicitor General, having introduced a Bill of great value, carefully and elaborately framed, with the same view, and in several respects in nearly to the same effect. There were certain objections urged against that Bill to which his was not liable, but instead of opposing it he thought it well to co-operate with his learned Friend in his effort to amend the law. He (Lord Brougham) had now prepared, in compliance with the prayer of these petitioners the same measure which he before proposed, with certain material alterations, the object of which was to provide the remedies to which Sir H. Cairns' Bill was directed, and some other improvements. Sir Hugh Cairns' Bill established a Land Transfer Court on the footing of the Irish Incumbered Estates Court, but his (Lord Brougham's) measure gave the same powers, under control and with the right of appeal, to local officers in every district throughout the country.
Petition read and ordered to lie on the Table.
The noble and learned Lord then presented a Bill touching the Transfer of Real Estate, and for the Registration of the Titles thereof.
§ LORD CRANWORTHasked, Whether the Bill which the Government intended to bring forward on the same subject would be introduced in this or the other House of Parliament?
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, the Attorney General had already announced that he would ask leave to bring in this measure. Many fiscal considerations would arise respecting it, and it was thought more expedient to introduce the Bill in the other House.
§ Bill read 1a.
§ House adjourned at a quarter before Six o'clock, till To-morrow, half past Ten o'clock.