MR. H. DRUMMONDsaid, when he asked for leave to introduce a Bill for diminishing the labour and expense attendant upon the sale and transfer of real property, he thought he had stated sufficient to ensure the favourable reception of the measure by the House. There was no more reason why land should not be as perfectly free in the market as any other commodity. The hon. Gentleman, alluding to the then state of the House, observed that the subject did not seem to excite much interest, seeing that so great a proportion of the hon. Members had gone home to dinner. He might quote many authorities who had advocated this sentiment in times past; but it would be a work of supererogation. Were it not for the feudal tenures which were still preserved, the disposal of land would be quite unshackled. He would not now enter into the nature of these tenures, or show how all their general evil had been maintained, although the burdens upon owners of land had been long-since remitted; and as he did not intend to dilate upon these subjects, he felt himself in this difficulty, with respect to recommending his measure—that he did not know upon what grounds the opposition to it could go, and therefore he did not know what objection to answer. He could only reply at hazard to a few difficulties which he had heard started out of doors. First, he had been told that it was presumptuous in a person not called to the bar to introduce a Bill upon a subject of this kind. Now, being called to the bar, meant taking a certain number of dinners, and paying a certain amount of fees. And he had certainly not been able to discover any necessary connexion between these operations and the capability of drawing a Bill. The question was not one in which a lawyer need bestir himself. Sidney Smith said long ago that the Court of Chancery was like a boa constrictor, which swallowed the estate of an English gentleman whole, and digested it at its leisure. Then why should lawyers bestir themselves in law reform? They performed the office of masticators and digesters, and that was probably enough for them. No. This was a question in which the owners of land, and those who might become the owners of land, were the parties really interested. But then, it was said, that nobody but a lawyer could draw up a Bill. That remained to be proved. 658 A great many Bills had been drawn up by many very eminent lawyers, which were found to be of very little use. Nay, no later than last Session, a Bill for facilitating the sale of land in Ireland had been most carefully prepared by the highest legal functionaries of the Government; and that Bill, he was informed by many Irish Members, was little better than a caput mortuum. In fact, it frequently proved that Bills which one set of lawyers drew up, puzzled another set of lawyers to interpret. Here, however, he would be perhaps told that there was a Crown Commission sitting on the subject; and he would be asked whether he would not wait to see what that Commission would do. Rusticus expectat—and he would be a very simple rustic indeed, were he to expect any practically advantageous results from a Crown Commission. Again, he was told that he would be opposed by the lawyers, because his Bill would interfere with their interests. He repudiated such an idea. The study of the law was the study of a liberal profession, elevating men above sordid and interested motives; and he would as soon believe that medical men would object to the reception of a remedy for malignant disease—or that military men would decry a general peace—as that lawyers would object to such a measure as he had to propose. He had once indeed heard of the members of a medical college congratulating themselves on an unsatisfactory state of the public health, and drinking to the progress of slow fever with three times three. But he rejected such scandals, and he could assure the House that all the lawyers whom he had spoken to were favourable to his measure, and that he counted upon their kindness to supply his legal deficiencies. After the fullest examination which he had been able to give to the subject, and with the fullest information which he had been able to collect, he had arrived at the firmest conviction that it was impossible to effect the object which he had in view in any other way than by the provisions of such a measure as he held in his hand. He proposed to establish a registry of deeds and lands, and he proposed that entries should be accompanied by full and ample maps of the estates referred to. In former times this was accompanied with some difficulty; but now that there existed a map of every parish in the kingdom, under the Tithe Commission, nothing more would be required than to copy out the necessary portions of that map. He also 659 proposed that there should be a public registration of all incumbrances, of any species, upon land; but he did not propose that this should be compulsory. He left it to the discretion of individuals. Such were the main provisions of his Bill. He thought that the only objection which would be made to it was, that it did not go far enough; but in matters of this kind he preferred a measure which went the least possible distance. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving for leave to introduce the Bill.
The SOLICITOR GENERALsaid, he would offer no objection to the introduction of the Bill. The hon. Member (Mr. H. Drummond) had clearly informed the House of the object of the measure, and of the mode by which it was proposed to be carried into effect; but it was impossible to express any very decided opinion upon the subject until the Bill was printed and in the hands of the Members. Nobody could deny the desirability of the object the hon. Member sought to obtain; and he (the Solicitor General) thought that the hon. Member was in the right direction as to the mode of carrying that object into effect. He had no doubt that registration was the most efficacious mode of effecting it, and that no registration could be complete and effectual without a very perfect system of maps. But the subject was involved in very great difficulties—difficulties so great that he had paid great attention to see how they could be obviated; but there was no objection to allow the Motion to pass, and he would give the hon. Member every assistance in carrying his very laudable object into effect.
§ Leave given to bring in the Bill.