[Lords.] [BILL 105.] CONSIDERATION. (Hansard, 9 August 1875)

§ MR. GREGORY
, in moving the insertion of a clause providing that the registered proprietor of any land entered on the register of title might, with the consent of all persons appearing by the register to be interested in such land, remove the same from the register, and that thereupon the register of title should, as respected such land, be deemed to be closed; and that when the register of title in respect of any registered land was closed there should not be entered on the register any further transfer of a further charge on such land, but there might be made on the register any entries in relation to the title already registered which might have been made if the register of such land had not been closed, and the registered title of any such land should, so far as it extended, have the same effect in all respects as if it had been continued, said, they all knew that the Bill was an experiment. The measure was calculated to operate especially in cases where property might subsequently be sub-divided, and then the parties would have to consider what the operation of the Bill would be upon them. Now, an apprehension was not unreasonably entertained that the operation of the Bill, as regarded small properties, would be vexatious and expensive; consequently, parties who might otherwise register estates for the purposes of sale, would be deterred from doing so, as purchasers for the portions of it would not be found if these portions were always to be subjected to the register. He believed that, without this clause, the Act would be, to a great extent, a dead letter. He might also add that there was a prejudice against the Bill altogether among many persons, and he was anxious to make it a workable measure, and so to increase its operation.

§ MR. JACKSON
seconded the Amendment. There was no one more capable of giving the House advice on the subject of conveyancing than the hon. Gentleman the Member for East Sussex, and when he came down and said, on his responsibility, that the Bill would not work without this clause, he thought that the Government would do well to accept it. The course taken by 784 the Government throughout the Committee suggested that they did not really want the Bill to work. When Amendments had been proposed by those very few hon. Members who were acquainted with the subject, and took an interest in it, they had been resisted, generally on the mere ground that the House of Lords had otherwise decided, and if the Government now declared to accede to the Amendments, the responsibility must rest upon them, and not upon the legal Members of the House. The operation of the Bill was entirely a matter of speculation, and it was undesirable that if it should not turn out well, there should be no escape from it.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
said, that the question had been considered and disposed of by the House on Saturday last, and it was rather hard that it should be brought forward again so soon. He must oppose the clause.