[BILL 142.] SECOND READING. (Hansard, 23 June 1880)

§ MR. HOPWOOD,
in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, that it originated in the wants of a large number of building societies, who were much interested in the proper registration of land titles, and the object of which was to make a registry which had existed for more than 100 years, and was confessedly in a most complicated and useless state, a working registry, assuring people interested in the purchase and conveyance of land something like certainty of title by establishing a system of registration similar to what prevailed in Scotland. The Bill was practically that which the Judge Advocate General (Mr. Osborne Morgan) introduced last Session, and he trusted it would meet with favourable consideration at the hands of the Government. The Bill commenced by repealing the statute of Queen Anne relating to the registration of land, and proposed to bring the matter under the direction of the Lord Chancellor as far as the regulation of the system was concerned. It further proposed that all the necessary local description of the property should be registered, and that its operation should extend not merely to the county of Middlesex, its original limit, but to the Metropolis generally, as defined by the Metropolis Local Management Act. The hon. and learned Member concluded by moving the second reading of the Bill.

MR. OSBORNE MORGAN
said, that at the commencement of last Session he, as Chairman of the Committee which had sat to consider this question, had introduced a tentative measure, founded on the Scotch system. The Bill now before the House was practically the same measure; and speaking, as he did, on behalf of the Government, he found himself in the awkward position of having to oppose its second reading. In the language of the late Prime Minister, "a good deal had happened" since the time of which he had spoken, and the Govern- 681 ment had promised to lay before Parliament measures dealing with the whole question of land transfer, of which this question of registration formed a part. Under those circumstances, it could hardly be expected that at this stage of the Session they would be prepared to enter into a piece-meal discussion of this particular measure. He trusted that the hon. and learned Gentleman would be satisfied with his promise that the Government would give the subject their best attention, and would not press his measure.

§ MR. GREGORY,
approving of the principle of the Bill, expressed his regret that the Government were not prepared to accept it at once; but trusted they would deal with the question at as early a period as possible.

§ SIR HENRY JACKSON
hoped there would be time before the House adjourned to move a direct negative to a Bill which, although an apparently innocent, was really a most objectionable measure. It was an amiable attempt to patch up a system which every lawyer knew by experience to be very costly, and, if not mischievous, at best useless in its effect, and instead of amending it would, by continuing the system of registration of assurances, tend to keep back the reform of land transfer, which, in his judgment, depended entirely on registration of title. He begged to move the rejection of the Bill.

§ MR. HOPWOOD
signified his willingness to withdraw the Bill.

§ MR. CHARLES LEWIS
thought it scarcely satisfactory that, because the Government entertained some grand views on the subject of the reform of the Land Laws, all practicable measures dealing with the question were to be set aside. He condoled with the right hon. and learned Member for Denbighshire (Mr. Osborne Morgan) and with the right hon. and learned Member for Stockport (Mr. Hop wood), at having the duty cast upon them of stifling with their own hands their own offspring; but he trusted that next Session the measure would be reintroduced.