§ Whereupon Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 22nd February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."
Mr. HAZLETONI rise to protest against a recent Regulation made by the Treasury raising the fees in the Registry of Deeds Office, Dublin. These Regulations, in the opinion of a great many people in Dublin and in Ireland, constitute an unwarrantable raid on the part of the Treasury upon the public in that country. Generally, it is complained by the Treasury that Irish Members are making a raid upon them, but this is a reversal of that usual complaint. We think that very unfairly they have made a raid upon the public in Ireland. We have been driven to raise this matter upon the Adjournment, because the Government has taken the whole time of the House, and the practice before the War, by which we could have moved to set aside these Treasury rules, which have been ordered to lie upon the Table for forty days, is no 773 longer possible. My hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Mr. J. Mac-Veagh) on 21st November, follownig upon previous questions, asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury a question with regard to this matter, and in the course of his reply the right hon. Gentleman said that the average annual loss for the last ten years on the Registry of Deeds Office in Dublin was £3,400. From 1830 to 1865 he said the expenditure was met out of receipts, and a surplus of £42,000 was paid into the Exchequer. Since then the total expenditure had exceeded the total receipts by about £135,000.
I complain of the methods which have been adopted by the Treasury. The deficit which has arisen in this office is due to the fact that so many Government Departments in Ireland are getting their work done there, and the Treasury now propose to make the Irish public pay for it. They are proposing to raise these fees in this office all round. A Royal Commission which sat to inquire into the working of this office in 1886, and the late Registrar of Deeds, Mr. Henry Bingham Leech, and Mr. George Fottrell, later Clerk of the Crown Peace, and were two of the Commissioners. Special inquiries were made as to the fees for searching in this office, with the result that the Commission strongly advised against any alteration. Without any further inquiry of any kind, whether from a Royal Commission or Department, the Treasury, because it wants to meet this deficiency which has arisen through the action of the Government, make this unwarranted raid upon the Irish public and propose to raise these fees. Many years ago the Old Registry of Deeds Acts contemplated that this should be a self-supporting office, but owing to the practice of the Government in not charging fees to Government Departments it is no longer self-supporting; if it were, there would be no reason now for raising the fees.
I would like to point out the reasons in particular for this deficit. All searches directed by the Irish Land Commission in the Registry of Deeds are made without charge, and from January, 1904, to December, 1911, there were 6,126 searches made on such requisition, and the fees remitted amounted to £14,051. Again, all searches directed by solicitors for Rural District Councils in Ireland under the Labourers Act of 1906 are made without charge. Up to December, 1911, there were 5,429 searches, and the fees remitted 774 amounted to £4,969. All searches directed by solicitors to the Congested Districts Board are made without charge. Under another Act, up to December, 1911, 152,841 memorials have been registered from the Local Registration of Titles Office free of all fees, and as the fee for the registration of a memorial is 8s., the total remitted for these registrations would be £61,136. It will be plain to the House that all this work is being done for these various purposes free of charge has naturally brought it about that the Office has ceased to pay for itself. Who is paying for that work at the present time? There has been a deficit, and the amount of that deficit has very properly come out of the Treasury, but in future the Treasury no longer propose to meet its liabilities in this respect, and the deficit is to be taken out of the pockets of the Irish public by raising the fees of those who have got to go and transact business in this Office. It is an extraordinary action on the part of the Treasury that they should come forward now and make this imposition in this way, because I do not believe that it can be justified in any respect. As the increase of the staff that has been necessary, and the increase of expenditure that has been necessary by these free searches in all directions are included in the yearly expenditure, it is only reasonable to expect that the Treasury should continue to meet this liability and should not seek by this extraordinary method to get rid of its responsibility.
With regard to the new soale which is proposed, my opinion is that searches costing under 2s. 6d. per docket are the exception, and, taking the average, the requisition would include three names and cover about twenty years. A search which? can be made on a 2s. 6d. docket would, under the new scales, cost on one scale 8s. and on the other 10s. This amounts, therefore, to a very considerable increase indeed. Another search which at present would cost 5s. for two dockets for two days would, under the new scales, cost the exorbitant sum of 18s. or 20s. There is no warrant at all for this extraordinary charge, in view of the fact that it will have to fall in the future on very few shoulders. It is suggested by those whom this Order concerns in Ireland that it should be amended by the addition of a fixed scale for what are called fishing searches, say, a day's search fee of 7s. 6d. I want to explain to the Secretary to the Treasury that the Registry of Deeds Office in Dublin 775 only makes official searches when a requisition is laid giving in detail names and addresses and periods. They will not make searches of an official nature for the purpose of tracing the title. It is evident that in arriving at fees payable in future the authorities have only had regard to hand searches of the same nature as official searches. There is, however, quite a different class of work which is of daily occurrence, when it is necessary to make out a title or perhaps to explain away a particular Act. If the proposed scale is adopted, without alteration, it will be quite impossible for solicitors or professional searchers to do this class of work except at a prohibitive cost. This work has become of even more importance than ever on account of the large destruction of documents in Dublin arising out of the late rebellion. There is one thing I would ask the Secretary to the Treasury to do when he replies, and that is to assure us that even if he cannot meet us on the other points he will look into this particular point and so amend this Order if he finds the complaint to be reasonable, just, that a day fee for covering these fishing searches will be made, and solicitors and their clients will not be charged this extra cost under the new regulations. The Registry of Deeds authorities have absolutely no experience of this particular class of work and have had no regard to it whatever in fixing the new fees. I would like to give one illustration from an instance supplied to me by a solicitor in this connection. He says:
To-day we have instructions from a solicitor to search for a lease. He gives names of several parties who may have made it. He cannot give the date. He gives three Dames the premises may have been known by, and states that within the past thirty years conveyances may have been made by the executors of A or the executors of B, but he cannot give any further information.My informant further says:Under the new scales we could not possibly undertake this search as we could not form any idea as to how much the dockets would run into. In such a case a fixed docket per day is necessary. As above mentioned, the Registry officials never have this class of searching before them, and have not, therefore, provided a fee to meet it.9.0 P.M.I think the right hon. Gentleman will be going some way, at least, to meet the criticism of this Order of he does provide a fixed fee to meet these day searches, and I urge that upon him very particularly. It is believed in Dublin that the expenses of this office could be very largely reduced. First of all there is a gentleman who is drawing a salary of £1,400 a year as 776 Registrar of Deeds. From one year's end to the other that gentleman never goes into that office in Dublin. He does all his work at the office of the Registry of Titles, where he is also employed. It is true that the man who is next to him in charge at the Registry of Deeds receives a salary for doing his work. There is no reason whatever why this £1,400 should continue to be paid, considering that the gentleman who draws the salary never enters the office or does any work for it, although the Statute laid it down that his duty was to be the superintendent of that office. By reducing expenses in that way, and by reducing other office expenses where found possible, the deficit could be made good, or partly made good, and this extra charge need not be imposed, as now proposed by the Secretary to the Treasury. I am told that there has been a good deal of feeling among solicitors and those concerned at the proposed change and the proposed additions to the fees in the office of the Registrar of Deeds. As we have been compelled owing to the alteration in the Rules of the House to raise this matter on the Adjournment. I hope the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will see his way as far as possible to meet us upon this particular case.
§ Mr. FIELDI think our whole system of the register of deeds is absurd. There is nothing like it in any part of the world. I have had some correspondence with men in France, on the Continent, and in America, and they have public offices there where they manage these things on a far better principle, and the searching is done at almost nominal cost. One of the reasons why men are afraid to do anything in property in England, Ireland, or Scotland is on account of our system in regard to the register of deeds. It is unsafe, especially if you lose your deeds; it is also expensive, and it causes delay. The system of the register of deeds and the transmission of property in the three kingdoms is exceptionally costly. It seems to be designed for the purpose of enriching lawyers and preventing business men from obtaining property. I endorse everything that has been said by the hon. Gentleman, and I trust we shall get a satisfactory reply.
Mr. MCKINNON WOODMy hon. Friend who opened this question has proceeded on an entire misconception of the facts as to the calculations that have 777 been made by the Treasury. He was under the impression that if we were to charge the public Departments for the work that was done for them there would be a considerable surplus instead of a deficit. The fact is that before arriving at an estimate of the annual loss a considerable sum was taken out for the free work which is done for the Departments.
Mr. WOODYes, a very ample sum, as the hon. Member will appreciate when I tell him what it was. The loss at the present time is over £10,000 a year.
Mr. WOODThat is what we are trying to do. A sum of £6,000 has been allowed as the value of the work done for the Departments. The Retrenchment Committee raised the question with the Treasury as to Departments where the proceeds did not pay for the cost of the work, and this was one of the Departments which was referred to by them. The increase proposed by the Treasury is very small. The loss, after allowing for the free work done for the Departments, is something over £3,000 a year. We propose to increase the fees to the small extent of £l,200 a year. I think the hon. Member will consider that that increase is not unreasonable. At the present moment there is a charge of 2s. 6d. for a search, and the office may have to search for a whole day for 2s. 6d. That is a ridiculously inadequate fee. What is proposed now is that the small sum shall vary from 1s., according to the length and difficulty of the search. We further propose to increase the minimum fee for the registration of memorials from 8s. to 9s. I do not think that increase at all unreasonable. I have had a comparison made with the charges in other places. The Registrar of Sasines in Edinburgh informs me that the Irish fees, even with the increase, are lower than those in Edinburgh. My hon. Friend will agree that my fellow-countrymen are not inclined to pay too much for these things.
§ Mr. SCANLANThey get value in Edinburgh.
Mr. WOODThe other point raised by the hon. Member is quite a new one, and is not dealt with in the Order, that is what he calls fishing searches. I do not think he would expect me to pledge myself, without inquiry and getting information from 778 experts on the subject, to make any promise in regard to fishing searches. I do not know whether they are made in England. If we compare the Irish fees with the English, you must come to a conclusion in favour of the Treasury proposal, because the English fees pay the costs, and I find that with the increase of £1,200 now proposed we shall still be considerably below the cost of the work. I do not think that my hon. Friend has made out a case for any reasonable complaint. Although I will consider the other matter about the fishing searches, I think he will agree with me that it will require expert advice before I can make a promise.
§ Mr. FIELDHas the right hon. Gentleman made any inquiries in any other country except Scotland and England? Has he made any inquiries as to what system is followed in other civilised countries?