Page:An essay on the transfer of land by registration.djvu/33

 shares in land held by co-parceners, joint tenants, or tenants in common. The logical conclusion from these premisses is not that drawn by this class of objectors, but as follows: "There exist essential differences inherent in shipping as contrasted with land, therefore it does not necessarily follow that a method of dealing which is applicable to the former should also be applicable to the latter. Nevertheless, it is possible that these differences may be of a nature to render that method more facile and effectual when applied to land, and such is actually the case; for example, if the indivisibility of a ship involves the possibility of there being sixty-four owners, that characteristic, far from facilitating transfer by registration ot title, creates difficulty and risk of confusion through the necessity of recording the dealings of so many shareholders on the same record, and it will not, I imagine, be contended that the liability of ships to be removed thousands of miles from their ports of registration can afford any special facilities for working that system."

Herein we have example of the wondrous power of professional bias. We find nine Royal Commissioners selected from a profession the training for which might be expected in a special degree to ensure a general knowledge of affairs, and a power of drawing logical inferences; yet so as it were smitten with mental colour blindness, that they have failed to perceive the most patent facts familiarly known to every board school child in our seaport towns, and then draw from false premisses a conclusion so transparently illogical that it would check the academical career of any freshman at the "little-go" stage.

I have dealt at length with this "abstract and concrete" objection, because first enunciated by a Royal Commission. It has been echoed by the learned chairman of the recent House of Commons Committee, and generally urged with considerable emphasis by the opponents of registration of title.

The complete success which has attended the application, on a great scale and under diverse conditions, of the principles