Page:An essay on the transfer of land by registration.djvu/37

 the introduction of registration of titles in this country, by so many professional men of high repute, as well as by the Royal Commission of 1868, and House of Commons Committee of last year, I will quote the very clear and able report of Mr. Henry Gawler, barrister, many years examiner of titles in South Australia, upon it, as follows: —

"Settlements may be divided into two classes—First, those in which the legal estate is vested in trustees, the 'cestui que trusts,' or persons beneficially interested, taking only equitable interests; this is the most common form of settlement at the present day. Second, those in which the persons beneficially interested take the legal estate in the land in possession or remainder, each one in his own right, without the intervention of trustees; and this is the form most commonly used when land is to be strictly entailed.

"Settlements under the first class most usually contain provisions empowering the trustees to sell or to make exchanges, and exempting purchasers from such trustees from all liability to inquire into the bona fides of any sale, or to see to the application of the purchase-money; consequently, if the title of the trustees be otherwise correct, a purchaser from them cannot be ejected by the cestui que trusts on the ground of a breach of trust or improper sale by trustees. Under the Torrens Act such a settlement would be effected by the settlor conveying to the trustees by memorandum of transfer, and the trusts would be declared in the usual form, either in such memorandum of transfer or in a separate deed, and the trustees would receive a 'declaration of title.' Now in what respect would the cestui que trusts in this case be in a worse position than they would have been under the old system? In either case they must depend principally upon the honour of the trustees, and would only have a personal remedy in the event of a breach of trust. But cestui que trusts under the Torrens Act, so far from being in a worse position than they would have been under the old system,