Page:An essay on the transfer of land by registration.djvu/54

 yeomen proprietors whom it is the object of those clauses to establish.

Doctor Hancock, during his labours of thirty-three years to amend the land laws of Ireland, has consistently put forward the view, that a radical reform in our conveyancing system is an indispensable condition for creating a peasant proprietary.

Mr. Urlin (draftsman of the Bill referred to), in a paper read before the Social Science Congress, held in Edinburgh, in 1880, gave his opinion on this branch of the subject, as follows:—

"The general result, so far as Ireland is concerned, is that admirable opportunities have^been thrown away, and several thousands of titles, after passing through the renovating process of the Land Court, are now year by year deteriorating, fast losing the signal benefit which was conferred, and becoming as cloudy and confused as titles were a quarter of a century ago. It is very unfortunate at the present moment that opportunities of this kind have been lost, and that land transfer is fast becoming almost as difficult and as costly in Ireland as it is elsewhere. For there are large numbers of Irish tenants ready to purchase their holdings, and the unhappy events ot the last few months have rendered many landlords willing to sell at a reasonable price. The delay and cost is, however, such as to impede these transactions. I strongly recommend that existing methods be simplified in favour of such purchases by occupying tenants, and that the expense of them be reduced, as it might be, by two-thirds. Of course, an effective and compulsory registration of title should form part of the scheme, for it would be almost a mockery to subject these small freeholds to all the vexatious incidents of the ordinary system of conveyancing and real-property law, a branch of law which, it may be remarked, is, except in a few minor details, the same in Ireland as in England. It is of high moment to the peace and welfare of the Empire that discontented tenants should be turned into satisfied and industrious freeholders; and if the