Page:An essay on the transfer of land by registration.djvu/62

 2nd. It has reduced the cost of conveyancing from pounds to shillings, and the time occupied from months to days.

3rd. It has substituted clearness and brevity for obscurity and verbiage.

4th. It has so simplified ordinary dealings that any person who has mastered the "three R.'s" can transact his own conveyancing.

5th. It affords protection against the largest class of frauds, such as those practised by the notorious Down, and recently by J. F. Cooper.

6th. It has restored to their natural value many estates held under good holding titles, but depreciated in consequence of some blot or technical defect, and has barred the recurrence of any such defect.

7th. It has largely diminished the number of Chancery suits, by removing the conditions which afford grounds for them.

The foregoing pages have been written with a twofold object. First, to demonstrate that there is no exaggeration in the estimate of the Royal Commission of 1858, backed by that of John Stuart Mill and others of experience and authority on such subjects: that the application to land in this country of a safe, cheap, simple, and expeditious method of transfer, such as that adopted for property in shipping, would have the effect of adding five years' purchase, some will say ten, to all the land in this country. Second:—that there exists no insurmountable obstacle, or even serious difficulty, in applying that system, by the duplicate method, to estates and interests in land in this country. ROBERT R. TORRENS.