LAND SYSTEM AND COLONIZATION 7 1 



struction and working of the State railways (i), the military organization (2), 

 the organization of the postal and electrical ser\'ice? (3), the code of the 

 n:erchnnt navy (4), etc. 



§ 2. The L\n'T) vSystkm. 



From the time lyibA'a was first occnpied, on 20 November 1911, a 

 royal decree forbade, with a view to preventing speculation and engross- 

 ment, the purchase and sale of land. But this measure has an obviously 

 transitory character and did not make any less urgent the solution of a 

 problem which had early shown itself to be verj'- difficult and of capital 

 importance, the jnoblem namely of organizing property in land. 



Under Turkish dominion the cadaster applied in Ijbya, although only 

 in part of the territory,- made the proof of title to a property depend on 

 the registration of particular holdings, and therefore ownership of a holding 

 could only be proved by presenting a document called the /a/)ii which showed 

 that it had been regularly inscribed on the laud registers. But during the 

 war all the land offices were destroj'ed and the registers and documents 

 were dispersed. 



The royal decree of 26 January- 1913, no. 1913 (5), is concerned with 

 the proof of rights to land in Lib^^a. For the purpose of such proof land 

 offices were set up in the principal centres of the colony to provide for the 

 determination and preservation of landownerrhip. To each of the.<^e offices 

 a consultative commission of notables is attached. 



These offices must keep special registers containing all necessary' data 

 for the exact determination of properties and rights in them, the descrip- 

 tion of the real estate or the rights held in real estate, its boundaries, area, 

 the nature of the right or title to it, general remarks as to the title-holder, 

 rights of property burdening it, rights-of-way with necessary indications 

 as to how these affect the new title-holder, and, where title-deeds are oner- 

 ous, the price of such deed. A register is divided into two parts, the one 

 for urban and the other for rural property, and is kept in chronological 

 order in the Italian and Arabic languages. 



In addition to the general register another register mtist be kept in 

 every' land office; (a) for the domanial properties {miri); (b) for the property 

 of religious foundations {vacuf); (c) for the property held collectivel}'' by 

 tribes and villages {metruke) ; and [(T) for the })ropeity held freely {mulk). 



Ottoman land registers which still exist or which can be recon^^tituted 

 give complete proof of free property {mulk), and also of absolute titles to 

 property {tafil) formerly ceded under the Ottoman cadaster, of provisional 



(i) Gazzetta Ufficiale, of 9 March 1913, no. 314. 



(2) do. of 22 January 1914. 



(3) do. of 12 June 191 3, no. 708. 



(4) do. of 23 June 1913, no. 902. 



(5) do. no. 34, II February 1913. 



