The Controversy over a Land Registry. loi 



which the market supply of land and landed securities would 

 have ceased altogether. 



Now, at the outset, we must not forget that a successful 

 system of public registration was not only, as Dr. Chamber- 

 laine pointed out, in vogua abroad, but in the county of 

 Middlesex and the East and West Ridings of Yorkshire.^ The 

 system, indeed, was never entirely strange to the nation ; for, 

 as we have said, it was part and parcel of the Anglo-Saxon 

 land tenure,^ and was the very basis of successful administra- 

 tion in copyhold manors, such as Taunton.^ 



Without exception, all the writers whose works we have 

 examined are unanimous on the following two points : first, 

 that without a system of public registration the existing 

 liability to fraud and loss over the sale, transfer, and mortgage 

 of land was considerable ; secondly, that the possibihty of 

 the individual being sacrificed for the benefit of the whole 

 community should not act as a deterrent, provided our states- 

 men had become confident that the community would be 

 benefited by such a reform. The contest, therefore, generally 

 centres round one or other of these two points. 



For example, the advocates of registration were interested 

 in showing in what ways the nation, as a whole, would be 

 benefited. Now it was thought by some that the trading 

 spirit of the country would either languish altogether, or find 

 a vent for its capital abroad, unless investments were forth- 

 coming at home, secure enough to command absolute confi- 

 dence, and plentiful enough to keep down the price to a figure 

 where a fair percentage on the outlay was possible. Such 

 investments consisted chiefly in the loan of money secured 

 upon real estate ; and without a system of registration the 

 market supply of landed estates, the owners of which possessed 

 indisputable title-deeds, was quite inadequate to the demand. 

 This circumstance raised the value of all realty beyond the 



^ An Essay on the Amendment of the Law, 1736, p. 71. 



2 Systems of Land Tenure. C. W. Hoskyns. Cobden Club Prize Essays. 



^ A Treatise shovnny hoiv usefull, etc., the Inrolliny and Eegistring of 

 all Conveyances of lands inay he to the Kingdom. By a person of great 

 learning and judgment, 1694. 



