The Controversy over a Land Registry, 103 



of money remained so liigh, and the security of mortgages 

 became unassailable, capital would be tied up at home which 

 would have been more valuable to the nation if invested in 

 commercial ventures. 



Now it was quite evident to all the controversialists that, if 

 there was to be a system of registration at all, it must be com- 

 prehensive and thorough. No half-hearted measures would 

 suffice. 



Thus one writer asserts that all judgments, statutes, and 

 recognisances must be open to view. All trusts touching 

 estates, all mortgages, powers of revocation and limiting of 

 new uses, of letting or charging estates, all declarations of uses 

 and trusts upon fines, recoveries, and other assurances, all 

 grants of rents, commons, profits, all conditions and reserva- 

 tions of rents, all leases for years or lives made by any person 

 either with rent or without it; in brief, all feoffments, grants, 

 releases, confirmations, wills, forfeitures, escheats, commons, or 

 whatsoever other estate or interest in them, must not only be 

 enrolled and registered, but lie open to the public view. It 

 was quite evident, as this author remarks, that " if any one 

 Leak be left unstopt, the Vessel will sink as well as if more 

 were open, and that if the Remedy be intended as large as 

 the Disease, this Registry must not only look forward, but it 

 must look backward, and all Estates and Incumbrances, then in 

 being, as well as those that should be thereafter would have to 

 be laid open to the view." Thus also another writer points 

 out that a registry would be no security against statutes, judg- 

 ments, and recognisances unless they too were enrolled. Yet 

 another endeavours to prove that a compulsory measure 

 would alone be serviceable, — optional registration was no 

 good, the publication of the principal heads of deeds without 

 their details was worse than useless. Unless the registration 

 of a deed afforded the minutest description possible, there 

 was no certainty for the purchaser that he was examining 

 the same document as that purporting to be recorded ; and 

 even the registrar's signature of each deed was no protection 

 against forgery. One controversialist declares that, " In order 

 to the discovery hereof we must suppose that either every man 



