HIGH FARMING. 195 



with private enterprise, and proposed to the proprietors 

 to lend them 3,000,000 for draining, to be secured on 

 mortgage, redeemable by payment of interest for twenty- 

 two years at the rate of 6^ per cent per annum a prin- 

 ciple very like our General Land Loan Association (So- 

 ci&te general de credit fonder). This first loan having 

 succeeded, Government made others, and a great num- 

 ber of proprietors in the three kingdoms have availed 

 themselves of the advance. Private capital has followed 

 the impulse. The suffering proprietors who were possessed 

 of personal property, or had securities upon which they 

 could borrow, passed through the crisis with credit ; but 

 those who were already embarrassed, struggled sorely. 

 About a tenth of the English proprietors found them- 

 selves in this latter position, and for these, economists and 

 agricultural authorities discovered no better remedy than 

 to help them to the sale or division of their real property. 

 To do this at the present day is a difficult and expen- 

 sive proceeding, owing to the uncertainty of titles. A 

 class of lawyers live by the examination of titles, and the 

 confusion which there reigns. It was proposed to adopt 

 a system of registration like ours, in order to regulate 

 and facilitate transfers : the ideas promulgated upon 

 this subject are of the most radical kind. They go the 

 length of requiring that landed property should be trans- 

 ferred as easily as the funds or other movable property, 

 and demand no less than that a book should be opened 

 for the registration of real property, legal extracts from 

 which shall constitute titles, and these to be transferable 

 by endorsation. Everybody must admit that we are far 

 from holding antiquated ideas upon the fixity of pro- 

 perty, and those who propose this reform are not 

 visionaries, but serious writers, and justly respected. 



