TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 663 



Sales of property depend upon the branch of the general principle of ownership 

 conversant with powers of disposing of property, and the branch of the general 

 principle of veracity dealing with contracts. I have elsewhere described these 

 general principles fully,* and there is do difficulty in the way of stating in a mode- 

 rate compass the applications of these principles to sales. This has been already 

 partly accomplished by the Indian Contract Act of 1872 ; but it is to be wished 

 that the framers of that Act had confined the meaning of the term " property " 

 to " the thing owned," and not also, as in sec. 78, employed " property " to 

 signify " ownership." 



4. On the Application of Copyhold Enfranchisement to long Leases in 

 Ireland, the assimilation of Chattel and Freehold Succession, and the 

 simplification of Transfer of Land. By J. H. Edge. 



The report of the Committee of the House of Commons on the working of 

 the Bright clauses of the Irish Land Act of 1870, has brought out in a glaring 

 manner some anomalies and defects in the tenure of land in Ireland. The com- 

 mittee, in fact, attribute the break down in the working of these clauses in a great 

 measure to the expense and delay attending the transfer of land from one individual 

 to another, or from the State to a private purchaser ; and the report evidently 

 shows forebodings of difficulties to arise hereafter from the same source. What- 

 ever diversity of opinion may exist on such questions as the expediency of creating 

 a peasant proprietary, or the necessity of giving fixity of tenure to the farming class, 

 I think all people will agree with me that if one individual chooses to contract with 

 another to sell him an estate, the costs of transfer ought to be reduced to a 

 minimum. How to do so, and to what extent it can be done, are the problems to 

 solve. The great end to which the public would strive, if they only knew how, 

 would be to make the transfer of land as cheap and speedy as that of ordinary 

 personal property, and it has been powerfully urged that this can be done. It has 

 been asserted that if you can establish a complete registry for shares of ships, you can 

 do the same for shares in land, and that by an easy method transfers in a registry office 

 can be accomplished. I do not think that the question can be pushed to this limit. 

 I think there are essential differences between land and every other marketable 

 commodity, which would prevent its accomplishment, as in every settled country 

 the very nature of land necessitates a division of interests which does not exist in 

 other property. In addition to what I may call the inevitable complication 

 attached to the title of land, family pride and sentimental feelings have in all old 

 countries, and in Ireland more than any other I am aware of, added complications 

 to its title, by imposing what may be called fanciful conditions on its tenure. I 

 scarcely think it would be right to attempt to interfere with the owners in these 

 matters. Even if it was otherwise inexpedient to extend to this country Lord 

 Caims's Act for the Sale and Transfer of Land, so much of its provisions might be 

 adopted as would necessitate the registration in one office of all claims of land in 

 Ireland of every description, and whether by the Crown or subject. The present 

 state of things might be learned from a paper by Dr. Neilson Hancock, read before 

 the Dublin Statistical Society. Another reform I would suggest would be a sup- 

 plement to Lord St. Leonards' and Lord Cranworth's Acts for shortening deeds. 

 Lord St. Leonards found in every well-drawn will and settlement common form 

 clauses, for the protection of trustees, known to lawyers as the indemnity and re- 

 imbursement clauses ; and he introduced and carried an Act through Parliament, 

 to the effect that all deeds and wills should be construed as if they contained these 

 clauses, unless their application was expressly negatived by the instrument. Lord 

 Cranworth afterwards 'carried a similar Act ; by which various powers are em- 

 ployed in mortgages, settlements, and wills, thereby greatly shortening their length. 

 I then would suggest further legislation in this practical direction. At present, in 

 an ordinary conveyance or assignment of land by way of sale or mortgage, there are 

 inserted certain stereotyped covenants for title, which the purchaser or mortgagee 



* 'The Method of Law,' chapters vi. and vii. 



