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Some Lanes of Progress. 21 
A Cope. 
Should the Commercial Committee decide to propose this great reform and 
the Government accept the idea, a short code should be drafted embodying 
those parts of the Roman-Dutch law and practice which it may be desirable 
to retain. No doubt few will be eager to see the historical but intricate com- 
plications of the English law of real property and conveyancing inflicted upon 
ihe colony. states in land with their tails male and female and all the other 
learned lumber of the past we do not require. A codification of the law of 
immovable property accompanied by a reform or development of the trans- 
port system would be of the greatest benefit. 
An EXAMINER OF TITLE. 
The present method otf land transfer seems to have worked fairly well in 
practice. The community is honest and scandals are few. But the method 
is none the less in some degree a delusion and a snare. An official examiner 
of title shou'd be appointed and a registrar of title substi\uted for the transport 
judge. The Bench would no doubt be glad to be relieved o | an unpleasing and 
laborious function, and title to immovable property would assume its real 
character and no longer be vested with the fancied sanction of a judgment 
of he Supreme Court. The ransport judge, according to Sir Edward O’Malley, 
lately the highly esteemed Chief Justice of this colony, is really a mere official 
witness without responsibility in case of mistake or fraud. Some system like 
the Torrens of Australia, which has been successfully introduced into Trinidad 
or the similar Canadian provisions, could, if necessary, be easily set up, securing 
an absolutely indefeasible title on registration but leaving to the aggrieved a 
remedy in damages, for which a system of insurance could provide. The 
great merit of the present method is simplicity and cheapness but neither the 
simplicity nor the cheapness need be radically interfered with. Perhaps | 
should mention that the idea of establishing the Torrens system wa’ propounded 
in Sir A. Swettenham’s time and finds a warm supporter in the present Attorney 
General. 
Tur PrRoBLemM oF RatLway CONSTRUCTION. 
To the Agricultural Committee in conjunction with the Commercial Committee 
and independently should be recommended the study of the railway problem 
in all its bearings. Independently, because the labour question is a vital une 
to that interest and while it should not offer an insoluble problem by any 
means, carelessness or lack of unanimity might cause disaster. I have no 
professional or other interest in any of the schemes now being dangled before 
the country, which remains quite unemotional in view of its temptations. I 
had, indeed, for a time a slight professional connection with a project advanced 
by a number of leading English business men which I thought might form 
a basis of discussion and negotiation. It was reje’ted as expensive and un- 
necessary and I cannot say whether it will be revived. It had the merits 
at least of solid financial backing and of definiteness as a trunk railway not 
destined to end in the bush. 
