26 Operation of the 



Upon the subject of such amendments in [the present case I 

 feel that my experience of sis years in administering the Act 

 may excuse me in offering some observations. 



Neither the merits or defects of the measure can, however, be 

 duly appreciated without some review of its history, and of the 

 circumstances leading to its introduction to this colony in the 

 particular form of the present Act. 



Its leading principle, the substitution of registry of existing 

 title for registry of successive assurances, has made its way into 

 British legislation by a very slow process. The first published 

 hint of it will, I believe, be found in the Appendix to the Report 

 of the Real Property Commission on Registration, laid before the 

 Imperial Parliament in 1880. This contained a suggestion from 

 Mr. Fonnereau and Mr. Hogg, for the application to land titles 

 of the machinery of the Funds, being the same in principle, if 

 not in all the details, as that of the Shipping Act, which was Mr. 

 Torrens's avowed model in his South Australian measure. But 

 this did not, at that time, attract even sufficient attention to 

 induce the commissioners to refer to it in the body of their 

 report. 



In 1844, Mr. Robert "Wilson brought forward a similar sugges- 

 tion, with more detail, in a ptiblication very freely discussed in 

 the law periodicals of tbe day. At this period it first attracted 

 my own attention, and I have ever since taken a strong interest 

 in the subject, reaching thus back twenty years before I could 

 have anticipated my individual participation in it as a practical 

 measure. 



In 1846 it was considered in a very able article of the Westmins- 

 ter Review, and was about the same time taken up and reported 

 on by a committee of the Law Amendment Society. In 1853 it 

 was recommended by the report of a committee of the House of 

 Commons, and in 1867 by that of the registration of Title 

 Commisioners appointed by the Crown. The latter bears the 

 signatures, among others, of Richard Bethel, Afterwards Lord 

 Chancellor "Westbury, and of Robert Lowe, the present Chancel- 

 lor of the Exchequer, who had then returned from this colony to 

 commence his brilliant career in England. The leading principle 

 or registration of title is thereby unanimously affirmed, although 

 some individual commisioners differed as to the precise method 

 and extent of its application. The appendix to that report con- 

 tains elaborate papers fully entering into all details bearing on 

 the subject. These will b e found, on careful perusal, to anticipate 

 most of the questions which have since challenged the attention 

 of either friendly or adverse critics, and from such perusal alone 

 an enlightened despot might probably have organised a more 

 perfect system than has hitherto been created by either of the 

 Acts passed by the Imperial or Colonial Parliaments. 



