Heal Property Act. 27 



There are, however, many reasons why its introduction into 

 British communities should be a much slower proceeding. Not 

 the least of these must be confessed to be a very general opposi- 

 tion, either active or passive, of that profession whose co-operation 

 is most required for its success. This co-operation could perhaps 

 be hardly expected, unless through a superhuman disinterested- 

 ness, never looked for from any other profession or calling. Had 

 the progress of railways been as dependent on coach proprietors, 

 as that of land titles registration on lawyers, who can say how 

 long it would have been retarded ? 



It may be, that in both cases the general stimulus of social 

 activity consequent on the improvement, may yield effects com- 

 pensating in the end even the class sustaining a present injury. 

 Tet no such calculation can be expected materially to influence 

 the present motives or actions of individuals. A few eminent 

 lawyers, associated with lay members of the Law Amendment 

 Society, may have battled stoutly for the measure, but the mass 

 of the profession either opposed it, or yielded it only a reluctant 

 submission. 



I am happy, at the same time, to say that in this colony it has 

 encountered much less of this opposition than elsewhere. Not 

 only have several leading solicitors placed their own properties 

 under the Act, but the profession in general have afforded a ready 

 and courteous aid to the department in the conduct of all business 

 which has brought them in contact with it. 



In England and Ireland the adverse feeling of the legal profes- 

 sion is still very great, and it is there more effectual from the 

 circumstance that the only properties there brought on the new 

 register are those which are the subject of voluntary application 

 from the respective owners, in the making or withholding of 

 which the family solicitor (on whom Lord Westbury bestows the 

 sobriquet of "the Old Man of the Sea") exercises an influence 

 nearly despotic. 



In these colonies a large field for the oj)eration of the new law 

 is supplied, irrespectively of individual applications, by the 

 continual issue of new grants under purchase from the Crown, 

 which ipso facto render the lands therein comprised subject to all 

 the conditions of the Act. 



Apart, however, from any obstruction from those adverse to 

 the new system, its effectual development has been considerably 

 retarded by diversities of opinion among its advocates, in regard 

 to the mode and extent of its application. 



It was not until the year 1862 that any bill founded on the 

 recommendation of the Commisioners of 1857 could be passed 

 through both Houses of the British Parliament. During the 

 interval Mr. Torrens was successfully pressing forward the 

 measure which bears his name in South Australia, and a bill was 



