32 Operation of the 



undervaluing a judicial element in the organisation of the Land 

 Titles Office, its duties are popularly regarded as if limited, to the 

 dealings transacted through the simple forms attached to the Act. 

 A mistaken countenance is thus given to the objection, which 

 would be very serious if well founded, against the applicablity of 

 the system to the more complex dispositions of property by will 

 or settlement. The fact is, however, that while, on the one hand, 

 no transaction, even the most simple in its origin, is certain to 

 remain so in the future dissolution of title thereunder, and thus 

 to preclude the necessity of legal knowledge and judicial authority 

 in the direction of entries on the register thence resulting, there 

 is on the other hand, no limit, when this authority is once incor- 

 porated with the department, to the range of transactions within 

 which the new plan of registry can be safely and conveniently 

 applied. Upon this subject I will take the liberty of here 

 reproducing some remarks of my own which have been already 

 printed, both in a Sydney newspaper, and in Ireland in a publica- 

 tion issued by the Land Titles Association there formed, to which 

 I have elsewhere alluded. 



" The most complicated settlement ever made by deed or will 

 cannot present, for the purpose of registration, any difficulties 

 distinguishable in their own nature (or even in point of degree 

 when taken singly) from those of ordinary titles. Every title is 

 indeed virtually held under settlement, inasmuch as, by a law of 

 nature, no owner can retain the property personally beyond his 

 own life. Its subsequent destination is, in .default of any other, 

 governed by the law of inheritance, which is virtually a provisional 

 settlement in the following form, viz., To A and his assigns for 

 life, remainder as he shall appoint, and, in default of appointment, 

 as the law of inheritance prescribes. If any private settlement 

 be in force, this operates as a special law for the individual case ; 

 but it may be quite as easy — indeed, in the average of casej., much 

 easier — to determine the party entitled, under the special provi- 

 sion than under the generaL law. As regards the power of over- 

 riding the settlement by transfer, this may exist alike in both 

 cases. It exists always prima facie in the owner, but in making 

 provision even for ordinary mortgages and other encumbrances 

 this power is effectually shifted or modified as in the most compli- 

 cated settlements, and gives rise to exactly the same difficulty, 

 neither more nor less ; requiring and obtaining precisely the same 

 solution and precautionary arrangements. Wherever a power 

 separated from ownership, is dependent on any pi-eliminary con- 

 dition for its proper exercise, whether default in payment of a 

 mortgage debt, a wife's jointure, or a child's portion, or a mere 

 individual discretion, it raises in regard to titfe the question — 

 "Who is to be responsible for seeing to the existence or fulfilment 

 of these conditions ? 



