THE SURVEY QUESTION IN COCHIN CHINA, 289 



All administrators and lawyers who have to deal with 

 questions relating to loans on landed security and on agricul- 

 tural property, are acquainted, in its general features at least, 

 with the ingenious system invented at Melbourne * by the 

 Hon'ble Mr. TORRENS f and so properly called after his name. 



Land-owners in Australia who are desirous of bringing 

 their land under the Torrens system, send in their title-deeds 

 to a special office, where they are examined, in the same 

 manner as the titles of a vendor are scrutinised by the pur- 

 chaser, and where, after this verification, they are entered, 

 if need be, in registers kept for this purpose. In considera- 

 tion of a small payment, the Government certifies thence- 

 forth that the person named in the title (porteur du titre) 

 has the right to dispose at will of his property, free from all 

 charge, and undertakes to indemnify those who advance 

 money upon it, in case of eviction. 



These titles may thenceforth be employed as freely as 

 negotiable instruments ; they become regular securities {des 

 veritables warrants), and are transferred, and pass from hand 

 to hand with the same facility. Simple promissory notes 

 afford in this way the same security as mortgages of real 

 property, and land becomes the safest medium of credit. 



In Australia, where, in many respects, land is not more 

 valuable than here, the Torrens system has produced very- 

 remarkable results ; the costs of conveyancing, so heavy in 

 English possessions, have fallen to next to nothing ; dealings 

 are put through without delay, and in no single case (at least 

 up to 1878) has the liability of the Colonies been brought into 

 question. 



The analogy which exists between the Torrens system and 

 the practice which obtains among the Annamites of guaran- 

 teeing possession of land by the issue of title-deeds, struck 

 me forcibly during my stay in Australia, and I have ever 

 since thought that the adoption of the former here would be 

 in the highest degree useful and very easy. 



* At Adelaide. — W. E. M. 



-j-The late Sir R. R. Torrens.— W. E. M. 



