290 THE SURVEY QUESTION IN COCHIN CHINA. 



All the reflection which I have bestowed on the subject 

 since has only confirmed me in this idea. 



Annamite law does not recognise any absolute rights in 

 real property, whether express or implied. 



Native land-holders only borrow, ordinarily at the sowing 

 season, on an undertaking to repay the advance at harvest, 

 eight months afterwards. 



They are the victims of the most frightful usury. 



There exist at Saigon great money-lending institutions* 

 which would find every advantage in embarking in these 

 agricultural loans. Their intervention would at once reduce 

 by four-fifths the rate of interest which the native land-holders 

 pay at present. Perhaps, even, the Bank of Indo-China would 

 be willing, in consideration of the deposit of title-deeds, to 

 make the necessary advances to cultivators. 



All these different ciscu instances tell greatly in favour of 

 the adoption of the Torrens system, and the natives who 

 seem to have had an intuitive idea of the principle, would at 

 once appreciate the benefits derivable from it. 



Should the Torrens law {I'acte Torrens) be applied to the 

 Colony, it would be necessary to undertake, not a cadastral 

 survey [cadastre), but a registration of holdings (/eve) and 

 the demarcation, with the concurrence of contiguous pro- 

 prietors [delimitation contradictoire) of those lands the 

 owners of which might apply to have them brought under the 

 new system. New titles of uniform tenor, drawn up in ac- 

 cordance with a form agreed upon, would be issued then to 

 the parties entitled. 



Surveyors attached to the principal arrondissements might 

 be entrusted, in such numbers as the demand for their ser- 

 vices might require, with the scientific part of the work ; the 

 civil functionary in charge, an officer deputed by the direction 

 de V inter ieur (possibly an employe des domaines) , the chef 

 du canton, and a headman selected in the village would pro- 

 nounce upon the titles of the land-holders, would exercise a 

 careful watch over the interests of third persons and of the 



* The Bank of Indo-China, the statutes of which might easily be modified ; 

 the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, and the Chartered Bank. 



