CHAPTER XVII. 



CONCLUSION. 



ALIENATION OF LAND. 



There are some difficulties attending the alienation of 

 land, in Jamaica, which tend to prevent its sale to small 

 capitalists. In the first place, many of the owners reside 

 abroad and have to be consulted before their island agents 

 can negotiate. In the next place, the estates are very 

 liable to be involved in an entail in some way, so that the 

 fee cannot be transferred. Then the titles sometimes' run 

 back through a long series of years, and their examination 

 involves considerable expense oftentimes, and as English 

 conveyancers have to be employed and paid English mea- 

 sure, the tax for conveying property, is something of a dis- 

 couragement to the purchase of small freehold properties. 

 When the title of a large estate is in a resident who wishes 

 to sell the whole or parts of it, the matter is very much sim- 

 plified, for he can have the title to himself, properly au- 

 thenticated, and then all who purchase under him take no 

 risks against which it is not very easy to be insured. 



