THE TORRENS SYSTEM OF REAL PROPERTY LAW. 
675 
The object of Mr. (afterwards Sir) E. E. Torrens was to apply 
the principle of these Acts to land. They obviously afforded a system 
of ready proof of title. Complications were obviated by the provisions 
that equities should not have the protection of registration. They 
were still further avoided by the requirement that instruments should 
be in a prescribed form, thus preventing uncertainties arising from the 
vagaries of particular individuals. The ascertainment of the title was 
rendered easy by the requirement that no instrument should take 
effect until it was registered at the port of registry as affecting the 
particular ship. 
The application of these principles to land does not give quite 
the same simplicity of title as prevails in the case of ships. A ship is 
a natural unit ; there is no fear that anyone who is entitled to the 
barque “ Mary” will instead get possession of the forecastle only of 
that ship, together with the stern of the brig “ Jane” ; but if anyone 
is entitled to allotment A he is very likely indeed to find himself in 
possession of part only of that allotment, together with a part of the 
adjoining allotment B. 
It will he noticed that difficulties of this sort are not at all 
alleviated by the Torrens system. In fact, they are rather aggravated. 
The names of the successive owners and other particulars as to the 
property appearing upon a chain of title deeds lends an aid to the 
identification of the parcels, which is lost when the sole document to 
rely on is a certificate of title which does not contain any reference to 
the past history of the land in question. 
Again, such rights as easements and profits a prendre are 
unknown in the case of ships. Ships are not the subject of family 
settlements unless carried out by way of trust ; and though the char- 
tering of a ship has a close analogy to the leasing of land, the duration 
of charter parties is short compared with that of leases. Finally, a ship 
steadily deteriorates in value from year to year, so that all questions 
concerning her become of less and less importance until they are 
put an end to by her being broken up or lost. It is far otherwise with 
land, which often increases in value so that questions at one time 
hardly worth consideration become in time of great pecuniary import- 
ance. Not merely does land increase in value, but it often changes its 
character. The application of easements acquired in a rural neigh- 
bourhood for the convenience of the owner of an adjoining farm may 
have to be determined when both tenements are covered with houses. 
No question of this sort arises in the case of ships. 
Of these difficulties, that concerning parcels has been found of 
practical importance, and Act after Act has been passed in Victoria to 
remedy it. 
The inapplicability of the merchant shipping haw to family 
settlements of legal estates has not given rise to the friction which 
might have been expected, not from any ingenuity on the part of the 
framers of the law — which on this point appears not a little obscure — 
but because it is not a common practice in Victoria to make settle- 
ments of legal estates, even in the case of land. When it is desired to 
settle land upon the different members of a family, the course is 
nearly always followed (at all events in Victoria) of vesting the legal 
estate in trustees and giving equitable interests merely to the persons 
beneficially entitled. 
