676 
PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 
Again, such rights as profits a 'prendre , which make such a large 
figure in English law, mostly arise out of the manor system, and 
accordingly are almost unknown in a country where that system has 
never existed. Little practical inconvenience has arisen from the 
obscurity of the law under the Torrens system concerning them. 
Easements are much more common, but still the way in which 
land has been cut up for sale in blocks, with wide roads running 
through it which are dedicated to the public, renders them of much 
less frequent occurrence than they would be in a neighbourhood 
which has had more regular and continuous growth. Eut, notwith- 
standing this, there has been a good deal of amending legislation on 
the subject of easements, and the law cannot now be said to be in a 
clear or satisfactory state concerning them. 
As regards covenants running with or binding on the land, the law 
under the Torrens system is perhaps still more perplexed. At common 
law the burden of a covenant, unless perhaps it be a covenant to produce 
title deeds, never runs with the land except between landlord and 
tenant, but a purchaser with notice of a restrictive covenant or a 
volunteer is bound by such covenant in equity. Now the Transfer of 
Land Act, 1890, and the Acts from which it is copied, if their words 
are taken in their natural import, would make all covenants entered 
into by the transferror binding upon the land and the transferee. 
In the one case in which this language has come under the consideration 
of the Supreme Court of Victoria — that is, the case of a mortgagee who 
claimed to recover his mortgage money personally from a transferee 
of the land subject to the mortgage — the court held that this language 
was not to be construed in its natural sense, but merely gave the 
mortgagee rights similar to those he "would have had in an analogous 
transaction under the old system.* Supposing this ease to have been 
well decided, one may suppose that a similar principle will be applied 
to the construction of similar language in analogous cases throughout 
the Act. This application, however, is not free from difficulty. Take 
the case of an absolute transfer subject to a restrictive covenant not 
to use, or permit to be used, any building erected on the land as a 
public-house. The burden of such a covenant would not run with the 
land upon a conveyance in fee-simple at common law, but it would 
be binding in equity on a jmrehaser with notice. Now, if the words 
of the Transfer of Land Act were taken in their natural import, land 
would become subject to the covenant at law as soon as a transfer was 
registered. If, however, these words are cut down so as to apply only 
to covenants that w r ould run with the land at common law, the ques- 
tion would then arise whether it was consistent with other parts of 
the Act to apply the equitable doctrine by which a purchaser with 
notice is bound by a restrictive covenant. It would not seem that he 
could be bound by reason of notice unless the covenant were entered 
as an encumbrance on his certificate of title, but that might be done. 
It would seem probable, therefore, that land under the Act may be 
made subject to restrictive covenants at least as extensively as land 
under the old system, but the fact that these questions have remained 
undecided for so many years shows that it is not the habit of persons 
in Victoria to seek to bind land with such covenants. 
Australian Deposit and Mortgage Bank v. Lord, 2 V.L.R., L. 31. 
