THE TORRENS SYSTEM OF REAL PROPERTY LAW. 
677 
As part of tlie law of merchant shipping, the provision that trusts 
should not be entered on the register rather preserved the substance 
of the law, as it existed with relation to other chattels, than made 
any departure from it. For though when chattels are held upon 
trust a purchaser with notice is bound by the trust, a purchaser 
of chattels, not being under any obligation to inquire into the 
title to the chattels he buys, would not usually acquire notice of 
any trusts affecting them. It is otherwise with the case of land not 
under the Torrens system. A purchaser is there under the obligation 
to investigate the title, and whether be does so or not would accord- 
ingly be for the most part affected with notice of any trusts which 
appeared on the deeds which were necessary to manifest it. A great 
change, therefore, was made in the law relating to land when it was 
enacted that no trust should be entered on the register, and no person 
dealing with a registered proprietor should be affected with notice of 
any unregistered interest. 
Whether this change would have been considered satisfactory if 
the law had been carried out as apparently enacted it is difficult to 
say; but the Titles Office in Victoria has adopted a practice of 
entering a notice upon every certificate of title which is known in the 
office to be subject to a trust, and of then, when a dealing is submitted 
for registration, making inquiries to ascertain that it is not a breach 
of trust. This practice must afford a very considerable protection 
against breaches of trust, though, on the other hand, it must throw 
obstacles in the way of the registration of bond fide dealings by 
trustees. Though established many years, it has never been ques- 
tioned. Apparently in a bond fide transaction it is easier to satisfy 
the office than to dispute the legality of its procedure, and of course, 
if the transaction is not bond fide , to dispute the question would he 
useless. The entry upon the certificate is simply the letters S.O., 
which stand for special owner; but to any practitioner they must be 
a notice of a trust. This SO. practice, as it is called, brings it about 
that the change made in the law by reason of the not entering of 
trusts upon the register is not in practice by any means as great as 
would appear from the words of the statute. 
We see, therefore, that except upon the question of parcels the 
differences between land and ships have not, under the existing 
circumstances of Victoria, produced the degree of practical incon- 
venience in the application of the law of merchant shipping to land 
which might have been anticipated, and, notwithstanding the differ- 
ences between land and ships arid the differences which must be made 
in the law relating to them, the system of conveyancing contained 
in the Transfer of Land Act has in the circumstances of Victoria given 
to dealings with land to which it is applicable a great deal of the 
simplicity which prevails with regard to ships. 
There is one point in which it appears that the Torrens system 
is ♦fairly the subject of adverse criticism. Instead of modifying the 
existing system of law, it introduced a different system which should 
apply to some land only, thus very greatly complicating the law. It 
was no doubt expected by the framers of the Act that all the land in 
the country would be brought under its provisions, and this will 
probably be eventually the case, but not till after the lapse of many 
