perty would be bought and sold as often and as easily as the same amount of stocks and merchandise.

The existing maps of the Ordnance Survey, the Tithe Commission maps of boundaries, and the reports of the Boundary Commission of Counties and Boroughs of the United Kingdom for 1868 and 1885, are sufficient to enable draftsmen to show all local divisions and every holding of landed property in the British Islands.

Experienced and practised lawyers, faithfully deciding disputable points, could overcome every difficulty as to ownership.

Less injustice is likely to result from doing the work at once than if it is deferred. This country is as well able to do the work as other countries that have done it. Interested persons exaggerate the trouble and expense of making all land titles indefeasible; but, however great it may be, it will be insignificant, compared to what must result if the present plan is continued for an indefinite time.

Compulsory registration of all titles would not be likely to disturb owners who are now in possession, but it would give perfect titles to those persons who have none, or who have no title-deeds.

Claimants who have hitherto been unable to evict owners in possession would be less able to do so under an Act passed for the purpose of registering titles.

Although the collection, investigation, and registration of every land title in the United Kingdom would cost labour, yet, if it were once done, it would be the base on which the most perfect and simple system of land title and transfer could be built up, and it would facilitate all future reforms in regard to land tenure.

That the proposition is perfectly practicable, that there is no insuperable difficulty in it, and that no injustice need be done by it, is shown by the following

Hints for a Parliamentary Bill

to facilitate the transfer of land and house property, by making all the titles of the owners thereof absolutely indefeasible in two years after passing the Act, and for making all such titles that are not so registered void and invalid :

1. Divide the whole of the United Kingdom into not more than a score provinces, with subdivisional districts, by grouping counties together, generally adopting some existing divisional boundaries accord

ing to the instructions that guided the Boundary Commission of 1885, and show the exact divisional lines on a map. The provinces to be as equal to one another in all respects as possible.

2. Form a Chief Land Office in London, with a branch office in each province, as described on page 13.

3. The (25-inch scale) Ordnance Survey map of the United Kingdom is to be completed forthwith, and every freehold is to be delineated, tinted, and numbered on the map, or on an enlarged plan of the property, if necessary.

4. Within THREE months after passing the Act, all existing title-deeds, or, in cases where deeds are lost and none exist, then a statement of particulars, are to be deposited at the provincial branch Land Office, and a receipt, descriptive of the documents deposited, is to be given in exchange.

5. Neglect to deposit title-deeds or statement of particulars at the Provincial Land Office appointed to receive them within three months after date of Act, is to be evidence that those persons who do not so deposit such deeds or statement believe they are not the rightful owners of the property they hold. And after the titles of such property shall have been advertised for one year as DOUBT

FUL TITLES, the Land Court can determine who are the lawful owners, and each owner shall repay the costs of his case.

6. Within NINE months after passing the Act, all title-deeds and statements of particulars are to be fairly copied out and bound up into books, with indexes separately bound up, so as to enable the public to refer to and read them, and have copies made; or, if the title-deeds are voluminous, then abstracts may be made of them and copied out, and the original title-deeds can be referred to and copies of any portions of them can be made, if they are ever required. The Chief Land Office should see that all the provincial branches carry this out perfectly.

7. Claimants who dispute the titles of owners in possession of property are (within one year after the date of the Act) to deliver to such owner (through the Provincial Land Office), together with a sum to cover the owner's expense of replying, a statement of claim; and within a month after he has received it, the owner is to return a full reply (through the Provincial Land Office) to the claimant, who may, if he is not satisfied, send the statement of claim and reply thereto, together with a sum to cover all possible costs and expenses of

both parties (through the Provincial Land Office), for the judgment of the Land Court.

8. Thus, titles will be divided into four classes,

CLASS A, UNDISPUTED titles of properties, being those which owners HAVE HELD FOR TWENTY YEARS, and which will now become indefeasible titles;

CLASS B, UNDISPUTED titles of properties, that is to say, those which owners HAVE NOT HELD FOR TWENTY YEARS;

CLASS C, DISPUTED titles; and

CLASS D, DOUBTFUL titles.

9. Two Land Courts, consisting of three judges each, might first try if every one of Class B could be placed in Class A, and next adjudicate upon Classes C and D; giving the benefit of any doubt to landlords in possession of premises, or in receipt of ground rent. Should any person be dissatisfied with the decision of either of the Land Courts composed as aforesaid, they might appeal for a final judgment to a court of seven judges, composed of the six judges of the two lower courts, and the Lord Chancellor presiding; and if the appellant be a claimant not in possession, he should first deposit with the Provincial Land Office a sum to cover all possible costs and ex