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Under the Chinese regime waste areas were frequently granted on easy terms subject, however to an increase of Crown Rent, if the grantee converted the waste into agricultural land, or if he erected buildings thereon.
Land for which a Crown Lease might be issued would of course come under the ordinary law of the Colony as regards registration and so forth.
But the ordinary cultivator should I think be spared for the present the technicalities of English Law.
It is easy to see how the desire to avoid the expense of registration has complicated the land question in China by rendering unregistered transfers almost universal. Our aim should be to devise a system so simple and so cheap that the Chinese will find it more convenient to comply with the law than to evade it.
The Torrens System.
25. The best model is I think the system of Land Registration adopted in the Native States of the Malay Peninsula in the Settlement of Malacca which is a modification of the well known Torrens System, introduced by the late Sir WILLIAM MAXWELL. The peculiarity of this system is, that it makes the ownership of property pass by entry in the register: title by registration being substituted for title by deed.
Its main outlines are well described in the following quotation from Sir WILLIAM MAXWELL'S Essay on the Torrens System, paragraphs 4, 5, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30:—
4. Legal expenses incident to the sale and purchase of land were heavy, and every addi- "tion to the deeds forming the chain of evidence of title increased the cost of subse-
quent dealings.
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5. It was, therefore, with a firm persuasion that great grievances were imposed upon the "Australian Colonists by the English law of real property that Mr. TORRENS (now "Sir ROBERT R. TORRENS, K.C.M.G.) proposed, in 1857, in South Australia, a system "of his own invention, adapted from the practice attending the transfer of shipping property, which, reduced to its elementary principle, substitutes title by registra- "tion for title by deed.
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“25. A certificate of title is issued to every person entitled to any estate of freehold in "possession in land under the Act. Every certificate is in duplicate. One duplicate "is given to the proprietor, the other is retained in the Lands Titles Office. The "certificates in the office constitute the register book, which, in the words of "Mr. TORRENS, is the pivot on which the whole mechanism turns. Every certificate "is marked with the number of the volume and the folium of the register book. Crown “Grants of land bought since the Acts came into operation are also issued in duplicate, "one of which is bound up in the register book, and such grants are, in all respects, "equivalent to certificates of title.
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26. So far, it will be said, the title is simplified, but how is this simplicity to be retained,
'how will future complications be prevented? This is the problem which the Act "endeavours to solve.
"
If
27. For the purpose of facilitating transactions, printed forms of transfer, mortgage, lease,
"and other dealings, are to be procured at the Lands Titles Office. Any person of ordinary education can, with very little trouble, learn to fill them up in the more "simple cases without professional assistance. If a proprietor holding a certificate of title wishes to sell the whole of the land included in it, he fills up and executes "a printed form of memorandum of transfer to the purchaser. The transfer is presented at the Office, and a memorial of the transfer is recorded by the proper "officer on both duplicates of the certificate of title. The purchaser, by the recording "of the memorial, stands in precisely the same position as the original owner.
'only a part of the land in a certificate is to be transferred, such part is described in "the memorandum of transfer, the transfer is noted on both duplicates of the original "certificate; a fresh certificate is issued to the purchaser for the part transferred; and the original certificate is noted as cancelled with respect to such part. This process is repeated on every sale of the freehold, and it will thus be seen that every person entitled to a freehold estate in land under the Act has but one document to "show his title, through however many hands the property may have passed, and such document vests in him an absolutely indefeasible title to the land it describes. 28. If the proprietor wishes to mortgage or lease his laud, or to charge it with the pay- ment of a sum of money, he executes, in duplicate, a memorandumn of mortgage, “lease, or encumbrance, in the form provided by the Act, altered so as to meet the particular circumstances of the case. This is presented at the Lands Titles Office with the certificate of title; a memorial of the transaction is entered by the proper officer on the certificate of title and on the duplicate certificate forming the register "hook. The entry of this memorial constitutes registration of the instrument and a
f.
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