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more perplexing to simple minds than the necessity which that system imposes of a deed of reconveyance when a mortgage has been paid off. A mortgage under "the Act does not involve a transfer of the legal estate, although the mortgagee is "made as secure as if such transfer had taken place. The necessity, therefore, for
a deed of reconveyance, when the mortgage paid off, at once vanishes.
If a "lease is to be surrendered, it has merely to be brought to the office with the word "surrendered' indorsed upon it, signed by the lessor and lessee, and attested, aud "the proper officer will note the fact that it has been surrendered, on the certificate of title. Mortgages or leaves are transferred by indorsement, by a simple form. The Act provides implied powers of sale and foreclosure in mortgages; and in "leases, implied covenants to pay rent and taxes, and to keep in repair, together with power for the lessor to enter and view the state of repair, and to re-enter in case of non-payment of rent or breach of covenant. All these may be omitted or modified "if desired. In order to save verbiage, short forms are provided, which may be used "for covenants in leases or mortgages, the longer forms which they imply being set "out in the Act. Thus, in a lease, the words will not without leave assign or sub- "let,' imply a covenant that the said lessee shall not, nor will, during the term of of such lease, assign, transfer, demise, sublet or set over, or otherwise, by any act or deed, procure the lands or premises therein mentioned, or any part thereof, to "be assigned, transferred, demised, sublet, or set over, to any person whomsoever, "without the consent in writing of the said lessor first had and obtained.'
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«29. Every person, therefore, entitled to a freehold estate in possession, has (if his land is subject to the Act) a certificate of title, or land-grant, on which are recorded "memorials of all mortgages, leases, or cacumbrances, and of their discharge or sur- "render. If he trausfers his entire interest, a memorial of the transfer is recorded on the certificate, and the transferec takes it subject to recorded interests. The "transferee can, if he chooses, have a fresh certificate issued in his own name, and in that case the old certificate is cancelled, and the memorials of the leases or "mortgages to which the land is subject are carried forward to the new one. If a proprietor transfers only a part of his land, bis certificate is cancelled so far, a fresh "certificate is issued, and memorials of outstanding interests are similarly carried "forward. Memorials of dealings with leases or mortgages ure noted ou the dupli- "cate lease or mortgage held by the lessee or mortgagee, and on the folium of the
register book.
The Officers of the Department, therefore, and persons searching, can see at a glance the whole of the recorded dealings with every property; "while each person interested can see, by the oue document he holds, the precise "extent of his interest.
30. The foregoing extracts give a very clear exposition of the general effect of the system "of transfer by registration. It cannot be too emphatically pointed out that it is not the execution of the memorandum of transfer, lease, or mortgage, but its regis- "tration in the Lands Titles Office, that operates to shift the title. No instrument, "until registered in the manner prescribed by the Act, is effectual to pass any estate or interest in any land under the operation of the Act, or to render such land liable 66 to any mortgage or charge; but upon such registration, the estate or interest com- prised in the instrument passes, or the legal effect of the transaction, whatever it may be, is complete. Registration takes effect from the time of production of the "instrument, not from the time of the actual making of the entry."
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26. There must be 100,000 separate lots of land kold in individual ownership in the New Terri- tory and of these probably 90,000 are in the country to the North of the Kowloon Watershed.
Land to the South of this range and bordering on the harbour might very well remain muder the ordinary land system of the Colony; it is only for land which will in most cases remain in the hands of the peasant cultivators that I recommend a new departure.
Appendix No. 1a.
No. 10.
SIR,
LAND COURT, HONGKONG, 4th March, 1901.
I have the honour to forward my report on the work of the Laud Court for the seven months ending December 31st, 1900.
The Department was constituted as from the 1st June, Mr. H. E. POLLOCK being appointed President, myself Member. Mr. J. H. Kɛme was gazetted Registrar, and on his removal to the Magistracy on 28th November Mr. Woop was gazetted Registrar in his place.
2. I found on taking up my duties that matters were in the following state.
The Survey on a scale of 16′′ of between 30,000 and 40,000 acres of the New Territory had been completed leaving the remainder of the mainland and the whole of the islands to be dealt with.
Demarcation.
had not been possible to arrange for any demareation either precedent to the survey or follow-
1
no holdings therefore were shown on the maps which had been completed. A large
Y
land had been brought in at Tai Po and at Ping Shan for the purposes of the
the form in which they were laid, thongh possibly adequate for the purpose ceived, was ueither sufficiently full nor sufficiently clear for them to serve as tion into title.
herefore to provide in the first instance a suitable form of claim and this sident and myself. A Demarcation Staff had also to be improvised and er several weeks I obtained the sauction of His Excellency for the e trained as demarcators to accompany the Indian Surveyors in the field
vnership of holdings.