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The Registry of Deeds, &c., under Ordinance 3 of 1844 will, I am satisfied, ere long have to be placed under the superintendence of the Registrar of the Supreme Court or some other officer possessed of competent legal knowledge. In its commence- ment when only Crown grants were registered in the Land Registry and assignments from Crown Lessees, the matters were comparatively simple, but as these Leases have 999 years to run and have already many of them run out now nearly 40 years, Titles are getting more and more involved and are getting too complicated for persons without any legal training. From all sides I have heard complaints made and the necessity of placing them under skilled supervision.
Assignments, Divisions and sub-divisions, Surrenders, Trust Deeds, Leases, Mortga- ges 2nd, 3rd and 4th Morgages, all exist upon the same original portion of Land and when as in many instances these are prepared by unskilled persons, it is clear that unless strickly scrutinized mistakes will occur involving litigation and loss to the parties concerned.
As so large a propotion of the property of the community now consists in Land and House property, and as it passes so frequently from hand to hand, I would venture to suggest that it would be a great boon to the public if some system of registration could be adopted by which indefeasible Titles could be secured to purchasers in which event some skilled supervision over the Land Registry would be absolutely necessary.
The placing the Registry of Titles and also the Registration of Patents and of Trade Marks in one record office, would be of great advantage to the profession and to the general public for many and obvious reasons, one of them being the great saving of time in having to go to only one office and that in the centre of business, and another being the advantage of having every thing recorded in one well known place. Oue advantage to the Government would be that in cases of deceased land owners the property could not be parted with without the attention of the Registering officer being called to the question whether Probate or Letters of Administration had been duly taken out and the duties in such cases properly paid.
In order to assist the Registrar who should retain a general supervision of all the Officers of the Court, I would suggest that there should be two divisions of the Registry, although the officers of both divisions should give assistance to one another as and when required by the Registrar. The Deputy Registrar and Accountant should keep all the accounts of the Court, assist the Registrar in dealing with the accounts of Bankrupt and Intestate estates and see that the Books of the office are properly kept and duly brought up every month. Since 1879, when Mr. ARNOLD opened a new set of Books for the Court, the Accounts of the Court so far as I am able to judge have been most satisfactorily kept, and balance sheets are made up at the end of every mouth showing the state of every account in Court. But the other Books with the exception of some of the most important are and always appear to have been very imperfectly kept. I think they ought to be made up at least every month when mistakes and inaccuracies might be easily detected instead of being made up now as
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