tion to the necessities of the case, would, under a total change of circumstances, and after the confusion produced by the downfal of the Company, break out into full and uncontrolled action.We confess that, in the whole circuit of our great globe, there appears to ourselves no people with whom we should be less willing to try experiments than the Chinese, and that we heartily concur in the following opinion, lately expressed by Sir George Staunton, in a private letter which we have seen:- The homely maxim, to "let well alone," had never a more appropriate application, I think, than to the state of things in China, where every step you take (and steps you must take when your honour or rights are in danger) is a species of groping in the dark, and not seldom per ignes suppositos.'

To conclude.-If a great public body, which has so well discharged its trust in every relation, both commercial and political, raising our commerce with China to an amount which vastly exceeds the free trade of the Americans, and of the whole world besides, and maintaining our respectability in a way which has called forth the approbation of the Chinese themselves,-if this body, and the system inseparable from it, are to be overthrown, let it not be for any contingent advantages, or for the mere outcries of ignorant or mischievous individuals. It is a fact beyond the reach of controversy, that Canton has long been inundated with our manufactures, which are now selling at prices much below the cost of production. Where, then, will be the gain to our home industry? All the ports of China, except Canton, are as effectually barred by national jealousy as those of Japan; and to awaken this jealousy, by overthrowing a longestablished system, is, we humbly apprehend, the very way, not to gain more, but to lose what we now possess in a state incomparably superior to every other European nation. With regard to the return trade, we have already shown how our factory has combated the narrow monopoly of the Chinese, and prevented the otherwise certain rise in the prices of tea. But we will state the consequences of a promiscuous trade, nearly in the words of the Letter' from Canton. Your free-traders will find the Chinese authorities and the mandarin merchants too untractable to be coped with; they will soon experience the contempt in which this people professes to hold foreigners and foreign commérce; they will soon discover their error, if they imagine they can persuade the Chinese to consider disputes with individual traders as entailing on them any estimable fraction of the risk and disadvantage which they incur in a contest with a powerful and united body like the East India Company-possessed of a weight and influence equal to stand against them-of exclusive rights

gained by that influence, and still openly denied to Americans and all other private traders. Absence of unanimity and combined operation will encourage the Chinese. There will be no one to whom the aggrieved free-trader can apply for redress. he goes to a mere consul, the Chinese government disdains to communicate with him; if to a Hong merchant, he is a member of the Consoo; or if ever so willing to do a good-natured act on an indifferent occasion, he has too much to solicit on his own account, and entertains too just a dread of the mandarins who are not merchants, to forward any appeal to them which might involve himself in trouble.

If, however, the raging hunger of experiment which characterises us at present, and which has generally hitherto ' instead of fruit, chewed bitter ashes,'-if this must be gratified, let not every thing be risked at once. We have already expressed our belief that there are points which might be modified, if not with any prospect of advantage, yet without much chance of danger or detriment. We have seen that private British traders from India, placed under the control and protection of the factory, have succeeded in a trade of raw produce. Let the same license be granted to private traders from England, however unpromising the prospect, for manufactured goods. Let them add to the heaps of unsaleable British and European articles already taken to Canton-ad libitum. The license has, in fact, for a long time substantially existed; and India or Sincapore have for several years served as a convenient channel. Let private ships have leave to take teas to all our colonies, and to every country in the world— except England; since that must not only annihilate the Company, with their dividends and their remittances, but produce, instantly and inevitably, the most inconvenient results to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In short, let British subjects of every description be able to do all that the Americans have hitherto been said to do for them; and when they have met with the same success, we have no doubt that their ardour will in like manner be materially cooled. In such case, however, we would strongly advise, with Sir George Staunton, that the president of the British factory should have the additional title of King's Consul. We do not recommend this in reference to the Chinese, for they neither know nor care what such titles mean, and have already shown their contempt for what to them are mere empty names; but if the resort of private British traders to Canton is to be materially facilitated, there will be a prodigious increase of disagreeable collisions of all sorts, and the newcomers will have fewer pretexts for being troublesome, if our chief resident have the name superadded to the substance of authority. It is obvious enough,

enough, persons proceeding direct from England would have a greater inclination to dispute the orders of an officer not expressly delegated by the crown, than those who, coming from India, have been accustomed to see the local sovereignty of the Company fully recognised, and to comport themselves accordingly.

ART. VII.-1. Suggestions sent to the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Laws of Real Property, with Minutes of the Evidence given before them. By John Tyrrell, Esq., Barrister.

London. 1829.

2. A Letter to his Majesty's Commissioners for an Inquiry into the state of the Laws of Real Property, on the subject of the proposed General Registry. By Richard Holmes Coote, Esq., Barrister-at-Law. London. 1829.

3. A Letter to the Commissioners for an Inquiry into the state of the Laws of Real Property, containing observations in favour of a General Registry. By Robert Walters, Barrister-at-Law. London. 1829.

4. Observations on the proposed establishment of a General Registry. By John Hodgkin, Barrister-at-Law. London. 1829. 5. A Letter to his Majesty's Commissioners for an Inquiry into the state of the Laws of Real Property, in answer to some objections against a General Registry. By W. P. Wood, Esq., Barrister-at-Law. London. 1829.

6. Outline of a Plan for a General Registry. London.

PERSO

1829.

ERSONS contracting for property held by title are exposed to the risk (in a great measure peculiar to such transactions) of being misled by an apparent title-a species of imposition requiring no ingenuity, for it may be practised, in many cases, merely by withholding a deed, and inviting to those who have discarded honesty, but fear shame, because it requires no accomplices, and the discovery of the fraud may generally be postponed till the perpetrator is in his grave. This danger has been met, in most civilized countries, by registers of title-deeds. These registers, as might be expected, are various in their plans, and aim at various objects; but, in every case, they profess to enable parties, investigating a title, to ascertain that no instrument has been withheld which can affect them or the property in their hands -in short, that they are not imposed on by an imperfect title. The obvious principle of such an establishment is, to require all title-deeds to be registered or memorialised, and to enforce that requisition by denying any effect to instruments not registered

or

or memorialised, or attaching to them some relative inefficiency; and the highest excellence of a register is, to contain some notice of every instrument affecting property, and means by which a person, investigating the title, may search for such notices without risk of miscarriage, and with the least possible expense of labour in examining instruments which are irrelevant. A register may aim at other objects: it may contain pedigrees, and be made a depositary of original deeds, or authenticated copies; and other matters, highly useful in perfecting and preserving evidences of title, may be combined with, or engrafted upon, a register; but they are not essential to its perfection, and are, in fact, foreign to its primary purpose.

In a simple state of society, the objects of registration were answered by rules attaching notoriety to transfers of land. This notoriety might really be attained when the immediate occupier, or the person receiving the rent, was generally the absolute owner; and when transfers were of rare occurrence, they stood some chance of being remembered. But, when lands become subdivided, and the ownership of the soil is broken up into minute portions, each of which is the subject of frequent transfers, and undergoes modifications never dreamt of in simpler times, notoriety of transfers ceases to be aimed at; for, if attainable, it would be without value, when men's memories are too much crowded to retain matters in which they have no immediate interest. Indeed, who could be expected to remember the transfer of an interest, which a plain man could not describe, or even comprehend without an effort. Under the most favourable circumstances, the notoriety of transfers, without any better record than the fragile memory of witnesses, was a rude expedient, and suited only to the rudest times. In England, the inefficiency of these methods has long been felt; and, accordingly, feoffments have fallen into disuse, attornments are at an end, and proclamations on fines are (for the present purpose) a mere farce. Having outgrown the expedients of simpler ages, it might be expected that we should have led the way to other nations, or at least rapidly followed them, in the adoption of registration as a more perfect substitute. The fact, however, is just the reverse; while all other civilized countries have such establishments, England is without any general register of title-deeds. It will, perhaps, be imagined that some reasons exist, making registration less necessary in this country than elsewhere; but in this instance, also, our preconceived notions would mislead us. Every imaginable circumstance combines to make registration desirable here; land is parcelled out into the minutest subdivisions-by means of trusts, it is invested with the attributes of mere personality, and made to undergo every conceivable metamorphosis

morphosis which the convenience of society, and even the caprice of individuals, can dictate; and, lastly, while the practice of foreign countries shows the utility of registration generally, the examples of Ireland, and of York, and Middlesex (where there are registers) prove that there is nothing in the law of England fundamentally inconsistent with the practice.

The Irish registers, and the existing registers in England, are, however, very deficient, and there are peculiarities in the law and in the ordinary transactions relating to land in this kingdom, which create great difficulties in devising a more perfect plan. These difficulties have been considered insurmountable by persons whose opinions are entitled to great weight, and there is no doubt that they have hitherto kept us in the rear of other nations, in a point of internal polity, of no less importance than the security of titles of landed estates.

There are persons who object to registration as uncalled for, and likely to be mischievous, without reference to the defects belonging to any particular plan. Mr. Coote seems to be of this number; in his pamphlet he broadly states, that a register would injure commercial credit, make inconvenient disclosures of family transactions, lay an additional tax on land, and render titles insecure. Now, supposing the sort of credit here spoken of to be entitled to all the benefit of secresy, and that a marriage settlement ought to be as carefully secluded from the public gaze as an Asiatic bride; there is, in fact, no reason why a register should violate any of these privacies. It may be perfectly effectual for all the proper purposes of a register, without making any disclosure of the objects of the instrument registered; or if it be thought fit to register deeds at length, means may be devised for preventing an inspection of the record, except by persons who have a legitimate purpose. The question of disclosure, however, is not, in our opinion, of sufficient importance to determine whether deeds should or should not be registered at length, far less to decide whether they should be registered at all. These objections, it must be admitted, are directed against a particular supposed system of registry; but Mr. Coote distinctly states that he objects to the general policy of any such measure, and prefers the present system of protection by means of outstanding legal

estates.

Not satisfied with the arguments which his own respectable talents suggest, he endeavours to terrify his opponents by dark surmises of undiscovered perils attending registration. The men,' he says, of great depth of thought and general learning, who have preceded us,' the ante Agamemnona fortes of the law, would not have left a measure unaccomplished, the advantages of