bought and sold, just as a measure exists to be used. Rightly, therefore, is the stock-register a register of immediate alienations only. Rightly does the right of alienation in respect of it take precedence of, and almost absorb, all other rights of ownership (a).

Land does not

exist to be bought

be used.

XXXI.—But in the case of land, are not the circumstances absolutely opposite? Land surely exists, not to be bought and and sold, but to sold, but to be used for the benefit of mankind; to yield food, fuel, raiment, shelter, delight. So long as it fulfils these purposes adequately, there is not the slightest reason why it should be sold; there never is any reason why it should be sold, except to pass from the hands of one who uses it to less advantage, into the hands of one who uses it to more. Whilst in almost every case the mere change of ownership is pro tanto an evil-breaks up relations which should be permanent; introduces uncertainty where all should be fixed and certain. Clearly, if the perfect cultivation of the soil, the welfare of the population, could be shown to have for their condition that land should be inalienable, it would be the interest and duty of the state to render it so. Its alienable quality is entirely subordinate to the question of its beneficial use; and I can conceive of no more frightful and anti-social state of things, than that which our original comparison between land and stock implies as desirable-that in which every estate in England could be daily quoted at the Stock Exchange, follow in value all the ups and downs of the rumours of the hour, change hands half-a-dozen times a day. If we could suppose this possible-if the feverish speculations of Wall Street in the waste lands of the Far West could ever be applied to our peopled and cultivated soil, the price would be simply the disgrace and ruin of our country.

(a) It would be easy to show, though by a somewhat different set of considerations, that the peculiar stringency of the ship-registry system is equally justified by the essentially mercantile nature of the subject-matter, whilst it is rendered in great measure practically innocuous by a peculiarity which is entirely wanting in the case of land; viz., the strongly marked individuality of the ship, precluding almost every possible question as to identification; the existence of Lloyd's register, which is based upon that individuality, tending further to restrict the need of specific examination or inquiry.

Title to land

and registration

upon ownership.

XXXII.-I assert, therefore, that the notion of assimilating must be founded specific land to stock in point of title, ownership, facility of transfer, is at bottom, under our present social system, a mere bubble of Capel Court speculation. I assert that the clever and good men who no doubt have entertained it, have been led astray by the mercantile tendencies of the age, by its dominant plutonomy; that they have looked on the question from one point of view, and that a subordinate one. Permanence of ownership in land, I assert, and not perpetual mutation, is itself a good; mutation is only good when it is the change to a more beneficial ownership than the existing one; ease of alienation is only desirable so far as it facilitates such changes. Title to land, therefore, and consequently registration as a record of title, must be founded upon ownership-not upon alienation; it must aim at the healthy, secure, improving use of the land, not simply at the ease of its transfer. Therefore I take it the register must be inclusive-not exclusive; it must take account of the different elements and modifications of ownership-not shut them out, except so far as the parties themselves choose to do so.

Actual notice

must prevail

gister.

XXXIII.-And therefore also, though you may punish for against the re- neglect of the processes of registration, still these processes must not override moral right; therefore they must bow before actual notice, even when it does not take the set form of a caveat. The man who takes possession of property, which but for some legal flaw ought to belong to another; the man who pays money to another, knowing that a third person, but for some legal flaw, ought to receive it, is a dishonest man. Such things must take place, but it cannot be right that the law should sanction them, multiply the chances of their occurrence. Such things must take place, but never are they more sure to do mischief than when connected with land. Do you think the man who buys Glass-house Park from A the registered owner, knowing that A has sold it to B, and taken the money for it, is likely to be a good landowner, an example to his tenants, a worthy member of the county magistracy? Do you not see that the specific character of land makes every violation of public morality, in reference to its title, sooner or

later notorious? Do you not see that public morality is poisoned within the whole area of that notoriety, every time that such violation is invested by law with success? It is a perilous thing at all times to visit the breach of an artificial rule with the penalties of moral turpitude; much more so when the effects are spread over so many classes of interested parties, as in the case of land; nowhere more so than where property in land is so concentrated as amongst ourselves. But of course the admission of notice as against the register, docs not in the least militate against the making the register itself notice, nor yet against a separation of the legal and equitable titles on the register.

The share-re

a model for a

XXXIV.-But now I may be told that I have been fighting gistry system as a windmill; that the stock-registry system is not seriously pro- land register. posed as applicable to land. That of itself is, I think, the best proof of the fallacy involved in the comparison between the two. But let us now consider what is offered as a substitute for it. The railway share is taken by Mr. Wilson as his model property. "Why," he asks, in his letter to Mr. Coulson, "is it so difficult to transfer the interest called a freehold, when it is so easy to transfer the equally real and permanent interest called a share in a railway company? How does it happen that the law keeps an authentic list of the owners of railway shares, when it keeps no account at all of the owners of land?" And his avowed object is to prove "that the system of registration and conveyance, which has been applied with so much effect to the transfer of railway shares, is applicable in substance to the transfer of land." The petitio principii involved in these questions, if used to make the right of alienation the basis of a registration system for land, must appear sufficiently from my previous reasonings. But let us see what there is in the share-registry system to distinguish it from that of stock.

XXXV.-A share in a public company is at bottom, like stock, a debt. An ideal body owes the sum which it represents to the individual; only the creditor, in consideration of receiving profits instead of a fixed interest, foregoes entirely, during the life of his debtor, the right of recovering his capital lent,

Analogies be stock; both debts.

tween shares and

'Differences between shares and

ficate.

and postpones his claim to profits to other claims, including those of other creditors for fixed interest. Essentially, there is nothing so far to distinguish the share from stock. You would expect, if you did not know, that any system of registration formed in respect of it would be founded on the relation of debtor and creditor between the company and the shareholder; that it would seek to confine itself to a record of the right of receiving dividends and of the alienation of such right, excluding as far as possible all other rights of ownership. You would not be surprised-especially considering that the debtor is simply the aggregate of its creditors on shares-if the entries on the debtor's register became conclusive as to the rights which they record. And so far— if our previous inquiries have borne fruit-you would feel at once that the scheme of such a registry was quite as inapplicable to land as the scheme of a stock-registry.

XXXVI.-But now differences appear: the debt, instead stock; the certi- of being composed of an ever-fluctuant number of ever-varying sums, consists of a certain definite number of definite sums. Each of these sums is, or should be, represented by a certain paper document called a certificate. The creditor is thus not left absolutely without evidence of his claim, as if he were a fundholder. The registered title to the right of aliening the debt is not complete without the production of the certificate.

The absence of certificate in the

ceptional.

XXXVII-The certificate, it is evident, bears us one step case of stock ex- back, at least, towards our old bugbear the title deeds; as do also the provisions of company deeds as to transmission otherwise than by transfer, and the evidence producible in such cases. But, leaving this consideration on one side, I think it will soon be seen that the differences between share and stock are more apparent than real. Many companies now, as we all know, facilitate the conversion of the one element into the other; the Companies' Clauses Consolidation Acts supply forms for the purpose. Even as respects the certificate, general as is its use, it is not absolutely universal. There are companiesI may quote the Australian Trust Company-in which it is not regularly given, and is consequently treated as unimportant for purposes of alienation. Its adoption, in the case of

railway and other public companies, or, to speak more correctly, its omission in the case of stock in the funds, turns evidently, I should say 1st, Upon the absolute confidence placed by the public in the Bank of England, representing the nation itself to its creditors, as compared with the very mitigated confidence placed by them in other public companies or their officers (Leopold Redpath to wit). 2nd, Upon the notoriety, accessibility, permanence of site of the Bank, as compared with the little-known, out-of-the-way, shifting habitats of other companies; until, indeed, they reach their last notorious, unenviable homes in Lincoln's Inn or Basinghall Street, where even share certificates become little more than mourning cards.

Unspecific char

acter of the share,

the certificate.

XXXVIII.-Still there is, no doubt, in the mere existence of a certificate-remaining in the hands of the shareholder, more as distinct from or less essential to the proof of ownership-a specificness which stock in the funds has not. So far, the practical adoption of the share, instead of stock in the funds, as the model in any plan of land registry, is a homage to that specific character of the land which I have endeavoured to bring out. But let us not be deceived: The specific character of the share certificate is that of the instrument representing property, not that of the property itself. It is so far precisely similar to the titledeed as to land. The deed is specific; one deed cannot be another, cannot take the place of another. But it is a specificness entirely distinct from that of the land which it represents. The deed may be subject to one set of equities, the land to another. But the share in itself is quite unspecific, however specific the subject-matter out of which it arises. The London and North Western Railway is, no doubt, quite as specific as any "twelve-acre field." But a share in the London and North Western Railway Company confers no right as respects any one specific portion of that whole. If the shareholder took up one single clod of earth from the line, and called it his, he might be made penally responsible. Practically then, it may be said that there is such a thing as an unspecific ownership of a specific subject-matter. But do not let us overlook that this only comes to pass by resolving the