Vol. VIII.-No. 30. April, 1892. LAW QUARTERLY REVIEW. EDITED BY SIR FREDERICK POLLOCK, BART., M.A., LL.D., Corpus Professor of Jurisprudence in the University of Oxford. CONTENTS. NOTES: Registration of Title in Ireland; Admiralty Jurisdiction; Foreign Marriage Acts; the House of Lords on Conspiracy; Cases on Conflict of Laws; &c. VILLAINAGE IN ENGLAND. By C. ELTON, Q.C., M.P. THE REFORM OF LEGAL ADMINISTRATION: AN UNAUTHORISED PROGRAMME. BY THOMAS SNOW. MALICE IN THE LAW OF TORTS. By W. E. ORMSBY (Judge of the High Court, Travancore). REGISTRATION OF TITLE AND FORGED TRANSFERS. By JOHN THE FINAL ACT OF THE FRENCH COPPER RING DRAMA. CROSS-EXAMINATION: A SOCRATIC FRAGMENT. By By EDWARD THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. BY THE EDITOR. BOOK REVIEWS: Statutory Rules and Orders, by M. D. C.; Rankine's Law of Land Ownership in Scotland; Addison on Contracts; Odgers on Pleading; Bishop on Marriage and Divorce, &c. LONDON: STEVENS AND SONS, LIMITED, 119 & 120 CHANCERY LANE. 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A Remittance must in all cases accompany Order, and should be sent direct to STEVENS AND SONS, Limited, 119 & 120 CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. THE LAW QUARTERLY REVIEW. No. XXX. April, 1892. THE NOTES. HE Local Registration of Title (Ireland) Act, 1891 (54 & 55 Vict. cap. 66) was passed as a necessary corollary to the Land Purchase Act, and in this connection has a considerable bearing on the Government Small Holdings Bill. It is a mixture of the English Land Transfer Act of 1875 and the Land Transfer Bills of 1887 to 1889, plus several special characteristics of its own. Only absolute title is recognised, and (sec. 22) purchasers, past and present, under the Purchase of Land (Ireland) Acts are to be registered without fee or enquiry into title. Registration is compulsory (sec. 22) so long as any charge for advances of purchase money is subsisting. Land may also be registered voluntarily, after examination of title, and payment of a contribution of 28. per £100 (£1 per £1000) to an Assurance Fund (Rule 77). Land voluntarily registered may be removed from the Register (sec. 20). Local Offices are to be established and managed by the Clerks of the Crown and Peace in the Counties, with additional remuneration for extra work (sec. 7). Other appointments are restricted to barristers and solicitors (secs. 4 & 5). But Rule 8 shows that very little confidence is placed in the local Registrars, every draft entry for the Register (on subsequent dealings as well as on first registration) being sent up by them to be settled in Dublin and entered there in duplicate books. On the death of an owner of land originally sold under the Land Purchase Acts the legal estate devolves on his personal representatives (secs. 83, 84), otherwise the Registrar has to consider the beneficial title before registering a successor (sec. 37). On dealings with registered land, forms are prescribed, but their use is optional (secs. 35 and 40)-this license appears likely to add considerably to the Registrar's labour and responsibilities. Errors arising through fraud or forgery or mistakes of the officers of the registry are to be compensated out of an Assurance Fund raised by contributions of 28. per £100 on all dealings for value and on voluntary registrations (Rule 77). This appears high, considering it is in addition to, and not in substitution for, the ordinary examination of title (Rule 31). Boundaries can be registered as conclusive in certain cases (secs. 57, 58, 59). The fees are to be kept down to the level of expenses (sec. 8)-a most useful provision, and peculiar to the Act. In a complicated piece of legislation like this Act, and the Rules made under it, there are naturally many points which would call for comment, and possibly for criticism, did space admit. But at present it must suffice to say that the Act seems on the whole a good one, and likely greatly to assist the objects of the Land Purchase Act. The Small Holdings Bill of the present session would appear capable of much improvement by an amendment to a like effect. Lord Cairns's Land Transfer Act contains ample powers, and a short clause providing for the registration of all small holdings would be all that would be needed. A specially competent correspondent writes to us:— Section 2 of the Foreign Marriage Act, 1891 (54 & 55 Vict. c. 74), runs as follows: 'The period of residence required for a marriage under the Foreign Marriage Acts shall be three weeks, and accordingly in section 2 of the Consular Marriage Act, 1849, one week shall be substituted for one calendar month.' On this section Mr. Lely has the following note in his edition of the Statutes of Practical Utility : 'The one week is in direct conflict with the three weeks previously required by the same section. Which prevails? It is conceived that the one week prevails, as being the latest thought of by the Legislature unless there be anything to point to a pure mistake, but that the "accordingly" of this section and the "three weeks" of the next point to such a pure mistake as to rebut such a presumption.' If the successive Marriage Acts are examined it will be found that there is no such mistake as is suggested. Under s. 2 of the Consular Marriage Act, 1849, a person intending marriage must have resided one calendar month before he gives the statutory notice, and under s. 3 of the same Act the notice must remain suspended in the consulate for one week before marriage if the marriage is by license, and for three weeks before marriage if the marriage is without license. Therefore the total necessary period of residence is under that Act rather more than five weeks in the one case and rather more than seven weeks in the other. The Marriage Act, 1890, limited the period for suspension of the notice to fourteen days, whether the marriage is with or without license, and therefore made the total necessary period of residence a little over six weeks in all cases. The Foreign Marriage Act, 1891, cut down the total period still further by reducing the period before notice to one week, thus making the total period three weeks. What Mr. Lely's note shows is the urgent need for consolidating enactments which ought to be simple, but which in their present form are not unlikely to lead astray even persons learned in the law 1. In Mr. Lely's previous note, the reference should apparently be to 12 & 13 Vict. c. 68. The decision of the Court of Appeal (Lord Esher M.R., Lopes and Fry L.JJ.), Reg. v. Judge of the City of London Court, reported '92, I Q. B. 273, that an action will not lie on the Admiralty side of a County Court against a pilot who in the body of a county negligently damages another ship by collision with his own, is of considerable importance. So far as the case turns upon the construction of the County Courts Admiralty Jurisdiction Acts it is of no general interest; but involving, as it does, the decision that the High Court of Admiralty had no original jurisdiction to entertain an action by a shipowner against the pilot of another ship for damage in a collision caused by the pilot's negligence, it is of wide importance and may produce unexpected results. One result is that the case of The Zeta ('91, P. 216) is already under appeal. If a shipowner cannot in a County Court Admiralty action sue a pilot for collision caused by his negligence, can he sue a dock company or any person at all (even, semble, the owner of the wrong-doing ship) for similar negligence? This is the question raised by The Zeta case, upon which the Court of Appeal is now considering its judgment. In The Queen v. Judge of the City of London Court the Court of Appeal was largely influenced by The Urania, 10 W. R. 97, where Dr. Lushington did in fact refuse to entertain a suit by shipowner against pilot. The report of this case is not very full, and it is at least doubtful whether Dr. Lushington there decided anything more than that the bond which measures the extent of the pilot's liability could not be enforced in Admiralty. Moreover the argument of Dr. Tristram, who moved for a citation. It is satisfactory to see that the Lord Chancellor has introduced a Bill for this purpose. |