It is sometimes asserted that it would be impossible to
introduce compulsory registrations of title to land into England, because England is an old country and its land system highly complicated. Registration may do very well for Colonies like Australia, but not for old countries. This argument will, we hope, be finally disposed of by Mr. Brick- dale's Report on the Land Registries of Germany and Austria, just issued as a Blue-book. Mr. Brickdale shows how, in a country like Austria-Hungary, where the land system is still virtually feudal, and where entails, family settlements, mort- gagei, charitable trusts, and antique easements lie as thick on the ground as the leaves in autumn, there has yet been intro- duced a perfectly simple and inexpensive form of registration of title. Great and small properties are alike put on the register, and he mentions one estate so registered of one hhndred and twenty thousand acres,—an estate which includes towns and forests, woods and wastes, pastures and tillages, and covers six hundred sheets of the cadastral map. One remark in the summary of the Report strikes us as specially significant. It is to the effect that no place is more than ten or fifteen miles from its local registry. That is just as it should be. When small men buy and sell they should be able to go over to the registry and do the transaction themselves. In Baden each commune has its register. In England the area of the District Council would probably be the best unit for registry. purposes.
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