LORD BIRKENHEAD'S ACT.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sut,—May I be allowed a brief reply to Sir Arthur Underhill's criticisms, in your issue of October 20th, of my book on the Law of Property Act? Sir Arthur protests against your reviewer's assertion that the Act was passed 'without serious inquiry. My contention is that changes in the law which bid fair to make conveyancing much more expensive, including the extension of entails, a greatly increased employment of trustees, further Government registration of encumbrances, a new intestacy law and changes in Chancery and Probate practice ought not to have been passed through Parliament without being submitted to the criticism of practical men, landowners and solicitors. But on Parts I., VIII. and IX. of the Act no public inquiry has ever been held. The Royal Commission of 1912, to which Sir Arthur refers, dealt only with registration of title. The Acquisition of Land Committee of 1919 only heard half-a-dozen witnesses, and the Joint Committee of Lords and Commons of 1920 none.
Sir Arthur proceeds to suggest that because my name is not to be found in the Law List (I am a solicitor, but have ceased to practice) my opinion on the Act must be inferior of that of Conveyancing Counsel. I wonder if he is accus- tomed to discount the authority of Bentham and Austin on the same grounds The fact, however, is that a philosophical inquiry on a legal subject must not be looked for from a barrister in large practice, if only for the reason that he has not sufficient leisure to undertake it. The labour of producing a legal text-book, annotating a statute without criticizing it, is not to be compared with that of tracing the reasons for a particular law and estimating the actual effects of a proposed change. Sir Arthur, imitating the promoters of the Act in its passage through Parliament, continues to urge us to accept it on the strength of their names alone. But as the Act is now on the Statute Book it is time that the landowners and solicitors looked into it for themselves. May I suggest that Sir Arthur, instead of troubling about my qualifications, should have endeavoured to answer the arguments in my book ?
—I am, Sir, &c.,
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