NEW BOOKS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXIII, Issue 235, 16 October 1901, Page 2

NEW BOOKS.

THE LAND TRANSFER AOT3 OF NSW ZEALAND, * With Introduction, Notes, and Forms, by David Hutchen and Henry Oecil Wright, Bstristers-at-Law, New Plymouth.

Specially reviewed for the Daily Nbws by a leading conveyanoer.

More than thirty yeirs have now elapsed since the above-named Acts rameinto force in this colony, and the facility wi'h which they enable hnd dealings to be made and the irdefeasibility of titl i which they give to landowners are such that it is now the gent ral aim to obtain for landed estates Land Traosfer titles. It is therefore not to be wondered at thah the growing demands of the legal profession, and of the public call for a handy book of these Acts, which will not only render the Acts themselves readily accessible, bub furnish the reader with the numerous cases which interpret and explain iheir various provisions. These demands have been met by Messrs. Hutchen and Wright of this town in a. handy little volume which will assuredly find a ready place in the office of every hwyer, landbroker, and land transfer officer in the' colony, and will probably have an ex-, tensive sale in the Siates of the Australian Commonwealth, where the Land Transfer Acts are also io operation. Messrs. Hutchen and Wright have done their wok admirably. The work is modelled on the most approved methods of modern text writers on Statute law, The introduction is concise, clear, and, so far as the nature of the subject will admit, exhaustive, giving as it does a resume of the various transactions for. effectuating with the Land Transfer Acte have been devised, such, for instance, as the title of the registered proprietor, alienation, transfers, mortgages, leases, transmission, registration abstracts, powers of at t irney, trusts and equitable jurisdiction, cavnat?, and o'jher cognate subjects. With regard to the full text of the Ads themselves, Messrs. Hutchen and Wright, wherever the sections are lengthy or involved, have split them up so as to make their meaning clear in order that he who runs may read. The no'es of c wes are raogf d under the various sections to which they refer, and thus give in a nutshell the informatiin which is wanted by the practictical man of business. Thase notes themselves are succinct and luminous, and therefore invaluable to the practitioner. Space doss not, of course, permit us fully to review them, but we cannot pass them over without remarking on thegeneial excellence of the notes to sections 55 and 56 of the AcS dealing with fraud and trusts, where the law on these important subiecs, in th,eir rela'ion to the Land Transfer Acts, is splendidly epitomised, the cases giving not only the decisions of our own Supreme Court and Court of Appeal, but the decisions of the Privy Council as well on Australian as on New Zealand caee».

Thß sxme observations apply to the excellent not°s to sec'ion 189, in which the whole of the decided cases are collected, which deal with the question of protection of purchasers, under the Lind Transfer Acts. At the end of the book is a fine collection, of forms, and further (see pugs 4), to increase the utility of the volume, the t°xt of Ihe Act contains marginal references to the corresponding sections o F the repealed Act of 1870 and its amendments. The work tco, is furnished with a very full index, which will further enhance its usefulness.

j We heartily compliment Messrs Hutcht n and Wright on tho resent of their labours, and express the hope that their book will become what it certainly df serves to ba, a vade mecum in the hands of all those whose business it is to deal in the land. It has, moreover, oeen well and carefully printed.

♦Printed by T. Avery, New Plymouth.