Infants,

unless affected with a trust or liable for debts, is unsatisfactory. A recent statute in England has altered the law on this head. In several of the States authority is given to the guardian of an infant or the executors of the estate of a deceased to sell land under the direction of a Court. However, in several of the States, such a sale is prohibited by statute.

Provision exists under the New Zealand Lunatics Act, 1868, for selling land under the authority of the Supreme Court. If such a right is proper it certainly would not be unreasonable to confer a similar jurisdiction on the Court in cases of minors. I quite admit that such an authority may be injudiciously exercised, the proceedings being necessarily of an ex parte character, but on the other hand injustice and loss may occasionally take place in the absence of such a power, the exercise of which might well be surrounded by sufficient safeguards.

In many, if not all, of the States there is what is technically called a