Consolidating the Statute Lau-Second Report of the Commissioners. however well drawn, may lose altogether their simplicity and completeness by amendments and alterations incautiously introduced in their passage through Parliament. After having been passed in one Session, they would often be altered in subsequent Sessions without regard to what had previously been done. New accumulations of partially repealed Acts, probably also of conflicting provisions, would be "heaped together one upon another," and the great evil which we desire to redress would grow as fast as we were able to remove it. In addition to this, other legislation would also be going on, entirely independent of all labours of consolidation; and so, for want of some supervision, the best efforts for that purpose would be frustrated, numerous laws on the same subject would still be continued, and the most perfect consolidation would again become imperfect, and that in the course of a very few years. 425 worked by either means; but we are of opinion that a single responsible person, with adequate assistance, would be preferable to a board for carring into effect a work of this kind. Perhaps there are few cases in which delay and uncertainty of action are not caused by the divided responsibility and sometimes divided opinions of a board; but in a case like the present, requiring the invention, or at least the practical application of a new mode of procedure, the exercise of much discretion, and the power of rapid decision and action, it would seem that anything like concurrent authority would be inconvenient, and that a single responsible head, with a well organized staff of assistants, would work better. We think it would be convenient that the proposed officer should be the same for both Houses. We now pass to the second of the two plans mentioned at the commencement of this Report: II. As to the Classification of the Public General Statutes. to which we have now to direct attention is an General Statutes of each Session, as they are arrangement for the division of the Public We therefore beg leave to submit to your Majesty that in our opinion the most effectual method for ensuring simplicity and uniformity A classification of enactments is incident to in, or otherwise improving the form and style the consolidation of the Statutes; but the plan of future Statutes, would be the appointment of an officer or board, with a sufficient staff of assistants, whose duty it should be:-To advise on the legal effect of every Bill which either House of Parliament should think fit to passed, into leading classes;' and as a prerefer to them, and, in particular, on the exist-iminary measure, the corresponding qualifica66 tion or grouping" of the Public Bills. ing state of the law affected by the proposed Bill, its language and structure, and its operation on the existing law; and also to point out what Statutes it repeals, alters, or modifies, and whether any Statutes or clauses of Statutes on the same subject-matter are left unrepealed or conflicting; so that the House may have at its command the materials which will enable it to deal properly with the Bill. The practical difficulty to be dealt with in the case of the Statutes is that the law which relates to any given subject, or which affects any given class of persons, is dispersed in a large number of volumes among laws relating to other subjects and to other classes, and among enactments some of which have ceased to be laws, and some of which never were laws, in the sense of permanent "rules of civil conduct." This difficulty has grown to its present magnitude by the neglect of obvious precautions. The only material objection which has occurred to us as likely to be made to such a scheme as that above proposed, is the danger of making the authority of the Legislature to To make the several portions of any large some extent, subordinate to that of such a and growing mass of written matter accessible, board or officer. It does not, however, appear one obvious precaution is to resort to some arto us that there is much weight in this objec- rangement or classification. But in the case tion; the officer or board would be a servant, of the Public General Statutes there is no arnot a master, as we do not contemplate that rangement or classification whatever. The such officer or board should report on the Public General Statutes of each Session, as policy or expediency of any proposed measure. they are presented by authority to those whom The powers of both Houses, and of all the they may concern, are a mass of documents members of each House, would remain invio- differing essentially from one another in their late. But assistance would be provided for character, and in the continuance and extent them, as well in advising on the effect of the of their operation, thrown together fortuitously Bills at the time of their introduction, as in in the order in which they are assented to by watching them during their progress through the Crown,-an order purely accidental. Parliament, and keeping them in harmony The evil of this neglect of classification will with the whole law. The labour and anxiety be more glaring if the functions and current of all members of Parliament would thus be business of Parliament, and the marked differmaterially relieved, and the legislation of the ences in character of the Acts which are so country improved. A great saving of time thrown together, be examined in detail. would also be effected; for discussions which now arise, and amendments which it is now pecessary to introduce in the various stages of the Bill, would often be avoided. We have used the terms "officer or board" because our plan no doubt admits of being 1 The only classification of the Statutes now established by authority is the division into Public General, Local and Personal (declared Public, &c.), Private Printed, and Private not Printed. 426 Consolidating the Statute Law.-Review: Willmore & Beedell's Maritime Guide. In the first place, among the Public General Acts of each Session are to be found Statutes NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. (more numerous than would be supposed by The Mercantile and Maritime Guide. those who have not examined them with a special object) which cannot properly be called "laws," in the sense above indicated." It requires no argument to prove that Acts which are now termed Private are not properly to be classed among such laws; for instance, an Estate Act, or a Divorce Act. But there are many Acts now included in the Public General Statutes which, though of public concern because they affect property dedicated to public uses, are as little entitled to be considered "laws" as a Private Estate Act; for instance, the Act of 1853, to authorise the sale of the Excise Office in Broad Street, which is as strictly an "Estate Act" as if it had been passed for the convenience and at the instance of private persons. By GRAHAM WILLMORE, Esq., M. A., one of her Majesty's Counsel, and EDWIN BEEDELL, Esq., of her Majesty's Customs, London. W. Mackenzie, Glasgow. 1856. Pp. 1,167. THIS is amongst the most complete, important, and useful works that have issued from the press within the present reign. It may not indeed be of daily assistance to the generality of the members of the Profession; but to the mercantile and maritime community, the owners and masters of ships, the merchants and traders with foreign parts, the work must be invaluable. There are also among the Public General It must also frequently be of great service Statutes classes of Acts of a different charac- to the legal advisers of these numerous ter, which, though they are of the highest pub- classes of the commercial world, and we lic importance, are as little entitled to be ranked conceive that scarcely any lawyer engaged among "laws." They are merely Acts (often in preparing for the trial of a mercantile or transitory Acts) of administration. maritime cause can proceed satisfactorily without this comprehensive manual. Many of our constitutional usages are directed against the possibility of the machine of government going on without a Parliament. The design of the Authors has been "to As a consequence of this jealousy, Parliament, furnish to all persons connected with the in addition to the proper business of legisla- mercantile and maritime interests of this tion, performs many acts which in most country, such matter arranged in a clear countries would be deemed executive only. To and compendious form as will inform them take one of the most important of these:-An of their rights and duties, and enable them Appropriation Act is passed at the end of every to transact their business with accuracy, Session, to direct to what purposes all the Public Revenue of the year not previously appro confidence, and facility." In order to acpriated shall be applied. Such Acts are in complish their object they have with great effect nothing more than warrants to the public pains and labour studied and collected the functionaries; "the operation of [each] Act is law and custom of merchants; the despent" (as Blackstone expresses it) in the trans-cisions of the Courts thereon; the enactaction which is authorised. When the Treasury ments of the Legislature; and the orders and the Exchequer have issued the money in and regulations issued by Government accordance with the directions of an Appro- Boards and other competent authorities. priation Act, the Statute is as a cheque on a banker that has been paid: it is of no conseThey have also collected from the most requence but as a matter of audit or of history. liable sources a vast amount of information, which they have concisely and clearly stated, for directing the course and developing the resources of trade, both at home and abroad; and have provided against cases of difficulty or emergency, and furnished a safe and hended in our maritime and mercantile ready guide on all the subjects compresystem. * Blackstone indicates sufficiently the distinction between law, which is "the rule of civil conduct," and other Acts of the supreme power. "Law," he says, "is a rule; not a transient sudden order from a superior to or concerning a particular person, but something permanent, uniform, and universal. Therefore a particular Act of the legislature to confiscate the goods of Titius, or to attaint him of high treason, does not enter into the idea of a municipal law, for the operation of this Act is spent upon Titius only, and has no relation to the community in general; it is rather a sentence. But an Act to declare that the crime of which Titius is accused shall be deemed high treason, this has permanency, uniformity, and universality, and therefore is properly a rule." [To be continued.] The work comprises several original treatises,-setting forth and explaining minutely the rights, duties, obligations, and liabilities of Merchants, Shipowners, Masters, mates and seamen, agents and Brokers, both as regards themselves and their connections in business. These treatises comprise the law relating to the following subjects:-1. Carriage of goods in ships. 2. Marine insurance. 3. Bottomry. 4. Stoppage in transitu. 5. Principal and Review: Willmore and Beedell's Mercantile and Maritime Guide.—Law of Attorneys. 427 agent. 6. Bills of exchange, promissory notes, and cheques, &c. The consolidated and amended Merchant Shipping Acts are given in extenso, explained and illustrated by notes and practical observations, especially in relation to the registry, mortgage, and transfer of ships. The volume contains also the laws and regulations and complete tables of duties. and drawbacks of Customs and Inland Revenue; Orders in Council and of the Treasury, Boards of Trade, Customs, &c.; also, a full exposition of the mode of transacting the import, export, and transhipment business. Further, it includes a Synopsis of Customs' Bonds, accompanied by a statement of the regulations which affect them; likewise correct tables of Customs' duties 8. Consuls and consular fees. The Third Part is occupied by 1. Customs' Laws, regulations, and duties. 4. Reciprocity of commercial privileges. 7. Exportation. 8. Ships' stores. 9. Prevention of smuggling. 10. List of British and Irish goods usually exported. 11. Transhipment regulations. 13. Channel Isles and Customs' duties in payable inwards and outwards at every British possessions. British possession abroad. Besides a vast amount of other mercantile and maritime information now for the first time published, lists are given of the warehousing ports of the United Kingdom, specifying the descriptions of merchandise which may be bonded; also of the ports and principal places of shipment through out the world, with tables of the articles allowed to be shipped as stores out of bond or on drawback, and the regulations applicable to them. The volume comprises, also, a concise description of the articles of merchandise usually imported into this country; tables of the moneys, measures, and exchanges of all nations; British and foreign corn tables, with statements of the corn measures of foreign ports and their equivalents in English quarters; also, the comparative prices of wheat, barley, oats, flour, and oatmeal, at the respective weights and measures of the English, Scotch, and Irish markets, &c., &c. Such is the general scope of this very valuable work, which is divided into five parts. The First Part comprises : 1. The Merchant Shipping Act, 17 & 18 Vict. c. 104. 2. The Merchant Shipping Repeal Act, 17 & 18 Vict. c. 120. 3. The Merchant Shipping Act Amendment Act, 18 & 19 Vict. c. 91. The Second Part contains :- 5. Port and harbour dues on shipping. 14. Miscellaneous Customs' orders. The Fourth Part relates to 1. Articles of merchandise most generally imported. 2. Moneys, weights, measures, and exchanges. 3. Corn tables and rates of freight. 4. London Port and Dock Acts. 5. Ports, harbours, and creeks in the United Kingdom. 6. Ports and principal places of shipment abroad. The Fifth Part treats of 1. Owners of ships. 2. Masters, seamen, and apprentices. 5. Stoppage in transitu. 6. Agents, brokers, and factors. 428 Law of Attorneys and Solicitors.-Law of Costs. tor, and had bought an estate of him; and executors and trustees are interested, and which that, being such solicitor, Mr. Mousley knew have nothing to do with the plaintiff's case or that the property was of greater value than title. I quite agree that the executors cannot the sum which he gave for it. The bill refuse production of any, upon the ground that charged that the defendants, the representa- plaintiff's ancestor with his own solicitor. If they were confidential communications of the tives of Mr. Mousley, who had since died, the plaintiff succeeds in his suit, he would be had in their possession divers documents, entitled to see them; and I must assume, for particularly the draft of the conveyance to this purpose, the truth of the statements of the Mr. Mousley and certain copies of deeds of bill, in order to test the materiality of the eviconveyance, relating to the matters in ques-dence, because it will be too late to inspect tion. The defendants, by their answer, these documents after the hearing. The Court, admitted the possession of the documents therefore, always makes a similar assumption mentioned in the second part of the schein such cases, and the plaintiff is entitled to see all documents to which he would be endule thereto, which were stated to relate titled on the assumption that the vendor was to the hereditaments purchased by Mr. his ancestor, and everything which may assist Mousley and to his title as the purchaser in proving that the estate was sold at an unthereof, and which related to and concerned dervalue. such title exclusively, and did not in any manner relate to or concern or make out the plaintiff's title. The Vice-Chancellor Wood said: The executors had better be served; if they consent there will be no difficulty." Gresley v. Mousley and another, 2 Kay & J. 288. LAW OF COSTS. OF ARBITRAMENT, WHERE VERDICT FOR A VERDICT was taken on the trial for the Among the documents so scheduled are copies of conveyances from Mousley to purchasers from him of parts of the property, which would shew for what prices he sold such parts; and also, amongst other things, a valuation of the estate; and these, it is argued, the defendants ought to be privileged not to produce. But it is plain that these documents plaintiff by consent for a given sum, subject may be most material to the plaintiff's case, to a reference to an arbitrator, who was to rewhich is, that the value of the estate was in duce it to such an amount as he might think truth greater than the sum of purchase-money proper. The arbitrator by a formal award diwhich was given for it by Mousley. The de-rected the verdict to be reduced by a nominal fendants deny that there was any fraud in the purchase; but, the case being simply that of a sum, and the plaintiff accordingly entered up solicitor purchasing from his client, and being judgment and proceeded to tax his costs, wholly founded on the allegation that such claiming as part of the costs in the cause the purchase was at an undervalue, it is impossible expenses attending the reference. The Master for the Court not to see that the defendants are only swearing to the effect of the documents in having taxed these costs on the ground that their possession, the real question being the the award was in the nature of a certificate nature of such documents, and from the de- only, this motion was made to review his taxascription in the schedule, it seems clear that tion, and it was submitted that the order of some of them must contain important evidence for the plaintiff. I must follow the precedent reference making no provision for costs, and of Smith v. Duke of Beaufort, 1 Hare, 507; 1 the arbitrator having made a formal award Phill. 209, where it was denied that the docu- and not a mere certificate, the plaintiff was not ments in the defendant's possession in any way not entitled to the costs of the proceedings beevidenced or related to any estate, right, or title whatsoever of or belonging to or claimed fore him. by the plaintiff; nor were the same in any way Jervis, L. C. J., said,-" By the order of rematerial or necessary to or for the plaintiff's ference the arbitration was simply to ascertain defence in the action, nor had the plaintiff any to what extent the verdict was to be reduced. interest in the same; but, nevertheless, an He has directed the plaintiff's claim to be reorder for their production was made. duced by 1s. Tregoning v. Attenborough, 7 Bingh. 733; 5 M. & P. 453,' shows that we "The defendants must have the usual liberty to seal up what does not relate to the plaintiff's case. It is alleged in the bill, that the vendor was in embarrassed circumstances at the time of the sale, and there are some mortgages on the estate scheduled. These must be produced. "With respect to the first schedule, it is objected that it includes documents in which the There, in trover, a verdict was taken for the plaintiff for the full amount of the goods converted, the plaintiff consenting to take them back in reduction of damages, upon its being referred to an arbitrator by order of Nisi Prius to ascertain the amount of deterioration, which amount, Building Improvements in the Law Districts.-New Series of the Legal Observer. 429 are to look at the substance of the thing. In probable that Chancery Lane will at no distant substance, this is a mere certificate. The time become one of the best, as it is now one of the most frequented, streets in the MeMaster, therefore, did quite right in allowing tropolis. the plaintiff his costs." The rule was therefore refused. Sim v. Edwards, 17 C. B. 527. We understand that the Council of the Incorporated Law Society have under their consideration a proposed extension of their buildBUILDING IMPROVEMENTS IN THE Society purchased a large block of houses on ing in Chancery Lane. Some years ago the LAW DISTRICT. NEW COURTS AND CENTRAL STREET. the south side of the present building, and part of this it is now intended to appropriate for several useful purposes: 1. The amount of business to be transacted, THE projected new Courts in the vicinity of in consequence of the large increase of the the Inns of Court, and the great central Street number of members,-the investigation of cases from St. Paul's to Leicester Square, which of malpractice,-the care necessary in keeping have been delayed by the enormous expense of the Annual Register of Attorneys and Solicithe War, will now, in all probability, be resum- tors,-the examination of the Testimonials of ed. Two or three years ago, notices were given the Service of Clerkship, and the inquiries into by the Government officers to commence the caveats against admissions and re-admissions, Street north of the new Record Building on and the business of the Examination each the Rolls' Estate, extending from the boundary Term, require larger offices than can be approof the City of London in Fetter Lane and pro-priated in the present building. ceeding westward by widening Carey Street, passing through Clare Market, and at a convenient point joining Long Acre, and thence through Leicester Square to Piccadilly. We understand that many leading men in the City are well disposed to continue this grand middle way between Fleet Street and Holborn to the north side of St. Paul's Cathedral. This great street improvement is materially connected with the proposed new Courts and offices between Lincoln's Inn and the Temple, for the line of New Street would form the north side of the Courts, whilst the Strand and part of Fleet Street would bound them on the south. It will have been observed that of late some considerable improvements are in progress in Chancery Lane. The west side of the street has been widened nearly up to the property belonging to the Incorporated Law Society, Several first-rate houses have been built, and others of the same kind are in contemplation. We are informed that no less than three Insurance offices, chiefly connected with the Legal Profession, are about to be located not far from the Law Society's Hall; and it appears highly with the costs in the cause, was to be paid to the plaintiff. The arbitrator made a formal award, in which he found the amount of deterioration, and awarded a sum accordingly, but said nothing about costs. The prothonotary having allowed, on taxation, the expenses of witnesses attending the arbitrator, a motion was made for a reviewal of the taxation. Tindal, C. J., said: "The costs of this reference were substantially costs in the cause. The verdict gave the plaintiff the full value of the goods, when, in ease of the defendant, the plaintiff offered to take the goods again, upon allow ance being made for any damage done to them while in the defendant's hands. It was clearly for the benefit of the defendant; and, upon his assenting the arbitrator ascertained the amount of the damages. The costs of attending him were therefore costs in the cause." 2. The basement of the present building is occupied by Fire-Proof Rooms for the deposit of Deeds and Documents. All those rooms, (upwards of 50 in number,) are let to members of the Society; and more are wanted. It is proposed, therefore, in the basement of the south wing, to construct a considerable number of additional strong rooms and closets.1 3. Another object is to provide several more Arbitration Rooms. At present there are but few, and it has been found by experience that it is more convenient to hold arbitration meetings at the Law Society than at the chambers or offices of the arbitrators or at coffeehouses or taverns. It is therefore intended to accommodate the profession by having an increased number of rooms adapted to this purpose. 4. The Library of the Society consists, first, of an extensive Law Library; and, second, of a Library of parliamentary works, county history, and topography, with various works of reference. The extensive rooms devoted to these two Libraries are now nearly full; and it is therefore intended, on the first floor, to continue this range of apartments, making in the whole 120 feet next Chancery Lane. PROPOSED NEW SERIES LEGAL OBSERVER. Nor only various periodical works, both literary and scientific, at certain periods in their progress, revise their plans and commence a New Series of their labours; but the same course is pursued by Law Reporters of Cases decided in the Superior Courts. Since the Legal Observer was commenced in 1830, an important improvement has been effected in Law Reporting. Instead of two or A project is on foot to form a fire-proof building for the Profession; but the extended plan of the Law Society will comprise all that can be required. |
