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English Private Law, 1870—19201

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

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Extract

The foundation of the Société de Législation Comparée, whose jubilee we are now celebrating, preceded by a few years, as it happened, the opening of a new epoch in' the history of English law.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Law Journal and Contributors 1926

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References

page 19 note 2 Le systéme judiciaire de la Grande-Bretagne, Paris, 1893. His diligent research and exact statement are not only extraordinary for a foreign student but would have done credit to any learned Englishman.

page 19 note 3 The Reign of Queen Victoria, Lond. 1887, vol. i., p. 281.

page 19 note 4 11th ed., vol. ix., p. 600.

page 20 note 5 2nd ed., Lond. 1914.

page 21 note 6 Only a rough statement is practicable: the English categories of “real” and “personal” property do not coincide with those of “movable” and “immovable”. Greater exactness would be tedious and of no use for the purpose in hand.

page 22 note 7 Approximately equivalent to contrat de mariage: observe that in English “contract of marriage” may mean marriage itself, in so far as it has the nature of a contract, or, less correctly, a promise to marry, but will not translate contrat de mariage.

page 22 note 8 The common law was mitigated by local custom in the City of London, possibly in some other boroughs. I do not know what was the economic importance of this in practice.

page 25 note 9 “Has the Common Law received the Fiction Theory of Corporations?” Law Quart. Rev., xxvii, reprinted in Essays in the Law, 1922.

page 26 note 1 Since this was written it has become law as tbe Law of Property Act, 1922. Further measures of consolidation and recasting are expected.

page 26 note 2 Le Développement de la Constitution et de la Société Politique en Angleterre, Paris, 1887, pp. 92, 93, 95, 96.

page 27 note 3 Pollock, , The Land Laws (3rd ed.), London, 1896, p. 167Google Scholar.

page 27 note 3 I have elsewhere endeavoured to describe the scheme of a family settlement with as little technicality as possible: op. cit. p. 111 sqq.

page 28 note 4 It was even attempted to apply these ideas to Ireland. A section of monumental stupidity in a certain Irish Act—of 1861, I think—solemnly enacted the reign of pure contract between landlord and tenant. But this is beyond my scope.

page 28 note 5 There are minor statutory amendments of later date.

page 29 note 6 An elaborate digest of the provisions in force in the British dominions has been published by MrHogg, J. E., who has long been familiar with the Torrens system in Australia: Registration of Title to Land Throughout the Empire, etc., Toronto and London, 1920Google Scholar. The peculiar system of Scotland stands apart, and is therefore barely touched upon.

page 29 note 7 , Pollock, The Land Laws, 1896, p. 173Google Scholar.

page 29 note 8 This report was discussed in the Law Quarterly Review, xxvii. 173. 417; xxviii. 6, 26. An account of the existing rules is given in the last chapter of Williams on Real Property (22nd ed.) London, 1914.

page 29 note 8 Now Law of Property Act, 1922 (12 & 13 Geo. 5, c. 10).

page 30 note 1 The latest and most complete authoritative declaration of the law is in Henthorn v. Fraser [1892] 2 Ch. 27.

page 31 note 2 Several Codes, including the Indian Contract Act, have laid down empirical solutions, not always clear or exhaustive. I do not think any of them preferable to that which our Courts have worked out on the old lines of the common law.

page 31 note 3 For about twenty-five years we have had a “Commercial Court,” but this is only a convenient name for an administrative arrangement of judicial duties made by the Judges of the High Court.

page 31 note 4 See, for fuller particulars, McNair, Arnold D., Legal Effects of War, Cambridge, 1920Google Scholar, cc. 4, 5.

page 33 note 5 Nordenfelt's Case [1894] A. C. 535. Learned opinions had previously differed, nor were the reasons given in that case itself uniform.

page 33 note 6 Attorney-General of Australia v. Adelaide Steamship Co. [1913] A. C. 781.

page 33 note 7 Lord Macnaghten in Nordenfelt's Case. In that case the complaint was of an agreement made in Belgium with a Belgian company.

page 35 note 8 See notes of recent decisions in Law Quart. Rev. xxxv. 116, 283; xxxvi. 103. One or two still later ones are not vet reported. [And see Addendum to Pollock on Torts, 12th ed., 1923.]

page 36 note 9 French readers will be quite safe in consulting for further information down to 1910: Adrien Gérard, LesTorts” ou délits civils en droit anglais (Laval: L. Barnéoud & Cie.).

page 36 note 1 See Law Quart. Rev. xxv. 341; xxvi. 103.

page 36 note 2 Law Quart, Rev. xxxii. 255; xxxiv. 160. [See now Fairman v. Perpetual Investment Building Society [1923] A. C. 74.]