of neutrals, of blockade, and contraband of war, won him a great reputation as an authority on International law.

In 1867 he was followed by Sir Robert Phillimore, a jurist of world-wide renown. The old Court of Admiralty, whose Judge he now became, reached far back to the reign of the English Justinian, Edward I. It was the Court of the Lord High Admiral of England, and was held on ship-board. It was established for trials in accordance with the laws of Oleron and under the procedure of the Roman Civil law, of all matters relating to merchants and mariners which happened on the high seas. For twenty-six years he occupied the seat of Lushington with marked ability and success.

The third great law-builder of English jurisprudence, although going a little further back, and by many regarded as the greatest in the whole range of its history, was Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, who took the Institutes of Justinian as the rich store-house whence he drew the principles of his judgments, found in the reports of Burrow, Douglas, Cowper, Durnford and East, pronounced by Lord Campbell to be: "the very best Law Reports that have ever appeared in England." The great Chief Justice refused to be bound by precedent, when he found the doctrine not established upon the basis of moral rectitude and contrary to the principles of justice and humanity. His many judgments became acknowledged precedents, and eventually to be regarded almost as a code.

Forty years ago there was a total reorganization of the English Judicial System. At its head is a Court of Appeal composed of the Lord Chancellor, the Chief Justice of England, the Master of the Rolls, and certain, so called, Lords of Appeal, designated "Ordinary Lords of Appeal." This new tribunal has general jurisdiction of all causes, both civil and criminal. Its subsidiary divisions are defined as may be seen by reference to the Act. One short sentence, in

the Act, is significant and reads as follows:-"Whenever the rules of the Common law and those of Equity are in conflict, the Rules of Equity shall prevail." It will be seen that the Lord Chancellor outranks the Chief Justice of England. This great Act was the consummation of the victory won by Attorney-General Bacon and Lord Ellesmere over Coke, two hundred and fifty years ago. Virtually it was the triumph of the Roman Civil law over the Common law of England.

The Roman law exerted a profound and lasting impression upon the legal systems of various nations of the world. This is her lasting glory. For this invaluable legacy she has received her just meed of praise. Her career in arms, for centuries, successful, finally ended in disaster and complete overthrow. Under a line of Emperors, many of whom were the veriest ruffians that ever wore the purple, the nation, ignoring the Spartan simplicity of its earlier years and the lofty patriotism of Republican rule, fell upon evil days. The enormous wealth and spoils, wrung from conquered territories, corrupted and enervated the people. The soldiery put up the Empire for sale and it was publicly sold to a wealthy senator, named Didius Julianus, for three hundred million sesterces ($12,000,000), which was divided among the soldiers. The new Emperor was made prisoner and murdered after he had enjoyed his short-lived honour only sixty-five days. Might then assumed the place of right, and the State forthwith embarked in world conquest, for the sake of plunder. The soldiers sharing in the spoils of conquest soon degenerated into soldiers of Rome, ceasing to be Roman Cohorts. The Goths, Vandals, and Franks, fierce and barbarous tribes from beyond the Rhine and Danube, bursting through feebly defended barriers, swept down upon Rome, capturing and looting it. Thus ended the Empire of the West in A.D. 476. The fate of the Empire of the East was equally tragic.

Civil strife at once became dominant.

1

Another nation, powerful in peace and war, is to-day engaged in a like unholy effort at world conquest, having discarded every principle of justice and humanity and having invoked the infamous doctrine"That Might makes Right." In this unparalleled struggle we, Canadians, bear no insignificant part. How appropriate then the ringing words of the mar tyred President of the great Republic to our south:-"Let us have faith that Right makes Might, and in that faith, let us to that end dare to do our duty, as we understand it."

And the no less significant words of England's greatest Chief Justice, Lord Mansfield:-" The last end that can happen to any man never comes too soon, if he fall in the support of the laws and liberty of his country."

JUDGMENT CREDITORS AND REGISTERED LAND.

By "registered land" is meant land held under some system of registration of title, such as the "Torrens'' statutes. It is proposed in the present article to point out some peculiarities in the law relating to judgment creditors of debtors who are registered owners of land.

In the majority of the Australian jurisdictions the position of the judgment creditor who has placed his writ of execution on the register against his debtor's land has been defined in the Australian Courts and a settled rule established, though there is no decision of the final appeal court on any important matter of principle. The registration of the writ of execution may be said to do no more than operate as a caveat for the purpose of preventing dealings with the land, and no actual charge of a proprietary nature is effected, so that the land remains subject in the registered owner's hand to all equitable rights and interests of other persons created prior to the registration of the execution.1 A purchaser under the execution therefore takes subject to all such interests, and may find himself postponed to some unregistered purchaser or mortgagee from the debtor.

In Western Australia a different rule prevails, and in the absence of any protecting caveat the purchaser under the execution will take, not only the actual interest of the debtor, but also the interest of any unregistered purchaser, etc. The purchaser under the execution will in fact be entitled to the whole registered interest of the debtor and not merely his beneficial in

terest.

In Canada the law appears to be less settled than

in Australia, and although in British Columbia and

1

National Bank v. Morrow (1887), 13 U. C. R. 2; Bond v. McClay. [1903] S. R. Q. 1.

2

Transfer of Land Act, 1893, s. 133.

Saskatchewan attempts have been made by the legislature to modify the ordinary rule-which is substantially the same as in Australia-these attempts do not appear to have had much practical result in altering the law.

The ordinary rule, both in Australia and Canada, is based upon the law as laid down by the House of Lords in the well-known Irish case-Eyre v. McDowell." It was there decided that the registration of a judgment, though conferring on the creditor the remedies of a mortgagee, did not give the judgment creditor priority over an unregistered purchaser or mortgagee, but merely affected the beneficial interest of the debtor. But Eyre v. McDowell was not concerned with registered land, and it is remarkable that the Australian and Canadian courts, in determining priorities between registered judgments or executions and unregistered interests in registered land in accordance with the rule laid down by Eyre v. McDowell, appear always to have assumed that the decision applied to registered land as well as land held under the ordinary law. No account seems to have been taken of the vital difference in the effect of an instrument of transfer or charge caused by the provision in all the registration statutes by which no estate or interest passes until registration.

Like other registration statutes, the Irish Act relating to registered land-the Local Registration of Title (Ireland) Act 1891-contains an enactment (s. 35) that a transferee takes no estate in the land until registered, and a similar enactment (s. 40) as to charges conferring no interest in the land until regis tration. In 1907 the question was squarely raised for decision in Ireland whether Eyre v. McDowell did apply to registered land, and the Court of Appeal decided that it did not so apply. The decision turnedon s. 35. The contest was between a registered judg

'Jellett v. Wilkie (1896), 26 Can. S. C. R. 282, avowedly following National Bank v. Morrow, supra; Bain v. Pitfield (1916).

below.

· (1861) 9 H. L. C. 609; 33 West. L. R. 681.

Pim v. Coyle, [1907] 1 I. R. 330, unanimously affirming the Court