of a broker to a purchaser procured by him, though for a less sum than that for which he was employed to sell, he is entitled to his commission, or to a quantum meruit equal to the amount of the commission.

13

Provincial Insurance Company Insurance on Property outside the Province. The current Manitoba Reports contain a case of Kittles v. Colonial Assurance Company1 in which the Manitoba Court of Appeal decide, on the authority of the Bonanza Creek Gold Mining Co. case1s and Canadian Pacific R. W. Co. v. Ottawa Fire Insurance Co.,14 and under the local Act 7 Geo. V. c. 12, that a company incorporated by a Manitoba statute with power to carry on a general business of insuring property against loss by fire, without any express limitation as to the location of the property, may validly insure property anywhere in the world, provided it complies with the statute in issuing its policies. The local Act 7. Geo. V, c. 12, enacts that—

'Every corporation or company heretofore or hereafter created . . shall, unless otherwise expressly declared in the Act or instrument creating it, have and be deemed to have had from its creation, the capacity of a natural person to exercise its powers beyond the boundaries of the province.

Our own recent enactment, 6 Geo. V, c. 35 s. 6, Ont., is to a like purport.

We are gratified to see several articles recently published in the C. L. T. are referred to in the argument of this case.

There appear to be no cases requiring special notice in R. J. Q. (S.C.) for December.

A. H. F. L.

12 28 Man. 47.

13 [1916] A. C. 566.

14 39 S. C. R. 451.

CONTEMPORARY LEGAL REVIEWS AND PERIODICALS.1

The Yale Law Journal for December presents us with Part I. of an interesting Article on Surviving Fictions by Professor Jeremiah Smith, of Harvard University. He advocates the view that, at the present day, the use of fiction in law should be entirely abandoned. He shows by his examples many instances of surviving fictions which most of us have scarcely regarded in that light. Thus 'the expression "conclusive presumption" is used to-day as a clumsy and roundabout method of stating a rule of substantive law; or rather, as giving a fiction reason for a rule of substantive law'; the legal presumption that every man intends the natural and probable consequences of his acts, has no foundation save in fiction; the fiction of constructive intent conceals 'the fact that the judges are now departing from the earlier decisions as to contributory negligence, and are changing the law on the subject; for the presumption in law that a person intends the natural and probable consequences of his act, there is no foundation save in fiction.' We shall look forward with interest to a continuation of these articles. In the Development of Principle in Trespass by George F. Deiser, we have a learned explanation of the historical development of the principles upon which redress is based in the action of trespass. We rather wish someone would expound the precise value of these meticulous enquiries into the history of remedial processes at law to which the labours of the late Professor Maitland gave such a stimulus. Among other Articles in this number are Alien Enemy

It is by no means the intention of the C. L. T. to make this monthly feature a mere jumble of extracts. Numerous exchanges from different parts of the Empire and from the United States are examined, and attention is called, month by month, to whatever seems most striking and important in them.

VOL. XXXVIII. C.L.T.-4+

Persons, Firms and Corporations in English Law, by Cyril M. Picciotto of the Inner Temple, London; and General Assignments and the Bankruptcy Law, by Marshall W. Hagar, of the New York Bar.

The Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation for November, though a small number, maintains its usual high level of interest. It opens with an excellent photograph and short biographical sketch of that remarkable Imperial statesman, General Smuts. The writer remarks that

There is one feature of General Smut's intellectual character which is of special interest. That is the extent to which his mind is imbued with the principles of English Constitutional law, and more particularly with the principle of the undivided sovereignty of Parliament;'

and, after referring to his opposition to schemes for a closer union of the British Commonwealth on federalist lines, adds:

'But no one knows better than he does that some positive solution must be found to the problem of reconciling the demands of the Dominions for full equality of national status with the United Kingdom with the need for effective unity in dealing with the outside world, in the interests of each Dominion as well as in the interests of that Commonwealth which he has justly described as a League of Nations already in being. And no one is better qualified than he is to assist in the task of finding that solution.'

After an Article on Local Self-Government in India by Sir H. Wheeler, K.C.I.E., we have an erudite one by Miss Rose Graham on The Civil Position of Women at Common Law before 1800, in which she tells us of several women whose names appear in the "Lists of Sheriffs in England and Wales to 1831," of whom Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery, was the last woman to hold a shrievalty in England, namely that of Westmoreland, from 1650 to 1675. She further shows how in the 13th century women had the privileges and profits attached to the holding of Courts of hundreds and manors; and as "lords" of manors, had, in some cases, the gallows, and the assize of bread and beer, i.e. the power of

enforcing the general ordinance fixing the weight of bread and the price of bread and beer. Also that women have always been eligible to act as churchwardens, and overseers of the poor, for which reason no legislation was needed in the last century to enable women to serve as Poor Law Guardians. A case is noted in 1739 in which the King's Bench held that women were capable of being sextons. Articles follow on Empire Land Settlement by A. R. Uvedale Corbett; on Malay Mortgage by Conditional Sale by J. E. Hogg, who contributes a paper to this issue of the Canadian Law Times; and Roman-Dutch Law in British Guiana and a West Indian Court of Appeal by J. C. Ledlie. Roman-Dutch law is defined as

'that mixed system of Germanic and Roman law which grew up in the Low Countries in the 17th and first half of the 18th century (i.e. during the period of the greatest commercial prosperity of the Dutch) and was carefully worked out, and scientifically developed, in the writings of Grotius, van Loeuwen, Voet, and other very eminent Dutch jurists.'

The writer shows how The Civil Law of Guiana Ordinance, 1916, has substituted the English Common Law and principles of Equity along with certain English statutory provisions for the Roman-Dutch law, save as to certain points, preserving, inter alia, the Roman-Dutch legislation per subsequens matrimoneum, but abolishing the annus luctus and laesio enornus. This Act came into operation on January 1st, 1917; and Mr. Ledlie says—

"The die is thus cast and the experiment launched. The results are a matter of speculation. If the experiment fails, it will, at any rate, not be for want of trouble taken. If it succeeds, the administration of law in the Colony will be freed of many perplexities that now beset it.'

There are other important Articles in this issue of the Journal of the Society, but we can only speak of one, by Professor A. Berriedale Keith, whose great work on Responsible Government in the British Dominions is so well known, on Ministerial Responsibility in the Dominions, in which he points out the constitu

tional distinction, at present existing, between the position of the Governor and the King with regard to acceptance of ministerial advice, advocating that in all matters of internal affairs Governors should act on the advice tendered to them by the ministry in office, being definitely relieved from all personal responsibility. Mr. Keith urges (p. 231):—

The advantages of the change are plain: The present position is misinterpreted in the Dominions by the public generally as Imperial interference in local concerns, and is confused with the action of the Governor when he represents some definite Imperial interest: thus in New South Wales there were not wanting suggestions that the Imperial Government were directly interested in Mr. Holman as a supporter of the policy of Mr. Hughes, the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth, and the exponent of an imperialistic policy. In the second place, the way would be paved for more frank co-operation between Ministers and the Governor, which is impossible so long as Ministers are afraid of revealing their weaknesses to one who may feel called upon to reject their advice simply because they are weak. In the third place, encouragement would be given to the development of the feeling of political responsibility among ministries when they realised that their advice would be acted upon on their sole responsibility. Finally the step is essential if the ideal of the Imperial War Conference is to be attained, and if the self-governing Dominions are to acquire the position of equality in political status with the United Kingdom which their statesmen have declared that they desire, and which the United Kingdom is ready and willing to concede.'

The Law Journal of November 3rd, observes:

'It is difficult from the legal point of view to acquiesce altogether in Mr. Justice Younger's indignation, which has attracted some attention in the general press, at the bringing of an action by the trustees of an estate at Windlesham against the owner of adjoining property to restrain an alleged trespass-the question at issue being the proprietorship of a ditch (Graham v. Carter: Oct. 26th). It may well be that the whole value of the strip of property in question could not exceed, as the learned Chancery Judge said, 'the cost of one hour of the trial,' keeping at the service of the parties the whole paraphernalia of justice as administered in that Court, absorbing the attention of four distinguished counsel and two eminent firms of solicitors, and enlisting 'the usual complement of skilled witnesses and ancient inhabitants.' But it is from small infractions that greater grievances grow, and it is with a sound instinct that the law excludes from its general maxim of non-intervention about 'trifles' disputes affecting boundary rights.'