a statement of the rules of English Law which would cover the same ground as the German Civil Code of 1900; but the authors soon found that the English text, which was published independently of the German version, made a direct appeal to the English lawyers and to the general public. In spite of the volume of our output of legislation in recent years, the great bulk of English law-particularly in the field of Contract and Tort and scarcely less in the field of Property is still matter of Common law and derived from the study of decided cases. In The Digest of English Civil Law the authors have endeavoured to supply a clue through this wilderness. When the whole work is complete it is to be republished, we understand, in two volumes. In this form it should enjoy a wide popularity in Canada, and in all parts of the British Empire, where the Common Law is in force, as well as in the United States.

The Scottish Law Review for February has a good story about the new judge of the High Court, Sir Frederick Low, K.C., M.P. It will be remembered that on the death of Lord Justice Kennedy, Mr. Justice Bankes of the High Court was appointed to succeed him, and Sir Frederick Low now fills the position, formerly occupied by Mr. Justice Bankes. While the new High Court judge is not a University man he was at one of the great public schools, Westminster, though he must have found its classical associations uncongenial, judging from the incident referred to by the Scottish Law Review and which occurred between him and Sir Arthur Jelf, when the latter was on the bench as Mr. Justice Jelf. In the course of a case which Mr. Justice Jelf was trying, and in which Mr. Low was counsel, the judge indulged in a long quotation from Virgil, winding up by asking him "What he would say to that?" "My lord," he replied, "I have nothing to say, as I have not understood a word of it." "Shall I translate it?" asked the judge. "If your lordship considers it relevant," was the reply. His lordship not unnaturally, made no attempt at translation, and looked very discomfited and disgusted.

THE CANADIAN BAR ASSOCIATION.

The first meeting of the Canadian Bar Association, which took place on March 19th and 20th at Montreal, was a great success. It was well attended by distinguished judges and lawyers from all parts of the Dominion, and it had as guests of honour Mr. James Montgomery Beck, formerly Assistant Attorney-General of the United States, and who has recently won new laurels by his book entitled The Evidence in the Case' in which he upholds the righteousness of the case of the Allies in the present war; and Mr. Henry D. Estabrook, the eminent New York lawyer. Sir James Aikins in his Presidential Address, which we hope to be able to give to our readers in full in our May issue, earnestly advocated the codification of our law. "Courts and legislatures," he said, "go ceaselessly on piling Pelion on Ossa, and Olympus on both, to the dismay of the bewildered lawyer and helpless people. Great points are left undecided, trivial ones receive elaborate judgments. What then is the remedy? What else can it be but to compress, to write the principles which have been settled by decision or statute in well arranged code?" The point is one upon which lawyers and theorists will never see with equal In the well known case of Wason v. Walter, Cockburn, L.C.J., said: "Whatever disadvantages attach to a system of unwritten law, and of these we are fully sensible, it has at least this advantage that its elasticity enables those who administer it to adapt it to the varying conditions of society, and to the requirements and habits of the age in which we live, so as to avoid the inconsistencies and injustice which. arise when the law is no longer in harmony with the wants and usages and interests of the generation to which it is immediately applied." Perhaps the cause of codification has rather lost favour with English lawyers since the days of Bentham and Austin, and our case law system on the whole rather gained ground. Sir James Aikins, however, favours codification, and we are sure that our readers will welcome the opportunity of considering his arguments at their leisure. We shall certainly be able to give our readers, in our May number, a very able paper read by Mr. Eugene Lafleur, K.C., upon the Uniformity of the Laws of Canada, a subject which he may fairly be said to have made his own, and upon which

eye.

he delivered an address before the Canadian Club at Ottawa on December 7th, 1912. Toronto was represented among the readers of papers by E. F. B. Johnston, K.C., who took very high ground upon the subject of "The Honour of the Profession." Perhaps one of the most interesting points in his paper was where he said "The twisting of precedents and principles to meet the view of the advocates is considered fair argument by some counsel, and a strenuous contention along this line is often made in the hope that it may convince some member of the Court. Confidence is weakened and suspicion is aroused, professional honour is affected, and the innocent often has to suffer with the guilty." He also referred to "another matter, which is bringing the practice of the law into disrepute," namely, "the strenuous effort of many Crown prosecutors to obtain a conviction." There can be no doubt that Mr. Johnston laid down the principles consistent adherence to which makes all the difference between whether legal practice is to be an honourable profession or a miserable trade.

Mr. J. S. Ewart, K.C., in a paper on Federations and Confederations' expressed views of a kind which we are all familiar with in his Kingdom Papers; and contended that as Canada shakes off colonialism she will have to choose one of three courses, either to become a sister kingdom, or part of a federation, or to join in a confederation, and he explained the special features of each of these systems. The paper was interesting as all Mr. Ewart writes is, but perhaps our readers will agree with us, that the form which constitutional arrangements take, is of very small importance so long as Canada remains in heart and soul devoted to the cause of the Empire as she is showing herself in the present crisis. Mr. Beck delivered an address which has been praised on every side, upon the place of the lawyer in the community, a discourse which we understand is to be at once published in pamphlet form. One passage in it we must reproduce here, namely, that in which he said:-" The motto of civilization ought to be, Each for all and all for each.' Every war ought to be regarded as civil war, for civilization does exist as an inchoate organic entity, even though it has as yet no adequate political organization. The time will come when there will be in truth and fact the Supreme Court of Civilization, of which I have elsewhere written, and that day may be sooner than any of us anticipate. Let us hope and

pray that this war may be the travail of mankind, of which a better era will be born."

Mr. Beck also delivered a most witty and brilliant speech at the very successful banquet held by the Association at the Ritz-Carlton; as did also Mr. Estabrook whose subject was the strong sentiment of the Anglo-Saxon element in the United States for England and England's King, and for the ideals for which the allies are fighting in the present war. Those ideals, he declared, are the ideals of the American people, 90,000,000 of whom are in absolute sympathy with the allies. If the time comes, he said, when the American people have to fight for those ideals they will fight for them even if they have to be exterminated. Both Mr. Beck and Mr. Estabrook were made honorary members; and a resolution was proposed in very loyal terms by Mr. Johnston, and carried unanimously, to request H.R.H. the Governor-General to honour the Association by accepting membership in it.

The success of this first meeting of the Association augures well for its future.

RES IPSA LOQUITUR.

SOME REMARKS ON THE PRINCIPLES OF CIVIL LIABILITY.*

When your President, little more than a week ago, intimated to me on your behalf the wish that I should address a few words to you on some subject of interest to lawyers, I suggested that the maxim RES IPSA LOQUITUR might prove a fruitful topic of discussion. I do not propose to address you solely or principally upon the law of this Province. It will be safer for me, a new-comer amongst you, to wing my flight towards the empyrean of Jurisprudence, and to survey the problems which the maxim suggests from a rather detached point of view. If I venture, in the course of the evening, to say anything about the law of the Province specifically, you will understand that it is in the hope of being instructed, and not with the intention of instructing others.

I take as my starting point a case briefly reported in the "Gazette" of Monday, November 9th, of this year. It is a decision of the Court of Review, confirming a judgment of the Superior Court. The newspaper headnote if I may so call it puts the gist of the decision with simple emphasis, in the following words:

"Failed to show fault

So man who was hit on head by a board loses suit." From the statement of facts which follows, it would appear that the plaintiff claimed from defendants the sum of $180 as damages because "whilst passing a building owned by the defendants, a board which was being raised to the roof became unfastened from the tackle and fell, hitting him on the head. The roofing work in connection with which the board. was being raised, was being done by a contractor."

In this state of facts the Court pronounced against the plaintiff. "I should dismiss the plaintiff's action," said Mr. Justice Greenshields, speaking for himself and his colleagues, "on the sole ground that the plaintiff had failed to establish the essential allegation of his declaration; had failed to prove any fault or negligence which would call for the application of Arts. 1053 or 1054 of our Code. not the building that caused the accident: and the plaintiff *A paper read to the Junior Bar Association, Montreal, November 28th, 1914.