Cabinet to be held regularly between the plenary sessions.' Before the War it was established that the Imperial Conference is a Conference of Governments, of which the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is ex officio President, as primus inter pares, and the Dominion Prime Ministers represent their respective Governments. But in the intervals between the Conferences, when the Dominion Prime Ministers had returned to their homes, communications reverted to their traditional channels, through the medium of the Colonial Office, the only medium hitherto recognized for the exchange of correspondence between the British Government and the Dominions. To meet the stress and necessities of war, however, there has emerged the great fact of the Imperial War Cabinet, the initiation of which by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in December, 1916, was a very important development in the relations between the Mother Country and the Dominions. This Cabinet is, in reality, as Sir Robert Borden pointed out at the Conference, a Cabinet of Governments, and its creation corresponds to the increasing consciousness of nationhood which is growing up in all the Dominions of the Empire. What has been achieved by the creation of the Imperial War Cabinet is recognition of equality of status as between the various States which form the British Commonwealth. The Dominions, no longer infant settlements, but grown sister-nations, are taking their full share and full responsibility in the waging of the war. The Prime Minister of the Mother County sits in council with the Dominion Prime Ministers, first among his peers. In the Imperial War Cabinet all intermediaries have been swept away, and Government meets Government face to face. It is obvious that these outstanding facts represent a development of the Imperial relations to which the old formulas of administration and the old methods of correspondence are no longer applicable, and that new formulas and new methods must be developed to bring the machinery of Government into harmony with the realities. The system of administration through the Colonial Office has, by the unanswerable logic of events, become an anachronism. A system which was developed long ago to meet the circumstances of Crown Colonies, and which has since been patched and revised from time to time to conform to the early stages of Colonial responsible Government, is quite inapplicable to the self-governing Dominions of to-day. As the Prime Minister of Australia (Mr. W. M. Hughes) said: "The old machine is past repair, and must be replaced by a new one, founded on recognition of the fundamental fact that the Dominions are nations and that their relations with each other, and with the Mother-country, intimate though they are, rest upon the complete autonomy of the several parts." The Governments of the Dominions must be brought into direct relation with the head of the British Government. There should be a reorganization of the whole Imperial machine, so that Dominion correspondence goes direct, so far as official form is concerned, to the Prime Minister. It would seem to follow that Dominion Governors-Generals should be appointed by, and be responsible to, the Prime Minister. The change in the system of communication between the Dominion Prime Ministers and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom contemplates continuing the War Cabinet even when the war has come to an end-under another name of course, for it will then be the Imperial Cabinet-for as the Prime Minister of New Zealand (Mr. Massey) pointed out, the Dominions will never be satisfied to go back to the system which obtained before the war, in which they had practically no voice in Imperial affairs. The new system of administration is probably another step in the natural development of the Imperial constitution from tion. which under our very elastic system may be modified time to time to meet the exigencies of the situaIt should be mentioned that the Dominion Prime Ministers emphasised the fact that the proposal implied no want of confidence in the Colonial Office or any want of satisfaction with the work it has done in the past. (9) Imperial Court of Appeal: The Conference spent much time discussing the advisability of replacing the present dual system of appeal by the consitution of an Imperial Court of Appeal, and passed the resolution set out in my London Letter in the September number of the Canadian Law Times. Although the members of the Conference favoured the proposal to constitute such a Court, the majority of them were impressed with the practical difficulties of carrying such proposal into effect. In Mr. Hughes' opinion the existence side by side of two supreme tribunals of appeal -the House of Lords for appellants in the United Kingdom, and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for appellants resident in other parts of the Empire-is not compatible with the idea of Imperial Unity. In his view there should be one final Court of Appeal for the whole Empire—a Court in which Dominion as well as British Judges are not only qualified, but available to sit, and to which appellants from all parts of the Empire should have recourse. Sir Robert Borden expressed the opinion (in which Mr. Rowell concurred), that the decisions of the Privy Council command the confidence of the Canadian people and of the Canadian Bar, and that although there have been critics from time to time there has not been in Canada any general dissatisfaction with the judgments of the Privy Council. Prime Minister of Newfoundland) stated that in NewLloyd foundland every confidence was felt in the decisions of the Privy Council, while Mr. Massey stated that, as far as New Zealand was concerned, he knew of no agitation or demand for reform. Sir J. P. Sinha, speaking for India. which supplies nearly two-thirds of the business, stated that the Privy Council has throughout commanded the entire confidence of litigants in India. (10) Miscellaneous: Further progress was made towards a settlement of the controversy between India and the Dominions as to the immigration of Indians and their status in those countries, and resolutions were passed recommending the establishment of an Imperial Bureau of Mycology, and the holding of a conference to consider the setting up of an Imperial Statistical Bureau. W. E. WILKINSON. CONSOLIDATION AND TACKING.(a) BY JOHN DELATRE FALCONBRIDGE, M.A., LL.B. 1. The doctrine of consolidation. 2. The mortgages must be overdue. 3. Effect of transfer of the equities or of the mortgages. 4. Case of different mortgages to one mortgagee. 5. Case of mortgages to different mortgagees. 6. Consolidation under the Registry Act. 7. The doctrine of tacking and the Registry Act. 1. The doctrine of consolidation. A mortgagee who holds two or more distinct mortgages upon different parcels of land made by the same mortgagor, if the mortgages are no longer redeemable at law but are redeemable only in equity, may, within certain limits, and against certain persons, "consolidate” them, that is, treat them as one, and decline to be redeemed as to any unless he is redeemed as to both or all (b). This doctrine of consolidation was formulated (c) in Shuttleworth v. Laycock (d) in 1684 and in Pope v. Onslow (e) in 1692. The doctrine in its simplest and probably its original form is that if a person has mortgaged two separate parcels of land to one mortgagee to secure two different debts, and has made default as to both mortgages so that his estates have become (a) This forms a portion of a forthcoming work by Mr. Falconbridge upon The Law of Mortgages. It is expected to appear this month.-Ed. C. L. T. (b) Cf. Jennings v. Jordan (1881), 6 App. Cas. 698, at p. 700. (c) By Lord Keeper Bridgman. See also the case of Bovey v. Shipwith (1671), 1 Cas. in Ch. 201, infra 7, involving both consolidation and tacking. The doctrine of tacking (infra, 7) was formulated by Chief Baron Hale, Lord Keeper Bridgman and Baron Rainsford in Hedworth v. Primate (1662), Hardres 318, and March v Lee (1670), 2 Ventr. 337, 18 R. C. 523. It is worthy of note that these two doctrines which, in the opinion of modern legislators, shew an almost excessive respect for legal rules, were founded by judges who, though they were sitting in equity tribunals, were in fact rather common lawyers than equity judges. Cf. Jenks, Short History of English Law, pp. 220. 221. (d) 1 Vern. 244. (e) 2 Vern. 286. VOL. XXXIX. C.L.T.-2 |