The number of 55 R. J. Q. S. C. for January seems to contain nothing calling for special notice.

Crown Lands-Adverse Possession-Grant from Crown. In the number of 43 D. L. R. issued on Janu ary 2nd, the only case which seems to invite special notice is Walsh v. Smith, where the important question to be decided was whether the Crown could make a grant conferring title to land and giving the grantee a right to the possession of that land against all the world, including the defendant, an intruder who, at the date of the grant, was in possession, and who by himself or his predecessors in title had been in possession for more than twenty years, but less than sixty years, which last is necessary to give title as against the Crown. The full Court answered this question in the negative (Russell, J., apparently dubitante), holding that the defendant could not be ejected, there being no judgment in intrusion, and, also, it would seem inclining to hold that while the defendant and his predecessors in title had not acquired a title under the Statute of Limitations against the Crown, his actual adverse possession for more than twenty years was good as against the plaintiff, the Crown grantee.

The number of 44 D. L. R. issued on January 15th contains a valuable annotation by Mr. J. D. Falconbridge on Insurance on Mortgaged Property.

[1918] 43 D. L. R. 648.

CONTEMPORARY LEGAL REVIEWS AND
PERIODICALS.1

In its Dec.-Jan. number the Illinois Law Review brings out a second instalment of Celebration Legal Essays in honour of John H. Wigmore in all respects worthy of the first instalment, which we commented on in our issue of last November, but this time confined to subjects of International Law and Public Law. We will begin with the illuminating article by Mr. H. J. Randall on The Beginnings of English Constitutional Law. As the writer says, 'no serious attempt appears to have been made to trace the development of the constitutional theories as distinct from the history of the constitution itself;' and his object is 'to begin the history of our constitutional theory with a brief account of the earliest writers on the subject.' He then proceeds to deal with Sir John Fortescue's Governance of England, of the later 15th century, and his theory of the difference between "dominium regale," and "dominium politicum et regale," which is 'undoubtedly the most original contribution of Fortescue to political thought,' while 'upon the practical side the two great questions that are always before the mind of Fortescue are those of finance and of administrative order.' Next, after referring to More's Utopia (temp. Henry VIII.) only to say that 'for the student of constitutional history its importance is of the smallest,' Mr. Randall proceeds to discuss St. German's famous Doctor and Student (1531), pointing out that St. German 'writes purely from the standpoint of a lawyer, he neither professes to expound a theory of politics nor to describe the working of the Constitution, but his work is of greater interest for that very reason.'

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.

Next we are introduced to Sir Thomas Smith's De Republica Anglorum. (1583). It and Fortescue's Governance of England 'can both be classed as essentially studies in comparative politics, written by men who had observed the comparative working of institutions with their own eyes.' 'If he had any abstract theory on the subject (of the State)-which he almost certainly had not-he would probably have agreed with those modern writers of the Benthamite school who regard the State as a justice-enforcing institution;' 'of general political theory the work contains little of moment and nothing of much originality. Then after mentioning sundry minor works also of the 15th and 16th century which, however, contain nothing of constitutional theory, or next to nothing, and adding a short note on the Book of Common Prayer, and 'the very striking fact about it, namely, the total absence in the entire liturgy of any reference to Parliament,' Mr. Randall speaks, at some length, of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, and the constitutional theory in Book VIII., of which he says:

'In fact it is the most thorough, and only really philosophic defence of our institutions that the 16th century produced. It contains in germ a large part of the "classical" theory originated by Locke, and it is hardly too much to say that it gave the tone to constitutional apologists for the next 250 years.'

Hooker 'holds to the medieval doctrine that the law is above the King, not the King above the law;' and we are shewn how he expounds it. Finally the comments of foreign 16th century observers upon the English Constitution are briefly referred to. In the next century are 'Hobbes, Locke, Harrington, and Algernon Sidney with definite and comprehensive treatises on political theory. Such things were not characteristic of the England of the 16th century.'

Space will not permit notice of equal length of the other articles in this remarkable issue of the Illinois Lano Review. We have, following the last, a long article by Mr. Angus J. McGillivray, now of the Justice Department, Ottawa, in which he discusses with

ability Dominion and Provincial Powers under the British North America Act, 1867, in the light of the leading Privy Council decisions. We notice incidentally that he declares the question raised by the late Sir John Thompson in his reports as Minister of Justice, which are quoted from at length, 'as to the right of the Parliament of Canada under the powers granted to Canada by the British North America Act to enact laws supreme and unrestrained by any law passed by the Parliament of Great Britain before that Act was passed,' remains undetermined. No doubt this is true, but Sir John Thompson could, we suppose, easily have had it determined by having an Act passed in the Dominion Parliament repealing, as regards Canada, the Imperial Copyright Act, 1842, but he never cared to put the matter to the test. As to what Mr. McGillivray says about the recent Manitoba decision of Walker v. Walker, that the Dominion Act of 1888, in declaring in force in Manitoba the laws of England relating to Dominion subjects of legislative powers as the same existed on July 15th, 1870, had the effect of introducing into Manitoba the English Matrimonial Causes Act, 1857, with the power to grant divorces therein contained, we fail to follow his meaning. There is nothing at all in Walker v. Walker, we think, questioning the power of the Dominion Parliament to take away this power to grant divorces from the Courts in Manitoba at any moment.

The number begins with an Article by Mr. Th. Baty, the author of International Law (London, 1909). and of Polarized Law (London, 1914), entitled The Interconnection of Nationality and Domicile, in which he advocates a new criterion of Nationality, in place of the existing race or place criteria, namely, the criterion of place of education. Thus he says:

'Would it not be a useful criterion to adopt, if we said that the education of the child up to its 14th year was decisive? If it has, during that impressionable period, been brought up among schoolfellows of the locality, has learned their language, and played their games, can it be doubted that the country has probably

acquired that strong hold on its knowledge and affections which entitle it to its allegiance? If, on the other hand, the parent is not one of a crowd of immigrants, but is living in a detached way, educating his children by a governess as tutor, or sending them to a foreign school, it is probable that the continuance of the old tie may be presumed.'

Russia, however, it appears is the only country where education has so far been recognized as having a direct bearing on nationality. It has not been even there admitted as the sole and sufficient criterion, but its importance was admitted as an exception to the general rule that children follow the nationality of their parents. Birth in Russia would not of itself make an exception in the case of foreign parentage; but birth and education might, if such persons chose, that is, they were recognized as having a municipal right to claim Russian nationality.

Next there follows a complete translation of Huber's De Conflictu Legym, by Professor Ernest G. Lorenzen, of Yale University, preceded by a most learned dissertation upon Huber's views on the subject of Private International Law, as it is generally termed, and a comparison of them with those of other leading authorities. Huber's treatise, says Professor Lorenzen, 'has had a greater influence upon the development of the Conflict of Laws in England and the United States than any other work.' We are specially interested to see Professor Lorenzen's reference to what Mr. Frederic Harrison says about Ulrich Huber in some famous lectures upon the Conflict of Laws which originally appeared in the Fortnightly Review as long ago as 1879, because these lectures, together with some others on Jurisprudence, in which the theories of Austin and Maine on Sovereignty, and Austin's Analysis of Law, and the Historical Method of Jurisprudence are discussed, which also appeared about the same time in the Fortnightly Review, are now for the first time to be published in separate form, revised by Mr. Frederic Harrison himself, by the Clarendon Press. The volume may be expected to