ANNUAL DINNER. The Annual Dinner was held on Thursday, August 17th, 1922, at 7 p.m., at the Hotel Vancouver, Vancouver. The Hon. J. A. Cross, K.C., Attorney-General of Saskatchewan, an Honorary Vice-President of the Association, presided. The speakers were: Rt. Hon. Lord Shaw of Dunfermline; the President, Sir James Aikins, K.C.; Hon. Gordon Hunter, Chief Justice of British Columbia; Dr. D. A. MacRae, of Dalhousie University, and the Hon. Justice Rogers. SOCIAL. On the afternoon of Friday, August 18th, the members were the guests of His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia and Mrs. Nichol at a Reception at Government House, Victoria. On the evening of Friday, August 18th, the members were the guests of the British Columbia Bar at a Reception and Dance at the Empress Hotel, Victoria. The ladies were the guests of the Ladies' Committee at Vancouver on the afternoon of Wednesday, August 16th, being taken first for a delightful motor drive through the city, and then to the Jericho Country Club, where tea was served. On the afternoon of Thursday, August 17th, Lady Aikins entertained the ladies to tea at Wigwam Inn, some 20 miles north of Vancouver, the journey being made in a boat specially chartered. PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. BY HIS HONOUR SIR JAMES AIKINS, K.C., LL.D. By the by-laws of the Association the Annual Presidential Address is a necessity which you and I on this occasion will have to suffer. It will not, however, be entitled "De Profundis." The large quantity of fine food for thought which has been swallowed by those of you who have just attended the Meeting of the American Bar Association will require according to the custom of that Association at least twelve months to fully digest. Those who attend this Meeting will be similarly rationed accordingly the first course of such a meal should be light. It cannot be otherwise for I prepared it out of my larder exhausted of any substantial stuff it ever contained by six previous presidential addresses. "Laws are not our life, only the house wherein our life is led, nay, they are but the bare walls of the house; all whose essential furniture, the inventions and traditions and daily habits that regulate and support our existence are not the work of Dracos and Hampdens but . . . of philosophers, alchymists, prophets, and the long forgotten train of artists and artisans, who from the first have been jointly teaching us how to think and how to act, how to rule over spiritual and physical nature. To each nation its believed history is its Bible (so saith Carlyle). "Law, man's sole guardian ever since the day when the old. brason age in sadness saw love fly the world." "Law teaches us to know when we commit injury and when we suffer it." Consideration of such quoted thoughts helps one to understand such proverbs and phrases as "Like law, like people " (Port). The Laws of a nation give an outline of its history. Law is a record of the progress of civilization. May I for a little while lead you in some reflective wanderings among those well weathered and well architectured ideas. The steps which usually lead up to the house wherein our life is led are the people's common thought and acts-daily habits, approved customs-laws. It has been said "If a man were to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation." SONGS AND LAWS. This may be interpreted as meaning that the familiar songs of a people express and also mould their thought, manners, usage, traditions, faiths and glories, out of which spring National Spirit and National Laws. What inspiration, sympathy and unity were created in England by the popular ballads and songs of the passing centuries; what in Scotland by the vocal music of its bards (My Lord Shaw, I said vocal music, though perhaps the skirl of the bagpipes may be traced in the spirit of the laws of the Scot) and by the poetry of Burns and Scott; what in Ireland by its early minstrelsy, and by the lyrics of Tom Moore; the heart of the peoples of the British Empire and the United States is made sorrowful, because synchronising with the silence of the Irish Popular Songs is anarchy and the defiance of the law which, if even now observed and obeyed, would be the bulwark of Irish liberty, as it is ours, for the liberty of a free state is the privilege and power to do everything that the laws permit, and to make those laws. "The harp that once through Tara's halls The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls As if that soul were fled." Let us hope that it has not fled and that the people of Erin, overcoming and controlling themselves, may, without fear, abide and work in the green pastures and beside the more peaceful waters, and become a strong unit in the British Empire. Who can estimate the influence and their nationalizing effect upon the people of the United States of their popular songs. I will not say "Yankee Doodle," though no doubt it has had its effect, but such songs as "Swanee River," "My Old Kentucky Home," which we, in Canada, also sing without hurt to our young and sensitive national pride. No Canadian can be too thankful for the inspiring, comforting, uniting and Canadianizing influence of the Chansons Populaire du Canada, including "Claire Fontaine," and the songs of the Great Dominion, among which is the "Maple Leaf." As you listen to this varied music in the concert hall of our Anglo-American-Canadian Civilization you hear the voices of the singers blend into great national choruses of their several lands. Here "O! Canada! our home and native land There We stand on guard for thee." "The Star Spangled Banner, Oh, long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave." Yonder "When Britain first at Heaven's command, Arose from out the azure main This was the charter of the land, Britons never shall be slaves." And then in unison all sing the same great tune, expressive of the same sentiment of love and loyalty to their own country, though differing in words. "My country, 'tis of thee" and NATIONAL SPIRIT AND THE LAW. Such songs and the inventions, the traditions and daily habits that regulate and support our existence, and the teaching in family and school mentioned by Carlyle, generate in a united people a National Spirit, or National Soul, that is, if they are worthy a place in history. A Swiss, Bluntschli enunciates it thus: "The nation is not a mere sum of citizens; and the State is not a mere collection of external regulations. The one national spirit which is something different from the average sum of the contemporary spirit of all citizens, is the spirit of the State; the one national will, which is different from the average will of the multitude, is the will of the State To extend the reputation and the power of the State, to further its welfare and its happiness, has universally been regarded as one of the most honourable duties of gifted man." The nation exists to develop the most perfect type of citizen, of loyal citizen and to further the welfare and best interests of all who compose it. To that end there is nothing more sacred, more essential than the protection and fostering of a sane group. mind and laudable national ambitions. It is said the past lights a lamp for the guidance of the present age, but the national spirit though originating in the past is not only a light but a leading and compelling power, and gives direction to national activities, aspirations and laws. 66 There is a mystery in the soul of state Which hath an operation more divine Than tongue or pen can give expression to." (Shakespeare.) Why are the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and those Dominions under the Southern Cross, so alike in song, in sentiment and in laws, why? Because though they possess diversities of gifts, they are born of the one spirit, the British spirit, they are many members but one body, that is, one enveloping civilization in which there should be no schism. "To CIRCUMSTANCE AND CUSTOM LAW MUST YIELD." (Span. pr.) Now the sources of a nation's song and spirit are the causes of a civilized nation's laws, but there is this difference-the songs and spirit lead in the formation and confirmation of customs, usages and habits, then law follows, sometimes too far behind, and makes out of them rules of conduct, for instance, the common law passed by no Parliament was the crystallization of those usages which have stood the test of time into law by judicial decision and interpretation. But usages and methods change to suit the requirements of the days, and on occasion, swiftly. Indeed instant regulations are sometimes essential for new discoveries and inventions. The Common Law, Code Law, and Constitutional Law, are constantly altering and advancing to harness, control and utilize the new born thoughts and expressed wishes of peoples. The Common Law of Blackstone's time has been so modified by judicial interpretation and legislation that it is scarcely recognisable in the rules of conduct of to-day, which we are pleased to call the Common Law. It is borrowing largely now from the Pandects and Institutes of the Civil Law. For the same reason Code Law is changing. The Constitution of the United States has been stretched on all sides by the Supreme Court to cover the growing body, and the Congress has been busy in sewing on amending strips. Even young Canada would feel itself bound by some restricting clauses of the British North America Act, if it and the Imperial Authorities did not quietly ignore them, and all are happy because they know the objectionable clauses can at any time be repealed when |