law. "Why, they say, complicate difficulties under the pretence of solving them? Why tie the hands of the judge with a narrow text which cannot foresee all the hypotheses and which must include every particular case? It will be necessary to discuss ad nauseam the meaning of that text and its application to the case." To which the partisans of written law reply that the latter has the great merit of expressing in definite formulae easily comprehended and whose precision attracts the attention of the citizen. Secondly that the rule of law thus formulated is easily ascertainable. It may and can be known by all. The publicity which it receives is a safeguard for the freedom, for the lives, for the fortunes of men. With the written law the power of a judge is less, the power of the legislator more. Finally, if new circumstances arise, if it be necessary to meet a sudden situation, the written law may be applied immediately where it will be necessary for customary law to grow gradually. I have stated the problem. I do not propose to attempt to solve it. We are very proud of our " Code Civile." Napoleon said at the decline of his life, "My glory does not consist in having won forty battles. The work which nothing will efface, which will live eternally, is my Civil Code; it is the record of the discussions of the Conseil d'Etat." As first consul, he said, "I govern, but not as a military man, but as a civil magistrate." And in truth, his prodigious intelligence manifested itself in the discussions which preceded the final adoption of the Civil Code in such a way that one cannot read without admiration those discussions of the "Conseil d'Etat," in which the phraseology of the Civil Code was elaborated. Surrounded by the greatest jurists of his day Napoleon aimed at nothing less than to fix permanently the customs themselves. "We must," said he, observe the principles made use of to decide cases, and erect on those principles rules." How, he inquired, was it in former times? How is it now? How is it elsewhere? Is this just? Is this useful? And he concluded thus: "Laws are made for manners." The authors of the Civil Code desired above all things to create a practical work. A first preparatory study, "Preliminary Discourse" was rejected as being too theoretical. In three years the immense work was completed, and the 21st day of March, 1804, the laws thus drawn up were united in a single body of legislation which constituted the Civil Code.

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We have been applying it for over 120 years. Is it true that it is an hindrance to the administration of justice? Is it true that its rigidity, I come back to this, is such that it is only

a nest for controversies, a pretext for chicanery? Ah! As to that, gentlemen, no! It is the only argument which I desire to answer, but I have it at heart to prove to you that the reproach is clearly unjust. Do not all the religious and philosophical laws reduce themselves into formulae? And have these formulae hindered the finding in the principles which they proclaimed the solution of the most complicated cases? No doubt legislation must play its part. It is necessary that there should be enough suppleness in the wording to permit the judge to apply the principles to the very facts themselves. We have in our Civil Code a section, 1382, thus conceived: "Every act of a man who causes an injury to another obliges the one through whose fault the injury has occurred to answer for it." Could you find many cases which would not be embraced in that context? I quoted the other day to the meeting of the American Bar Association the opinion of M. Ballot Beaupre, who was first president of the Court of Cassation. He eloquently praised the suppleness of the Civil Code. "The judge," said he, "has the most extended powers of interpretation. He must not with obstinacy spend his time in finding out what were the thoughts of the authors of the Code a hundred years ago when they were writing such and such a section. He must ask himself what would be their thought if the same text was about to be drawn up to-day. For example," he added, "take a contract in relation to labour which the legislator of 1804 knew, but which he purposely abstained from mentioning although labourers are clearly included in the domain of personal rights. To-day this omission strikes us the more because for a century industry, with its incessant progress, with mechanical improvements, has received an immense impetus. The authors of the Code could not realize that it would be thus, which perhaps explains in part why they gave so little thought to the working classes. However that may be, in the chapter on 'Hiring, work and industry' the first section entitled Concerning the employment of domestics and workmen' contains two articles: the one article 1781, abrogated in 1868, compelled the judge to believe the statements of a master as to the rate of wages and the payment; the other article, 1780, merely laid down this rule, one cannot contract one's services except for a certain length of time or for a given enterprise.' That is all: But, if it be forbidden to alienate one's freedom for a whole life time, it is at least permissible to contract one's service without any stated time, and in that case either of the parties is free to break the contract. Now,

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a sudden breach of contract, inopportunely made, causes damage. Has the workingman or the employer any right of action in damages? The question had been raised many times in practice, and it was a delicate question, for in principle one cannot be mulcted in damages when one has only made use of a right. But jurisprudence, thanks to article 1382, when individual right is in conflict with moral duty-I allude to the theory of "L'abus du droit"-jurisprudence thought that the right to cancel a contract might be abused and therefore as early as 1859 a Court of Cassation decided that a contract cannot be cancelled out of season in such a way as to prejudice the interests of one of the parties, and the courts may, judging from the circumstances, the nature of the services to be rendered, the professional habits of the contracting parties, the necessary conditions of their industries, allow damages when the contract has been too abruptly broken.

This decision preceded by more than thirty years the law, which on the 27th of December, 1890, amended article 1780 by adding a paragraph which declared that "the cancellation of a contract by one of the contracting parties may give rise to damages," "that one cannot surrender in advance the right to demand damages," and that "in assessing damages in a given case one must take into account usages, the nature of the services contracted for, the length of time already past.".

I bring to you here the proof of the experience of a great magistrate. We can trust him and we may safely conclude that if codification presents advantages which its most bitter adversaries cannot deny, it escapes the serious reproaches they assail it with, and that codification cannot and is not opposed to life and to progress.

ADDRESS OF MR. CORDENIO A. SEVERANCE,
OF ST. PAUL.

Mr. Chairman, Sir James Aikins, Members of the Canadian Bar
Association, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I hardly know how to commence what little I have to say this afternoon after this very flattering introduction. There was one thing that our learned friend said, however, that made me feel quite at home. I have just come from California, and when anyone comes across the Rockies or the Cascades or the Selkirks, to any place on the west coast, he is sure to hear something pleasant said about the west. I notice that my learned friend. could not forbear making a little reference to the delights of British Columbia and of Vancouver, and I heartily concur in all he said. If you will permit me I will tell you a little story of something that took place in reference to Los Angeles, which shows how satisfied its people are with that particular place of residence. A Los Angeles gentleman happened to be in the east on a visit, and was moved to attend a meeting of Quakers. He learned while in New York that there was a Quaker meeting house down in Stuyvesant Square, and he thought he would like to see this Quaker meeting in operation-never having attended one before. He went to the meeting and took a seat, and he sat there for a long while without anything being said, and nothing seemed likely to happen. Finally he could stand it no longer, and he rose and said, "I notice that no one here has anything to say, and therefore I would like to submit a few observations on the subject of Los Angeles." That exhibits the characteristic spirit, I think, of the people on the Pacific Coast, whether they live in Alaska, or British Columbia, or the States to the south.

Now, Gentlemen, after what you heard yesterday, I hope you won't expect much from me. I don't profess to be much of a speaker, but having been the man who designated the Hon. John W. Davis to come and speak to you yesterday, I hope I will not be considered indelicate when I impute to myself some ability as an executive. It became my duty some two or three months ago to appoint someone to speak before this distinguished body. I had read a book, and I am very sorry the author of that book is not here to-day. He is in town, but he had another engagement, otherwise he would have been here. And in that book I read the following: "For a short written story,

C.B.A.-13

select in matter, and in treatment, vivid, dramatic, and done with, America whips the world. But set an American on his legs, allowing him to pad up a speech with a story, and it is only the special restraint of a forgiving Providence that prevents every auditor making for the door. The detail, the elaboration of nothing at all, the visibility of the point far, far off-why in a country of revolver practice is it allowed ?"

Now that being the message coming from across the sea to us, on this side, it seemed to me that it was up to me to displace that view and give you somebody who would not make that kind of a speech.

There is another thing that is rather curious about my situation to-day. You know on our side we have not the same practice that you have. We don't re-elect the President of the Bar Association every year. We have a provision in our constitution that prevents it, and therefore with us there can be no corruption of the electorate such as I understand exists here. (Laughter and applause.) The printed programme seems to have been prepared at a time when that provision in our constitution was not understood, because it announces me as the President of the American Bar Association. I did have that honor last year, but I assure you at the present you are merely revivifying a corpse. The real President was here yesterday. I won't say anything more about Mr. Davis. It is not necessary. But I do want to say something to you gentlemen, because you lived under the same flag,-something about the great honor that was paid to us and the great happiness we had in entertaining Lord Shaw as our guest in San Francisco. It is not the first time that Great Britain has sent great lawyers to our meetings. We profit annually by the kindness of Sir James Aikins, who when he invites his British friends over to speak to you, always says to us, "You can have them also." He did that this year with Lord Shaw, and he has done it before; and my mind goes back to the year 1913, the first time that I happened to have the pleasure of hearing a great British judge speak before the American Bar Association. It was in Montreal, when for the only time in our history we went outside our own borders for our meeting.

Now we have in America, in a way, a little more keenly than England, the feeling that the three great departments of the government shall not be intermingled. We keep the judiciary, the executive, and the legislative absolutely distinct, one from the other. You of the British Empire do that in a