tribunals of commerce. A committee of the House of Commons had reported in their favour, and proposed to connect them with the county courts of the district. The necessity for establishing tribunals of commerce could be met and avoided by a thorough reorganization of our judicial system in the interest of all classes of the community, and the elements of such a reorganization were to be found in the reports of the Judicature Commissioners, and required only able and willing hands and minds to mould them into form. This done, it may be hoped that the art of advocacy will be less in danger of degenerating into a trade, and be raised to the dignity of a science.

The Rev. DANIEL ACE, D.D., read a paper on the question, “Is not the Reform of the Ecclesiastical Courts in England and Wales a question requiring the immediate action of the Legislature, and admitting of no further delay ?" He observed that for the last forty years public opinion, more or less enunciated by successive Governments, had clearly denounced the incompetency of these tribunals, and indicated the necessity of their abolition. Consequently, during this interim, the jurisdiction of these ecclesiastical courts had been ousted by statutable authority in all suits for tithes of a certain amount, likewise for church-rates; in matters of defamation, testamentary, and divorce and matrimonial. But, notwithstanding that ecclesiastical jurisdiction had been so rescinded, those courts still retained power in certain cases over both clergy and laity, and as a logical sequence, enlightened public opinion seemed to demand their total abolition, or at least a considerable amendment, both in the constitution and process of courts even denominated spiritual. By no less an authority than the late Lord Chancellor Cranworth, these ecclesiastical courts were, in the year 1856, characterized as cumbrous, dilatory, and expensive; and as to the ecclesiastical judges, in his lordship's opinion, nineteen out of twenty were incompetent to discharge their judicial duties. In the year 1855 the Archbishop of York, in the Convocation of the Province of York, observed that the delays, expenses, and the cumbrous procedure of the ecclesiastical courts, which had descended to us from past generations, should be swept away, in order that simple justice might be simply done, inasmuch as the present mode of proceedings in the ecclesiastical courts led to constant miscarriages of justice. Such avowed opinions, with others of equal stringency, had induced the House of Lords to entertain the question; a select committee investigated the matter and made their report. A Bill was introduced and passed through all its stages, but rejected in the Commons. No scheme of ecclesiastical reform could be complete unless it contained provisions to render archbishops and bishops themselves amenable to ecclesiastical discipline and jurisprudence as well as their inferior clergy. The procedure at present in the ecclesiastical courts was according to the rules of civil or Roman law, and also of the canon or so much of the Papal law as had been received in this country. But such rules were but leges sub graviori lege, the common law having obtained

the superintendency or supremacy over them. To revive those rules seemed to be a very eligible mode of adoption. Much of the old procedure and practice might be well abolished, and new rules and orders introduced and assimilated to those of the superior courts of common law. The dicta of ecclesiastical judges should be systematized into a digest by a commission of learned men, and what was desirable to be retained of that which was designated lex non scripta should be re-enacted. Let that shapeless congeries of Papal canon law received into this country from the time of the Conquest in 1066 down to the Reformation in 1534, having the force of statutable authority, be examined and reformed. That archbishops and bishops, in addition to their onerous duties, should aim at personal adjudication in their diocesan courts rather than by judges who had had a legal training was a matter calculated to excite apprehension, but in exact ratio as this disposition on the part of the episcopal bench had been manifested, there had been on the contrary exhibited on the part of the laity a tendency to eliminate altogether the judicial from the episcopal function. Cognate to the reform of the ecclesiastical courts, was the reform of the marriage laws, and one of the objects of reform in the ecclesiastical courts was the reduction of the excessive fees for a marriage licence, which fees simply went into the pockets of craving officials. Marriage should be encouraged by a national church, and not discouraged by exorbitant fees. He would reduce the marriage licence from 50s. to 10s., and abolish with its invidious distinctions the office of surrogate. The writer next touched upon the question of simony, and remarked that these necessary ecclesiastical reforms would admit of no further delay without injustice to the nation.

A paper by Mr. HENRY D. JENCKEN, Barrister-at-Law, "On the International Laws of Joint-Stock Companies, and the Necessity of establishing an International Code," was taken as read. After commenting upon the great importance of the question, the vast wealth invested in joint-stock ventures, and the endless variety of questions that arise almost daily in the dealings in shares and securities of foreign companies, Mr. Jencken proceeded to give a sketch of the historical rise, progress, and development of joint-stock enterprise, which he stated was essentially a creature of modern days, taking its origin in the mining ventures of Germany, and elaborated into a complete system by the Italians, and subsequently by the French, Dutch, and, at a much later period, by the Germans. Several very interesting cases in the early history of joint-stock companies were cited. Thus the celebrated case of the Grimaldis of Geneva, whom one Santus sued as partners in a company created to farm the revenues of the holy see, was named as illustrating the principle adopted by the Rota, or Appellate Court of Geneva. If regard be paid to the date, the time of the Pontificate of Paul VI. (1555), an idea can be formed how far advanced our continental neighbours were to us in our island. Nay, even a century and half farther back the Bancadi St. Georgio (1407), in Geneva, was established; and the

statutes then framed have served as a model for subsequent undertakings to the present day. In the seventeenth century there arose a feeling for increased enterprise; and, in 1629, Cardinal Richelieu. authorized the Compagnie des Indes Occidentales. In Holland, the Surinam and other companies were formed; and in 1711, the South Sea Company stepped into existence. In its downfall it called forth such lamentations that the Legislature were betrayed into enacting the Bubble Act (1720), which pressed heavily for upwards of a century on the enterprise of England. Whilst on the Continent a liberal and scientific system had been realized, in England a narrow, short-sighted policy was pursued, and all jointstock ventures treated as partnerships. Finally, in 1856, Parliament came to the aid of the commercial community, and in 1862 the Companies Act was passed. The consequence of this tardy legislation was a divergence from the principles that regulated the Con tinental system, and hence the necessity of arriving at some definite system to regulate the interests of companies and shareholders, and to determine their liabilities. And first, Mr. Jencken recommends an international register of companies; second, an international register of directors and managers; third, that one common rule as to the liabilities of shareholders should be adopted; and fourth, that the laws of agency or implied authority to deal in the name of the company should be settled by a convention between the different States of Europe. The question of transfer of shares also needs careful consideration, as also that of the liquidation of foreign companies.*

REPRESSION OF CRIME SECTION.

Address on Repression of Crime. By J. H. KENNAWAY, M.P., Chairman of the Section.

E have now been engaged for two days in the discussion of

Wspecial subjects that lie within the province allotted to us,

and the time has now arrived when it has been suggested to me that as President it would be right to draw your attention for a few moments to the wider view which is embraced by the whole subject, and seek, however imperfectly, to grasp at once the principle and the practice of repression of crime. In beginning this attempt it is allowable, I think, to reflect with satisfaction, not, however, unmingled with shame, at the meaning which used in old days to attach to the words by which our section is distinguished. There were long

* This paper is printed in full in the Law Magazine and Review of December, 1872.

dark days when the repression of crime was held to be synonymous with taking vengence upon the offender, the exaction of an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. It meant looking upon the criminal as an outcast who had forfeited all rights, and in whose regard society was free from all responsibility. The prisoner was to be cast into loathsome dungeons, buried like one dead out of our sight; dungeons, at whose condition, when brought to the light by Howard, the whole world stood aghast. That such no longer exist is the result of the self-denying labours of individuals. It is the fruit of the discussions of associations like our own, which have sought to enlist public interest, ay, the self-interest of the public, for it comes to that, in the prisoner's cause. From these labours we have seen the conviction growing that the interests of society may be regarded consistently with a discipline which aims at the reformation of the individual who has outraged society. It is a very difficult problem. It has called forth the energies of the most able, and at the same time most practical, men. The question is not solved yet; but we may be hopeful that as medical science is engaged in improving the conditions of life, so as to strengthen the body and render it less liable to the attacks of disease, and at the same time is making daily progress in the knowledge and treatment of the ills which flesh is heir to, in like manner the science of penal and reformatory discipline is ever making advances in the treatment of moral disease; while the State seeks by means of education, of public health, by the establishment of reformatories: in short, by legislation in social subjects, to cut off the sources of crime, and by prevention to avoid the difficulties of a cure.

The International Congress lately held in London must be pronounced a great landmark in prison history. We have had Social Science Congresses, National and State Congresses in America-we have had visits of individuals; but nothing approaching this attempt to take a view of prison discipline wide as the world; to bring together and compare various systems through the living agency of men who administer the systems, so that, making allowances for the various circumstances of each, all might learn something from this true spectacle of international comity. Those who originated, and those who carried out the congress, may claim for it an undoubted success, if it only be that the representatives of no less than twentythree nations, including natives of far east Japan, have met together in pursuit of one common object of the highest philanthropy, in spite of all obstacles of time and space, in spite of the difficulties of a Babel of tongues. But results will be produced, real, if not tangible. It is impossible to bring men together, each having made this particular subject his study, each with special knowledge, without minds being opened, new ideas taken in, and fresh encouragement given to sincere but often disheartening attempts to grapple with the problems we are all attempting to solve. Beyond all doubt also the various accounts of different prison systems prevailing in different countries, prepared under the sanction of the Governments

which were represented, and which will form part of the literature of the congress shortly to be published, must be a valuable storehouse of information for all. The world, however, looks for results that are practical. It is at least expected that certain principles should be laid down by such gatherings. An attempt was made to do this in general meetings of the International Congress, but the elements of which it was composed were too heterogeneous, the points of contact too few, and the time too short to permit of this being done. The Executive Committee, however, passed certain resolutions, which I will not detain you by reading, but which, I think, I shall not unfairly summarize thus: That the moral regeneration of prisoners must be the first aim of prison discipline; we must educate him, but inflict no unnecessary humiliation. We must try and gain his will; impel him to self-exertion; teach him to work; let him improve his condition by classification; bring the influence of religion to bear, and you have done all; in short, send him to school, put him under constraint as a child." I do not think the use of the birch rod was sanctioned. But to put this as the whole seems to me a strange oversight. It leaves nothing to be desired as to the treatment of the individual, but it ignores altogether the effect on the community, and is hardly to be called repression of crime. Granted that every aid should be given to the criminal to retrace his steps, still, the gulf must be kept open between honesty and dishonesty. What influence will the moral regeneration of the individual have upon seventy per cent. of the criminals who, I fear, escape detection? What upon the thousands who are hovering on the borders of crime, men trying to be honest, but sorely tempted when the struggle for a bit of bread is so severe, and the weakest go to the wall, to think that the gaol is a busy workshop of happy industry, to which a man may ply without disgrace when wearied of the battle of life outside? I fully agree with the resolutions from one point of view, the one which presents itself to philanthropists, but a statesman cannot ignore the wide influence of the deterrent element, and he must so order his discipline as to maintain a broad line of demarcation between misfortune and crime. The statistics of crime show a favourable diminution, whether we look at those sentenced to penal servitude, to the reports of the police, the commitment of children under sixteen, or to the statistics of the Western Circuit, where there were only 106 prisoners in the calendars as against 304 at the same time last year. We must not, however, build too much on their favourable indications; we must not assume too much from the conditions of a time of certainly exceptional (though who shall say it is to be a lasting) prosperity. The work may cease, our looms and furnaces stand idle, and coal and provisions may rise to still higher prices; and who will foresee in that case what next year's returns or those of the year after will be? Still, looking at the results and remembering the great increase in our population, we may say that our system, if far from perfect, cannot in any way be considered a failure, either as to our convict prisons or as to the common gaols.