selves of many advantages by making it a part of our own body of statute law. These conditions had, no doubt, been fulfilled in respect to the English act for the codification of the law relating to bills and notes, when ten years ago, or thereabouts, it was pointed out in a series of letters in the Toronto Mail what great advantages would be gained for us in point of certainty, lucidity and uniformity, if our own Dominion Parliament would at once proceed to re-enact the provisions of this statute here. was introduced by Sir John Thompson in the following session of Parliament and, after a twelve months' incubation, became the law of Canada in 1890. It was slightly amended in the following year, and has remained upon the statute book ever since without the change of a single word or letter, and I am quite certain there is not a merchant, a banker or a lawyer who would now consent to its being repealed. Whether the requisite conditions have been fulfilled with respect to the Sale of Goods Act, and the act to codify the law of partnership, may still be a debatable point. All that I wish to emphasize is the very great advantage that it will be to us whenever the time shall arrive at which we can with safety adopt in all the provinces the provisions of these codifying acts.

There are other subjects on which we have not copied the provisions of the English legislation in terms, but, the subjects of legislation being the same, the mischiefs of the common law being the same here as in England, the remedies for those mischiefs being, for this reason, necessarily similar there and here, we have followed the general course of English legislation without intending or attempting to conform to the phraseology of English enactments. In such cases as these, by our partial adoption of the terms of English statutes, thanks to the inventive ingenuity of our own legislators, to our method of borrowing one from another, and our great freedom in tinkering what we have undertaken to borrow, we have created a body of statute law which cannot be read continuously without producing the sensation of night

mare.

The law for the prevention of frauds on creditors by secret bills of sale, or as it may be otherwise better known, for the filing or registration of chattel mortgages, presents provisions of this character. The cleverest practitioners that we have in my own province have been at their wits' end to know how to make sure that they were complying with its provisions. Our courts have. pronounced diametrically opposite decisions upon some of its

clauses. One section, as it appears in the Ontario statute book, and in a slightly modified form in the statute book of Nova Scotia, contains a sentence of not less than three hundred and sixty-three words, with no pause longer than a comma, with all manner of side-tracks and switches in the nature of subordinate and qualifying clauses, to distract the attention and confuse the intellect of the reader. I recall an occasion on which one of our most impulsive judges, after a long argument on the section at the Bar, seized the volume and attempted, in his characteristic manner, to take it with a rush, but was gently cautioned away by the counsel who was endeavouring to elucidate the matter, with the reminder that while there were some spirits that could be more easily exorcised, there was a kind that went not out without prayer and fasting.

I have thus far spoken of cases in which our statute law is absolutely identical in most of the provinces, and of those in which it is substantially similar in one or more. There remains to be

considered the class of cases in which, although all the conditions and requirements in the various provinces are precisely similar, there has been no attempt, either by copying from a common pattern, or by borrowing from one another, to secure anything approaching to similarity in the laws of the several provinces, cases in other words in which, while the laws of the various provinces might as well as not, for all that can be suggested to the contrary, be exactly alike, there is every conceivable variety of provision made in the enactments of the different legislatures.

Now as to all these cases it is not to be denied that a plausible argument may be made for the condition of things as it exists. Plausible arguments always can be made for the existing conditions, but those arguments partake rather of the nature of apologies than of vindications. So far from deprecating the want of uniformity in the laws of the several provinces, we may be reminded how greatly we should value, not only the intrinsic charm of such variety, as a mere matter of aesthetic contemplation, but likewise its great utility as a process of legislative experimentation, and the results that must be obtainable from such efforts, in the field of comparative jurisprudence. All this and more could be urged by the plausible apologist for the existing conditions. But I make bold to say that viewed at closer range, these apologetic suggestions will not bear inspection.

Let us view them for a moment in the light of a few very simple and homely illustrations. Take, for example, the compara

tively trivial matter of the computation of time, whether for the purposes of substantive law or in connection with the procedure and practice of the courts. We know pretty well what a month means, at least when the expression occurs in a statute, for most of our statute books have removed all doubt by declaring that the calendar shall control the matter. But we do not always know what is meant by a day, at all events, where more than one day is to be accounted for. There is not a statute book in Canada that will not, by the diversity of its provisions, require the practitioner to be more or less wary lest he fall into a trap, and expose his client to serious loss, by a failure to compute correctly a given number of days. Shall he exclude the first day and include the last? Shall he include both the first and the last? What precise form of words will indicate the one or the other method of computation? Shall Sunday be included or excluded in the reckoning? At what hour shall the juridical day be considered at an end? What shall be the effect of an act in the law performed after the close of the juridical day? At what hour of the day must rent be paid or goods delivered?

These and other questions can all of them be asked in respect to this apparently simple and intrinsically trivial matter, and you may find as many different methods of computation as there are questions, that are possible to suggest. Now, why should there not be absolute uniformity and unclouded certainty, in a matter of such obvious simplicity? Why should a practitioner, loaded down with the weightier matters of the law, be obliged to lay down for the moment his burden, while he proceeds to tithe the mint, anise and cummin of such utter trivialities? Why should a man with an immortal soul be asked to turn up a statute and a practice book, before answering so simple a question, at the risk, it may be, of having a judgment set aside, or a trial postponed, or an appeal dismissed? Why should not ten days mean always and everywhere the same portion of time, whether for service of a writ, or for the giving of a notice of trial, or for the filing of a factum, or for moving a rule nisi, or for any similar purpose for which it is necessary that time should be computed? I have chosen a small and trivial matter comparatively for the very reason that it is small and trivial, as the one most suitable for the purpose of illustration.

Take, again, the matter of verifying the execution of a document, whether for use in a court as evidence, or for the purpose of registering as notice of title. This is a matter of very obvious

inter-provincial interest. While men are going to and fro in the earth, it must constantly happen that documents have to be executed in one province which it is absolutely necessary should be registered in another, and that evidence which exists in one province should be required for use in litigation proceeding in the courts of another. The law of the situs in the one case and that of the forum in the other, require a compliance with the law of the province in which the document is to be produced or registered, as the case may be. We have the same classes of officials in all the various provinces. We have justices as thick as blackberries in some of them, and of notaries public all that should reasonably be required. Can anyone suggest a reason why there should not be some simple and uniform method of authentication which would be equally applicable, and equally effective in every province of the Dominion.

But why stop with mere questions of procedure? Take the subject of domestic relations and the rights of property dependent on the relations of domestic life. Can anybody suggest a valid reason why the position of a married woman with respect to her interest in her husband's property, or her control over her own, should be different in Ontario and Nova Scotia, in New Brunswick and in British Columbia? Or let us go still further, can any one suggest even a plausible reason why a degree of emancipation from the doctrines and fictions of the common law in regard to these rights and relations, which is not deemed too advanced and radical for the conservative legislators of the British House of Commons, should be regarded as too advanced for the far less complex conditions existing in the communities of this Western World? If not, what harm could arise from the application throughout the several provinces of the Dominion, of the provisions of the Married Woman's Property Acts of England, and the repeal of the incongruous and conflicting provisions of the law that disfigure the statute books of the several provinces ?

What is true as to this topic is true a fortiori of the law as to the devolution of real estate, and the distribution of personalty. Human nature is the same thing in Ontario that it is in Nova Scotia. Parental and conjugal affection, filial duty and brotherly regard, are the same things in Halifax and in Vancouver, the same on the banks of the Saskatchewan and along the valley of the St. Lawrence. All the material relationships of life, of which our legal systems and doctrines are but the outward and formal

expressions, are essentially the same throughout the whole Dominion, and nothing but confusion, inconvenience and expense can result from the diversities and incongruities which, for thirty years of our life as a Confederation, we have as carefully maintained as if the salvation of the country depended upon their pre

servation.

We may well believe that the continuance of these conditions was not in the thought of the founders of the Union. They took care to provide for better conditions in the only way consistent with the general scheme of confederation rendered necessary by the circumstances in which they did their work. Article 94 of the Constitutional Act contains the provision with which we are all familiar, that, "notwithstanding anything in this act, the Parliament of Canada may make provision for the uniformity of all or any of the laws relative to property and civil rights in Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and of the procedure of all or any of the courts in those three provinces, and from and after the passing of any act in that behalf, the power of the Parliament of Canada to make laws in relation to any matter comprised in any such act shall, notwithstanding anything in this act, be unrestricted; but any act of the Parliament of Canada, making provision for such uniformity, shall not have effect in any province unless it is adopted and enacted as law by the legislature thereof."

It is very greatly to be regretted that the terms under which Manitoba, British Columbia and Prince Edward Island were admitted into the union, make it extremely doubtful whether these provisions extend to any of those provinces. I am afraid it is hardly even doubtful that they are excluded. I cannot believe that their exclusion was the result of deliberate intention, but the conditions in Manitoba at the time of its admission would make it very difficult to present any argument, founded upon those conditions, which would control the grammatical reading of the act to provide for the government of that province. By the terms of that act the operation of this provision seems to be expressly excluded, and the terms of the act respecting Manitoba are substantially similar to those under which the other provinces have been admitted.*

Even subject to these limitations, the advantages to be derived from such an assimilation of provincial laws as the Par

*It is open to question whether this statement is strictly correct. The expressions used are not very clear.-B.R.