liament of Canada, with the co-operation of the provinces, is competent to effect, are too manifest to require any demonstration. From the layman's point of view, the advantage that appears most striking and obvious is that by such an assimilation the law becomes more accessible and ascertainable. To the lawyer one of the greatest advantages that would result from the reform would be the increased and ever-increasing certainty. The larger the field over which a statute operates the more quickly its terms become defined. Each province has the benefit of the results attained by the labours of advocates and judges in every other province. Authorities multiply, doubtful points are made certain, obscurities are cleared, inelegancies and incongruities are brought to light, and removed by the requisite legislation, and the law becomes more simple, more uniform, more certain, and more conformable in every way to the ideal with which all laws in the very nature of things should be made as closely as possible to correspond.

The advantages that would result from such an assimilation are so manifest and so manifold that it is greatly to be wondered at, not only that the provisions of this section have not yet been brought into practical effect, but that in all the thirty years of our history as a Dominion, no responsible public man has ever yet, so far as I am aware, seriously addressed himself to the task of bringing them into effect. There are many reasons for this. Previously to the establishment of this society, there has been no very favourable opportunity for the exchange of views among the Bars of the several provinces, and thus one of the most potent and effective influences making for the improvement of the existing conditions has been almost wholly inoperative. Certainly, one of the first conditions to the success of any movement in this direction must be the creation of a strong and clear conviction of its desirability in the mind of the profession throughout the country. But while this is one of the conditions precedent to the success of such a project, it is unfortunately not the only one. A much greater difficulty in the way will be realized in the utter inefficiency and unsuitableness of the Dominion Parliament, with its present methods and maxims, for the prosecution of such an undertaking. Much smaller and simpler undertakings, in the line of law reform, than what is now proposed, have already proved too strong for the digestion of the House of Commons.

We have had an object lesson recently afforded to us of the nature of the difficulty now under consideration, in the progress,

or perhaps I had better say, the want of progress of Mr. Fortin's Insolvent Bill. Nobody can reasonably deny the necessity for an insolvent act of some kind, for no commercial nation can well exist without some sort of a law of bankruptcy. The subject of bankruptcy and insolvency is expressly assigned to the Dominion Parliament, and that Parliament legislated upon the matter in 1869, and again in 1875. Since the repeal of the later statute, there has been no insolvency law, properly so-called, in effect throughout the Dominion. But so keenly has the need of some such law been felt, that in the absence of Dominion legislation, the various provinces have been obliged to do the best they could to supply the place.

Thanks to the liberal construction placed upon the description of provincial powers in the British North America Act, and to the ingenuity of the lawyers in the Ontario Assembly, the provincial legislatures, or some of them, have managed, by sailing pretty close to the wind, it must be candidly confessed, to produce a statute which the courts have, by what some persons have thought was rather a tour de force, been able to sustain, which does in fact fulfil many of the requirements of an insolvent law. The existence of these statutes proves the necessity for such a law. The fact that they exist in some provinces, and not in all, shows the inconvenience of occupying the field intended for Dominion legislation by straining the powers of the provincial legislatures. We shall always, under this method of legislation, be subjected to the inconvenience, or at least the risk, of having as many different kinds of law as there are different provinces in which it may be enacted. Apart from the advantage of uniformity, to which I have already alluded, there are special reasons that call for uniformity in the provisions of the law relating to bankruptcy and insolvency.

This is one of the subjects in which foreign nations are, perhaps, even more deeply interested than the people of our own Dominion, and it is therefore a subject upon which, above all others, the laws of the whole Dominion should be uniform. When a merchant in London or Berlin, or it may be in Australia, or Hong-Kong, desires to know what security he will have that his goods will not be taken to pay the home creditors of his debtor, and leave the foreigner in the lurch, it must be obvious that it would be of the very greatest importance that he should be able to deal with the Dominion as a unit. It must be perplexing and exasperating to him, in the extreme, to be obliged to consult six or seven different

statute books, or, still worse, to realize that his legal adviser is obliged to take a preliminary course in the geography of Canada before he can even put himself in a position to prepare to advise him on the legal merits of his enquiry. It is not creditable to a country, as far advanced in civilization as Canada, on whose behalf the claim of nationhood has been so prominently and emphatically asserted, that it should present to the rest of the world, in respect to this question, the spectacle that it does. This has been felt by many persons for years past, and yet the same reluctance has been felt in dealing with the question in the Dominion Parliament, no matter what party has been nominally in control of the House of Commons.

Why is it that so much difficulty is experienced in dealing with what is apparently so simple a matter, and securing the enactment of a law of such evident and admitted necessity? The answer is not difficult. Experience has shown that under present conditions, no important and debatable measure can pass the House of Commons except under the patronage of the Government for the time being. The fate of more than one measure of intrinsic excellence has illustrated the truth of this remark. Its truth did not need to be demonstrated, for it is one of the commonplaces of parliamentary philosophy. Now the conditions under which a measure can be taken under the patronage of the government are extremely stringent. The party system makes it the duty of an opposition to oppose. We have, indeed, been told during the present session, that it is their duty to suspect something wrong even where nothing whatever of a questionable character is apparent, to maintain at all times that "spirit of watchful jealousy" that Matthew Arnold used to satirize so cleverly, as displayed by the narrower organs of religious opinion in England.

For the purposes of a government measure, on any really debatable question, you must first of all begin by setting aside a body of representatives, numbering usually almost half of the whole membership of the House. Now, if it were possible to carry this process to its logical conclusion and throw the proscribed half out of the reckoning altogether, it would be quite a simple matter. to get things done. A majority of those that were left could carry the desired measures to a successful issue. But that is just where the difficulty arises. This cannot be done. siderable minority of the membership, on the government side of the House, to whom a proposed measure is distasteful, that is the

If there is any con

end of the matter. No government can depend upon carrying its measures through the House with the votes of the opposition, and hence it is necessary that after reckoning against you nearly half the membership of the House of Commons, your measure must be such as to secure enough votes among those that remain to command a majority of the whole House.

These are certainly hard conditions. Not one measure in five that could be named as meritorious, if not essential to the good government of the country, can stand such a test as this. A ineasure may be such as should commend itself to the unbiased judgment of the overwhelming majority of the members of the House of Commons. It may be such as the overwhelming public opinion of the country would approve. I may be altogether mistaken, but I am under the impression that Mr. Fortin's Bill complies with both of these conditions. Nevertheless, it may not be such a measure as a government under our system would be justified in venturing to introduce. Differences of opinion may exist, and in respect to this particular measure, differences of opinion probably do exist, of such a character as to deprive it of the support of an influential minority of the members on the government side of the House, and leave it dependent for its success upon the votes of the opposition. No government, whether Liberal or Tory, will willingly expose itself to the risks of such a situation, and hence, wherever the party system prevails, it must always be the case that measures of the greatest possible importance and utility must depend on the initiative of individual members, and the support of an unorganized majority of the House.

Left to this independent initiative and this unorganized support, we may easily anticipate the fate of the measure that comes forward under such depressing auspices. The absorbing nature of party struggles in a House composed exclusively of party politicians and representing a constituency in which it is the received maxim that politics is war, the imperious claim of party controversy, to engross the whole energy of the members, and consume all the available time of the House, make it at present practically impossible to secure the time and attention requisite for the adequate consideration of any measure, no matter how interesting or important it may be, which does not directly or indirectly affect the fate of the administration. Parliamentary authorities and publicists of eminence have frequently bewailed the existence of these conditions.

The remedy is easy to suggest, but it is not safe to predict that it will ever be adopted. There are enough lawyers in the House unconnected with the administration of the government to form a very strong and able committee to whom such measures, of a non-political character, as I have mentioned, might well be referred for consideration. On the government side of the House, there is always much of course to engage the attention of members outside of their duties as legislators, but even on the government side there are a number of men representing small and not too exacting constituencies, who could easily find time for the full and careful consideration of such subjects. On the opposition side of the House, the members enjoy a happy immunity from the cares and worriments that always beset, more or less, the supporter of the party in power, and there must be a number of able and accomplished lawyers among them to whom it would be a blessed relief from the ennui of a long parliamentary session, to find some such useful occupation for their vacant hours. Left to their own devices, these honourable members must prove, to the greater or less inconvenience of the gentlemen on the Treasury Benches, the truth of the saying that "Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do."

I

If I were the government I would consider it an excellent idea to give these members some serviceable tasks of public utility to perform that would leave them as little time as possible, and certainly much less temptation than they have at present for hatching schemes for the annoyance of the administration. would select a strong committee from among the lawyers of the House, without respect to party distinctions and with a sole regard to their known ability and knowledge as lawyers, and their presumable skill and judgment as draftsmen and legislators. I should let them do their work as a grand committee of the House, with the certainty that the results would justify a very large degree of confidence in the wisdom of their conclusions, and, without accepting any responsibility as an administration for the endorsement of their proposals by the House as a whole, I should see to it that a sufficient portion of the time that is now wasted in dreary. and meaningless debate, in long and wearisome harangues to the gallery, as represented by the Hansard reporters, should be devoted to the reasonably full and fair consideration of projects of public utility and permanent interest, brought forward results of the committee's labour.

as the