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away. Naturally, some solicitors rush to the Second Division to escape all necessity for a first order for needless intimation. Surely the Court should rule by Act of Sederunt in favour of one uniform practice for both Divisions.

The Second Division, again, without any announcement to the profession, to judge by a recent application in April last, has departed from its own invariable practice, and that of the First Division for decades in another respect, with regard to these arrangement schemes. It is no longer competent, according to the officials of the Second Division, for the Court to authorise the directors of a company to fix the dates of the meetings of creditors or of members, or of both such classes, as they may find convenient. The proposed dates must be specified in the prayer of the petition or supplied to the Court for incorporation in its first order. It may be that English Chancery judges adopt this practice. But one would conjecture that the Court is master of its own procedure, and as the section of the Act leaves the Court to summon the meetings "in such manner as the Court directs," it is difficult to see wherein the Court is made so helpless as to be unable to delegate the fixing of the dates with time and place to the Board of Directors of a going company or to the liquidator of a dissolving one. It is a pity that there is here also no common rule for both Divisions. Practitioners have long expected to see some comprehensive Act of Sederunt dealing with all company business, including liquidations.

C. K.

NOTES FROM PARLIAMENT HOUSE. Another session is here, and as regards work there has again to be recorded an adverse report. The atmosphere in Parliament Hall is once more what Lord Oxford would call one of inspissated gloom." The only really satisfactory feature is that, contrary to the general practice of recent years, there seems to be no immediate prospect of a general election. As to the state of the rolls, for what it is worth, the session began with 41 cases in the First Division, made up by 12 Summar Roll, 17 Short Roll, and 12 Long Roll; the Second Division had a total of 62 cases, made up by 14 Summar Roll, 45 Short Roll, and 3 Long Roll. The Lords Ordinary again have moderate rolls, and the opening days of session were once more marred by a distressing rush to settle. One hundred and fifty-one cases were called in the vacation, and of these fully one-third are of the consistorial" variety, raised largely in the names of poor litigants. So far as the writer is aware, there is in Scotland no tendency such as that noted in the extract which follows from

an English paper. "There is a shortage of solicitors, and in order to get the right men for their offices, many firms are offering tempting terms to barristers to leave the Bar and qualify as solicitors. Many firms of city solicitors now have ex-barristers on their staffs." It may be doubted if there is a shortage in any branch of the legal profession in Scotland.

The extract quoted suggests that perhaps this is the thin end of the "fusion" wedge. Polls taken among solicitors have frequently revealed that there is no demand whatever among them for such a reform. Can it be that a demand for it will first come from the other branch of the profession? Certainly reform, which during the past year has been very much in the air, seems rather to have faded away once more. There seemed some months ago to be a general agreement that something must be done, and done quickly, to save the situation. The Faculty of Advocates passed a resolution asking for a Royal Commission to consider the question of reform of Court of Session procedure. Other legal bodies passed pious resolutions in similar terms. More than that, concrete proposals of the way in which reform might best be effected were laid before the learned faculties. The mountains rumbled; but nothing has been brought forth, not even a mouse. Perhaps those concerned have decided that it is better to gang the gait we are going, and lapse through genteel stagnation into complete decay, than to make a vigorous effort to restore an institution so obviously doomed as the Court of Session. It may be so, but it sometimes seems a little pusillanimous to go down without the semblance of a struggle.

During the vacation the appointment was announced of the Scottish Ecclesiastical Commissioners under the Church of Scotland (Property and Endowments) Act of 1925. As was anticipated, the chairman is a senator of the College of Justice, in the person of Lord Ashmore; another of their number is Mr R. C. Henderson, K.C. From the standpoint of the Commission these are admirable appointments, but from the point of view of the Court's work it is to be feared that the appointment of Lord Ashmore is virtually equivalent to depriving the Court of the services of a learned and popular judge for an indefinite period, possibly two or even three years. The duties of the Commissioners are multifarious and may extend over a very considerable time. They have to frame and give effect to schemes under the Act relating to burgh churches, to deal with the transfer to trustees of churches, manses, endowments, to give effect to the provisions of the Act which relate to the transfer of rights in glebes, and so forth. Of course they are masters of their own procedure, and may possibly devise

means of dealing expeditiously with these difficult topics. They are to give " such enquiry in each individual case as they may think fit," but without doubt in some cases it will need to be considerable. Mr Fisher, advocate, has been appointed secretary to the Commissioners.

It will be remembered that when Lord Mackenzie's Committee recommended a Court of Criminal Appeal for Scotland, Sir Herbert Stephen came forward with two important improvements which he suggested might be introduced, in view of the need felt for them in the English practice. The first was the ordering of a second trial where it was felt necessary, the second was the granting of appeals at the instance of the Crown. A third, rather acute question has now arisen in England. There are, it seems, far too many appeals, and some means of curtailing the present system may have to be sought. The Lord Chief Justice has more than once deprecated "the regularity, amounting to routine, of appeals from convictions for murder.' It is hard to see, however, any satisfactory method whereby appeal can be allowed and then restricted. This point is one which must needs be carefully considered when the new Scots Court is established. Increased labour will in any case be thrown on the judges, and whether our judicial establishment is large enough to bear the burden remains to be seen. It may be said, however, that the question is academic, for if, as appears likely, the inauguration of a Court of Criminal Appeal is deferred until it can be effected simultaneously with reform of the Court of Session, it may be that no one now living will see it.

The "appointed day has come and gone under the statute dealing with the transfer of the Advocates' Library to the nation. On 26th October the first meeting of the Board of Trustees was held, under the presidency of Sir Herbert Maxwell. A large and distinguished body assembled, prepared to apply to the library that steadfast, unremitting, and efficient attention which a body like the Faculty, necessarily absorbed in professional labours, was never able to do. Speeches were made, in which suitable tributes were paid to the part played by the Faculty in maintaining the Library so long and so successfully. To the regret of the keen conveyancer there was no symbolical tradition of a book and a pinch of dust made by the Dean of Faculty to the Secretary for Scotland. Nor to the enquiring visitor would any great change have been apparent on the following morning. There was no queue of eager new proprietors of Scotland's National Library pressing forward to view the ample page, rich with the spoils of time, which the munificence of Sir Alexander

Grant had now unrolled; there were no husky proletarians, in scarves and corduroy trousers, spitting in the sawdust on the floor of the public reading-room while discussing the latest tips in the "Noon Record." Nothing of that sort was visible. In fact, it was made quite plain at the trustees' meeting that there would be no change of any sort or kind in the public arrangements of the Library. But none the less a great tradition has been broken, and one cannot but be sorry for the end of another “auld sang." Certainly the Faculty of Advocates could no longer sustain a burden of which they are no doubt well rid. But it is much to be regretted that it was found impossible to retain the name which two and a half centuries of their devoted care have made famous, if not, indeed, to politicians and plutocrats, certainly to every man of culture in both hemispheres. In the books of every library there must be numerous references to books or manuscripts contained in "Advocates' Library, Edinburgh "; it seems a pity that our modern craze for nationalisation should have rendered these meaningless and have stamped the new library with a name which lacks both character and tradition. But these things happen. It would be interesting to hear the views of "Bloody "Mackenzie on the subject.

After various unedifying scenes in Committee the Law Agents (Scotland) Bill was dropped by its promoters. The Bill was designed to set up a disciplinary committee for the solicitors' branch of the legal profession in Scotland on the lines of the well-tried and successful committee which has been established for many years in England. A great deal of the opposition to the Bill was based on the fear, real or pretended, that it would give opportunities for victimisation of a political kind. It was suggested that to place the power of defining professional misconduct in the hands of a coterie or clique of seven members selected by the Lord President of the Court of Session would be a bad thing both for the public and (a rare solicitude on the part of a politician) for the members of the legal profession. A distinguished member of the Privy Council and ex-member of the Cabinet stated that everyone was filled with suspicion about the Bill, and it made them more suspicious that there had been no word of explanation from members of the legal profession, who sat like dumb dogs." Unfortunately, this state of mind was so generally prevalent that the Bill had to be dropped, especially in view of the fact that the Scottish Grand Committee had other Bills of importance which required its immediate attention. It is to be hoped, however, that a measure which commanded the support of moderate men in all parties will be successfully

revived on a more favourable occasion, and that it has not received its final quietus from an opposition that was both factious and ill-informed.

LONDON LETTER.

THE TEMPLE, 27th October 1925.

The year 1825, besides seeing the birth of Paul Kruger and the invention of the candle, witnessed also the establishment of the " Society of Attorney Solicitors, Proctors, and others, not being barristers, practising in the Courts of law and equity of the United Kingdom.' They took a longer time to describe everything a hundred years ago. To-day we cannot be bothered to refer to that same society by any longer name than "the Law Society," but, though its name may be short to-day, its influence for good has been very great. A symposium was published in 1901 called "A Century of Law Reform," being a collection of twelve lectures given by various eminent lawyers on different aspects of the complete revolution brought about in every form of legal procedure and judicial administration between 1800 and 1900. It is a most interesting book, and the picture it gives of legal administration in 1800 bears scarcely a single point of resemblance to legal administration to-day. In point of fact, that revolution really only began about 1830 and not in 1800, and the greatest stimulus to revolt was probably given by the insupportable weight of Lord Chancellor Eldon. A few days ago the Times published an extract from a leading article printed by it in 1825 which is worth transcribing as shewing the state of public feeling at the time that the Law Society began its beneficent career.

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"Our table is loaded with the complaints of worn-out and ruined heads of families against Lord Chancellor Eldon and the Court which he overhangs, as it were a perennial nightmare. Neither public opinion, nor parliamentary enquiry, nor the sense of right, nor the feelings of humanity, nor the promised approach of an event which levels all ranks and crushes all perverted powers and punishes all transgressions, whether negative or positive, seem to penetrate that case-hardened fortress in which the spirit of Chancery has for almost a fourth part of an hundred years enthroned itself. No cries of distress can melt it-all mortal arms rebound from its adamantine surface-neither moth nor mould have yet impaired its vigour; but Time, the consumer of all else beneath the sun, is himself devoured by the everlasting demon of the woolsack. It is vain and foolish to talk of the Court of Chancery

as an abstract thing which involves no personal considerations. That Court is identified with one living-we had almost said one immortalman. Its abuses have all sprung to their full enormity under him. If he has not produced, he has reared, cherished, and protected them."

But, once the revolution had begun, there can be no doubt that the Law Society was the most powerful influence that enabled the revolution to be carried through. In fact, the late Mr Blake Odgers, K.C., in his lecture in "A Century of Law Reform " on "Changes in Procedure and in the Law of Evidence," points out that, in that very Court of Chancery, thanks largely to the efforts of the Law Society, enormous abuses were swept away. Individual barristers and judges have in their time done great work for the development and simplification of legal procedure-and now and again we have had a reforming Lord Chancellor-but their efforts were unco-ordinated and their views were not backed up by any corporate body. It is largely due to the united and powerful voice of the Law Society that the present Law Courts were opened forty years ago, when the Courts were concentrated under one roof in a convenient place, that the Solicitors' Act was passed in 1843, and that the Supreme Court of Judicature Act was passed in 1873, all achievements of the greatest importance.

It is, of course, easy to make a butt of the Rent Restrictions Act and to shew the absurdities inherent in it, but what are we to say when two Divisional Courts, differently constituted, give flatly contradictory judgments on the same point of law? How is an unfortunate lawyer to advise his client, except by saying that it does not matter what the County Court judge may think on this point, because, even on appeal, no one can say which way a third Divisional Court, differently constituted from the other two, may lean. It is an apparently simple point in dispute. Can an order for possession be made against a defendant who has legally sublet and who is thereby himself no longer in actual occupation? As long ago as 15th April 1924 an appeal from the Chesterfield County Court was heard by a Divisional Court consisting of Swift J. and Acton J. (Hicks v. Scarsdale Brewery, [1924] W.N. 189). The County Court judge held that an order for possession could be made. Acton J. disagreed with this decision, but Swift J. agreed, and so, of course, the opinion of the appellate Court being equally divided, the decision of the inferior Court held good. On 5th February 1925 the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland, in Martin Estates v. Watt & Hunter ([1925] W.N. 79), came to the same decision. Moore L.J. expressly said that he preferred the conclusion of Swift J. in the former case to that