It is not infrequently said that the layman is no better off when the law is codified, and it must readily be admitted that it is hopeless to expect to make the law, as a whole, known to the general public. Even such an ardent advocate of codification as John Austin admitted this.' But where a layman wants to acquire a knowledge of some particular branch of law in which he is specially interested, there is reason for believing that codification does materially assist. His Honour Judge Chalmers states in the introduction to his Digest of the law of Bills of Exchange that merchants and bankers say that it is a great convenience to them to have the whole of the general principles of the law of bills, notes and cheques contained in a single act of a hundred sections. No one imagines, of course, that breaches of trust would cease to be committed if the Law of Trusts were codified, but is it unreasonable to hope that trustees would be better acquainted with their powers and duties, that beneficiaries would be better acquainted with their rights, and so better able to protect themselves, and that consequently breaches of trust might be of less frequent occurrence than is now unhappily the case?

Nor would the task of codifying the Law of Trusts be a matter of insuperable difficulty. An excellent model already exists in the shape of the Indian Trusts Act 1882, which although framed with a special view to the necessities of India, and differing in some respects from English law, is nevertheless admittedly based on the latter. Besides this nearly the whole of the Statute law, which properly belongs to the subject, has already been consolidated in the shape of the Trustee Acts 1893 and 1894, and the Judicial Trustees Act 1896.

Why should not these

See Dr. Whiteley Stokes' introduction to the Act in the Anglo-Indian Codes, vol. i.

Acts, with the addition of the rules now represented by case law, for the drafting of which the Indian Trusts Act would serve as a guide, be re-enacted on a more scientifically arranged basis?

As a matter of fact, a Bill to codify the Law of Trusts was introduced in the House of Lords by Lord Halsbury in 1892, but got no further than a first reading. This was not altogether surprising, for although in its preparation use was made of the Indian Trusts Act, the Bill as introduced was hardly satisfactory. It was confessedly incomplete. The prefatory memorandum attached to the Bill stated that it did not pretend to be an exhaustive statement of the law. It consequently met with but scant approval, and in the following year when it reappeared it was in the form of a Bill to consolidate the Statute law only, which afterwards became the Trustee Act 1893. Lord Herschell, in introducing this measure, explained that the alteration in form was due to the criticisms which the previous Bill had evoked. The fact, however, that a hastily drafted and imperfect bill failed to secure approval, is no reason why a carefully prepared code on the lines of the Bills of Exchange, Partnership, and Sale of Goods Acts should not enjoy a better prospect of success, especially if its promoters refrained from attempting any amendment, but contented themselves with a clear statement of existing law.

It is necessary, however, to find someone to initiate the work. This is the chief difficulty. Unless the thing is undertaken by some public body, or person of influence, there is little prospect of its being successfully submitted to Parliament. The Bills of Exchange Act, for instance, was drafted by Mr. Chalmers on the instructions of the Institute of Bankers, and the Bill was introduced to Parliament by Lord Avebury (then Sir John Lubbock), the President of the Institute. To this fact its comparatively

speedy approval by the legislature is no doubt mainly due; similarly the Partnership Act was promoted under the auspices of the Associated Chambers of Commerce; while the Sale of Goods Act found a sponsor in Lord Herschell always ready to lend his aid to any reform in the law.

Is there anybody to perform the same office for a code of Trust Law? Would it be too much to hope that the Incorporated Law Society might be induced to undertake the task? A very large number of solicitors are trustees themselves, nearly all are constantly concerned in advising trustees as their clients and assisting in the administration of trusts. "There is no subject which occupies our attention more or fills a larger place in our daily business than the administration of trusts," said Mr. Wreford Budd in his Presidential address at the annual provincial meeting of the Society at Liverpool in 1895. The Society has always been in the van of law reform, as is testified by the part it has played in promoting the Judicature Acts, the Conveyancing Acts and the Settled Land Acts; without enumerating the very important amendments of the branch of law now under discussion which are due to its initiative. Representing solicitors as a corporate body it would surely be conferring a benefit not only on its constituents but on the public, with whose interests those of its constituents are in the long run identical, by interesting itself in this needful reform.

WALTER G. HART.

THE

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question of the advance of wages to seamen has frequently occupied the attention of the Legislature. The earliest Act dealing with it is 8 Geo. I. c. 24, passed in 1721, entitled "An Act for the more effectual suppressing of Piracy," which is still in force. After reciting that desertion whilst abroad is the chief occasion for seamen turning pirates, and is chiefly occasioned by the payment of wages to the seamen when abroad, it enacts that no master or owner of any merchant ship or vessel shall pay or advance, or cause to be paid or advanced to any seaman or mariner, during the time he shall be in parts beyond the seas, any money or effects upon account of wages exceeding one moiety of the wages which shall be due at the time of such payment, until the return home of such vessel.

But it was not until 1845 that the question in its narrower aspect was dealt with. Sailors are notoriously improvident, and, as a rule, only return to sea when they have spent all their earnings of the previous voyage, so that when they sign articles, their pockets are empty, and an advance of wages in some shape or form is essential to enable them to pay their boarding-house bill, redeem their kit, and come aboard equipped for the new voyage. If money were given to them by the shipowners for this purpose, it would, in the majority of cases, result in their spending it recklessly, and then not joining the ship. In order to avoid as far as possible this contingency, a system grew up of issuing "advance notes," by which the owner or master undertook to repay a certain sum (to be advanced by a third person to the seaman) within a specified time after the ship's sailing, provided the seaman sailed in her. The advance note was, as a rule, either in the form of a conditional bill of exchange drawn by the

master upon the shipowner and accepted by the latter, or of a conditional promissory note, the condition being that the seaman should sail in the vessel. By this means, the strongest inducement was held out to the person who cashed the note or advanced goods against it, to take effectual means of keeping the sailor to his engagement; for if the ship sailed without him the note would be void owing to non-fulfilment of the condition.

In 1845 the Seamen's Protection Act (8 & 9 Vict., c. 116) was passed, which prohibited (s. 7) anything in the nature of an advance note being given until six hours after the signing of the ship's articles, and it could then be given only to the seaman himself. The object of this enactment, no doubt, was to ensure that the seaman should be secure of his berth before he got the note, and thus saved from the necessity of parting with it to a crimp, or boarding-house runner, in order to secure the berth; for the preamble of the Act recites as follows:-" Whereas the seamen of this kingdom have been for several years past subjected to grievous impositions and great injustice by certain persons who undertake to procure seamen to enter on board merchant ships who have no interest in the said ships."

The above provision of the Act of 1845 was repealed by the Mercantile Marine Act, 1850 (13 & 14 Vict. c. 93, s. 58), and, in lieu thereof, it was enacted (s. 59) that no advance note should be made except in forms sanctioned by the Board of Trade, that none should be given to any person but the seaman himself, or unless the agreement contained a stipulation for the same and au accurate statement of the amount thereof, and that no advance note should be given to any seaman who signed the agreement before a shipping master, except in the presence of such shipping master, or, except in the case of a substitute, until four hours after the agreement had