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Quarterly Notes.

The Peace which has happily taken the place of War in the Transvaal has been made very much on the lines suggested in our pages, but with one or two rather important differences. That a resident Diplomatic Agent should be accredited to the capital of the South African Republic is exactly in accordance with the view propounded by us. What we insisted upon, in fact, was that he ought to be distinctly a Diplomatic Agent, not simply a Consul. The gallant and learned member of the English Bar who was in command on the British side, and charged with powers to negotiate terms of peace, has, however, departed from the simplicity of our programme in at least two points, and therein, we fear, may unintentionally have been laying the seeds of future disturbance. These two points are (1) the title of the Diplomatic Agent, who, it is understood, is to be called "Resident;" (2) the introduction of the epithet Suzerainty" to define the relation of Great Britain to the South African Republic.

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On these two points, it appears to us that Sir Evelyn Wood was ill-advised, or advised himself less well than we could have wished. "Resident" is not the ordinary term for a Diplomatic representative, except in so far as it may be taken as an abbreviation for "Minister Resident." What it does bring forcibly to mind is a rather different functionary-the Indian " political" -a class of officers frequently, if not generally, of distinguished ability, no doubt, but certainly not strikingly remarkable, as a class, for that abstinence from all interference in the internal affairs of the State to which they are accredited, which is so severely and necessarily exacted from the Ambassador, the Envoy Extraordinary, the Minister Resident, or the Chargé d'Affaires. We shall be very glad if events prove that the ordinary Indian "Resident" is not reproduced in South Africa. But we think the choice of the title unfortunate.

As to the other title proposed to be added to the already somewhat numerous designations of the Defender of the Faith, and Empress of India, viz., that of "Suzerain" of the South African Republic, we think it an equally unfortunate choice. It has greatly exercised the minds of leader-writers, but then

they must have something to write about, so that is in itself a small matter. Our gravamen against the epithet is rather this: that it does not of itself express what it appears intended to connote; that the class of States to which it was applied in Europe has practically ceased to exist, after a considerable experience of the difficulties to which their anomalous position gave rise; that the Feudal Law, from which the term is derived, is dead beyond the possibility of resuscitation, and even were it not so, the term is inaccurately used if meant to express, as appears to be the case, that the foreign relations of the South African Republic are to be carried on through Great Britain. There is yet another objection, and curiously enough it is also an Indian one that occurs to us. We are strongly reminded by this term "Suzerainty" of the Indian doctrine of the "Paramount Power"-a vague and mysterious Something which stands in the background of our relations with the Native Feudatory Princes of India. Not a thing much talked of, or glibly brought forward in Cashmere or Nepaul, but rather associated with handsome silken banners and orders in Durbar, presented, amid much tom-tom and blare of trumpet, and display of semi-Orientalised Western pageantry. In the Middle Ages, and in the Medieval Law, the term Suzerain implied a personal relation; it had certainly nothing to do with the question of autonomy, and as certainly it did not connote that the Suzerain was the medium through which the foreign relations of the vassal were carried on. But this seems to be accounted the leading idea of the term in South Africa, and in the nineteenth century.

Not long ago, we had a Semi-Sovereign State under our protection-the Republic of the Seven Ionian Islands, in which our present Premier exercised the office of Lord High Commissioner, by appointment of the British Crown. There are several reasons, it seems to us, why this precedent might well have been followed in South Africa. The capital reason is that both the States in question followed the Republican form of Government. The next reason is that the use of such a terminology as that the South African Republic was placed under the "Protectorate" of Great Britain, would have followed precedent, and at the same time have avoided the particular difficulties which we have pointed out as inherent in the use of the terms " Suzerain" and "Suzerainty." These terms are not, indeed, as a former distinguished occupant of the Woolsack

(Earl Cairns) appears to have supposed, invented for the nonce; but they are none the less, in our view, unfortunate. It is surely not too late to substitute what would appear to be unobjectionable terms, having a precedent both in British practice, and in International Law. Whether the position of a Semi-Sovereign State is one which it is desirable to create, at a day when the class, never large, is almost extinct, is a different question. The Bey of Tunis is, eo nomine, under the "Suzerainty" of the Sublime Porte. It remains to be seen what that Suzerainty is worth to him. The Republic of Andorra has for its "Co-Sovereigns," the Bishop of Urgel and the French Republic. There are believed to be difficulties attending upon the relations of this ancient State with its two powerful neighbours. There remain, besides these, the Principality of Monaco, and the Republic of San Marino, both like Andorra, very ancient members of the European Commonwealth. It is hard to believe that any other destiny awaits them all than the destiny which has befallen the Republic of Cracow.

Considerable doubt having been expressed regarding the nature and extent of the legal training which the late Earl of Beaconsfield had gone through in early life, it may not be uninteresting to place on record the actual facts forming part of that remarkable career of one whose loss, though at a ripe old age, all classes unite in regretting.

Setting out with the idea of becoming an "Attorney of the Court of King's Bench, and a Solicitor in the Court of Chancery,' Benjamin D'Israeli, son of Isaac D'Israeli, Esq., of Bloomsbury Square, was indentured apprentice on the 10th November, 1821, for five years, to William Stevens, Solicitor, of Frederick Place, Old Jewry (of Swain, Stevens and Co.), as is mentioned by a correspondent of our contemporary, the Law Times. Three years after this, his aspirations would seem to have turned towards a different career, and on the 18th November, 1824, "Benjamin Disraeli, of Bloomsbury Square, in the County of Middlesex, aged 20 years [his real age was somewhat less, the Synagogue records proving his birth on 21st December, 1804], eldest son of Isaac Disraeli of the same place, Esq.," was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn, his sureties being his father, and his uncle, Nathaniel Basevi, Esq.

The new member kept nine terms, and according to the practice of the day, performed exercises. He remained a

member for seven years, but in 1831, on his own petition, alleging ill-health incapacitating him from following the profession of the Law, his name was removed from the Books. It will be apparent, from what we have stated, that the younger Diraeli's legal training was by no means inconsiderable. It is not a little curious that Lord Beaconsfield's great political rival, and successor in the Premiership, should himself have gone through a very similar training, with the exception of the portion in the office of a Solicitor.

Fourteen months after Benjamin Disraeli had ceased to be a Fellow of Lincoln's Inn, on the 25th January, 1833, William Ewart Gladstone, having just completed his brilliant career at Oxford, at the age of 23 years, was admitted to the same learned Society. Mr. Gladstone, after keeping eleven terms, between 1833 and 1837, and when he had been a member for six years and three months, likewise petitioned to have his name removed, but on the ground of his "having given up his intention of being called to the Bar." It may not be uninteresting to state that Mr. Gladstone, as might be expected, was no mere diner in Hall. He performed no less than six exercises, all between the 19th April and 31st May, 1837. We now print, by the ready courtesy of the Treasurer and the steward of Lincoln's Inn, the official extracts from the Liber Niger of the Society, as "pièces justificatives," which have not hitherto seen the light.

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BENJAMIN DISRAELI, of Bloomsbury Square, in the County of Middlesex, aged 20 years, eldest son of Isaac Disraeli, of the same place, Esquire.

"Admitted L.I. 18th November, 1824.

"Sureties in Admission Bond: Isaac Disraeli and Nathaniel Basevi, Esquires.

"Dined in Hall in the following Terms:-Michaelmas, 1824; Hilary, 1825; Easter, Trinity, and Michaelmas, 1827; Hilary, Easter, Trinity, and Michaelmas, 1828.

"Performed Exercises: May 23rd and May 26th, 1827.

"At a Council held the 25th November, 1831. Upon the Petition ot BENJAMIN DISRAELI, a Fellow of this Society, praying that his name may be taken off the books, his health not permitting him to follow the profession of Law: It is Ordered accordingly."

"WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE, of Christ Church, Oxford, B.A., aged 23 years, fourth son of John Gladstone, Esquire, of Fasque, in the County of Kincardine.

"Admitted L.I. 25 January, 1833.

"Surety in Admission Bond: Christopher Edward Puller, Esquire.

"Dined in Hall in the following Terms :-Hilary, Easter, and Trinity, 1833; Easter and Trinity, 1834; Easter and Trinity, 1835; Easter and Trinity, 1836; Easter and Trinity, 1837.

"Performed Exercises: 19th April, 1837; 27th April, 1837; 28th April, 1837; 29th, 30th, and 31st May, 1837.

"At a Council held 15th April, 1839. Upon the Petition of WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE, a Fellow of this Society, praying that his name may be taken off the books, having given up his intention of being called to the Bar: It is Ordered accordingly."

The Indian Government, still acted upon, it would appear, by the impulse of activity communicated by Macaulay, and freshened by Sir James Stephen, sends us a conspicuous monument of its legislative zeal in the shape of a large volume, being the Report of the Indian Law Commission, 1879, embracing Bills dealing with the following subjects, several of which are of far-reaching import :-Negotiable Instruments, Transfer of Property, Alluvion, Master and Servants, Easements, and Trusts. The Commissioners (Hon. Whitley Stokes, C.S.I., member of the Council of the Viceroy; Hon. Charles Turner, C.I.E., then Puisne Judge, High Court, N.W.P., now Sir Charles, and Chief Justice of Madras; and Hon. Raymond West, M.A., a Puisne Judge of the High Court, Bombay), appear to have been fully alive alike to the importance of codification, and to its special difficulties in a country such as India. "In its larger sense," therefore, as they remark, "of a general assemblage of all the laws of a community no attempt has as yet been made in this country [i.e., India] to satisfy the conception of a code." And in this widest sense of the word, they are probably right in thinking that "the time for its realisation has not arrived." Still they distinctly state their conviction that the "ultimate design of forming into a general code," the distinct Acts dealing with the several branches of the law, "ought never to be lost sight of." The truth is that only those who know something of the diversities of Indian Races, Laws and Religions, can have the faintest idea of the special difficulties attending upon codification in India. And the very action of European society and modes of thought upon native Indian society and modes of thought, is, as the Commissioners justly remark, not one of the least of these difficulties.

We should like to know something of the line taken up on their return home, by those Indian students who come over to

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