was 2nd October, 1914. He had been employed by the defenders as a miner for fourteen years prior to 2nd September, but on that date he left their employment to join the Army, so that he was not in their employment at the certified date of disablement. The defenders, founding on the terms of sect. 8 (1) of the Act, maintained that he was not entitled to compensation. Sect. 8 (1) enacts that, if certain conditions (which were present) are fulfilled, the workman should be entitled to compensation as if the disease were an accident arising out of and in the course of the employment, subject to certain modifications—one of which is that the disablement is to be treated as the happening of the accident. The employers argued that the disease must be regarded as an accident which took place at the date of disablement, and that as the workman was not employed by them at that date the accident did not arise out of and in the course of the employment. The Second Division rejected this contention as leading to an anomalous result which was not necessitated by the terms of the Act.

We have an illustration in The Glasgow Insurance Committee v. The Scottish Insurance Commissioners ([1915], I S. L. T. 217) of the wide nature of the powers which the National Insurance Act has conferred on the central administrative bodies. The Glasgow Insurance Committee desired to interdict the Scottish Insurance Commissioners from acting on the Drug Accounts Committee Regulations, or laying them before Parliament. The regulations were designed to carry Part I of the Act into effect, but the Glasgow Committee maintained that they were ultra vires of the Commissioners. Sect. 65 of the National Insurance Act enacts that the Commissioners may make regulations for carrying Part I of the Act into effect, and that any regulations so made should be laid before

Parliament, and should have effect "as if enacted in this. Act." The Court (dissentiente Lord Johnston), following the decision of the House of Lords in The Institute of Patent Agents v. Lockwood ([1894], A. C. 347), held that they had no jurisdiction to entertain the question. They held that if the regulations were made for the purpose of carrying Part I of the Act into effect, they were in the same position as if they had formed part of the National Insurance Act. The judges who formed the majority of the Court recognised that the case would have been different had the regulations not been made for the purpose of carrying Part I of the Act into effect. J. S. M.

IRISH CASES.

A testator had impliedly given his executor power to carry on the testator's business, but had not set apart any particular assets for that purpose. The Court, in an administration action, had appointed a manager to carry on the business in place of the executor. It may be taken as settled law that this manager was personally liable to the trade creditors for debts incurred in carrying on the business, but was entitled to be indemnified against such liability out of the general assets of the deceased. By subrogation, therefore, the trade creditors are entitled to resort to such assets for the payment of their debts. Although both the arguments and the judgment in O'Neill v. McGrorty ([1915], I Ir. R. 1) discuss these general matters at some length, the particular question in the case seems to be, whether the fact that funds in the action had been carried to the separate credits of legatees ought to free those funds from liability in this respect? It has been laid down that carrying a fund to a separate credit releases it from the general questions arising in the action and makes it subject only to the questions arising in the

particular matter referred to in the heading of the account (In re Jervoise, 12 Beav. 209). But still, claimants have

not necessarily lost their rights against that fund. Even if it had actually been paid over to a legatee—and putting it to a separate credit cannot have a higher effect than that a creditor could, on the principle of following assets, enforce his claim against the fund in the hands of that legatee. It was held, therefore, that nothing which had happened had deprived the trade creditors of their right above-mentioned against these funds as well as against the rest of the estate.

We have a rather curious case illustrating certain differences between a power of selection and a power of distribution in Sheehy v. Nugent ([1915], I Ir. R. 42). A testator bequeathed all his property to "my wife in the first place," and after her death to "my lawful nephews and nieces, meaning such nephews and nieces and other relations as she deems fit and suitable"; there was no gift in default of appointment. The wife, by her will, left part of the property to two nieces and part to a grandnephew; the rest was unappointed. First, as to the gift to the grand-nephew: it was held that this was good, because the power was a power of selection and not of distribution, and therefore "relations" did not mean merely statutory next-of-kin. But "where there is a power of appointment among relations which is not a power of selection, but only one of distribution, the objects of the power must be confined to the class falling within the limits of the Statute of Distributions." Second, there was the more difficult question as to the persons entitled to the unappointed part of the property. "The cases on ' relations' are peculiar": Wilson v. Duguid (24 Ch. D. 244). The class to take in default (in a selective power) is not the same class as that comprising the objects of the power,

but only statutory next-of-kin. It was held, therefore, that this part of the property could only go among nephews and nieces, and other relations (if any, but apparently there were none) who were next-of-kin of the testator according to the Statute: this class was to be ascertained as at the death of the testator, and its then members took vested interests.

Two cases on the scope and application of the Courts. Emergency Powers Act 1914 may be noted. Perry v. Fitzgerald ([1915], 2 Ir. R. 11) decides that an action of ejectment for non-payment of rent is within sect. I, subsect. I, of the Act. This action, it will be noted, differs in its nature from the corresponding English remedy, which is an action in the nature of an ejectment on the title, based on the fact that a condition in the letting, as to payment of rent, has been broken. The Irish action is purely a statutory remedy under sect. 52 of the Landlord and Tenant (Ir.) Act 1860, and may be considered as potentially a proceeding for the payment or recovery of a sum of money.

The other case is Irish Land Commission v. O'Neill ([1915], 2 Ir. R. 66). It relates to the purchase-annuity, the annual instalments whereby a tenant-purchaser, under the Irish Land Act 1903, repays to the Land Commission the amount advanced by them for the purchase by the tenant of the fee-simple of his holding. The case decides that this annuity is a Crown debt: it is public money, and the Land Commission is the instrument for making the advance and collecting the repayment. As the Crown is not bound by either the Courts Emergency Powers Act or the Postponement of Payments Act 1914, proceedings by the Land Commission to recover an unpaid instalment of this annuity from a tenant-purchaser do not come within either of those Acts.

J. S. B.

365

Reviews.

[SHORT NOTICES DO NOT PRECLUDE REVIEWS AT GREATER
LENGTH IN SUBSEQUENT ISSUES.]

Outlines of International Law. By CHARLES H. STOCKTON, Rear-Admiral U.S. Navy, Retired. Charles Scribner's Sons. New York, Chicago, and Boston. 1914.

The qualifications of the Author set out in the title of this work (President of the George Washington University, Delegate Plenipotentiary to the London Naval Conference, Author of The Laws and Usages of War at Sea, and of A Manual of International Law for the use of Naval Officers) raise an expectation of a practical contribution to the literature of the subject with which it deals; and the orderly method of the work, its succinct statement of principles illustrated by a sufficiency of precedents, and its references to modern opinions and the newer questions and developments of belligerency and neutrality, the whole thrown into vivid relief by the present war, all combine to fulfil that anticipation. In the first part, after defining the scope of International law, which he carefully distinguishes from international State policy and diplomacy, international comity and international ethics, the Author describes the sources of International law and traces the development of the modern system. The second part treats of the "persons" of International law, the various kinds of States, with the ancillary questions of their origin and recognition, their continuity and "succession,", rights of mutual equality and territorial jurisdiction with special reference to territorial waters, straits, rivers, interoceanic canals, and national rights on the high seas. The third part covers the intercourse of States in time of peace, with particular consideration of the functions of diplomatic and consular officers, international agreements, negotiations and conferences on special subjects, such as the London Conference for Naval law, and treaties. These international "scraps of paper" have a special interest for the United States which gives them a superior force to municipal laws and reserves the final sanction of them to one branch of the Legislature (the Senate) exclusively. Modern times have added to