head when the wall was only twenty-six feet high, but the intention of the builders was to raise it more than thirty feet high, and such work was being proceeded with at the time of the accident. The Court of Appeal decided that the appellant could not recover, and this interpretation of the section is clearly correct, but the case is one of considerable hardship; the section should either be repealed in toto, or amended so as to meet a similar contingency.

Holliday v. National Telephone Co. (33 W.N. 165) is a true, but alarming, exposition of the general principle that, where a contractor for building or other purposes employs a subcontractor to carry out the work, who, in his turn, employs his own servants, the original contractor is not liable for the negligence of such servants, unless he interferes or assumes specific control. This is the rule of Cuthbertson v. Parsons (12 C.B. 304), and of Murray v. Currie (L. R. 6 C.P. 24). Henceforth the passenger hurrying through our crowded thoroughfares will beware of the one more discovered danger of our streets, and flee from the pavement when he perceives the flare of a benzoline vapour lamp employed in soldering telephone wires.

In re Weston's Trusts (33 L.J. 552) and In re J. M. (33 LJ. 578) should be read together by way of interpretation of ss. 25 & 35 of the Trustee Act, 1893. If the trustee is ill, and weakness has produced temporary mental incapacity to attend to business, the Chancery Division can appoint a new trustee in his place, and make a vesting order. But if the incapacity is of a chronic character, the Court of Chancery can only appoint the new trustee; the vesting order must be made by the Lunacy Judge under the Lunacy Act, 1890. This is consistent with the spirit of the Act.

SHERSTON BAKER.

Reviews.

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

Studies in International Law. By THOMAS ERSKINE HOLLAND, D.C.L. Oxford: at the Clarendon Press. London and New York : Henry Froude. 1898. Pp. 314. Price 10s. 6d.

In this volume Professor Holland presents us with a valuable series of lectures and articles from time to time written and delivered by himself. The subjects are naturally disconnected (though a certain grouping of them is indicated by the author); this feature the book no doubt shares in common with the great Quæstiones Juris Publici of Bynkershoek. Two topics stand out as occupying more space than others—the life and work of A. Gentilis, and the Eastern Question. Both of these subjects Dr. Holland has made peculiarly his own, by the issue of The European Concert, and an edition of Gentilis' De Jure Belli. The Inaugural Lecture on the forerunner of Grotius, with its careful and minute appendices, forms a thoroughly complete monograph, from which it only remains for the modern historical romancer to evolve the character of the living Alberic. There is a certain fitness in his resting-place, in the precincts of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate Street, where the cosmopolitan City crowd may pass and repass the spot where lies one who did so much to enable their nations to find the world large enough for them all.

The next papers are concerned with the law of war-its early history, its disentanglement from the law of military discipline and its later development as a title of the law of nations, down to the operation upon it of the collective scientific action of the compilers of military manuals and of the Institute of International Law. Particular discussions follow of the bombardment of coast-towns, the SinoJapanese war and pacific blockades. Dr. Holland's opinion that a government would do well, while trusting in International Law, to keep their powder away from the coast, is as unimpeachably good sense as is the advice of a lawyer who counsels a client to avoid litigation, although clearly in the right; it no way weakens the proposition that an undiscriminating bombardment of such a town.

as the Hague, on the chance of blowing up magazines, is, legally, inadmissible. One remarks with regret that the author regards the dangerously ambiguous and decaying institution of reprisals as justifying the overbearing pretensions which have been made to blockade a friendly state in time of peace, provided that "neutral" ships are not stopped. It is by no means to be admitted that "the occupation of a province" is a proper mode of reprisals, or capable of any other construction than as an act of war. With Hautefeuille, "Je ne pense pas qu'on puisse pretendre q'u il y a attaqué d'une nation par une autre nation, sans guerre." So Hall observes on Louis XIV.'s invasion of Holland, "Sans que la paix soit rompue de notre part," that such a declaration was a mere piece of arrogance on the part of his Majesty. And to stifle the commerce of a state is often a stronger measure than to seize a town or a district, and one more calculated to weaken, by repeated ocular demonstrations throughout the country, the authority of its government. Besides which, it leads to dangerous excesses and complications,* and provides a particularly easy path for slipping into an unwished-for The word "blockade" can hardly be prevented from meaning to a naval officer a blockade involving all the ordinary incidents of blockade in war-time. The careful analysis of the different kinds of blockades which the author gives (and which is most useful and opportune) will take some time to penetrate the mind of government officials, not to speak of seamen, for whom broad distinctions alone have meaning and importance. The mere seizure of a few ships. on the high seas, as a security for "une dette claire et liquide," is a very different matter. Reprisals are not in such good odour that they will bear the strain of justifying more than this.

war.

The treatment of the conflict in the Far East is admirable throughout. After illustrating the system of exhibiting the Law of Nations in an ordered form, which is to be found in outline in the author's Elements of Jurisprudence, by referring the subjects of recent discussion to their appropriate heads, and after examining the literature of International Law in 1884, the Professor proceeds to treat in an elaborate and very valuable essay (which has been translated into German) of the discordance of Municipal and International Law. It appears that an English judge of Prize may be called upon to make the choice between reverence for precedent† and regard for that supremacy of Parliament, which a long continuance of peaceful legislation has made it so difficult to limit, Vide L. M. and R., Aug., 1896, p. 285, et seq. † Vide The Recovery, 6 Rob. 348.

however reasonably. The training of the Prize Judge as a member of the Supreme Court tends to make it likely that the ordinary axioms of that Court will be considered as unquestionable in cases of prize. On principle, it may well be that the common law, from which the Crown in Parliament derives its uncontrolled power of legislating in domestic affairs, may have limited its competence in those matters which are the subject of International Law; or that the legislature must always be understood to make laws subject to the implied exception that anything exceeding its international powers shall be void.

On either hypothesis, the possible mistakes of legislation which would otherwise involve, not the remote peril of domestic revolution, but the imminent danger of international controversy, could be corrected by the careful process of judicial investigation. Prize Courts, it must be remembered, pronounce decisions which are everywhere so implicitly respected and enforced that their judges are more like members of an international tribunal, nominated by their respective sovereigns, than officers whose decrees will only be executed by their own government. This is especially clear when we consider that Prize Courts frequently deal with property seized outside the jurisdiction of the captor's state. What would be thought of an arbitrator on a point of International Law, who should imagine himself bound to give an opinion at the dictation of his sovereign?

The Eastern question is next fully discussed. It need only be said here, that the treatment of the subject is eminently clear, scientific, and learned. Dr. Holland approves of the European Concert, as amounting to the protection by six states of what they consider their vital interests. But it seems to the undiplomatic observer that they, in fact, protect a good deal more. A discussion of the International position of the Suez Canal closes the volume, with the exception of four necrological eulogies. New circumstances may, indeed, modify existing law; but the more cautious we are in admitting that they have done so, the safer it will be. The mere fact of the execution of a great engineering triumph ought not lightly to diminish the territorial rights of the sovereign under whose protection it was constructed. To treat these as a secondary matter is not only to threaten the whole fabric of the International system, but actually to discourage the very enterprises in question: for no state would be likely readily to permit its territory to become affected with so ambiguous a character as would supervene on their con struction. The danger of half-measures and divided authorities is

illustrated by the way in which the supposed "right of innocent passage" through a strait, connecting open seas, is used by the author to justify the assertion of a right of passage through the Canal, -which is, from another point of view, capable of being regarded simply as an appliance for the conveyance over land of ships, by means of a liquid medium. The existence of locks makes the Canal, not so much a ditch as a series of tanks. And even if it had been a natural watercourse, it would be impossible to regard, without the gravest apprehension, the existence of a right of passage, vaguely qualified as "innocent," through an extremely narrow channel traversing the heart of a country. Surely the right of passage, if existent, must be confined to straits which at least present the characteristics of open water.

At p. 272, L. 30, "naturalization" should apparently be "neutralization;" as a whole, however, the typography is above criticism. Sir F. Pollock observes that the composition of legal treatises is not conducive to elegance of literary style. But the rule has exceptions, and Scipio Gentilis, jurist, scholar, and man of letters, has a follower in the Chichele Professor. It would be superfluous to praise in detail the terse lucidity of his pages; it is sufficient to say that it is a real pleasure to read them.

T. B.

The Law of Tramways and Light Railways. By SEWARD BRICE, M.A., LL.D., Q.C. London: Stevens & Haynes. 1898. Pp. 487. Price 12s. 6d.

The subject of Tramways and Light Railways is one of increasing importance, as shown by the statistics of their development. In 1878, taking the whole of the United Kingdom, the capital expended was £4,200,000, length of line open for traffic 269 miles, number of passengers carried 146,000,000, and gross receipts £1,099,000. In 1896 these figures had swelled to capital expended £15,195,000, line open 1009 miles, passengers carried 759,446,000, and gross receipts £4,152,000. While up to July last, according to the statement of the President of the Board of Trade quoted in Mr. Seward Brice's preface, 121 applications for orders for light railways had been made, representing a mileage of 1305 miles, and a capital of £7,500,000.

Mr. Seward Brice's book, in something under 500 pages, contains a vast amount of information on the subject of tramways and light railways. The first part gives a summary of the law. As might be expected, a large portion of this is not specially applicable