1,267,507, as against 1,314,564 in 1911, were the smallest recorded since 1901. They have ceased to increase proportionately to the population. In plaints in which more than £100 was involved there was only the slight increase of from 493 to 515, whilst there was a decrease of those between £50 and £100. Remitted actions increased from 1,419 to 1,556. Of these, 728 were heard before a judge alone, whilst 101 were tried by a judge with a jury. These figures would appear to show that the movement for the extension of the jurisdiction of the County Courts, from which so much was anticipated in some quarters, has failed to materialise to any appreciable extent. Of the 430,518 actions actually determined, 33,479 only were tried by a judge, 376,355 being heard by the registrars. Actions struck out or otherwise disposed of numbered 423,579, thus nearly equalling actions tried. The number of actions, 98,180, pending at the end of the year, is slightly higher than in 1911, and would appear to indicate that, in spite of the general decrease in business, the work was too much for the judges. This would appear to justify the complaints which of late have attracted public attention.

Some of the chief causes assigned by the registrars of those Courts in which a decrease of business has taken place are stated to be the following:-(1) Decline in credit system. As Birmingham still heads the list of plaints entered, the evidence of the registrars of the County Court in that city is of the greatest value. During the past five years default summonses have, they say, decreased by 11 per cent. and ordinary summonses by 25 per cent. The former class is principally used for collecting trade debts from small shopkeepers, and the decrease is said to be due to the improvement in trade. The defendants on ordinary summonses are generally drawn from the industrial classes, and the decrease in these cases is stated to be due to the continued shrinkage in the industrial credit system. In the

grocery trade large multiple shops dealing only for cash have replaced the small credit grocer, whilst in the drapery trade the Scotch draper, who used to encourage a considerable credit business with the industrial classes, has now become almost extinct in the district, his place being taken by large concerns which not only limit the amount of credit given to any individual to 40s., but also make minute inquiries as to the status of their customers, and decline all credit transactions in certain streets and with certain individuals. There has also been a change in the money-lending system, the small loans to the industrial classes having diminished by 20 per cent. in the same period, the money thus at liberty being lent to persons of a higher social position at a higher rate of interest and with less recourse to litigation. This is corroborated by the testimony of other registrars from other districts. Obviously the steady growth, not only in the cities and towns, of large concerns run upon a cash system, and of co-operative societies, in the rural districts, means a diminution of small claims. The opinion is expressed that in 10 or 15 years the recovery of small debts will be reduced to a still more extraordinary extent. Eventually, if the system. becomes universal, it must reach vanishing point. (2) Fewer committal orders. In 1912 there was a decided decrease in the number of debtors imprisoned from 7,692 to 5,840; the smallest number recorded since 1891. This decrease is said to be the result of many of the judges being opposed to the committing on judgment summonses. As there is no other means of enforcing judgments, creditors will not incur the cost of proceedings which must be fruitless. (3) State of trade. The evidence as to the result of good or bad trade is very conflicting, and no very general conclusions can be drawn. Whilst at some places the decrease in plaints is attributed to good trade, in others it is attributed to bad trade. At Stourbridge, for instance, writes the

registrar, "Trade has been good and the working classes are paying the shopkeepers for what they have, or for part of it, and as long as they let the shopkeepers have some money the shopkeepers will not sue them, but when trade falls off they will then come to the Courts." On the other hand, the Registrar of Pontypridd County Court remarks: "At the end of 1911, I believe, the Cambrian Colliery strike commenced, which prevented any further cases being entered from the Tonypandy area. Following this, came the general coal strike which seriously affected the whole of my district and caused the plaints to fall off so considerably in 1912." So, too, the Registrar of the Nuneaton County Court-"As a rule, the better the trade the greater number of cases, and the poorer the trade the less number." "Judges," says the Registrar of Neath County Court, "are naturally reluctant to commit debtors when strikes are pending, and this naturally affects the entry of plaints." With similar results from two diametrically opposite causes, reliance cannot be placed on this evidence. Of the three main causes suggested, the first is evidently the most potent. Another cause, not suggested by Sir John Macdonell, accounting for the decline in County Court business, may be the comparatively high rate of Court fees. A reform in this matter is long overdue, and in view of the increasing net charge of the County Court service from £139,822 in 1912 to £162,997 in 1913 is likely to remain so.

Of the various inferior Courts other than the County Courts, there is, on the whole, a steady tendency to diminution of business. In the Mayor's Court, in the City, the amount of business varies little from that of ten years ago. Its popularity may be said to be undiminished, some of which may be attributed to its more reasonable scale of fees. Like the County Courts the superior Courts fail to pay their way. For 1912 the net charge to the State,

for the service of the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court, and the Court of Criminal Appeal, was £208,877, which, however, compares favourably with that of £216,745 for 1911. It is difficult to see where expenditure could be reduced; the only item in which there is any material increase being in the rise from £93,096, for rent, travelling, scrivening, stationery, &c., to £96,316. It would be interesting to know how much of this is due to rent and how much to travelling. Stationery we know is an item in which enormous waste takes place in public departments. In bankruptcy proceedings a debit also occurs in the balance-sheet of £4,888, which, however, is less than in 1911-12 by £262. Companies' winding-up department shows a very creditable balance of no less than £48,885 in excess of receipts over expenditure.

In addition to the causes assigned by Sir John Macdonell as contributing to the continuous decline in legal business, may be mentioned two which appear to us to act as very serious detriments to litigation. Whatever justification there may be for the payment by the successful party to a suit of some portion of his solicitor and client costs, the layman naturally thinks the unsuccessful litigant ought to pay all the costs which are the natural and necessary result of the action. A business man who finds that all or the greater part of the moneys recovered is swallowed up by his own solicitor and client costs may well consider it wiser to write off the amount as a bad debt than risk a suit in the Courts with all its attendant worry and loss of time.

The other evil deterrent is the modern practice of exorbitant fees to "fancy" leaders. This, of course, is in many instances the fault of the lay client who insists upon having the fashionable "silk" regardless of cost. But it should be the duty of the solicitor to inform the client that there are other men quite as competent to conduct his case for a

fifth or sixth of the fee. And the evil does not stop here. The "fancy" silk's opponent also demands a correspondingly higher fee, and so his unfortunate client has to pay a fee five or six times higher, not only than his own counsel was in the first instance content to receive, but than that which he was prepared to pay when he entered into the litigation. The Law Society will not check these admittedly extravagant fees demanded by a handful of fashionable counsel by getting the scale of proportionate fees paid to junior counsel reduced. This would only make it possible for the leaders to demand still higher fees.

IV. CLUBS UNDER THE LICENSING ACTS.

THE

HE provisions of the Licensing Act 1902 (repeated in the Consolidation Act of 1910), with their vague and somewhat illusory requirements as to registration, served, for a time, to allay public criticism of the practices that prevail in the numerous disorderly or "bogus" clubs to be found in every large centre of population. But certain recent utterances in the House of Lords seem to suggest that such institutions are, at last, about to incur the censure which, in the judgment of some persons, has been too long delayed. While it is now generally recognised that registration no more secures sobriety in a club than it ensures solvency in a Friendly Society, the abolition of existing abuses will, presumably, be stoutly resisted. Nor is the path of reform rendered any the smoother by the circumstance that, in almost every district, these unlicensed drinking shops are, in large measure, associated with the organisations of powerful political factions.

The term "drinking shop" is not intended to connote any accessory idea of blame, it simply imports an indis