This argument is not inconsistent with the general position that an established government is entitled, whatever its constitutional flaws or limitations, to represent the State. For this is a proposition of International law; whilst the proposition that the powers of governments to borrow money must be limited by their constitutional powers is a question of mere private law. As between two States, the doctrine remains true, that neither is obliged to inquire into the constitutional position of the other. It is recognised that the intercourse of States is not to be complicated by the necessity for such difficult and delicate inquiries; but it does not follow that a private person who proposes to deal with a government is exempt from the like inquiries. He is entitled to assume the legitimacy of the government, but he is not entitled, as his government may be, to assume its autocracy. Consequently, the possible want of power of the former Mexican administration to bind the State to the terms of a loan without the consent of the Senate, may effectually prevent the lenders from relying on such an agreement, whilst at the same time their governments may be equally debarred from impugning the title of the present administration to administer the Mexican

revenue.

September Congresses.

A series of important meetings will take place in September which is worthy the attention of those who believe in the value of such means of cultivating International friendship. The first is the twenty-ninth Conference of the International Law Association, to be held at the Hague, September 7-12. The programme, as usual, caters for all tastes, from the philanthropist to the shipowner. Two new subjects, "River Frontiers" and "The Hague Opium Convention," appear on the list. The former will be introduced by Mr. Joseph Illés, M.P., Pesth, and the latter by one of the chief

authorities on the topic, a former honorary secretary of the Association, Mr. J. G. Alexander. "Problems arising out of the wreck of the Titanic" will form the subject of a paper by Mr. Whitelock, Secretary of the American Bar Association, and another new subject will be "Armed Merchantmen," by Dr. A. Pearce Higgins. Many topics already discussed will, it is hoped, be advanced a stage. Prof. Norman Bentwich will deal with the question of the adhesion of Asiatic States to the Hague Private Law Conventions. The hosts of the Conference are co-operating actively in the debates, such acknowledged authorities as Prof. Jitta (who will preside), Prof. van Eysinga, Prof. Kosters, Mr. Lind, and Mr. de Jong van Beek en Donk, contributing papers, whilst an attractive programme of hospitalities has been drawn up.

A week-end journey up the Rhine and down the Danube will bring the visitor to Vienna, where during the ensuing week the Universal Peace Congress is to take place. The regretted death of the well-known pacificist, Baroness B. von Suttner, of that city, necessarily casts a shadow over the Congress, which should nevertheless prove a great success, inasmuch as it is being diligently and skilfully organised. Later in the month the Institute of International Law holds its annual session at Munich.

TH. B.

VII. NOTES ON RECENT CASES (ENGLISH).

TH

HE decision of Mr. Justice Astbury in Hewson v. Shelley (L. R. [1913], 2 Ch. 384), to which we took strong exception (see Law Magazine, Vol. XXXIX, p. 225), has now been unanimously reversed by the Court of Appeal (see L. R. [1914], 2 Ch. 13). No doubt there were several very early and most inconsistent decisions, and one very late one (Ellis v. Ellis, L. R. [1905], 1 Ch. 613), which more or less forced

Astbury, J., to come to the decision he arrived at, but which were not binding on the Court of Appeal. That Court gave many excellent and learned reasons for disregarding these decisions, but the real one was that stated by us. It would be nothing short of a scandal of the first magnitude if the Court, having publicly authorised a person to sell property as administrator of a deceased intestate, should be able after the sale to repudiate its authorisation and inform the unfortunate purchaser, who had given away his money on the strength of this authorisation, that he had got nothing in return, and had in effect been defrauded with the sanction of the Court. It is only common sense and common honesty for a Court to hold that all acts done with its sanction are binding and effectual in law, save as regards parties who have betrayed the Court's confidence.

As the Master of the Rolls said, the case of In re Gardom, Le Page, v. Attorney-General (L. R. [1914], 1 Ch. 662), raised some curious points of law (see p. 674). It is a pity they were not decided. For instance, Eve, J., held that a private trust, the terms of which are not set out in a will, may be proved by oral evidence, although it appears on the face of the will that the executors are to hold the property bequeathed on a trust not disclosed in the will. In the second place, he held that a trust is charitable even though it is for the benefit of ladies not poverty stricken but merely "of limited means." With all respect to the learned judge, we cannot help agreeing with the Master of the Rolls that these are curious points of law, in fact, very curious-if they are law at all.

There is a rule of construction that when personalty is bequeathed to the testator's next-of-kin after the death of a person, then the person on whose death the personalty is to go to the next-of-kin takes by implication a life

estate in the personalty. (In re Springfield, Chamberlain v. Springfield (L. R. [1894], 3 Ch. 603).) Is there any reason why this principle should not be applied to a gift of personalty to the next-of-kin on the failure of all of a class. The principle is the same in each case. The fact that the testator does not contemplate the next of kin (who would take on an intestacy) taking, until all of a certain class, among whom he has given his personalty in shares, fail, shows that he implicitly intended to make a gift of it to this class until and unless such event occurred. Eve, J., has, however, held that where personalty is left to a class for life, and on the death of each member to his issue with a gift over to the next-of-kin on the death of all the class without issue, the share of one of the class who dies without issue is undisposed of and goes to the next-of-kin. (In re Mears, Parker v. Mears (L. R. [1914], I Ch. 694)).

As Lord Macnaghten pointed out in Colls v. Home & Colonial Stores (L. R. [1904], A. C. 179), the Act, commonly called Lord Cairns' Act, which allows the Court to give damages in lieu of an injunction, was intended to be used, though in fact the Court has shewn great reluctance about using it. The Court has also frequently displayed an inability to distinguish between giving damages as a Court of Equity in lieu of an injunction, and giving damages under the Judicature Act as a Court of Law, where no case for an injunction is made out. Yet the principle which should regulate the assessment of damages in each case is very different-the one including merely damages up to date of issue of the writ in the action, the other including also all damages which the issue of an injunction would prevent. As examples of this confusion we may refer to Turnicliffe & Hampson . West Leigh Colliery Co. (L. R. [1908], A. C. 27) and

Griffith v. Richard Clay & Sons Ltd. (L. R. [1912], 2 Ch. 291). This tendency will not be checked by the headnote in Pettey v. Parsons (L. R. [1914], 1 Ch. 704), where, though the damages were expressly stated by the judge to be given under Lord Cairns' Act, the reporter carefully avoids referring to that Act at all in the head-note.

Two rather important cases in the administration of assets. are In re Oxley, John Hornby & Sons v. Oxley (L. R. [1914], 1 Ch. 604), and In re Jones, Peak v. Jones (L. R. [1914], I Ch. 742). In the former case it was held that the mere fact that creditors of a deceased person "held their hands" while the executor continued to carry on the deceased's business, was not sufficient in itself to show that the business was being carried on with their approval so as to postpone their claims to debts incurred by the executors in carrying on the business. In the second case it was held that an executor who, before assets of an insolvent testator came in to pay a debt, himself out of his own money paid it, was entitled as against the testator's other creditors to appropriate assets subsequently coming to his hands to meet the expenditure. Whether this extension of an executor's right to prefer is altogether desirable is open to question.

The Statute of Frauds is said to have been the subject of more legal literature in the form of commentaries and reported decisions than the whole Code Napoléon. It still gives opportunities for nice points. One of these was

decided in Daniels v. Trefusis (L. R. [1914], I Ch. 788). There the question was: What amounts to a sufficient note or memorandum of a verbal contract for the sale of land to satisfy the statute? The decision was, that a note of the terms of the verbal contract supplied by the solicitors of the party and with his authority for purposes quite alien to authenticating the contract, was sufficient. This seems to