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out the civilized world. The United Kingdom has set a noble example of giving this copyright throughout the whole of the British Dominions to an alien without regard to nationality, provided there be first publication in some part of the United Kingdom.

It is hoped and believed that this example will not be lost on our brethren across the Atlantic, who were represented in great numbers at the Vienna Patent Congress, at the Brussels Conference in 1873, and at the recent Geneva Conference; some of whom are present here, and several others of whom would have been present had the meeting of the Association been one week earlier. On the occasions referred to they one and all declared that they hoped the anomaly as regard copyright to alien authors would cease ere long, and they pledged themselves to use their influence towards such an end. Conventions and treaties resulting in international copyright have hitherto been founded on the principle of reciprocity; let this condition be extinguished from our legislation; let there be a generous recognition of the claims and rights of all in respect of matters not local, without regard to nationality.

The observations made with respect to intellectual labour apply to all those transactions which intercourse and commercial relations have forced on mankind. Railways, steamers, telegraphs, postal arrangements, and free trade, are changing the conditions and relations of intercourse and enterprise throughout the whole world.

Let law and procedure be adapted to the inevitable necessity, to the indications of evidence as to the unity of mankind.

In other subjects, as money, weights, and measures, an approach may be made to uniformity by an Assimilation of Law.

Why should not an attempt be made to abolish the distinctions between the laws of different parts of the United Kingdom? Why should the law as to commercial contracts be different in Glasgow and in London? Why should that

most important of all, the marriage contract, present such a conflict of law and procedure? England has learnt something from Scotland in education and police, and may learn something in the much agitated question of a public prosecutor, and in other matters.

In conclusion, attention should be directed to the terms to be employed in the proposed code. The expression "Law of Nations" includes those rules, a system in fact, having no legislature to enact its decrees, no judiciary to interpret its decisions, no executive to enforce its sanctions. Is it, then, a chimera, a fiction, a mere phrase? Most assuredly not. The universal assent of the civilized world attests its reality. The conscience in the individual has its counterpart in the nation; there is a conception of rights and duties between different nations as between subjects or citizens of the same nation or state. International law, in the proper sense of the term, assumes some assent, contract, or understanding between two nations, as in the case of copyright, extradition treaties, postal and telegraph arrangements. It is not unusually designated as public and private. The expression private International Law is productive of much confusion.

It is suggested that, in lieu of private International Law, the term "Municipal Law of Nations" should be adopted. Such law is the subject of positive enactment or of the Common Law. Its assimilation is a practicable measure whereby the extinction of the conflict of laws, to adopt the term of that eminent judge of the United States, the late Mr. Justice Story, may step by step be accomplished. The author of this report is responsible for the contents, but it had received the concurrence of Mr. D. Dudley Field, Sir Travers Twiss, Judge Peabody of the United States, Dr. Thompson of Berlin, and other members of the Geneva Conference; the three persons last named being present at this Congress.

FROM

V. STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATES.

ROM a return delivered to the House of Commons, of all places in England and Wales having Stipendiary Magistrates, it would appear that the experiment, after many years' trial, is, practically, a failure. The preamble to the 26 and 27 Victoria, c. 97, enabling cities, towns, and boroughs of twenty-five thousand inhabitants and upwards to appoint stipendiary magistrates, states, that the execution of the office of Justice of the Peace within populous cities and places had become difficult and burdensome, on account, not only of the great and increasing population, but because of the difficult and important legal questions that arise; and further that there was good reason to believe that these cities and places would secure the services of stipendiary magistrates, being barristers of five years' standing, for the more speedy and effectual execution of the office of magistrate, the better protection of the persons and properties of the inhabitants, and the advantage to the public. An Act of Parliament could hardly have been introduced with fairer words, or apparently with greater show of necessity. Yet, what is the result? The cities, towns, and boroughs, who were yearning to avail themselves of the talent of the legal profession, and whose magistrates had found their office too difficult and burdensome, amount in all to six, including the quasi metropolitan and government towns of Chatham and Sheerness. There had been previous to 1863, nine stipendiary magistrates appointed under the provisions of the 5 and 6 Will. IV, c. 76, s. 99, at salaries from £1,500 to £300, and the 2 and 3 Vic. c. 71, had enacted that twenty-seven magistrates might be appointed to the metropolis, which would include suburban districts now under Justices of the Peace. We find in the result, however, only twenty-three magistrates in the metropolis with no area of jurisdiction. extended since their first appointment. We are, therefore, justified in concluding that the stipendiary magistrates

system is not a success, and we shall endeavour in the following pages to ascertain the cause.

Public attention was in the early part of the century drawn by Fielding, Colquhoun, and other writers, to the defects in our police and magistracy, more especially within the metropolis. Committee after Committee of the House of Commons enquired into the subject, and finally, in 1838, a Select Committee reported that it was expedient "for the future to enable one justice (of the metropolis) to execute within the jurisdiction of the Act, all duties now requiring the concurrence of two magistrates ;" and they fortified their opinion by quoting a dictum of Bentham's that "one judge under the auspices of publicity is beyond all comparison preferable to any greater number." In 1825 there were thirty paid magistrates within the metropolis, and increased salaries were granted them by the House on the condition that for the future stipendiary magistrates should be barristers. It had latterly been the custom for the Government to appoint barristers, but it was found that the then existing salaries were insufficient to tempt any but "those who could not (as Mr. Secretary Peel said) succeed in their profession -the refuse of the bar." The suggestion that a stipendiary magistrate must of necessity be a barrister, received considerable opposition at the time from Bentham. In some observations on Peel's speech, he says:

"Now, for his two ministerial remedies in aid of the £200 a year Parliamentary one. I. Exclusion of all but barristers. 2. Exclusion of all barristers except three year old ones. Problem which his rhetoric or his logic, or what is sometimes more powerful than both, his silence has undertaken the solution of - how to prove that by these two exclusions added to the £200 a-year appropriate aptitude, moral, intellectual, and active, adequate to the situation, together with adequate plentitude of attendance, will be produced. By this policy he secures to this class of his protegés, the aptitude proved by the right to the name of barrister. Now, then, what are the qualifications, the sole qualifications, of the possession of

which any proof whatever is given by the right to bear this name? Answer: Being of full age, payment of a certain sum in fees and taxes; and on a certain number of days, sprinkled over a surface of five years, eating and drinking in a certain place, or therein making believe to eat and drink. As if this security was not strong enough, now mounts another upon the shoulders of it. After five years employed in the above exercises, then comes a repose of three years more for not less indeed than these three years more must this class of the right honourable gentleman's protegés have borne the name of barrister, but as to the exercises of eating and drinking if it be agreeable to the gentleman to perform them, he is no longer burthened with any limitation in regard to place. The right honourable minister, in the pathetic part of his speech, asks a question. May logic in the person of an obscure individual be permitted to do the like? Comparatively speaking (for I mean nothing more-service for five years, the usual time) as clerk to an attorney, would it not be a security, though not so dignified, somewhat more efficient? The clerk could not be altogether ignorant of the law without his master suffering for it. The master, therefore, has some interest in causing him to learn it--the clerk in learning it. To render a barrister an object of his choice three years must be his length of standing. Now, then, of the number three thus applied, what was the design? To extend the number of admissable candidates or to narrow it? The too young, or the too old-for the exclusion of which of these unapt classes was it intended? The too young, says the wording, abstractedly considered, the too old, says the word refuse, and the sort of argument conveyed by it. For, these are they, who, by their willingness to accept of so low a price as the £600, have given the requisite proof of inaptitude of their despair of barrister business, and consequently for their inaptitude for the office of police magistrate. Turn now to the three year olds. In the breasts of all this blooming youth, no such self-condemning and inaptitude proving despair can have had time to form itself. The pro

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