-is of the highest importance and value at this time. He is no propagandist either for or against national ownership and operation of railways. He cannot be reproached as a mere theorist. Few railway men have so wide and intimate a knowledge of transportation matters in Canada as he shows in the eight hundred pages of this book. He has made himself acquainted with the practical working methods of the railways, with the factors that enter into the making of rates, with the history of legislation and governmental dealings, and with the decisions of the Board and the Courts. The great amount of detailed information he gives would be confusing if it were not so well arranged and subdivided. The book is comprehensive in scope, treating of railway development in Canada, geographical factors, income and expenditure, rates, effect of rates on prices, special services, competition, the Railway Board, Government ownership, transportation by water and by highway.

One turns naturally to those parts of the book that deal with subjects of special and immediate interest in Canada-the Board of Railway Commissioners, Government ownership, the relations of Government and private railways, the grievances of British Columbia and the Maritime Provinces. Canadian lawyers cannot but be interested in a body-part Court and part administrative tribunal-with powers and responsibilities at least as wide and onerous as those of any Court in the Dominion. Mr. Jackman outlines the history of the Board, its jurisdiction and activities. He touches very lightly on recent difficulties within the Board itself and makes the general comment: "There is no doubt whatever that the Board of Railway Commissioners has been of untold service to all interests, including the railways.” He would have Parliament decline to deal with the construction of branch lines for the National Railways and leave their location and character to be determined by "the one impartial tribunal which has been constituted to have jurisdiction over railway affairs."

Three hundred and twelve pages are given to "Principles and Practical Aspects of Rate-Making" and "Discrimination in Rates." As to the proper basis of rates, Mr. Jackman says: "The making of railway rates is not an exact science. It is essentially empirical;" and, again: "From time to time we hear of the possibility of scientific rate-making. Hitherto ratemaking has not proceeded upon the application of principles the result of which could be calculated in advance with precision; and it seems as if the same factors which have previously moulded the railway rate-structure must continue to be the predominant forces underlying the rate fabric of the future. Railway rates are not based upon one principle, but upon a very tangled skein of principles, which operate in different degrees in different circumstances." "Any attempt, therefore, to build up a scientific rate-structure would seem to be foredoomed to failure. Yet there is the application of a vast amount of science in the elaboration of a rate fabric which will stand the test of reasonableness and contribute to the welfare of the country as a whole."

He rejects the contention that, as a rule, rates on given commodities should or can be fixed with reference to cost of the particular service rendered in its transportation, since it is impossible properly to apportion the very great percentage of cost assignable to overhead, general expenses, and value of railway property. "An entire body or system of rates may be tested by reference to the cost of operation and a fair return on the value of the

property or capital employed; but, speaking generally, individual rates cannot be made upon the basis of the cost of the service."

"

What are "reasonable" rates? As to the general level "the revenues from the railway service as a whole must cover the entire cost of conducting the business plus a profit sufficient to attract the investment of necessary additional capital, that is, equal to the return from other gainful occupations where the risk is no greater." As to particular commodities, a reasonable rate is one which the commodity can bear and which will return the railway its cost." (including a proper proportion of overhead) "plus a reasonable profit. The problem of determining a reasonable rate * cannot be settled without a complete knowledge of all the circumstances and conditions ** Even with the fullest knowledge of all these factors, the reasonableness of a rate depends in the last analysis, upon the judgment of the regulative tribunal."

* *

Which is to emphasize again the delicate and resultful nature of the Board's functions. Since railways bear a most intimate and vital relation to the economic life of the community it is obvious that members of the regulative tribunal should be of the highest character and ability, of judicial temper and of practical sense; and the obligation and responsibility of the Government in respect of appointments to the Board and its preservation as a strong, independent and impartial Court are very great. The Board, by a brief Order, can upset a rate structure based on years of practical experience; it can disorganize or foster business; it can impose on the railways the construction of works wasting many millions.

Professor Jackman is clear and direct in style and careful in his diction— even to the right use of the word "American." The book is well set up by the University of Toronto Press. It would be well to bring the tables of statistics down to a more recent date. A few annoying slips of the proofreader will be most readily forgiven by those who know how hard it is to avoid them. J. D. S.

A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. By H.W. Fowler. Toronto: Oxford University Press. Price, $2.25.

In the course of a discussion concerning the value of this book it was observed that if the author's guidance in the use of modern English resulted in the English-speaking members of the legal profession in Canada guarding with greater zeal than at present their heritage of speech, then his book would have a very considerable achievement to its credit. Now it may well be that Canadian lawyers of the present day do not conserve the purity of their native tongue with the same ardor as the members of their profession did some fifty years ago; but in this they are only manifesting their reaction to the influences of the time, which are notoriously impatient of the demands of culture. And culture, as Matthew Arnold was careful to point out to the Englishman of his day, is "the study of perfection." Consequently, to make the spoken or written word respond to the standards of perfection means study of an unsparing kind; and how hard it is for any one in active life today to stop and drink at the "well of English undefyled" when the time-spirit is adjuring him as regards the expression of his thought on any subject to "make it short and make it snappy"? But this phase of "commercialism" which holds

us in thrall will pass as all racial visitations of the sort have passed, and men who "speak the tongue that Shakespeare spake" will once more possess their souls free of ceaseless service to the idols of the market-place.

In the meanwhile it is profitable for those who have kept themselves unspotted from the underworld as well as those who have taken on some of its gibberish to have books such as Mr. Fowler's prepared for them. Its very title is a call to the elect and a reproach to the erring. The former will find that much that they regard as "high speech" rooted in "heavenly grammar" is nothing but pedantry in the author's opinion; while the latter will be put in the way of repentance for their linguistic sins of ignorance and sloppiness.

Mr. Fowler's method and matter displace the soundness of Dr. Johnson's generalization that the making of dictionaries is dull work. In addition to the ample learning that he brings to his task there are so many witty sallies at the expense of the purists, and so much of sheer entertainment, in the author's work that we imagine he must have found it anything but dull in the making. It assuredly is not dull in the reading.

A nation's mentality is revealed in the quality of the national speech. It is only a degenerate race that is content to speak a corrupt tongue. The English-speaking Canadian will be informed by Mr. Fowler's book just how far present linguistic usage in this Dominion is approaching the dangerline. C.M.

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History. Vol. VIII. Edited by Sir Paul Vinogradoff, M.A., D.C.L., LL.D., Dr. Hist., Dr. Jur., F.B.A. Corpus Professor of Jurisprudence in the University of Oxford. Toronto: Oxford University Press. Price $7.25.

Transactions of the Grotius Society. Volume XI. Problems of Peace and War. London: Sweet & Maxwell Limited. Price 7/6 net.

Scottish Maritime Practice. By A. R. G. M'Millan, M.A., LL.B. Edinburgh: William Hodge & Company, Limited. Price 42/ net.

Cases on Federal Taxation. By Joseph Henry Beale, Royall Professor of Law in Harvard University and Roswell Magill, Associate Professor of Law in Columbia University. New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1926. Price $6.00 Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States Concerning the Indepen dence of the Latin-American Nations. Vols. I., II, and III. Selected and arranged by William R. Manning, Ph.D. New York: Oxford University Press.

1925.

The Doctrine of Continuous Voyage. By Herbert Whittaker Briggs, Ph.D., Instructor in Political Science. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press. Price $2.00.

Classics of International Law. Edited by James Brown Scott. "De Legationibus, Libi Tres." By Alberico Gentili. Vol. I. contains a photographic reproduction of the Editor of 1594, with an introduction by Ernest Nys. Vol. II. contains a Translation of the text by Gordon J. Laing. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

THE CANADIAN BAR

REVIEW

VOL. IV.

TORONTO, OCTOBER, 1926.

No. 8

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS OF SIR JAMES AIKINS TO THE CANADIAN BAR ASSOCIATION AT ITS ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING.

When the disturbing thought came to me a few weeks ago of another annual address, and on what subject, I balked, for I felt unable to produce anything worthy of the occasion, or informing or helpful to the members for whom I have high regard. But there was no way of avoiding it, for even the Vice-President, Chief Justice Martin, great factor in the Association's progress, would not relieve me. As to a subject, well, why not continue the last address concerning the lawyer as a leader in public service, and illustrate by the essential part "the men of Lawe," learned and devoted to service, had taken from the fifth to the fifteenth century in the formation of our national constitution and jurisprudence. I read on the subject, made notes, got as far as the Norman Conquest, and then realized I had enough for a wearisome book, of which may I this morning trespass so far upon your patience as to give you an outline. You may then be pleased by the consciousness of what you have partially escaped.

I have used the Chaucer term "the men of Lawe" rather than the term lawyers, which nowadays signifies membership in the regularized legal profession. That regularizing did not take place till after "Magna Charta," and the establishing of the Inns of Court in London. Generally speaking, a lawyer is one who studies and knows the law, and devotes time to its formal expression and administration. In this address, the terms are synonymous and include Judges. Government and ordered society cannot commence or continue without law to regulate human relations, nor can such law be formulated and made effective in national life without the lawyer.

34-C.B.R.-VOL. IV.

Though he may not frequently be historically conspicuous, he is ever present and at work in the evolution and application of national law in all its phases.

To have some clear understanding of the essential part so taken by the lawyers, one must know of the times in which they worked and of the law they constructed. Hence my apology for introducing some early British history.

When the Teutonic races overran Gaul in the 5th century, they cut off Britain from Rome. Rome ceased to send to Britain its high officials to govern, or troops to protect and compel obedience to law, or missionaries to teach the truths of Christianity, or to require allegiance to the central church of Italy. The Roman system of extending and maintaining its authority in foreign lands and of increasing its trade and wealth was by conquest and military occupation. It imposed its government. It did not attempt to educate or imbue with its own civilization and absorb its subject populations. It did not instruct or prepare them either in matters spiritual or temporal to govern or defend themselves against enemies. They were dependents. So, when the imperial legions were withdrawn to defend Italy against the Goths about 410 A.D., the inhabitants of the Island south of the Hadrian wall were uninstructed, unprepared and helpless to resist the ruthless and aggressive pagan barbarians of surrounding countries. The fault of their unpreparedness lay in the Roman method of empire, not in the British Celts, who were a virile, brainy race, chafing under restraint, and of indomitable spirit, yet peace desiring. They were not like some modern pacifists helpless because of their apathy and super-altruistic imbecility to secure and protect their land and government against the lawless aggressor. But whether from a fault not their own on the one hand or a supineness of spirit on the other, the result is the same in both cases. Weakness fails before strength, and inertness is swallowed up by aggressive enterprise, the unready and ignorant succumb to the knowing and prepared. A world truth is contained in the oft quoted aphorism

"When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace; but when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils."

Canadians may well treasure that truth and act on its warning. That is the teaching of our British early history. A rich land occupied by a defenceless, unresisting population is a temptation