covenant, by his last will, without mentioning the covenant, directs his executor to pay B the sum of $1,046.67 on or before a date that coincides with the due date of the covenant money, there can be no doubt at all that the case is one of intended satisfaction of a debt. But if the sum involved under the covenant were $1,000 and the executor were directed, without mention of the covenant, to pay to B. $1,000, the time of payment not being specified, and B. being A's brother, in all probability B would be declared to be entitled to two amounts of $1,000, one of which he would recover as debt against the estate, whenever due, in the ordinary way, and the other as a bequest under the will. These remarks relate specifically to cases where a will has been made by the covenantor. Fortunately the controlling legal principles are flexible and well settled. A gift by will may amount to satisfaction of a covenant. Whether the gift does amount to satisfaction will turn upon the intent of the testator, ascertained by the court in the ordinary way.22 Further, the receipt under statute of an equivalent distributive share of an intestate's estate may amount to satisfaction of a covenant that a specific sum of money shall be paid to a covenantee from the covenantor's estate after his death. In Blandy v. Widmore (supra),, where the covenant was to leave the wife £620 and the covenantor died intestate but the wife received as distributive share of the estate more than £620, Cowper, L. C., said: "I will take this covenant not to be broken, for the agreement is to leave the widow £620." It will be found that, upon the facts and circumstances, most cases of intestacy of the covenantor will permit of a holding that there has been satisfaction or indirect performance of the covenant, while most cases of testacy of the covenantor will compel a presumption of bounty and consequent absence of satisfaction or indirect performance, but that in both classes of cases a holding either the one way or the other is, so far as the law is concerned, possible. A helpful distinction is drawn between covenants to bequeath a specific sum of money and covenants to bequeath an annuity or the interest. upon a specific sum of money. A covenant to bequeath an annuity or other right to receive recurrent payments will not be satisfied in whole or in part by receipt of a distributive share of the covenantor's estate devolving upon his intestacy, clearly then, the property claimable under the covenant and that taken otherwise, to justify a finding of satisfaction must be property of the same class.23 Nor

22 Brown v. Dawson (1705), Prec. Ch. 240.

23

Salisbury v. Salisbury (1848), 6 Hare 526; Wood v. Wood (1844), 7 Beav. 183; Couch v. Stratton (1799), 4 Ves. 391; Young v. Young (1870), 5 Ir. R. Eq. 615.

will the receipt by a wife of an amply compensative distributive share of her deceased husband's estate be considered to be satisfaction for a debt resulting from breach of covenant of the husband to pay the wife during his lifetime a sum of money. Such authorities, of course, cannot affect cases where the covenant being to pay an annuity or interest upon a specific sum of money, there is a will bequeathing an annuity or interest upon a specific sum. Such cases will depend upon principles discussed in an earlier paragraph.

OTTAWA.

W. F. O'CONNOR.

IMPERIAL COURT OF APPEAL.-Commenting on the Imperial Conference at present in progress in London, the Law Times in its last issue makes the following observations:-"Although the discussions that have taken place during the past week have been of the greatest interest, the interchange of opinions on the question of appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council will be awaited with deep concern by all lawyers throughout the Empire. We have always held desirable the establishment of one Imperial Court of Appeal which should merge the Judicial Committee with the House of Lords in its appellate capacity. Whether the time is ripe for the institution of such a tribunal remains to be seen, but the value of one Imperial Court of Appeal is beyond argument."

24 Lang v. Lang (1837), 8 Sim. 451; Gartshore v. Chalie (1804). 10 Ves. I

615

ADDRESS TO CANADIAN BAR ASSOCIATION.1

Mr. Chairman, Mr. President, Your Lordship, ladies and gentlemen and fellow-lawyers-I think I have included all-coming from a country where hereditary titles are unknown and where acquired titles are very numerous-oh, how we love them-if there are any I have omitted, I beg you to pardon my ignorance. I am somewhat in the situation-you have heard the story, I presume, it is old-of a Governor of one of our States visiting a large State's prison, who at the morning chapel was requested to say a word to the convicts and he started, as was his custom, with fellow citizens." It occurred to him that was not quite right-he tried "fellow convicts" -somebody suggested that was going a little strong, and he said, “Well, anyway, I am glad to see so many here this morning."

My friends, I wish it were possible for me to convey the greetings and the good-will of the American Bar Association to its sister or brother Bar Association on this side of the border as gracefully and eloquently as yours were carried to us at the Denver meeting by your very distinguished President. You know he has been with us so often, and holds such a warm place in the hearts of the members of the American Bar Association and of the American lawyers generally, that we hardly think of him as a Canadian. Realising as I have watched him here and have recognised your affection for him, that he represents all that is best in Canadian character and Canadian. manhood, you will understand why to us he seems like an American.

The good fellowship established between our two great law organisations through the years, manifested so many times and under so many conditions and clearly apparent during the days of delightful association on the other side of the water, render it impossible for the President of the American Bar Association to come to you with any sense of strangeness, but even were we less closely bound together by tradition and by blood, there would still be the membership in a profession as old as the world and almost as universal, making for us a common language, creating for us common sympathies and aspirations. The law is not limited in its sweep by any geographical boundary lines, nor are those who serve the law so divided; and

'Address of the Honourable Charles S. Whitman at the Eleventh Annual Meeting.

when we meet, though gathered from widely separated jurisdictions, we meet as friends and fellows.

I want to explain to His Lordship, while I am on that subjectI know he will not misunderstand me-in some minor details he was just a trifle in error the invitation extended by the British Bar was to the leading lawyers of America. His Lordship said they invited a few of the leading lawyers and they all came. We were at a loss to determine who were the "leading lawyers," so we left it to the lawyers themselves. They all admitted leadership. We haven't the Inns of Court or the means of discriminating so successfully perhaps as you have, and we decided the best thing to do, inasmuch as there were 2,400 all claiming to be leaders, to let our English friends discriminate, and we took them all over, and we found that the English were just as bewildered as we were, and so they took them all. That is the real explanation. But I want to say that I never was so amazed and I never appreciated the English resourcefulness and energy, the hospitality, the character and the amazing power to accomplish the impossible, as I realised it when in London you took care of 2,400 American lawyers. We could not have done it in any American city.

I appreciate the privilege of representing to-day the American Bar Association with a membership just across the border of 27,000 lawyers, all of whom wish well for the membership individually of the Canadian Bar Association, for the profession here, for the great Dominion whose people you serve and for the mighty Empire in which that Dominion has its being. Our problems vary somewhat. The difficulties which concern our members in the practice of the profession are not altogether identical but it has occurred to me that it might not be inappropriate briefly to indicate some of the tendencies of the law, and connected with law making, apparent on the other side of the border. Some of these may not be of immediate concern here. Some of them, I fancy, are observable and are matters of concern to the legal profession on both sides of the Canadian line. It is a somewhat trite observation that a nation's history may be read through its laws.

While our profession has been, I suppose, the most conservative of all, and changes in the written law have usually been made long after customs which they sanction have become more or less firmly fixed, the careful historian has been able most accurately to discern the rules of conduct of a people as prescribed by a governing authorand understand conditions long passed by a thorough scrutiny of

ity. I am going to refer briefly to rather apparent tendencies in present day law and law making in the United States, as well as to the attitude of our own profession toward the practice and development of the great field of endeavour which concerns us as lawyers. As to whether these tendencies are in the right or wrong direction is a matter of individual opinion. How far they are apparent here obviously is within your knowledge rather than mine. How far they should be encouraged depends largely perhaps upon the point of view of the individual, but it certainly can do no harm to check up, as it were, on ourselves and on our calling. Merely for convenience, I am going to refer to five familiar phases of the modern development of law and administration. Undoubtedly, numerous others will suggest themselves to you. These phases for lack of better description may be discussed under some general titles, such as Commercialization," "Specialization," "Arbitration," "Delegation," and "Centralization."

COMMERCIALIZATION.

As the result of the general and quite natural desire and disposition to bring the great body of legal principles abreast of the progress of the times, considerable stress has been laid during recent years upon the necessity of adapting the activities of the lawyer to the requirements of modern business conditions, and of changing or reforming the traditional relations of lawyer and client in an effort to increase the business usefulness of the lawyer to his client, in the newer and constantly changing and enlarging fields of conduct between government and industry, which have been established by modern legislation, and the present-day concept relative to the powers and scope of government. It is broadly suggested that as various administrative codes have removed the disposition of many problems and controversies from the judicial forum and placed them under the control of administrative agencies, the very necessities of livelihood compel the lawyer to seek other outlets for his talents, and that such outlets may be found in a broader knowledge of the intricacies and the problems of the business of the client, in its technical details, in its economic bearings, in its social aspects and in its political aspects. To-day we find men who in earlier life gave promise of success at the Bar engaged in industry and commerce.

Should the law school be a training for business? How far must or should a lawyer acquire a practical knowledge of the intricacies and problems of his clients' business in order to perform his true 40-C.B.R. VOL. IV.