A French jurist who seeks to explain to the English public the principles governing administrative law as they are understood in France, is beset at the same moment by conflicting feelings of uneasiness and confidence. He recollects at the outset that, according to a classical doctrine which has been true for a considerable time and which is expressed in Dicey's works in the most brilliant formula, England does not possess to any extent in its legal organization a system of ideas which could have any claim to be compared to the French droit administratif or indeed could be regarded as parallel to it with any exactness. Is it not therefore presumptuous for a Frenchman to attempt to explain to English lawyers the leading characteristics of an institution which might certainly appear to them unusual, if not grotesque? And yet when a traveller has stayed a short time in Great Britain, has talked with the recognized authorities of that country, has asked questions, has made notes, has dipped into the recent works on English law, has glanced with an unprejudiced eye at the whole trend of legal institutions at the present day, he cannot help being struck by a certain lack of harmony between the official doctrine, which for such a long time has had good reason to say that there is no administrative law in England, and the judicial practice which, owing to the creation of new jurisdictions, to the introduction of new forms of procedure, and to the needs originating in ihe obvious inadequacy of inherited views, seems to pave the way for the introduction into England of a droit administratif and the recognition of principles derogatory to the common law—principles which are adapted to playing in English law the part which droit administratif played in the French common law chiring the nineteenth century, and still plays.

Forty years ago in my old country the legal world was in a state of transition. The old order was changing in a great number of ways. The Judicature Act had just got into swing and although four Courts still opened in the hall beside the Liffey they were soon to be fused into one. These were at that time the Court of Chancery, the Court of Queen's Bench, the Court of Exchequer, and the Court of Common Pleas, and the doors of these four opened on the Central Hall and their names stood over them. The Court of Chancery stood by itself, but it was thought in those days that you had your choice of three Common Law Courts in which to have your case tried. If you had some merit on your side but thought that the law was against you, you issued your writ in the Queen's Bench, which was presided over by Mickey Morris, as he was invariably called although he was a lord, because Mickey had a good deal of common sense, a great deal of humanity, but his ideas of jurisprudence were peculiarly his own. On the other hand, if you were strongly of opinion that however iniquitous your client was, he had the law on his side, you issued your writ in the Court of Exchequer, presided over by Christopher Palles, the greatest judge before whom I have ever appeared. Christopher Palles decided according to what he believed to be the law, and would pay no attention to any other consideration that might be advanced before him.

It is perhaps true that one of the most important moral qualities of a man, especially an undergraduate, is a knowledge of where to ‘draw the line’; it is certainly true that one of the most essential parts of a lawyer's equipment is the capacity for drawing distinctions correctly. The whole framework of the law is based upon distinctions, and the drawing of false distinctions is as disastrous as is the failure to draw those that are based upon sound reasoning. It is the object of this article to consider, very tentatively, two distinctions which have been introduced into the common law relating to injury done to others by the property of the defendant: in the first place, the distinction between those things which are dangerous per se and those things which are dangerous sub modo, and in the second place, the distinction between the natural and the non-natural user of land. I shall then endeavour to consider the relation of these two problems to each other. But there will be no attempt to state the nature or extent of the liability that arises; for example, I shall not consider the true nature of the rule in Rylands v. Fletcher or the extent of the duty owed by him who deals with dangerous chattels, though some light may incidentally be thrown upon such matters.

Where it has been sought to impose on a corporation liability for crimes committed by its agents in the course of its business and their employment, all the intellectual obstacles which had to be surmounted before imposing corporate liability for tort have been at least equally obstructive, besides the further difficulty that the criminal law knows no such doctrine as ‘respondeat superior.’ A man is criminally liable for his own acts and for them alone; and in order to establish his guilt it is necessary to show that two elements concur: the actus must be reus, and the mens, rea. Again there is the difficulty that a corporation is not susceptible to corporal punishment.