THE main facts of Blackstone's life are well known, and so are the qualities of his Commentaries. I do not intend to add to the number of Blackstone's biographers, nor to give an exhaustive account of his Commentaries. But I must begin by stating shortly some of the salient facts and dates in Black-stone's life in order that my remarks upon some aspects of his Commentaries may be the better understood. Then I shall say something, first, of Blackstone's intellectual characteristics; secondly, of the manner in which these intellectual characteristics have worked together to make the Commentaries a classical book; and, thirdly, of certain alleged defects in the Commentaries.

The subject which I have chosen to speak upon to-night is, I am afraid, one of some technicality. But it is one of very great importance. Many of you are aware that it has been the object of much discussion in Parliament and the Press during the last few years. Officers of the Crown and heads of departments have been the target of criticism for their apparent and presumed reluctance to alter the forms of the proceedings by and against the Crown, and I am informed that a bill for altering the form of these proceedings is imminent.

Year by year in lecturing on the law of contracts I am asked by successive generations of students whether the Polemis decision applies to the measure of damages for breach of contract. This decision is one which gives no practitioner sleepless nights, but troubles the teacher and the student a good deal. It seems therefore worth while to preserve from destruction such documentary information as may throw any light upon the case beyond what is afforded by the reports of the judgments of Sankey J. (as he then was) and of the Court of Appeal. Accordingly, by the courtesy of Messrs. Holman, Fenwick and Willan, the solicitors for the owners of the Thrasyvoulos, I am able to print the following documents:—

1. Points of Claim.

2. Letters of April 26, 1920, from charterers' solicitors demanding particulars and of April 28, 1920, from owners' solicitors in reply.

3. Points of Defence.

4. Respondents' (charterers') Contentions.

5. Claimants' (owners') Contentions.

6. Award and Special Case dated December 20, 1920.

7. Further Finding by the Arbitrators dated February 11, 1921.

8. Judgment of Sankey J. dated May 5, 1921, which, though reported in 26 Commercial Cases and 37 Times Law Reports, is reprinted here from the transcript for the benefit of readers to whom these reports may not be available.

In his valuable article ‘Dangerous Things and the Non-Natural User of Land,’ Mr. Stallybrass says: ‘The distinction between the natural and non-natural user of land is often confused with the distinction between things naturally on the land and those which are brought or artificially created there. We have already seen that to some extent this confusion can be detected in Lord Cairns’ speech itself [in Rylands v. Fletcher]. But in fact there is nothing in common between the two conceptions except the common use of the word “natural.”’

BLACKSTONE'S Commentaries on the Laws of England was on its appearance received with unbounded admiration. It was felt to be a work of untold originality. The author became at once the Great Commentator. In the eyes of his earliest readers he was not only an erudite lawyer and a charming writer, but also a profound jurist. The Annual Register for 1767—then edited by Burke—contained a lengthy eulogy of the book. The review may well have been written by Burke himself.

The two manuals here referred to are known respectively as the Ecloga and the Procheiros Nomos. They are distinguished from all others subsequently edited by private jurists or the Colleges of Notaries by the fact that they were issued throught the Imperial Chancery in the name and by the authority of the Sovrans. They begin like an English Act of Parliament, by a short title and a preamble in which the Emperors address their subjects in the first person plural, indicating the occasion and announcing the purpose of their new exposition of law. They use the kind of official Romaic Greek affected by the antigrapheis or official draftsmen of the period. The language is simple and direct and the student will have no difficulty in interpreting it when he has mastered the vocabulary.

THE relation of war to the international system was stated by W. E. Hall in a well-known passage of his treatise in these words: ‘International law has no alternative but to accept war, independently of the justice of its origin, as a relation which the parties to it may set up if they choose, and to busy itself only in regulating the effects of the relation.’ This view, which came to be more or less generally accepted by international lawyers in the course of the nineteenth century, marked the definite abandonment of the claim of the classical jurists to distinguish between bellum iustum, and bellum iniustum, and it was in a sense an admission that international law had so far failed in the primary task of all legal systems, that of establishing and maintaining a distinction between the legal and the illegal use of force. But it had the great merit of candour, and it brought the theory of the law into accord with what had always been and still remained the facts of international practice.

THE comparatively recent case of Collins v. Associated Greyhound Racecourses, Ltd. has raised in a forcible manner two old difficulties—namely, the legal position of undis–closed principals, and, as a corollary, the meaning of ‘person–ality,’especially in contracts involving undisclosed principals.

We are here concerned with a situation in which A, an undisclosed principal, employs B, an agent, to contract with C, a third party, in B's own name. By ‘undisclosed principals’ here are meant principals whose existence is not known to the third party and not principals who, known to be existent by the third party, are nevertheless not identified by name. By ‘agent’ is meant a person who in his own name contracts ostensibly for his own account, but behind whom there stands an undisclosed principal.

Before discussing Collins' Case we propose first to examine the general position of undisclosed principals.

THE decision in Howe v. The Earl of Dartmouth, as developed and explained by subsequent cases, has long been recognized as authority for the rule that a residuary bequest of personalty to, or upon trust for, persons by way of succession, casts upon the personal representatives or trustees two duties. Of these the first is that such of this personalty as is of a wasting or hazardous nature must be sold, and the proceeds invested in authorized investments; while the second compels them, for so long as the property remains unsold, to pay to the person who is beneficially entitled to the income for the time being, only so much of the actual income as would be payable had the sale and investment already occurred. In short, the wasting or hazardous part of the personalty is held upon an implied trust for sale, and the beneficiaries are to be treated from the outset as though the conversion has already taken place.