A Plan for the Formal Amendment of the Law of
England. By Thomas Erskine Holland. (Butterworths.)—This plan has been submitted at the suggestion of Lord Westbury to the Royal Commission which is now sitting. Mr. Holland proposes to have the Law digested, consolidated, and codified, and to apply the triple process to both Cases and Statutes. For this work a permanent Law Council would be needed, and should be composed of logicians as well as lawyers. We may remark that even if the Case Law is not digested by authority, there can be no reason for not consolidating the Statutes. Lawyers are constantly finding that more trouble arises from the fragmentary and contradictory nature of Acts of Parliament than from the individuality of judges, and the mass of needless laws by which our public paper is wasted is a constant stumbling-block and eye-sore. Mr. Holland took the trouble to analyze the Statute Book of 1866, and found that "out of the 122 Statutes occupying 1,007 pages, only 55, occupying 356 pages, are general English laws." Yet the other 67 will block up legal libraries till some reform is introduced, and if the Commission does not begin its work quickly and carry it out thoroughly this reform will be consigned to the region of Utopias.
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