390 Nitw Plan of Codification. £JuNE, 



pie of codification ; we may assert that Mr. Uniacke, the late Judge of the Vice 

 Admiralty Court of Novia Scotia, is the first person who boldly came forward 

 and addressed Government, proposing a specific plan for the codification of our 

 laws : who has actually executed upon the plan proposed works, shewing its 

 strength and virtue ; and who has induced others to come forward to assist him 

 in this great task ; many of which gentlemen we understand are at present 

 engaged in, and by their unassisted labours effecting, upon the principles pro- 

 posed, the task proposed. 



In the commencement of the year 1825, Mr. Uniake, who was then just 

 called to the English bar, published a letter to the Lord Chancellor on the 

 necessity and practicability of forming a code of the laws of England ; wherein, 

 after shewing the extent of the evil existing in our laws, and proving the neces- 

 sity of such codification, he sets forth his plan, the outline of which, for the be- 

 nefit of such of our readers as have not seen the pamphlet, we here transcribe : — 



" Plan. — It is proposed, that the laws of England should consist of five books 

 or codes, divided into titles, sections, and clauses. The first code to contain 

 the law of persons, the second the law of property, the third the commercial 

 law, the fourth the criminal law, and the fifth, the legal proceedings of courts. 

 " The first code proposed to be undertaken, is the commercial, under the titles, 

 Shipping, Insurance, Bills of Exchange, Sale — ^with all other titles which 

 properly belong to this part of our law. 



These to be arranged in the method of Domat's Civil Law, and each title to 

 comprehend the whole statute and common law of the realn), connected with 

 the subject. The most simple language to be used, and the greatest possible 

 attention given to render it perspicuous. Each title to undergo repeated revi- 

 sions before it is offered to the public ; and after it has been a sufficient time 

 under public ecrutiny, and has received such alterations as shall be deemed 

 essential for the exclusion of incongruities, and contradictions, and for the 

 insertion of every useful provision, which the most profound attention to the 

 subject can suggest, that it should be brought into Parliament, and, if approved 

 of, passed into a law. That the other titles should be published in their order, 

 and be passed into laws, after the same care and examination, until the whole 

 code shall be completed. It is intended that all the authorities, whether 

 statutes, reports, or any work, considered an authority, should be referred to 

 at the end of each title ; that these should be arranged in tables, with the 

 most simple and easy mode of reference, which, of course, will be entirely 

 dispensed with when they are passed into laws." 



Of this plan we are inclined highly to approve; having seen its good effects 

 when reduced to practical purposes. A work combining the whole of the law 

 on that important subject of our legal proceedings. Evidence, has been executed 

 by Mr. Harrison in a manner reflecting the highest credit on himself, and in no 

 small degree illustrating the merit of the plan proposed by Mr. Uniacke. In 

 this work the whole of the statute and common law upon this subject, which 

 was scattered through a multitude of books, is digested into a small volume ; the 

 rules are logically and scientifically laid down in plain language, with the 

 exceptions imder each rule systematically stated. A reference to any point is 

 obtained without loss of time or confusion of intellect by reason of its excellent 

 arrangements, and moreover these advantages (conciseness and clearness) are 

 obtained by reason of their very existence at a cost unusually small. 



No public notice has been taken of this plan by Government, although several 

 of the individual members of the administration have, we understand, expressed 

 a very high opinion of Mr. Uniacke's suggestions. In fact, we consider that 

 his mode of opening the matter to Government was injudicious. His letter was 

 addressed, certainly, to the highest legal authority in the country ; yet being to 

 one who had expressly pledged himself to resist to the utmost innovation of 

 every kind, we think that some other more advantageous channel might have 

 been selected, through which to convey his ideas. And even, in this letter, we 

 find Mr. Uniacke so strongly possessed with the importance of his plan, so 

 wholly unmindful of tactique, as to pass eulogy on the memory of Napoleon, 

 and indulge in panegyric on the minister for foreign affairs — two persons 



