LAW AND JUSTICE 329 



Children and the State. Nothing is more striking in the legislation of all civilised 

 nations to-day than the concentration on the child the care that the youthful citizen 

 shall not be corrupted by drink or tobacco or indecent publications, shall not be sent, 

 if he or she does wrong, to prison or herded with common criminals, shall not drudge in 

 factories, or hawk articles in the street or be exploited for public entertainments, shall be 

 protected against cruelty and outrage, shall have free meals at school if underfed, and 

 be sent to foster-homes if neglected. The recent Children Act of the United Kingdom, 

 familiarly known as the Children's Charter (see E. B. vi, 138, 139), is a notable instance 

 in point. The system of children's courts that is, courts where charges against 

 children and young persons are tried separately, spread with remarkable rapidity all 

 over the British Empire, the United States and many foreign countries. So too the 

 prohibition against the passing of the death sentence on young persons. A kind-hearted 

 judge under the old law, when people could be hanged for stealing to the value of a 

 shilling, was passing sentence of death on a girl who had taken a bit of ribbon out of her 

 mistress's wardrobe, when the poor girl fainted. " How dreadful! Tell her I don't 

 mean it," said the kind-hearted judge, "will nobody tell her that I don't mean it?" 

 Such scenes are to be no longer possible. Not that one any longer imagines the youth- 

 ful mind to be the sheet of white paper postulated by Locke on which anything may be 

 written. Heredity has already written there in its own invisible ink. 



By a recent Manitoba Act, advertisements dealing with the adoption, boarding out, 

 or eare of any infants under the age of thirteen months have to be accompanied by a 

 recommendation, signed by the advertiser with his or her name and address, and this 

 memorandum has to be forwarded to the Superintendent of Neglected Children, a 

 salutary preventive against the abuses of baby-farming. Kentucky now punishes any 

 person who directly promotes or contributes to conditions which render any child 

 dependent, neglected or delinquent. Difficulties often arise they did notably in Dr. 

 Barnardo's case from parents, who have surrendered their children to the charge of a 

 philanthropic so'ciety, wanting to get them back. Manitoba has met this difficulty by 

 providing a Children's Superintendent. No surrender by a parent can be made without 

 the consent of the Superintendent, but when once made it is final. 



Commercial Law. One of the resolutions passed at the British Imperial Conference 

 1911 affirmed the desirability of securing greater uniformity in the company laws of the 

 Empire, and well it might. In Canada there are no less than eleven different systems 

 of company law contained in 67- Acts and Ordinances. In South Africa there are 16 

 dealing with company law. In Australia there are 54 Acts, but an important step to- 

 wards assimilation has been taken by the Victorian Consolidation Act, which practically 

 adopts the whole of the English law on the subject of companies. Further progress to- 

 wards uniformity has also been made by the Acts recently passed in the Transvaal, and 

 in British Columbia. In the United Kingdom the number of companies registered 

 shows on the latest available returns the same steady increase. The total number for 

 1911 was 6444. The most remarkable feature however was the large proportion of the 

 companies registered as " private companies, "no less than 5194 being of this description. 

 In addition 16,860 companies were converted from public into private companies. The 

 superior attraction of the private company lies in the fact that it is exempt from the 

 obligation of filing a balance sheet under s. 26 of the Companies Act 1908 with the 

 Registrar of Companies. The British trader likes to keep his affairs to himself. The 

 neglect of the Limited Partnerships Act, as compared with the popularity of the private 

 company, is also very striking. The number registered in the United Kingdom in 1908 

 was 144. By 1911 it had dwindled to 77. There can be no question that as between 

 the two kinds of organisation, the limited partnership and the private company, the lat- 

 ter is incomparably the safer, the simpler and the more efficient. 



The company wreckage is still unfortunately very large. Taking together British 

 companies that liquidated and that were struck off the register as defunct, the number 

 for 1911 was 4353. This is more than ought to be, with all allowance for the enterprise 

 of promoters and the sanguineness of human nature. 



