33 o LAW AND JUSTICE 



It has long been an anomaly that foreign companies should be allowed to trade in 

 the United Kingdom without disclosing anything as to their constitution and financial 

 resources. This has been rectified by s. 274 of the Companies Act 1908, requiring from 

 these alien immigrant companies the filing of a copy of that constitution, a list of their 

 directors and the name of a person to accept service. If the foreign company is limited, 

 further requirements are made. One hundred and ten foreign companies complied 

 with these conditions in 1911. A large number of the British dominions and colonies 

 are adopting similar precautions. Argentina has recently done the same. In connection 

 with this subject a very serious situation has arisen in Egypt owing to the attitude of the 

 Mixed Courts there as to English companies. An English Company which is carrying 

 on business in Egypt may efficiently be treated by a Mixed Court as ' null and non- 

 existent.' The question was very fully considered in all its bearings by the Judicial 

 Adviser to the Khedive in his Annual Report, and will be found reproduced in No. xxv 

 of the Journal of Comparative Legislation, p. 85. 



The unification of the law of bills of exchange has been engaging the attention lately 

 of English business men and lawyers, and the Board of Trade has consulted the Institute 

 of Bankers on the subject. The view of the Council of the Institute is that whilst any 

 fundamental alteration in the general legal principles or customary usages underlying 

 the existing law in the United Kingdom would not be acceptable either to the bankers or 

 the mercantile community of this country, many existing differences between the laws 

 of various countries could be adjusted by international agreement. 



At the Hague Conference on Bills of Exchange a draft uniform code on the subject 

 was accepted by the delegates of more than 30 nations. This draft code approximates 

 more nearly to English law than to any existing continental code. The reconciliation 

 of the English point of view with the continental is discussed in a paper contributed to 

 the Journal of Comparative Legislation (No. xxiii, p. 143) by Dr. E. J. Schuster, one of 

 the highest authorities on the subject, and also by Sir M. Chalmers in No. xxiv of the 

 same Journal. Profit-sharing as a mode of reconciling the interests of Capital and 

 Labour has been a good deal discussed, and many schemes have proved to have worked 

 successfully. The system merits special attention from companies, for there can be no 

 doubt that shareholders are becoming more and more mere dividend-drawers, and too 

 negligent of their obligations as principals in the business to their employees. 



In connection with commercial law it is noteworthy that the United States has created 

 a Commerce Court with jurisdiction over all matters relating to inter-state commerce. 



Criminal Law. The old ideas of criminal law have been undergoing of late years a 

 rapid and complete transformation. The very foundations of the old system seem to be 

 crumbling away. The idea of retribution or vengeance, so long the animating principle, 

 is fading into the background and is giving place to a desire to reform rather than punish 

 the criminal. He, it is felt, is not so much to blame as heredity and his environment, 

 and for that society is largely responsible. Of course society must be protected. That 

 principle remains unshaken, but does society benefit under our present system? " As 

 a matter of fact," says Professor Willoughby, " so far as regards the reformatory idea 

 there would probably be a consensus of opinion that, upon the whole, criminal law as it; 

 has actually been administered in the past was far more corrupting than elevating to 

 the individual punished. Prisoners are for the most part composed of the feeble-mind- 

 ed, physical weaklings, vagrants, casual offenders, habitual criminals. For all but thu 

 last class the hardened in crime prison is a failure. The modern tendency is there- 

 fore to discriminate. For the young, for first offenders, for the weak, for those who are 

 yet undepraved and can be reclaimed to honest citizenship, it provides such agencies as 

 the industrial school, the reformatory, the Borstal institution. 1 But for those who have 

 adopted crime as a profession and are really irreclaimable, the main principle is and 

 must be the protection of the community, and in pursuance of that policy the Prevention 

 of Crimes Act was recently passed in England. Under this Act those who have been 

 convicted of crime and who are persistently leading a dishonest or criminal life may, 

 See E. B. xv, 613 et seq., "Juvenile Offenders." 



