ABGUMENT OF SIB WILLIAM BOBSON. 1697 



DR. DRAGO : The usufructus is the right to take the produce of the 

 land ; and the usus is the right to use the thing, but not the produce 

 not to take the produce. That is the difference between the usufruc- 

 tus and the usus. 



THE PRESIDENT: And the usus would also be limited for a lifetime? 



SIR W. ROBSON: Yes; limited for life. And there again, in the 

 case of the usus I am speaking with a little diffidence, because I 

 know I am addressing those who administer the Roman law, whereas 

 it is a system of law very foreign indeed to our English system but 

 with regard to the usus, as I understand it, the usuary could only 

 take such of the profits as might be necessary for his own enjoyment, 

 and it was for his own life. I only mention usufruct and usus in 

 order to clear the matter away as far as praedial servitudes are con- 

 cerned. Neither of them was a .prasdial servitude. Neither of them 

 was permanent. For instance, the usufructuary could not enjoy the 

 usufruct beyond his life. You could have a usufruct vested in a 

 corporate body, or that which was analogous to a corporate body, but 

 even then the Roman law put a limitation upon it I think it was a 

 hundred years. 



DR. DRAGO : Yes, that is it ; a hundred years. 



SIR W. ROBSON : Or some limitation of that character, in order to 

 put a termination to the right. Of course the prsedial servitude was 

 different. The praedial servitude, to use an expression familiar to us 

 in the English law, " ran with the land." 



DR. DRAGO : The usufruct in the case you mentioned a moment ago 

 was limited to a hundred years, unless there was a convention. 



SIR W. ROBSON : Yes ; unless there was a convention. 



DR. DRAGO: To extend it. 



SIR W. ROBSON: Unless there was a convention extending that 

 period. But now these personal servitudes, as I might call them 

 usus fructus, usus, hdbitatio, operce servorurn these are personal 

 servitudes, not praedial at all ; and nobody has attempted to confuse 

 international law by the introduction of personal servitudes no one. 

 Take, for instance, the right of luibitatio. You had a right to live in 

 another man's house, and it really was only tenancy ; or operce servo- 

 rum where you had a right to the labour of a slave. These were all 

 relating to the benefits to persons. I am using a phraseology per- 

 haps more appropriate to my own law. They are all personal and 

 not praedial servitudes. You may find a right of fishing among 

 personal servitudes, but you do not find a right of fishing, so far as 

 I know, among praedial servitudes. I do not think anybody would 

 suggest that any such right exists. 



Rivers and seas were included, in the Roman law, in the class of 

 res communes or res publiccb- public or common things, things be- 



