96 Timehri. 
“have taken place especially in the mode of tria!, buth in civil and criminal 
“ courts, great reforms have been effected by Imperial and local legislation, 
“but the commen law of the country remains, as before, that of Rome, as 
“ adopted in the Netherlands. For this no statesman or lawyer who has given 
serious thought to the subject would substitute wha! is vaguely calied English 
“Taw for an English Colony (the italics are mine), although special legal 
“yeforms introduced in England have been, and will continue to be  profic- 
“ ably incorporated with the law as here administere:.””” 
Just as in South Africa, so in this colony, “ modezn commercial usages ”’ 
have necessarily required and have obtained the application of law which is 
not Roman-Dutch Law. As already mentioned, such matters as Companies, 
Insulvency, Insurance, Pills of Exchange and others of like nature have had 
specially to be provided for seeing that as stated in the extract quoted Roman 
lawyers were hardly called upon to deal with them. And there wil! be further 
changes in the future. Law is a perpetual growth and as Lord de Villiers states 
in the case of Henderson and another v. Hanekom (20. S.C. 519): “ However 
“anxious the Court may be to maintain the Roman-Dutch Law in all its 
“integrity, there must in the ordinary course be a progressive development 
“of the law keeping pace with mudern requirement.” The Bench in the 
Transvaal has also given expression to the same sentiments in the case of 
Blower v. Van Noorden (1909 T.S. 890): “ Old practice and ancient formule 
“must be modified at times in order to keep in touch with the expansiun of 
“legal ideas and to keep pace with the requirements of changing conditiuns.” 
Wedded as they are to their common law it will be seen then that they are by 
no means to be called bigoted. But it is not only “ racial pride, local patriotism, 
and long custom ” that have wedded them to their law. English, Scotch, 
Irish. Australian, and Canadian colonists in the country in addition to those 
from other European countries are all supporters of the system of law which 
is now theirs, and no suggestion or hint that it is not satisfactory tu them has 
ever reached my ears. “ Litigants, lawyers and Judges have been brought up 
in its atmosphere ” is a sentence taken from the learned President’s address, 
but he will, doubtless, remember that his own island gave in the last century 
some distinguished and eloquent lawyers, advocates, and Judges to the Cape, 
to whom the Cape owes much. To-day there are on the Bench of each Pro- 
vincial Court Judges who presumably never breathed 2 Roman-Dutch atmos- 
phere until they sat on the Bench in their adopted country. In one of the 
provinces an ex-Chicf Justice of this colony, where he probably first cate into 
contact with the system of law which he now administers, is a capable and much 
respected member of a strong Bench of Judges. English barristers ave numer- 
ous in all the Cowts and they doubtless recognise, after arrival, that the syste1a 
fulfils all that reasonably expected of any system of law. 
Questions and differences will necessarily arise from time to time and refer- 
ence has been made to the difference of opinion axising between the Cape and 
Transvaal Benches in 1904 on the question of Causa (oorzaak). It is doubtless 
a question of much interest but it has now been finally settled in favour of the 
view taken by the Transvaal Judges. Such a difference of opinion cannot, 
however, be used as an argument against the retention or sufficiency of Roman- 
