tive matter, so various and complicated, under the immediate superintendence of the Chancellor, aided, not by a secretary who could have framed, in the form of instructions or some other convenient mode, the views of the Chancellor, and kept him au courant with the subject, but by a gentleman of too much personal independence to be amenable to the Chancellor, on the one hand, or solicitous to conciliate the gentlemen appointed to assist him, on the other.

Under this state of things differences sprang up, and the Chancellor was not accessible to settle them.

We do not blame the Chancellor; he was led to imagine the work to be of an executive, and not of a deliberative character; that it required action simply, and not the determination of the principles to be acted upon.

From this fatal consequence he could have been saved, if he had sought help from the disinterested persons, conversant with the subject, who had proffered their aid.

The Chancellor, as we have said before, is entitled to great praise for starting the work; it would be disastrous to his authority and position now to abandon what has been so generally welcomed.

The tone and spirit with which it has been discussed by all the press, of whatever party, proves the general concurrence of sentiment; and it would be a sad thing, if the Chancellor should so far lose his dignity as petulantly to discard an enterprise so desirable to the nation and the successful conduct of its affairs.

It is said that he is considering the Reports; but we deprecate a consideration by means of reference to acquiescing satellites more solicitous to catch his humour than that of the nation. We trust that the papers will be published, analysed, and indexed, and that the valuable propositions with which, no doubt, they abound will be abstracted and stated seriatim.

The very men whose opinions stated in private, at a hurried interview, or in a bye corner, at the Palace, at the House of Lords, at the Court of Chancery, at a dinner, or at a soirée, would be worthless or dangerous, on account of their catching too easily the humour of the interrogator,

would in all probability be most valuable, if stated responsibly, after due inquiry and consultation.

The disasters of the last twelve months are mainly due to the want of an open method of proceeding, and of a free conference with all men conversant with the subject.

The Chancellor owes it to his own dignity, to his own uprightness, to his desire to do a work of such excellent utility and so worthy of his office, to take the manly course of accepting freely, without grudge and without regard to the source, the services of each and all of the persons who have addressed themselves to these matters.

It is a matter of common regret that the Chancellor does not rely more upon his own good sense and capacity, and where his opportunities, or his means, or his personal qualities and habits fail, does not supplement his powers by the powers of others, especially where those powers are placed at his command without hope or expectation of reward.

The Consolidation and Codification of the Law, difficult though the task may be, is one which would repay the labour and expense, if properly set about, and one about which so many feel now an interest, that no reluctance on the part of any officer, however high, will check or repel; on the contrary, we feel assured that the moment that it shall be declared that the Chancellor or the Government will not proceed with the task, a determined action and unrelenting prosecution of the subject will ensue.

This feeling is strongly rooted, and has no relation to persons; neither springs from nor has its end in a job, but in the sense that all our reforms of tribunals and procedure are fruitless or perilled, so long as the Law to be thereby administered is not accessible to the Judges.

"To be or not to be " is not now the question. Of all the public men, of every degree, with whom we have conversed on this subject, there is not one who denies the necessity of the object and the feasibility of its execution in some form and to some degree; Members of the House of Commons (we believe the feeling is shared by the Peers) deprecate the task of legislation which is thrown upon them without the means of finding anywhere a connected or intelligible state

ment of what the Law is which they are required to amend. They give a reluctant, blind, and unacquiescing support, simply because they do not know what they amend, and they state that they would cheerfully adopt any proper plan of Codification or Consolidation, if the Government would frankly set about it.

We are reluctant, pending the consideration of the subject by the Chancellor, to say much on this head; but knowing how greatly he has failed through his timid conscientiousness, so detrimental to his good sense and fine qualities, we could not abstain from pressing considerations that might assist his conclusions, and from tendering, on the part of the amenders of the Law, earnest and disinterested support, if his Lordship will, Napier-like, but lead the way. We are bound at the same time to state that in no quarter is there a disposition to acquiesce in a judgment in the negative founded upon the means of judgment now in his Lordship's hands, which, however excellent they may be, it is known are not the joint productions of the Commissioners, and are deficient in the contributions of several of the persons whose labours have been specially devoted to the subject for a very long while, and who have not had an opportunity of affording either to the Chancellor or to the late Commission the assistance which they were willing and able to give.

ART. IX.-PUBLIC COMPANIES AS EXECUTORS AND TRUSTEES.

Ir is curious, but not less true than curious, that the rapid advancement of civilisation and improvement in a particular country, is proved by the fact that the machinery of a government becomes incapable, without frequent, almost constant additions, to meet the ordinary wants of its citizens. The difference between a despotic and a free state is then most strongly exhibited. The first affects to provide at once for everything that is required. It assumes its own capacity

to know everything, to manage everything, to settle everything. This is an evil; for if a want has been felt, the chances are ten to one that the government, in pretending to provide for it, fails in everything but in the display and exercise of its own power, and shows most lamentably and painfully that its assumption of capacity is in every other respect mistaken. In a free country the reverse of all this is the case. The government does not readily undertake to provide for even a clearly ascertained want; it leaves the citizens to help themselves if they can, plays the part of Jupiter in the fable when suggesting to the carman to put his own shoulder to the wheel, and see what his own horses can do to extricate him out of the difficulties of the rutty road, and in short, acts upon the principle that there is to be no governmental interference unless the nodus is one in every way worthy of a supernatural effort. This is no doubt exceedingly distasteful to those whose impatience would have every little impediment (however little it might be) removed at once, and by authority, and the whole course of public and private business made of a theatrical smoothness as if by the magic touch of a Harlequin's wand. With such people, indeed, the end is everything the means nothing. But the means go for something with other men who think that, in relation to what may be called public business, or the business of life, the advantages of making popular the habit of self-reliance constitute a most profitable balance to the comparative benefit of an instant appeal to authority. We confess ourselves to belong to this class of thinkers, and if the government manifests any reluctance or hesitation about carrying into effect anything which the experience of private life has shown in numerous and widely extended interests to be necessary, we cannot but believe that its introduction by an association of individuals is a matter for gratulation. The required improvement is all the better-even more quickly-established by the energy of an association than by the authority of a government. If the forethought which now provides against the consequences of loss of life, or against losses occasioned by wreck or by fire, had waited till the government took on itself what we now call "the business of an insurer," it may readily be imagined

that thousands who are at this moment living in comfort would have been steeped in poverty, perhaps crushed by destitution. The habit is confirmed and strengthened by exercise. Insurances, which were originally applied only to protect individuals against losses consequent on the perils of the deep, have gradually been employed to mitigate those which arise from the accidents of fire; and finally, science has been invoked to calculate the extent and dangers of constantly recurring risks of other sorts; the duration of life has been measured, the continuation of a profitable employment, the hazards of railway travelling, and even the value of a man's honesty and fidelity in business, have been successively brought within fixed and ascertained limits, and assurance and guarantee societies have sprung up on every side of us. The power and authority of the Government have not been crippled by these various associations, nor has the privacy of social life been injuriously invaded by them; but, on the other hand, the welfare of society in matters where the Government could not have interfered with advantage, has been marvellously promoted.

Believing, as we do, that these have been the results in the cases thus noticed, it cannot be matter of surprise that we should view, not only without alarm, but with positive satisfaction, a scheme to create a corporation or corporations to administer trusts and perform the duties of executors. To be startled by a novelty, because it is a novelty, is not a practice encouraged by the habits of thought and the experiences of the present day. Some men still indulge in that practice, as some men (they are very few in number) will still persist in wearing hair powder and pigtails; but the world at large is now disposed to try the merit of anything not by the question whether it is new or old, but whether in itself it is useful, profitable, or agreeable. Tried by such a reasonable standard, the plan of an Executor and Trustee Corporation has undoubtedly its advantages. In the first place an executorship or trust is not likely to be wholly defeated either because the party chosen to discharge the duties cannot or will not act, or because his death happens at the beginning or in the midst of his execution of them. The Corporation having once accepted the trust cannot resile, as a