interest and personal participation in the work of the law.

But let the scope of our undertaking be limited as narrowly as may be, still it will be too wide unless we start with the resolve of attending only to main outlines and things of daily use, to the neglect both of details and of all that is unused or unusual, however curious or picturesque it may be. For instance, of the Ecclesiastical Courts we must say nothing, or no more than this, that they have a memorable history; that, now and again, cases touching doctrine and ritual come before them which rouse deep feeling and influence the future of the national Church; but that such cases are very rare, and that the regular work done by these tribunals (if regular work they can be said to do) is trivial. And there are, at least on paper, manorial and other courts, and possible proceedings which for the same reason must go unnoticed. The history of England has been so unbroken, its very revolutions so legal, that many ancient institutions preserve a nominal being long after all real life has left them.

A more definite boundary lies in this, that we are to speak of England, not of Great Britain, nor the United Kingdom, still less of that great collection of lands which we call the British Empire. With us, then, England will include Wales, but not Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Man, or the Channel Islands. This is the usage of our Statute Book, in which, ever since 1747, the name England has comprehended Wales. For a long time before that we may say ever since 1535-Wales, for all the greater purposes of Justice and Police, had formed part of England, and though until 1830 it had certain courts of its own, still it was not more divided from

England than were the counties palatine, such as Chester, from the rest of England. Scotland, on the other hand, has both substantive law of its own and also an independent system of judicature, magistracy, and police. Ireland has most of its laws in common with England, but it also has a set of courts, judges, magistrates, constables, all to itself.

At most points there is far more likeness between the English and the Irish, than between the English and the Scotch organisation. There is, for example, a system of law courts in Ireland which is very like the English, while the Scotch is quite different. On the other hand, we sometimes find more similarity between England and Scotland than between England and Ireland. Such is the case if we look at the organisation of what we call "the police force," the body of paid constables. Ireland as a whole has a police force in a sense in which Scotland has and England has, not a police force, but many police forces. What, then, we have to say of England will in the main be true of Ireland also. Scotland, too, and England have learnt, and are learning, so much from each other, and have so long formed part of one United Kingdom, whose laws are made by the self-same Parliament, and interpreted by the self-same court of last resort, that though it would still be rash to argue that what is law on one side of the border is law on the other also, none the less, any one who looks beneath technicalities to the weightier matters of the law will see that the two countries are not very foreign to each other, and become less foreign year by year.

But it is not with similarity or dissimilarity that we have to do so much as with independence, and the three countries in their Justice and Police are

independent of each other. As regards the supreme executive control, England is a little more closely bound to Scotland than to Ireland, since "the Irish Executive is still kept distinct, at least outwardly, from that of the rest of the United Kingdom.' The powers over the police forces, for example, which for England and Scotland are exercised by the Home Secretary, are exercised for Ireland by the Lord-Lieutenant. Just at one point, and that the highest, the three judicial systems coincide; the House of Lords is the court of last resort for the three countries; it hears appeals from the English, the Irish, the Scotch courts. In this respect the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are more remote from us. The appeal from their courts is not to the House of Lords but to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the court of last resort for India and the Colonies. Of this great court we shall hardly have to speak again, for though it may be the most notable court held in England, yet it is not, save for some little matters, an English court, a court for England. It is, for instance, the final court of appeal from those ecclesiastical courts of which we are to say no more, but the work that it does as such is only a very small part of its business. From of old the King in Council had exercised an extraordinary jurisdiction, for the most part of a penal kind, in cases which the ordinary tribunals could not meet. The misuse of this power under the Stuarts gained for this tribunal an ill fame, for it was the Court of Star Chamber, and in 1640 this power was taken away. But just then from the smallest beginnings another judicial function of the Council was becoming considerable. As a court of appeal for all the

1 Citizen Series, Traill, Central Government, p. 68.

king's lands beyond the seas, the field of its work has constantly grown as conquest and colonisation have given the king new lands in every corner of the world. In 1833 the judicial business of the Council, which until then had been done in a somewhat casual fashion, was intrusted to a Committee which was to be composed of such privy councillors as should be holding or have held certain high judicial posts, and in 1871 four paid judges were appointed. At present, as will be seen hereafter,1 a scheme is at work, the result of which will be that the paid judges of this court and those of the House of Lords, the other great court of last resort, will be the same persons.

But when we say that England has a system of Justice and Police separate from those of Ireland and Scotland, it is not meant that these two members of the United Kingdom bear to the English system quite the same relation as that borne by foreign countries, such as France, or even that borne by British territories, such as Canada. The subject is complex because it is governed by many particular rules, but the general nature of these may be indicated. It is true that when the question is whether a criminal prosecution can be maintained or a civil action brought in an English court, the crime having been committed, or the cause of action having arisen in some place out of England, the answer will commonly be the same whether that place be Dublin, or Montreal, or Berlin. In each case it is a place "beyond the jurisdiction" of the English court. The old, and still the main, rule of our criminal law is, that for a crime done on land out of England a man cannot be tried in an English court albeit he 1 See below, p. 59.

is the Queen's subject. To start with, the criminal law was very thoroughly localised; not merely the boundary of England, but the boundary of each county and of each hundred was of great concern. As to the hundred, that has long ceased to have importance, but it is still the primary rule that a man must be tried by a jury of the county in which the crime was done. Statutes have made very many exceptions to this rule; but still it is the rule. Crime, then, done in no county, the ordinary English courts could not punish; but to them has now been transferred a jurisdiction which the court of the Admiral had over crimes done at sea, and some considerable inroads have been made on the rule that a crime done on land out of England cannot be tried here. There is a special law as to crimes done in India, and if treason, murder, or manslaughter is committed on land out of the United Kingdom by a subject of the Queen, he can be tried for it in England.

And so with civil actions. The important question as regards the place at which an act was done, or at which the subject of dispute is situate, is whether it is in England, not whether it is within the United Kingdom or the Queen's dominions. How the competence or the decision of an English court will be affected by the fact that such a place is beyond the jurisdiction, it would be long to tell. "Our courts are said to be more open to admit actions founded upon foreign transactions than those of any other European country; but there are restrictions in respect of locality which exclude some foreign causes of action such as trespass to An English court will not entertain an action

land." "'1

1 Mr. Justice Willes, Law Reports, 6 Queen's Bench, p. 28.