expresses the opinion that-"in order to lose the domicil of choice, once acquired, it is not only necessary that a man should be dissatisfied with his domicil of choice and form an intention to leave it, but he must have left it with the intention of leaving it permanently. Unless he had done that-unless he has left it both animo et facto-the domicil of choice remains."

There is no evidence of an intention on the part of the respondent to abandon permanently his domicil of choice, and the presumption of law is in favour of the continuance of the domicil of choice until abandonment is shown. There is, however, after the lapse of a year spent in immoral living, the plea of both the respondent and co-respondent for a reconciliation; that the prodigal be received back into the family; and I think that this court, in the circumstances of the case as revealed by the evidence, should hold that the domicil of choice established by the parties at Dawson was the domicil of the respondent at the time of the commencement of the proceedings for divorce; and this respondent should not be permitted, merely by his evil conduct, to deprive the petitioner of her established domicil within this jurisdiction and to "set up his iniquity for a stumbling-block" to that end.

If, however, it had been found that the domicil of choice had been abandoned at the time of the commencement of the proceedings the Court would, I think, be justified in holding that this case comes within the exception to the general rule, concerning which, in the very excellent treatise on the Law of Divorce in Canada, by Mr. C. S. McKee, of the Toronto Bar, in 62 D. L. R. 1922, at page 15, I find the following:

"The exception to this general rule is given by Dicey on Conflict of Laws at p. 363 as follows: "In the following circumstances, that is to say:

"(1) Where a husband has (a) deserted his wife; or (b) so conducted himself towards her that she is justified in living apart from him; and (2) That parties have up to the time of such desertion or justification been domiciled in England (the Province); and (3) The husband has after such time acquired a domicile in a foreign country, but the wife has continued residence in England (the Province); the Court (semble) has on the petition of the wife jurisdiction to grant a divorce."

This exception was applied in the case of Stathatos v. Stathatos, [1913] P. D., p. 46, 82 L. J., (P.), 34, which was an undefended petition by a wife for divorce on the grounds of adultery and desertion. It was held in this case that the

court had jurisdiction, it being pointed out that "it would be absurd to hold that a deserted wife should be obliged to follow her husband around the world in an endeavour to catch up with him for the purpose of bringing an action for divorce in the jurisdiction of his domicil."

In Halsbury's Laws of England, Vol. 6, at page 263, referring to the rule as to the domicil of the husband governing the jurisdiction, Lord Halsbury says: "But (probably) the English courts may decree a divorce in favour of a wife who had been deserted by her husband, or whose husband had so conducted himself towards her that she is justified in living apart from him; provided that at the moment the desertion or separation took place she was domiciled with her husband in England."

To adopt the language of Stuart, J., of the Alberta Court of Appeal, in McCormack v. McCormack, 2 W. W. R. 1920, at p. 719: The observations of Gorell Barnes, P., delivering the judgment of the Court of Appeal in the case of Ogden v. Ogden (1908), P. D. 46, show, it seems to me, that at any rate, the English courts were prepared to make a new rule for a special case, to meet the justice of it, although no such rule had been laid down prior to 1870. And my query is, why should not this court also be privileged to develop the law according to principles of natural justice and to lay down a rule to fit the justice of the case as well as the Courts of England, where the facts present very special circumstances of injury and wrong?

Having found, however, that the domicil of choice established by the respondent within this jurisdiction remained and was his domicil at the time of the commencement of these proceedings, it is not necessary to come to a final conclusion on this important point. Had I found that the respondent had abandoned his domicil of choice, I would have felt it my duty, in the circumstances of this case as shown by the evidence, to bring it within the exception to the rule, by finding that the petitioner had established a domicil within the jurisdiction of this Court which would entitle her to a Decree, and, in that event, the subject of the exception and the law and authorities in relation to the matter, would have been dealt with more fully.

There will be a decree nisi for dissolution of the marriage and giving the petitioner the custody of the children, which will be made absolute after the expiration of four months.

There will be costs against both the respondent and co-respondent.

RECENT LITERATURE.

Publishers desiring reviews or notices of Books and Periodicals must send copies of the same to the Editor, care of THE CARSWELL COMPANY, LIMITED, 145 Adelaide Street West, Toronto, Canada.

Old Diplomacy and New, 1876-1922. By A. L. Kennedy, M.C., with an introduction by Sir Valentine Chirol. Second edition. Toronto: Longmans, Green & Co., 1923. Price, $5.

If law truly is to-day what Lord Ellenborough boldly said it was in his time, the "driest subject in the language," then its professors are at liberty upon occasion to flee its arid domain and refresh themselves with studies confessing a home nearer the pleasant waters of Aganippe. Mr. Kennedy's book affords us a study of this kind. Dealing with the record of the vicissitudes of European diplomacy during the past forty-six years—a period without a parallel in the history of civilization as regards swift and sweeping changes in social, economic and. political theory and practice-the author spins a story for us that grips us with its interest and charms us with its style. Space will only admit of one quotation of the many that might be made supporting the opinion we here express concerning the qualities of the book. Speaking of the Cyprus Convention, arranged between Lord Salisbury and the Sultan Abdul Hamid, shortly before the Berlin Congress of 1878, but not disclosed until the Congress was in session, Mr. Kennedy says: the evening when the Convention became public there was a reception at the Austrian Embassy. A general feeling of slight annoyance pervaded the assembled guests—that was all, except the Russians, who were sullenly furious. Beaconsfield walked quietly along, his countenance sphinx-like, but a certain jauntiness in his gait. 'What are you thinking of?' Princess Radziwill asked him. I am not thinking," he replied, I am enjoying myself." "

"On

But the book is more than a history of diplomacy; it seeks to deduce from that history reasons for a better internationalism from this time on. While to the public eye the difference. between the Old Diplomacy and the New would seem to consist in doing business publicly at Conferences instead of in the chancelleries and anterooms of professional diplomatists, the

author thinks that any real and lasting change must be in the spirit rather than in the method. The true reform will be in the democratisation of the regular diplomatic service. Its members must be instilled with a greater sense of accountability to their own country, and should strive more than in the past to get into real touch with the peoples among whom they live. And yet they must not lean overmuch in sympathy with the country to which they are accredited. These and many more excellent counsels are to be met with in the book before us. We fear, however, that at least one of Mr. Kennedy's observations in the concluding chapter will.not obtain the consent of all his readers in this country. "The trend of events is for each Dominion to have its Minister for External Relations; and having got its Foreign Secretary, it should then have its Ambassadors an Ambassador perhaps in London, and Ministers or Envoys in the other Dominions, possibly also at Washington, and in some of the other great capitals. Their task would be to represent their particular British view-point. But they would be unequivocally subordinate to the Ambassador from London."

Mr. Kennedy discusses the League of Nations with great insight and clarity. He apparently would not be prepared to accept Mr. Stéphane Lauzanne's view that it should be regarded as a "World Club" for the promotion of international comradeship as contradistinguished from Lord Robert Cecil's opinion that it must function authoritatively as the "World's Supreme Court." But whether we accept the author's theories or disagree with them, his book is an appreciable contribution to the history of international relations in our time.

C. M.

A Treatise on the American Law of Administration (including Wills). By J. G. Woerner. Third edition revised by William F. Woerner. Three volumes. Boston, Little, Brown & Company, 1923.

Judge Woerner's colossal work has only passed through two editions since it was presented to the profession in America in the year 1889. In the present edition, which is under the hand of his son, some 5,500 cases have been added to those noted in the edition of 1899. Many English cases are referred to as illustrative of such portions of the law prevailing in the Ameri

can jurisdictions as are similar to the doctrines of the common law. The work is valuable both as a history of the law of Administration and a compendium of its principles.

C. M.

The Romance of the Law Merchant, being an introduction to the Study of International and Commercial Law. By Wyndham Anstis Bewes, LL.B. Foreword by the Right Honourable Sir Richard Atkin. Sweet & Maxwell, Limited, London. 1923. Pp. lx., 148.

We like the title of this book, with its pleasant implications. Have we not the poet's word for it that

"Tradition wears a snowy beard, romance is always young"?

If this be true then lawyers would do well to infuse into the veins of such of their traditions as are still worth preserving the revivifying fluid of romance. This Mr. Bewes has undertaken to do in the case of the "Law Merchant," and he has done it well. As Sir Richard Atkin says in his foreword: "This book reveals to anyone who can sympathise with the romance of commerce to-day the same spirit pervading commerce and the formation and enforcement of the rules of commerce from the earliest ages."

Speaking of Sir John Macdonell's classification of the origins of the lex mercatoria in his introduction to the tenth edition of Smith's Mercantile Law, that is to say the Roman Law, the Maritime coutumiers, and the law of the mediæval European fairs, the author says he is inclined to the view that, "seeing that the disused study of Roman Law did not recommence until about the year 1500, but little was originally due to this source." He further says that he would regard "the usages of the fairs as the true and transcendental spring from which flowed the present law of merchants." By the term "fairs" he means the great assemblages of merchants and their customers at places of importance that took place in the middle ages, of which we had a survival in Nijni-Novgorod, Russia, down at least to the Great War. That fair was founded in 1524 and covered a space of some seven square miles. It was frequented by merchants from all parts of the Russian Empire. In 1889 the value of the goods sold was estimated. at nearly nineteen million pounds sterling. We also learn from this book that the fairs are not to be confused with markets, the latter being of local importance only and largely