REVIEWS
| Published date | 01 September 1938 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1938.tb00403.x |
| Date | 01 September 1938 |
I
70
MODERN LAW REVIEW
Sept.,
1938
REVIEWS
RESTATEMENT
ON
BESTITUTION.
Amerim
Law
Institute.
See
Article
by D.
W.
LOGAN, above page
153.
CONSTITUTIONAL
LAW
OF
ENCILAND.
By EDWARD
WAVELL
RIDGES. Sixth Edition, by
A.
BERRIEDUE
KEITH,
D.C.L., D.Litt..
LL.D., F.B.A. London: Stevens
t
Sons, Ltd.,
1937.
81s.
When
Mr.
Wave11 Ridges
first
published
his
ConstitutionaZ
Law
of
England
in
1905,
the recent Australian federation and conquest of the
Transvaal and Orange River Colonies induced
him
to make
a
more ex-
tended treatment than he originally intended. Part VI, entitled “Coun-
tries Subject to the Laws of England,” has since become Part IX, entitled
“The British Empire,” and as the book also contains a considerable
amount of history-notably in relation to Parliament, the Cabinet and
Departments of State, and the Courts-it has a much wider scope than
might appear from
its
title. The popularity of the book may be gauged
from the fact that
il
new edition was called for
so
soon after Professor
Berriedale Keith’s Fifth Edition of
1934,
and that, though this edition
contains
642
pages royal octavo compared with the
603
pages demy octavo
of
the last, the publishers have been able to reduce the price from
25s.
to
01s.
The more than generous index has grown from the
29
pages of the
First Edition to
100
pages.
The main changes between this and the last edition arise out of the
abdication of King Edward VIII, the Regency Act, and the new Coronation
Oath, all raising the question of the divisibility of the Crown and
its
rela-
tions to the Dominions; the new constitutions of India, Burma, and
Eire; and the Status of the Union Act,
1934.
The chapter on the Dom-
inions has been enlarged, and a new chapter inserted on British Burma.
New Zealand seems to have such a sensible constitution that a special
section is not thought necessary for that very loyal Dominion. The number
of paragraph headings in the text has been increased, leading to a fuller
table of contents. Otherwise no change has been made in the arrangement
of the
book.
The short treatment of
Local
Government
in
England and
Wales remains in the extraordinary place to which it was assigned in the
first edition,
as
if England were a different country from the counties and
boroughs of which she
is
composed and to which English constitutional
law
has
somehow been extended. Those who know the second volume of
Aw,-,n,
however, may be prepared for this shock. The author accepted
Dicey’s definitions of laws and conventions and adopted Dicey’s “rule of
law”
as
a leading characteristic of the English constitution. Impartial
recognition
is
given by the learned editor
to
administrative law
as
part of
constitutional law, though wisely no attempt
is
made to expound the
English constitution as if they were separable topics.
It
goes without
saying that Professor Keith has brought the material up to date, and that
he mentions in the Preface constitutional issues that arose after the book
went to press, in particular, the results of the Imperial Conference, the
Royal Commission on Palestine, the social credit policy of the Government
of Alberta, the Civil List Act, and the Montreux Convention.
The following minor criticisms and suggestions may
be
submitted.
The
term
“public officers” (pp.
27-8)
is
not precise as they may or may
not be servants of the Crown; also fuller explanations might have been
given of
Macbeath
v.
Haldimand,
where the defendant contracted as agent,
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