Reviews of Books
695
Status and Contract HE strong reared of their strength a mighty state
And each to bend it to his will did try, Until it seemed about to crumble dry To dust,—alack, freedom of contract’s fate.‘ Anon the weak rose up, made mad by hate, Joined forces and reknit the feudal tie,
Down with the great, long live the mob! their cry, The people's voice the voice of God! their prate. At furies such the very heavens frown;
'
No hope where natural friend is legal foe, Nor where flame fires of greed that never cool. Combine, then, strong and weak, not to tear down
But to upbuild, for parity spells woe, And only by obedience shall ye rule!
Reviews of Books CHIEF JUSTICE PIGGOTT'S WORK ON CONFLICT OF LAWS Foreign Judgments and Jurisdiction. Part II, 'lgrludgments in Rem-—Status." 3d ed. By Sir rancis Pig ott. Chief Justice of Hongkong. Butter-worth Co., London. Pp. x, 550+appen dix and index 45.
T is difiicult to form a satisfactory judg ment of an elaborate treatise of the character of Sir Francis Piggott's “Foreign Judgments and Jurisdiction” by an examina tion of only one part, particularly as he states that his purpose was to write "a series which should treat comprehensively the position of British subjects beyond the realm, with reference to the law of England.” Part II of this work, however, covers a large field, and some judgment may be formed of its intrinsic merit, though it would be impossible to estimate the place it fills in the whole work. In reference to Part II, Chief Justice Piggott says that he has "at tempted to follow the struggles of the law as it grapples with the problems which arise out of the essential intercourse of a British subject with foreigners, his birth, his marriage and his death in foreign lands; . . . problems
somewhat over-complicated by the theory of a fictitious state of being called domicil, which at times threatens to become unmanageable." As may be judged from the statement last quoted, the author does not believe in the doctrine of domicil as affecting status in cases arising in conflict of laws. He concludes "that the doctrine rests on no such stable foundation as the common consent of nations, and that it is unsound to its derivative, the Roman law, is illogical and anachronous, and it is, from its studied abandonment of
British subjects. unworthy of this imperial age." He states that the Continental law knows nothing of our doctrine of domicil, and that the standard common to the Con tinental nations is the doctrine of nationality. Sir Francis Piggott's book is intended as an argument against the doctrine of domicil and in favor of the doctrine of nationality. Being Chief Justice of Hongkong, and, as such, coming in contact with persons subject to many and varied systems of law, the author is perhaps not so strongly prejudiced in favor of the doctrine of domicil as men trained under and practising under the Eng
