who discusses its effect on the Foreigners' Law of 1886. Among other conclusions he finds that the children of a naturalised father who happens to be born abroad are not Mexican citizens, although the children so born of a natural born Mexican are themselves Mexicans. The children born in the country of a foreign father were formerly Mexicans if they failed to claim their father's nationality within a year after attaining majority (twenty-one); but now they are foreigners unless within the same time they claim Mexican nationality. The jus sanguinis has thus prevailed in this respect.

As regards the attainment of majority, the writer calls attention to the recently promulgated Law of Family Relations, which in Art. 480 enacts the following very notable and unique change: "Foreigners who are under age and resident in the country are deemed to be of age as soon as they have completed twenty-one years, whatever be the age fixed for majority by the laws of the country of their origin; they will therefore, as soon as they reach the said age, possess full capacity to dispose freely of their person, and of the property which they possess in the country, and to contract obligations of all kinds which are to be enforced therein."

"Revista de Derecho."-The 17th volume of the Revista de Derecho (Santiago de Chile) contains at least two articles which seem to come within the ambit of the Journal. The one of minor importance is that by Professor Alessandri on the question whether a foreign "juridical” person can be transferee of property in Chile. After quoting and discussing the material articles of the Civil Code he concludes that such as are subject to private law can only accept such property when they have received executive recognition under Art. 546, and that unrecognised bodies are incapable of even taking a legacy. Art. 546 says, "Foundations and corporations which have not been established by a law, or which have not been approved by the President of the Republic with the assent of the Council of State, are not juridical persons." This difficulty does not, of course, prevent from being transferees such commercial companies as have established agencies in Chile with the authorisation of the President of the Republic as required by Art. 468 of the Commercial Code. The chief part of the article is, however dedicated to discussing such entities as are under public law, such as sovereign States, municipalities, etc., and the learned Professor gives his opinion that such are under no disabilities imposed by the law of Chile and that their capacity is solely governed by "the law of the country to which they belong."

In the same volume is an interesting, but not exhaustive, disquisition by D. Roberto Butrón on "Indemnity for Moral Damage in Chilean Law." This is of interest to us, as the author quotes authorities in other countries, such as France and Italy, where such damage is recoverable although the provisions in these Codes, as in the Chilean, are extremely defective in this respect; so much so, indeed, that the matter has been

one of prolonged controversy. It now appears clear that a parent can recover damages in Chile for the culpable killing of his child, e.g. by railway accident, although no money loss is proved: a result which was, in this country, only obtained by special legislation. However, it is not to be wondered at that the weight of authority in most countries is in favour of indemnifying moral damage in spite of the real difficulty of appraisement, since the Roman law, to which most civilised systems are indebted, contained provisions directed to protect a person's honour, so that the principle was from the earliest times admitted. The author quotes decisions in other countries under which damages were recovered, and among them an Italian case in which a wife was condemned to pay damages for the suffering caused to her husband through her adultery, and a Brussels case in which a mother recovered damages for her grief occasioned by wounds inflicted on her child. Curiously enough, a Catania Court gave damages for physical suffering under the head of moral damage. The author falls into the error of saying that English Courts only give damages for moral injury in the case of seduction, overlooking Lord Campbell's Act, and our law of Libel and the Slander of Women Act; and the further, and perhaps illogical, practice by which juries do, in fact, enhance damages where serious moral damage occurs, although none may be specifically awarded on that account.

The Late Lord Bryce.-There is no one to whom the Society of Comparative Legislation owes a heavier debt of gratitude than the late Lord Bryce. He was an original member of our Council. Our objects and aims always had his warmest approval. From the outset of our labours he followed their course with close and sympathetic attention, for they lay within the field to which he had devoted the greater part of his thoughts and of his many-sided life. He was always ready to help us with his ripe wisdom, with his unrivalled and inexhaustible knowledge. The dominant passion of his life was to promote intercourse and friendship between the different peoples of the world by increasing their knowledge of, and their interest in, each other, and he knew that, within our limited sphere, this was also the object aimed at by our Society. He was a great citizen of the world, and the whole civilised world is the poorer for his loss. No body of men has greater reason to deplore it than the Society of Comparative Legislation. Of what his loss means to one who was privileged to enjoy his life-long friendship I do not venture to write.

C. P. ILBERT.

Maintenance Orders (Facilities for Enforcement) Act, 1920.-It is officially announced that an Order in Council has been issued extending the Maintenance Orders (Facilities for Enforcement) Act, 1920, to the Colonies and Protectorates named below. The Act provides for the enforcement in England and Ireland of maintenance orders made by a Court in any part of His Majesty's Dominions outside the United Kingdom to which it extends, and the Legislatures of the undermentioned Colonies and Protectorates to which it has now been extended have made reciprocal provisions for the enforcement therein of maintenance orders made by Courts in England and Ireland: Ashanti; Ceylon; Hong Kong; Gibraltar; St. Lucia; Southern Rhodesia; Uganda; the Island of St. Vincent; the Colony and Protectorate of Sierra Leone; the Somaliland Protectorate; the Zanzibar Protectorate; the Colony of the Gold Coast; the Colony of the Gambia; the Colony of Trinidad and Tobago; and South Australia.

North Borneo Legislation.-In the "Summary of Legislation in North Borneo," published in the issue of the Journal in July 1921, on page 210, line 4, the words "dispose of articles " should read "dispose of rations."

Sovereign Colonies.-"This controversial topic," writes Professor Berriedale Keith, "forms the subject of a characteristically vivacious

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and well-argued article by Dr. T. Baty, in the Harvard Law Review,1 the effect of which is to demonstrate that sovereign independence and the unity of British citizenship cannot be reconciled. There is, of course, much to be said for this contention; in the domain of the conflict of laws English law declines to admit of any distinction of nationality within the British dominions; if it be objected to Dr. Baty's argument, from the decision in Gibson v. Gibson, that that case is prior to the Paris Conference and the new status of the Dominions, the reply is that the Administration of Justice Act, 1920, equally proceeds on the basis that there is but one nationality possible within the Empire. Moreover, for purposes of international law the unity of British nationality is still upheld; the British Government claims, and the Japanese Government has so far admitted, that every British subject is entitled to the privileges of entry into Japan enjoyed under the Anglo-Japanese commercial treaty, even although the treaty may not have been made applicable to the Dominion of which he is a native, or in which he is domiciled. But there are solid arguments on the other side. Dr. Baty is forced to enunciate the doctrine that the signature for" the Dominions of the peace treaties was ornamental only, and that the British Empire is the sole British member of the League of Nations. To this view there is a fatal objection in the fact that none of the Dominions so understands the matter, nor is such an interpretation open to any of the Members of the League of Nations, though it is possible that the United States thus regards the signature for the Dominions of the quadrupartite treaty of December 13, 1921, regarding matters in the Far East. What, perhaps, is more important is the fact that Canada, by her Canadian Nationals Definition Act, assented to on May 3, 1921, has deliberately laid down what persons shall be treated as Canadian nationals, while it has been made clear that their character as Canadians is strictly consistent with, and subject to, their character as British subjects. The action of the Dominion is clearly a logical outcome of her membership of the League of Nations, and was in part motived by the necessity of avoiding difficulties under the Convention for the Establishment of a Court of International Justice. That instrument allows each Member of the League to nominate four candidates, including not more than two of its nationals, and it is clear that it would be unsatisfactory if all British subjects were to be deemed Canadian Nationals for the purpose of this requirement.

'In a sense, therefore, Dr. Baty's problem has solved itself, but it must be admitted that independent action by Canada might well have been postponed, and an effort made at an Imperial Conference to agree as to some definition of subordinate forms of British nationality which could be applied throughout the Empire. The extension of Dominion status to the Irish Free State renders the problem the more pressing, 1 xxxiv. 837-61; Canadian Law Times, xli. 677–704.

2 [1913] 3 K.B. 379.

• See this Journal, iii. 311

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while the same event must serve to emphasise the existence of a novel sovereign character appertaining to the several parts of the Empire. This again raises a further problem; Dr. Baty insists, with perfect justice, that normally there is no legal means of adjusting disputes between different parts of the King's dominions, the circumstances of the Commonwealth being exceptional in this regard. With the advent of an Irish Free State the necessity of some standing Court of Arbitration will become more pressing than ever, for it would be most unfortunate if disputes within the Empire were to be carried to the International Court.”

Comparative Public Law.-An interesting discussion of this topic, and the fundamentals of its study, by Mr. Ludwik Ehrlich is included in the November issue (pp. 623-46) of the Columbia Law Review. When the far-reaching nature of the topic is considered, it is hardly surprising that few efforts should have been made to deal with the subject, and it is impossible not to agree with Mr. Ehrlich that a necessary preliminary to any effective treatment must be the compilation on a uniform basis of handbooks of the public law of all the important countries of the world. These works would, to be really useful, have to treat the subject not merely analytically, but in such a manner as to show the relation of political institutions to the life of the society and the historical conditions to which they owe their origin and development. A further desideratum is the production of collections of constitutional documents with the necessary explanations. Both of these desiderata offer serious considerations of expense, but the project might well be commended to the consideration of the Carnegie Endowment. At a time when so many new state constitutions have been brought into existence, information of this kind would be of special value in assisting legislators to effect the modifications of which these constitutions, as a rule hastily evolved under pressure of immediate necessity, stand greatly in need.

Apart from the main thesis, Mr. Ehrlich's article is incidentally full of valuable references; it is interesting to learn how far the process of following judicial decisions is extending on the Continent. Reference is made to the freedom of the Judicial Committee to depart from its own decisions; an allusion might have been added to the curious anomaly by which the Empire still maintains two Courts of Final Appeal.

Decisions of the Mixed Arbitral Tribunal.-Reference has already been made in this Journal to the Reports of cases decided by the Mixed Arbitral Tribunals under the Treaties of Peace.1 Since then parts ii to iv of the Reports have been published, and many judgments of general importance have thus become available. Several of these-Villemejane v. Germany (p. 90), Bignon v. Germany (p. 93), Huret v. Germany (p. 98), Marqua v. Germany (p. 104), de Creutzer v. Germany (p. 156), and Sachs v. Germany (p. 215) are decisions of the Franco-German Tribunals upon claims for compensation under Article 297 (e) of the German Treaty, and they have 1 Recueil des Décisions des Tribunaux Arbitraux Mixtes. (Librairie de la Société du Recueil Sirey, Paris, 1921.)