"piece" to be committed to memory and reproduced, with as much relevance as possible, in the examination-room? No English law teacher of repute would hesitate to condemn such a performance as heartily as Mr. Reed. The true function of the lecture is to suggest, not to dictate-to give the hearer an idea of the work which lies before him if he means to master a given topic, to warn him against pitfalls, to emphasize the relative importance of the different aspects of his subject, to sketch the background from which the formal rules of law emerge, and the process by which they emerge, and the social causes which produced them. If such an effort is supplemented (as it ought invariably to be) by tutorial discussion in which misunderstandings can be cleared up, by cross-questioning of tutor and student in a small class whose members learn from one another as well as from their official teacher, the student can then turn to his original sources, with the reasonable confidence that he will neither waste his time in unnecessary labour, nor absorb wrong beliefs which it may take him years to eradicate. The belief in the wholesome effect of a "sink or swim" treatment for the average student is really a survival of the Puritan creed that unnecessary suffering and difficulty are themselves stimulating and refining influences. To the exceptional man they may be. In the average student they merely create a feeling of despair, followed, usually, by a resort to "dope" in the form of "cramming."

Indeed, as it seems to us, Mr. Reed himself admits, at least by implication (p. 412), that the "case method" of teaching is only applicable, even in the States, to a select minority of specially fortunate or well-equipped students, and that the great majority of students use the "textbook" system. Unfortunately, he does not appear to explain exactly how this system works; and it may be that we should do him (and American Law Schools) injustice in assuming that the students who follow this method are set to read certain portions of a given textbook, which are then expounded in class by the teacher, and upon which the students are catechized. But if this assumption is correct, then we share heartily Mr. Reed's condemnation of the system, which is even worse than the fancy portrait of the lecture which we seem to see beneath Mr. Reed's treatment of the lecture method as out of date. In spite of the fact that the best English legal textbooks have been written by teachers-by Blackstone himself, Dicey, Anson, Pollock, Maitland— and are, in fact, mainly reproductions of their lectures, the text

book suffers from the lack of personality which only the oral teacher can supply. It often fails to answer the very questions which the reader wants to put. It cannot make allowance for individual differences and temperaments. And the professional textbook is positively dangerous in the hands of the student; for it is very largely concerned with elucidating exceptional cases, and thus is apt to lose sight altogether of undisputed principles. In any event, to handle a textbook as an inspired volume, the interpretation and absorption of which are the main objects of the student's work, is to treat the student as a schoolboy, and to keep his mind in perpetual serfdom. We believe that every great textbook writer would feel indignation at the news that his work was being treated in this way.

It may perhaps have seemed a little unfair to Mr. Reed and the Foundation which has rendered his work possible, that these pages should have treated that work rather as a basis of comparison between American and English conditions and problems, than as a simple exposition of the state of legal education in the Union. But in truth, regarded as the latter, it is almost above criticism. We have ventured to hint at one or two matters upon which we should have liked further information. But it would be impertinent in an English reviewer, without first-hand acquaintance with American conditions, to venture to question the accuracy or impartiality of a work which, to judge by all appearance, is a masterpiece of thoroughness and orderly arrangement.

THE RAILWAYS ACT, 1921.

[Contributed by SIR LYNDEN MACASSEY, K.B.E., K.C.]

ONE of the most important matters of post-war reconstruction in every country is rehabilitation of its railway system or systems. The prosperity of any country's railways is primarily dependent upon the prosperity of the nation's trade and commerce. During the war, not merely in belligerent countries, but also in those of neutrals, railways ceased to be operated upon a normal commercial basis, and where they were not national railways were either taken over by the Government of the country or else heavily subsidized out of national funds. At the same time, all operating expenses, especially in the matter of wages and materials, mounted rapidly. The result was that the end of the war saw all countries confronted with the problem of restoring their railway systems, and of placing them in a condition as far as possible approximating to pre-war efficiency. In countries where railways have been nationalized the problem is a different one from that in countries where railways are owned and worked by commercial companies, and those countries whose railway systems have been devastated as a result of military operations are faced with a further problem peculiar to themselves. It is not within the scope of this article to describe the peculiar nature of the problem in the principal countries of Europe; that will be found stated with clearness and brevity in Reconstruction in Europe-Section Seven, September 7, 1922.1 The intention of this article is to describe in outline the railway reconstruction legislation in Great Britain in regard to which there seems to be considerable to be considerable misapprehension outside that

country.

In 1919 practically all the English railways were in the possession of the Government under Section 16 of the Regulation of the Forces Act, 1871, and had been in that condition since August 4, 1914. The wages of railwaymen had been greatly increased under Government orders. If one takes the rate of railwaymen's wages

1 Published by The Manchester Guardian (Manchester).

for a normal week in 1914 just before the war as 100, the rates of wages had increased by the middle of 1919 to about 230. Railways were, therefore, being worked at a heavy commercial loss, but this did not appear, as the Government was, in respect of its possession, paying to each company a sum of money per annum approximately equal to the amount of the Company's net earnings for 1913.

One of the Government's first measures of post-war railway reconstruction was to pass the Ministry of Transport Act, 1919. The Minister of Transport immediately proceeded to increase rates and charges-none had been increased at all during the war-so as to reduce the charge on the national Exchequer. The Act provided that the Minister of Transport should, unless Parliament otherwise determined, be in possession of and have power to control railways of which possession had been taken, for a period of two years after the passing of that Act, namely, until August 16, 1921, " with a view to affording time for the construction and formulation of the policy to be pursued." The Unions representing the railway operatives and the railway clerks pressed strongly that this policy should be nationalization, but the Government declined to nationalize, and as an alternative passed the Railways Act, 1921. That Act provided for three main purposes; its enactment is a landmark in the history of English railway legislation.

It provided firstly," with a view to the reorganization and more efficient and economic working of the railway system of Great Britain" that all the railways of England, Scotland and Wales should be constituted into four great groups, namely, the Southern, the Western, the North-Western Midland and West Scottish, and the North-Eastern, Eastern and East Scottish; secondly, for the adoption of an entirely new basis of rates and charges; and, thirdly, for the creation of a great conciliation machinery for the settlement, as between railway companies and their employees, of all questions relating to hours of work, rates of wages, and conditions of employment.

Part I of the Act, "Reorganization of Railway System," cannot be said, so far as its grouping provisions are concerned, to mark the introduction of any new principle. The Stephensons, the greatest railway pioneers, always maintained, according to tradition, that competition meant combination, and they were right. But in the early days of railway enterprise at the beginning of last century, competition was the basis on which the whole railway organism

was sedulously developed by the Legislature. Economic conditions, however, soon proved the absence of any real efficacy in competition as a factor operating for the protection of the public, so in the fifties there began a strong movement towards the amalgamation of small companies into larger groups. This perfectly natural and inevitable result of the progressive evolution of industry never received, unfortunately, much sympathy from Parliament. In the year 1854 the first Railway and Canal Traffic Act was passed really to assuage popular apprehension of various railway amalgamations which were proposed. This Act provided that every railway should afford both for local traffic and through traffic all due and reasonable facilities. It cannot be said that the Act restored equanimity. When, under the stress of economic pressure, further proposals for amalgamation were from time to time submitted to Parliament, the most lively suspicion was always aroused in the minds of traders and the public, and many important Select Committees of Parliament and Royal Commissions were appointed to investigate how the community could be protected.

The Regulation of Railways Act, 1873, with its well-known provisions for through rates, evidenced a further attempt by Parliament to mitigate the real or imaginary dangers thought to lurk inherently in amalgamations. But in spite of the provisions of the Railway and Canal Act, 1854, and of the Act of 1873, and of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1888, the difficulties of passing a private Bill through Parliament to effect a railway amalgamation of any importance were very great. Such a Bill always roused the fears even of the Government, and was used by trading organizations as an opportunity to extract all kinds of concessions, many quite unjustified and unreasonable, from the companies seeking to effect the fusion. In fact, so heavy was the burden of obligations which a company was ordinarily compelled to assume as the price of doing what the Railways Act of 1921 now says ought to be done, that it effectually damped the enthusiasm of the railway companies from attempting any large amalgamations. Had the Legislature during the last seventy years shown the least encouragement to railway companies desiring to consolidate individual systems into large groups or evinced any willingness to safeguard them from unreasonable demands by traders as the price of such amalgamation, there is no question whatsoever that the railway companies of Great Britain would long ago, on their own initiative, have effected a very large proportion of the grouping which they are now statutorily