(4) The alphabetical index to the statutes in force up to 1889; and

(5) The table inserted at the end of each sessional publication of the statutes showing the express repeals effected by the legislation of each year, in such a form as to enable the practitioner to correct his copy of statutes to date without much labour. But except Lord Thring's pamphlet already referred to and his article on the simplification of the law (n) there is no guide by any experienced person to the unofficial draftsman, and a casual perusal of the statutes of any session will show clearly wide divergences between the mode of drafting Acts which might advantageously be obliterated, and the result of all that has yet been done in this direction may be summed up in the words of Sir F. Pollock (0)

"Perhaps our progress in the art of legislation is that which we have least cause to be proud of; it is some consolation that this is also the department of legal reform least within the control of lawyers. The Queen has been at divers times pleased to put her trust in divers and many learned persons to see how the statute law could be better ordered. They executed their trust with all diligence, with some dissension, and with infinite shedding of ink and production of carefully written Reports now lurking in the least accessible corners of the Inns of Court libraries. So far the visible result is the Revised Statutes, which some may think barely adequate. Our current Acts of Parliament are certainly better arranged and more concisely (p) expressed than they used to be; they are not always more intelligible and less ambiguous.”(q)

(n) Quarterly Review, Jan. 1874.

(0) 3 Law Quarterly Review, 346.

(p) The latest change has arisen, as Bowen, L.J., pointed out in Ex parte Pratt (1884), 12 Q. B. D. 340, from "framing Acts on the idea that a code [on some particular subject] is being constructed and [then] when the present tense is used, it is used, not in relation to time, but as the present tense of logic." This practice is based on the rule of Lord Thring that an Act of Parliament is always speaking.

(1) Even the Arbitration Act of 1889 contains many obscurities, although it is almost wholly a Consolidation Act.

с

Promulgation. 1. FORMAL promulgation is not necessary to make an Act binding, and many Acts come into force on the date when they receive the royal assent, and some time before an official print is obtainable. But the earlier statutes were proclaimed by the sheriffs in the county courts,(a) and exemplifications under the Great Seal were prepared and sent to them for this purpose. Some Acts still in the Statute-book are not found in the records of Parlia

(a) R. v. Sutton (1816), 4 M. & S. 532, at p. 542, per Ellenborough, L.C.J.

ment, and have been printed from these exemplifications.(b

It was also the practice to provide transcripts for the use of the courts at Westminster and the justices of assize.(c) The Ordinacio de Conspiratoribus (33 Edw. 1) concludes et ordinatum est quod Justiciarii assignati ad diversas transgressiones et felonias in singulis comitatibus Angliae audiendas et terminandas habeant inde transcriptum.(d)

Acts.

Precepts were sent to the sheriffs requiring them to English read and proclaim the statutes sent therewith under seal in the full county court, and in each hundred, borough, market town, &c., and to make transcripts and deliver them to trusty knights of the county, and to every justice of the peace when that office was instituted.(e)

The earliest modes of promulgation are exemplified with reference to a statute against the Jews passed in 1271, and preserved only in the Gesta Abbatum Sti. Albani. That chronicle, vol. i. 402, contains:

(1) A letter from Walter, Archbishop of York, then Primate, to the Chief Justice requesting the full enrolment (inrotulari integre et complete) and speedy publication of the Act, of which the Archbishop gives an abridgment; and

(2) Letters patent of the King setting out the Act, and commanding its public proclamation and observance per totam ballivam vestram (ie., the liberty of St. Albans).

Acts.

Similar provisions were made in Scotland. By an Scottish Act of 1425 the Clerk Register was directed to register the statutes, and to give them to the sheriffs for proclamation, and to give copies to any one who asked and would pay for them.

(b) E.g., Stat. de Pistoribus, 1 Rev. Statt. (2nd ed.) p. 76; 7 Edw. 2, forbidding wearing of armour, 1 Rev. Statt. p. 63.

(e) E.g., 10, 11, 14, 18, and 20 Hen. 6, 1 Rev. Statt. (2nd ed.) pp. 217-225.

(d) Some statutes have been preserved only through these transcripts in the Red-books of the Exchequer in Dublin and Westminster.

(e) 1 Statt. Realm, Intr. p. lxxxvii; R. v. Sutton (1816), 4 M. & S. 532 (Ellenborough, L.C.J.).

Irish Acts.

British Acts.

Acts extending to Channel Islands.

Till 1581 it seems to have been generally believed in Scotland that a statute did not bind the lieges in any shire until proclaimed at the market cross of the chief town in the shire. In that year it was enacted that publication and proclamation should be made only at the market cross of Edinburgh, which should be equivalent to publication in every shire, and that all subjects should be bound by the laws forty days after such publication.(ƒ) There is no statutory provision for the proof of Scottish Acts in England or Ireland.

In many of the Acts of the Irish Parliament provision. was made for their proclamation, and that no penalty should be incurred until they had been duly proclaimed.(g)

Acts of the Irish Parliament are proved in Great Britain by production of a copy printed by the duly authorized printer (41 Geo. 3, c. 90, s. 9).

Statutes of Great Britain and the United Kingdom are promulgated, not by proclamation, but by being printed and circulated among the persons named on what is called the Promulgation List.(h)

Acts of the English and British Parliament are proved in Ireland by copies printed by the duly authorized printer (41 Geo. 3, c. 90, s. 9). There is no statutory provision for the proof in Scotland of Acts of the English Parliament.

Those affecting the Channel Islands are promulgated by registration in the Royal Courts of the islands,() and in modern Acts it is usual to insert a provision requiring such registration.

In British colonies acquired from the French some proof of registration of French legislative acts in the colony is required to justify their acceptance as part of the colonial law.(j)

(f) 1 Statt. Realm, Intr. pp. lxxix, lxxxviii; Bell, Dict. Law Scot. tit. Statute. See also 2 Hen. 5, stat. 1, c. 8.

(g) English Acts intended to bind Ireland were exemplified and sent over for proclamation. (h) Vide infra, p. 39.

(i) See In re States of Jersey (1853), 9 Moore P. C. 185; 54 & 55 Vict. c. 21, s. 17.

(3) See Du Boulay v. Du Boulay (1869), L. R. 2 P. C. 430.

colonies.

The British statutes are circulated in the colonies or to other. through the Colonial Office, to which 136 copies are annually supplied, and the Governments of the chief colonies annually reprint, as an annex to the sessional publication of the colonial statutes, such of the imperial statutes of the year as extend to the colony.

Colonial laws are proved out of the colony by a certificate of the proper officer of the colonial Legislature that the document to which it is attached is a true copy of the law in question (28 & 29 Vict. c. 63, s. 6).(k) The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Gazettes are the Subordinate legislation. received official channels for the publication of all the administrative legislation effected under the authority of Acts of Parliament. But all the more important rules and orders made in 1890 by different departments of State have been published in a single volume, and it is proposed to continue this official edition in subsequent years.(1)

Until the publication in 1891, under the supervision of the Statute Law Revision Committee, of an index to the innumerable regulations and orders made by the various departments of Government, it was impossible to realise, or even to find out without great research, what rules or regulations were in force under any given Act. By the aid of this index and the annual volumes, the accessibility of the growing body of subordinate legislation will be enormously increased.

The effect of the numerous enactments (m) relating to proof of subordinate legislation is thus summed up in

s. 21 of the Evidence Bill, 1891 :-" Evidence of any pro- Evidence of clamation, order, warrant, license, certificate, rule, regula- departmental

(k) In Canada the publication, &c., of the statutes is regulated by 49 Vict.

c. 2 (1 Rev. Statt. Can. p. 11).

(1) This volume is admissible in evidence by virtue of 45 Vict. c. 9,

8. 4.

(m) 17 & 18 Vict. c. 104, s. 7; 31 & 32 Vict. c. 37, ss. 2, 3; 33 & 34 Vict. c. 14, s. 12 (5); 33 & 34 Vict. c. 75, ss. 83, 84; 33 & 34 Vict. c. 79, s. 21; 34 & 35 Vict. c. 70, s. 5; 38 & 39 Vict. c. 22, s. 9; 40 & 41 Vict. c. 21, s. 51; 40 & 41 Vict. c. 53, s. 58; 45 Vict. c. 9, s. 4; 46 & 47 Vict. c. 52, s. 140; 47 & 48 Viet. c. 76, s. 15; 51 & 52 Vict. c. 25, s. 53; 52 & 53 Vict. c. 30, s. 7; 52 & 53 Vict. c. 63, s. 30.

proclamations,

orders, &c.