Year by year in lecturing on the law of contracts I am asked by successive generations of students whether the Polemis decision applies to the measure of damages for breach of contract. This decision is one which gives no practitioner sleepless nights, but troubles the teacher and the student a good deal. It seems therefore worth while to preserve from destruction such documentary information as may throw any light upon the case beyond what is afforded by the reports of the judgments of Sankey J. (as he then was) and of the Court of Appeal. Accordingly, by the courtesy of Messrs. Holman, Fenwick and Willan, the solicitors for the owners of the Thrasyvoulos, I am able to print the following documents:—

1. Points of Claim.

2. Letters of April 26, 1920, from charterers' solicitors demanding particulars and of April 28, 1920, from owners' solicitors in reply.

3. Points of Defence.

4. Respondents' (charterers') Contentions.

5. Claimants' (owners') Contentions.

6. Award and Special Case dated December 20, 1920.

7. Further Finding by the Arbitrators dated February 11, 1921.

8. Judgment of Sankey J. dated May 5, 1921, which, though reported in 26 Commercial Cases and 37 Times Law Reports, is reprinted here from the transcript for the benefit of readers to whom these reports may not be available.

In Quest of Justice, by Mr. Claud Mullins, the author of The Leipzig Trials, is a notable book. Mr. Mullins is a successful practising barrister, who has also had some experience as a Deputy County Court Judge. He is not as young as might be inferred from the statements made in Sir Leslie Scott's introductory letter that a young man need not fear criticism for taking up the subject of law reform, and that reforms almost always come from the young. The Law List reveals that he won a Certificate of Honour in 1912 and was called to the Bar in 1913.

The interest of students commencing the study of Roman Law would, I think, be greatly stimulated if the commentaries on the texts of the Institutes were furnished, as amply as the material available renders possible, with illustrations of the actual operation of the law in practice. It not only aids the understanding, but affords a great relief to the mind to be able to turn from the study of the abstract rules in vacuo, so to speak, and to observe their application in the actual circumstances of life at different periods. From the works of Cicero may be gathered a rich store of examples of the working of Roman Law at the end of the Republic, and in the Letters of Pliny we have much material which illustrates the rules and practice of the law in the period immediately preceding the age of the Antonines.

The relationship between the Dominions and the Crown and the Imperial Parliament presents questions of great difficulty. At the present time the Dominions are, just as the Colonies, subject to the legal—though not to the political—supremacy of the Imperial Parliament, the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Though this supremacy has for many years not been exercised positively, i.e. by the passing of Acts affecting a Dominion, except at the request of such Dominion, e.g. at the request of Canada to amend the British North America Act, 1867, yet it still exists, inasmuch as there are in force Acts of the Imperial Parliament (especially the Acts creating the Dominion Constitutions) which apply to the Dominions, and the courts would be compelled to hold any Dominion legislation conflicting with such Acts to be inoperative.

The recent case of Lynn v. Bamber has revived an interesting and undecided point upon the Statute of Limitations and has given McCardie J. an opportunity of exploring with his usual thoroughness a somewhat difficult region of law. In Lynn v. Bamber the plaintiff bought from the defendant young plum trees warranted to be ‘Purple Pershores.’ Some years later, on their bearing fruit, he found them to be ‘Coe's Late Red,’ a cheaper sort of plum. He sued the defendant for damages for breach of warranty and, as his suit was brought more than six years after he had bought the trees and would prima facie be barred by the Statute of Limitations, 1623, he alleged that the defendant had fraudulently misrepresented to him the nature of the trees and had fraudulently concealed from him the breach of warranty. McCardie J. found on the facts that fraud was not proved and that therefore the Statute of Limitations was a good defence, but held in a long and interesting judgement that if fraud had been proved the Statute of Limitations would have been excluded.

The aim of this article is to consider the relations of nuisance as a tort to three other branches of the law of tort:

(1) The rule in Rylands v. Fletcher.

(2) Negligence.

(3) Trespass to land.