by s. 30 of that Act the word "indictment" was to "be understood to include," inter alia, inquisition: for a coroner's inquisition, which finds a person guilty of murder or manslaughter, "amounts to an indictment, and by Lord Coke and the older law writers is frequently designated by that name, and a defendant is arraigned upon it in the same way as upon an indictment, and he may plead and take exception to it precisely as if it had been found by a grand jury.”—Jervis' Archb. 103, 13 Ed. And the 1 & 2 Phil. & Mary c. 13, s. 5, and 7 Geo. 4, c. 64, s. 4, both speak of a coroner's inquisition "whereby any person shall be indicted for murder or manslaughter," which by itself would prove that such an inquisition was an indictment; and the former clause afterwards calls it "the inquisition or indictment." It is clear, therefore, that the term indictment includes a coroner's inquisition whereby any one is charged with murder or manslaughter.

Next may be mentioned repeals, whether direct or implied. There are many instances in which even direct repeals, which refer to the enactment intended to be repealed, are so worded that it is impossible to ascertain how much of the old statutes are repealed. Here there must be actual legislation to fix what is, and what is not, repealed. A second class of repeals is one that has been adopted of late years. It is the repealing in express terms every enactment inconsistent with the Act in which the repeal is found without referring to any Act at all. So that doubt is thrown on every previous enactment, and it must be compared with the whole and every part of the repealing Act in order to ascertain whether it is repealed or not. Such repealing clauses are nearly as bad as implied repeals, which abound in the Statute Book, and are the most difficult of all to ascertain. These take place whenever any affirmative or negative clause is so far inconsistent with a previous enactment that both cannot be in force at once; and it often requires a solemn decision to determine whether any, and, if so, what part of an

older enactment is impliedly repealed. A single example may show what I mean.

By the Statute of Frauds, 29 C. 2, c. 3, s. 1, it was provided that "all leases not put in writing and signed by the parties, &c., shall have the force and effect of leases at will only, and shall not, either in law or equity, be deemed to have any greater force;" but s. 2 excepted leases for not exceeding three years. By the 8 & 9 Vict. c. 106, it is provided, inter alia, that "a lease required by law to be in writing," "shall be void at law unless made by deed." In the bill to consolidate the law of Landlord and Tenant, prepared for the Statute Law Commission, both these enactments were introduced without any remark. When I looked over that bill it at once occurred to me that both these provisions could not possibly stand together in that bill; for it appeared clear that the latter Act impliedly repealed the former Act altogether as to leases for more than three years having the force of leases at will, and made them void unless made by deed. Accordingly the point was brought before the Statute Law Commissioners, and whilst all of them agreed that to some extent the latter Act was a repeal of the former, there was a great difference of opinion as to whether the latter Act did not make such leases void only at Common Law, but leave them valid in Equity, so that they might be enforced by a Court of Equity. It is enough to say that some of the greatest lawyers of the present day, whether on or off the Bench, differed on this question, and it was never settled. Such instances might easily be multiplied; and they prove that mere consolidation is impracticable; for, in such cases, it must first be determined what the law is or ought to be, and then an énactment must be framed accordingly; and if that be done the bounds of mere consolidation are passed.

But if the preceding difficulties were surmounted, it would be found that where the enactments on a particular subject extend from very early times to the present,

their frame and language vary so substantially that a mere consolidation of them would produce such a bill as no one would venture to bring into Parliament. The Landlord and Tenant Bill, which I have just mentioned, affords a striking example of this. As it was prepared, it contained an accurate copy of the existing enactments, which extend from very ancient times to the present, and it was plain to me that in that state no one could expect that it could be passed. I then endeavoured to alter the wording of the clauses so that they might be made more consistent with each other in their language, and afterwards Sir F. Kelly went over the bill with me with the same view, and after all, the bill remained in a state that was quite unsatisfactory, and the conclusion at which I arrived was, that in order to make a good Bill the whole must be rewritten.

I will only add one objection more, which mightily weighs on my mind. Supposing the statutes could all be consolidated, without alteration or amendment, what would be effected by it? The law would not be altered in any respect, and all that would be done would be that, instead of the enactments on particular subjects being scattered over the Statute Book, they would be collected together in Acts devoted to each. No doubt this would be a considerable advantage on several grounds; but it is to be remembered that such a process would continue bad enactments as well as good, and very possibly might revive some that had become obsolete, and above all, that it would leave every existing defect and every amendment, however much required, wholly unprovided for; and this shows that such a consolidation could only be temporary, and that it would be necessary to follow it up by bills amending the law; and if this course were carried into effect, the result would be that the consolidating Acts would then be useless, and would have to be repealed. And the ultimate result would be that so much more repealed matter would have been added to the Statute Book.

It is difficult also to see how the mere re-enactment of existing Acts could in any degree facilitate the preparation of amended Acts, and it would seem that such amended Acts might be equally well prepared from the existing enactments, and that by that course of proceeding the time and labour of preparing mere consolidating statutes would be wholly saved.

Having said thus much on the subject of consolidation in general, I will now advert to the objections to the consolidation of the Criminal Law as to indictable offences in particular.

The first objection is that it is altogether a fallacy to suppose that any such consolidation is practicable. Every enactment, which in express terms commands or forbids anything to be done, creates an indictable offence; for every one who wilfully disobeys such an enactment is liable to be indicted for such disobedience. Consequently, a consolidation of all indictable offences, in order to be complete, must contain every such enactment. And this also proves that it is a fallacy to suppose that there is any such marked distinction between civil and criminal enactments that the one can be practically separated from the other.

Nor is the question now what it would have been if there had been no existing enactments; for, if that were the case, there would be nothing to prevent the adoption of any course that might be considered most expedient; but as there are a number of enactments in existence, the question is what course is practicable in this state of things? Now, if the Consolidation Acts above referred to had passed, and the enactments they consolidated had been repealed, the effect would have been indirectly to repeal many other enactments besides; for the course of legislation in criminal matters hitherto has been to insert in the same Act that created any offences any ancillary provisions, which seemed expedient. Thus, provisions as to the costs of prosecutions, the apprehension of offenders, the search for gunpowder and other destructive

substances, and many similar subsidiary clauses are to be found in the old Acts, and by consolidating these Acts, so far only as they related to indictable offences, all these provisions would have fallen to the ground, as they were by their terms confined to the offences mentioned in those Acts alone. It is true that some of these provisions might well have been included in a bill relating to criminal procedure, but there were many others that could not have been included in such a bill, and could not have been inserted in any place so well as in immediate connection with the offences to which they related.

In some instances offences were punishable either on indictment or summary conviction. In these cases the consolidation of indictable offences alone would have made it necessary for the same offence to be repeated in two different Acts; in one as an indictable offence, in the other as a summary offence; and unless each Act had a reference to the other, it is easy to conceive that any one looking at one of the Acts might suppose that that was the only provision on the subject. In other instances an indictable offence depended on one or more previous summary convictions for the like offence. In these cases the consolidation in question would have made it necessary on every trial for such an indictable offence, to refer to two different Acts, one relating to the summary and the other to the indictable offence.

Many offences are not only created by statute, but their whole subject matter is statutory also, and to separate the one from the other would render it necessary, in any prosecution for such offence, always to refer to two Acts instead of one. Bankruptcy and insolvency may serve as examples of this. What could be more practically inconvenient than to take all the indictable offences out of the Bankrupt Act and place them in a consolidation of Criminal Law? For the meaning of the term " bankrupt and almost every other term used in creating the offence, reference must be made to the former, but for the offence