Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/289

269 ''POWERS COUPLED WITH AN INTEREST:' 269 thing itself. . . . Here there was no actual assignment of the claims or any part of them. . . . There is nothing whatever in the transaction from beginning to end which shows an intention on the part of the legislature to part with any interest with or control over the claims, except to the extent of the commissions for the agent after they had been earned. . . . Clearly such an agency is not irrevocable in law because of its being coupled with an interest in the thing to be collected." This case seems in effect to overrule Jeffries v. The Mutual Life Insurance Company, although it does not purport to do so. The above summary of decisions justifies the remark made in the beginning of this article, that the law relating to " powers coupled with interests " is unsettled ; it is not necessary to argue that this state of the law should not continue. What construction of such powers should prevail is a topic of jurisprudence. The suggestion may, however, be ventured that adherence to the prin- ciple of Hunt V. Rousmanier is the best policy. Nothing could be gained by declaring common law powers over property, even when given as security, irrevocable by death, because the result intended by giving to powers that effect can be always secured by a mortgage or charge. It would, however, be a substantial practical gain to put an end to the contention, not an unusual one, that a power of an agent to represent his principal cannot be revoked because the agent is to be remunerated for his services. James Lowndes.