Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 13.pdf/622

 A Century of English Judicature. new forms of labor and new necessities of [arbor] culture." Dashwood v. Magniac (1891), 3 Ch. 306. Therefore, in applying, in a leading modern case, the ancient rule as to contracts in restraint of trade, he said with great force:

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takings which supply war material to the executives of the world, we appear to pass to a different atmosphere from that of Mitchell r. Reynolds. To apply to such transactions at the present time the rule that was invented centuries ago in order to discourage the

LORD JUSTICE LINDLEY.

"A covenant in restraint, made by such a person as the defendant with a company he really assists in creating to take over his trade, differs widely from the covenant made in the days of Queen Elizabeth by the traders and merchants of the then English towns and country places. When we turn from the homely usages out of which the doctrine of Mitchell f. Reynolds, i P. Wms. 181, sprang, to the central trade of the few great under-

oppression of English traders and to prevent monopolies in this country, seems to be the bringing into play of an old-fashioned in strument. In regard, indeed, of all industry, a great change has taken place in England. Railways and steamships, postal communica tion, telegraphs and advertisements have centralized business and altered the entire aspect of local restraints on trade. The rules, however, still exist, and it is desirable that