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The Green Bag

merrain, mairen, merrien, martin, and marisme or maresme. Thus disguised one can scarcely realize that it is simply Latin “materiabois," “wood" or “timber." The transitions are, then: Latin-materia. Low Latin-materiamen (becomes by action of the yod) Provencal——rnairam (Brachet and Toynbel par. 10 and 51) Wallon—-rnairan. Old French—marisme, marrain, maresme, marrin, mairen. merrein. which was re-Latinized into Law Latin, maeremmium. sometimes maher emium. Modern French-mairain or merrain. Hence Modern French has two words identical in derivation from Latin materia. One is "matiere" and the other "merrain" above described. See E. Littré, Dictionnaire de la Langue Franyaise, Tome III, p. 526, also Coke's Institutes, Edition of 1738, folio 53, and Darmesteter, Dictionnaire Gen., etc. Mairan has a special meaning, also, viz.: Oak planks used for barrel staves. In the 24th of Charles

1,

1649

(Styles'

Reports p. 155) one Philips moved the Court to quash an indictment for pulling down the house of a baron, because the indictment used the word " lignum " for the timber of the house, whereas it should have been "maremium." Whether the court decided the point raised by the defendant is not cer tain from the Report, but it would seem from the above that the objection was well taken and that “ maremium " was the proper word to use where the defendant was charged with destroying the wooden materials of the house, rather than the general term “lig nurn." While on the other hand to say what the equity-pleader apparently did in the case of Skelton v. Skelton, that the defendant committed “ maresme " in felling timber, was an improper use of the word, as the timber destroyed was not “ material made of Wood." WILLIAM DRAPER LEWIS.

The Constitutional Crisis in England THE budget bill which

the House of

Commons passed and the House of Lords declined to approve without a clearly expressed popular demand, carried with it taxation measures of constitutional impor tance. The term “constitutional," however, has a very different meaning in England from

what it has in the United States.

As Pro

fessor Dicey, one of the foremost living authorities on the British ConstitutionI has remarked, there is in England no clear dis tinction between laws that are constitutional and those which are not of the nature of fundamental laws.

Obviously, with Parlia

ment supreme and clothed with the full powers of a constitutional convention as well as of an Omnipotent legislature, the only way that laws could be classed as constitutional or purely secondary would be with reference to their subject-matter. The constitutional character of any new scheme of taxation in volving considerable re-adjustments of the rights of private property to a new concep tion of the powers of government is so evi dent that it is unnecessary to cite any au thority in support of it. Whatever view

be taken of- the taxation features of the budget, whether they be deemed socialistic or not, they truly partake of a constitutional character. Mr. Asquith did not correctly state the position of the upper house when he declared: "The Lords say, ‘Tax any property but land, any one but us.’ " The Lords’ real opposition was not to higher duties, imposed under established principles of the Constitution, but to particular methods of taxation involving the application of en tirely new principles. That new constitu tional questions were involved, in the real sense of the word, is alone suﬂiciently proved by the acrimonious controversy which has divided the whole nation. The result is, therefore, that the House of Commons as serts that under its exclusive power to deal with all money bills, it can adopt constitu tional measures which the House of Lords has no right to reject, while the House of Lords, in forcing an appeal to the country before it gives its assent, is practically de claring its right to be consulted regarding amendments to the British Constitution. So vague, in England, is the distinction