Mr. Ilbert, formerly the Indian Legislative Member of Council, speaking
on Thursday at the Imperial Institute, put forward an idea which is original, and may prove of service. He wants a record kept, a complete record, of the Acts passed by the different British Legislatures in the world, now more than a hundred in number, with the reasons for them, and, where possible, some of their results. The problems before those Legislatures are in the main identical with our own problems, the experiments are some of them original, and it is a pity that such a mass of experience should be left unavail- able to Englishmen for want of concentration. The expense of collection would be considerable; but the different Legis- latures would be glad to help by contributions of documents, and the Inns of Court might perhaps be ready to bear the remainder of the expense. It is, in fact, a Statute Library which it is proposed to found with librarians capable of making digests. That seems to us a proposal of solid sense which would justify a State grant of £5,000 a year, and an Indian grant, say, of £1,500. One good law dealing with an economic subject might repay the total cost a hundredfold.
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