MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO ACCORDING TO BRITISH STATUTE BY WILLIAM GOW, M.A., PH.D. AUTHOR OF MARINE INSURANCE' MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED PREFACE THE passing of the Marine Insurance Act of 1906 (6 Edw. VII. Ch. 41) was the commencement of a new era in the law and practice of Marine Insurance in Britain. The object of the introducers of that Act was to reproduce as exactly as possible the law as it then existed without making any attempt to amend it. Consequently, the Act, except in one or two minor particulars, gives in a systematic form the results of all important decisions rendered by English Courts in matters of Marine Insurance. Since the Act came into effect on 1st January 1907 there has not been the same necessity as formerly to refer to decisions on points at issue, though it must be confessed that it is only very slowly and gradually that those engaged in the practice of Marine Insurance are accustoming themselves to refer to sections of the Marine Insurance Act rather than to the decisions of special cases which are embodied therein. There is always the feeling, particularly in the non-legal mind, that it is better to prefer the definite statement of an actual case to the necessarily more indefinite statement of a general principle such as is found in a code. It has therefore appeared to the writer that in the present state of opinion the most useful kind of guide to the law and practice of Marine Insurance would be a detailed statement of the provisions of the Marine Insurance Act with a supplement consisting of the essential parts of the great leading judgments upon which the Act has confessedly been constructed. V |