Beyond the Law: Lawyers and Business in Canada, 1830–1930 ed. by Carol Wilton (review)

REVIEWS 281 Themanifold weaknesses ofBritish NorthAmerican Justice' asshowcased inthese essays willbe of'considerable interestto social historians, whowill, however, regret theabsence ofanintroductory chapter toputthese essays in theoretical andcomparative perspective. Moregenerally, those familiarwith the history ofBritish NorthAmerica willwonder whyitsresidents throughout thenineteenth centurysosteadfastly expressed unshakable confidence in the superiority of British institutions; theeditors haveaddednothing to the observations GregMarquis hasalready madeonthispointin hiscontribution toCanadian Perspectives onLawandSociety: Issues inLegal History, edited byW. Wesley PueandBarryWright(Ottawa 1988). Aside fromtheadministration ofjustice, Glimpses ofLegal History contains essays thatwillbe of interest to political historians and historians of the professions. In theformer category, D.G.Bell's artfide onthejudiciary in post-Confederation NewBrunswick isa solidaddition to theliterature on political patronage. Richard RiskandPaulRomney explore dimensions of latenineteenth-century constitutional thought.W. WesleyPue'stimely addition to the literatureon the historyof the profession exploresthe connection between the approvalof a codeof ethics by the Canadian Bar ,•ssociation in 1920 and the socialchanges occurringin early twentiethcentury Canada. Asa unit, thiscollection performssomefunctions betterthan others.For historians, the articles providea goodindicationof the extentto whichsome types of legalhistoryoverlapwith historywrittenby university historians. Those whoare hopingto samplea wide spectrum of fieldswithin legal history will,however, bedisappointed. Amongthemissing subjects arelegal tl-,eory, lawandtheeconomy, lawyers andbusiness, andlegalhistoriography. Readers wouldbewiseto bearin mindthatcriminal justicethemes, though animportant aspect of legalhistory, donot dominate the fieldto the extent that theirrepresentation in thisvolume wouldindicate. Internationally, work on dvilasopposed tocriminal lawthemes ismuchmoreprominent thanthe current state of workin Canadasuggests. CAROL WILTON YorkUniversity •Bqvad the Law: Lawyers andBusiness in Canada, 1830-1930. Edited bycamoL WILTON. Essays in the Historyof CanadianLaw,volume4. Toronto:Publahed fortheOsgoode Society byButterwoxxhs 1990.Pp.xviii,490,illus. $•o.oo This volume isthefourth intheOsgoode Society's Essays intheHistory of Canadian Lawseries. It makes original contributions tothehistories ofthe Canadian legal profession andCanadian business. TheworkofBlaine Baker and others has toldusmuch about theprofession asaprofession, andthatof 982 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW R.C.B. Risk has exploredthe relationship betweenlegal structures and economic development. Thisbookbuildsonthesetwoscholarly traditions in examiningthe connections between lawyers and the business world,and• alsothefirstfull-length collection offeringaserious scholarly treatmentofthe role of the legalprofession in any aspect of Canadian history.Thereare fifteenessays in all, including an excellent introduction by CarolWiltonaral comparative essays on theUnitedStates andBritainby,respectively, Robert GordonandDavidSugarman. All of theotheressays makeworthwhile read. ing,andallin theirdifferent ways makea contribution toourlimitedknowledgeof the workof the legalprofession andof the individualand collective role(s)its members haveplayedin the economy. To summarise eacheven briefly would occupy allofthisreview, andit isbetter tohighlight themajor themes andtheways in whichsomeof these papersdealwiththem. In her introduction, whichserves alsoasa finebriefchronology ofthe development oftheCanadian economy andtheplace oflawyers andlawyering in that process, Wiltondelineates three waysin whichlawyers and economic change wererelated. First,lawyers werepractitioners ofcommercial andcorporate law,negotiators andproviders of technical advice andlitigationservices . Sheisquitecorrect to saythattheessays in thisvolume detail. ing thiswork 'initiatehistorical inquiry'(4) in Canadaon thistopic.They includeCurtisColeon the McCarthy,Oslerfirm of Toronto,RichardWillie on Winnipeglawyersin the later nineteenthcentury,Blaine Bakero• Montreal's Torrance-Morris, LouisKnaflaon R.B. Bennett,and Gregory Marchildonon Harris, Henry, Cahanof Halifax. Baker demonstrates that Torrance-Morris providedtheseservices for manypillarsof the Montreal commercial establishment (notably businesses owned bytheTorrance family), andin doing sobecame ofnecessity involved in 'amultijurisdictional lawyers' empire'(55)asthosecommerdal ventures extendedtothe United States, the Atlanticcolonies, andUpperCanada. Marchildon shows thewaysin which the Halifaxfirm of Harris,Henry,Cahancatered to thebusiness empires d JohnStairs and MaxAitkenand,in the provision of specialized services for utilities,reached out intootherprovinces andothercountries. A particular merit of hisessay is the tracingof thelinksbetween legalknowledge and skills andthegrowth oflargeandmultinational corporate enterprise. Finally, LouisKnalla,in perhaps themostengaging essay in the volume,offers an intriguingaccount of Bennett's yearsascounsel for the cPRandothers. Bennettemerges asa goodsolicitor andnegotiator buta poorlitigator, who lostmost ofthecases thatactually wenttocourt.In part,Knaflaargues, this was because hewas simply notverygood, andin partit was because hewas frequently retained byunpopular defendants tofightunpopular cases. What alsoemerges, however, isa classic story ofthedefendant withdeeppock• always fighting rather thansettling. Onesuspects that•r many ofhisclients REVIEWS Bennett's usefulness was notin hiswon-loss record in courtbutinhowmany potential plaintiffs didnotpress their claims. Thesecond linkbetween lawyers andtheeconomy isrepresented bythose members oftheprofession whowerenotcontent toserve others butwhoaggressively pursued business opportunities intheir own right. Wilton argues that 'thiscontribution [bylawyers] haseludedhistorians' beforenowandthat thehistorical recordreveals'the strikingrangeof lawyers' involvement in business, asentrepreneurs, company presidents, directors, managing directon ,real-estate developers, andinvestors on theirownbehalfandfor others' 15). Herewehavethreestudies ofindividual lawyers asbusinessmen: Knafia onBennett, JamesGunnon RobertHomeSmith,andJohnHonsberger on...