THE Law and Practice IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND. SECOND EDITION. BY EDWARD B. HAMILTON, B.A., JUDGE OF COUNTY COURTS, VICTORIA. Assisted by J. G. EAGLESON, B.A., LL.B., BARRISTER-AT LAW. Melbourne: CHARLES F. MAXWELL (G. PARTRIDGE & CO.), ' LAW BOOKSELLERS AND PUBLISHERS, 458 CHANCERY LANE. PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. THE idea of writing this Manual was originally suggested by Mr. Maxwell, who publishes it, and the task of preparing it was undertaken after considerable hesitation, as there already exist several English treatises on the subject of banking law. But there is a complaint, not uncommon amongst bankers and others, that English books when consulted are often found to be perplexing, and at times wholly inapplicable and unpractical. This may probably be attributed to the fact that such works apply to a mode of banking which does not prevail in Australia and New Zealand, where the system in operation is a modification or adaptation of the Scotch, and differs in many striking features from that which is practised in London and generally throughout England. The object, then, of this Manual, is to give, in a form which may be readily understood, not merely by lawyers, but by practical bankers and men of business, a clear and succinct explanation of the legal questions which are most likely to arise between bankers and their customers in the daily course of banking business in the colonies, and which are therefore most necessary to be properly apprehended by those who have to deal with them. 76796 It is surprising how many points of law, not merely of local interest, but of general importance to all English and colonial bankers, have been determined in cases which arose in these colonies, and which were taken home to the Privy Council on appeal. The law, for instance, that now governs the liabilities of bankers who gratuitously undertake the safe custody of goods deposited with them for that purpose was finally settled by a case that occurred in Victoria (Giblin v. M'Mullen, post, pp. 242, 286, et seq.) The principal case on the subject of a banker's duties in collecting mercantile paper is also a Victorian one (Bank of Van Dieman's Land v. Bank of Victoria, post, pp. 241, 244.) The law regulating the status of branch banks was for the first time, it is believed, fully expounded in a case from New South Wales (Prince v. Oriental Bank, post, pp. 251, 289), and the position and authority of bank managers have received valuable elucidation from colonial litigation. But in addition to such cases as those above referred to, there is a considerable body of what may be called Australian law, consisting of colonial decisions, many of which deal with important questions that have not yet been agitated in the English law courts. For instance, the question whether a banker is, in the absence of express authority, justified in paying the overdue bills of a customer accepted payable at his bank, has never, it seems, been raised in England, though it has been the subject of a much-canvassed decision in Victoria (Wine v. Bank of New South Wales, post, pp. 137, 138, 142). A similar remark is applicable to the question whether a banker is entitled to simple interest on an overdraft after his customer's death, and until the overdraft has been paid off-a point which was decided for the first time, it is believed, in South Australia (South Australian |