COMMERCIAL is not in England any branch of the law specially separated from the rest, and known as commercial law. Nor is there, as in France for example, in addition to a commercial code, a court specially established to administer such law. There is, of course, the COM MERCIAL COURT (q.v.), but that is rather the court of one of the judges of the King's Bench Division of the High Court,who, for the convenience of busi ness in the division, has confined his attention for the time being to certain classes of commercial litigation. So far from commercial business being con fined to one court, it is in fact distributed among nearly all. Bankruptcy has its own court, partnerships and companies are largely dealt with in the Chancery Division, and shipping is partly provided for in the Admiralty Court. But, generally speaking, the King's Bench Division is the court for the disposal of commercial cases.
Commercial law itself has not in recent times been dealt with as a whole by any legal writer. This is probably because of its extent, and because of the great variety of legal systems which go to make it up. The laws of
navigation, of war, .ut.i of patents, for example, each properlx, contain in themselves' the necessity'.. ; exclusively separate treatment. Roman Law, International Law, the mediaeval maritime law of Europe, all enter into the composition of our commercial law. And to these must be added the com mon law, some equity, the custom of merchants, judicial decisions, and statu tory enactments. There is, however, a tendency towards a commercial code; indeed the tendency is itself a series of legislative contributions to a general codification. The result of this is that the law on many important branches of commercial activity is in effect already codified, and available for intelli gent study by the mercantile community ; instances may be found in the Bills of Exchange, Partnership, Factors, Sale of Goods and the Merchant Shipping Acts, in each of which will be found an intelligible statement of the law on the subject dealt with.