Gradually, the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act 1890 is receding into history. The countries in which it once held sway are one by one enacting replacement statutes intended to provide a comprehensive framework for their respective admiralty jurisdictions. The two books considered here deal with the new legislation, now enacted in South Africa and Australia. Students of law reform will observe that the new statutes were preceded by Reports from, in South Africa, the South African Law Commission and, in Australia, the Australian Law Reform Commission. Moreover, it is to be noted that in Australia the initial impetus for reform came, it is said, from the Maritime Law Association of Australia and New Zealand.

The Admiralty Jurisdiction Regulation Act 105 of 1983 represents a development of the first order in South African admiralty law and practice. As readers of this Quarterly and Lloyd’s Maritime Law Newsletter are well aware, decisions on the Act occur with regularity and are of interest to all who may have no greater connection with the republic than the temporary use of South African port facilities. Against this background it is very welcome indeed to have a book on the topic of Admiralty Jurisdiction and Practice in South Africa, in particular where the learned author is not only a practitioner of vast experience but has also been described by a leading South African judge—in the Foreword to the book—as “the father of the Act”.

The history of admiralty jurisdiction in South Africa, which Shaw traces, is not without either interest or complexity. Like other former British Colonies, the admiralty jurisdiction was contained in the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act 1890. In the case of South Africa, however, where the matter in issue fell outside the confines of admiralty jurisdiction, then recourse was to be had not to English but to the Roman-Dutch common law. The author treads a diplomatic balance between the merits claimed for these two sources of law and argues persuasively for an approach under the new Act which will stress the similarities rather than the differences between the two systems. That the question of giving preference to English or Roman-Dutch law remains a topic of contemporary controversy in South Africa is apparent from s. 6(1) of the Act and was clearly adumbrated in an excellent article on the new Act by Hilton Staniland in [1985] 4 LMCLQ 462. It was in this article that reference was made to s. 6(1) of the Act effecting an “ingenious compromise” between the so-called admiralty and Roman-Dutch lobbies. In turn, the book’s treatment of this section demonstrates the learned author’s capacity for a detached and not uncritical view of the Act. The reader will be left to interpret for himself the true meaning of s. 6(1) of the Act but Shaw’s discussion of this sub-section is vivid testimony to the fact that frustration with the draftsmen of statutes is not the exclusive preserve of English lawyers.

From a practical standpoint, the most striking feature of the Act is the width of the jurisdiction conferred on the South African courts. According to both Shaw and Staniland (loc. cit.), this width prompted judicial questioning as to whether the South African court should allow itself to be transformed into a court of convenience for the “wandering litigants of the