When one reads from time to time of decisions of the Courts that are upheld for a generation and finally overruled it is against the truth to speak of a pre-existing code of laws which the judges merely administer and expound. And the reason this is not openly acknowledged and that this mysterious bogey of pre-existent law is worshipped in our Courts of Justice is, as Professor Gray tells us, that there is an "unwillingness to recognise the fact that the Courts, with the consent of the State, have been constantly in the practice of applying in the decision of controversies, rules which were not in existence and were therefore not knowable by the parties when the causes of controversy occurred. It is the unwillingness to face the certain fact that Courts are constantly making _ex post facto_ law." This is why we maintain the fiction of the continuous pre-existence of law. The fear among those in authority seems to be that it would be unwise to openly recognise the real extent of the judicial power, as it would be unpopular and widely rebelled against, and that under the soothing fiction of the existence of an imaginary body of law and by the constant humble assertion of the judges, that they are not there to make laws, but only to administer them, the man in the street is deceived for his own good. For myself I have grave doubts whether this juggling with facts is to anybody's benefit. If it were recognised that in giving decisions at common law, and also in the interpretation of statutes, judges were not only declarers of existing law but makers of new law, then it would be possible to discuss and perhaps control or direct the law-making power of latter-day judges which from time to time manifests itself in unbalanced social judgments. When the telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell, the Postmaster-General of the day claimed that it was a species of telegraph within the meaning of the Telegraph Act, 1869. Scientifically, of course, it was no such thing. Economically and in the interests of the community it was essential that the telephone should not be handed over to a public department predetermined not to give it a fair chance of development. Lord Kelvin and others pointed out what was the right policy in the matter, and, if the affair had gone to a parliamentary commission, his words would have had weight and a Telephone Development Act might have brought about excellent results. In that case the future of the telephone would have been settled by parliamentary law.