Waller, J.

1. The suit is one for contribution. A suit was filed on a promissory note against the plaintiff and the 1st defendant and a decree was passed against them jointly. The whole of the decree amount was collected from the plaintiff, who seeks to recover half of it from the 1st defendant. The latters defence is that he and the plaintiff were engaged in an illegal partnerships that the money was borrowed for that partnership and that, under the circumstances, a suit for contribution does not lie.

2. It has been repeatedly held in this country, following the old English case of Merryweather v. Nixan (1799) 8 Term Rep. 186 that a suit for contribution between wrong-doers does not lie. In a case from Scotland Palmer v. Wick and Pulteneytown Steam Shipping Company, Ltd. (1894) AC 318 the House of Lords refused to follow that decision, holding that it was not founded on any principle of equity. The Lord Chancellor said in his judgment Why, then, should a co-debtor, who has paid the whole sum due. .... when he seeks to recover the share of his co-debtor, be subject more than other co-obligants to the answer that, the entire debt having been discharged, nothing remains due on