What, then, is the real effect of all this elaborate example of word-spinning? On examination it means that the "B" beneficiaries are entirely at the mercy of the settlor as long as he lives: - He holds the "A" shares and he is the Board of Management, he controls the trustees, he can remove the trustees, he can substitute trustees, he can sell the property on any terms he likes, he takes the profits in any case for five years, he can also take them for sixteen years more, that is, up to 1937, without altering clause 19 (as is seen), he can even alter clause 19 and so extend the twenty-one years, or so as to appropriate to the shares any desired proportion of the profits; he outvotes the "B" shareholders as long as he wants to, that is, as long as he draws all the profits; he may even by alteration of the articles exclude the "B" shareholders from their nominal recognition at a general meeting under clause 24. In short, except for the rule against perpetuities and the ultimately irresistible domination of death, John Clark Donaldson remained after his execution of the deed as much the supreme lord of the property as he was the instant before. He did not in fact choose to alter his original disposition. But he acted upon the 19th clause by extending for a second term of five years, the five years term specified by the clause itself: that definitely attached to himself the equitable right to the profits for the period beginning 6th May 1921 and ending 5th May 1926. While that period was still current, that is, on 19th December 1924, the settlor died. What "property" had the "B" shareholders in the circumstances on 19th December 1924, (1) the instant before the settlor's death and (2) the instant after? There is no doubt that the instant after the settlor's death the "B" shareholders in the events which had happened, had no right whatever to the profits which would arise between 20th December 1924 and 6th May 1926. But they had on 20th December 1924 the absolute right (free from any interest of the settlor) to a proportionate share of the profits which would arise on and after 6th May 1926. They had that absolute indefeasible right in interest, though of course not yet in possession. Whether they had further rights I shall discuss later. But as to their clear and unqualified right to profits as from 6th May 1926 to 5th May 1937 (eleven years) is it accurate to say, as the majority in the Supreme Court have said, that this was vested in the "B" shareholders as much before the settlor's death as after? It is, of course, accurate that the settlor had not passed a resolution and had not therefore assented in writing to a resolution of extension as required by par. (a) of art. 19. But the existing "disposition" gave him the right to do so at any time before 6th May 1926, and this right - so long as he lived - was a distinct "interest" in the settled property, and was itself "property." "By interest in a thing every benefit and advantage arising out of or depending on such thing, may be considered as being comprehended" (per Lawrence J. in Lucena v. Craufurd[7]). It was a fragment of ownership - equitable ownership - which by so much diminished the dominion which the "B" shareholders otherwise would have had in respect of the profit of their own shares in the assets. Lord Langdale M.R. in Jones v. Skinner[8] said: "It is well known, that the word property is the most comprehensive of all the terms which can be used, inasmuch as it is indicative and descriptive of every possible interest which the party can have." A little further on, the Master of the Rolls says the "word property ... would carry any interest the testator might have in any property, or over which he had any control." (See also In re Prater; Desinge v. Beare[9].) Now here, Donaldson, being in 1916 the sole owner of certain property, conferred interests, but "subject" to rights and interests and powers which he retained as part of the dominion he originally had, and the part he did not relinquish. It is true he couched his retention of interest in terms requiring the voting of a resolution and the personal assent to it, but at the time of his death it was he who possessed the sole power to pass that resolution notwithstanding any opposition, as well as to assent. The power to vote is itself a property right (Osborne v. Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants[10]). But the power to vote and to assent so as to appropriate profits as a primary and dominant right before anything whatever can be held in trust for others, is a distinct interest in the assets, and altogether beyond a bare power over another person's property. With that right intervening as a paramount interest until the moment of the settlor's death on 19th December 1924, how can it be accurately said that there was nothing vested in the "B" shareholders on 20th December that was not already vested in them before the death on 19th December? It seems to me incontestable that "upon the death" of the settlor there passed to the "B" shareholders the fragment of dominion in relation to the profits for the period 1926-1937 which had up to his death been withheld from them and which had always resided in the settlor and which he had never parted with. A very practical test is suggested in Earl Cowley's Case[11] by Lord Macnaghten, who says: "If property passes you can put a value on it by considering what it would fetch in the open market." The comparative selling values of the "B" shareholders' rights on 18th December and 20th December to the profits for the eleven years' period would be substantially different. Now, what event marked the transition from a chance to a certainty? Nothing but the settlor's death. It was contended that the "event" was the non-exercise of the power to resolve and assent contained in art. 19 (a). It was urged that if either by volition or paralysis or other cause during life there had been a non-exercise of the right, so that sub-clause (a) was not satisfied, the same result would have followed. The obvious answer is that in that case the property would have vested absolutely inter vivos, and therefore not "upon the death," and the conditions of the Act would not have been met. But the fact that the same practical result might have been reached by some other road does not get rid of the legal consequence of its actual attainment by this road. The period being different, the legal consequence is different (Attorney-General v. Noyes[12]). The non-exercise of the power for any period beyond 5th May 1926 was undoubtedly one of the circumstances existing at the time of the death and one of the circumstances on which the disposition operated. By reason of the disposition the "B" shareholders in the existing circumstances succeeded on 20th December 1924 to an absolute unfettered right to the profits beginning eighteen months ahead. But that right arose and was vested completely in interest "upon the death" of the settlor. The beneficiaries did not have to wait until 6th May 1926 to see if the power was not exercised. There could no longer be any existing right or interest to which the exercise of the power could be referred. There could not be any interest residing in a dead man, and his interest while living was personal. At the moment of his death, and by force of his death, the words in art. 19 (b) "subject as aforesaid" were rendered nugatory; so were all the preceding words, that is, as to the eleven years period. I am therefore of opinion there were successions on the death of the settlor by reason of the dispositions of the deed.