although there is no legal obligation to be secured by suretyship, yet there is a moral or natural obligation of the minor. The Japanese law bearing on the subject is stated as follows: “If a surety guarantees an obligation which may be rescinded on the ground of legal incapacity, knowing of the existence of such incapacity at the time he agreed to guarantee the obligation, he is presumed in the event of its non-performance or rescission to have entered into an independent and identical obligation.” It will be observed that a person, who with knowledge of the existence of grounds for rescission guarantees an undertaking of a minor, is considered to have incurred two different sets of obligations, one strictly and purely an obligation of suretyship which lapses with the extinction of the principal obligation, and the other an independent obligation on condition precedent which comes into force with the rescission or non-performance of the principal obligation.
Assignment of rights in personam. — According to Anglo-American jurisprudence rights in personam are not, as a general rule, assignable. These rights are mostly created by contract. They are the result of the exercise of free-will and bind the parties and ought to bind the parties only. If assignment is allowed to the creditor as a right the debtor might be obliged to perform his obligation to a different and unknown creditor. The debtor might have had a claim to set-off as against the former creditor, which he would not be able to set up against the new creditor. Therefore, if the interest of the debtors is alone consulted, it will be better not to allow the assignment of rights in personam. But the demands of modern civilization, accompanied by the development of credit has required and made it expedient to relax the rule and even by Anglo-American jurisprudence certain rights in personam have, for a long time, been assignable without the special consent of the debtor. The Japanese Code, in consonance with the principle recognized in the systems of continental Europe, has adopted the doctrine, that as a general rule, rights in personam are assignable. Article 466 provides that rights in personam may be assigned, provided always that they are of a nature which admits of assignment. Obligations that consist in the payment of money are of such nature that they can be performed by any person, and in these cases the rights are assignable under the Japanese law, but rights which arise out of personal relations, such as parents and children, are not assignable. The second clause of the same article declares that the provisions of the preceding clause do not apply if the parties have expressed a contrary intention, but that such expression of intention can not be set up against
