Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/1020

984 o84 HARVARD LAW REVIEW i tainly calls for an extensive exchange of bills, drafts, and credits with aU coun- tries. Here may be found the law to which these instruments must conform. Professor Lorenzen's "Discussions," which follow in each case the collec- tion of each country's rules for the Conflict of Laws, seem to be based upon a positivist philosophy: regarding each question in dispute between the different countries as a case for compromise, without regard to its effect upon the general body of any particular law. This is the principle upon which the Hague Con- ventions proceed. A Professor of Engineering once drafted a city charter on the principle, as he said, on which he would build a bridge; that is, he compared all existing city charters, and selected the provision which pleased him best for each paragraph of his own charter. A bridge is made; but law, like a city charter, is born, not made, if it is to prove viable. A sentence of Professor Lorenzen's is suggestive on this point: "Although the Convention of the Hague [of 191 2] has not yet been ratified by any of the signatory powers, it expresses nevertheless the general point of view obtaining in foreign countries with refer- ence to bills and notes." It may be doubted whether any power short of direct sovereign power can force upon a country outland ideas of law; some- times not even that, as witness Professor Ehrlich's illuminating studies as to the law of Bukowina. May we not fear that any effort to create mechanical uniformity of law throughout the world is doomed to failure? An excellent example of Professor Lorenzen's method is his discussion of the law governing the "Obligation" of the biU or note (page 108). He first mar- shalls his evidence, — which is the opinion of a considerable number of continental writers, a few decisions of German courts, and an equal number of English and American decisions, together with references to Story. Long ex- tracts are given from Savigny, Bar, Wachter, Story, Laine, Hertius, Paul Voet, and Lord Mansfield's decision in Robinson v. Bland. All the arguments are weighed, and a final preference expressed in favor of the prevailing opinion, that the lex loci contractus should govern the obligation. This method makes of law a series of dead rules. Law is not that; it is a living, growing thing, which may be changed in detail, but cannot be dismem- bered and live. The same weighing of evidence, the same conclusion reached on the evidence, the preference for a compromise rule quite independent of any general principle and regardless of the general body of law appears throughout the work. It is the method of the bridge-builder. It may be admitted that this method is necessary if one is to bridge the gap between Anglo-American and Continental law; but such a bridge can never be built. Let us frankly admit that the Com- mon Law is not the Civil Law; let us bewail the fact, if necessary; let us understand the Civil Law, with such sympathetic knowledge as one can acquire of a foreign system to which he was not born; but let us not try to create a legal Esperanto. Professor Lorenzen's high powers, his scholarship, his industry, his patience, his judgment illumine his book, and he has written a work for which the pro- fession owes him much; but not the least interesting thing about it is its promise of fine work to come, when he gives us more at length the results of his study in the strictly common-law doctrines of the Conflict of Laws. Joseph H. Beale. Constitutional Power and World Affairs. By George Sutherland, former United States Senator from Utah. New York: Columbia University Press. 1919. pp. 202, The wars in which this country has been engaged have given rise to great questions of national poUcy, of political morality, and of constitutional power. With the Spanish War we definitely departed from our traditional policy of