Page:James Bryce American Commonwealth vol 1.djvu/368

316 governments are intolerant. In the United States the possible diversity of laws is immense. Subject to a few prohibitions contained in the Constitution, each State can play whatever tricks it pleases with the law of family relations, of inheritance, of contracts, of torts, of crimes. But the actual diversity is not great, for all the States, save Louisiana, have taken the English common and statute law of 1776 as their point of departure, and have adhered to its main principles. A more complete uniformity as regards marriage and divorce might be desirable, for it is particularly awkward not to know whether you are married or not, nor whether you have been or can be divorced or not; and several States have tried bold experiments in divorce laws. But, on the whole, far less inconvenience than could have been expected seems to be caused by the varying laws of different States, partly because commercial law is the department in which the diversity is smallest, partly because American practitioners and judges have become expert in applying the rules for determining which law, where those of different States are in question, ought to be deemed to govern a given case. However, eight States have very recently taken steps to reduce this diversity by appointing Commissions, instructed to meet and confer as to the best means of securing uniform State legislation on some important subjects.

VI. He who is conducted over an iron-clad warship, and sees the infinite intricacy of the machinery and mechanical appliances which it contains and by which its engines, its guns, its turrets, its torpedoes, its apparatus for anchoring and making sail, are worked, is apt to think that it must break down in the rough practice of war. He is told, however, that the more is done by machinery, the more safely and easily does everything go on, because the machinery can be relied on to work accurately, and the performance by it of the heavier work leaves the crew