Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 17.pdf/752

 EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT

719

CURRENT LEGAL ARTICLES This department represents a selection of the most important leading articles in all the English and American legal periodicals of the preceding month. The space devoted to a summary does not always represent the relative importance of the article, for essays of the most permanent value are usually so condensed in style that further abbre viation is impracticable.

ARBITRATION. An address before the Colorado State Bar Association on " Compul sory Arbitration," by James H. Pershing, is published in the October American Lawyer (V. xiii, p. 435 ). The author summarizes his views as follows: "The writer is of the opinion that from our system of jurisprudence may be deduced such legal principles, and such an adminis trative system as will bring the most difficult of our labor problems within the domain of law; for be it remembered that our industries affected with a public use grow the most serious of public disturbances. "It is the paramount duty of the lawyer to establish justice according to law. And he should be the last man in the world to confess the failure of our jurisprudence to meet any demand that a progressive democracy may make in order that in all her wide domain, law may reign supreme." AUTOMOBILES. "The Law of Automo biles," by X. P. H. Law Notes (V. ix, p. 147). BIOGRAPHY. " The Calcutta High Court — Judges," by Shumbhoo C. Dey. Bombay Law Reporter (V. vii, p. 225). CODIFICATION (see Sales).

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (Commerce, In surance). Carman F. Randolph, in the No vember Columbia Law Review (V. v, p. 500), publishes an exhaustive opinion on " Federal Supervision of Insurance." While he admits that the United States can control business done here by foreign insurance corporations, he does not believe that the Supreme Court will reverse its established doctrine refusing jurisdiction of interstate insurance to the Fed eral Government even if the issue is forced by congressional legislation. The foundation of his opinion is the distinction that insurance is a contract, while commerce among the states

means intercourse, and an agreement in no sense can be described as intercourse. If the necessity of transmitting the policies between states justifies regulation, all business could be regulated by Congress under this clause. He distinguishes the lottery ticket case which has been made the basis of the present agita tion on the ground that the tickets themselves were articles of traffic. He further suggests that " the delicate mechanism of the majority opinion is devised to suppress unwholesome gain," and is of opinion that " both its defini tion of commerce and its doctrine of prohibi tion are of little or no general value." CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (Commerce, In surance). Andrew Alexander Bruce contri butes to the Central Law Journal (V. Ixi, p. 384) a valuable discussion of " Federal Con trol of Insurance," in the form of a critism of the majority report of the committee of the American Bar Association which favored Con gressional regulation. He admits their con tention that, when Paul v. Virginia was decided, the Court had little conception of the modern development of the insurance business, and that it is difficult to distinguish between an insurance policy and a lottery ticket, which has lately been held a subject of regulation under the commerce clause. He denies, how ever, that Congress can declare what is a subject of interstate commerce, and explains the cases relied on by the majority as those in which the court was deciding not whether the transaction was interstate as opposed to intrastate commerce, but whether the articles in question were property at all. He severely criticises the discussion in the Lottery Case, but insists that it must rest on the ground that lottery tickets were common nuisances and hence no property at all, and had no rights that Congress was bound to respect, and finally he opposes regulation as a serious blow to state sovereignty, and reminds us that some day our states will themselves be empires with