Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 20.pdf/172

 CONDITIONS AND METHODS OF LAW MAKING

III

CONDITIONS AND METHODS OF LAW MAKING BY RT. HON. JAMES BRYCE. MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLE MEN: I feel it a pleasure as well as an honor to be asked to address such a body as the State Bar Association, and I am deeply sensible of the kindness you have shown in coming in such large numbers in such inclement weather to hear treated what I am afraid will be, at any rate to one section of the audience, a com paratively dry subject. It is at any rate a subject far removed from any of those thoughts and political excitement of the moment which at this time fill so much of the thoughts of the legal practitioner either in the rural parts of the State, or here in New York City where your financial barometer rises and falls so rapidly, and where no doubt the lawyer is often called to admin ister spiritual consolation to some of his clients in the part of the city where that barometer can best be watched. But I have felt that such a subject as this which con nects rtself with a lawyer's work, and which at the same time is not purely technical, might be perhaps a suitable one for an audience which is absorbed, not only in its professional practice, but also in watching the machinery of legislation as it is at work from year to year. The immense increase in the volume of legislation during the last half century is one of the salient features of our time. Mr. Choate has given you some figures for this Country, but the phenomenon is not confined to this country. Various causes may be assigned for it. It may be due to the swift changes in economic and social conditions which have called forth new laws to deal with those facts. Pessimists may perhaps ascribed1 it to the spread of new evils or the increase of old evils which the State is always attempting by one expedi ent after another to repress. I suppose

this is what Tacitus meant when he wrote Corruptissima republica plurimae leges. Or the optimist may tell us that it is an evi dence of- that reforming zeal which is re solved to use the power of the State and the law for extirpating ancient faults and trying to make every one happier. Which of these or of other possible explanations is the true one, I will not stop to consider. But the fact that the output of legislation has of late been incomparably greater than in any previous age — greater not only absolutely, but in proportion to the popu lation of the civilized nations —- suggests a consideration of the forms and methods of law-making as a topic well suited to be dealt with by a great professional body such as I have the honor of addressing. Lawyers and judges have to know the law, to ex plain the law, and to apply the law. It is of the utmost consequence that their in fluence should be exerted to see that the law is well made. Here, in particular, this subject has an urgent claim upon your attention, for al though there is more legislation everywhere in Western Europe, still in no country is the output so large as in the United States, where, besides Congress, forty-six State legislatures are busily at work turning out laws on all imaginable subjects, with a faith in the power of law to bless man kind which few historians or philosophers, and few experienced lawyers, will be found to share. Nevertheless, let us always re member that such faith is a testimony to the hopefulness of your people, and no one can wish that any people shall ever be less hopeful. In modern free countries where laws are enacted by representative assemblies, where the economic and social questions to be dealt with are generally similar, and where