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The Green Bag

For these reasons we would like to see the Conference shrink from no under taking, however formidable, 'which is closely allied to the movement for uni

formity of legislation, and there is really no reason why it should not distribute

its labors over a broader ﬁeld, and exer cise a greater inﬂuence in shaping state legislation, than it has thus far. A history of the useful work of the Conference is given in Col. MacChes ney's interesting paper, the material of which we will endeavor to condense for our readers. The methods of the Con ference have rendered it, as he says, an

ideal legislative body: — "The Annual Conference of Commis sioners has from almost the beginning pursued a uniform plan of work. A resolution has been introduced in the conference providing for the appoint

unanimous vote of all the states repre sented. This requires painstaking work of the most exhaustive kind, and it has

never been my pleasure to be associated with a body of men who have given such careful and conscientious attention to the subjects before them as the Annual

Conference of Commissioners on Uni form State Laws. .It is an ideal legis lative body, the equal of which it would be hard to ﬁnd in this country, and its

work more nearly approaches the work of the Public Commissions abroad than anything that we have so far developed in this country." The Negotiable Instruments Act, drafted by John J. Crawford, Esq., of the New York bar in 1895, is now the law in thirty-eight states.

The Warehouse Receipts Act, drafted by Professor Samuel Williston and Barry

ment of a committee to report upon the

Mohum,

advisability of taking up some speciﬁc

eighteen states.

topic. Such committee has then made a report to the conference, sometimes with a preliminary draft of a bill at

act in the various states is already bring ing about such a condition that the warehouse receipts are received prac

tached. An expert draughtsman is then

tically as negotiable paper with very

usually retained, one who has a wide

beneﬁcial results, enabling the manu

knowledge of the existing law on the

knowledge of the history of the prin

facturers and producers in slack times to continue to operate their plants, thus maintaining at the proper degree of effi ciency machinery and equipment which

ciples and doctrines involved.

otherwise would have to stand idle, with

subject, and the decisions thereon in this country and abroad, together with a After a

draft has been prepared by someone so equipped, in conjunction with a com mittee, it is usually sent out to the com missioners as the ﬁrst tentative draft, and discussed at the next annual meet ing, section by section. It has then been universally re-committed, and there have usually been three or four tentative drafts before ﬁnal adoption. The ﬁnal vote on an act is always taken by states,

and though the meeting at Chattanooga in August was the twentieth Annual Conference, no act has been ﬁnally approved which has not received the

Esq.,

has been

enacted

in

“The passage of this

great resultant beneﬁt to the commun ity in which the factories are located and

to the labor which is employ

."

The Uniform Sales Act, drafted by Professor Williston, has been passed in

eight states. The Uniform Partnership Act, drafted by the late James Barr Ames, was re committed in 1909, at his request, for further consideration. Since his death

Dean William Draper Lewis and James B. Lichtenberger have been at work on the draft. They "have now proposed two tentative drafts, one based on the