Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 23.pdf/64

 44

The Green Bag

Law-Abiding?" By Alfred P. Thom. 44 American Law Review 801 (Nov-Dec). "It cannot be denied that the attitude of the states. in disobeying and disregarding the supreme law in matters relating to the security of property, furnishes a thoughtful student of our institutions a serious cause for appre hension. Stripped of all disguise, it means that in many of our states the will of the ople, their momentary ca rice, will not rook the restraint of law. t is necessary to admit that such action of the states correctly reﬂects the temper at the time of their people and is supported by the popular approval for the time being within the states.’ _Bai1way Bates. “Railway Rate Theories of the Interstate Commerce Commission." By M. B. Hammond. Quarterly journal of Economics, v. 25, p. 1 (Nov.). From a study of the abstracts of the Commission's decisions given in the annual

diﬁ‘erenoes in rates shows that the Con missioners, as well as the traf'ﬁc officials ot the various railroads, have made much greater use of the cost of service principle than their preliminary utterances would lead us to expect." "The Unit of Offense in Federal Statutes." By F. Granville Munson. 20 Yale Law jour nal 28 (Nov.). "If the law should disregard the'state of mind, there would be no question but that every act was a se rate oﬁense—thus, if I drive my automobile at an illegal rate of speed on thirty consecutive days, I certainly would commit at least thirty distinct oﬁenses. But this would be a case of that class where the law regards presence or absence of intent as immaterial—oﬂenses which an eminent teacher is accustomed to term to his classes ‘public torts,‘ i.c., acts where the gist of the liability is the dama e done to the public (and not the wrongfu state of mind of the oer.”

reports, Mr. Hammond selected those cases

which seemed most likely to offer a discussion of the princi les involved in rate making. One hundre and thirty-ﬁve cases were selected and the full reports of these cases studied in detail. The cases were then classi ﬁed according to leading rinciples. At the outset, in their rst annual report, the Commissioners declared value of service the fundamental factor in the determination of rates. But “no single rinci le has been used by the Commission or so ving all the problems of rate making; or,_at any rate, if the ommissioners insist on their statement that value of service is the underlying principle in all cases, this expression is used in such a broad sense that it is made to include a variety of considerations, any one of which may at times be made the leading factor in the Commission's decisions. Opinions ma differ somewhat as to the best way of stating the factors involved. By the present writer they have been classiﬁed as follows: (1) the relative values of the commodities trans ported; (2) the relative costs of transporting

ocialism. "The Economics of Henry George’s'd‘Progress and Poverty.’ " By Edgar H. Johnson. journal of Political Economy, v. 18, p. 714 (Nov.). A lucid criticism of the fallacies of Henry

George Stare Deciaia. "The English Common Law in the United States." By Herbert Pope. 24 Harvard Law Review 6 (Nov.). An acute analysis which shows the extent to which American courts have been misled ogycourts are not the law, but that only decisions evidence b the Blackstonian theory

interests of a given section or of a given class

of it. But the adoption of the common law rule of the authority of precedent, one can see from this discussion, has tended to nullify Blackstone's theory and to bring order out of chaos, though the confusion would have been less had our courts unifonnly felt them selves bound by the English decisions making up the mass of the common law adopted in this country. Status. “The Abolition of Slavery in the Chinese Empire." By E. T. Williams. 4 American journal of International Law 794

of producers;

(Oct.).

the commodities;

(3) the relative distances

the articles are carried; (4) the relative natural advantages of location possessed by various places; (5) the special and peculiar (6) the im

rtance of main

taining competition; (7) t e extent to which a given rate tends to yield a fair return on the actual capital investment." The application by the Commission of these several tests, whether singly or in combina tion, is then studied. Its mode of dealing with the value of commodities as a rate basis is shown, whether the commodities be competitive or non-competitive, and the test of cost of service is also discussed at length. The analysis is split up into an examination of various important sub-topics. “Our review of the cases in which differences in the costs of service have been cited by members of the Commission as reasons for

An account of social conditions in the Chinese Empire, which promise much in the way of consummation of this reform. The Imperial Rescript is printed in full in the Supplement to this issue. Survival of Actions. "Actions against Executors." By T. F. Martin. 36 Law illagazine and Review 23 (Nov.).

Discussing the

basis of the distinction

between claims that do and those that do not

survive against legal personal representatives of deceased persons. Tariﬂ.

“The Tariﬁ and the Tariﬁ Com