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 The Outlook for Uniformity of Legislation BY WALTER GEoRoE SMITH PRESIDENT or THE CONFERENCE or COMMISSIONERS 0N UNIFORM STATE LAWS

HE

Commissioners

on

Uniform

State Laws met in Boston during the ﬁve days of August last, preceding the meeting of the American Bar Asso

ciation. There were present representa tives from thirty-three states, sixty ﬁve commissioners in all. This was the twenty-ﬁrst annual conference and in point of number in attendance the larg

brief outline of the history of the Con ference. One of the purposes enumerated in the constitution of the American Bar Association as an object for which it was formed is "to promote uniformity of legislation throughout the Union." In 1889 a special committee on the subject was appointed and it recommended

est, while the reports of committees and

that a Committee of the Association,

the debates upon them were not in

consisting of one from each state, should meet in convention from time to time and compare and consider the laws of the different states, especially those relating to marriage and divorce,

ferior to any that have preceded. The subjects under discussion covered the Law of Partnership in connection with the tentative draft of a Uniform Act reported by the Committee on Com mercial Law from the hands of Dean William Draper Lewis and James B. Lizhtenberger, Esq., of the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania, a Uniform Marriage Act, a Child Labor Act, an Act relative to the Probate of

Foreign Wills, a Workmen's Compensa tion Act, an Incorporation Act and the Torrens System of Title Registration. Of these acts but two were ﬁnally approved, namely, the Marriage Act

descent and distribution

of

property,

acknowledgment of deeds and execu tion and probate of wills. The following year an act of the Legis lature of New York, authorizing the appointment by the Governor of three commissioners by the name and style of “Commissioners for the Promotion

of Uniformity of Legislation in the United States," and making it their

duty to examine the subjects of mar riage and divorce, insolvency, the form

and the Child Labor Act, the others

of notarial certiﬁcates and other sub

being advanced to different stages of

jects, and to ascertain the best means to effect an assimilation and uniformity

completion.

No doubt the readers of this magazine have some knowledge of the history and purposes of the Conference of Commis sioners on Uniform State Laws, but in order to refresh their knowledge and because there seems to be an unusual interest in the subject of uniformity, brought about largely by existing indus trial conditions, it may be well to give a

in the laws of the states and to consider whether it would be wise and practicable to invite the other states of the Union to send representatives to a convention

to draft uniform laws to be submitted for approval and adoption by the sev eral

states,

marked

the

formal be

ginning of the Conference. When this action was brought to the