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 The Legal World omitted and the practice thus regulated being simplified as hereinafter suggested. "There should be made such changes in the practice, regulated by the prac tice act and rules of court, as will sim plify and modernize the practice so as to secure a prompt and final deter mination of legal controversies accord ing to the substantive rights of the parties, and to that end the following suggested changes in the practice are recommended . ' ' Dean Frank Irvine of the Cornell University Law School, who for several years has been a member of the special committee of the American Bar Asso ciation on Remedies for Delay and Unnecessary Cost of Litigation, is quoted as saying: — "If the Field Code of 1848 had been received in the proper spirit when it was first adopted there would be little ground for the present demand for a simpler and more expeditious practice. Unfortunately, it received in many par ticulars a construction by the courts tending to check its successful operation. The Legislature proceeded by frequent annual additions and amendments to destroy its simplicity. In 1876 a re vised code was enacted, which now con tains something more than 3,400 sec tions. This has had the effect of mak ing law practice in New York more tech nical and more complicated than in any other English-speaking country. It is probable that a greater proportion of cases are decided in New York on ques tions of procedure without reaching the merits of the controversy than in any any other state in the Union — cer tainly a greater proportion than in England or in her dependents." The Federal Income Tax Amendment In view of the action of Wyoming, the approval of three-fourths of the states,

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necessary to the adoption of the six teenth amendment, has been secured, and an amendment authorizing the in come tax will become a part of the federal Constitution, reading as follows: — "Article XVI. — The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the states, and without regard to any census of enumeration." Congress will enact a law to levy the tax, probably during the extraordinary session to be called by President Wil son in April. Professor Bruce Wyman of Harvard Law School in a recent newspaper article said : — "It is rather untimely to have a fed eral income tax coming upon us just as we were beginning to work out a general system of income taxation in the sepa rate states. By this process the states were finding out that they could really collect a general tax upon all property tangible and intangible. The subjection of all property in the state to the burdens of the state was in sight by this hopeful programme. An income tax is a proper complement to a property tax. If direct taxation is left to the states, as I be lieve it should be, the states would have kept on in this course of taxing all prop erty effectively. I suppose it is useless to hope that the federal Government in its present hands will keep the income tax now authorized for great emergencies. And if we get a federal income tax this year, as we probably will, I very much fear that the state legislatures generally will not impose a state in come tax in addition. No man wants to pay two income taxes, especially as practically nobody is even paying one at present. A state would fear driving away people by making two income taxes grow where there was one before.