EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT these may be mentioned the liability of the state to make good injuries received by ves sels, owing to neglect of harbor authorities to mark properly the dangers to navigation, and the liability to indemnify the owners of vessels injured by collision with the govern ment vessels through the negligence of the officers of the latter." Although Mr. Dicey in the note to his sec ond edition has virtually retracted most of the statements above criticized he is urged to correct the erroneous impressions that . might be received from the text in future editions. ADMIRALTY. " Constitutionality of State Statutes Conferring Liens of Shipping" is discussed by William B. Gillmore, in the February New Jersey Law Journal (V. xxix. P- 37)" Perhaps it is not too much to say that no single point has caused more litigation in the admiralty courts than the question whether, under certain circumstances, a maritime lien exists as distinguished from a mere right of action in pcrsoiiam. Liens have, from the beginning, been recognized for the wages of seamen of all kinds, with the exception of the master of a vessel; in favor of materialmen who have furnished repairs or supplies on the credit of the vessel for •which they were furnished; in favor of the owner whose ves sel had been injured in collision with another through the negligence of the latter; in favor of the seamen through whose meritorious services property has been saved rom loss or destruction on the seas, and in favor of per sons of a number of other classes which need not be specified for the purpose of this article." "The statutes creating liens of a maritime nature which the states have from time to time undertaken to enact, may be divided into the following classes: (i) Those pro viding for liens in favor of persons furnishing supplies, material, or repairs, for shipping or furnishing materials and labor for building vessels. (2) Those creating liens for wages due to persons employed on shipping. (3) Those conferring liens in favor of persons in jured, or in favor of the estates of persons killed through negligence of the owners of vessels, or persons in charge of them. (4) Those giving liens for damages to property injured by collision, as the Iowa statute. (5)
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Those providing for attachments of the vessel against which a claim is asserted, the attach ment not being technically a process in remf but a remedy subsidiary to the action in which is it used." An admiralty suit in rent is always based on a maritime lien or on a right of possession of a whole or a part of the res. No implied lien exists for materials or repairs furnished to a vessel in her home port, since they are presumed to be made on the personal liability of the owner. State statutes, however, have conferred such liens. The author summarizes his views regarding these as follows: "To conclude, we may deduce the follow ing propositions of law from the decisions of the federal courts, and of the few state courts which have considered the subject which is the topic of this article. "(a) The courts of the states have no juris diction over matters of ' admiralty jurisdict on,' cognizance of such causes being given by the United States Constitution to the federal courts exclusively, the word ' admi ralty ' being used herein in the technical sense as fixed by legal writers and maritime courts. "(b) The exclusive jurisdiction of admiralty causes given to the Federal judiciary does not exclude state courts from exercising a con current common law remedy; and in this proposition the word ' admiralty ' is also used in the technical sense. "(c) If the common law gives a concurrent remedy in a maritime matter the State courts may exercise it, even if a State statute au thorizes an attachment of the defendant's property, provided such attachment is a sub sidiary remedy to a common lawsuit and does not take the form of an admiralty pro ceeding in rent. "(d) State statutes, although unconstitu tional in giving a proceeding in rent to enforce a statutory lien on shipping, will be enforced in the federal courts if their subject matter is a maritime contract; aliter, if the subject is not maritime, as, for instance, a contract for building a ship. "(e) The New Jersey statute, as its proce dure is indistinguishable from an admiralty proceeding in rent, is unconstitutional, except in so far as it gives a lien for labor and materials used in building a ship, and pro vides a method of enforcing that lien.
