EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT ettes have not existed from time immemorial. But why attempt to put a judicial straightjacket upon business? Why is the merchant not allowed to use whatever kind of package convenience, economy, or even caprice sug gests? Why put the business of the country under the yoke of a petty abstraction? If a merchant chooses to a use little package, why deprive him of the right to make a sale which he would have had had it been a big package? Another t?st, however, is intimated. It is suggested that the use of some packages is bona fide, and that of others main fide. The size must be that of " packages in which bona fide transactions are carried on between the manufacturer and the wholesale dealer re siding in different states." This means, apparently, that if a man wants to enjoy the constitutional right of importing into a state and of selling therein an article of which it unconstitutionally prohibits the introduc tion and sale, and he adopts such packages as will make this right fruitful, he ipso facto forfeits that right. The court practically says to him, you have a right to import and sell in the original package. "Has not the time arrived to abandon the judge-made canon, that the immunity of an import from state control depends upon its remaining in the form in which it first ap peared within the state, and in the owner ship of the importer; or, retaining that, to concede the right of the importer to import for retail, and in packages designedly adapted, without breach, to purchase by consumers?" CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (Railroad Rates). Andrew Alexander Bruce contributes to the Central Law Journal (V. Ixii, p. 199) a thoughtful article on " Railroad Commis sions, State and Federal." His views of pending legislation are sum marized in the following paragraph: "From the considerations suggested it seems clear that all the national congress, and, under the majority of the local consti tutions, all a state legislature can do in the matter of creating and empowering a rail road commission, is to create a board which shall be investigatory, advisory, and admin istrative in its nature, or a subordinate rail road court which shall possess the functions of a court alone."
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In conclusion he says: "If railroad and other similar commis sions there must be, and there is a strong argument for them, is there anything to be gained in the long run by twisting the coni stitutions, state and national, beyond all recognition? Is it not time to realize that conditions have radically changed since the adoption of these instruments both in the states and in the nation; that the Constitu tion of the United States was adopted and ratified in an age when there were no rail roads, no great combinations of either capital or labor, and no foreign possessions; that in many of the states the constitutions of an agricultural era are being sought to be made over and construed to meet the needs of a manufacturing community? Is there not a demand for constitutional amendments rather than for constitutional misconstruc tions? Does not each new distortion, each new surrender of basic principle and of irre sistible logic, pave the way for still further surrender, make the law less and less certain, and encourage that class of lawyers, now only too common, whose main business seems to be to teach their clients how to violate the basic principles of society and human kinship and by the weapons of delay and obstruction to hinder if not prevent all progress and all reform?" CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (Railroad Rates). "Railway Rate Legislation," by Hon. J. B. Foraker, Speech in Senate of United States, Washington, D. C., 1906. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW (Railroad Rates). "A Practical Plan for Railroad Rate Regu lation," by Charles J. Traxler. An address delivered before the Commercial Club, Minne apolis, Minn., 1906. CONTRACTS. " Are Notes or Other Un executed Obligations given to a Railroad Company to Induce the Location of Stations at a given Point Void as against Public Policy?" by M. C. Garber, Central Law Jour nal (V. Ixii, p. 164). CONTRACTS (Sales). " Combinations of Contracts Relating to the Sales of Personal Property," by Edward S. Rappallo, Ameri can Lawyer (V. xiv, p. 52). CORPORATIONS (History, Theory). With the purpose of analyzing the essentials of the trust problem Robert L. Raymond con
