Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 21.pdf/252

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Review of Periodicals responsibility might also be cast upon the Court on a motion to strike allegations from the complaint. "The second course therefore seems to be the better one: that is, to make the question of negligence always a question of law. "Let the pleader in all cases be required to set out the facts relied on as constituting negli gence, and require the Court to say, as a matter of law, whether those facts make a case of negligence. "Likewise, require the Court on the trial to specifically instruct as to what facts within the issues and evidence will authorize an infer ence of negligence as an ultimate fact, if the jury should find those facts established by the evidence." . . . See also Legal Interpretation, Procedure. Foreign Relations (Cuba). "The Policy of the United States Toward Cuba." By Prof. Edwin Maxey. 43 American Law Review 266. (Mar.-Apr.). The writer devotes many pages to a his torical outline of our relations with Cuba. He concludes:— "The future policy of the United States is clear. It is an inheritance of the past. We will defend the island against aggressions of foreign powers and maintain in so far as pos sible most friendly relations with the govern ment at Havana. The importance of the island and hence of friendly relations with it will increase with the completion of the Panama canal." Government. "The Extent of the TreatyMaking Power of the President and Senate of the United States." By William E. Mikell. 57 Univ. of Pa. Law Review 435 (Apr.). "A strict construction of the power of the President and Senate is a broad construction of the power of Congress and vice versa. . . . "How, then, are these seemingly conflicting powers to be reconciled? The writer ventures to suggest that our history has answered them correctly, and that that answer is this: That so far as the domestic or intraterritorial effect of the exercise of any of the powers committed by the Constitution to Congress is concerned, Congress alone has any power in the premises. But Congress has no power to treat with foreign nations, hence when any of these powers vested in Congress are to be exercised in agreement with a foreign power, the agreement with such foreign nation must first be completed hy the treaty-making power, but this agreement, though it is a treaty in the meaning of that word as used in international law, is not a treaty in the sense intended by the Constitution when it says a treaty is the supreme law of the land. To be that it must be sanctioned by an act of Congress. This view, it is submitted, not only does no vio lence to the Constitution, but on the contrary gives effect to the seemingly conflicting powers of the two departments without making one supreme over the other." Scop* of National Powers. "The American

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Hague Tribunal." By Andrew A. Bruce. 18 Yale Law Journal 377 (Apr.). The problems of the^law of the United States are becoming interstate, writes Dean Bruce, and almost international in every aspect and in every scope. The Supreme Court is getting to be a sort of Hague Tribunal, with the added power of enforcing its decrees. As such, it is developing an interstate, inter national law of its own, whose foundation principle is equality of rights and whose procedure is divorced from the technicalities of the past and allows the fullest latitude of investigation. Kansas v. Colorado, 22 Sup. Ct. Rep. 522, 27 Sup. Ct. Rep. 655. This jurisdiction has mainly been in vogue in cases where the citizens of one state have polluted or diverted streams to the detriment of the citizens of other states, or have so con ducted manufacturing operations as to befoul the air and injure the natural resources and vegetation of other states. A broad ground work on which to build an extended jurisdiction has been laid. The interstate jurisdiction has been exer cised in cases "where Congress perhaps could not have legislated at all, that is to say in cases in which no power of legislation has either directly or inferentially been delegated to that body. It arises out of the inherent necessity of the case and the otherwise inade2uacy of the national system of jurispruence." There can be little doubt "that the clashing interests of the sections will in the future call more and more for settlement and adjust ment, and that the interstate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court will not only be constantly invoked, but will, as time goes on, become more and more necessary." A somewhat similar view of the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court under the inter state commerce clause is taken by the author of the annual address delivered before the Kansas Bar Association in January :— "National Sovereignty." By S. S. Gregory. Michigan 7 Law Review 381 (Mar.). This writer contends that "the Constitu tion must be construed in the illuminating light of present conditions; thus its framers intended." Expressions of John Marshall are quoted. "Without stopping to refer to subsequent discussions it should be noted that in the recent litigation as to the validity of the Employers' Liability Act, passed by Congress and adproved June 11, 1906, the Supreme Court, against most able and exhaustive arguments to the contrary, held that Congress might prescribe, as between an interstate carrier and such of its employees as are engaged in interstate commerce, the rule of liability of such company for the death or injury of any employee, while so engaged. "The question how far this grant of power to Congress, particularly in respect of regu lation of railway rates, impairs or modifies the authority of the states as to prescribing