304
The Green Bag
dices of Statutes, a Table of Cases Cited, containing over fifteen hundred citations, the latest being in 213 United States Reports, almost five hundred pages of text and appendices, including forms for procedure before the Interstate Commerce Commission, and an adequate index. Without evident purpose the author has made the book a very clear statement of the underlying question of jurisdiction, with the result that the principles of a common law of commerce appear constantly as the bases of decisions, which, as the author explains, he has sum
marized as frequently as possible in the language of the Court. The book, in fact, seems to have been written around the important case of Texas 6’ Pacific Railway Co. v. Abilene Cotton Oil C0., 204 U. S. 426. perhaps the most enlightening pronounce ment as to the tendency of the "commission with power" to exclude all other means of regulating commerce. Mr. Watkins discloses a keen understand ing of the true inwardness of the subject of the relations between shippers and carriers of interstate freight and the methods which the law affords for their adjustment, and he has presented an analysis that is bound to commend itself to all who are called upon to know about interstate commerce.
COMPARATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL LAW Modern Constitutions: A Collection of the Funda mental Laws of Twent -two of the Most Im rtant Countries of the World’, with Historical an Bibli
o raphical Notes.
English texts of the important documents as they stood at the end of the year 1906 or in many cases later. For this purpose, re-translation was necemary in some cases, and each text was submitted to a competent person for careful revision before its accept ance. The result has therefore been that many of the texts have been approved by leading authorities of the countries concerned. This procedure seems to have resulted in a trustworthy compilation of texts, which possess the further merit of having been rendered as far as possible into the technirnl language of political science. The countries represented in the collection are the Argentine Nation, Australia, Austria, Hungary. Austria Hungary, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile,
Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Spain. Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. The footnote annotations do not form an important feature of the work, as they have
been mostly confined to information regard ing amendments and have been sparingly used. Next to the careful preparation of texts, what has received most attention has been the carefully chosen bibliographical notes prefixed to each constitution, and also the short historical introductions, for which the editor modestly refrains from claiming anything more than the merit of brevity. The two volumes are well manufactured, and will be a welcome addition to the general libraries of many lawyers.
By Walter Fairlei h Dodd.
niversity of Chicago Press, Chica . . 1, pp. xxiii, 351; v. 2, pp. xiv, 3l2+in ex 20. ($5.42 postpaid.)
THE University of Chicago has assisted the study of comparative constitu tional law by publishing this collection of written constitutions, edited by a leading scholar, which cannot fail to be valued by all who are interested in political science and public problems. The present under taking is a modest one, but it is to be hoped that it may prove to be preliminary to a more ambitious work not only presenting the constitutional law of all the important countries in a form conveniently accessible, but also rendering possible, by methods already known to comparative jurisprudence, a comparison of all the provisions relating to separate topics. Mr. Dodd has devoted the larger part of his editorial labor to obtaining correct
MACHEN'S CORPORATION TAX LAW A Treatise on the Federal Corporation Tax Law of 1909; together with appendices containing the Act of Congress and Treasury regulations, with annotations and explanations. and forms of returns. By Arthur W. Machen. _]r., of the Baltimore ber, author of "The Modern Law of Corporations." Pp. xxv, ISIH-appendices and index 125. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. (81.50 m.)
HIS convenient handbook of the federal corporation tax law was hastily yet skillfully prepared for publication at suffi ciently early a date to furnish assistance to corporations in making their returns under the statute. The author seems to have had two purposes in mind. The first and domi nant one was to describe and annotate the act thoroughly, presenting information with regard to the character of the tax, what companies are subject to it, how the taxable income is calculated, the way returns are to
