Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 24.pdf/109

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The Green Bag The niggardliness of Congress in providing for the needs of the federal courts is shown, with special reference to New York City and the poor court house facilities there. Fourteenth Amendment. "The Four teenth Amendment and the Negro Race Ques tion." By Charles Wallace Collins. 45 Ameri can Law Review 830 (Nov.-Dec.). "It may be said the Amendment is the negro's Magna Carta — it is to him a perpetual guar antee of protection from discrimination. We have seen, however, that the validity of this asser tion is reduced to an uncertain and undefined minimum by the facts." Fraudulent Conveyances. "Fraudulent Conveyance Law and Bankruptcy." By J. M. Mason. 17 Virginia Law Register 657 (Jan.). First instalment of a discussion of Moore v. Tearney, 62 W. Va. 72, 57 S. E. 263. General Jurisprudence. "The scope and Purpose of Sociological Jurisprudence, II." By Professor Roscoe Pound. 25 Harvard Law Re view 140 (Dec.). Reviewing the first paper of this series (23 Green Bag 425), which appeared in the June num ber of the Harvard Law Review, we said that the series promised to be noteworthy, because of its exposition of tendencies now visible in the scientific investigation of fundamental problems, and of the present status of legal science in its higher forms. The second paper, which deals with recent phases of juristic philosophy, chiefly in Germany but also in France, is notably instruc tive, and will be appreciated particularly for its observations with regard to Ihering, who stands for the Social Utilitarians, Stammler, the typi cal Neo- Kantian, and Kohler, leader of the NeoHegelians, who is "without question the first of living jurists." The treatment is distinguished by qualities of breadth and solidity rare in con temporary English and American writing in this field. i '. h ' ti "For sociological jurisprudence, the importance of Stammler's work is threefold: "(1) Like Ihering he gives us faith in the 'efficacy of effort' as Ward happily puts it, and furnishes a philosophical foundation for the con scious endeavor to promote social justice in which the sociologists rightly demand that the science of law as well as the science of legislation co-operate.

"(2) He puts a social philosophy of law in place of the individualist philosophy theretofore dominant and formulates a legal theory of social justice. "(3) He adds a theory of just decision of causes to the theory of making of just rules and thus raises the important problem of the applica tion of legal rules, of which there will be much to say in another connection. Suffice it to say here that this has become a burning question in recent juristic literature. . . . "Declaring that Stammler's Neo-Kantian philosophy of law is unhistorical, Kohler takes ,or his starting-point a dictum of Hegel that law

is a phenomenon of culture. But he does not use this proposition as something from which to bring forth an entire system by purely deductive processes. He seeks instead to proceed empiri cally upon the basis afforded by ethnology, com parative law, and comparative legal history. Savigny held that law was a product of the gen ius of a people and was no more a result of con scious human will than is language. Kohler, on the other hand, holds that it is a product of the culture of a people in the past and of the attempt to adjust it to the culture of the present. He does not exclude conscious effort to make this adjustment. On the contrary, he holds that the 'jural postulates' of the culture of a people for the time being are to be discovered and that law is to be brought into accord therewith. Yet he recognizes, as the legal historian must, the limitations upon the 'efficacy of effort' in that we have to shape the material that has come down to us so that it meet the requirements of present culture, 'so that it further culture and does not check and repress it.' Moreover, this adjustment has to be made with respect to a constantly progressing culture. Hence law can not stand still. . . . "Thus Kohler's doctrine calls for an under standing of the social history of a people and of its relation to law, whereas in the past we have looked to political history and the relation there of to legal systems. Moreover, he conceives that legal history affords generalizations which are fundamental for the philosophy of law." Government. "The Parliament Act and the British Constitution." By Edward Jenks. 12 Columbia Law Review 32 (Jan.). "The change will certainly not destroy the House of Lords as a legislative body. In the event (improbable, it is to be hoped) of the continuing a steady opposition to Liberal pro posals, it will speedily be found, that a power to delay for two years the passing of a first-class measure is far from trivial." See Constitutionality of Statutes, Judicial Recall. Insurance. "Insurance of Property Sub ject to a Life Interest." By Robert F. Irving. 23 Juridical Review 221 (Oct.). Treated from the point of view of English law. International Arbitration. "Legal Limita tion of Arbitral Tribunals." By Alpheus Henry Snow. 60 Univ. of Pa. Law Review 153 (Dec.). This interesting and suggestive article contains the suggestion that the Umted States take the lead in offering to submit all controversies to arbitration, "on the understanding that the arbi trators were to regard themselves as legally limited by the principle of umversal law that no person is to be deprived of his liberty or prop erty by any political society or government with out due process of law, and, subject to this law, by all the customary organic and regulative law of the society of nations, as the same is now for mulated under the name of 'international law* and as it may be formulated by the authentica-