Cases on the Conflict of Laws. BY ERNEST G. LORENZEN. St. Paul, West Publishing Company, 1909.-xxi, 784 pp.

Although claiming to be no more than a case book, it is apparent even to the casual reader that the present work is the result of more labor than the mere compilation and arrangement of leading cases upon the conflict of laws. In addition to the selection of common-law material, the editor has supplemented each topic with a succinct statement, citing authorities, of the norms recognized in France, Germany and Italy, for solving conflicts of law. This comparative material is interesting in itself. In its present environment, however, we judge that it is intended to bear directly upon the particular English or American doctrines illustrated in the body of the work, because it enables the teacher to give emphasis by contrast. It is a background of Continental jurisprudence by which the Anglo-American rule is often brought into higher light.

The plan is useful in this branch of law at least, as the problems with which it deals are often international in character. The viewpoint adopted in a federated state is too often inclined to be merely inter-jurisdictional. It is for this reason that our courts are sometimes inconsiderate of the demands of international commerce and intercourse. Thus in a recent case in the New York Court of Appeals, (Amsinck v. Rogers) reprinted in the present collection (page 427) the argument that the decision would "impose much trouble and responsibility upon those who are held for the proper demand and protest of paper in foreign countries where commercial laws and usages differ from our own was not regarded as contributing to the "balance of weight," "even if it is to be considered" (page 432). Aside from the correctness of the decision, which has been much criticized, we do not think the attitude of the court as expressed in its dicta is commendable in the highest tribunal of a cosmopolitan state. We are informed that the decision did in fact cause a serious uneasiness at the time among foreign bankers with American connections.

In this branch of the law, perhaps more than in any other of a private law character, it is desirable that the results should not merely be a stereotype of former decisions capable of the same classification, but that while adhering to the established general principles, there should be a conscious development along lines which will harmonize with commercial needs and international intercourse. English writers, such as Westlake and Foote, have consistently followed this course, but in the United States there has been little or no deviation from a production of treatises that are mainly encyclopædic.

The classification adopted in the present book follows that of the Continental treatises. The first part deals with general topics, such as the nature of the subject, the extra-territorial effect of penal laws, conflicts in procedure, execution of foreign judgments, domicile, capacity and form. The second part follows the five-fold classification of the Roman systems and treats of particular conflicts in respect of property, obligations, family relations and inheritance. The law of persons finds

its place in the first part of the book and is supplanted in the second part by a chapter dealing with foreign administrations. We think that this is at the cost of symmetry, as the former topic is out of place and the latter could very well have been included under procedure.

Many of the cases are necessarily the same as those to be found in earlier collections. The editor has done well in omitting many that have been overruled, and others that are obsolete. The number of important cases contained in the collection decided within the past decade and therefore not to be found in the earlier collections is surprisingly large, a fact in itself indicating the increasing importance of this branch of jurisprudence. Cases such as Haddock v. Haddock (Supreme Court, 1905) in this country and Ogden v. Ogden (Court of Appeal, 1907) in England are, and unless statutory changes are made doubtless ever will be, regarded as leading authorities upon conflicts in respect of the law of marriage and divorce. The former involved the validity of a divorce decree granted in the state of domicil of one of the parties, and the latter the validity of a marriage where one of the parties was incapable of contracting according to his personal law. Each therefore involved the question of the proper control of the marriage relation to be exercised by the jurisdiction of only one of the parties. It is curious that the English court recognized the validity of a marriage celebrated in the local state, though only one of the parties had capacity according to that law, whereas in the United States, notwithstanding the constitutional "full faith and credit" provision, the state wherein one of the parties was domiciled was denied jurisdiction to dissolve the marriage. Though a surprise to the bar generally, and decided by a bare majority of the court, it is the supreme law of the land. The editor should not, we think, have omitted to give at least the very able dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Holmes, in a compilation intended to develop the principles as well as the settled law of the topic. Mr. Justice Brown, who also wrote in that cause, characterized the majority decision as "a step backward in American jurisprudence."

The editor had well in mind the scientific purpose when he appended translations of the conventions and drafts adopted at The Hague in the

official conferences upon private international law (1893, 1894, 1900 and 1904) participated in by nearly all the European countries and by Japan. It is doubtful whether any of these will be clear to the average student without supplementary instruction by a specialist familiar with Continental practice. Buzzati has treated them exhaustively in his recent work (reviewed in POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY for December, 1908). In their present connection they serve to show the results attained by the expert delegates of governments seeking to accomplish a logical as well as a workable system for the solution of international conflicts of law.

NEW YORK.

ARTHUR K. KUHN.

Die Lehre vom Pouvoir Constituant: ein Beitrag zum Staatsrecht der französischen Revolution. BY EGON ZWEIG. Tübingen, J. C. B. Mohr, 1909.-xv, 482 pp.

Dr. Zweig's monograph is an important study in the development of the doctrine of popular sovereignty and at the same time a serious contribution to the constitutional history of the French Revolution down to the Eighteenth Brumaire, where in his opinion, the Dogmengeschichte of the constituent power finds its "natural close." It is the author's purpose, we are told in the preface, to show how a political doctrine was taken from its position in philosophical literature, where it had long been in process of formulation, and was forged anew in the storm and stress of real interests and needs, to which it corresponded in the scheme of historical dispensation. This plan, accordingly, calls for a chapter on origins which carries us back along the familiar road past Locke, Bodin, Thomas Aquinas, Marsilius and John of Salisbury to Greece and Rome. Aristotle it was who distinguished between fundamental and ordinary laws by setting over against Lycurgus, the founder of a political system, Draco who merely laid down rules within the existing order. After this chapter on political philosophy comes a consideration of the historical processes in which the theory of a constituent power finds a more or less definite expression: the two English Revolutions and the early constitutional developments in America from which the French philosophes learned many practical lessons and derived more precise political notions. The ten chapters dealing directly with the theme of the volume are excellently planned. One, of course, surveys the writings of Rousseau from the author's point of view, and results in the conclusion that Jean Jacques was nearer reality, as re

gards the question of constituent power, in his considerations on the Polish constitution than in his more abstract disquisitions. Another chapter is devoted to the two men who did most to transform the dogma of the constituent power into an effective instrument of political warfare: Condorcet, who saw clearly, and formulated precisely the leading political ideas of his time (page 115), and Siéyès, who tempered Rousseau's popular sovereignty with the check and balance scheme inherent in Montesquieu's separation of powers (pages 116-17). A third chapter traces the constitutional evolution of the old régime down to the calling of the Estates General, in order to show the constitutional ideas and instruments with which the philosophers had to deal. With this introductory equipment, Dr. Zweig attacks the confused and interminable debates and discussions that accompanied the work of the National Assembly and the Convention, in order to discover, by a critical examination of the public documents and the views of the leading participants in the Revolution, the place and form of the doctrine of the constituent power in the swift constitutional development of the ten years from 1789 to 1799. The chief sources for our author's purpose are naturally found in the discussions in the National Assembly and the Convention over their respective powers, over the Declaration of the Rights of Man, over the veto and over the amendatory process. By force of circumstances, the main portion of the volume is occupied with detail-reflecting the views of this or that publicist and discovering what degree of consistency can be found in the rapidly changing forces of those momentous ten years. These details have been sought and sifted with a painstaking and discriminating thoroughness, amply evidenced in the formidable array of foot-notes and citations; and surely all that anyone could wish to know about the theory and practice of the constituent power during the French Revolution is contained in this monument of research. The text adheres pretty generally to tangible fact, but occasionally there is a bit of attenuated speculation that will annoy the "hard-minded" student of politics who cares not a whit about the Ding an sich in der politischen Erscheinungswelt (page 3). Furthermore, Dr. Zweig, while incidentally admitting that no constitutional schemes can long hinder the sway of real forces in public life (page 324) certainly ascribes too much importance to "ideas" as effective forces making for readjustments in the domain of law enactment and law enforcement.

C. A. B.

Modern Constitutions. BY WALTER F. DODD. The University of Chicago Press, 1909.-Two volumes; xxiii, 351; xiv, 334 pp.

It is highly questionable whether any person not sufficiently familiar with the language of a country to read the constitution in the original tongue can know enough about the actual conditions under which its government is carried on to study its public law with any degree of profit; without some very real understanding of the history and the economic forces of a nation, an examination of the bare text of the constitution is more likely to be misleading than illuminating. stitutional provisions are so largely matters of local circumstance— consider, for example, the suffrage in Prussia, the Austrian Empire, England and Virginia-that a mere comparison of them on paper can scarcely be said to contribute anything to the advancement of political science. Nevertheless, comparative constitutional law undoubtedly has its utility, especially in bringing out the the leading elements of our own system, and it gratifies such a legitimate interest that it has secured a permanent place in our curriculum of politics. Through the labors of Dr. Dodd the student and teacher of public law may now readily supplement the well-known manuals and treatises by texts (all in English) of the fundamental laws of twenty-two of the most import ant nations: Argentina, Australia, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States; in short Dr. Dodd has done for English-speaking students what Dareste, in his Constitutions modernes, did for his fellow-countrymen some years ago. Each document is prefaced by a short historical introduction which, as the editor suggests, "may serve to refresh the memory of those who have already had adequate historical training," and is brought up to date by brief annotations on the amendments. Further help is given to the student by the discriminating bibliographies accompanying each document. The success with which this large undertaking has been carried out in detail could be determined, of course, only by a reviewer with an extraordinary linguistic and legal equipment, but we are informed that each text has been submitted for revision to a competent person, while care has been taken in every case to obtain accuracy and clearness. An examination of a few of the documents in connection with originals bears out the contention of the translator, although it must be admitted that faithfulness to the letter of the law has sometimes produced an unnecessary awkwardness and an occasional obscurity. Unfortunately the editor