the State of Louisiana. Actions of libel are controlled Бу the law with respect to privi lege and by the law of costs. In the case of writings these have been found sufficient to protect the interests of the public and of in dividuals, and to prevent frivolous actions, and they would do the same with oral publi cations. THE opening article in the Yale Law Journal for January is one on "Voting Trusts and Holding Companies," by Edward Avery Harriman. His "fundamental premise is the generally accepted rule that the majority nf the stock of the corporation has the right to control its management absolutely, whether that majority of stock be owned by an individual, or by a combination of in dividuals, incorporated or unincorporated; such right of control being subject only to the limitation that it must not be used for purposes of fraud. This doctrine has been so often affirmed by the courts that it may be regarded as a fundamental principle of cor poration law. It is true that traces of a dif ferent doctrine are to be found, to wit, the doctrine that the majority stockholder is a trustee and that his dealings with the cor poration are to be treated as fiduciary trans actions; but this doctrine, however unim peachable from an ethical standpoint, seems to have been able to triumph finally only in Colorado." After considering some of the objections raised to voting trusts, Mr. Harri man says: It may be said that almost the entire diffi culty with reference to voting combinations springs from a single fact—the refusal to recognize that the voting power of stock is a valuable property right as well as the right to receive dividends. Every business man knows that tin: right of control has a moncx value distinct from the right to receive dividends: and recognizing that fact, con tracts are daily made with reference to the right of control. To say that that is not to be treated as property, valuable and trans ferable property, which is so clearly recog nized by all financiers as such, is to involve
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the law in constant confusion, and to impede the legitimate pursuit of happiness by the holders of corporate stock. The courts have apparently been misled to some extent by a supposed analogy between the duty of a citizen to the State in voting, and the duty of a stockholder to a corpora tion. There is no satisfactory middle ground between the doctrine that each stockholder is a trustee for the corporation, and the doc trine that the duty of the stockholder is sim ply a duty not to defraud the corporation by using his power of control to its injury. The former doctrine is generally repudiated on the score of convenience; but the alternative is not always so clearly recognized; and the result is confusion. PROBABLY the most succinct method (says Chief Justice Clark, of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, in The American LOK'W) in which to indicate not only the progress, but the almost complete revolution, which has taken place in the law is to compare the status of the law on a few well known subjects in England today with what it was TOO years ago in that country, for in our 45 States and our Territories we have in the main made similar changes, sometimes an ticipa: ing and sometimes following the legal reforms, as made from time to time in the -mother country. First as to the criminal law. In the year 1800 there were more than 200 crimes in England which were punishable with death, of which more than two-thirds had been made capital offences during the eigh teenth century. Nearly all felonies were capital. As a late English writer says, "If a man falsely pretended to be a Greenwich pensioner he was hanged. If he injured county bridge or cut down a young tree he was hanged. If he forged a bank note he was hanged. If he stole property valued at five shillings—if he stole anything above the value of one shilling from the person; if he stole anything at all, whatever its value, from a bleaching ground, he was hanged. If a convict returned prematurely from trans portation : or if a soldier or sailor wandered
