isting under some one government at one time. In other words, the vast amount of detail might well be supplemented with oc casional generalization. Yet this is a com paratively unimportant shortcoming in view of the merits already described. It remains to add that the author works out a theory to the effect that the Consti tution of the United States states the true principles, of administering dependencies in the clause giving power to Congress "to dispose of and make all needful regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States," further "that the people and lands of the American Union and the people and lands of its de pendencies constitute a Federal Empire, and that the people of the American Union, by their written Constitution, consented to by ail the people of the Empire, have divided the governmental power under an unwritten Constitution, so that the Union is the Im perial State as respects the dependencies, standing in a federal and contractual rela tion to them, and having neither uncondi tional nor unlimited power over .them, but only a power of disposition," and finally "that the habitual and daily administration of the dependencies of the American Union should be in the charge of the President, as sisted by expert investigators and advisers, and that the superintendence and final con trol of the administration should rest with the Congress, subject only to the final judg ment of the whole people of the American Union, expressed at the polls." There is a temptation to give an abstract of the history embodied in this interesting and valuable book; but probably enough has been said to direct to it the attention of the persons for whose reading it is peculiarly fittecl. The imperative professional duties of this College Commencement season have de manded so much time of the reviewers that reviews of many new and valuable law books, which have been received, are necessarily de ferred until our next issue.
CURRENT LEGAL ARTICLES.
ONE of the most important articles of the month is that of Professor A. V. Dicey, of Oxford, in the Harvard Law Review for June, on "The Combination Laws, as Illustrating the Relation between Law and Opinion in England during the Nineteenth Century." The changes in the combination law (says Professor Dicey) are then attempts to fix the limits of the right of association in regard to trade disputes, and may be brought under four heads, which are the Tory legislation of 1800; the Benthamite reform of 1824-25; the compromise of 1875, represented by the Con spiracy and Protection of Property Act, 1875; the judicial interpretation of that Act, 1890-1904. Each of these changes bears a different character; each accurately corres ponds with the opinion of the time when it took place. After discussing in considerable detail the Acts of 1800, 1824, 1825 and 1875, Professor Dicey writes as follows of the judicial inter pretation of the compromise of 1875, which act revolutionized the combination law: The legislation of 1875 left many questions open : What was the true position of a trade union? What were the principles on which to determine whether a combination of any kind was a conspiracy at common law? Could an individual who suffered damage through a trade combination recover damages in an action where under the Conspiracy and Pro tection of Property Act, 1875, the combina tion was not indictable as a conspiracy? These and other inquiries of the same sort were left to the decision of the courts. Trade unionists and many lawyers believed that they must all be answered in the way most favorable to the free action of the unions. Since 1885, however, cases requiring the interpretation of the compromise of 1875 have come frequently before the courts. The exact effect of the judgments delivered is in some degree a subject of dispute. The following principles, however, may (it is sub mitted) be deduced from decided cases. i. An act lawful in itself is not by the mere existence of a bad motive converted
