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THE GREEN BAG
broader aspects of the enactment the author says, "the codes of Justinian and Napoleon which have exerted such tremendous influence on the world were produced under the direc tion and at the commands of despotic rulers. The German Code, however, is the result of a great national desire for unity which was an outcome of the Napoleonic wars." "The German code is, in fact, a striking illustration of the effect of idealism in politics. It was rendered possible only by the passionate devotion to a great ideal which permeated all the masses of the Empire, who had passed a code long before the code received the official sanction of the Imperial Legislature. The making of the code is a standing object-lesson to all States that are looking forward in the future to a scheme of codification, and the Germans may well be proud of the labors which for twenty-two years were devoted to its consideration. Finis opus coronal, and the end was the production of ' the most carefully considered statement of a nation's laws that the world has ever seen.'" CODIFICATION (Porto Rican Code)
THE study of the Porto Rican Code by Joseph H. Drake, entitled "The Old Roman Law and. a Modern American Code," is con tinued in the Michigan Law Review of Janu ary (Vol. iii, p. 185). In conclusion he says: "From the comparison, on the one hand, of the old Roman law with its modern descend ant, and, on the other, of the modern RomanSpanish Code with the Anglo-Saxon system, we may note that the tendency in the late con tinental Roman Code seems to be in the direc tion of a return to the classic model. The most important differences between the Span ish Civil Code and the Code Napole'on, in mat ters of classification, at least, are shown in the greater likeness of the Spanish Code to the in stitutional treatises of Gaius and Justinian." "The comparison of the Spanish Code with the Porto Rican shows in the first place a consid erable diminution in bulk." "The subtrac tions are, in the main, from the provisions in regard to marriage, legitimacy of children, and the law of guardian and ward; together with the omission of all distinctions between Span iards and non-Spaniards. The main additions are in the long corporation act, taken from
State laws on the subject, and in the more elaborate provisions as to the effect of ab sence, taken from the Louisiana Code. We find the variations between the Spanish and the American Codes in those branches of law most affected by the play of emotion; namely, in the law of husband and wife, and parent and child." "The main addition to the Porto Rican Code, on the juristic person, reflects faithfully the spirit of the present day which is giving to the corporate personality perhaps more attention than to any other legal insti tution. "One of the practical suggestions of the study of this codification to a student and teacher of law, is the possibility that some modern Blackstone, as gifted as his great pre decessor, may some day give us a new institu tional treatise on law. The question of codi fication or no codification has resolved itself of late years — after our not too flattering practical successes with codes — into a peda gogical question rather than one of practical application of law in the courts. Such a treatise must present in succinct form the essential principles of modern law, and it would seem that no more efficient working model for such a book on the institutes of law can be found than one of our modern Ameri can codes based on the old Roman law. The improvements on the Code Napol6on made by the Spanish legalists, in El Cpdigo Civil Espanol, are mainly in the line of a return to Gaius, and the successful adaption of this code to a modern American territory shows that the fundamental principles of world law may now be stated lucidly and in moderate com pass." CODIFICATION (See Suretyship and Conflict of Laws) CONFLICT OF LAWS (Foreign Judgments)
THE address of Mr. Justice Kennedy of the English High Court before the St. Louis Con gress, on the "Recognition of Foreign Judg ments," is printed in the Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation (N. S. No. 13. p. 106). It is an interesting statement of the importance of international uniformity in this department of law, and contains valuable sug gestions as to how it might be attained.
