EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT POSSESSION (Theory of)
A DISCUSSION of refinements as to the theory of possession by Albert S. Thayer appears in the Har-card Law Review for January (Vol. xviii, p. 196). "To possess," says the author, "is to have absolute power of dealing with the thing oneself and absolute power of excluding the action of everybody else." This condition may be a consequence of physical strength or it may depend upon a deference to the will of the possessor imposed by habit, the mural sentiment, religion, or law. It is "a highly abstract idea never perfectly realized except in imagination." Attempts at definition he thinks necessarily futile, for the technical con ditions of legal possession are subject to no limit of variation. "Whether any manifesta tion of superior strength unaccompanied by submission, will nowadays give legal posses sion of another's land is extremely doubtful." "It is one thing to be beaten and another to give up, and whatever efféfct modern law may give to mere mastery, the ordinary condition of acquisition of legal possession of land against the will of owners is the exhibition, as a fact of the particular case, of dominion and sub mission, or adverse possession, a relation to be carefully distinguished from possession ex consensu and legal possession." "To infer correctly dominion and submis sion from a succession of more or less equivocal acts of user is no easy matter. And if we ac-cept the fact of dominion and submission so proved as a condition of legal possession, we are also obliged to consider what continuance of acts of user shall be deemed to show do minion and submission, and what continuance of dominion and submission shall be deemed to give legal possession, and we may say, I think, that there are no rules to help us to answer either of these questions." "The ordinary case, therefore, of a possessor •without title displays this de jacto basis, — possession ex conse-nsu as against the gener ality and a continuing dominion and submis sion with respect to adversaries." STOCK, TRANSFER OF (see Associations) SURETYSHIP (Comparative Jurisprudence)
HENRY A. DECOLYAR contributes to the Journal of the Society of Comparatiie Legisla
tion, (N. S. No. 13, p. 46), a consideration of the law of "Suretyship from the Standpoint of Comparative Jurisprudence," in which he discusses the variations and similarities in this department of law in different countries of modern times and suggests an outline upen which a codification satisfactory to all might. be attempted. TAXATION (Succession Taxes. Double Taxation) AN address by Judge Simeon E. Baldwin before the American Association for the Ad vancement of Science is printed in the Jan uary Yale Law Journal (Vol. xiv., p. 129). Under the title of "The Modern 'Droit d'Au baine'" he discusses a modern instance of double taxation arising from the collection of succession taxes upon property both by the state of the owner's domicile and by that of the situs of the property. In the former case the tax is on the prolongation by the will of the political sovereign of the former owner's interest in the property; in the latter it is on the privilege of taking the goods away under the title derived from the succession. This is not double taxation within the meaning of any constitutional prohibition, nor an in fringement of the privileges and immunities of citizens of other states. The author questions the wisdom of such a policy and indicates the methods already beingadopted to evade the succession taxes and. the impetus which will be given to them by a continuance of such injustice. The policy must also operate as a divisive force within the American union. Since he feels that art attempt to extend the control of the national government under the commerce clause would be inexpedient, he proposes as a remedy re ciprocal interstate agreements embodied in uniform legislation, for which many prece dents are cited. "The tendencies of the time make for such a movement. Individualism and State-isola tion are each giving way at every point of material contact to Collectivism. The timespirit and the world-politics of the twentieth century alike point to reciprocal governmental action on a great scale, for the prevention of international or inter-State complications and collisions, as the true basis of national pros perity."
