EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT In " The International Conference at Rio," in the American Law Review's NovemberDecember number (V. xl, p. 896), Hannis Taylor says: "The gravest and most practical question which the next Hague Conference will have before it is that involved in the making of such an agreement between all civilized States as will compel the submission to compulsory arbitration of all such conflicts as have an exclusively pecuniary origin, not involving either the independence or honor of a State, such as would be the subject of an ordinary law suit between individuals. After the first conference had completed its labors there was great rejoicing throughout the world over the fact that an arbitral tribunal had been estab lished, even if its creators had refused to clothe it with compulsory jurisdiction. Comfort was drawn from the fact that a beginning had been made, and the hope has ever since been in dulged that, in due time, the awakened con science of the civilized nations will find a way through which compulsory jurisdiction may be built up, bit by bit, as a kind of evolution. There are certain well defined classes of pecuniary claims, not involving either the independence or ' honor of nations, which all publicists admit should be submitted to the judgment of a permanently organized inter national court. Everything depends upon the making of a beginning through a treaty to be executed by all civilized nations, in which it shall be provided that all such claims must, through a fixed and automatic process, pass to a permanent arbitral court, just as cases now pass in this country from the local federal courts in the several states to the Supreme Court of the United States. There was a time in the history of that court when even its first chief justice regarded it As a failure, because of what he considered a lack of jurisdiction. . . . Jay's outcry of despair was a bugle call to Marshall whose accession was a turning-point not only in the history of the court, but in the history of the Constitution itself. The time was ripe for the advent of a jurist and states man clear-visioned enough to sweep the entire horizon of federal power, and bold enough to press each element of it to its logical con clusion. So the time is ripe now for the advent of some great jurist or group of jurists clear-
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visioned enough to sweep the entire horizon of possible international power, and bold enough so to organize it as to bring the civilized States of the world under the authority of a tribuna armed with, at least, a limited compulsory jurisdiction. If only such a beginning can be made the rest may be safely confided to the future and to the enlightened conscience of mankind." INTERSTATE COMMERCE. "The Fede ral Rate Bill, Immunity Act, and Negligence Law of 1906," annotated by F. N. Judson, T. H. Flood Company, Chicago, 1906. This is a valuable edition of important new legislation, giving the benefit of the commen taries of a specialist both in the theoretical and practical side of the law of interstate commerce. JUDGMENTS. " Res Judicata in Execu tion," by R. Srinwasa, Allahabad Law Journal (V. iii, p. 309). JURISPRUDENCE. " A Consideration of a German View of Americans as Law Builders, ' ' by Hon. Fred. Brasted, Oklahoma Law Journal (V. v, p. 190). JURISPRUDENCE. "Evolution of the Law by Judicial Decision," by Robert G. Street, American Lawyer (V. xiv, p. 554). JURISPRUDENCE (Federal Common Law). The " Non-Federal Law Administered in Federal Courts," by William Trickett, in the American Law Review for November-Decem ber (V. xl, p. 819), is an interesting discussion of the refusal of the United States courts to be bound by a state court 's declaration of the common law of the state, although the " Act of Sept. 24th, 1789, directed that the laws of the several states, except where the Con stitution, treaties, or statutes of the United States otherwise require, or provide, shall be regarded as rules of decision in trials at com mon law, in the courts of the United States, in cases where they apply." Mr. Trickett thinks the federal courts wrong in their theory that in repudiating the state common law they are only declaring it more correctly than do the state courts, for he believes decisions are just as much law as are statutes; that the courts actually make the law, at least for practical purposes. A deci
