GERMAN PRIVATE LAW by them. In the United States the law, which must be condensed and explained in the form of written rules, must be the English-American law, not the European continental law. But the European conti nent must give its methods and its experi ences to this work. 3. Very different from the codification is the harmonization or unification of the laws of different states, although both things, codification and unification, have been connected very often in the history of law. But such a connection of tendencies is not necessary. That -is important for America because the constitution of the United States forbids the creation of a common civil code as it exists for Germany. But in spite of it you can come to a unification of the different American statutes and codes, as far as it seems desirable. Even Germany obtained a common com mercial code in a time in which it was not yet perfectly united. The Alliance, which connected only superficially the German states, recommended a project of such a code and the single states published it, every one as a special law of its own. The result was a common commercial law. In this way you can arrive by agreement between the single states at a similar goal, as you have already approximated in the law relating to negotiable instruments. Perhaps you will continue this method in order to unite all, which cannot longer be permitted to remain different in the various states on account of the increasing unity of commerce and of national life. The German experience proves a fact which is very important for American politics. There were in Germany people who feared to remove the difference between the laws for the whole empire. They said that the people would be unhappy if deprived of their special laws. But after the unification every one was content, notwithstanding some special paragraphs which aroused a protest (for instance the
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law about the damage caused by animals), but even this protest concerned the whole empire, not the special districts. Naturally we have even now in Germany for the special parts of the empire particular laws, if .the interests of these parts have a special character; for instance, the laws concerning water and water rights are very different in Germany from this point of view. But there are only a few matters which demand such a distinction. Generally it is a benefit to unite different laws, because such a union prevents the evasion of the laws, as you see in the laws of divorce and of forbidden marriages; laws which are evaded very often by people going over the frontier. Moreover, the larger a district is in which a law is applicable, the more scholars and practitioners can unite their mental forces to cultivate its theory and practice. Therefore all interchanges of lawyers, judges and professors between the single states have a value for the nation by uniting the different parts to a healthy unity. 4. At last I mention the workingmen's insurance, which has been described very well by an American author (Willoughby, "Workingmen-insurance "). This help is an obligatory one in Germany and is recommanded not only by humanity, but also by political reasons. It diminishes the em bittered feeling of the bread masses and cleans the sentiments, which are empoisoned by a dangerous agitation. Besides that, it gives to the working classes an interest in the conservation of the present social order, because a social revolution would damage them by destroying their own hopes of support and of a pension. In America it would not be possible to enact such an obligatory insurance by federal legislation, but even its creation by the single states would make enormous difficulties. Perhaps the whole workingmen's insurance seems not to be so important for America as it was for Europe, because the high wages
