land and sell them in small lots to negroes. That under adverse natural conditions, with little government help, and aided only by philanthropic effort, the negro should have been able to make the progress that he has made, speaks equally well for his own capabilities and for the volunteer efforts which have been made in his behalf, and goes far to show that the attitude of Mr. Washington in laying stress upon industrial training is certainly likely to produce good economic results, whatever the political outcome may be.

The adjournment of Congress with no more radical action in the matter of trust legislation than the passage of the Department of Commerce act seemed to indicate that the earlier declarations of the party leaders were for political effect, and that there was little intention of endangering the contributions of the corporations to future campaign funds. The duties imposed on the bureau of corporations by the sixth section of that act are so vague that its effectiveness will depend entirely on the attitude of the administration. It provides merely for the gathering of information as a preliminary step to the recommendation of further legislation by the President, and contains no provision for any action against the trusts when such information has been obtained. On the other hand, the recent vigorous action of the administration in the Beef Trust, Northern Securities and other cases raises the question whether the first step to be taken should not be the repeal of the Sherman act of 1890. That act makes unlawful every contract in restraint of interstate commerce, and the Supreme Court has interpreted the act literally to include reasonable as well as unreasonable restraint. So long as a radical measure of this nature is rarely enforced, it is likely to remain on the statute book for campaign purposes, but under a vigorous and conscientious administration it may be turned against many contracts which have the sanction of the common law and of conservative business usage. Under such circumstances the demand for its repeal is likely to become strong, and there certainly seems to be little logical ground for the effort of Congress to secure information as a basis for further restrictive legislation while retaining so sweeping a measure in force.

Extreme as the Sherman act is, it is, however, difficult to determine clearly how far it is applicable to industrial combinations. The decision in the Knight case, which held that a combination of refineries to control the output of sugar was not in restraint of interstate trade, has not been reversed, though certain recent decisions seem to indicate that that case is not likely to block the application of the act to industrial combinations to such an extent as was at first supposed. The significant feature of the most important bills introduced at the last session of Congress is found in their effort to overcome this difficulty. The way of escape is found in the application of the Attorney-General's doctrine of the power of Congress to forbid interstate trade in articles deemed injurious to the public welfare. Under this power Congress may forbid a manufacturing combination which it cannot reach directly from selling or transporting its products outside the State of their manufacture. The recent Champion and Francis cases, in which the power of Congress to suppress interstate traffic in lottery tickets was upheld, have been received by the anti-trust legislators as a strong support to their position. How far trust-made goods may be deemed injurious to the public welfare, would remain for a later decision of the court, if such an act were passed. If there is no limit to the power of Congress in this direction, a strong weapon is placed in its hands for the enforcement of any of its regulations.

Another interesting feature of the leading bills introduced in the last session was the provision making it unlawful for a manufacturer engaged in interstate commerce to cut prices for purposes of local competition in order to destroy a particular rival, while maintaining higher prices elsewhere. The power of a large corporation over its smaller competitors in this regard has long been recognized as an evil, but the enactment of such a provision as the above into law would open the way to infinite confusion. The effort in a single act to suppress all combinations to raise prices and at the same time to prevent any local reduction in price, would seem to indicate a return on the part of Congress to the theory of "just price," a tendency which is made very plain by the language of Senator Hoar's bill, which prohibits the selling of an article of interstate commerce "at less than its fair market value."

Any movement towards the establishment of a new association for the purpose of discussing public affairs is naturally greeted with a certain reserve. We already have a large number of such associations in the country covering fields closely allied. The American Social Science Association is one of the oldest and most comprehensive, since it deals with economics, jurisprudence, and domestic economy, as well as sociology in the narrower sense of the word. But we also have the American Economic Association, the National Municipal League, the American Historical Association, the Bar Association, and the Economic Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science drawing upon the attention and time of a comparatively limited group of people. Many persons are members of several of the associations and are liable to be interested in the meetings of all of them, and yet unable to attend more than a small part. For a number of years a certain community of interest has been established between the Historical and Economic Associations, under which their meetings are held together. But no such understanding is reached with the other associations, and there must be many members of these two who would be glad to attend the meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Science in St. Louis next December, if it did not conflict with their New Orleans meeting.

These facts render the formation of a Political Science Association, which is now being discussed, a delicate one. Many people who are interested in the societies already mentioned would also be interested in the doings of a Political Science Association, but would find the task of attending its meetings very difficult. And yet it seems as if such an association might have a large sphere of usefulness, if it could be so organized as not to compete with the other associations for the time of their members; in other words, if instead of existing mainly for the purpose of bringing people together to listen to and discuss papers, it were to make itself an association mainly for systematic publication. The account given by Judge Baldwin in another part of this issue of the recent progress in unifying private international law shows how much can be done even when States are entirely sovereign and independent. If such progress has already been made in

international law, why should not much greater progress be made in harmonizing the laws of our different States in matters in which uniformity is important, especially in legislation relating to the family, to contracts, to corporations, and to labor? There is a natural tendency on the part of the State legislatures to copy each other's laws. But this is usually done in a somewhat haphazard fashion. A Political Science Association might make itself a valuable guide to States which desire this uniformity, and it might be the means of enabling those in one part of the country to learn more rapidly of the success or failure of legislation in other parts and thus to profit by the experience of sister States. Under our constitution many very important matters which even in a federal state like Germany are regulated by the national legislature, must be regulated by the States. Officials have comparatively few opportunities of coming together and do not always represent the impartial spirit of science. A Political Science Association with a well-defined field, with sufficient income to pay for a considerable amount of routine writing, and with groups of members so organized in the several States as to make their influence felt in State legislatures, might be a powerful agency in the improvement of our State laws.

THE BEGINNINGS OF AN OFFICIAL EUROPEAN CODE OF PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW.

THE

HE Conference at the Hague in 1899, out of which came the permanent international court, has quite overshadowed three others of a similar character, which have been recently held there, and have also achieved results of far reaching importance.

The first of these met in 1893, at the invitation of the government of the Netherlands, issued in 1892, to consider the feasibility of establishing a European code of private international law on certain subjects. It was composed of official representatives of thirteen powers, the Netherlands, Germany, Austro-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Roumania, Russia, and Switzerland. The Netherlands had, as early as 1874, proposed to the powers of Europe a similar conference, with a view of establishing a mutual judicial union (Union Judiciaire) for the special purpose of maintaining uniform rules as to the recognition in all of personal status acquired in one. Many of them received the suggestion with favor, but the unwillingness of some of the leading ones to participate in the movement led to its abandonment. Mancini, while in charge of the foreign affairs of Italy, made repeated efforts in the same direction,1 but an overture from that country, prepared by him in 1881, met with no better success.

Two American events were influential in leading the Netherlands, in 1892, to make another attempt.2

One was the "Congress of Private International Law," held at Montevideo in 1888, on the initiative of the Argentine Republic and Uruguay, and in which Brazil, Bolivia, Chili, Paraguay, and Peru also took part. This agreed on quite an extensive code,

1 They commenced as early as 1867, and he succeeded in obtaining some encouragement as to securing an agreement for the regulation of bankruptcies, from the International Congress of Commerce and Industry, held at Turin in 1878.

2 Actes de la Conférence de la Haye, chargée de réglementer Diverses Matières de Droit International Privée, The Hague, 1893, pp. 6, 25.