This action was inspired by the American Peace Society, and followed a petition from that body, in which it was suggested that such a congress would supplement the standing international tribunal at the Hague, through the further development and formulation of international law, and might ultimately develop "into a world-congress with legislative powers.'

Such a request on the part of one of our leading States is a noteworthy event. The project which it recommends, however, is one more likely to receive favorable consideration at the close than at the beginning of the twentieth century. It looks toward progress in universal public law, and in inviting the coöperation of all nations attempts what is as yet practically impossible. Better education in law and politics must come first. Nations must stand upon the same plane and be inspired by similar views. and aims, before anything substantial can be effected in the way of common deliberations or common agreements. The "International American Congress" of eighteen nations, which met at Washington in 1890, taught this lesson. Much was proposed and almost nothing accomplished.

Mankind is being drawn together in our times not at all by political leagues for public purposes; very little by sentimental and speculative congresses; very much by social and economic conferences and agreements of particular nations to secure the private interests of their citizens individually, and promote the better administration of justice in civil courts.

The step, suggested by Professor Asser before the Institute of International Law, of turning the next Hague Conference into a permanent body, holding stated sessions every two years, is a natural advance in a line already pursued, though it would work some radical changes of procedure. Permanent international assemblies of a less authoritative character are unknown. The Congrès Pénitentiaire International sits quinquennially, and held its sixth regular session at Brussels in 1900, attended by official representatives of twenty-eight powers of Europe, Asia, and North and South America. Its program is matured and its proceedings directed by a standing Commission pénitentiaire internationale. Such a commission, if constituted by the next Hague Conference, in taking the initiative out of

the hands of the Netherlands, would relieve that government from functions of great delicacy, the discharge of which might easily awake jealousy and distrust on the part of other powers. It would also put it where it belongs. The direction of such a Conference should, in the nature of things, be exercised by those immediately representing all the nations participating in its proceedings and affected by its results. This was impossible at the outset. The Conference was the child of the Netherlands and it was necessary that it should be tenderly nursed. It is now old enough and strong enough to walk alone.

The organization of an official commission for the advancement of private international law, which has followed the Hague Conference, in the case of several powers, is an object lesson for all. In these days of a contracting globe, which is daily pressed closer and closer together by the freedom and speed of modern intercourse, every civilized government ought to have some commission or bureau or official charged with the study of comparative legislation and with recommending such changes in its own laws as may avoid prejudice to its people from unnecessary conflicts with those of other nations.

France has for some time had a standing Comité de Législation étrangère, formed of distinguished jurists of established reputation, phrases which mean something in Europe.

A proposition, looking in a similar direction, was made in May, 1902, in the Italian parliament. It was the joint scheme of three of the deputies. The project contemplated the establishment in the Ministry of Justice of a department of comparative legislation for two main purposes:

I. To follow the movements of scientific legislation and jurisprudence in Italy and abroad;

2. To collect the laws and law-books which have obtained an established footing in the different countries, and to digest them with special reference to the point of view of the results of those movements and to the eventful reforms which might be thus derived from them, as respects Italian legislation.

This department was to make annual reports to the Ministry of Justice, for transmission to Parliament; to grant certificates as to the existence and tenor of domestic or foreign laws, which

should be received in evidence in courts; and to furnish all bibliographical information as to comparative legislation that might be asked for by Ministers, Senators, or Deputies. It was to have a director, two vice directors, and six secretaries, to be selected out of the bureaus of the Ministry of Justice and the University Professors of Law in a certain proportion.1

An interesting criticism of this proposal has been published by Professor Todaro della Galia of the Law Faculty of Palermo, who (though with a sceptical air) suggests a counter-project designed for the same end.

Both schemes have one fatal defect. They create too many offices. One good man, with the services of a typewriter at his command, ought to be able to find enough material in the national library to furnish Italy at any time with all the information her rulers would be likely to consider and able to digest, on any subject of comparative legislation; while twenty could not exhaust it.

The study of Comparative Legislation has thus far been prosecuted in several branches, not without success, by the government of the United States. The Commissioner of Education, for instance, has published much information as to foreign school laws. The State Department has a bureau devoted to the furtherance of the international prison congresses; and has published important monographs by some of our diplomatic or consular officers on topics of penal and of commercial law. It has had for many years, some lawyer conversant with both public and private international law filling the office of "solicitor" to the Department.

One of the Assistant Attorneys General also is ordinarily well read in these branches. It is here, in the Department of Justice, that it would be most easy and most suitable to install an officer with functions like those of the bureau proposed in the Italian parliamentary bill. The time is ripe for it. Experience is a dear master, but the best. Statutes approved by long trial in other governments may be ventured on here, so far as

I The project is published in the February, 1903, bulletin of the Berlin "Internat. Vereinigung für vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft und Volkswirtschaftslehre."

the conditions may be similar, with some confidence in their utility, because with some knowledge of all their practical effects. One nation can profit cheaply by the experiments of others.

The pending propositions for the formation of an American Society of Comparative Legislation or of Political Science, emanating from a conference of publicists and scholars held at Washington during the last convocation week; the strength already attained by the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and the good work which it has done in giving Americans prompt information of innovations in foreign laws; the "Legislation Bulletins" of the New York State Library, which have now been regularly issued since 1890, and its "Reviews of Legislation," begun in 1902; all attest the new interest of our people in a subject to which they find themselves, since the Spanish war, standing in a new relation. It is now for the government to see to it that they have better means of information from official

sources.

SIMEON E. BALDWIN.

Yale University.

ECONOMIC INVESTIGATION IN THE UNITED

ΤΗ

STATES.

HE active pursuit of economic investigation in the United States can hardly be said to extend back further than a period of twenty years. From the foundation of the republic, indeed, no important phase of our economic development has failed to receive some descriptive treatment or even critical study at the hands of contemporary observers. Any comprehensive survey of American economic writing would thus give proper appreciation to the state papers of Hamilton, Gallatin and Wolcott, to the pamphlets and debates of Webster, Clay and Calhoun, to the concrete studies of Gouge, Tanner and Colwell. The ante-bellum controversies on currency, tariff and slaverypolemic and ephemeral in the main-contain certain positive and enduring elements, just as the writings of Raymond, Rae, the Careys, Amasa Walker, and later, of Henry George and Francis A. Walker, reveal in greater or less degree intimacy with economic environment. Finally, the economic problems of the Civil War and Reconstruction, first in their practical significance and later in their theoretical import, aroused attention and invited study. But in the decade beginning in 1880 this spasmodic interest in particular aspects of American economic life was replaced by something akin to sustained scientific inquiry. The occasion was the coincidence, roughly speaking, of economic investigators and economic issues. A remarkable group of young American scholars then returned to this country with the substantial equipment of German university training, and tingling with the possibilities of the historical method in economic science, and found academic opportunities awaiting them, at the very time, probably in consequence of the fact, that the new prominence of economic issues in the United States was directing popular attention. towards the importance of systematic economic inquiry.

The natural result of this unusual combination was speedily evident. In many fields of economic activity-finance, transportation, the tariff, labor organizations, immigration, coöperation,