cable to these two utilities, and especially to the telephone, since it first appeared. A considerable number of new sections have been added, and the footnotes have been expanded to include all the important cases on the subjects treated. The author also discusses the general subject of electric law in order to make clear the relations of telegraph and telephone companies with the public and the utility commissions and with other utilities using the public highways for poles and wires.

The increase in the number of electrical power companies having central generating stations and providing for the distribution of current by means of lines constructed on public highways, extending long distances from the central stations, has given rise in recent years to numerous instances of electrical interference between high tension lines and lines of telegraph and telephone companies, which latter are operated by a comparatively weak current. Public utility commissions the country over are devoting much time to investigations of interference conditions for the purpose of formulating rules for the construction and maintenance of power lines which will permit their operation in the neighborhood of other utilities using the same highways with as little injury to the latter as possible. The cases in courts of last resort affecting this important matter are not numerous, but these are cited and discussed.

This book is admirably written, the citations being full and well arranged, and the index adequate. The reasoning and principles underlying the decisions are thoroughly analyzed.

The arrangement of the material is all that could be desired, provided one accepts the theory that a single legal treatise should cover the law applicable to both telegraph and telephone companies. That arrangement of the two subjects is customary, due perhaps to the fact that both utilities afford means of communication by wire, and each utility makes use of poles, wires, public rights of way, and the electric current. But there is a clear distinction in the character of the service rendered to the public by these utilities. The telephone company furnishes the necessary facilities to enable members of the public themselves to communicate with one another by the use of their own voices. The telegraph company, on the other hand, not only affords the mechanism of communication, but itself undertakes the duty of promptly and correctly transmitting a message, which the sender delivers to the company in writing, to a distant point where the message is transcribed by an employe of the telegraph company and delivered to the addressee. Obviously, since the rights of patrons and the duties owed to them by the two utilities are so essentially distinct in fact, legal questions arise in the operation of the one which are quite different from those involved in the business of the other. There are a large number of decisions covering the liability of telegraph companies for delay or error in the transmission of messages which can never arise in connection with the operation of the telephone. The telegraph business in America is handled by a very few corporations. There are many thousands of telephone companies serving over eleven million patrons. It would be a great convenience if attorneys for telephone companies were able to turn to a treatise devoted solely to telephones, unincumbered by a mass of discussion relating to another industry and relating to questions with which they have no occasion to deal. The same would also be true in regard to the law of telegraphs. The two subjects have been considered together in existing encyclopaedias, but they should be separated in future publications of that kind. At least one of the publishers of selected cases now indexes telegraphs and telephones separately.

This treatise stands alone in its field, and its usefulness to the profession has been generally recognized. HAROLD L. BEYER.

HANDBOOK OF THE LAW OF TORTS. By H. Gerald Chapin. St. Paul: West Publishing Co. 1917 (Hornbook Series). pp. xiv, 695.

The professed purpose of the Hornbook Series is to provide elementary treatises on all the principal subjects of the law. The series now numbers thirtyfour, and in a number of instances a Hornbook has reached its third edition. One of the earliest of these publications was the valuable work of Professor Jaggard on Torts (1895). No second edition of Jaggard has appeared; perhaps it has been found desirable, in the interests of symmetry in the series, that Torts should be dealt with in one volume instead of two, as was the case with Jaggard on Torts.

Professor Chapin has written a book which accomplishes excellently the objects of the Hornbook Series, namely, a brief statement of leading principles, a more extended commentary on those principles, and a citation of authorities. But this necessarily implies limitations upon the scope of the books; a full discussion of principles is not possible. However, a handbook cannot be expected to fulfill all purposes; it cannot be at the same time an elementary treatise and an exhaustive exposition. A handbook serves the practising lawyer by placing at his disposal a condensed statement of principles, supported by references to the more important decided cases. To the student it offers an opportunity for a review of the subject with the additional light thrown upon it by a statement of it in terms sometimes differing from those with which he has become familiar in the class-room. In so far as he has been permitted by the limitations of space imposed upon him, Professor Chapin offers useful discussions of principles and authorities.

In addition to this textbook, the author has edited a small case-book on Torts. The textbook contains references in special type to the authorities contained in the case-book, and as these references occur on almost every page of the textbook, the case-book should form a convenient companion volume to the Hornbook. JENS I. WESTENGARD.

THE ELEMENTS OF JURISPRUDENCE. By Thomas Erskine Holland, K. C. Twelfth Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, American Branch. London: Humphrey Milford. 1916. pp. xxv, 454.

When any treatise on the Elements of Jurisprudence has passed into a twelfth edition, it is, by sheer force of that fact alone, entitled to the most profound respect. In such a case the disposition of the reviewer must be either frankly humble or frankly bold. If he be of humble turn, he will make perfunctory note that the author has here "aimed at producing a text which may be regarded as practically final"; and he will duly agree that, so far as it is within human power, Doctor Holland has accomplished his aim. After many years of vision and revision he has given us a treatise that is correct to a detail, profound and searching in its analysis, and elevated into line with the latest pertinent decisions and legislation.

Now, if he be of more adventurous disposition, he will yield to the temptation to regret that in this book practically no consideration is accorded to current studies in the science of law, particularly to recent French writings on Jurisprudence. He will be tempted to go further and register an objection to the sterile abstractions which seem to be the inevitable product of the Analytical School. According to the logical process of inclusion and exclusion, it may be accurate, but it is in no wise helpful, to define the state as "a numerous assemblage of human beings, generally occupying a certain territory, amongst whom the will of the majority, or of an ascertainable class of persons, is by the strength of such a majority, or class, made to prevail against any of their number who oppose it" (p. 46). On the other hand, according to these same

canons, it may be inaccurate to describe the state as an extensive fellowship of men, normally gathered together within a limited territory: wherein certain persons, to whom the rest defer, administer the affairs of government that all may have life, and that more abundantly. But such a paraphrase of the author's definition, for all its likely faults, is more human, more helpful and more hopeful than its original.

Lastly, your adventurous reviewer will be led to advance the hope that some day another Maitland will come to write in English a book on the science of law that shall embody insight, imagination, and literary power. It is a far call back to Thomas Hobbes - our mountain-peak of all these qualities. But until the second advent of a Maitland, let us not fail to recognize the high merit of Doctor Holland's Book: it is a definitive work of its necessary and valuable type. WHITNEY SHEPARDSON.

POSSESSORY LIENS IN ENGLISH LAW. By Lancelot Edey Hall. London: Sweet and Maxwell, Limited. pp. 88.

This is a statement of English authorities on possessory liens. It is compact, logically arranged, accurate, and usually adequate on elementary propositions.

An English writer is not perplexed and stimulated by conflicting decisions as is an American writer. If he finds that the English courts have decided a point, and such decision is within the bounds of reason, there does not seem to be any particular occasion for considering the matter further. The American writer is likely to find that the same point has been decided differently by two courts of last resort, and that both decisions are well within the bounds of reason. If he has an intellectual conscience he is thereupon driven to independent thinking. Dr. Hall gives meagre evidence of independent thinking. There is about his book the charm of a Blackstonian finality and complacency. E. H. WARREN.

THE LAW APPLIED TO MOTOR VEHICLES. By Charles J. Babbitt. Second Edition by Arthur W. Blakemore. Washington: John Byrne and Company. 1917. pp. cxxvi, 1262.

BREACHES OF ANGLO-AMERICAN TREATIES: A STUDY IN HISTORY AND DIPLOMACY. By John Bigelow. New York: Sturgis and Walton Company. 1917. pp. ix, 248.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPECIAL ABILITIES AND DISABILITIES. By Augusta F. Bronner. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1917. pp. 269.

CASES ON THE LAW OF PRIVATE CORPORATIONS, SELECTED AND SUPPLEMENTED WITH NOTES. By Daniel Frederick Burnett. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1917. pp. xxix, 828.

CASES AND OTHER AUTHORITIES ON LEGAL ETHICS. By George P. Costigan, Jr. American Casebook Series. St. Paul: West Publishing Company. 1917. pp. xxvii, 616.

STANDARDS OF AMERICAN LEGISLATION. An Estimate of Restrictive and Constructive Factors. By Ernst Freund. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. pp. xx, 327.

MENTAL CONFLICTS AND MISCONDUCT. By William Healy. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1917. pp. xi, 330.

A DIGEST OF ENGLISH CIVIL LAW. By Edward Jenks. Book V: Succession (Contd.). By W. S. Holdsworth. London: Butterworth and Company. 1917. pp. lv, 1295-1422, (11).

STUDIES IN THE Problem of SOVEREIGNTY. By Harold J. Laski. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1917. pp. x, 297.

DER GEDANKE DER INTERNATIONALEN ORGANISATION IN SEINE ENTWICKLUNG. 1300-1800. Von Jacob Ter Meulen. Haag: Martinus Nijhoff. 1917. pp. xi, 397.

RESCISSION OF CONTRACTS. A Treatise on the Principles Governing the Rescission, Discharge, Avoidance and Dissolution of Contracts. By Charles Bruce Morison. London: Stevens & Haynes. 1916. pp. xxxii, 272.

THE RULE-MAKING AUTHORITY IN THE ENGLISH SUPREME COURT. By Samuel Rosenbaum, with an Introductory Preface by T. Willes Chitty. Boston: The Boston Book Company. 1917. pp. iv, 321.

SOME LEGAL PHASES OF CORPORATE FINANCING, REORGANIZATION AND REGULATION. By Francis Lynde Stetson, James Byrne, Paul D. Cravath, George W. Wickersham, Gilbert H. Montague, George S. Coleman, William D. Guthrie. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1917. pp. ix, 389.

UNFAIR COMPETITION. By William H. S. Stevens. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. xi, 265.

HARVARD

LAW REVIEW

VOL. XXX

JUNE, 1917

No. 8

THE NEW ENGLISH WAR CABINET AS A

SOME

CONSTITUTIONAL EXPERIMENT

OME few among the numerous readers of the HARVARD LAW REVIEW may have noted the creation in England on December 11, 1916, of a so-called War Cabinet consisting of only five persons, namely, Mr. Lloyd George (the Prime Minister), Mr. Bonar Law (the Chancellor of the Exchequer), Lord Curzon (the Lord President of the Council), Mr. Henderson and Lord Milner, who sit in the Cabinet but hold no definite office. My aim in this article is to show that this War Cabinet of five persons is a new and very interesting attempt to form a new kind of Cabinet government which, it is hoped, may turn out specially adapted to the conduct of the war, and thereby ensure the victory of Great Britain and her Allies. This experiment in constitutional government deserves the attention of persons still interested in the development of the English Constitution. They are, I fear, both in England and in the United States, not only a limited but a constantly decreasing class of students. To this small body I myself assuredly belong. It is impossible for me to conceal from your readers that I am both in age and in my mode of thought an old Mid-Victorian who still believes that the possession of a good constitution does somewhat contribute to, though it cannot ensure, the prosperity of a nation, and that changes in the old and at one time admired Constitution of England are worth being studied by the citizens of the American Commonwealth. Let me add that in this article it is my wish to write in the spirit of a constitutionalist and not of an English politician.

Whoever wishes to understand the constitutional experiment now