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THE GREEN BAG

ers, or groups of shareholders, take over the railway from the company either in accord ance with the terms of the concession, or on such other terras and with such distinctions as may be negotiated; in case of disagreement, all differences to be submitted to arbitration." JURISPRUDENCE (History). In the July Law Quarterly Review (V. xxi, p. 274) Sir Frederick Pollock continues his interesting commentaries on Maine's famous work under the heading of "Notes on Maine's Ancient Law." This is in the form of a running com mentary on the text, which it is impossible to summarize. JURISPRUDENCE (Analysis of). Judge George H. Smith contributes to the July American Law Review (V. xxxix, p. 531) another of his analyses of the law entitled "Of the Subject-matter of Jurisprudence." This is an analysis of the entire field of the law which it is impossible to summarize. JURISPRUDENCE (English Land Law). In the July Law Quarterly Rwiew (V. xxi, p. 221) Professor A. V. Dicey discusses what he calls "The Paradox of the Land Law," which is apparently the result of some of his studies in preparation for his recent book on "The Relation of Law and Public Opinion in Eng land in the Nineteenth Century." "To the student of legal history the de velopment of the English land law from 1830 to 1900 presents this paradox: incessant modifications or reforms of the law, which extend over seventy years, and have cer tainly not yet come to an end, have left un changed, in a sense almost untouched, the fundamentals of the law with regard to land. The constitution of England has, whilst pre serving monarchial forms, become a democ racy, but the land law of England remains the land law appropriate to an aristocratic state. This is, in itself, a phenomenon to excite attention. It must seem an abso lutely incomprehensible fact to the many persons who tacitly assume that the advance of democracy necessarily tends towards the equal division of property, and especially of landed property."

He gives three reasons for this paradox. The first is the universal difficulty of making any serious change in property rights except in the midst of the changes in a political revolution. Then there was never in the nineteenth century a politically effective demand for the reform of the land laws. "Nor is it at all clear that the mass of the English people are possessed by that vehe ment desire for the ownership of land, which is certainly common in some continental countries and in Ireland, if one may believe the best authorities, amounts to a passion. The absence of this desire is, one may assume, in part due to economical reasons. Land is not a lucrative investment." "Alterations, lastly, in the fundamental principles of the English land law have been arrested by the latent conflict between Ben thamite individualism and democratic col lectivism; modern socialism has stopped the progress of early radicalism. The whole history of public opinion during the last forty years bears witness to the conflict, sometimes tacit, sometimes open, between schools of land reformers who pursued two opposed ideals. The progress of collectiv ism is marked in each volume of the statute book; the slowness of its progress bears wit ness to the power of surviving Benthamism. In any case, the existence of this conflict is certain." "The hostility of old radicalism to new collectivism has divided the army of reform ers. Collectivists and Tories have uncon sciously not for the first and assuredly not for the last time played into one another's hands. The force of the attack on the exis ting land law has been broken, because the assailants cannot agree on the method or the object of their campaign." "The paradox then of the land law is fully explainable by the history of public opinion. The fundamentals of the land law stand unchanged though not unshaken, first, be cause their amendment is a task of great technical difficulty; secondly, because there has never as yet existed an effective demand for any root and branch reform; and, lastly, because the conflict between radicalism and socialism has for a time arrested every attempt to modify our system of land tenure."