The Outlook for Uniformity of Legislation BY WALTER GEoRoE SMITH PRESIDENT or THE CONFERENCE or COMMISSIONERS 0N UNIFORM STATE LAWS
HE
Commissioners
on
Uniform
State Laws met in Boston during the five days of August last, preceding the meeting of the American Bar Asso
ciation. There were present representa tives from thirty-three states, sixty five commissioners in all. This was the twenty-first annual conference and in point of number in attendance the larg
brief outline of the history of the Con ference. One of the purposes enumerated in the constitution of the American Bar Association as an object for which it was formed is "to promote uniformity of legislation throughout the Union." In 1889 a special committee on the subject was appointed and it recommended
est, while the reports of committees and
that a Committee of the Association,
the debates upon them were not in
consisting of one from each state, should meet in convention from time to time and compare and consider the laws of the different states, especially those relating to marriage and divorce,
ferior to any that have preceded. The subjects under discussion covered the Law of Partnership in connection with the tentative draft of a Uniform Act reported by the Committee on Com mercial Law from the hands of Dean William Draper Lewis and James B. Lizhtenberger, Esq., of the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania, a Uniform Marriage Act, a Child Labor Act, an Act relative to the Probate of
Foreign Wills, a Workmen's Compensa tion Act, an Incorporation Act and the Torrens System of Title Registration. Of these acts but two were finally approved, namely, the Marriage Act
descent and distribution
of
property,
acknowledgment of deeds and execu tion and probate of wills. The following year an act of the Legis lature of New York, authorizing the appointment by the Governor of three commissioners by the name and style of “Commissioners for the Promotion
of Uniformity of Legislation in the United States," and making it their
duty to examine the subjects of mar riage and divorce, insolvency, the form
and the Child Labor Act, the others
of notarial certificates and other sub
being advanced to different stages of
jects, and to ascertain the best means to effect an assimilation and uniformity
completion.
No doubt the readers of this magazine have some knowledge of the history and purposes of the Conference of Commis sioners on Uniform State Laws, but in order to refresh their knowledge and because there seems to be an unusual interest in the subject of uniformity, brought about largely by existing indus trial conditions, it may be well to give a
in the laws of the states and to consider whether it would be wise and practicable to invite the other states of the Union to send representatives to a convention
to draft uniform laws to be submitted for approval and adoption by the sev eral
states,
marked
the
formal be
ginning of the Conference. When this action was brought to the
