were two classes in Ireland—the legal own ers of the land, mainly English and Scotch, and the actual tillers of the land, of native birth and speaking Gaelic, who were, to all intents and purposes, the serfs of the former. The old native tribal tenure, under which the elected chieftain held the tribal land in trust, gave place to absolute ownership by the imported landlord, whose serfs were sub-ject to private taxation, whether in kind or in coin. Thus the landlord class and the ten ant class came into existence; and it is by no means to be wondered at that a landlord class, thus imposed on the country by a sys tem of legalized expropriation, should never have succeeded in forming strong and healthy relations with the class of cultiva tors, whose original tribal ownership in the land still held, morally good in their own eyes. . . . Many of the evils which afflicted Ireland for two centuries have already been with drawn, for the most part comparatively re cently. The penal laws affecting Irish Cath olics were finally repealed in 1829, as the re sult of O'Connell's- national movement. The, Anglican Church, which owed its existence to the confiscations of Henry VIII., was dis endowed by Gladstone. The Land League agitation, of which Parnell was the central figure, gradually ameliorated the condition of the cultivators, securing for them fixity of tenure, instead of the leases renewable every year, at a rent fixed by the courts, instead of one arbitrarily decreed by the landlord. The bill introduced by Mr. Wyndham takes one step more in the same direction, gradually restoring to the Irish cultivators the land of which they were deprived by the legal chicanery of the Stuart period. But while thus restoring the land to the people. it does something else well worthy of notice, and certain to bring forth great results in the future. It leaves the landlord class still in their homes, for the most part surrounded with parks and private demesne land; and left, not to drag out an existence of genteel poverty, but with . money in their pockets, available for foreign investment, but equally available for investment in Ireland itself.
299 NEW LAW BOOKS.
// is the intention of The Green Bag to have its book reviews written by competent reviewers. The usual custom of magazines is to confine book notices to books sent in for review. At the request of subscribers, however, The Green Bag will be glad to review or notice any recently published law book, whether re ceivedfor review or not. A SELECTION OF CASES CN THE CONFLICT OF LAWS. By Joseph Henry Beale, Jr., Pro fessor of Law in Harvard University and in the University of Chicago. Three vol umes. The Harvard Law Review Pub lishing Association. 1902. This selection of cases, as the compiler an nounces in his preface, is the ripe fruit of seven years' service in teaching the Conflict of Laws. Coming, as it does, from the pen of Professor Beale, who has already attained distinction as a thorough student of legal topics and an able writer, it is scarcely nec essary to affirm that the work has been ex cellently well done. His starting point is the fundamental con ception that the Conflict of Laws embraces four main heads, namely: (i) The jurisdiction of states over persons, things and trans actions within their limits; (2) The creation of right? and obligations, resulting from such jurisdiction; (3) The recognition and en forcement within one state of the rights and obligations thus created in another, and (4) The legal procedure by which, if at all, such foreign rights and obligations may be en forced. Accordingly, the work is divided into four parts, corresponding to the four heads just mentioned, their order being slightly trans posed. The classification is as follows: Part I.—Jurisdiction. Part II.—Remedies. Part III.—Creation of Rights. Part IV.— Recognition and Enforcement of Rights. Each of these parts is sub-diivided into appro priate chapters and sections, which, if space permitted, would be well worthy of reproduc tion here, furnishing, as they do, quite a thorough outline or analysis of the subject. It will be observed, doubtless with regret by many, that the plan above outlined does not
