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The Green Bag
The writer considers the basis of the recent controversy of the United States with Vene zuela and declares the issue a fit subject for arbitration. The article is chiefly a discus sion of the various facts involved in the dis pute and is not an essay upon international law. The author points out that the United States has carefully followed the spirit of the Second Hague Conference, as regards the non-employment of force in the collection of debts unless arbitration has failed, and urges that Congress should adopt measures making use of force, if necessary, in compelling an impartial arbitration of the questions which Venezuela has refused to arbitrate. The article was written before the new government of Venezuela had expressed to the United States the wish of President Gomez to settle satis factorily all international questions. International Law. See under special topics, e. g., Blockade, Status, etc. German Civil Code. See Codification. Labor Unions (Union Label) . See a recent Australian case, 6 Commonwealth Law Review 83 (Nov.-Dec.). Three judges of the High Court, against two dissenting, held that a union label was not a trade-mark and the members of the union would have no right of property in the use of a label, nor could a trade union assert the right to place a label on goods produced by the employees. Hence the action of the State Attorney-General taken at the instance of certain breweries in refusing registration of a label to a union of brewery employees was upheld by the Court. In handing down this decision, the Court referred to the fact that "the great weight of American opinion was adverse to considering workers' labels as trade-marks." Attorney- General of N. S. W. v. Brewery Employees' Union, 6 C. L. R. Law Reform. See under special topics, e. g., Codification, Government, Legal Systems, Leg islative Procedure, Procedure, etc. Legal History (Bracton). "The Surama of Gilbert de Thornton." By George E. Wood bine. 25 Law Quarterly Review 44 (Jan.). A historical and critical discussion of Thorn ton's Summa of Bracton's treatise by a Yale scholar. The author considers it probable that the manuscript in the library of Lincoln's Inn is a copy of the Summa, and that it has better claims than any other manuscript to be so considered.
Legal History (Channel Islands). "The Office of Jurat in the Royal Courts of Jersey and Guernsey." By C. E. A. Bedwell. 34 Law Magazine and Review 159 (Feb.). A description of the functions of an officer who has been an important part of the machinery of justice in these Islands for hundreds of years. Legal History (England). "The Date of Separation of Ecclesiastical and Lay Juris diction in England." By Walter Lichtenstein. 3 Illinois Law Review 347 (Jan.). An article incorporating historical researches made by the Librarian of Northwestern Uni versity. Legal History (England). "The Wapentake of Wirral." By C. E. H. Chadwyck-Healey. 25 Law Quarterly Review 72 (Jan.). A review of Ronald Stewart-Brown's work on the Hundred Court of Wirral in Cheshire. Legal History (Rome). "The Historical Position of the Rhodian Law." By Robert D. Benedict. 18 Yale Law Journal 223 (Feb.). The main purpose of this paper is to show that a statement to which many writers have lent their authority, namely that the Romans owed their system of Maritime Law to the Rhodians, is without sound historical founda tion. We have here a thorough-going invest igation of the historical questions involved. The author exposes the unreliability of the supposition that Rhodes had a Maritime Code which was subsequently included in the digest of Justinian, and asserts that the book entitled "Rhodian Law" first put in print in 1596 is not authentic. By declaring this work spurious, the statements regarding the adop tion of the Rhodian Law by the Romans fall to the ground. "I see no reason," says the author,— "Why we are called upon to look to any other sources than Roman sources for any provision which we find in the maritime law of Rome. The jurisconsults of Rome certainly showed themselves competent to deal with any questions which were presented to them by the increasing maritime commerce of Rome. . . . "We can say that the principle on which the law as to jettison should rest, as the Rhodian law-giver, or jurisconsult, had stated it, so commended itself to the jurisconsults of Rome that it was taken bodily into Roman jurisprudence, with the label of Rhodes upon it. And this must be conceded to be a great honor. . . . "We must recognize the wisdom which led to the adoption of that principle into the
