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The Green Bag
"Naval Defense by Panic." By an Ad miral of Fifty-one Years' Service. Black wood's, v. 185, p. 735 (May). "The present naval 'panic,' as it has been called, is the natural and inevitable result of reducing our output of battleships during the last three years in order to save money for so-called social reforms." That England with such Admirals as this one is as much to blame as Germany for obstructing the limitation of naval armaments seems to be in the mind of this writer:— "Is English Supremacy Worth a War? By John Foster Carr. World's Work, v. 18, p. 11684 (June). The writer answers the question in the negative, and says that the thing desirable above everything else is that Great Britain and Germany should understand that neither can destroy the other, and that war could only benefit their rivals. "Disarmament for Germany is an impossible question as long as any power has within its pleasure to destroy the sea-trade of Germany. ' Injunctions (Labor Disputes). "Judicial Decisions as an Issue in Politics." By Wil liam Howard Taft. McClure's, v. 33, p. 201 (June). "I was characterized as the 'father of in junctions.' This attributed to me something that I did not deserve, for injunctions had already been issued in labor disputes by ViceChancellor Malins in England; by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in the case of Sherry v. Perkins; by Judge Sage in the case of Casey v. Typographical Union; by Judge Beatty in the Caeur d'Alene strike troubles, and by other judges. "It had fallen to my lot, because of the number of cases that I had subsequently to consider, to write rather more elaborate opinions on the subject and perhaps state the principles more at length than other judges, but I was not entitled to either the credit or discredit of having introduced a new equity jurisdiction in labor troubles. There was no new jurisdiction. It was merely an applica tion of plain equity principles to novel situa tions. The character of the injury in cases of boycott when business is injured is such that it is impossible to estimate what the injury is. This is palpable. Moreover, the injury is a result of a series of acts combined together, each one of which would not justify a suit for damages, but all of which taken together with their recurrent effect bring about the injury which can only be remedied adequately by an injunction to prevent the carrying out of the combination. This has always justified the issuing of an injunction in equity, and its use is not an enlargement of equity jurisdiction but a mere application of the oldest and most well-known prin ciples. . . . "I was very reluctant to go on the stump and discuss my own decisions. I knew no
precedent for it, and I felt that if the deci sions themselves did not support the conclu sions reached, there was little use in my attempting to supply additional explanation or defense. I found, however, that Mr. Bryan was constantly referring to me as the father of injunctions, and that the Demo cratic managers were making as much of this part of the issues of the campaign as possible, and I concluded, therefore, that the only thing for me to do was to seek an oppor tunity to tell what I had decided to audiences composed as largely of labor men as possible, and then leave it to their sense of justice whether the attacks upon me as an enemy of labor were justified." Interstate Commerce. "Local Discrimina tion in Transportation." By W. Z. Ripley. Quarterly Journal of Economics, v. 23, p. 470 (May). "Who else but the federal government could ever hope to disentangle the almost hopless snarl of competition involved in the controversy over differentials to and from the Atlantic seaboard? This controversy is at bottom one of local discrimination. And yet, how is the Interstate Commerce Commis sion to aid in the solution of these intricate problems under present conditions? Its hands are tied in two ways. It cannot prescribe minimum rates, and the long and short haul clause remains as much a dead letter since the Alabama Midland decision as it was be fore the recent revision by the Act of 1906. . . "It is indubitable that commercial compe tition as a 'compelling' factor has been some what over-emphasized by the railroads. Too often conditions in part brought about by themselves, or in which at least they have acquiesced, have been set up as a defense for rates favoring certain points." "The Obligations of Public Services to Make Connections." By Prof. Bruce Wyman. 22 Harvard Law Review 564 (June). "The statutes are going further than to make the common law more intensive; they are making the legal obligation more exten sive. The common law right of the initial company to make through traffic arrange ments with some one connecting line and throw all the business which it will take at the through rate into the hands of that one line, notwithstanding the wishes of the shipper, has, of late, caused such fears that statutes are being passed giving the power to the regulating body to compel the making of a joint rate. This power was given to the English Railway and Canal Commission in 1888, and to the Interstate Commerce Com mission in 1906. The federal legislation had been foreshadowed, as usually has happened, by some legislation in the various states, Minnesota and Texas for example. It will be noticed that the Commission by these statutes is to judge as to whether public con venience requires the additional through routes asked. The shipper, therefore, now as before
