643
Principles of Practice Reform The Springfield Republican is opposed to the plan on different grounds. Federal incor poration, it thinks, "would be a needlessly radical if not an unconstitutional step in hostility to state autonomy. The same re sults can be achieved through a federal license system for corporations engaged in interstate commerce such as has applied from the earliest days of the republic in respect to vessels engaged in the interstate coastwise trade." But this paper goes further, and intimates that the whole scheme is social istic:— As for a federal commission to fix maximum prices—well, is not the Wall Street Journal about right when it says a commission to regulate lawyers’ fees is equally or much more needed? To concede the necessity of a price-controlling commission for manufacturing and trading businesses is to con~ cede the necessity of abandoning the whole prin ciple of competition as a regulative force in industry. If this concession is to be made, then the soundness of the whole socialist position is to be conceded, and we might as well at once pass over our whole trust problem to that school of economic thought to work out for us on the basis of public ownership of all means of production.
The Boston Herald, on the contrary, is of
the opinion
that While
Mr. Untermyer is
ahead of the times, we are trending in the direction of the reforms which he advocates,
and how far he is ahead of the times may be a question :— When the Sherman anti-trust law was passed, it was thought to be suflicient to place the ban on certain forms of business organization which were deemed inimical to public welfare We have learned by experience that this was a mistaken policy. Now we are preparing to waive our protest against the form of organization and to rely on the power of the federal Government to supervise and regulate the methods of trade. We still hesitate to approach the question of commodity prices directly, and, although our avowed object is to prevent the manipulation of prices to the disad vantage of the majority, we insist on accomplish ing that object by roundabout means. It is not impoaible that we may find that even the federal incorporation of all interstate commerce. together with all the inquisitorial power that has been sug gested as requisite for an efficient bureau of cor porations, all the schemes of publicity that may be devised and all the restrictive conditions that may be included in the charters, may yet leave us a long way from efl'ective regulation of commodity prices or from any practical relief from the present situa tion. In the end we may be much nearer Mr. Untermyer’s point of view than we seem to be at present.
Principles of Practice Reform ROFESSOR ROSCOE POUND'S views on the reform of procedure have been expressed in two recent notable writings, first in two articles in the Illinois Law Review (su 22 Green Bag 237), secondly in a report
presented to the Illinois State Bar Association (22 Green Bag 438-456),and these views are now somewhat familiar to a considerable section of the legal profession. These opinions have more recently found additional expres sion in the able report written by Professor Pound for the American Bar Association's Special Committee to Suggest Remedies and Formulate Proposed Laws to Prevent Delay and Unnecessary Cost in Litigation. This document has been reprinted in 71 Central Law journal 221 (Sept. 30). We extract from this luminous report merely the main heads of this latest program of procedural reform, omitting the full explanatory dis cussion:—
I. A practice act should deal only with the general features of procedure and prescribe the general lines to be followed, cleaving details to be fixed by mles of court, which the courts may change from time to time as actual experience of their application and operation dictates.
II. In framing a practice act or rules thereunder,
careful
distinction
should
be
made between rules of procedure intended solely to provide for the orderly dispatch of business, saving of time and maintenance of the dignity of tribunals, on the one hand, and rules of procedure intended to secure
to all parties a fair opportunity tozmeet the case against them and a full opportunity to present their own case, on the otherghand;
rulings on the former should be reviewable only for abuse of discretion, and nothing should depend on or be obtainable through the latter except the securing of such opportunity.
