560 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The Land-La-5vs. (" The EnRlish Citizen " 

 Series.) By Frederick Pollock, Bar- 

 rister-at-Law, M. A., etc. London : Mac- 

 millan &; Co. Pp. 215. Price, $1. 



The land-laws of England, which form 

 the subject of this book, must not be mis- 

 taken for the land-laws of the United King- 

 dom. Scotland has a distinct legal system 

 of her own, with a distinct history ; Irish 

 land-law, on the other hand, is nothing but 

 imported English law, with certain modifica- 

 tions, the most important of which have 

 been made too recently, and are too much 

 involved with political questions, to be prof- 

 itably treated in connection with English 

 institutions. The aim of the author is to 

 make the principles and the leading feat- 

 ures of the English law of real property in- 

 telligible to a reader who is without legal 

 training, but is willing to take some little 

 pains to understand. " Almost every pos- 

 sible kind of ownership and almost every 

 possible relation of owners and occupiers of 

 land to the state and to one another have 

 at one time or another existed in England, 

 and left a more or loss conspicuous mark in 

 the composite structure of the English law 

 of real property." The customary German- 

 ic law, which the Angles and Saxons brought 

 to England, is first taken up ; the changes 

 resulting from the Norman conquest arc 

 next described ; and then follows an account 

 of the legislation through which the mod- 

 ern law has developed. A chapter is de- 

 voted to the relation between landlord and 

 tenant, and the book concludes with an ex- 

 amination of some modern reforms and pros- 

 pects. Several special points are discussed 

 in an appendix. 



The Destructive Influence of the Tariff 

 UPON Manufactures and Commerce, and 

 THE Figures and Facts relating there- 

 to. By J. ScHOENHor. New York : G. 

 P. Putnam's Sons. 



The contents of this little volume first 

 appeared in communications to the New 

 York " Evening Post," and they are now 

 collected and published by the Putnams 

 for the New York Free-Trade Club. The 

 author of this book seems to believe that 

 the way to develop trade is not to fetter it, 

 and he proves abundantly by copious and 

 varied statistics that the effect of legisla- 

 tive restrictions and congressional control 



of manufactures and commerce is injurious 

 in proportion to the interference — is de- 

 structive rather than properly protective. 

 There is a good deal of excellent sense in 

 this book, and, although it deals chiefly in 

 facts of the statistical kind, it contains many 

 reflections and suggestions that are well 

 worth attention, as, for example, the follow- 

 ing: 



The curso of American politics, log-rollinp, is 

 also the cause of the absurdities of our " well-bal- 

 anced tariff." It gave us a system of taxation that 

 grinds every one, does cruel injury to a whole nation 

 of working-people, and good to no one except a few 

 monopolists and tax-gatherers ; and it may safely be 

 asserted that the corruption of our politics is largely 

 due to protection, and to the mania for government 

 aid and subsidies engendered thereby. Self reliance 

 and independence are lost where large profits are 

 more the results of legislative grants extended to 

 industrial enterprises than of unassisted work. The 

 lobbyist seeks, and frequently finds, an open door 

 to executive departments, and it is doubtful whether 

 a civil service can be thoroughly reformed that Is 

 constantly exposed to the persistent eflforts of the 

 briber. Worse, however, than this corrupting in- 

 fluence upon the civil service is the efiect upon 

 legislation and the legislator. The lobbyist, the 

 advocate of special laws, is the greatest enemy of 

 free institutions. When a people loses confidence 

 in its representatives, when, rightly or wrongly, 

 the latter are held in suspicion of being the tools of 

 private interests, then the calamity Is irreparable. 

 The briber of an oflBcer of the Government does mo- 

 mentary harm, while unjust laws tax generations 

 with unjust burdens, that are the more galling the 

 more people become conscious of the methods by 

 which were obtained the industrial preferences 

 and the privilege of taxing the masses for the bene- 

 fit of the few. 



Politics : An Introduction to the Study of 

 Comparative Constitutional Law. By 

 William W. Crane, and Bernard Mo- 

 ses, Ph. D., Professor of History and 

 Political Economy in the University of 

 California. New York : G. P. Putnam's 

 Sons. Pp. 305. Price, $1.50. 



This book opens with a description of 

 the structure of a nation and of the nature 

 of sovereignty. The basis of every political 

 community is alarmed to be physical force, 

 and the importance of political instinct is 

 insisted upon. Political heritage is illus- 

 trated by the history of the English colonics 

 in America. The means by which the will of 

 a sovereign is expressed are next taken up, 

 the tendency of power in the United States 

 and in some European federations is noted, 

 and a chapter is devoted to political parties. 



