308 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXI. No. 532. 



As death comes but ouce to every man 

 and is the one event on the happening of 

 which the devolution of his estate takes 

 place, so that devolution, to work justice, 

 must, as far at least as his personal prop- 

 erty may be concerned, follow one single 

 course of law. 



During the last few years the principal 

 nations of continental Europe have held 

 four successive conferences at The Hagnae, 

 to regulate the rights of the citizens of 

 each with respect to acts and transactions 

 that may come under consideration in the 

 courts of the rest. On several points they 

 have reached a definite agreement, in the 

 shape of reciprocal conventions, ratified 

 by the leading powers. A new convention 

 was proposed by the last conference, held 

 in June, 1904, on the subject of succession 

 to the dead. It secures its regulation ac- 

 cording to the law of the country of which 

 the former owner was a citizen or subject. 



England and the United States have 

 thus far adhered to the view that the law 

 of the land in which he had his home 

 should govern. But under either rule the 

 same end is secured — unity of administra- 

 tion. A single succession is to be regu- 

 lated by a single law. 



Our new American practice must ope- 

 rate as a divisive force within the Ameri- 

 can Union. 



It attacks the prosperity of the country 

 at a vital point. The United States have 

 grown great and rich because of the prin- 

 ciple of absolute free trade between the 

 states so far as anything in the nature of 

 a tariff is concerned, and absolute free 

 trade in all respects, except so far as Con- 

 gress may see fit to legislate to the con- 

 trary. It was the change to this policy 

 from that of the pro-constitutional era 

 that made the United States a living 

 nationality. Under the Articles of Con- 

 federation each of the thirteen equal 

 srvpi-oigns could tax and often did tax the 



products of the others. In May, 1784,* 

 for instance, Connecticut laid a duty on 

 all goods imported from any other state, 

 except such as had been previously im- 

 ported from abroad by a citizen of Con- 

 necticut for use or sale in Connecticut. 

 This law was expressly made applicable 

 even to the baggage of passengers arriving 

 by water. To such legislation the Consti- 

 tution of the United States opposed an 

 effective bar, and in so doing benefited 

 every state to the injury of none. 



A recent statement from the Bureau of 

 Statistics at Washington shows that the 

 total value of the goods dealt in last year 

 throughout the United States in their in- 

 ternal trade, based on what they cost the 

 first consumer, was twenty-two billion dol- 

 lars. This is nearly fifteen times as great 

 as that of the goods which Ave export ; 

 nearly twice that of all the goods imported 

 during the same year in international trade 

 throiaghout the world, and more than twice 

 that of the whole world's exports for the 

 same period. IMuch of this home trade is 

 purely domestic: but much also is trade 

 between the states. 



Anything which impedes the free trans- 

 mission of money or moneyed securities 

 from one state to another so far unstrings 

 the sinews of this commerce between the 

 states. To tax their transmission when 

 they pass in a mass, by the event of the 

 owner's death, is to create an impediment 

 to their transmission by him during his 

 life which the public are fast learning to 

 regard as very serious. 



This evil first arose during the closing 

 yeai's of the nineteenth century. How 

 shall it be remedied in the twentieth" 



Could Congress treat it as so far affect- 

 ing commerce between the states (and with 

 foreign nations, for the double burden falls 

 often on foreign heirs and legatees) as to 

 justify a statute of the United States pro- 



» Statutes, Ed. 1784, 271. 



