treatises, appear in Britton, but not more so than can be expected of a later author traversing the same ground as his predecessors, just as Hale followed Coke, and Blackstone followed. Hale, particularly in his Analysis. But the forms, the arrangement of heads of subjects, and the subdivisions are totally different, and the proofs of independent authorship on the part of Britton are abundant and conclusive. The art of condensed statement, embodying the results and in part incorporating the language of previous writers, involving as it does the use of the mind in fusing the material, and compressing it, as in this case, into one-fourth the space, is in itself an act of independent authorship, but when this is followed by a totally different arrangement of the subject and of subdivisions, and the proper classification of new matter, and the more thorough treatment of common topics, there can be but little left to hypercriticism. Architects can scarcely be charged with copying each others' plans because all buildings consist of foundations, walls, and roofs. It is in the combination and disposition of the parts that originality is displayed. No one can read the opening paragraph of Bracton's first chapter, and follow it by turning to the opening words of Glanville without perceiving that Bracton had Glanville either in mind or in hand at the time of writing, yet no one would venture to charge Bracton with misappropriation of ideas, or even of language. But the matter goes deeper than this. Bracton's work, the noblest product of five hundred years, and incomparably greater than Britton in its dignity of style, its loftiness of sentiment, its copious drafts upon the Civil Law, and its scientific arrangement, devotes the first Book to the Division of Things: The second book to the methods of acquiring title to Things; the third, fourth, and fifth to Actions, and in their discussion Bracton states the substantive principles of law. Britton makes no attempt at philosophical arrangement or statement: his work is essentially practical, and designed for the information of practitioners. His first book treats of the Authority of Justices and of other officers and of personal pleas, including pleas of the Crown. His second, treats of Disseisins and their remedies; his third, of Intrusions and their remedies; his fourth, of Pleas relating to Advowsons and the Property of Churches; and of Attaints; his fifth, of pleas of Dower and Entry; and his sixth of Proprietary actions. But the point lies here. If we read Britton "with our wits as well as with our eyes" we can visualize the legal con

ditions of the reign of Edward I. The value and importance of the work consists of its descriptions of the system of the Common Law as arranged and ordained by the greatest of the English Kings, from a lawyer's point of view, considering the effects upon all that was subsequently illustrated by the labors of Littleton, St. Germain, Fortescue, Perkins, Plowden, Coke, Hale and Blackstone. This is particularly true of the judicial establishments and the partition of jurisdiction between tribunals, and the reservation of Appellate authority to the King or to the judges who especially represented his personal authority. As Dugdale in his Origines Juridiciales says: "Consonant whereunto is that expression of King Edward the first in the beginning of his Booke of Laws, called Breton, where, having declared, that he is God's Vicegerent, and that he hath distributed his Chardge into several portions as being not able alone to hear and determine all the complaints of his subjects; he thus goeth on-Nos voulons que nostre jurisdiction', etc.—We will, that our jurisdiction be superior to all the jurisdictions of our Realm; so that in all Felonies, Trespasses, Contracts, and in all other actions personal or real, we have power to give, or cause to be given, such judgments as do appertain (without any other Process) wheresoever we know the direct truth, as Judges."

It would have been impossible for any one to have said this at an earlier date, for it was not until the reign of Edward that this concentration of authority occurred. Henry II, had taken the first decided steps towards a consolidation of the judicial authority of the Kingdom, but the steps were few and halting in comparison with the stride of the mighty Longshanks. In studying the origin of the present judicial establishments, it is clear that Edward I, played a Founder's part. Professor Baldwin, in his Introduction to Britton as one of the Legal Classic Series, declares: "the Courts of England, if we are to measure them by their relation, on the one hand, to the people, and on the other to the law, had first come into existence under the legislation of his reign."

Then, too, it is one of the features of Britton that he gives form and color and detail to various methods of trial supplying what others had omitted, and furnishing material for later writers to work into picturesque passages of their text. Thus it is with proceedings by trial by Battle in civil actions for land. Glanville is the first to mention the matter, but he simply states

it as a well-established remedy. Bracton has either omitted to treat of battle in civil actions, or the treatise has not come down to us. It is true that in his description of appeals, involving charges of crime, he enters into many particulars, including the oath of the parties, and the manner of the combat, but Britton adds details concerning the armor and weapons of the combatants in an appeal which are not to be found in Glanville, Bracton or Fleta. Other notices of this curious subject are to be found in Dugdale, and they re-appear in Coke, and finally in Blackstone's incomparably graphic chapter in his Third Book, but it is in the pages of Britton that what artists would term "atmosphere" is to be found. Another instance may be found in Britton's treatment of the peculiar force given to a written instrument by the presence of a seal.

On the whole, the great value of Britton to the student of legal history is that he is an author who lived in the midst of the acts that he described, and these acts concern the most important formative period of the English law; an author who was a trained lawyer, familiar with technicalities, and not simply an annalist or historian. It is an original work dropped by the side of an original spring. We commend it to the attention of students in the words of William Prynne in his Abridgement of the Records in the Tower: "Let all Professors of the Law and other studies beware lest through sloathfulness, ease or negligence, they nowe study and make use of Abridgement in their professions, rather than of the original Law Books, Statutes and Authors, lest they divert them to close and shallow Cisterns, whose leisure might serve (as they should principally endeavor) to be well acquainted with the deep and open original springs." Hampton L. Carson,

Philadelphia, Pa.

THE INQUISITORIAL POWER CONFERRED BY

THE TRADE COMMISSION BILL

I.

The anti-trust bills bring before Congress the whole theory and conduct of modern business. They involve in greater or less degree manufacturers, trade unions, agricultural associations, railways, banks, department stores, producers, consumers, wholesalers, middlemen, retailers. Many interests are demanding for themselves recognition, protection, exemption and for others restraint and destruction-each instinctively parading its own. merit, its own grievance. The economic controversy between regulated combination and enforced competition is well to the fore and we may not avoid the political controversy over centralization of power.

Much of the running criticism of the anti-trust bills has served to emphasize specific defects and, as a whole, it has performed a greater service in assuring a deliberate consideration for great questions of law and policy. But, as each day brings new suggestions, running criticism is much like trying to keep tab on a kaleidoscope and so it should be paralleled by a study of fundamentals pursued without regard to the daily bulletin. While there is no time to be lost in making this study, sufficient time is assured by the fact that no anti-trust bill will express the will of Congress until it shall have passed the ordeals of committee reports in each House, of thorough debate, in the Senate at least, of a conference report and of final vote, and no bill can become law without executive approval. Until final action the whole anti-trust programme should be treated as in a state of flux-a provision discarded may reappear at the last momentone seemingly fixed may disappear and I should say that no bill will be given precedence-all will be submitted together in order to assure the final declaration of a homogeneous policy.

Utilizing this opportunity for discussion I will consider several of the leading questions, especially whether the "rule of reason" is to yield to the misrule of unreason, and I present now some thoughts on the Trade Commission Bill (H. R. 14631) and especially on the inquisitorial power it purports to confer.

II.

The bill in question which was introduced March 16 with the approval of the House Committee on Interstate Commerce is, so far as this committee is concerned, substituted for H. R. 12,120 of January 22.

By Section 3 there is "vested" in the commission all the existing powers, authority and duties of the Bureau of Corporations and of the Commissioner of Corporations contained in an act entitled, "an act to establish the Department of Commerce and Labor," approved February 14, 1903, and all amendments thereto, and contained in resolutions of the United States Senate passed on March 1, 1913, on May 27, 1913, and on June 18, 1913." Turning to the Bureau Act we read: "The said commissioner shall have power and authority to make, under the direction and control of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, diligent investigation into the organization, conduct and management of the business of any corporation, joint stock company or corporate combination engaged in the commerce among the several states and with foreign nations, excepting common carriers subject to an "Act to Regulate Commerce, approved February fourth, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven, and to gather such information and data as will enable the President of the United States to make recommendations to Congress for legislation for the regulation of such commerce, and to report such data to the President from time to time as he shall require: and the information so obtained or as much thereof as the President may direct shall be made public."

By Section 9 "Every corporation, engaged in commerce, excepting corporations subject to the Acts to regulate commerce, which, by itself or with one or more other corporations owned, operated, controlled, or organized in conjunction with it so as to constitute substantially a business unit, has a capital of $5,000,000 or more, or has less capital and belongs to any class of corporations which the commission may make, shall furnish to the commission annually, such information, statements, and records of its organization, bondholders and stockholders, and financial condition, and also such information, statements and records of its relation to other corporations and its business and practices while engaged in commerce as the commission shall require, and the commission may, to enable it the better to carry