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such a complex. It must be understood, however, if the student desires a correct appreciation of the publications in question. They are not exhaustive, but highly selective. Documents revealing hostility toward the United States or reflecting upon our policies or tending to promote friendly relations between the Latin-American republics are given precedence. Such as they are, however, they can not fail to be welcomed by all students of American diplomacy, for the published diplomatic correspondence of Mexico is at present very inadequate. Nevertheless, it is a source of regret that the volume now under consideration does not contain more archive materials not heretofore made accessible to the public.

J. FRED RIPPY. The Government of China (1644-1911). By Pao Chao Hsieh. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1925. pp. 414. $3.00.

This is a very valuable contribution to Western knowledge concerning the political organization of the late Chinese Empire. It is also a notable addition to the list of doctoral dissertations presented by Chinese scholars in American universities, for Dr. Hsieh has relied almost entirely upon Chinese materials and his extensive bibliography contains many works which have rarely, if ever, been examined by Western scholars.

The task which confronted Dr. Hsieh was an appalling one. To describe the political organization of China at any time during the Manchu régime would be no easy matter-to describe the changing conditions in the central and provincial governments during the whole period of 267 years would require a work of encyclopaedic dimensions. For in China, to an unusual degree, it is necessary to know how the rules and regulations were applied in practice. Dr. Hsieh has frankly refrained from meeting the latter problem, for he has been "contented with discussing principally the organization of the government, and only occasionally touching upon its operation." A simple statement such as "The rate of exchange between silver and copper was 1,000 small copper cash for one tael of silver" (p. 192), may be considered an economic theory rather than an actual practice.

The fourteen chapters are, in the main, devoted to an account of the organization and functions of the various governmental services at Peking and in the provinces and territories. They will prove an invaluable reference work for the student of Chinese political institutions and history. Dr. Hsieh, however, is not content with presenting the dry details of organization, but frequently adds interpretative comments which are of much value. "Indeed to call the sale of offices one of the principal causes of the Manchu downfall would not be too severe a verdict upon this abominable institution" (p. 113); "One cannot help being impressed by the fact that China, instead of being known as a government of no laws, was really one of a superabundance of bad laws, loosely administered and grossly abused" (p. 137); "Such being the workings of the competitive examination, aside from help

ing to centralize the government and stabilize the throne, nothing good can be found in it" (p. 180); "Thus inequality in legal protection came from all sides. Justice might be obtained; but the means to that end, law, was all at sixes and sevens, open to the abuse of the influential, an instrumentality of the clever and the wicked, and a constant source of grievances to the good, honest, and yet stupid people" (p. 234). In this study of the old régime will be found much to explain the manifold difficulties which have embarrassed the so-called Republic. Yet the repeated indictments of the Manchus seem overdrawn, for the Chinese officials, always in a great majority, must bear some of the responsibility for the decadence of the Chinese administration.

A few errors in statement and in spelling have been observed, notably on page 288 where a table of the officers and men of the Chinese army in 1885 is given. The first two columns are added to give a third (total), then the three are combined with a fourth to make a new total. The items of this last total (which will probably be accepted by hasty readers) are in every case almost twice as large as they should be. Thus the total number of privates is given as 1,245,647, whereas it should read 632,245. The most serious defect, however, in a work which will be used primarily for reference, is the absence of an index.

PAYSON J. TREAT.

L'Introduction du Droit Civil Français en Alsace et en Lorraine. Etudes d'Histoire et de Droit par un Groupe de Magistrats, d'Avocats et de Professeurs. Paris: Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, 1925. pp. 166.

One of the interesting legal incidents of the World War and the change of European frontiers was emphasized by the return, after twenty-nine years of absence, of the French civil law into Alsace-Lorraine on the first of January, 1925.

The ideal of French jurists, long pondered before the Revolution and only realized through the power of Napoleon, was the unification of French law. It was Voltaire who said that in France you changed your legal system every time you stepped out of your coach. This remark must appeal to every American lawyer who may be called upon to know something of the jurisprudence prevailing in half a hundred different jurisdictions.

The old Province of Alsace, that interesting borderline between the Romance and Germanic civilization, at the time of the French occupation found itself subjected to a legal situation of a very complex character. Customary law and feudal usage were affected and modified by ancient Canon law. Various cities possessed laws and customs of their own, and the French conquest superimposed upon these laws the royal law prevailing in the French monarchy. In addition to all that, there existed a subsidiary Roman law. This highly complicated situation was finally ended in 1804

when Alsace-Lorraine became part of the legal entity of France, and the Code Civil was there introduced, abolishing all the general and local customs, and laws and regulations which had accumulated during centuries. The Code Civil remained in force not only during the remainder of the French régime, but was continued under the German domination after 1871 and up to 1896, at which time Germany itself had completed its juristic entity by the promulgation of the German Civil Code.

During all these years, Alsace had adapted itself completely to the French legal system. The change to the new German code required some readjustment, but did not really revolutionize the juristic situation in the provinces. The fact is that the two codes which succeeded each other in this territory had a common foundation in Roman law and Germanic custom. Both had grown up in civilizations whose fundamental ideas had much in common. It was thus not difficult for the courts and the people to readjust themselves to the change. In matters relating to the rights of persons and of property the German code was penetrated by ideas native to France and consecrated in the French Civil Code-the equality of men before the law, whatever might be their social condition or religious profession, the allodial character of all property and the general abolition of restrictions upon the power of alienation.

The provinces were, however, not to remain indefinitely under the German code. The French desire for national unity in respect to law, as in other things, and their strongly developed Roman conception of administrative centralization, were soon to affect Alsace. A commission was appointed to prepare a law for the reintroduction into Alsace of the French law. After some years of labor the work of this commission resulted in a proposal, finally passed by Parliament in 1925, which reintroduced the Code Civil, with its various amendments down to date, into Alsace. Nevertheless, some local systems were maintained, especially those concerning the protection of incompetents and certain matters affecting the marriage relation and succession. Thus was reëstablished in Alsace and in Lorraine the law which had been applied through the whole of the nineteenth century.

It has been objected that it was unreasonable to substitute the old Code Napoleon for the modern twentieth century German code. This argument overlooks the fact that the French civil law has been profoundly modified since 1804. During those years the original text of the code had been much changed and numerous laws had been added in order to bring it into conformity with changed economic and social conditions. This movement changed some aspects of the Code Civil. It has humanized, democratized and socialized it, especially in its relation to family and succession law.

More interesting still, from the standpoint of the American law, the Code Civil has been enriched by a mass of case law which has adapted it to the economic needs of society. This jurisprudence developed under the direc

tion of the Court of Cassation "presents a remarkable plasticity, very superior to that of the text of the law because it arises out of a conflict of actual interest." This judge-made law has so many advantages that French lawyers may well query whether its retention is not preferable to a new codification. "Without going into a discussion of that question, it suffices us to note the importance and the value of this source which ceaselessly aliments and rejuvenates the ancient French civil law." In such language does Professor Henri Capitan, Professor in the Law Faculty of the University of Paris, close his excellent article on the reintroduction of the French law into Alsace.

In concluding the study of the local situation in the two provinces, it is interesting to note how Anglo-American law and civil law are moving toward each other, the former now more surely recognizing the value of the formulation of general principles, and the latter discovering the value of that elastic development of law brought about by the courts in the decision of actual

cases.

This little book is an admirable study by some of the leading jurists in Paris, in Metz, Strassburg, and in Nancy. It composes an interesting chapter of legal history and emphasizes, through the many differences, the fundamental similarities to be found in European law. It encourages our hope that conflicting views of international legal doctrines may be gradually reconciled and that there is a sufficient basis for agreement to already constitute what is in fact a codification of a great body of international law. FREDERIC R. COUDERT.

Modern Immigration. By Annie Marion MacLean. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1925. pp. xii, 393. Index. $3.00.

Ever since the increasing numbers of the human species first began to press upon the resources of the habitat, and the evils of overpopulation began to be felt, the natural remedy has always seemed to be movement. Scarcely anything in the whole history of human activities has been more significant than the wanderings of groups of people seeking easier conditions of life, sometimes seeking the means of life itself. In the early stages of human civilization, covering untold tens of thousands of years, these movements were unopposed by any human obstacles. They were venturings into uninhabited territory, which benefited alike those who went and those who stayed.

Eventually, however, this situation came to an end, because there were no more uninhabited lands to be appropriated. But the need for movement did not diminish, but rather augmented, as populations continued to grow. Consequently there followed a vast stretch of time when movements took the form of violent and hostile attempts to encroach upon the land of other groups. Recorded history consists very largely of a chronicle of these attempts. Finally the discovery of the American continents and other

favorable regions restored the possibility of peaceful movements between friendly countries, which constitute what we call modern immigration.

The United States was the foremost of the countries which received these enormous streams, and for many decades it hardly occurred to anyone that the situation might not continue indefinitely. Within the past few years, however, we have witnessed an abrupt termination of unlimited immigration, and the doors have been forever closed to all except a select few. This change has brought into new prominence the other immigrant receiving countries, and has emphasized strikingly the fact that immigration is not an American problem, but a world problem. The great questions now obtrude themselves: If the United States has stopped the greatest outlet of immigration, how long will it be before the other countries, however hospitable they may now feel, will follow suit? and, When there are no more voluntary immigrant receiving countries, what form will the immemorial expedient of population movement take? Will we return to some type of violent, forcible movement, or will we find some other means of dealing with the incubus of overpopulation?

To those who recognize population and migration as the most insistent international problems of the post-War epoch, Dr. MacLean's book will prove a valuable aid. It contains a brief summary of the immigration situation in each of the chief receiving countries, a review of the principal laws on the subject, and an estimate of the national attitude toward the problem. The various aspects of the individual human interests involved are also sketched. A large portion of the volume is devoted to a compilation of the United States laws and regulations on immigration and naturalization. There is thus assembled a mass of data not elsewhere easily accessible.

HENRY PRATT FAIRCHILD.

The Chinese Abroad. By Harley Farnsworth MacNair. Shanghai: The Commercial Press, 1924. pp. xxiv, 340. Index. $3.00 Mex.

Dr. MacNair, who is Professor of History and Government in St. John's University, Shanghai, China, is well known by his other publications in the fields of Chinese history and politics. In the present volume he has dealt in an able manner with a subject of substantial interest, not only to the Chinese themselves, but to all nations having relations with the Chinese. The materials for the work he has had to gather from a great variety of sources. The care and industry with which he has done this gathering, and the judgment and impartiality with which he has dealt with his facts, give to his volume a high value. The following from among the chapter-headings of the volume will indicate the character and importance of the topics considered: "The Relation of China to Her Nationals Abroad," "Chinese Acquisition of Foreign Nationality," "The Chinese Alien-Merchant and Free Laborer," "The Contract Laborer," "The Chinese Student Abroad,"

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