Eight-hour law for workmen on public works. Incorporation of rural credit associations authorized. Ten hour day and fifty-four hour week for women in certain employments. Tuberculosis laws. Cities of less than 5000 permitted to adopt commission form of government. Constitutional amendment submitted providing for initiative and referendum. UTAH. Indeterminate sentences of persons convicted of crime. Mothers' pensions. VERMONT. Uniform negotiable instruments act. Blue sky law. State board of conciliation and arbitration created for adjustment of labor disputes. Eleven-hour day and fifty-eight hour week for women and minors in certain employments. Constitutional amendment submitted providing that general assembly may pass workmen's compensation laws. Commission created to investigate employers' liability laws. Capital punishment by electrocution provided. Uniform warehouse receipts act. State teachers' retirement fund established. Regulation and licensing of pawnshops. Commission to investigate tuberculosis. Question submitted to vote of people whether they prefer a preferential primary system whereby voters may instruct their delegates to political conventions as to their preference for candidates, or a direct primary system whereby voters vote directly for candidates for state, congressional and county offices. WASHINGTON. Initiative and referendum and recall constitutional amendments adopted at 1912 election. Constitutional amendment proposed removing restrictions against resident aliens holding lands within municipalities. Industrial welfare commission established, with power to fix minimum wages for women. Mothers' pensions act. State humane bureau created, to provide for protection of incompetents, children and minors. Family desertion act. Abatement of disorderly houses, along lines of Iowa law. Death penalty for murder abolished. Teachers pensions and retirement fund. Department of agriculture created. Agricultural districts established, for purpose of utilizing, improving and selling idle lands of the state. State highways law. Uniform warehouse receipts act. WEST VIRGINIA. Inheritance tax act. Public utilities act, providing for a public service commission having jurisdiction over persons and corporations engaged in any public service business. Workmen's compensation act. Statewide prohibition. Blue sky law. Anti-trust and monopoly law relating to common carriers. State road bureau and state system of roads established. WISCONSIN. Unfair competition and discrimination. Compensation to persons erroneously convicted of crime. WYOMING. Constitutional amendment submitted authorizing a workmen's compensation act. Eight-hour day for workmen on public works. Act prescribing liability of railroad companies for injuries to and death of employes, which follows generally the provisions of the federal statute. Marriage of white persons with negroes, mulattoes, mongolians or malays are declared to be void. Act restraining sale of cocaine and other drugs. At 1912 election a proposed constitutional amendment providing for initiative and referendum failed for lack of a sufficient total vote, although the vote on the proposed amendment was five to one in its favor. HIGHER NATIONALITY. A STUDY IN LAW AND ETHICS. ANNUAL ADDRESS BY RT. HON. RICHARD BURDON HALDANE, LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF GREAT BRITAIN. It is with genuine pleasure that I find myself among my fellow-lawyers of the New World. But my satisfaction is tempered by a sense of embarrassment. There is a multitude of topics on which it would be most natural that I should seek to touch. If, however, I am to use to any purpose the opportunity which you have accorded me, I must exclude all but one or two of them. For in an hour like this, as in most other times of endeavor, he who would accomplish anything must limit himself. What I have to say will therefore be confined to the suggestion of little more than a single thought, and to its development and illustration with materials that lie to hand. I wish to lay before you a result at which I have arrived after reflection, and to submit it for your consideration with such capacity as I possess. For the occasion is as rare as it is important. Around me I see assembled some of the most distinguished figures in the public life of this Continent; men who throughout their careers have combined law with statesmanship, and who have exercised a potent influence in the fashioning of opinion and of policy. The law is indeed a calling notable for the individualities it has produced. Their production has counted for much in the past of the three nations that are represented at this meeting, and it means much for them today. What one who finds himself face to face with this assemblage naturally thinks of is the future of these three nations; a future that may depend largely on the influence of men with opportunities such as are ours. The United States and Canada and Great Britain together form a group which is unique; unique because of its common inheritance in traditions, in surroundings, and in ideals. And nowhere is the character of this common inheritance more apparent than in the region of jurisprudence. The lawyers of the three countries think for the most part alike. At no period has political divergence prevented this fact from being strikingly apparent. Where the letter of their law is different the spirit is yet the same, and it has been so always. As I speak of the historical tradition of our great calling, and of what appears likely to be its record in days to come, it seems to me that we who are here gathered may well proclaim, in the words of the Spartans, "We are what you were; we shall be what you are." It is this identity of spirit, largely due to a past which the lawyers of the group have inherited jointly, that not only forms a bond of union, but furnishes them with an influence that can hardly be reproduced in other nations. I take my stand on facts which are beyond controversy, and seek to look ahead. I ask you to consider with me whether we, who have in days gone by moulded their laws, are not called on to try in days that lie in front to mould opinion in yet another form, and so encourage the nations of this group to develop and recognize a reliable character in the obligations they assume towards each other. For it may be that there are relations possible within such a group of nations as is ours that are not possible for nations more isolated from each other and lacking in our identity of history and spirit. Canada and Great Britain on the one hand and the United States on the other, with their common language, their common interests, and their common ends, form something resembling a single society. If there be such a society it may develop within itself a foundation for international faith of a kind that is new in the history of the world. Without interfering with the freedom of action of these great countries, or the independence of their constitutions, it may be possible to establish a true unison between sovereign states. This unison will doubtless, if it ever comes into complete being, have its witnesses in treaties and written agreements. But such documents can never of themselves constitute it. Its substance, if it is to be realized, must be sought for deeper down in an intimate social life. I have |