SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
1Notiee in this column does not necessarily preclude subsequent review.]
Judicial Settlement of Controversies between States of the Ameri- can Union. Cases Decided, and Analysis by J. B. Scott. (Claren- don Press. 3 vols. 37s. 6d.)—Professor Scott has done a very valuable piece of work, on behalf of the Carnegie Endowment, in collecting and editing the eighty cases in which States have appeared before the Supreme Court since 1799, and still more in preparing a lucid and detailed analysis which may be read with interest by laymen. Professor Scott's ultimate object is to suggest that " what thirteen States of the New World have done, the States of the Old World can assuredly do if only they will "—namely, submit their disputes to a qualified Court and abide by its decision: It is only too easy, unfortunately, to point to the lack in Europe of the common ideals and traditions which helped the American States gradually, though not all at once, to accustom themselves to the practice of appealing to the Supreme Court when they quarrelled with their neighbours. Nevertheless, the example set by them should not be dismissed with a sigh as wholly inapplicable to our European conditions. The Supreme Court had, and has, no power to enforce its decisions ; they are accepted now as a matter of course, in deference to public opinion.
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