domain. It was in view of the extensive nature of this power that Chief Justice Marshal said that "the power to tax is the power to destroy." In a simple despotic government the extent of the power and the mode of its exercise present no questions for discussion: the only question relates to the best method of raising revenue; and, as a French finance minister said to a French king, that method is the best which yields the greatest amount of feathers with the least squawking." But in a limited constitutional government there is no such thing as an absolute power of taxation, although the power concerns the right of the government to exist; but the power is hedged about by constitutional limitatious designed to prevent the exercise of it for the purpose of raising money for private purposes, and to establish, so far as practicable, equality in the exercise of it. Absolute equality of taxation is confessedly unattainable. On the other hand, where a system of valuation or of assessment is resorted to which, in its necessary operation, produces palpable inequality, it is the right and duty of the judicial courts to intervene on the ground that the taxpayer who suffers from the discrimination is thereby denied the equal protection of the laws, within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. In a dual system of government like ours, complications necessarily arise in the exercise of the taxing power which are strangers to this system where all the powers of the government proceed from a single sovereign source. Many of these complications have been adjusted by the judiciary on lines of wisdom and good sense. The State cannot tax the agencies of the general government, and thereby hamper the operations of that government; the general government cannot tax the agencies of the State governments, and thereby hamper the operations of those governments. Neither the Federal government on the one hand, nor the State governments on the other, can be destroyed by the other; and we thus have an indestructible union of indestructible States.

There is no such thing, under our American constitutions, as an unlimited power of taxation. Not only is the power hedged about by constitutional restrictions, Federal and State, but within the last generation the doctrine has sprung up-a doctrine which our ancestors would have thought anomalous, if not monstrous that there are implied limitations upon the taxing power in every free government which the legislature cannot transcend. The implication is raised by the judicial against the legislative branch of the government; the judge erects a barrier against the legislature where the constitution has erected none; and this is called an implied limitation, that is to say a limitation implied from the very nature of free government.

The provision of the Constitution of the United States that "no State shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts," was distorted by judicial constraction to apply to those contracts made by the State itself in granting franchises to corporations; and into this category fell by a plain malinterpretation, the franchise or privilege conferred upon corporations of being exempted from taxation, either for a prescribed length of time, or for all time. One legislature could thus prevent a succeeding legislature from raising revenue for the support of government, and in effect decree that government in the future should not exist for want of the means of existence. Railroad com panies exist which still enjoy a perpetual immunity from taxation under this monstrous perversion of constitutional interpretation.

The want of power in the States to tax the agencies of the general govern

ment is conspicuously illustrated in the case of the taxation of the shares of the existing national banks. The power of the State to tax such shares is wholly permissive, derived from an act of Congress. The general impression that the Federal courts construe doubtful questions most strongly in favor of Federal power is contradicted by a long line of decisions of The Supreme Court of the United States in construing this permissive statute. The court began wrong by adopting John Marshall's senseless subtlety, about there being a difference between shares and capital, holding in effect that the sum of a thing is not equal to all its parts. This foolish canon of interpretation led the court into all manner of trouble and confusion, with the result that the States were allowed, in taxing the national banks, to do about as they pleased, with here and there a sporadic exception, and that the national banks were often the subject of unfriendly discrimination in the way of State taxation without redress at the hands of the Federal judiciary. Under the operation of weak and untenable decisions, a species of State banks called trust companies have sprung up like mushrooms in the night, have drawn to themselves vastly more capital than that yielded by the regular banks, State and National, and have, in some States, escaped taxation entirely upon this enormous capital, while the regular State and National banks have borne a heavy burden of taxation. Against this state of things the Federal judiciary has utterly refused relief.

These things are mentioned to show some questions which arise in the exercise of the power of taxation and which have been so ably handled in this book. The author of it has dealt with these questions in a practical way, in the practice of his profession, for many years. They have thus come home to him with a realism and a vital force. He brings to the discussion of them a mature mind and judgment. In eighteen chapters he deals with the power of taxation excluding, wisely, we think, those questions which arise out of the modes of exercising the power. These chapters relate to: 1. Limitations upon State Taxation Growing out of the Relation of the State and Federal Government; 2. Contracts of Exemption from Taxation; 3, 4, 5, 6. Regulation of Commerce; 7. Taxation of Interstate Commerce; 8. Valuation of Interstate Properties for Taxation; 9. Taxation of National Banks; 10. The Fourteenth Amendment; 11. Due Process of Law in Tax Procedure; 12. Due Process of Law and the Public Purpose of Taxation; 13. Due Process of Law in Special Assessment for Local Improvement; 14. Due Process of Law and the Jurisdiction of the States; 15. Equal Protection of the Laws; 16. Equal Protection of the Laws in the Valuation of Property; 17. Taxing Power of Congress; 18. The Enforcement of Federal Limitations upon the Taxing Power. The last chapter, as will be readily perceived, relates to questions of procedure in the Federal courts with respect to taxation.

Mr. Judson roundly states the scope of the work in his preface, as follows: "It is the aim of this work to show the limitations of the taxing power of the State and of the Federal government so far as these limitations have been declared and expounded by the Supreme Court of the United States. Decisions of the State courts and inferior Federal courts have been cited as applying or illustrating the limitations thus declared. These limitation3 filx what the State can tax. What it has taxed must be learned from its own statutes and the decisions of its own courts. What it ought to tax is a question for economists and reformers."

THE CANADIAN SUPREME COURT LIBRARY CATALOGUE. Catalogue of the Library of the Supreme and Exchequer Courts of Canada. Catalogue de la Bibliothèque de la Cour Suprême et de la Court de L' Exchiquier du Canada. 1897. Ottawa: Printed by S. E. Dawson, printer to the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty. 1897.

In transmitting this catalogue the learned librarian, HARRIS H. BLIGH, Esq., K. C., states that he is also preparing a supplement, which will appear early in the present year. He calls attention to the fact that about one-third of the Supreme Court library of Canada consists of reports of the United States, Federal, State or District, and that when other American works in that library are added, probably one-half of the library is made up from publications in our country. From an examination of this catalogue we can readily concur in this estimate. He also states that the Canadian Supreme Court library subscribes for the AMERICAN LAW REVIEW and other American legal periodicals, all of which are found to be of interest and value to the patrons of the library. But he states that it has always seemed to him that the courts and judges of Canada and their proceedings, do not receive that amount of attention and consideration at the hands of the American law periodicals that they are fairly entitled to receive; and he applies this statement to all Canadian courts, both Dominion and Provincial, but particularly to those which concern the entire Dominion. We believe that the American law publications are subject to this impeachment; we do not claim exemption from it in behalf the AMERICAN LAW REVIEW; and we are sorry for it. Certainly on questions of the common law, the judgments of the Canadian courts are entitled to a very high rank, as high, we venture to say, as are those of the courts of England; and on questions which take root in the civil law the judgments of the courts of the Province of Quebec seem entitled to rank equally high. We will endeavor in the future in our "Notes of Recent Decisions" to give more attention to the decisions of the Canadian courts.

In a mere law catalogue there is not much which can tempt a reviewer. It seems sufficient to say that this catalogue is well and aptly constructed. We note that a large portion of this library consists of French works, or works published in the French language.

ANNUAL ANNOTATIONS 1 to 4 CYC. — Cyclopedia of Law and Procedure Edited by WILLIAM MACK and HOWARD P. NASH. Annual Annotations (1-4 Cyc.). New York: The Amer ican Law Book Company. London: Butterworth & Co., 12 Bell Yard. 1902.

When the publishers of the Cyclopedia of Law and Procedure announced that they would avoid new editions by a system of annual annotations, their patrons were curious to know what the system would be. The first volume of Annotations, covering the four first volumes of the original work, has now been issued. It is a clean, well printed book of 161 pages, of same size of the pages of the original work. These annotations take up the titles embraced in the first four volumes of the original work, and elther add new citations of cases or new paragraphs stating the doctrine of new decisions, prefixed by figures which indicate the places which they would occupy in the original work. Nothing could be simpler or apter. The scheme itself and the manner in which it is carried out seem to be admirably adapted to assist the busy practitioner in keeping abreast of the latest decisions.