Lodge, Rupert C.

bepress Legal Repository

Review of \u3ci\u3eSome Reflections on Jurisprudence\u3c/i\u3e by W. W. Buckland

University of Chicago Law School: Chicago Unbound

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW REVIEWtioning some of the more important topics covered, such as claims, practice, and pro-cedure before the Veterans' Administration, rights, duties, payments, and status uponrelease from service, employment rights and unemployment benefits, education andrehabilitation, loans, insurance, property and estates, pensions, hospitalization andretirement pay, and the Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act. Generally the textmaterial is clear and concise, comprehensive and well documented. Exceptions may benoted, however-the chapter on employment rights and benefits furnishing a readyexample. There, an excellent discourse on civil service preferences is coupled with abrief treatment of veterans' re-employment rights, no mention being made of the per-plexing problems involving unions and seniority. The urgent need for a work on thelaw of veterans may well have been an overriding factor in publishing a volume inwhich not every topic was fully developed. Pocket part supplementation is the obviouscure. On the other hand, the number of subjects covered is very great and although thecomplex problems are not treated in all instances, the basic law on every subject isgiven. By the very nature of the subject matter the book contains a good deal of mate-rial that is not particularly germane to the practice of law. The inclusion of advice ongovernment life insurance, retirement pay, etc., gives the work a wider appeal than tothe legal profession alone and in no way detracts from its value as an encyclopedia onthe law of veterans.Two excellent features of the volume must not be overlooked. The first is the de-tailed procedural guide found in every chapter. Sources of information, forms and theiruse, administrative bodies and their jurisdiction, and exact steps to be taken in realizingeach right and obtaining each benefit are all clearly indicated in the body of the text.The second feature is an appendix, some four hundred pages in length, containing acollection of all federal statutes which relate to veterans' rights, veterans' regulations,a summary of the principal state laws pertaining to veterans, and a list of addresses ofall offices and agencies connected with veterans. The inclusion of such material roundsout the handbook. They are valuable aids to an invaluable volume.HoRAcE RUSSELL*Some Reflections on Jurisprudence. By W. W. Buckland. Cambridge, England:University Press, r945. PP. viii, 118.This little book expands slightly the substance of a course of lectures. Its author isProfessor Emeritus at Civil Law in Cambridge University. His successive chaptersrepresent, not the consecutive development of a single theme, but the application of acentral point of view to a variety of topics connected, more or less closely, with thesubject of jurisprudence.If we define "philosophy" as largely critical reflection upon presuppositions andimplications, the author's point of view is philosophical. Chapters i-iv and vi mightwell have been entitled "Prolegomena to jurisprudence." They contain critical reflec-tions upon recent and current philosophies of the nature and function of law, and de-termine the limitations of jurisprudence. The views of Kant, Spencer, Duguit, Krabbe,Kelsen, Jellinek, Stanmnler, and of many others are crisply summarized, cited, andevaluated, with a neat modern instance in each case to drive home the point of the* Member of the Illinois Bar.BOOK REVIEWScriticism. Chapters v, ix, and x fall more within the field of jurisprudence itself. Theydeal with such topics as "The Command Theory and Its Rivals," "Legal Sovereign andPolitical Sovereign," and "Some Legal Concepts," and contain, amongst other goodthings, an extremely clear exposition and refutation of the social contract theory.Here again abstractness is mitigated by reference (a) to specific authorities such asAustin, Vinogradoff, Sir E. Barker, and many others, and (b) to apposite concreteinstances.The author's standpoint is empirical, comparative, and historical. He excludes fromjurisprudence (as far as possible for one himself living in a historical period) the en-croachment of value-judgments from the fields of ethics and social and speculativephilosophy, and would make of jurisprudence a dispassionate scientific study ofphenomena which are actual rather than ideal. He warns that a good deal of what hesays is regarded as heterodox, but claims that the points of view suggested are worthfurther consideration.The book is exceptionally well written, and suggests the easy mastery of a well-trained legal mind on the bench. The reviewer can find no fault with the clearness,soundness, and indeed finality of the author's summing up. But the reader, on layingthe book down after enjoying it, is inclined to wonder whether the ex cathedra finality,which is so impressive in its reference to history which is past, is not perhaps out ofplace when it refers to a history which is still in the making. The feeling persists thatpresent-day writers (e.g., Mr. Harold L aski) -who are tried and found wanting as au-thorities in the field of theory, may actually have more to do with the creation, bylegislation, of the brave new world of the future than the author's analyses, howeverlogically brilliant, indicate.RuPERT C. LODGE*Transportation under Two Masters. By Charles D. Drayton. Washington: The Na-tional Law Book Co., 1946. Pp. 375.Except for personal attacks on the author of Justice in Transportation and on JudgeThurman Arnold, who contributed the introduction to that book, Mr. Drayton, inTransportation under Two Masters, merely repeats the ancient arguments of rail-road propagandists who have contended that the railroads, because they are subject toregulation under the Interstate Commerce Act, should be exempt from the operationof the antitrust laws. Mr. Drayton considers the enforcement of the antitrust laws bythe Department of Justice a molestation or interference with the functions of the Inter-state Commerce Commission and an attempt to "take out of the hands of the Inter-state Commerce Commission a large measure of authority vested in that body." Mr.Drayton inquires whether the public interest would be served by the "continuance oforderly regulation of our transportation system by the Interstate Commerce Commis-sion" or whether that tribunal should be "superseded in its regulatory function by theAntitrust Division of the Department of Justice."' The assumption that regulatedcarriers cannot simultaneously be required to obey these two laws enacted by theCongress is the basic fallacy of his book.Mr. Drayton would have the reader believe that the Sherman Antitrust Act was* University of Manitoba. 1 PP. 3-5.

English

https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2284&amp;context=uclrev

Review of \u3ci\u3eSome Reflections on Jurisprudence\u3c/i\u3e by W. W. Buckland

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

bepress Legal Repository

University of Chicago Law School: Chicago Unbound