COMPARATIVE LAW

The announcement of the opening of the new Institute of Comparative Law as recorded elsewhere in this morning's CRIMSON is a convincing demonstration of the ability of the Harvard Law School to more than hold its own in the rapid progress that has been made in the study of law during recent years. The first of its kind in the United States, the new Institute offers the opportunity of inspecting the results attained under legal methods quite unlike those in use in this country and yet possibly containing features of value for the American social system.

The inadequacy of the present legal code of the United States has been explained so often as to have become a common-place. In the midst of the tremendous progress made by such branches of society as commerce and science, the law been slow in adapting itself to new conditions. The Sherman Anti-Trust laws, to use a familiar illustration, are already hopelessly antiquated to deal with modern business. By nature of its bulk and intimate connection with the past, the legal code is usually one of the last phases of society to adapt itself to changing environment.

Indications have not been wanting that the need for remedying the maladjustment has been recognized. The Commission appointed by President Hoover last spring for the study of law enforcement, as a member of which Dean Pound is at present on a leave of absence from the University, is the most conspicuous example, but law schools all over the country, notably at Yale and Johns Hopkins, are carrying on allied investigations. The Institute of Criminal Law inaugurated at Harvard earlier in the year is also working along the same general lines towards a reform in the criminal code. To these analyses of conditions as they exist in the United States, the Institute of Comparative Law, by extending the scope of investigations to other countries, will be able to add a broadened perspective and objective viewpoint that will prove to be of immense value.

Important as it is to society, the program of law reform is both large and difficult and its completion will be a matter of decades rather than years. Harvard may well be proud of being represented among the leaders in the movement and the new Institute has opportunity to make a valuable contribution. It is especially fortunate to have at its head Professor Redlich, whose experience as Austrian Minister of Finance and as Professor of Public Law at the University of Vienna quality him from both the administrative and the academic point of view and make him an admirable leader for the new undertaking.