Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1890-04-08

& Maybe some OF these days before the
Millennium comes our judges will be able
- agree upon the law but the day Is
Smot yet. There Is more uncertainty In
~ now than ever, and the trouble Of get
1 l1ng state laws into harmony with ma
11onal laws, a. read by the judges, Is be-
oomlng very serious. The interests Of
+ The different sections of the country are
70 diverse that there will always be an
t1lort among the states to protect them
6elves against each other and always
striving by the United States to get them
70 live together as one. The old doc
trines of state rights has received
some ugly knocks Of late years;
and the states practically seem
10 be knocked out of any special powers
save that of not paying their debts
when they do not want to do so.
This privilege has been confirmed to
! them by the United States supreme
court and the spectacle of state
i compelling Its citizens to pay their
Individual debts while 1t repudiates the
public debt has become familiar one.
( It seems odd that the federal power,
which is made 80 universal, does not
suffice to compel state 10 obey the
universal law which calls for the pay
ment to another of that which belongs
Y 70 him.
II Is ruled that state has no control
sat all over Interstate commerce and
can neither keep out the products of
other states or refuse them its own on
equal terms with its own citizens, no
matter what the inducement may
BE-, Some of the Eastern states have
/. been anxious to save their farmers from
THE competition Of Western dressed beef;
and have sought to use their power to
4 protect their people from noxious things
I By instituting an inspection Of imported
beef And they seem to have ground for
doing this ia the fact that diseased
cattle are largely slaughtered in the
Western beef factories. Virginia passed
I law requiring inspection of all beef
killed more than hundred miles from
the place of sale, and notwithstand-
Ing the care taken not to make the
boundaries those Of her state, United
States Circuit Judge Hughes decides
that the law is unconstitutional He
{ comedies that state may pass n reason
able law imposing inspection but de-
s clares that she must be pure In her
thought and conduct and cannot
I. keep out foreign beef under pretense
that she wants to inspect il when she
really wants to forbid 1t; and he proposes
70 cohstrue her intention. He finds that
she has imposed an unreasonable charge
& for inspection In one that amounts to
twenty per cent. of the value of the arti-
Gle inspected; and he appears to have
4 reason to see cloven foot In such tax.
4 He rules that 1t is really tax put upon
Interstate commerce aud therefore void.
q In another direction, the inability of
: Judges of the law to agree about 1t has
I just been exhibited In the Philadelphia
license court, where three different
opinions on the question of the right of
An applicant for wholesale license to
apply, also, for u retail license to sell
liquor, have come from the four judges
Of the court. When there is SO niue h
difference among the judges about the
law, the rule that every man is expected
TO know the law and obey 1t seems to
be one that bears hardly upon the citizen.
4 1t Ia a situation that is very comfortable
TO the lawyers, who make their money
out Of the laws uncertainty and L. Is
said that some Of the Philadelphia
attorneys made enough out OF the
license court to make them independent
OF any further exertion during the year.