Evening star., 1944-02-20
u. 5. Legal Confusion
Growing, jackson
Tells Canadian Bar
Ey the Associated Press.

ES the Associated Press
TORONTO, Feb. ia prediction
that "the world is in for very ex-
tensive change and renovation" was
made tonight by Associate Justice
Robert H. jackson of the United
States Supreme Court, but he ex-
pressed doubt that his country
would swing to extremes of right or
left.
I'VE in the United States are ex-
per1encing what many call a period
OF confusion in the law" he told the
annual meeting of the Canadian
Bar Association.
1T is the kind of unsettlement
that always extends to the law when
organized society itself is in a period
OF transition. The movement
today almost universally is toward
advancement of collective interests
at the expense of individual inter-
eStS.
Concession Best Defense"
This, OF course, is not to say that
we are becoming a collective state.
Indeed, moderate concessions are
thought by some to be the best de-
tense against such extremes. =. !.
Our more heated divisions are no
longer as to the direction of our
movement so much as to its pace. !"
Many persons, Justice jackson
said, have voiced fears or hopes that
the postwar world will move rap
idly and sharply either to the right
or to the left, and he commented
that an extreme movement either
way would utilize existing central
1zatlon and socialization and vastly
extend 1t either to serve the sup
posed interests of proletariat, as
IN Russia, or those of a military
tndustrialist class, as in GERMANY
and Italy"
whether enough of our people
Will give way to extremes to carry
the balance either way NAV be
doubted and, if so. any estimate as
to which extreme might prevail
would hardly rise above guess" he
added.
Wider Riffs Seen.
But 1t does seem to me probable
that those who have been inclined
toward the right will move farther
to the right and that those who have
been looking hopefully to the left
will go farther to the left. If this
transpires, it makes wider and
sharper and deeper division among
our people =.
ITO increase the distance bv which
the views of men are separated is to
intensity the struggle for power. The
increased roles of central govern
ments have raised the stakes of pow-
er higher than ever before. More
over, it is the attitude of extrem-
lists that there are no inherent re-
stralnts on power, that once in
office nothing but their own wills
could check them. All of these fac
tors conspire to make former strug-
giles less compromisable.
The security of democratic institu-
tions may depend on keeping strug-
giles for power from getting out of
legal bounds" with the burden of
adjustments and reconciliation fall
ing primarily upon legislators and
executives, he said
Judges Must Be Cautious
I'VE judges, I think, must be cau-
tious that we do not obstruct them
in the exercise of their lawful
powers, or make their task of gov
ernlng unnecessarily difficult" he
added.
I'm solving these great conflicts
our judicial power is no substitute
for that of the legislative or the ex-
ecutive, and the future of free gov
eminent depends upon their ade-
quacky to their problems even more
than 1t depends on any exercise of
power entrusted to the judiciary"
When legal or political principles
on which the bench and bar and
legislators used to be pretty much
agreed are by any substantial group
called into question, it has practical
implications, the justice COM
mented. 1T would be impossible to
deny that in the United States as
sumptions once accepted as part of
the original concept of our Govern
ment are seriously questioned"
Makes One Uneasy"
In smart intellectual circles in his
home country, he said it is regard
ed as naive to put any credence in
natural law and as unsophisticated
to think that men have inherent
and inalienable rights.
The feature which makes one
uneasy about some modern law
theory in the United States Is that
in repudiating natural law doctrines
1t pretty much embraces the phil
osophy of absolutism of the state"
he stated.
Then law becomes only a phase
OF state policy. When policy is
made manifest in legislation or in
executive action or administrative
decision, it follows that its finality
Is not to be questioned. From such
premises it is hard to avoid the
conclusion that in America all is
law that has the votes, just as in
some parts of Europe all is law that
has the guns. We thus have a new
world variety of the European phil
osophieS of no law.
But even if these doctrines are
not intended to afford support to
ahSOlIltiSm thev of boe+ -. .1