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OUR BENEVOLENT FEUDALISM
OUR BENEVOLENT
FEUDALISM
BY
W. J. GHENT
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.
1902
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1902,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped October, 1902.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
PREFACE
The germ of this book was contained in an articlepublished in the Independent, April 3, 1902. Thewide interest which that article awakened promptedthe elaboration and arrangement of its briefly consideredand somewhat disjointed parts into the presentform.
The chapters on “Our Makers of Law” and “OurInterpreters of Law” have been carefully read by amember of the New York Bar who has made a specialstudy of the matters treated therein. Some ofthe decisions cited in the latter chapter are admittedto be those of subordinate courts in comparativelyunimportant States. The intention, however, was togive a general view of judicial interpretation; andfor that reason it became necessary to cite decisionsof inferior as well as superior courts, and those fromsemi-industrial as well as industrial States.
As the book goes to press, the news is publishedthat the anthracite magnates have yielded and madeconcessions to public sentiment. It is an act inharmony with the wiser forethought of most of themagnates of to-day, and it strengthens the generalseigniorial position immeasurably.