With the elements of risk eliminated or reduced to a minimum, higher prices will be paid than otherwise, and when a banker, no matter where he resides, may deal with a warehouse receipt, no matter where the warehouse is, with almost absolute certainty of the law, dealing will increase, there will be more competition, and prices will advance. The quantity of agricultural products raised and sold in the South and West is so great that almost the smallest fraction of increase in price brings enormous wealth, and that increase in price is sure to come with that confidence which certainty of rights and obligations brings. There are no radical changes from the general law in this warehouse receipts bill, nor were there any in the Negotiable Instruments Bill. The draftsmen of each bill took the law as interpreted where there was no conflict, and where there was a conflict, followed the weight of authority, unless same seemed opposed to the best principles of substantive law. As we all know, a great part of the law on any given subject is jurisprudence, and the best jurisprudence has been enacted into positive law in these two bills Referring to the Negotiable Instruments Act, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in the case of Union Trust Company vs. McGinty, 212 Mass., 205; 98 N. E., 679, said: The design (of the Negotiable Instruments Act) was to obliterate State lines as to the law governing instrumentalities so vital to the conduct of interstate commerce as promissory notes and bills of exchange, to remove the confusion or uncertainty which arise from conflict of statutes or judicial decisions amongst the several States, and to make plain, certain and general the controlling rules of law. Diversity was to be molded in uniformity * *Simplicity and clearness are especially to be sought. The language of the act is to be construed with reference to the objects to be attained. Its words are to be given their natural and common sense meaning and the prevailing principles of statutory ARY This decision is particularly interesting because it was the first case in which the important question of uniformity of judicial decisions in construing the uniform laws was considered, the court on this point saying: "In the interpretation of a statute widely adopted by the states to the end of securing uniformity in a department of commercial law, we should be inclined to give great weight to harmonious decisions of courts of other states, even if we were less clear than we are in this instance as to the soundness of our own conclusion." This uniform warehouse receipts act has been adopted in all of the States except Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas. It has been adopted in Alaska, in Congress for the District of Columbia, and in the Philippine Islands. It became the good fortune of a Louisiana lawyer, Mr. E. T. Merrick (my schoolmate of 1873, 1874 and 1875), to present to the Supreme Court of the United States the first case involving the interpretation of any of the uniform laws prepared by the Conference. The case is reported in 239 U. S., 520; 60 L. ed. 417; 36 Sup. Ct. Rep., 194, and is entitled "Commercial National Bank vs. Canal-Louisiana Bank & Trust Co.," and was heard on appeal from the Circuit Court for the Fifth Circuit, which had affirmed a judgment of the United States District Court, both courts sitting in New Orleans, and both having declined to give any effect to the provisions of the Uniform Warehouse Receipts Act, which was adopted in Louisiana in 1908. The Supreme Court, through Mr. Justice Hughes, reversed the judgment appealed from, and maintained the rights of the holder of the warehouse receipts under the law of Louisiana, and on the ground of uniformity, as will appear from the following part of the syllabus: "That the act is to be so interpreted and construed as to effectuate its general purposes as to make uniform the law of those states which enact it, is a rule of construction that prevents the act from being regarded as an offshoot of local law to be construed in the light of decisions under former statutes of the enacting state, and requires that statute to be construed in the light of the cardinal principle of the act itself. "The uniform acts relating to commercial affairs have been enacted in various states for the beneficent object of unifying so far as possible under our dual system of government the commercial law of the country, and to give effect, within prescribed limits, to the mercantile view of documents of title, and this principle should be recognized in construing the acts to the exclusion of any inconsistent doctrine previously obtaining in any of the enacting States." This decision alone justifies all the work which the Conference of Commissioners has devoted to uniformity of legislation from 1892 to date, because it makes a warehouse receipt under the uniform law of the same effect in every state which has adopted the law; and considering the enormous dealings in merchandise by means of warehouse receipts, it seems to me that every State în the Union should now, without hesitancy, adopt the law. The case just above quoted was followed by the Supreme Court of Louisiana, in the case of Arbuthnot vs. Richheimer, decided May 9, 1916, and reported in 139 La., 797; 72 So. Rep., 251, reversing the judgment of the trial court. The first paragraph of the syllabus, prepared by the Court, reads as follows: "The Uniform Warehouse Act construed in conformity with the views expressed by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Commercial National Bank vs. Canal-Louisiana Bank & T. Co." In connection with its public wharves, the City of New Orleans has constructed the most elaborate system of public warehouses possibly in the world, and if the decisions reversed by the Supreme Court of the United States, and by the Supreme Court of Louisiana, had been affirmed, the operations of these warehouses would have been greatly impeded and curtailed, if not entirely destroyed; because unless the receipts issued for goods in these warehouses carried with them complete and perfect negotiability, few owners of property would care to deposit their property therein. I trust that the members of this Association will carefully consider these decisions, and I am sure after doing so, they will bend every effort to have the Uniform Warehouse Receipts Act adopted in the States above named, which have not yet adopted it. At the Conference of 1909, after several years discussion, the Uniform Bills of Lading Act was completed by the Conference and sent out to the States for adoption; a few months previous to this conference there was a great meeting in New York, called by the Committee on Commercial Law of the Conference, at which were represented through their attorneys practically every great railroad system of the United States, and when was discussed from every standpoint the Uniform Bills of Lading Law then under consideration by the Conference, and when the com mittee completed its work the railroad attorneys expressed themselves satisfied therewith, and led the committee to believe that when sent out by the conference, it would be supported everywhere; the conference completed its work the same year. At the time of the completion of this law, the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of the United States, and many of the States, including Louisiana (I am not advised on this point as to the law of Colorado), was that a railroad or other common carrier was not liable to the holder of a bill of lading acquired in good faith, without notice, and for a valuable consideration, for the value of the goods represented by the bill of lading, unless the goods had actually been received by the carrier. In other words, a distinction was made in favor of common carriers as to their responsibilities, for the acts of their agents acting within the scope of their authority; a merchant gives to his clerk authority to sign promissory notes, but instructs him that he shall not sign or issue any unless the money is received therefor and placed to the credit of the merchant; the clerk, however, in bad faith and in violation of his instructions, executes notes and gives them to some of his friends as an accommodation, and the friends negotiate them for value before maturity; certainly in such a case the merchant would be liable thereon, and why should not common carriers also be liable under similar circumstances? The distinction was brought about through a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, holding that a bill of lading was both a receipt and a contract, and that insofar as it was a receipt, it could, like other receipts, be explained. The uniform law in Sec. 23, holds the carrier liable "if a bill of lading has been issued by a carrier, or, on his behalf, by an agent or the employee, the scope of whose actual or apparent authority includes the issuing of bills of lading." In states where the law and jurisprudence coincided with the uniform law, the railroads supported it; but in other states, where the uniform |