referred to the Committee on Public Institutions related to the establishment or improvement of institutions for the insane or for hospitals, while thirty-four per cent of the bills referred to the Committee on Public Service related to specific increases of salary. Another class of bills provided for the payment of claims or the granting of pensions. In 1916 eighty-three such bills were referred to committees, and forty-four were passed. Nearly half of these related to cities, counties or towns.

These figures are sufficient to indicate the great burden which special legislation imposes upon the General Court of Massachusetts. The effect upon the quality of the legislation enacted can only be detrimental, since the entire membership can seldom be induced to give attention to measures which have only a local interest, but which consume time and energy which should be devoted to the State as a whole. The problem which special legislation presents is well indicated in the following words:

To confine the Legislature to hose matters of State-wide policy with which it alone is fitted and intended to occupy itself, to eliminate from its work the elements which from their nature it can handle only unsuccessfully, which waste its time, while preventing proper consideration of its proper work, and which offer urgent temptations to petty political log-rolling and pork, this is a most pressing need of State government to-day. The grosser forms of corruption have gone. The machinery of election and procedure is on the way to improvement. The question now is one of efficiency, rather than of popular responsibility, and for efficiency not only must the organization and procedure be businesslike, but the subject matter must be adapted to the body which is to deal with it. The State must redistribute its work. The question of subject matter is the more fundamental, for if the work of the Legislature is confined largely to matters of State-wide importance, on the one hand it will attract more popular interest and create a closer bond of responsibility between electorate and representatives, and on the other hand it will render more feasible the reforms of organization which are also necessary.1

V.

CONSTITUTIONAL RESTRICTIONS ON AMERICAN LEGIS

LATURES.

The framers of our first American constitutions were more concerned about the prevention of privileges than they were as to the evils of special legislation. The transition, however,

1 Wilder H. Haines in The American Political Science Review, XI., 538.

from one to the other was easy to make because the exempting of an individual from the operation of a general rule or the enactment of a special law in his favor is in itself in the nature of a privilege. The close connection between the two things is apparent in the language adopted in the Constitution of Tennessee in 1834:

The Legislature shall have no power to suspend any general law for the benefit of any particular individual, nor to pass any law for the benefit of individuals inconsistent with the general laws of the land; nor to pass any law granting to any individual or individuals rights, privileges, immunities, or exemptions other than such as may be by the same law extended to any member of the community who may be able to bring himself within the provisions of such law.

As soon as the evils of special legislation began to appear, the States inserted in their constitutions provisions to the effect that the subjects to which the special acts related should hereafter be dealt with only by general laws. The first State to apply this remedy was Georgia, which as early as 1789 inserted in its Constitution the following provision:

The Legislature shall have no power to change names, nor to Legitimate persons, nor to make or change Precincts, nor to establish Bridges or Ferries, but shall, by law, prescribe the manner in which said powers shall be exercised by the Superior or Inferior courts, and the privileges to be enjoyed.

In another part of the same instrument it was provided that divorces should not be granted by the Legislature until after a trial before the Superior Court and a verdict authorizing a divorce upon legal principles. In such cases an act of divorce might be passed by a two-thirds vote of each house.

To trace in detail the gradual expansion of the modest restrictions imposed by Georgia in 1789 would be unduly tedious. It is sufficient to say that State after State has inserted in its constitution a list of subjects as to which the Legislature is forbidden to enact special laws, and year by year these lists have increased in length. Their subject matter is usually suggested by the experience of the State concerned and hence there is considerable variance in their contents. One of

the most comprehensive of them is that embodied in the Constitution of Alabama in 1901. In that year Alabama provided that its Législature should meet only once in four years. In substituting quadrennial for biennial sessions, the jurisdiction of the Legislature was considerably restricted, especially in the matter of local or special legislation. By this arrangement it was hoped that one quadrennial session devoted entirely to general legislation would be sufficient to meet the needs of the State. How extensive these restrictions are appears from the following constitutional provisions:

The Legislature shall not pass a special, private or local law in any of the following cases:

(1) Granting a divorce;

(2) Relieving any minor of the disabilities of non-age;

(3) Changing the name of any corporation, association, or individual; (4) Providing for the adopting or legitimizing of any child;

(5) Incorporating a city, town or village;

(6) Granting a charter to any corporation, association, or individual; (7) Establishing rules of descent or distribution;

(8) Regulating the time within which a civil or criminal action may be begun;

(9) Exempting any individual, private corporation or association from the operation of any general law;

(10) Providing for the sale of the property of any individual or estate; (11) Changing or locating a county seat;

(12) Providing for a change of venue in any case;

(13) Regulating the rate of interest;

(14) Fixing the punishment of crime;

(15) Regulating either the assessment or collection of taxes, except in connection with the readjustment, renewal, or extension of existing municipal indebtedness created prior to the ratification of the Constitution of eighteen hundred and seventy-five;

(16) Giving effect to an invalid will, deed or other instrument;

(17) Authorizing any county, city, town, village, district or other political subdivision of a county, to issue bonds or other securities unless the issuance of said bonds or other securities shall have been authorized before the enactment of such local or special law, by a vote of the duly qualified electors of such county, township, city, town, village, district or other political subdivision of a county, at an election held for such purpose, in the manner that may be prescribed by law; provided, the Legislature may without such election, pass special laws to refund bonds issued before the date of the ratification of this Constitution;

(18) Amending, confirming or extending the charter of any private municipal corporation, or remitting the forfeiture thereof; provided, this

shall not prohibit the Legislature from altering or re-arranging the boundaries of any city, town or village;

(19) Creating, extending or impairing any lien;

(20) Chartering or licensing any ferry, road or bridge;

(21) Increasing the jurisdiction and fees of justices of the peace, or the fees of constables;

(22) Establishing separate school districts;

(23) Establishing separate stock districts;

(24) Creating, increasing or decreasing fees, percentages or allowances of public officers;

(25) Exempting property from taxation or from levy or sale;

(26) Exempting any person from jury, road or other civil duty;

(27) Donating any lands owned by or under control of the State to any person or corporation;

(28) Remitting fines, penalties or forfeitures;

(29) Providing for the conduct of elections or designating places of voting, or changing the boundaries of wards, precincts or districts, except in the event of the organization of new counties, or the changing of the lines of old counties;

(30) Restoring the right to vote to persons convicted of infamous crimes or crimes involving moral turpitude;

(31) Declaring who shall be liners between precincts or between counties.1

In contrast with this method of controlling special legislation by specific prohibitions is the general prohibition, found in about five-eighths of the States, to the effect that no special law shall be enacted where a general law can be made applicable. This provision has the unfortunate consequence that the enactment of any special law always invites litigation on the question as to whether or not a general law could have been made to apply.

In examining the lists of restrictions imposed upon the power of legislatures to enact special laws, certain subjects are almost always found. The growth of the corporate form of organization in industry made the granting of charters of incorporation a matter of increasing importance and the methods adopted for securing charter provisions satisfactory to the incorporators led to numerous scandals. As early as 1821 an effort was made in the Constitutional Convention of New York to provide that an act of incorporation should be granted only by a general law, but it was not until 1845 that a general prohibition of incor

1 Constitution of Alabama (1901), sec. 104.