and of publishing statistics concerning the output of the judicial machine. Such publicity would afford whatever added stimulus might be necessary to a chief justice inclined to neglect the administrative duties of his office. If our present Chief Justice of the Supreme Court had charge of the matter, there would be no need of such an inspection.

"It may be objected that the enlargement of the Supreme Court which will be required by such a scheme would lead to deterioration in the personnel. I doubt the validity of this objection. For the discussion accompanying the establishment of such a system would be bound to create in the popular mind a more adequate conception of the nature of the judicial function, and would produce corresponding caution on the part of the executive in making his appointments. He would be more likely to feel that all the judges must be up to the standard of the former appellate bench than that some of them might be of police court grade.

"The establishment of such a unified court would naturally carry with it another reform tending greatly to increase efficiency in the administration of justice. I mean the taking from the legislature of the power to deal with the subject of practice and procedure, and vesting that power in the Court, to be exercised by rules of court, subject to change from time to time as occasion might require. This would include the determination of the place of the trial of actions, and the elimination of certain formalities in the bringing of suits.

"Another result of unification would be a reduction in the number of our judges, a great saving of the taxpayer's money, and, if any sort of care were exercised in the selection of judges, a great increase in the efficiency of the courts, with a corresponding increase in popular confidence. We might well adopt also the English plan of imposing new duties upon masters in chancery, enabling them to perform for the courts many of the subordinate functions, like the hearing of motions and the determination of pleadings, which now occupy so large a portion of the time of our judges. Indeed, under our system the master and the judge have in some respects changed places, the master doing the important work of deciding the facts practically finally, and the judge the work of deciding motions.

"We have now completed our review of some of the requisites of an efficient administration of justice according to law. We have found what they are, an educated, able, and vigorous judiciary, entrusted with all the traditional power of the common-law magistrate; a high educational standard for admission to the bar; and a change from the antiquated system of different courts with different jurisdictions to a system of a single court with appropriate divisions. If the discussion of these requisites accomplishes nothing more than to bring clearly before the minds of some of us the true significance of justice according to law, and its essential connection with the ideal of liberty which this Commonwealth and the National Government were both founded to secure, I shall be satisfied. For what we seek is not that efficiency which, at the price of liberty, can be attained in a high degree through autocracy, but rather that efficiency which is consistent with ideals of freedom and equality and with liberty under law."

NAVY LEAGUE MEETING

March 22

At the dinner called by the Club to consider the needs of the Massachusetts branch of the Navy League, Mr. Harry K. White presided. The speakers were Brigadier-Gen. E. Leroy Sweetser, Col. Edward L. Logan, Commander R. D. Hasbrouck, Commander Gelm, Col. Harry L. Hawthorne, and Hon. Geo. S. Smith. They each and all emphasized the need of enlistment to supplement admitted defects in the personnel of the navy. At the meeting in the auditorium, the speaker was Hon. John W. Weeks, junior United States Senator from Massachusetts, who, having served for a time in the navy, and having as a national legislator kept in specially close touch with its present development and status, spoke with authority. He said:

SENATOR JOHN W. WEEKS

"What is the condition of the Navy? What is the condition of the personnel of the material of the Navy? Well, at the beginning of the war, Great Britain, which has maintained for years a consistent policy of having a navy twice as large as that of any other country, had 2,000,000 tons of shipping; Germany at that time had 1,000,000 tons of shipping, United States had 800,000 tons; France had 750,000 tons, and Japan had 600,000 tons. Those are the five great nations. But tonnage of shipping is not the final word. It is the kind of men and officers, and the character of the material itself, which is the final word; and what we want to know is, 'Are our men, man for man, are our ships, ton for ton, or gun for gun, as good as others?' Of course, we cannot determine that until we come to the test. But my belief and my confidence are that they will render an account which will justify us in believing that they are equivalent to those of any other fleet in the world. [Applause.]

"But we have been sadly neglectful, in my judgment and I want to refrain from criticism of any one to-night, because this is a time when it does not make any difference who is representing us on ships or elsewhere, we are all American citizens, and we stand by the administration, and we stand by our Army and Navy, to the last man of us. [Loud applause.] But we have been sadly neglectful, since the beginning of this war, that we have not done more in preparation to meet the special preparation made by other countries, which has been peculiar to the service, and which has been demonstrated as necessary by the experience of those combatants who have been engaged. No man knew, for example, at the beginning of the war, whether a battle cruiser was going to be an effective ship. There were naval officers who believed that the battle cruiser would be equally effective as a dreadnought. They are much faster. They may carry guns of equal size, and yet they have not the armor that the dreadnought has. They give up armor for the sake of speed, and it was believed by many that the battle cruiser was all-essential to a navy. It is certainly necessary for us to have battle cruisers if other nations have them, and yet we have not a single battle cruiser afloat to-day.

"It has been demonstrated in battle that the battle cruiser is not as effective in line of battle as the dreadnought. In the Battle of Jutland, for example, within ten minutes of the beginning of the contest, an English ship, the Queen Mary, a 27,000-ton battle cruiser, one of the finest ships in the world, and one of the best gunnery ships in the English Navy, was blown up. A chance shot, we will assume, landed in her magazine and exploded. Down went the ship. The Inflexible, another battle cruiser, of a similar type, but somewhat smaller, went the same way. We may assume those were chance shots, but it was demonstrated that the battle cruiser cannot do in the line of battle what the dreadnought has done; but every first-class nation has them, and we must have them if we are going to make a contest which is at all effective. We have them in building, but we have not them completed.

The Submarine

"Then, nobody knew what the submarine was going to do. There were naval officers who believed that the submarine was going to send the battleship to the scrap heap, and there were other naval officers who believed that they were going to be relatively ineffective. Experts were at difference, as they are frequently on other subjects. And yet we know now that the submarine has become an extremely effective defensive and offensive weapon. We have some submarines, but we have not twenty-five per cent of the number we should have to defend our long coast line, to say nothing of the offensive which should be required. It has been demonstrated that quite as effective a weapon against a submarine is a small scout cruiser. I do not mean a scout cruiser, but I mean a mosquito cruiser, carrying a gun and a few men, a difficult mark for the submarine to explode a torpedo against. And yet we have done nothing about building those small boats until within the last thirty days, when the naval bill which passed before the 4th of March was made immediately effective. There are some such boats in the country, a good many of them. You know something about them in these waters; boats that can be transformed for that purpose. I assume that our Committee on Public Safety is attending to that matter, and we will have in these waters boats of that kind, which can render a reasonably good account of themselves. But those are things which should have been given attention during these two and a half years when the combatants on the other side were demonstrating their necessity.

Scarcity of Munitions

"Now, have we munitions enough? I can say to you that we have not anything like enough. We have not quarter of what we should have on hand. Have we enough other supplies which go to make up at thoroughly equipped navy? I say to you that we have not a sufficient supply of anything, in my judgment. I believe we will have in the course of a few months. Congress has been liberal in appropriating money for that purpose. The last naval bill, passed on the first day of March, carried $535,000,000. You remember when Mr. Reed was defending the Congress, of which he was Speaker, because it was a billion

dollar Congress-$500,000,000 a year. - $500,000,000 a year. And yet we have appropriated for the naval bill this year $535,000,000, which is more than was appropriated for all the expenses of the government twenty-five years ago, and nearly one half as much as was appropriated in a year of the Civil War for all purposes.

"You can see that it costs money to supply these necessitites, but Congress has now been liberal, and I believe that we will have those things which we require as soon as they can be built. But you cannot build a battleship, you cannot build a battle cruiser, - you cannot even build a destroyer, in a day; it takes time. And in the meantime we have got to depend upon the facilities which we have.

Universal Training

"Now, when we turn to the Army and I want to say a word about that we are not going to have an army in the United States which is going to be suitable for our requirements until we have universal training. [Applause.] General Sweetser has been telling us that he wants 5,000 men to fill up the ranks of the Massachusetts Militia. Why, there ought to be five times 5,000 men offering themselves to-morrow to fill up those ranks. [Applause.] And every man in this room should constitute himself a recruiting officer, so that that object may be carried out. You should get a man to-morrow. Forget your business for the time being, and let Massachusetts take the lead in these things, as she has always done in other matters which related to patriotic service. [Applause.]

This is not the time that you men can afford to see other states better prepared than is the old Commonwealth. Let us say to the government in Washington, just as we were able to say last June, when men were to be sent to the border, 'Massachusetts is ready,' and within four days of the call all of the forces of Massachusetts were ready to entrain and go to the border. Let us say that to-day, -'That the ranks of the Massachusetts Militia are full and that we are ready for any service which the government may require.'

"One of the troubles with this country has been, and is to-day, I am fearful of it, that we have not appreciated what the conditions are in the world; that we have been too much inclined to think of our own interests.

"I went down to Salem last night, to talk on another subject, and I heard a conversation in a car seat behind me, which gave me a shock. Two men were talking about what everybody is talking about, - the possibility of war. They were young men, comparatively, and one of them said to the other, 'Are you going to enlist? He said, 'No, I am not going to enlist. I am going to take advantage of this opportunity to make some money.' Well, I felt like turning around and striking him. [Applause.] And I would like to brand that man among his fellow-citizens as not a good citizen, but as a bad citizen, unworthy of citizenship in the United States. [Applause.]

"Now, I do not believe that there is such a man in this room. But we have been thinking too much about our making money, - about our own affairs. We are not too proud to fight, but we are too fat to

fight. [Laughter and applause.] I want you to understand that I am not. [Applause.] Let us follow the example of some other nations. An old friend of mine, who is Minister to two or three countries in the Balkans, during the beginning of the Balkan war was walking along the street of the capital of Montenegro one day, with the old king, and he noticed three or four men in front of them who indicated that they wanted to speak to the king. They were told to approach, which they did, and they kissed the king's hand. He asked them some questions, and they said they had just returned from America. The king said to my friend,They say they have been in America. Find out if they have been.' They were asked that question. One of them said, 'You bet.' That settled that, and the king added a phrase to his vocabulary. The king then asked them some questions: Why have you come home now?' One of those men was fifty-four years old. He was the spokesman for the others. He said, 'Your Majesty, I have saved $1,800 in America. That is money enough to support my family in Montenegro; I am only fifty-four years old, and I have come home to give my family that money and to enlist myself; and, your Majesty,' he added, 'I am getting to be an old man; I want to be put in the front ranks, because it is better to kill me than it is some young fellow who is going to be of some service in the future.' Now, we look upon those people as not entirely civilized, as not up, possibly, to our standard, and yet when we come up to that standard of patriotism we are going some, and every man in this community should do it. It makes no difference what his age or condition may be. [Applause.]

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Now, there are a multitude of things that men can do. Some can do one thing and some can do another. Some of you are too old, perhaps, to go into the service. Some of you can do the things which the man who can go into the service could not do any better. Perhaps some of you can make money and turn it over to the Red Cross. I have a telegram in my pocket saying that the Red Cross of Massachusetts needs $20,000 at once, in order to properly fit out these base hospitals in Boston. Some of you can help in that way. Some of you can help in a dozen and one ways, which you can find out by simply going to the State House and asking the different committees of the Public Safety Committee up there. They are working intelligently, along the broadest lines, to put this Commonwealth in the best possible condition for service, if it is called upon to perform service; and every one of you owes it to yourself, you owe it to your country, you owe it to your families, to be doing something besides that which pertains directly to your own affairs, but does not directly help the Government. This is the opportunity. It does not do any good to meet and pass resolutions. It does not necessarily follow that because we wear a flag in our lapel that we are of any service to the Government. The individual act is what is of use at this time, and at no other time can you so well demonstrate the fact that you are fit to be citizens of the greatest republic in the world.

Now, I have said a word about universal training. I want to say another word about it now. My judgment is that the ready man is the one who volunteers. They include very many of the best men in the community. They get to the front at once, and likely enough they