Wide World

General Kondylis bian railway representative is to be associated in the management, and all disputes are to be submitted to an umpire of French nationality, chosen by the League of Nations.

What is also of prime importance to Serbia, her free zone at Salonika is to be extended. I saw that zone recently, and can witness as to the justice of the demand for its enlargement.

Touching the vexed question of minorities, the treaty declares that the régime already initiated by the General Minorities Treaties affords ample guaranties for protection.

Finally, in maintaining existing frontiers, the present convention is a defensive treaty within the purview of the League of Nations' Pact.

tanced any previous Government in assuring just and friendly foreign relations.

Also, as a link with the previous convention, a treaty of friendship and agreement was at the same time signed by Greece and Jugoslavia. When one considers the enormous importance of this matter to both countries, the stand taken by General Kondylis, at the head of the new Government, is surprising. It is to the effect that, irrespective of the engagement assumed by Dictator Pangalos, agreeing to ratification of a simple decree, the treaties are to be submitted to the Legislature after the October 24 elections. Let us hope that this will not imperil ratification.

If in external politics the Jugoslav result is the late Government's chief title to fame, its action with regard to Albania, Italy, and Bulgaria (with respect to the last-named since the alarming frontier incident of nearly a year ago) also entitles it to enduring recognition and ⚫ remembrance. Certainly it has outdis

TH

Home Affairs

HE Pangalos régime fell, of course, not at all because of its foreign policy; indeed, the new Kondylis Government hastened to proclaim its continuance of the policy of the old. Pangalos fell purely because of internal affairs and military jealousies.

As to the first, newspaper muzzling cannot go on forever, as other dictators may discover to their cost.

Again, you cannot summarily deport your chief political rivals, as Pangalos did, without stirring up their henchmen. at home.

Furthermore, you cannot build up a ruling party composed only of people enjoying your own patronage when you are far from having enough patronage at your command to pacify the very much larger party in opposition.

To make matters worse, the Dictator still more sharply accentuated this difference by sternly meting out an abundance of fines, imprisonments, and other punishments, instead of the expected offices and gifts.

To crown all, certain venal persons had become attached to the Pangalos régime, and there was graft a-plenty, even the Dictator's personal integrity being seriously attacked.

The recall to the Presidency of the universally respected Admiral Konduriotis, who resigned that office last March, should do something to set all these things right.

Military Jealousies

s to the second cause of the late Government's downfall, namely, military jealousies, General Pangalos, an intelligent man, must have known that his coup d'état would prove an irresistibly fascinating example to his military rivals. Exactly this has now happened. The Kondylis coup resembles the Pangalos coup as one pea resembles another pea in a pod.

Moreover, any rough-and-ready stroke, as was that of Pangalos, may, I fancy, generally be reckoned on as, in the end, apt to provoke a counterstroke. And that means a personal disaster to him who instigated the first. "They that take the sword shall perish with the sword."

Doubtless the military supporters of Pangalos have not been getting all the advancement and preferment they expected. At all events, many military chiefs in general, and Kondylis in particular, were left out in the cold. Now

Keystone

Paul Konduriotis

they are warming themselves at the Government's fire. It is the same old fire, although, in name, there is a new Government.

We read the hackneyed proclamation issued by General Kondylis, an nouncement precisely like those issued by other triumphant revolutionary chiefs in other countries-namely, to the effect that power has been seized merely to transfer it as soon as possible back to the people and, after a period of rigorous, necessary executive efficiency, to inaugurate a truly democratic rule. This assurance would be received with greater confidence in Greece did not another rule of human nature obtain-vengeance. Under charges of treason, General Pangalos, President of the Revolutionary Court, had the chief actors of the previous Government, Gunaris and Company, stood up against a wall and shot. Will Kondylis now do the same with Pangalos?

General Kondylis is an able, determined-looking Greek like his predecessor, if not so strikingly handsome. Not so very long ago the two generals were colleagues in the same Cabinet, Pangalos being War Minister and Kondylis Home Minister. These titles have now a curiously ironical significance.

Both men are republicans, but many assume that the Kondylis brand may be found the more tolerant towards the monarchists.

How long will the new rule last? Longer, doubtless, than would probably be the case had not the soldier, Kondylis, summoned the statesman, Konduriotis, back to guide the ship of state.

Geneva, September 5, 1926.

brought. In some States the attorney may successively plead to the jurisdiction of the court on the ground that the action is brought to the wrong court, make a written motion for some correction of a defect in the pleading, file a demurrer which challenges the legal sufficiency of the plaintiff's claim as set forth in his complaint, and at length, having lost on each of the issues successively presented, file an answer in which he sets forth the defendant's view of the facts of the case, or, perhaps more properly, of the plaintiff's statement of the facts.

all these in

Originally, it seems, in some of the ancient courts in England it was customary to decide matters as fully as possible between litigants at one time. Thus in the court of the Bishop of Ely in 1322 Rohese Bindelbire and Ralph Bolay got into an argument, in the Bolay got into an argument, in the course of which Rohese called Ralph a thief and Ralph applied to Rohese terms which reflected upon her virtue. It was decided to set off the damage of one against the other, and, since Ralph was the more severely damaged by the language used, there was a balance of twelvepence in his favor. But with the development of the jury system it was must not be distracted

to await its turn. A weary wait it is in some places. In New York City the courts are two years behind their dockets. In less populous places the time is very materially shorter, unless perchance there intervenes the long summer vacation, during which time no courts may work.

At length and finally a day certain is set for the trial and the clerk notifies the lawyers, who in turn notify the parties, and they appear with their witnesses. But when they have all assembled they find that the court is not ready and they must await the leisurely disposition of one or more cases ahead of them. delay be such as to run into

I'diate rapid-fire

still be the occasion for considerable delay; but in fact each successive step calls for the presentation of the issue by the lawyers to a judge and a resulting decision by the judge before the next step can be taken. Where professional courtesy between members of the bar is highly developed this may well mean that on every occasion the convenience of all three parties, the judge and the two lawyers, must be awaited until a favorable opportunity is found for the argument. Thereafter the judge practically may take his time in rendering the decision. In one case in the writer's recollection a

and the issues must be made as simple as possible for their benefit. Consequently, the use of a set-off or counterclaim, known to the Roman law, was given up until authorized by statute in the time of the Georges. Since then the use of the counter-claim has been steadily extended, but in most of our States it must be one arising out of the same transaction or transactions connected with the same subject of the action upon which the plaintiff's claim is based. Here is not the collision the transaction so far as there is one between the parties, so that the claims of each may be consid

too, local professional courtesy may require that the continuance of the case be agreed to. So the parties may all go home to await the setting of another day for the trial. When at length the actual trial begins and Mr. B again meets Mr. A, this time across the court-room table, his animosity very likely has disappeared and he is most anxious to secure peace and quiet. Where neither of the parties has been deeply wronged, the delay may have some uses, after all, in calming their ardor for judicial combat.

'HEN the trial proceeds and new

a minor point of this kind, and no one wished to "bell the cat" to get an earlier decision. The clerk of the court had had previous experience with the court's fiery temperament, and neither lawyer desired to prejudice his case by appealing for speed. It is true in the more populous districts that the judges cannot afford to allow undecided matters to pile up, and their decisions are more offhand. But, since such judges must favor a decision quickly erasing a case from before them, the case stands more chance of being dismissed for a technicality, thus forcing the parties to begin all over again.

Certain other problems arise in connection with these preliminary sparrings of the lawyers. May Mr. B claim damages both to his own person and to his car in the same action? The answer would seem to be clearly yes, and yet,

number of courts would so hold, but New York and a few States take a typically legal view of the term. On this view the subject of the suit is the negligence of a party, and A's negligence must be a different matter entirely from B's negligence. So it is held, for example, that A's slanderous words spoken of B at the time B makes an assault upon A is an entirely different legal transaction from the assault. Under this theory A would have to bring a separate suit to enforce his claim against B. It is true that some New York trial courts, by that some New York trial courts, by applying a statute authorizing consolidation of similar suits, have managed to get away from this ancient bit of sophisget away from this ancient bit of sophistry; but the Court of Appeals has recently looked with disfavor upon a redefinition of transaction.

T may well be, therefore, that the suit

is not so clear in all jurisdictions. May Mr. B and his wife, being injured at the same time, sue together in one suit? Here almost all jurisdictions, except those which have copied the very newest English procedure, would say no-each must sue separately. May Mr. A, thinking that Mr. B and not he is the cause of the accident, recover his own damages in the same action which Mr. B has brought against him? Here we run into a pretty bit of history.

whole string of lawsuits between B and his family and A and his family for claims arising out of the one collision upon the peaceful evening to which we referred earlier.

Let us suppose, however, that after some time, ranging from three months to two years, the lawyers have finally got the paper pleadings in order so that they feel the case is now ready for trial. So they put it on the calendar

workings of the judicial machinery appear. The famous rules of evidence are not unknown to many of us by reputation at least. We doubtless sympathize with the conclusion which the sophisticated young miss who figured so prominently in the famous bathtub trial in New York recently seems to have drawn as to the real purpose of those rules. It is reported in the newspapers that she showed a certain shyness and hesitation at the court procedure at first, but, becoming bolder and taking her cue from the lawyers, she found a formula by which to avoid answering questions which troubled her. She said, "I object." A shield from harsh questions what better purpose do the evidential rules often serve?

When the trial has at last come to a conclusion, then begins one of the most intricate of all proceedings, namely, the proceedings on appeal. Even in a jurisdiction where the previous proceedings have been somewhat simplified the appellate procedure is a complicated maze. This often results from the proper and perfectly sound basis that one who has had his day in court should have little favor shown to him upon carrying his case further. But many times the penalty falls, not on the appellant, but on the appellees, because of the delays incident to the procedure. If the parties still re

TH

HE Conclusion of Mr. A and of other worthy citizens from this sort of an experience is undoubtedly that the whole machinery is so inefficient, so slow, and laborious in its operation that it should be abolished altogether. "Away with all the red tape. Let us throw overboard these rules which do not aid justice but delay and confuse us." Such has always been the cry of the reformer.

To a student of legal history such a platform seems naïve. A certain amount of red tape is a natural concomitant of any attempt at orderly procedure. From time to time in the history of our jurisprudence we have tried to do away with the red tape of procedural rules and have established courts so simple that any layman might enter them without fear. Then the reforming courts themselves become subject to rules and oftentimes become worse affected than were the original courts. A striking instance of this kind is found in the development of the courts of equity. The first court of equity was simply the king's chancellor, who in the name of the king acted to right wrongs where the ordinary courts of justice would not interfere. The procedure by which application was made to the conscience of the king became hedged about with rules so that by the time of Dickens the delays in the court of chancery were more striking than in the law courts themselves. Furthermore, there was now the added difficulty that there were two different systems of courts, each with a hard-andfast procedure, and the litigant might, after working through the red tape, eventually find that he was in the wrong court. Present-day reformers might well bear in mind the experience of this kind, and that the establishment of tribunals with simple and efficient forms of remedies may lead eventually to a multiplicity of courts, with strict procedure in each one and with the litigant confused as to the proper court to approach.

commissions, and other similar bodies are all established in considerable part to do away with the red tape of the ordinary court of justice. It is probable that these up to date have done a highly noteworthy service, but with the growth of the precedents of each body and of a definite procedure as to each one, we may well find that we have reached the limits of advantageous development of this movement.

Perhaps similar suggestion may be made as to the most modern movement, that to stimulate the employment of the device of commercial arbitration. Under this the parties to a contract stipulate that differences between them arising in connection with the contract shall be determined by one or more lay arbitrators chosen as the contract may provide. In the past the courts unwisely took a hostile view of any attempts to oust them of jurisdiction, as they put it, but, stimulated by statutes and societies such as the Commercial Arbitration Society, the device is now becoming increasingly device is now becoming increasingly popular. In view of the crowded condition of court dockets, and of the advantage in certain specialized contracts of having the judgment of technical lay experts, the success of the movement is not surprising. But with success comes orderly procedure, and with that comes red tape. It is interesting to note that one of our authorities on the subject has recently commented upon the more technical character of the applicable rules in England, and gives as a reason therefor the longer period during which arbitration has been employed in that country as a practical juridical instrument. A court turns out to be a court, no matter what we call it, and we should hesitate somewhat in our present rash policy of multiplying forms of courts.

The re

forming spirit may well be directed to the courts themselves, their organization, and their procedure.

I

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T

would then seem that we should proceed on these postulates, that we must have formal procedural rules in formal judicial tribunals, that these rules will from their very nature tend to become fossilized and unworkable, and that therefore some measure of constant revivification of court procedure must be devised. How is this to be done? How shall the judicial procedural tools be kept in a proper state of efficiency? The unfortunate attempts of the past may admonish us not to be over-sanguine. Possibly it is an insoluble problem. Certain things at least may be done. One of the most important is a real study of the court system as a governmental institution functioning in modern life.

Now the reaction to this suggestion

may be the immediate question, What are the law schools and bench and bar doing now but just that? The answer is that in the main emphasis is now placed upon the study of substantive rules of law, while the means to be used to make such substantive law effective have been comparatively little considered. When studied at all, they have been viewed as trade tools, leading to professional success at the bar; when contemplated by students of society, they have been considered with manifest impatience and with the conclusion that the enactment of a variety of incidental reforms will solve the whole difficult problem. What is first needed is a careful and extended comparative study of existing legal systems and procedures.

The very diversity of procedure in the various States is not wholly a loss, for it means that there is so much more opportunity for experimentation and for testing of the results of reform. There are in this country alone some fortyeight or more laboratories for this kind of investigation. When to this are added the English and colonial systems, and the highly suggestive, although almost unknown to us, Continental systems, the mere research in making known what is now being done in the various countries is not inconsiderable. When to all this is also added the necessary labor of testing how the processes work actually in the life of the community they serve, it will be seen that there is at hand for investigation a field worthy of any law school or learned foundation.

Possibly the American Law Institute, now engaged in restating certain fields of substantive law, may be induced to attempt the job. Lawyers are notoriously ignorant and indifferent to any systems of jurisprudence except that in which they are trained and operate. The demonstration to that profession of the success of procedural reforms, undreamt of by them, but operating almost under their noses, seems an opportunity for the doing of social welfare work of the highest value.

Nor is the dissemination of knowledge of existing systems, extensive as is such a task, all that the law schools and learned foundations should do at the present time. The comparative study herein indicated should lead to conclusions as to further developments of existing judicial instrumentalities, or even to the forming of new ones. This process of research is probably never-ending, for it is not humanly possible to keep ahead of the means which should be constantly developing to enable courts. properly to function, and thus in its final effect to enable people to live together

with some degree of harmony in a crowded universe. This is as it should be, for never should the judicial machinery be incapable of improvement. It is a means to an end, not an end in itself, and it must therefore constantly be kept to its function of serving the ends of ultimate justice.

Such is the work that law schools may do in this field. But this should not stand alone. How is the work thus made available actually to be made appealing and thus to be adopted by our public officials?

This is a problem of the utmost difficulty, for except in times of stress or excitement the disposition is to run along with that to which we have become accustomed, or perhaps that which we ourselves have conquered. Lawyers and courts resist changes. How is to be mobilized the political pressure which is probably necessary to translate theoretical reforms into practical court instru

ments? In England a standing rules committee exists to make changes in the procedural rules. This has operated with much success, but the Earl of Birkenhead suggests that without the head of the English legal system, the Lord Chancellor, as a political officer of the Chancellor, as a political officer of the Government, changing as the Government changes, the stimulus for reform is lacking.

It is not politically possible to duplicate this system in our States, but various approximations may be made. A rules committee is not now unknown in some States. If to this is added a body of some degree of stability but made up of elements responsive to social and political demands, charged with the duty of discovering and fostering reform and improvement in the judicial system, a considerable advance may be hoped for. Judge Cardozo has advocated such a body for his State of New York, in a proposal for what he terms a "ministry

W

E were riding along the road from Luray to the beginning of the ascent to Skyland, when the car stopped before a cluster of wayside graves, neatly fenced in iron, but not well kept. Our driver called attention to one of the three tombstones within the barrier. It marked the resting place of Elizabeth Herzberger, long dead. In the ellipse above her name was carved a hand, pointing heavenward. "The story is," he remarked, "that she requested her husband to add this mark of faith, and he did it. But you will see he had his doubts as to where she was heading. Notice the question mark above the hand." Sure enough, the hope of a higher life had been put under the doubting shadow of an interrogation mark!

Among the ancient mounds that mark Virginia mountain roadsides are numbers graced with the name of Lincoln, borne by members of the family from which Abraham Lincoln came. The Lincolns were a considerable tribe before they died out or migrated to Kentucky and farther west. Which recalls a tale I once heard the late Speaker Champ Clark tell. It was about a Lincoln named Henry, whom he believed to be n uncle of the great President. The

By DON C. SEITZ

old man lived alone with his wife in a Kentucky mountain cabin. One night a prodigious squawking in the hen-coop betrayed the presence of a marauder. "Wake up, Henry," called the good woman, "an' git your shotgun. Some one's a-stealin' the hens."

Henry refused to be stirred. "No, mother," he replied, "I won't git the gun. I might hit some of the kin."

There are signs of stir in the mountains, echoing the new activity of the plains, induced by the automobile. Yet the people come but shyly from their fastnesses. A pretty young woman, rather smartly dressed by contrast with most of her sisters, came to us at Skyland with a basket of small, hard land with a basket of small, hard peaches, which she sought to sell. She had carried them two miles and a half over a mountain road 3,600 feet above the level of the sea. Looking barely twenty, she said she was married and the mother of five children. Yet in all her life she had never been to Luray, but six miles away! She secured now and then a glimpse more of better things than most of her race by visiting the resort. I saw her looking curiously through the door of the serving room at the well-dressed folks around the dining tables, and felt a quick sympathy with

so narrow a life. There are about four million like it being lived in the South.

Under the Volstead Act, the Blue Ridge, the Massanuttens, and the Appalachians might well be called the Mountains of the Moon, with "shine" added. Once remorselessly hunted by "revenuers," the amateur whisky-makers now constitute a class that is almost privileged and instead of selling the smoky output of their stills at plebeian prices, they can now command for "moonshine" figures that are fabulous compared with what they once were, when beating the excise tax was the sole source of profit, and added but little to the market value of corn. The absence of any regularly made "corn" whisky earns it a premium from those whose palates do not care for imported Scotch, which comes in from the seaboard, and the supply nowhere equals the demand. The convenient method of trade is to leave a ten-dollar bill on a stump with a gallon jug beside it in the wilderness. After a discreet period the jug will be found full and the yellowback gone. Compared with the "moonshine" of "revenue" days, the quality of the distillate seems much better. Some of it might be mistaken for Benedictine by an uncultivated palate. In the best circles