the International Institute of Agriculture. The appropriation should be granted. The Institute was formed in 1905 by international treaty, forty-eight nations subscribing, and Rome was chosen as the meeting-place for the delegates. Chief among them was Mr. David Lubin, of San Francisco, the originator of the idea of the Institute. Mr. Lubin had already interested King Victor Emmanuel in his plan, and the King has since erected a beautiful building for the use of the dele gates. The structure stands on the borders of the historic Borghese Gardens. The principal purpose of the Institute is to furnish proper information concerning the supply of agricultural products. The law of supply and demand determines the price of these products. The demand, so far as the number of consumers is concerned, is fairly manifest. Not so with the supply. The most civilized nations, including our own, have crop-reporting bureaus and departments. But each of these reports in its own way, and the mass of information needs to be co-ordinated. Most nations, moreover, have no cropreporting system at all. Yet the world's supply must be made up from all sources, and the world's price is based on a summary of the world's supply. As that estimated summary is necessarily unreliable, there is constant price fluctuation. Equity in the formation of the prices will of course come about only when the world supply is known. It is just here that the work of an International Institute of Agriculture is necessary, and Mr. Lubin's Institute was founded primarily to collect, study, and publish as promptly as possible statistical, technical, and economic information concerning farming products, both vegetable and animal; concerning the commerce in agricultural products and the prices prevailing in the various markets. In addition the Institute investigates wages paid for farm work in various parts of the world, and is thus able properly to direct the flood of emigration. The Institute makes known the new diseases of vegetables, showing the territories infected and the remedies effective in combating them. It studies questions concerning agricultural co-operation, insurance, and credit, and finally submits to the approval of the various Governments measures for

the protection of the common interests of farmers. Such an Institute should be useful to the agricultural interests of every country.

ARMENIANS

Sixty thousand Armenians are HELP THE starving. Who will help them? The downfall of Abd-ul-Hamid at the hands of the Young Turks a year ago was accompanied by the tragic massacre of Armenian Christians. In Cilicia, the province on the northeast end of the Mediterranean, hordes of fanatical Mohammedans, jealous of the prosperity of their Armenian neighbors, killed them with more fiendish cruelties than had ever before been known in Asia Minor. Thirty thousand were put to the sword or clubbed to death. Their property was looted. The Christian quarters of the towns were burned to the ground. The widows and orphans of the martyred Christians, desolate among the black ruins of their homes, are facing death through exposure, disease, and starvation. What is done for these people should be done instantly. At Constantinople an International Relief Committee has been formed under the new Sultan's patronage. Thus the relief work has the new Government's sanction and appreciation. The Committee, in which are members of the Diplomatic Corps, has for its President Mr. W. W. Peet, Treasurer of the American Missions in Turkey, prominent in the management of relief work in Turkey since the massacres a decade and more ago. Mr. Peet thus appeals to his countrymen : "If you can do anything for us, please do it. Act quickly." He reports that at Zeitun alone $10,000 is needed to give grain to the destitute. Hence, in response to an urgent appeal from the International Relief Committee, an Armenian Relief Association has been formed in this country. Bishop Greer, of New York, is President of the Association, and Governor Hughes is the first Vice-President. Dr. Elgin R. L. Gould is Chairman of the Executive Committee. The office of the Association is at 31 Broadway, with Mr. Herant M. Kiretchjian as General Secretary. Mr. Kiretchjian, who was active in relief work during the earlier massacres, states that the expenses of the Association, incident to the office

work and the sending of appeals, will be borne by an auxiliary committee of Armenian young men of New York City, so that every cent contributed by churches and individuals will be sent out intact to relieve the widows and orphans in whose behalf the appeal of the International Committee has come to the people of the United States. Messrs. Brown Brothers & Co., 59 Wall Street, will act as depository of the funds. Those who would contribute should remember that he gives twice who gives quickly."

THE POOR SEALS

The question, What shall we do with the seals? has now been answered. The Paris Tribunal of Arbitration between Great Britain and the United States prescribed a sixty-mile zone from the Pribylov Islands within which seals should not be taken out of the Pacific. But the provision has been nugatory through its restrictions to vessels operated under the protection of the American and British Governments. The immune zone has become to Japanese sealers the most inviting field for hunting just because the sealing craft of other nations are forbidden to enter it. With nearly forty schooners, carrying about two hundred and fifty small boats, the Japanese have formed a cordon through which the breeding females, when driven to the open sea in search of food, could penetrate only with the certainty of the slaughter of many of their number. In the slaughter of many years prior to the Paris arbitration all the nations interested have participated. When Alaska was turned over to the United States, there were more than four million seals in Pribylov Island waters. Now there are about one hundred thousand. Accordingly, negotiations have been taken up in the Nation's interest by our State Department, for the only way to stop destruction of the seal herd is by international negotiations and agreement. We propose to do our part by prohibiting any killing of seals except under the authority of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor. The bill in Congress to this end was about to be referred to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, when it was objected that seals may be regarded not only as a natural but also

as a National resource, and that the measure should be referred to the newly erected Committee on the Conservation of National Resources. In the debate Senator Root referred to the Bering Sea Tribunal's decision that seals were not natural resources, hence the bill should be referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. On the other hand, Senator Nelson opposed that committee reference because a measure referring only to the killing of scals on United States territory bore no relation to the conduct of any foreign nation, but was strictly a question affecting the natural and National resources of the country. Mr. Nelson's views prevailed, and the bill was referred to the new Committee, of which Senator Dixon, of Montana, is the energetic Chairman. The Committee promptly and favorably reported the bill, and the Senate, we are glad to say, passed it as promptly. Later the House did likewise. We have thus shown our good faith in the matter.

A NOTEWORTHY TRIBUTE

The Richmond (Virginia) papers lately gave an account of a tribute paid by the Westmoreland Club of that city to an old negro servant. Nathan Moore for over thirty-one years was in the employ of this Club, and for a number of years was its head doorkeeper. On his left arm he wore six gold service stripes, one for each five years of continuous service, and on each Christmas he received five dollars for each stripe as a mark of esteem from the members. Though for a number of months past unable because of ill health to attend to his duties, he had been retained on the Club's pay-roll, and his post kept open for him in the event of his recovery. At the funeral the members of the Club, which we believe is the oldest and most aristocratic club in the city, assembled at the club-house and marched in a body to the Second Baptist Church (colored) to attend the service" an honor," says a Richmond paper, "that has never been paid even to a member of the Club." The incident is worth recording for the benefit of Northern readers, who are apt to imagine that the only attentions paid to negroes in the South are those rendered by lynching parties.

A HOLY ALLIANCE The Outlook agrees absolutely and without qualification with the principles defined by Mr. Roosevelt in his Nobel address, published on another page.

There are two ways of securing national peace by being so weak that we cannot fight by being so strong that we do not need to fight. The Outlook believes in the second method; it disbelieves in the first.

Again we can attempt to persuade the nations to discard the implements of war, and so make war impossible; or we can persuade the nations to provide some other method than war for the fulfillment of their duty, and so make war unnecessary. The Outlook believes in the second method; it disbelieves in the first.

The function of government is to protect persons and property. To protect them from wrong-doers within the nation, it has sheriffs, constables, police, militia. To protect them from wrong-doers without the nation, it has an army and a navy. Time was when the private castle was surrounded by a moat, approached by a drawbridge, through a portcullis, with armed men to keep watch against enemies. The moat and drawbridge and portcullis and armed men have disappeared, because there are courts to determine the issues between private citizens, and police to enforce the decrees of the courts. Forts and navies and big guns will disappear from our harbors when we have an International Court to determine the issues between nations, and adequate means to enforce the decrees of such a court. For this three successive steps are necessary:

I. An agreement among civilized nations to submit their controversies to arbitration; in other words, to substitute the appeal to reason for the appeal to force. Such agreements as between one nation and another have already been made by most of the civilized nations, and they have been carried into effect in a sufficient number of important cases to prove that the ideal is practicable of realization.

II. The establishment of a permanent Court of Judicature to which all international controversies shall be referred as a matter of course, in lieu of the creation

of sporadic courts of arbitration created after the controversy arises for the purpose of settling it. The civilized nations of the earth have agreed on the desirability of constituting such a Supreme Court of International Law, although they have not yet agreed on the method by which it should be constituted.

III. The third step, power to enforce the decisions of such a tribunal, has not been taken. It is not probable that any nation would now consent to turn over its navy to such a Supreme Court and trust wholly to that court and to the navy under its control for protection. But Mr. Roosevelt points out how a first step in that direction might be taken even

now:

Each nation must keep well prepared to defend itself until the establishment of some form of international police power, competent and willing to prevent violence as between nations. As things are now, such power to command peace throughout the world could best be assured by some combination between those great nations which sincerely desire peace and have no thought themselves of committing aggressions. The combination might at first be only to secure peace within certain definite limits and certain definite conditions; but the ruler or statesman who should bring about such a combination would have earned his place in history for all time and his title to the gratitude of all mankind.

For example: Suppose Great Britain, the United States, and Japan were to enter into a treaty providing that if one of these nations were attacked, the other two would come to its defense; that no one nation would attack without the approval of at least one of the other two; and that all questions arising between the three contracting nations should be submitted to the Hague Tribunal. The joint navies would be a guarantee of peace within certain definite limits and certain definite conditions. Such a treaty would not guarantee a world peace, but it would guarantee peace so far as these three nations are concerned, and it would render unnecessary any increase of armaments by them for defensive purposes, since all three navies would be available for the defense of each nation.

We suggest Great Britain, Japan, and the United States to initiate this movement because Great Britain represents the West, Japan the East, and the United States stands midway between the two; and all

three Powers have efficient navies. But such a treaty might be made between any three world Powers that had each a navy adequate to make it an efficient factor in preserving peace by enforcement of law. Any three of the following Powers might make such a tripartite treaty: France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, the United States. Possibly Austria, Russia, and Spain should be added to the list.

Such a tripartite treaty, whoever made it, might at the time proffer to the others a request to join on the same terms. Or any one of these nations might offer publicly to make such a treaty with any other two of the naval Powers that would join with it in so doing. We need not wait for all the nations to join in such a peace-making combination. If any three great naval Powers should join in such a combination, it would furnish an objectlesson and an inspiration to the rest. It would be a first step toward lessening naval armaments, because a first step toward getting rid of the necessity for them. It would be a true " holy alliance," because it would be an alliance for peace, order, and international wellbeing.

A GAIN AND A LOSS Governor Hughes has accepted the appointment, offered him by President Taft, to the position upon the bench of the Supreme Court made vacant by the death of Mr. Justice Brewer. The appointment will not take effect until October, when the Court will meet after its summer recess.

But

We believe that Mr. Hughes will make a good judge, and that he will add strength to the Supreme Court. He has never occupied judicial position, so that the belief cannot be predicated upon direct experience of his past career. he is an able lawyer; his knowledge of the law is broad, thorough, and extensive. He is young, as Justices of the Supreme Court go-his forty-eight years contrasting favorably with the sixty-six years of his immediate predecessor in appointment. His experience in public life has all been gained during the new era in which so many fresh problems of industrial, commercial, and National life

have created new conditions to which the interpretation of our Constitutional and statutory law must be applied. His creation of the Public Service Commissions, and his veto of the Long Sault Charter, to cite only two examples, indicate that in dealing with the great question of corporation control and regulation his first thought is for the interest of all the people. But they indicate no less that he recognizes the corporation as a great instrument of modern industry which needs, not to be hampered, but to be regulated in the public interest. His intrepid and persistent fight against the race-track gambling laws, about to be brought to a triumphant conclusion in the enactment of supplementary legislation, displayed a deep reverence for the fundamental law and an implacable hatred of every attempt at legislative evasion or nullification of that law. He knows life. Not, perhaps, in the sense that he has had in any large measure personal experience of the actual conditions of modern industry and business, but in a more important sense. In interpreting a particular law it is not essential that a judge should know from his own experience the exact part of life which it touches. But it is vitally essential that he should be interested in that life. It is only too easy for the judge, secluded in his study and isolated by the very conditions of his office from the currents of life which legislation aims to control and direct, to become absorbed in the law, its judge-made precedents and interpretations, its fine-spun distinctions and delicate shades of meaning. To the extent that he prefers these cold abstractions to the warm facts of life he is in danger of sacrificing justice to legalism. From this danger Mr. Hughes, we believe, will be free. His veto of the two-cent-fare bill and the Coney Island five-cent-fare bill shows his conviction that legislation should be related to the actual facts of life rather than based upon a priori theories. He is interested in life. He does not permit his lawyer's love of the law to blind him to vital conditions.

But while we recognize the value to the Supreme Court of the accession of such a man, we cannot help feeling a deep regret that Mr. Hughes is to be removed from

the sphere of active public life in which his influence has been so widely, so deeply, and so wholesomely felt. At a time when the long-continued sway of an old political régime of bargain and sale and growing adherence to relaxed moral standards in the business world has made the hour ripe for such a personality, he has been an impelling moral force. He has had a great part in bringing the dawn of a new era in politics and in raising the standards of commercial life. He has bound men to him by the very strength of his moral earnestness, by his sincerity, by his repudiation of every suggestion of compromise on matters of principle. His departure from active public life will be a keen loss not only to his own community, but to the whole Nation.

A BAD BILL

The Senate, after adding twelve million dollars to the Rivers and Harbors Bill, as reported from the House of Representatives, proceeded to pass this bill, despite the protest of the Senator who perhaps knows more about the subject than all the rest of his colleagues together. We refer to the Hon. Theodore E. Burton, long Chairman of the House Committee on Rivers and Harbors, and now Senator from Ohio.

Mr. Burton has blocked the appropriation of many millions of dollars demanded year after year for unworthy or unwise river and harbor appropriations. He op poses the present bill not primarily because the sum of fifty-two million dollars is involved. He opposes it—and we oppose it-because the bill is immoral.

The measure contradicts the record of the years since 1902, when the Army Board of Engineers was created. Since then only projects having the Board's indorsement have been included in rivers and harbors bills. But the present measure contains ten items examined and rejected by the Board as unworthy of adoption! They are doubtless more useful in their political than in their economic aspect. The vehement support given by their Congressional sponsors to them reminds us that the most undeserving projects are often presented with the greatest pressure. The assurance displayed in

offering some of these items is remarkable in face of President Taft's views on waterway improvements, as expressed on his trip down the Mississippi last autumn. He declared that he would not tolerate "pork barrel" appropriations. "Every measure that is to be adopted," said he, "must be on the ground that it is useful to the country at large, and not on the ground that it is going to send certain men back to Congress, or on the ground that it is going to make a certain part of the country prosperous at the expense of the many." The objectionable items in the present measure are objectionable because, if an expert commission has rejected them, we must believe that they were introduced chiefly to make some members of Congress "solid" with their constituents. Such legislation is essentially immoral.

Moreover, the bill is unscientific. A scientific measure would consider items in order of merit. It would emphasize, first, the streams of considerable size, like the Hudson and Ohio Rivers, upon which large cities or great industrial centers are located; next, short rivers, like the Monongahela, in busy industrial sections; and only lastly the minor streams. In the present measure the emphasis is misplaced.

Finally, the bill marks the continuation of a "dribbling" policy. We persist in making partial appropriations for a multitude of improvements, without providing for their completion. The present measure includes about four hundred and fifty projects. Three-fourths of the items are for projects under way. Of course the magnitude of a proposed improvement sometimes justifies the undertaking of only a portion at one time; but this does not detract from the general rule that, whenever possible, the Government's public works should be provided for in one bill, and pushed to early completion. Under our system of piecemeal appropriation the full use of an improved stream or harbor is long delayed. Take for illustration Sandy Bar Harbor in Massachusetts. The completion of this harbor will cost over five million dollars. During the past quarter of a century one million five hundred thousand dollars has been spent upon it. The present measure carries a