became Lord Chief Justice in 1913, having previously been a Lord Justice of Appeal for four years. The retiring Lord Chief Justice had a great knowledge of the law and was always a willing listener when cases were being explained to him.

The Special Register Bill appears to be indefinitely hung up."

66

Very wide powers are of course vested in the Executive by the Defence of the Realm (Consolidation) Act, 1914, for making regulations "for securing the public safety and the defence of the Realm." A Regulation has just been made enabling the Board of Trade to take possession of any coal mines to which the Regulation is by an Order made to apply and an Order has been made by the Board applying the Regulation to the South Wales coalfield.

The well-known advocate, Mr. Edmund Purcell, whose recently-published Reminiscences I called attention to in a recent Letter, has died after 41 years at the Bar. Throughout his long career as advocate in the criminal courts, he was principally engaged in the defence of prisoners.

A biographical sketch of the late Mr. Justice Day, written by one of his sons, has just made a rather belated appearance.

The death of Sir James Dods Shaw has removed a well-known figure from the Palace of Westminster. As Manager of the Official Reporting Staff responsible for the production of the Official Report of Parliamentary Debates, he came in contact with every member of both Houses of Parliament so frequently as to render his removal from among them something akin to a personal loss.

The increasing demands on the manhood of the nation has made jury-service more and more of a hardship, and the Lord Chief Justice recently urged the advisability of litigants agreeing, as far as they properly can do so under advice, to have their cases tried without juries. Lord Reading was, however,

careful to maintain the merits of trial by jury and the right of the subject thereto. "There are, of course, said Lord Reading, "numbers of cases, like those of slander and libel, in which invariably one may say that the trial is by jury. On the other hand, there are cases which, if the parties agree, might be very well disposed of by a judge without a jury." These sentiments will meet with approval in the profession. One way out of the difficulty would be to raise the age for jury-service from sixty to sixty-five.

The report by the Inspector-General in Bankruptcy on the general working of the Bankruptcy Acts for the year ending in December last shows a substantial decrease in the number of bankruptcies and deeds of arrangement. I give the figures for the last three years. In 1913, 3,358 receiving orders and administration orders were made, in 1914, the number had dropped to 2,867, while in 1915 there was a further decrease of 488 to 2,379. Turning to deeds of arrangement, in 1913, 2,411 were registered: in 1914, 1,776; while in 1915, the number was 1,652, a decrease of 124.

Since the scheme for providing for the Civil Liabilities of men called up for military service by grants from the State has been in working order, twenty-six additional Commissioners have been appointed, making 99 in all. Up to October 31st, the Commissioners had received some 107,000 applications and had investigated and dealt with 86,500.

From latest figures issued by the Bar Council it appears that 1,158 members of the Bar have joined the colours, of whom 106 have laid down their lives. The record kept by the Law Society shows that 2,678 solicitors and, 1,325 articled clerks have joined the forces, of whom 271 solicitors and 173 articled clerks have been killed. No record has been kept of barristers' and solicitors' clerks who have joined the colours, but the number is large.

The number of enemy businesses within the provisions of sec. 1 of the Trading with the Enemy

Act, 1916, in which either the property has been sold by a controller appointed to wind up the business or the enemy-owned shares have been sold by the Public Trustee is now approximately 200.

Some suggestion has been made that the war affords a fitting opportunity for breaking down the oldtime opposition to the admission of women as solicitors. As the Law Journal very rightly points out, the opening of the legal profession to women cannot be accomplished piecemeal. If women are to be allowed to qualify as solicitors, they must be admitted to the Bar, and when once they become barristers, the judicial bench must be open to them. It is a difficult problem and hardly one to be solved by a species of "emergency legislation " in war-time. There is nothing to prevent women acting as clerks to solicitors and, indeed, they are so employed in increasing numbers, their entrance into solicitors' offices having taken place long before the war.

The sensation of the moment is, of course, the resignation of the Prime Minister. Mr. Asquith, who was 64 on September 12th, has held office as Prime Minister for the third longest period in English history, the two others who occupied the position longer being Pitt, 1783-1801, and Lord Liverpool, 1812-1827. He was called to the Bar by Lincoln's Inn in 1876 after being educated at the City of London School and Balliol College, Oxford. He was Craven University Scholar and President of the Union. He entered Parliament in 1886 as member for East Fife and has retained the seat ever since. Mr. Asquith became a Q. C. in 1890. Before becoming Prime Minister in April, 1908, as the successor of Sir Henry CampbellBannerman, Mr. Asquith was Chancellor of the Exchequer. He is the only member of the Coalition Government who held office in a Gladstone Cabinet, having been Home Secretary under Mr. Gladstone from 1892 to 1895.

W. E. WILKINSON.

WAR CRIMES AND WAR CRIMINALS.

Some Practical Proposals.

PART III.

In my former articles I urged the immediate enforcement of the laws and usages of war, by the trial and punishment of such offenders against them as fell into our hands. Where this was impossible, and where no other alternative offered, I admitted that retaliation undertaken in accordance with International law, and with strict regard to the principles of humanity, was fully justified, and indeed in some. cases might be absolutely necessary.

It remains now, to discuss what practical steps should be taken after the war to render more operative in the future, the laws and usages of war and to prevent, or at least to render of less frequent occurrence the commission of such atrocities as those committed by the German forces in Belgium and Northern France and on the High Seas, which have horrified the whole civilized world. So long as public opinion in Germany approves of the methods of warfare on land and sea carried into execution by the German military and naval command, so long may we expect to see a repetition of such atrocities on an even larger scale in future wars. These methods are the natural sequence of the German theory of the State which demands the application of the doctrines of military necessity, and offrightfulness."

In the German philosophy of the conduct of war, military necessity is paramount to all other considerations. It rides rough shod over the accepted laws and usages of war, the principles of International law and even of conventional obligations. It refuses to recognise the dictates of honour, or of humanity. Military necessity knows no law. Each belligerent is

a law unto himself. It regards the most solemn treaties as scraps of paper to be discarded and torn up when the occasion requires. In short it connotes. the abrogation of all law which conflicts with the supposed interest of the State, and its application can only result in anarchy and in reprisals culminating in a competition of barbarism. It is the instrument of selfish Nationalism.

The doctrine of frightfulness is no new idea. It was 6 common form' with Empires of the East, ancient and modern, and throughout medieval Europe. The sack of Magdeburg was no mere accident, but part of a deliberate policy to terrorise the neighbouring cities into submission lest a similar terrible fate should overtake them, and it proved largely successful. It is now abundantly clear that the destruction. of villages, towns and cities and ill-treatment of the civil population in Belgium were not the accidental acts of irresponsible troops, but the result of calculated policy on the part of the German higher military command.

The continued adherence to these fundamental doctrines by the German military and naval authorities. with the approval of German public opinion, will render hopeless any chance of agreement with the rest of the powers which are opposed to such doctrines, upon regulations for the proper conduct of war. But the public opinion of the world must ultimately prevail. "We believe," declares the "American Rights Committee," "that there is a morality of nations, which requires every Government to observe its treaty obligations, and to order its conduct with a decent respect to the opinion of mankind." Because Germany refuses to be bound by the accepted laws and usages of war, that is no reason why there should be no laws at all.

"When great Powers," writes Sir Frederick Pollock, "commit themselves to principles of anarchic tyranny, that is the very reason why those who still