Massachusetts. His hobbies are said by the lay press to be social and economic justice, efficiency, ethics and Zionism.

THE RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES WITH AUSTRIA,—

Before the outbreak of the present European war, there had been no fundamental clash in interests to cause friction between the United States and Austria. Austria is distinctively a European power. The set of questions to which she has confined her attention has been European questions. One of the cardinal principles of American foreign policy has always been to leave the settlement of European questions to European States. The expansionist policy of neither has brought it into collision with the other Neither their political nor their commercial spheres of interest have overlapped. This absence of a clash of interests has made it easy for each to maintain friendly relations with the other. It is the adverse currents of conflicting interests which most commonly strain or rupture diplomatic relations.

About the only episodes in the relations of the two States, which, up to the present war, have caused much feeling between their respective peoples, are the refusal of the government of the United States to surrender Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian revolutionist; and the intervention of the United States in Mexico, which resulted in the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Maximilian. There was, however, in neither of these cases any serious threat of a diplomatic rupture.

With this background of traditional friendly relations and harmony of interests, both of which are potent forces in smoothing over misunderstandings which may arise from hasty action, as in the Martin Koszta case, in 1853, it is most unfortunate that a struggle to which the United States is not a party, and toward which it has maintained an attitude of strict neutrality, should have thrice brought the two nations to the verge of a diplomatic rupture. But such is the case. As the strained relations have in each case been due to a fundamental difference in view point as to the rights and duties of belligerents and the rights and duties of neutrals, rather than to mere passing incidents, it is worth while giving them serious consideration.

The first straining of relations came over Austria's protest against the sale, by American citizens, of munitions of war to the Allies. To this protest the United States replied that the sales were in accord with the law and practice of nations. For the United States to have complied with this protest by forbidding its citizens to sell munitions of war to belligerents and attempting to prevent such trade, would be a recognition of the principle that the right of neutrals to engage in lawful trade comes to an end whenever the belligerent protests against the exercise of such right. The right of the neutral to engage in lawful traffic is far too vital a right to rest upon the shifting sand of belligerent caprice.

By yielding to the Austrian protest, the United States would have recognized the right of the belligerent to dictate a change of the rules during the progress of the game, regardless of the present or ulterior effects of such a change upon neutrals or belligerents. The right of the belligerent to seize and confiscate munitions of war going from neutrals to the ports of its enemy, constitutes a sufficient restriction upon the right of the neutral to engage in lawful commerce, notwithstanding the fact that other states have seen fit to engage in war. If this right to engage in lawful commerce is to be interrupted, the burden of interrupting it should rest upon the beneficiary of such interruption, i. e., upon the belligerent, rather than upon the neutral who is already suffering because of a condition for which it is in no wise responsible.

In flatly refusing to comply with the pretensions of Austria, the United States was not only championing the commercial rights of neutrals but was resisting the recognition of a rule which would necessitate every nation's going armed to the teeth. For if a nation may not, during war, purchase military supplies from the citizens of a neutral state, it must then either remain continually upon a military basis or else take the chances of being overrun by its militaristic neighbor. As no nation could afford to stake its all upon the kindly disposition of its neighbors, the United States would be compelled to abandon its time-honored policy of practical disarmament and adjust itself to the necessities of the rule by decidedly increasing its armament. This would be too great a sacrifice, whether we consider it from the humanitarian or from the economic standpoint. The United States was therefore compelled, by considerations of duty and interest, to stand firmly for the present rule, even though Austria should see fit to sever diplomatic relations as a mark of its displeasure.

Scarcely had the correspondence in regard to the sale of munitions been filed in the archives at Washington and Vienna, when relations again became strained over the demand of the United States for the recall of the Austrian Ambassador, Constantin Dumba. This demand resulted from the pernicious activity of said diplomat in conspiracies which, if consummated, would result in loss to American industries and destruction of American lives and property. Such activity on the part of a guest could not be tolerated. Through criminal conspiracies and a gross abuse of exterritorial privileges he was attempting to do indirectly what the Austrian government had failed to do directly by its protest to the Government at Washington. His claim of right to subject Austrians within the United States to Austrian rather than American laws was in derogation of American sovereignty and finds no warrant in the law of nations.

Mr. Dumba rested his case upon the contention that he had the right to do anything which would cripple the enemies of Austria. In other words, his justification rests upon the assumption that the limit of the right of a belligerent, whether in his own territory, in the territory of his enemy, on the high seas, or in neutral territory, is determined by military expediency. Such contention finds no justification in international law or in international morality. To use American territory as a base of operations against States friendly to the United States is in direct contravention of the neutrality laws of the United States. The insistence of Mr. Dumba upon an alleged right to violate our laws, because his country had a grievance against some one else, would have necessitated his dismissal, had he not been recalled. Better no diplomatic representative from Austria than one attempting to put such views into practice. Austria at first parleyed, but finally yielded and saved the United States the unpleasant task of dismissing a diplomat who had made himself dangerous and hence unwelcome.

The sinking of the Ancona and with it the destruction of the lives of American citizens constitutes a third cause for the straining of relations. Austria does not deny that the Ancona was sunk by an Austrian submarine, but refuses to either give an official detailed account of the occurrence or to accept as accurate the account of the transaction gathered by the United States from sources which seem to it reliable. According to these, the Ancona stopped when signaled and was sunk without taking reasonable precautions to save the lives of passengers and crew. Austria refuses to disavow the act, refuses reparation; but pleads in confession and avoidance that the summary destruction, regardless of the safety of those on board, was necessary to prevent its rescue by warships belonging to the enemies of Austria. International law does not recognize this as a valid defense. Neither should it. When a warship is offered the

alternative of destroying innocent lives or allowing a merchant vessel to escape with them, it must choose the latter as being in accord with law and with the dictates of humanity.

If driven to select between the two, the United States cannot afford to maintain diplomatic relations with Austria at the price of recognizing or seeming to recognize the principle that in the law of nations a belligerent has rights, but no duties; and that a neutral has duties but no rights. Such has in substance been the contentions of Austria from start to finish. In accord with the wishes, if not at the dictation of Germany, it has pushed to a ridiculous extreme the reprehensible motto of inter arma leges silunta

CHIEF JUSTICE CLARK ON WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION LAWS.— In a recent case in North Carolina1 where the Supreme Court ruled that the verdict and judgment in favor of the plaintiff should be sustained on the ground that the defendants, Wells Bros. & Co., were in charge of the entire work of construction and had agreed to furnish the plank for the workmen and by reason of one of these planks thus furnished by them being defective, it broke and the plaintiff was precipitated four stories and was terribly injured. Chief Justice Clark said:

"After the battle of Waterloo in 1815 when England terminated the 25 years struggle with France she did not give pensions to the soldiers disabled in that contest or subsequently destitute (notwithstanding the peerages and enormous sums granted to a few generals) but in lieu thereof rewarded them by a 'permission to beg' if found needy and deserving, coupled with a provision that if any soldier should beg without such permission from his commanding officer, or of some court, that he should be hanged. The attitude as to the 'soldiers of industry' the laborers upon whose exertions civilization rests, has also changed very slowly. It was long held by the courts that when a laborer was injured though he might be one of many thousands in a common employment, yet if any other laborer was in any wise guilty of negligence which contributed to the injury of the laborer the employer was not liable. It was first pointed out in this State by the opinion in Hobbs v. R. R. 107 N. C. 1 (in 1890) that this doctrine had been created by the courts and not by any statute. Thereafter, doubtless in consequence of that decision, the General Assembly enacted Ch. 1897 Pr. Laws, Ch. 56 now Rev. 2646, which repealed the doctrine as to railroad employes and also deprived the defendant in such cases of the defense that the employe 'assumed the risk.' This statute was before the court on several occasions, but was settled finally in favor of its constitutionality in Coley v. R. R. 128 N. C. 534, reaffirmed on rehearing, 129 N. C. 407 (though two Judges dissented) and has ever since been held valid in this State. The modern and just doctrine, that when there are large numbers of employes the 'business shall bear the loss' from injury to an employe and that the whole burden shall not fall, as heretofore, with crushing effect upon the unfortunate employe and his dependent family is now the attitude of the law as it has been expressed by legislation, and later by the courts."

THE PROFESSION OF THE LAW-CHIEF JUSTICE CLARK UPON.— In accepting on behalf of the Supreme Court of North Carolina

1 Vogh v. Geer, 171 N. C.

a Edwin Maxey, Professor of International Law, University of Nebraska.

a portrait of a former Chief Justice, William Theophilus Dortch, the present Chief Justice, Hon. Walter Clark, gave the following interesting sketch of the profession of the law: He said:

"The profession of law, as compared with the other two learned professions of medicine and theology, is of very recent origin. Medicine and theology date back to the beginning of the human race. There have been judges also from the earliest time, for there have always been controversies to be settled, but law as a profession is comparatively new. Some one has, inadvertently, of course, referred to 'the great lawyers who drafted Magna Charta,' but in fact at that time there were no lawyers, either great or small, in all England. At that time every one was required to appear in Courts in his own behalf, both in criminal and civil cases. No one could be represented in courts by another until the statute of Merton in 1236, 21 years after Magna Charta. Professional lawyers were first authorized in England by the statute of Edward I. in 1291, more than three-quarters of a century after the barons and bishops met King John at Runnymede. Indeed, counsel were not allowed to address the jury, or to cross-examine the witnesses, in criminal cases in England till 600 years later in 1836. For many centuries after the conquest all the judges in England were ecclesiastics, with rarely, now and then, a layman, never a lawyer. The Lord Chancellors, the highest law position, and next to the king in rank, were all ecclesiastics till Sir Robert Bourchier in 1341. The solitary exception was a woman, Eleanor of Provence in 1253, who Lord Campbell in his Lives of the Lord Chancellors, tells us sat in the Aula Regis and personally discharged its duties with vigor. Indeed lawyers were so scarce that it is not certain that any lawyer was appointed to the Lord Chancellorship till Sir Thomas More in 1529. Then among the few appointed to that office, who were not ecclesiastics, were some who had been judges, but the judges were usually laymen or bishops. Lawyers must have been scarce indeed, or they would have found the Lord Chancellorship though it did not find them. When the Wat Tyler Insurrection broke out in England, caused by the poll tax, the cry which was then raised and again a little later in Cade's Rebellion. 'Let us kill all the lawyers' was due, it seems, not so much to anything that lawyers had done as to the fact that being a new profession the populace thought that they must be responsible for the imposition of the new and odious tax. This tax was soon repealed and then long afterwards re-enacted for a few years. No poll-tax has been laid in England for now more than two centuries past.

Sir William Blackstone, in 1758, was the first Professor of Law in England, and he resigned in 1766, because he could not procure the establishment of a law school, which is a more modern evolution from the famous Inns of lawyers and law apprentices who gathered in these great hostels, and after the lapse of a certain time and on proof of having eaten a certain number of meals, the law apprentices were called to the Bar by their seniors In North Carolina the Court of Conference which later developed into our Supreme Court, was continued by the Act of 1801, which provided: "No attorney shall be allowed to speak or be admitted as counsel in the aforesaid court."

Nor was the profession of law of more ancient origin in other countries. In most of them the profession, as we now understand its duties and rights, took its rise after it did in England. It is true there were advocates in Rome under the Republic, but they practiced mostly to obtain support for political office and were not allowed to charge for their services, receiving only voluntary gifts, which indeed for a long time was the case in England. In the later Roman Empire there were law schools, but the lawyers graduating therein were rather what were called juris

consults. That is they were advisers to the Judges who were often laymen, though there were some who became Judges and others who became famous as law writers or codifiers, such as Ulpian, Paul, Papinian and others. But in many essential respects their position under an arbitrary government was essentially different from the profession to which we belong.

When our Master said "Woe unto you, ye lawyers" he referred to priests and theological students for the Hebrew law was the old Scriptures, overlaid it is true, like ours, with comments and traditions. But none the less those whom he addressed as 'lawyers' were ecclesiastics as was a certain lawyer, who stood up tempting Him.

Notwithstanding the recent origin of our profession it has grown rapidly in numbers and influence in all free countries. In these it thrives so well and it is so essentially modern and democratic that in the United States of the three great departments of the governmentlegislative, executive and judicial-lawyers not only naturally, it might be said necessarily fill all the higher positions of the judiciary but on an average lawyers furnish more than 60 per cent of the governors and presidents and of members of the state legislatures and of both houses of congress, that is to say, a good majority of the other two departments of the government.

As the judiciary in this country have claimed and exercised the irreviewable power to set aside any action of the executive and legislative departments of the government and even to say to the people themselves, as some judges have claimed, "Thus far shalt thou go and no further,' no class of men exercise greater, or as great, power, in this country as lawyers, and the entire people are interested in their conduct. It is therefore highly important to keep high and clear the best standards of the profession, and that the life, the example and the memory of the great lawyers who have led the way of honor and whose influence has been a restraint upon doubtful tendencies, should be ever kept before the profession.

PROFESSIONAL ETHICS-ANSWERS OF THE NEW YORK COMMIT

TEE.

ADVERTISING IN PROFESSIONAL JOURNAL.-Is there any professional impropriety in an advertisement inserted in a local law journal and couched in the following terms: "A New Departure in Consultation Practice. As an experiment, until this notice is withdrawn or modified, will, to the best of my ability, without special research, furnish to attorneys of the State of as hereinafter noted, answers (signed by me) to questions as to the law of the State of to aid in either office or court work. All questions must be impersonal and presented in duplicate, one to be made part of and so returned with answer. No citation of authority given unless called for in question and then charge will be doubled, and, if either discussion of authority or authority pro and con called for, charge will be trebled. Oral conference, either before or after answer, will increase charge one-half. Charge for each answer without citation of authority or oral conference, not less than five or more than ten dollars. Right to decline to answer any question reserved. (Name.) (Address.) (Telephone number.)" Answer.-The Committee has disapproved a somewhat similar appeal made in the form