committee whittled the appropriation down to one third of the amount asked, and in addition insisted upon itemizing the reduced appropriation in a way that made it virtually impossible to the fund effectively. The committee granted one fifth of the number of translators suggested, and about one tenth of the number of messengers specified in the budget.

What were the American officials to do? The humiliating thing they did was to go to the British and explain their lack of funds. To quote Mr. Greenwood:

Long before the deficiency bill was finally passed a cable was sent to the Secretary General of the League of Nations that no funds were available, and they were immediately provided. Up to the time of writing every penny of expense has been paid out of funds cabled from abroad. Even the little twentyfive cent silk flag of the United States, drooping from its sturdy staff on the table before the empty chairs reserved for delegates from America was paid for in this way. The cost of the beautiful grouping of the flags of all the nations at the west end of the hall was submitted to the representative of Sir Eric Drummond before the order was placed.

The Public Buildings Committee, displaying a similar reluctance, finally provided "one or two badly damaged buildings and suggested that possibly they might be used in part." Again the American officials charged with receiving the conference were empty-handed. The outcome was, according to Mr. Greenwood, that "the Secretary of the Navy, hearing that the official headquarters of the conference was about to be located in a barn, came to the rescue, and provided sufficient space to give each delegation a place to hang its hats and go to work."

take on the peace treaty, still, with the delegations at our doors, we were obligated to the decencies of hospitality. The facts here recorded are the story of a boorishness unworthy of an enlightened republic.

SOFTENING DEFEAT FOR BULGARIA

ONE of the innumerable "mysteries of Paris" is said to be the deliberate softening of defeat for Bulgaria by the peace conference. Our press has carried not a little cabled correspondence protesting against an alleged favoritism to Bulgaria in the matter of indemnity. The major part of the criticism of the Bulgarian treaty is directed against the reparation and financial clauses. The indemnity statement in the treaty reads as follows:

The allied and associated governments, while recognizing that the resources of Bulgaria are insufficient to enable adequate reparation to be made, agree to accept from Bulgaria such reparation as she can make, and fix the sum of 2,250,000,000 (two and a quarter milliards) francs in gold.

The critics of the Bulgarian treaty contend that Bulgaria's ability to pay has been deliberately underestimated, and that an even further loophole is left for Bulgaria's escape from her obligations; for the treaty also states that "the Interallied Commission shall have discretion to recommend to the Reparations Commission a reduction of the capital sum to be paid by Bulgaria." It is contended that the national wealth of Bulgaria showed a marked increase during the war; that deposits in Bulgarian banks have greatly increased; that the value of reserves have increased in value three times; and that Bulgaria was obliged to extend her banking machinery during 1916 and 1917. The critics of the treaty estimate that the total national revenue of Bulgaria has, by the most conservative reckoning, increased from 1,646,000,000 francs in 1911 to 2,000,000,000 francs in 1919. Estimates of Bulgaria's ability to pay indemnity, estimates made by her critics, run from 15,000,000,000 to 29,000,000,000 francs, payable in the thirty-eight years permitted for liquidation of the debt.

These estimates stand against the 2,250,000,000 francs actually fixed by the treaty.

A further protest is entered against the fact that the peace conference canceled Bulgaria's debt to Germany. It is pointed out that this is not simply a case of the Allies being generous with Germany's money, since they might have added the Bulgarian debt to Germany's indemnity or shifted it as a credit to Serbia and Greece. A London correspondent for "The Christian Science Monitor" in a despatch dealing with this matter further points out that the peace conference not only dealt more generously with Bulgaria than with Germany, but more generously than with Greece and Serbia. In support of this contention comparisons are made between Bulgaria and these two countries. The comparisons are as follows:

Bulgaria lost three per cent. of her population during the war; Serbia paid a toll of

thirty-one and a half per cent. Bulgaria's

stock of cattle has remained undiminished;

that of Serbia has been reduced by eighty per cent. Bulgaria is more flourishing than ever before; Serbia is in ruins. Before the war Bulgaria owed 750,000,000 francs; the debt of Serbia amounted to over 1,000,000,000 francs. As the result of the war and the cancelation of her indebtedness to the Central Empires, Bulgaria, the vanquished, owes only 4,000,000,000 francs, while Serbia, the victor, owes 4,500,000,000 francs. On a national wealth of 14,000,000,000 francs Bulgaria owes 4,000,000,000 francs; on a national wealth of 5,000,000,000 francs Serbia owes 4,500,000,000 francs. In other words, while Bulgaria is indebted to the extent of twenty-eight per cent. of her national wealth, Serbia is engaged to the extent of ninety per cent.

From this is deduced the contention that Serbia should be relieved of all of her, loans and given increased indemnity for the reconstruction of her devastated lands if in the face of these figures Bulgaria is judged capable of paying only 2,250,000,000 francs indemnity. The same case is made out for Greece, although the comparisons are not so glaring.

In passing judgment upon these criticisms, it must be remembered that

much of the criticism argues from figures compiled by the Greek delegation to the peace conference, Greece being a deeply interested party in the transaction. On the other hand, men in a position to know the facts contend that the Bulgarian indemnity is pretty accurately adjusted to Bulgaria's ability. It must be remembered that the indemnity is to be paid in gold. And the indemnity assessed is about one half what France was compelled to pay in 1871. Contrasted with the stern terms imposed upon Germany, the Bulgarian terms are certainly light. But time alone can show whether the German terms are wisely adjusted to Germany's ability to pay and at the same time effect a normal and safe reconstruction.

Divers explanations are offered for this leniency to Bulgaria. No one seriously suggests that the Allies felt any particular gratitude to Bulgaria for her early capitulation, which began the disintegration of Middle-Europe. It is pretty generally recognized that Bulgaria was playing a thoroughly selfish game all along. She kept her place in the Middle-Europe scheme as long as she did, as Mr. Stoddard pointed out in an article in THE CENTURY at the time of the Bulgarian surrender, because she looked forward to "a Russian retirement under imperial auspices and thereafter to a Russo-German rapprochement in which Bulgaria would be the connecting link, extracting a profitable brokerage by playing off one against the other in Balkan affairs." But when the Russian Revolution broke and the revolutionary leaders repudiated all imperial ambitions, she saw her dreams of usurious brokerage go glimmering, and she had no stomach for a future GermanAustrian domination. So Bulgaria took the first good chance to get from under. Such astute selfishness, although it played into the hands of the Allies, does not call for sentimental leniency.

It must be remembered that Italy would naturally be pro-Bulgar in the light of her anti-Greek and anti-Jugoslavic sentiments, and in England there has always been a divided sentiment on the Bulgarian question. So there were normal bases for some degree of friend liness to Bulgaria in the personnel of the

peace conference. In an editorial "The Christian Science Monitor" emphasizes the possible influence of the American missionaries in Bulgaria and the faculty of Robert College, in Constantinople, upon the American delegation to the peace conference. Both of these groups have been decidedly pro-Bulgarian in their sympathies, and it is suggested as natural that the American delegates would have turned to their fellow-countrymen in the near East for counsel. It is difficult to say how much influence should be credited to this factor.

With the passing of time we may find that the leniency to Bulgaria is more relative than real. We may discover that the passions of war played a smaller part in the assessment of indemnity upon Bulgaria than upon others of the central Europe combination, and that, despite its relative injustice, the Bulgarian settlement was a measureably wise move toward a reconstructive and conciliatory peace. But this is pure speculation, and at this distance from the facts there is little value in dogmatism.

THE LAWYER AS A LEADER

AN analysis of the personnel of the French Chamber of Deputies chosen at the November elections shows one hundred and fifty-four lawyers, one hundred and four landed proprietors, seventyseven business men, forty-seven physicians and chemists, forty-four journalists, thirty-seven professors, fifteen workmen, ten solicitors, eight magistrates, seven clergymen, five diplomatists, four notaries, two airmen, and one actor. Such diversity of background in legislatures is highly valuable. It is perhaps significant to note that fewer lawyers were elected to the present Chamber than were elected at any of the four preceding elections. The lawyer as a public leader has had an interesting evolution not only in France, but in our own country. This evolution was interestingly traced some years ago by Francis M. Burdick in an illuminating little brochure on "The Lawyer's Place in American Life."

This study showed how the pendulum of popular confidence in the lawyer has

swung from one extreme to the other. In Europe's history and literature many uncomplimentary verdicts on the lawyer may be found. Richard de Bury, High Chancellor of England under Edward III, is found saying in his vitriolic Latin of the fourteenth century, "Lawyers indulge more in protracting litigation than in peace, and quote the law, not according to the intention of the legislator, but violently twist his words to the purpose of their own machinations." Of course, it may be that this lord chancellor, who was also Bishop of Durham, had experienced some uncomfortable tilts with lawyers who were making a defense against the cupidity of certain ecclesiastics of that time. Napoleon was given to stigmatizing lawyers as a class that lived upon the quarrels of others and stirred up trouble as a merchant drums up trade; he once sarcastically admitted that he had never been courageous enough to adopt his plan of starving lawyers by legislation, to the effect that they should not receive fees save when they won their cases. It may be remembered that Sir Thomas More's Utopia had no lawyers, every man being left to plead his own case. By this method, as More put it, "they both cut off many delays and find out the truth more certainly." This idea of eliminating professional counsel from litigation took root in the legislation of certain of the early American colonies. In 1645 Virginia forbade lawyers to take fees. In 1633 Massachusetts closed to lawyers membership in the "Great and General Court" of the province. When the Earl of Shaftesbury and John Locke formulated the fundamental constitution of the Carolinas they prohibited lawyers from practising for fees of any sort, and while that constitution was in force, virtually no lawyer of distinction appeared in the Carolinas. So the pendulum was swinging to the extreme of disapproval of the social value of lawyers. But, as Mr. Burdick pointed out, the pendulum began to swing back during the latter part of the seventeenth and the early part of the eighteenth century. Restrictions against the profession were lifted in Virginia, in New York, in Massachusetts, and even in the Carolinas. Gradually the leader

ship of colonial America gravitated into the hands of the lawyers.

Virtually every man who played a rôle of distinguished leadership in the early days of our history was a lawyer. This dominance of the lawyer in the councils of public policy, this popular confidence in the lawyer as the champion of public rights, was maintained with fair consistency down to the time, let us say, when John Marshall was making his magnificent contribution to American law and statesmanship. From that time, however, there has been a swinging of the pendulum once more away from the old confidence in the profession, until it has come to be something against a man bidding for the nation's suffrage to say that he has a legal mind. What can be said to account for this shift away from the colonial preeminence of the lawyer as a public leader? The answer lies fairly clear.

In colonial days most of the vital questions that held the hopes of the American colonists in their balance were legal questions that required legal knowledge for their handling. America was severing ties with the mother government and faced the task of working out a new set of relationships-a legal problem. Whether colonists could be taxed by a government in which they had no voice was a vital issue. Whether their property could be seized under general warrants was a vital issue. Whether the justice and legality of an arrest could be questioned under the writ of habeas corpus was a vital issue. These and a thousand other questions that were as vital to the colonists as strikes, social unrest, coal famines, and the high cost of living are to us, were essentially legal questions that could be handled only by men who knew the constitutional history of England and were versed in legal principles and judicial precedents. To put it briefly, To put it briefly, American life and American issues rested on a legal basis in our early period; the stage setting of virtually all vital public questions was legal. It is interesting to note that most of the principles upon which English civil liberty rests were evolved or at least firmly established in a lawsuit. The

freedom of the press in America was established in the Peter Zenger lawsuit in 1732, when Governor Cosby secured an indictment against the publisher of "The New York Weekly," and Zenger's lawyer established the principle that a jury in a criminal libel suit must determine not only whether the libel has been published, but whether the charge is true; that the truth of a charge is its justification. The right of trial by jury was really established in the Bushel case, when Bushel had been imprisoned by a judge for refusing to pay a fine which a judge had levied upon a jury for bringing in a verdict that the judge deemed against the evidence.

But a change has come in the stage setting of American life since those early days. American life is to-day rooted in social and economic considerations more than in legal considerations. We still have a problem of the freedom of the press, but it is more a question of economic than of political freedom. We still have a problem of taxation without representation, but it is more a question of price determination and the profiteer than taxation by a mother country. We still have virtually every one of the problems that vexed our colonial forefathers. To solve these problems now requires a statesmanlike understanding and handling of social and economic forces rather than, or perhaps in addition to, a mastery of legal knowledge and practice. Our public leaders have, to make a fight for the same rights for which the lawyer-leaders of colonial times fought, but the battle has shifted to another quarter of the field, and new weapons are demanded.

The decline of the lawyer in public leadership is due in no small measure to the fact that he has been slow to adjust his technic and outlook to the changed demands of the times. Surrounded by burning social and industrial issues, he too frequently has busied himself with legal casuistries and the sterilities of precedent. The lawyer will again dominate public leadership when he becomes as effective a champion of the rights of the people as were his colonial predecessors. This demands a dynamic conception of the law. It requires a constant recognition of the fact that law must be

the progressive expression of a nation's life before it can effectively and justly govern a nation's life. The outstanding colleges of law are ministering to this dynamic idea of the law, and we may hope for a generation of lawyers who, by joining a devotion to the public rights with the constructive conservatism of the judicial mind, will bring a healing ministry to our disordered time.

WHEN THE PRINCE OF WALES IS KING

WHEN we were entering upon our Civil war, Baron Renfrew, who was later to be Edward VII, King of England, visited the United States, and there are still with us delightful matrons who like to tell how, as débutantes, they danced with the prince who was to be king. At the close of the World war, we were once again host to a future King of England. The Prince of Wales captured us with his boyish charm and the innate democracy of his bearing. He ably seconded Albert, King of the Belgians, in humanizing kingship for us. Fashions in kings change, no less than fashions in dress and demeanor. In these times kings tend to become less and less theatrical. In the years ahead we shall probably see an increasing effort upon the part of kings and peoples to extract the maximum social utility from the kingly office.

It is impossible not to speculate upon the contribution the present Prince of 'Wales will make to the evolution of the kingship in England when he succeeds his father. It is pretty generally granted that the English King has always paid his way by the negative service he has rendered as a symbol of the unity of the British Empire. Modern democracies are admittedly short of cohesive elements. Democracies are always in greater danger of disintegrating than of over-integrating. Democracies decentralize more readily than they centralize. A king may seem a bit anachronistic in a democracy like Great Britain, but he does contribute a cohesive something to the empire. Now and then in later times English kings have made some gestures toward a restoration of the kingly tradition. Edward VII, not satisfied with the rôle of corner

stone-layer alone, through the sheer force of his diplomatic ability, became in quite effective fashion foreign minister ex officio. The kaiser, who can hardly be accused of pro-English leanings, paid no mean tribute to the diplomatic effectiveness of Edward VII, when in a memorandum to Bethmann-Hollweg on July 30, 1914, he said, "Edward VII is dead, but he is still stronger in his grave to-day than I, who am alive."

Normally, the currents of modern life are set against any strengthening of the kingly tradition. When things are going measurably well, limited monarchies in modern times tend to stress the limitations, and to keep the king simply a crowned image of unity, as in England. But when things go ill, there is always the possibility that leadership may play up to the kingship, since it is the symbol of the unity that distraught times need. If, when the present Prince of Wales ascends the throne, social conditions in England demand a strong government, it may happen that the strong elements in government leadership may play up. to the king in order to dramatize the cohesion and unity of British democracy. Such developments might give the image of unity its chance to come to life, as did Hawthorne's "Snow Image." This might not prove a difficult thing in the hands of a vigorous and capable man, as the prince promises to become.

But all this is highly speculative. As a matter of fact, there is probably little likelihood of any marked accretion of new governmental authority to the English kingship. It was an Englishman of no mean distinction who said recently, in discussing the future of the throne, that "when the sporting instinct of the nation becomes fully developed, a man will probably be as much ashamed of owing office to heredity, as he would be to engage in a dicing bout with loaded dice." But this, again, is highly speculative. When the Prince of Wales is king, English loyalty to the traditional office will probably be as great as ever.

But a virile and versatile king could, nevertheless, vitalize the kingship beyond anything known to English history for many reigns. Modern democracies overload their executive leaders with so many responsibilities and duties that