any task that calls for a great concentration of work. One of the few advantages of an absolute government, free from all direct or indirect influences, over a popular one is the facility with which such a public demand could be met. It is hopeless to do the work piecemeal by Acts of Parliament. We must adopt, as far as possible, the means by which other codes have been brought about. I have referred to the permanent Advisory Board for legal procedure. This same Board of experienced jurists of the class mentioned, free from fads and not likely to be divided into adverse factions, should be authorised to undertake the work. Power should be given to them to prepare and present a code of the leading divisions of English law up to a given date for the sanction of the Houses of Parliament. One great objection to codification would also be overcome by providing that this same body should at certain fixed periods revise the code. Men can be found for this purpose with energies equally as great as in the time of Justinian, Trebonian, or Napoleon.

The duty of aiding His Majesty in administering justice in our civil courts at a cost within the reach of the great body of his subjects who have not the purse of Fortunatus, should no longer be a mere empty phrase but a stern reality. Will the lawyers at last realise that the time has come when the rights and needs of the community must be the only guide in any genuine endeavour to remodel the whole legal structure? Or will they be content to see the usefulness of the courts for sound litigation still further reduced, the best work gradually falling away, and the dignity of the profession vanishing? If they will throw off this feeling of après nous le déluge, if they grasp the broad situation, and conscientiously assist in the great work, they will regain the confidence of the community, and they will start a new and, I believe, a most prosperous era for themselves. The historian of our legal system, too, will happily be able to record how the reign of King Edward the Seventh was the great epoch when the procedure of our courts, and the law of England, were at last revolutionised in the true and real interests of the people.

ALFRED EMDEN.

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VOL. XLIX---No. 291

CO-OPERATIVE PROFIT-SHARING

CANTEENS

Ir is well known that to every regiment in the Service there is attached an institution called the canteen. The growth of these institutions is peculiar. Originally, it seems that licensed pedlars were attached to all barracks, to supply such smaller wants of regiments as groceries and so forth, in much the same fashion as vendors of tarts used to attach themselves to the gates of public schools. After a while these men were received into barracks, and were allowed to set up a little shop and to sell beer as well as groceries. For a time, in fact, they were allowed to plunder the British soldier, until their extortion became unbearable; and regiments were driven, in the interests of the men, to set up their own canteens and coffee-shops, retaining the profits for regimental purposes. These Regimental Institutes,' as they are still called, besides catering for the private wants of the soldiers, became by degrees the recognised source of supply for all articles, other than bread and meat, required for the messing of the men. Each commanding officer made his own arrangements for the supply of the regimental institute, employing such tradesmen as he thought best; and, since the institutes thus assumed new importance, they were rightly subjected by the authorities to regulation and inspection. The supply of the canteens, however, soon passed practically into the hands of a few firms, and their management into the hands of canteenstewards and non-commissioned officers, who, by means of the knowledge which is power, acquired without difficulty the sole direction. Officers might do their best for their men according to their lights, but they could not match their zeal against the experience of the steward, even if they wished it. By means of presents, secret discounts, and rebates paid by supplying-firms for the favouring of their contracts and for the acceptance of inferior goods, to say nothing of illicit gains made by such simple tricks as the watering of beer and such like, the place of canteen-steward became more profitable than that of commanding officer.

Moreover, the fact was recognised. When a promising noncommissioned officer was promoted to be pay-sergeant, it was once a common practice to put him into the canteen for three or four months to enable him to make the 100l. which he was required to furnish as security for his good behaviour; and it is needless to say that he always made it. Thus the canteen-stewards grew rich, and the supplying-firms grew richer-all at the expense of the British soldier! Heaven forbid that I should judge them. The stewards were sorely tempted; the ways of the supplying-firms are the ways of trade; and the British soldier from the beginning has been regarded as a legitimate object of plunder.

At last, about ten years ago, there rose up in a certain regiment of cavalry a certain officer, a relative of my own, who resolved that in his own regiment these things should no longer be. Though no man was more guiltless of commercial training, he began by calculating what the profits of the canteen ought to be, and dismissing every canteen-steward who showed less. After dismissing seven within a few weeks he found that rare article, an honest mana young sergeant who with real public spirit actually sacrificed his prospects of promotion to join his officer in the good work. Then reform proceeded apace. Locked tills were instituted; and it was absolutely forbidden that any money should pass over the counter. The price of every article was placed by the purchaser in a slot leading to the locked till, and if he had not the exact sum required -if, for instance, he wished to pay threepence, and had only a shilling—then he placed his shilling in the slot, received the full change sealed up in an envelope, and put the necessary threepence into the slot with his own hand. The system of course was not original, but it was a new thing in canteens, though now established (thanks to this officer) by regulation.

The next difficulty to be tackled was to obtain the best goods at the cheapest rate. The established supplying-firms to their astonishment found themselves turned adrift, as their prices were proved to be absurdly high; and, as shall presently be told, a source of supply was established, by the efforts of another officer, which enabled the canteen to lower the price of all articles for the benefit of the British soldier.

I have before me a comparative statement of the profits made by a garrison canteen under the old system and under our cavalryofficer's system in the first six months of the years 1893 and 1894. From January to June 1893, with a garrison of 950 to 1000 men, the gross profits under the old system were 4947. and the net profits returned to the men 2491. From January to June 1894, with a garrison of from 800 to 900 men, the gross profits under the new system, after the price of all articles to the men had been lowered 20 per cent., were 881., and the net profits to be returned to the

men 546l. Thus it was proved that more than half of the legitimate profits due to the British soldier from the canteen had been taken from him.

But this was only the beginning. With knowledge and experience this officer was soon able to do more and more for his men. For a time they distrusted his changes, never doubting that he was diverting the canteen-steward's profits to his own pocket; but very quickly they were undeceived. There was no disputing the fact that all articles in the canteen were better and cheaper than they had ever been; but in addition to this came a series of pleasant surprises. Articles like pipe-clay, yellow ochre, and so forth, used for cleaning accoutrements and saddlery, the price of which had formerly been stopped from the men's pay, were now supplied free of charge; cocoa in the morning, coffee for the guard, refreshments at manœuvres were also given free of charge, while the stoppage for messing, fixed by regulation at 3d., was reduced to 14d. A word, too, must be said as to the quality of this messing. I saw the diet-sheet and the meals themselves many times, and I say without hesitation that the food was better, more abundant, and more varied than (without reproach to my old master) I received as a boy at Harrow twenty-five years ago. Finally the balance-sheet of the regimental canteen for the year 1897, now before me, shows a total of 9871. returned in one shape or another to the pockets of the men, or as near as may be 11⁄2d. a day to 450 men for 365 days. The result was that the men were happy, comfortable, and contented; the young recruits broadened out rapidly, under liberal diet, into wellgrown men ; and the moral tone of all ranks was raised by the banishment of dishonesty and peculation. These were indirect benefits; but the point for us is that, by the exertions of a single officer in checking the plunder of the men, their pay was practically raised by as much as 14d. or 2d. a day, without the cost of one penny to the country.

Let us part now with this officer. He gained the only rewards that he sought in the devotion of his men to him, and in a grave among a little group of them on one of the battle-fields of the Transvaal. Simultaneously with him another officer, happily still living, of a very famous regiment of infantry, had likewise been seeking how to provide the best goods at the lowest price for the British soldier, and had discovered that they could be bought from the Co-operative Wholesale Society for something like 25 per cent. less than from the old contractors. To enable him to trade with this society he and some of his friends, including our cavalry officer, registered themselves under the Industrial and Provident Societies Acts as a co-operative society for the supply of canteens-an institution now known as the Canteen and Mess Co-operative Society. To all intents and purposes this is nothing else than a friendly society,

the holding of a shareholder being limited by statute to 200l., and the interest thereon by the Society's rules to 5 per cent., while all surplus profits become the property, according to true co-operative and profit-sharing principles, of the consumer.

Such an institution, steadily refusing to give presents or other emoluments to canteen-stewards, or to countenance dishonesty in any shape, was not kindly received by them; nor, naturally, was its appearance welcomed by the old canteen-supplying firms, which promptly lowered their prices, as was their right, to kill it. But the zeal of the British officer for his men triumphed over all. The authorities, doubtless confounding a friendly society with an ordinary trading society, at first forbade officers on full pay to serve on the Committee, which was not encouraging; but discipline is discipline. However, this prohibition was after a time removed, though the attitude of the authorities remained suspicious; and then there was no officer who interested himself in the matter more heartily, until the war called him to South Africa, than Colonel Ward, who has lately returned with perhaps the greatest reputation made by any officer in a country which is proverbial as the grave of repu

tations.

Here, then, in the canteen-system of a cavalry officer and the canteen-supply system of an infantry officer, which may both be summarised under the word co-operation, the plundering of the British soldier bade fair to find its death. Another year or two of peace would have established them in one form or another for good; but the war came; the whole Army went abroad; retired officers and reserve non-commissioned officers, who know nothing of the reformed system and naturally favour the system that they remember, are in charge of many of the canteens, and things seem in a fair way to return to their old channels.

The fact is that the whole system of a multitude of Regimental Institutes, conducted on no uniform principle, is faulty and obsolete. What may be done with them for the benefit of the men by industrious officers I have already shown; but, apart from the fact that all officers are not equally zealous for the welfare of their men, even the bestdisposed of them say, with perfect truth, that they hold the King's commission to perform duties as soldiers and not as tradesmen. The management of a Regimental Institute is entrusted to a committee of three officers and three non-commissioned officers, with a working staff of ten men. Thus three officers are employed in superintending supplies, orders, stock-taking, and, last but not least, the daily counting of the contents of the till. Many times have I helped to count these piles of loathsome greasy coppers; and my sympathy goes out to officers who morning after morning patiently check from 20l. to 301. worth of them. Moreover, commanding officers rightly complain of the withdrawal of so many officers and men, some 2,500 in all throughout