a Lord Chancellor and a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary aring their tenure of Judicial Office in the years 20-2. It needs no gloss. He who runs may read and nderstand; and it is not within the province of the resent writer to pronounce upon the relative merits of the conflicting opinions of those Judges. Two observaons may, however, be made, of which the first is that ord Carson's contention that a rule for the guidance the Judiciary should bind all Judges or none, seems easonable; and the second, that Lord Birkenhead was omewhat too generous to ex-Lord Chancellors when he epresented them as not being paid Judges.

A statement is attributed to Lord Birkenhead in an alleged interview given to a newspaper reporter on the Liverpool Daily Courier,' and reproduced in the 'Evenng News' on Feb. 11, 1924, which may justly be quoted It is as follows:

'All ex-Lord Chancellors sit whenever they are needed. They receive 5000l. a year, though the Judges of the Court of Appeal whose decisions come before them for review receive 6000Z., and it is notorious all of them sacrified 20,000l. or 30,000l. a year when they came from the Bar.'

All that need be said about this statement is that it as added to the small stock of hilarity possessed by a depressed profession, and that Lord Birkenhead has hereby earned the gratitude of the Bar of England.

To extract the lesson from the 'party' controversy between the two Judges-for it is a valuable lesson! It teaches that if there is no rule forbidding the Judiciary, paid or unpaid, to prosecute pari passu with the administration of Justice, political aims and party access, it is indubitable that there should be. For lthough, to the expert in law, Judicial intervention in political and party warfare may only indicate a lack in he disputants of a single-hearted devotion to the law, to the ordinary citizen it conveys something more—the uspicion of partiality. Lord Carson, at the Bar, enjoyed m esteem as remarkable as his forensic pre-eminence. He was the one advocate of his time deemed comparable with Lord Russell of Killowen. There is not a competent Flember of the Bar who would not welcome his appointent as Permanent Chief of our Judiciary. Lord

Birkenhead, whatever may be said of his personali his habit of invective, and his general freedom of spee made an admirable Lord Chancellor. His legal appoi ments were without reproach. Some of his judgme were beyond praise, and his attitude towards the conflicting claims of Bar and Community was exac what it should be. Yet these two highly placed Jud furnished a painful example of the evil that can wrought by political partisanship in the Judiciary.

Throughout the remarks made above, it has be insisted that a popular belief in the impartiality of Judiciary is the main support of the fabric of the Ste Once that belief is shaken, the support is pro ta weakened. When it no longer obtains, the Rule Force supplants the Rule of Law. If this insistence justified, the effect on the Community caused by 13 public disputations of two Judges on political matt is regrettable. It tends to destroy public reverence Law, and public confidence in the impartiality of t Judiciary. Indeed, already it has been productive much mischief.

upte

What, then, is to be done? Let action be taken up the homely principle of prevention being better th cure, and let there be statutory prohibition of the taki part by any Judge in political debate or movemen This is a necessary reform which must eventually made. There is no reason for delay in the making of It may, however, be objected that it would be impossib to work such a reform, on the ground of the peculi constitution of the Tribunal of the House of Lords ar the position of Unpaid Justices of the Peace. But the is no substance in the objections or in the grounds upc which they might be founded.

The House of Lords as a Legal Tribunal either si for the trial of Peers and Peeresses who are indicte before them for Treason or Felony, or as a Final Cour of Civil and Criminal Appeal. In the first case, all Peel of Parliament act as Judges or as 'Lords Triers'; but 8 the occasions of their assembling for such purposes ar domestic and pertaining to themselves as a privilege class, such need not be further dealt with here; no need proceedings by way of Attainder or Impeachmen be discussed.

The second case, where the House of Lords sits as a ourt of Appeal, alone concerns us, as then and only hen is it served by the Ordinary Judiciary of the State eting in the exercise of its Statutory Jurisdiction. Tow, although the House of Lords in its appellate haracter is, in theory, composed of all Peers of Parlianent, it is, in fact, composed of the Lord Chancellor, x-Chancellors, Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, and other eers who have held high judicial or legal office. Conequently, the objection in that case would be met by passing an Act of Parliament which would provide that any Peer, whether a paid Judge or unpaid, who made any public pronouncement on political matters or took any part in any 'party' movement should be thereby and thereafter disqualified for ever from acting as a Judge in any sitting of the House as an Appellate Tribunal.

The case of the Unpaid Justices is hardly more complicated; it would be met by adding a political disqualification to the existing disqualifications safeguarding the office of Justice of the Peace. But another and a more satisfactory method of disposing of the objection on that score would be the making of the necessary reform of the abolition of the Unpaid Judicial Bench, and the erection in its stead of a system of District Stipendiary Magistrates, throughout the country. Either method would be effectual.

·

In concluding these remarks, it may be stated that whatever may be thought of the quality of the suggested reforms, there can be little if any doubt that the misuse of the Judiciary threatens the existence and vigour of the Rule of Law. If that is rightly said, some reform is necessary, for it is not to the Shining Sword' that the national greatness of our country is attributable, but to the operation of that Rule. Equality before the Law is the sure shield of British Progress, and, in the true interests of the Empire, naught should be suffered to interfere with the effectuation of that Principle.

ERNEST BOWEN-ROWLANDS.

Art. 9.-THE TRUTH ABOUT THE TREATY.

1. Ministère des Affaires Etrangères. Documents rela aux Négociations concernant les Garanties de Sécur contre une agression de l'Allemagne (10 Janvier 1913: 7 Décembre 1923). Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 18: 2. The Truth about the Treaty. By André Tard Hodder & Stoughton, 1921.

3. Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement. By Stannard Baker. Three vols. Heinemann, 1923.

THE recent publication of the French Yellow Book the guarantees of security against German aggressi has drawn attention to a controversy which, more th anything else during the last four years, has preven Europe from returning to a state of peace and stabili It is a controversy which ultimately turns on the int pretation and execution of the Treaty of Versailles. propose, therefore, in the following article to indicate briefly as possible what took place on this matter at Conference in Paris in 1919, for in this way alone d the present situation be understood.

As is well known, the French came to the Conferer with a complete scheme for settling the western fronti of Germany. This was no hasty improvisation. It h been worked out during the course of the war at a ti when the issue of the struggle was still in doubt. the beginning of 1917 it had been communicated M. Cambon, the French Ambassador in London, and fortnight later, the French Ambassador communicat to the Russian Government the wish of France. bring it about that the territories west of the Rhi should be separated from Germany, and that in futu the Rhine might form a permanent strategic impedime against German aggression.'

As M. Briand recognised, this scheme was in i essentials not a new one. It was reviving the trac tional policy of France which for many hundreds years had aimed at securing the Rhine frontier. Th

* The French claim to the left bank of the Rhine is very ancient. O sees it indicated in the twelfth century; it leaves visible traces in t policy of Philip-Augustus; Charles VII aspired to it; Richelieu proached it; Louis XIV was on the point of obtaining it; the Revoluti

ogramme was, indeed, modified to a certain extent; stead of annexation to France, we get merely the paration from Germany. The distinction is very all; even if the actual territory of France was not tended to the Rhine, none the less the influence of ance, both political, economic, and military, would iminate all the countries on the left bank of that river. To schemes of this kind neither the British nor the merican Government during the war had given any untenance, and they were in effect repudiated by every atement made as to war aims. The proper occasion which they should have been disclosed by the French overnment to their Allies and a decision taken, was aring the discussions at the beginning of November 18, before the armistice. Then it was that the Allies dopted President Wilson's speeches as the agreed basis f the peace, and any such scheme was irreconcilable ith his principles. The British representatives, acting ith great frankness, refused to accept two items in e American programme, the freedom of the seas and paration; their reservations were put forward in a ritten note, accepted by President Wilson, and comunicated to the Germans. The French took no such recaution, and apparently accepted the basis of the ace without demur. None the less, they continued eir policy. This conception of the future peace was lowed to govern the armistice conditions, which were rafted by Marshal Foch. The territory which the Allies ere to occupy under the armistice was so defined as to clude precisely that district which he hoped would be parated from Germany and permanently occupied by le Allies, namely, the left bank of the Rhine and the ridgeheads. This limitation of the occupied area was a ry faulty decision, which eventually was to cause much fficulty. Everything was, however, sacrificed to the sire immediately to make a marked distinction between e left bank of the Rhine and the rest of Germany.

At the end of November 1918, this programme was cepted by the Committee of Foreign Affairs of the ench Chamber:

ained it. The limits of France, Danton has said, were marked by ure; we will obtain them in the four quarters, the Ocean, the Rhine, Alps, and the Pyrenees.'-Ollivier, 'L'Empire libéral,' vol. I, p. 7.