in relief of suffering, the funds for defraying the cost of these operations having been contributed by the public.

It is held by the management that the phrase last quoted whereby the Society is authorized to devise and carry on measures for preventing suffering warrants the assumption by the Red Cross of a class of work whereby relief is incidentally provided for minor disasters and the survivors of accidents, to the end that a force may be instructed and trained in relief work so that their expert services may be efficient in aid of the medical department of the armies and navies in campaign and also in succor of the victims of great nonmilitary disasters.

In some countries the functions of the Red Cross are restricted to the relief of the sick and wounded in war, and in a few of the Latin-American republics the name "Red Cross" has been used to designate the medical and sanitary services as an integral part of the national forces, but in most of the nations the organization is authorized to participate in aid of the sufferers from great calamities when the resulting suffering is beyond the capacity of local measures of relief.

The United States was the first of the great powers to extend by legislative enactment its functions to what may be called civil in contradistinction to military relief and the general tendency now is to remove all restrictions to its operations in succor of all suffering. If this policy be applied generally it would seem to be an inevitable result that the Red Cross is to become the great national agency of benevolence and charity, operating not only throughout the length and breadth of the Union but participating in such work to the extent of its means in the relief of suffering in all countries, becoming in fact a national relief agency.

Its success or failure in this, or indeed in any role, must depend upon the efficiency, the integrity, the capability of its personnel and the strength of the organization. If the Red Cross is to command the confidence of the public, who alone are its clients, it must be able to show that their contributions will be more efficiently applied by it than through individual or local agencies.

The circumstances that attended the bestowal of official recog

nition upon the organization that proposed to itself the role of an auxiliary, to assist in the care of the sick and wounded in war and promote the general walfare of the American Army have been detailed. That the promoters of the movement should fail at first to fully realize their ideals in this novel and colossal undertaking is not surprising. It is well-nigh certain that the Medical Bureau, which, in 1861, gave its qualified indorsement to the proposal for a commission for inquiry and advice had little faith in a favorable outcome. But it was manifest to all in authority in Washington that the patriotic impulses of the public to assist in the cause of the Union by aiding their sons, brothers and fathers who were flocking to the colors, could not be restrained. The movement for extending aid through personal contributions of money, supplies, and services had to be reckoned with, and the legally organized military machinery for supplying the troops and caring for the men in camps and hospitals had to be adjusted to this condition, and so the public were told by the President, the Secretary of War, and the Surgeon General that its aid and assistance in safeguarding the health of the forces and in devising means for general relief, would be welcomed.

Of what may be called battlefield relief, i. e., the collecting and transportation of the wounded to the field dressing stations, establishments which with their means of field transports in European armies are called ambulances, the Sanitary Commission undertook nothing. These establishments in European and the Japanese armies, maintained by the Red Cross, are very extensive, but this is a recent development, the detachments being made up of trained officers and men and the equipment a duplicate of what the war ministry provides for the official sanitary service. The volunteer personnel is under strict discipline and all are strictly subordinated to the chief of the regular sanitary corps. Had the Civil War continued another year, there can be no doubt that the ambulance service at the front would have been composed in part of Sanitary Commission Auxiliary Relief Corps detachments and equipment.

The evacuations of the battlefields and field hospitals by means of steamers and railway trains, manned, equipped, and supplied by

the Commission became an important part of its work, and was of vast assistance. The hospital cars of 1863 and 1864, planned and constructed under the supervision of the Commission agents, were models of adaptability and convenience. Much the largest part of the Commission's finances, however, were applied in general relief of the troops in camps and hospitals, supplying food, clothing, meeting deficiencies, and assisting in many ways. Soldiers' relief stations were established on the principal lines of communication where food and medical attention were dispensed; and wagon and railway trains and steamers, freighted with supplies, were constantly in service between the bases and the theaters of active operations.

There was no function of relief assumed by the Commission that the Red Cross has not also assumed, save hygiene. The sole deficiency in the organization and achievements of the former was in respect of ambulance service on battlefields. Until the RussoJapanese war of 1904-5 such service was not efficiently rendered on a considerable scale for troops in campaign, and will never be efficient unless its personnel and equipment are conformable as to training, discipline and pattern of equipment to the same features of the regular service and all strictly subordinated, as respects direction and control, to the Chief of the Sanitary Corps with the army in campaign.

While the Red Cross, sometimes referred to as an international organization, was the outcome of the work of the international meetings at Geneva, 1863-1864, yet the Red Cross of each country has no powers, rights, privileges, immunities, or responsibilities, that are not derived from the franchise or recognition conferred by the government of the state where it exists.

Since 1863 eight international conferences have been held in European capitals, composed of official delegates from the states and their Red Cross Central Committees. At these meetings there have been general consultations, exchange of ideas, consideration of plans for strengthening the organization, and the formulation of proposals or recommendations for organic changes or improvements. The Ninth International Conference will be held in Washington in 1912.

Before the meeting of the Geneva Congress of 1864 seven states had established national Red Cross Societies. By 1866 five others, the United States included, had done the same. By 1870 the num ber of national associations was twenty-one, but in some instances the action taken seems to have been premature for by the date last stated five associations had lapsed. These have since been re-estab lished and twenty-eight of the independent nations of the world have now extended recognition to their national organizations. GEORGE W. DAVIS.

PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS ON OPENING THE NORTH ATLANTIC FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE, JUNE 1, 1910.

Your Excellencies, Gentlemen: Ten years have elapsed since the Permanent Court of International Arbitration has been established by the first Conference of the Peace which has met under the reign of a glorious and all beloved Queen in this charming town.

In those few years already this novel institution has done a great deal of good all over the world. It has shown that, instead of appealing to brute force with all its casualties, cruelties, and injustices, differences, important differences between mighty States may be adjusted according to the laws of equity, justice, and humanity.

Tribunals instituted in virtue of the Conventions of 1899 and 1907 have decided disputes touching all four continents, divided in various realms, differences which have arisen in the North of Europe, in Northern and in Southern America, in Japan, in Arabia, and in Morocco.

The greatest Powers of the world have submitted by their free will to this Court, and nations of minor forces have found their protection before it.

Governments which once had appealed to this High Court have intrusted it a second and a third time with the decision of their conflicts; arbitrators who had been chosen in one case, have been nominated to decide other affairs, certainly the most convincing evidence, I think, that nations have been contented with the work that has been done here.

Matters of great importance have been adjusted in these modest, provisional rooms, some of them involving the most delicate questions of sovereignty and national pride, all implicating intricate problems of international law.

But perhaps never till now has there been intrusted to an arbitral tribunal a question of such gravity and of so complex a nature as in