Congress to require a greater number than a majority of the Court to declare laws unconstitutional, then we logically concede that this power is without limit, and that the Congress can go a step further, which, in its present temper, it would likely do, and take from the Court this power altogether; thereby making an act of the Congress superior to the organic law of the nation, and destroying one of the most valuable and important powers exercised by the courts for the protection of the liberties and the property rights of the citizen.

If the people conclude that a number greater than a majority of the Judges should concur to invalidate laws because of their repugnance to the Constitution, there is but one proper way by which their will may be accomplished, and that is by an amendment to the Constitution, wherein the number shall be definitely fixed, and not left to the whim of Congress.

Just so surely as Congress should be so ill advised as to enact any one of these bills, just so surely will the Court be constrained by its oath of office to declare it null and void as an infringement upon the Constitutional power and independence of the judiciary. Congress should not subject the Court to this embarrassing and unpleasant duty, for it would be taken advantage of by every crack-brained political demagogue and radical in the country to rail against the courts, and denounce the act as one of judicial usurpation, to the detriment of the courts in the estimation of a large class of our people, who are untutored and unthinking.

The integrity, the learning, and the independence of our judiciary must be maintained at all hazards, if we are to escape revolution, and our institutions are to endure. The great John Marshall never uttered a finer or a truer thing than when defending the judiciary in the Virginia Convention of 1829 he said:

I have always thought, from my earliest youth till now, that the greatest scourge an angry heaven ever inflicted upon an ungrateful and a sinning people was an ignorant, a corrupt, or a dependent judiciary.

As indicative of the necessity and value of an independent judiciary in our system of government, and because of its impressiveness and authority, I cannot refrain from closing this article with the following quotation from Viscount Bryce's

thoughtful and in every way splendid work on Modern Democracies (Vol. 2, pp. 384-5); a work that should be read by every one who is interested in popular and efficient government and the future of Democracy. He says:

There is no better test of the excellence of a government than the efficiency of its judicial system, for nothing more nearly touches the welfare and security of the average citizen than his sense that he can rely on the certain and prompt administration of justice. Law holds the community together. Law is respected and supported when it is trusted as the shield of innocence and the impartial guardian of every private civil right. Law sets for all a moral standard which helps to maintain a like standard in the breast of each individual. But if the law be dishonestly administered, the salt has lost its savour; if it be weakly or fitfully enforced, the guarantees of order fail, for it is more by the certainty than by the severity of punishment that offenses are repressed. If the lamp of justice goes out in darkness, how great is that darkness!

In all countries cases, sometimes civil, but more frequently criminal, arise which involve political issues and excite party feeling. It is then that the courage and uprightness of the judges become supremely valuable to the nation, commanding respect for the exposition of the law which they have to deliver. But in those countries that live under a rigid Constitution which, while reserving ultimate control to the people, has established various authorities and defined the powers of each, the courts have another relation to politics, and take their place side by side with the Executive and the Legislative as a coördinate department of the government. When questions arise as to the limits of the powers of the Executive or of the Legislative, or-in a Federation-as to the limits of the respective powers of the Central or National and those of the State Government, it is by a court of law that the true meaning of the Constitution, as the fundamental and supreme law, ought to be determined, because it is the rightful and authorized interpreter of what the people intended to declare when they were enacting a fundamental instrument. This function of Interpretation calls for high legal ability, because such decision given becomes a precedent determining for the future the respective powers of the several branches of government, their relations to one another and to the individual citizen.

ALEXANDER SIDNEY LANIER.

BRITISH SEA POWER

BY MAJOR-GENERAL SIR GEORGE ASTON, K. C. B.

I RETAIN a vivid memory of the appearance of the late Admiral Mahan's first Sea Power book, The Influence of Sea Power upon History. At the time when it first appeared, I had been working for three years upon the establishment of a Naval Intelligence Department of the British Admiralty. It seems strange now-adays, but it is a fact that until February, 1887, there was no such department. The British Admiralty in those days had but a hazy general knowledge of the fighting capacity of foreign war vessels, and very little about the resources and defences of the naval bases from which they might be expected to work, if engaged in hostilities. At the same time the War Office could give details of all foreign armies, down to the number of buttons on their soldiers' coats. A Military Intelligence Department had been in existence for some years.

The section of the Intelligence Department with which I was entrusted (as a young subaltern of Marine Artillery) dealt with all foreign guns, torpedoes, and submarine mines, in ships and in coast defences, and "all experiments connected therewith". All armour and electric lights. The fixed and floating defences of all harbours, in the United Kingdom and abroad, which might be useful to the British Navy, and a general knowledge of their resources in fuel and repairing facilities, garrisons, and barrack accommodation. And (as an extra!) And (as an extra!) "British and Foreign Trade, Defence and Attack." The "section" comprised myself, with no assistants. Writing forty years later this seems scarcely credible. I can account for it only on the theory that the British Fleet of those days was so strong in comparison with other fleets that its fighting efficiency was considered by the Government to be a matter unworthy of their serious attention. Lord (then Lord Charles) Beresford did yeoman service by resigning his seat on the Board and protesting in public against the apathy

in high places. He was a popular figure in Parliament, with a good deal of public influence. With his help the tiny little Naval Intelligence Department was established, in face of much opposition inside the Admiralty, which was finally overcome by outside pressure. From a little department, charged only with obtaining intelligence, it gradually grew into a Naval Staff, charged with every branch of preparing for sea war, and, as we now know, with the executive work of distributing the forces when engaged in hostilities. Also with the coöperation of the other fighting services.

I remember well one remark that was made when Admiral Mahan's first Sea Power book was received. Up to that time Continental Governments, since called "Militarist", had had their attention fully occupied by the development of armies with which to strike each other across their land frontiers. They took little account of the influence, slow though sure, which a great Sea Power could exert, or of the uselessness of armies to lift such pressure, if exerted. The actual remark made in the Admiralty about Admiral Mahan's book was, "Why, he has given away the whole show!" In other words he had made public to the world the creed which, consciously or unconsciously, had influenced the beliefs and life work of British seamen for centuries. He had indeed done so. His Sea Power books were translated into most foreign languages, and Britain was no longer to be left in enjoyment of sea security without serious competition. I propose to note briefly the stages in that competition, which has had a marked effect upon world history, in that it changed the policy of Great Britain, from one of political (not economic) isolation from Continental affairs, to one of foreign alliances or "honourable obligations", such as that which practically bound Britain to the side of France when attacked in 1914, Belgium or no Belgium.

We need only go back for about twenty years to see the vast changes in the relative strength of British and foreign fleets, and the resulting change in British policy.

In 1902, before foreign competition had begun to tell, Britain confidently kept up a Two Power standard in capital ships, with a further large predominance in cruisers and lighter craft. We

were prepared to build against any two Powers, regardless of Flag, and to keep a good surplus in hand for defence of trade in distant seas. We were able to assure the self governing nations in the Dominions that we should be strong enough not only to concentrate a sufficient force to win the battle of capital ships wherever it might take place, but also to conduct an immediate offensive against enemy vessels threatening our interests in any part of the world.

It soon became apparent that an "Any Two Powers" standard could not mean keeping in commission in a state of readiness in every part of the world a fleet of capital ships equal in strength to those of the two Powers that were strongest in that particular ocean or sea. Realising this, we soon withdrew our capital ships from the China Seas, and contracted an alliance with Japan. The following table shows the position in 1907:

DISTRIBUTION OF CAPITAL SHIPS IN 1907

All the above vessels were first class battleships, according to the classification then prevalent. Modern battle cruisers, which are to all intents and purposes fast capital ships capable of taking their place in the line, had not at that time been fully evolved. As a measure of other countries' progress in developing sea power, it may be interesting to note that in the same year the total number of their battleships in the world was 98, as compared with the 52 British, distributed as shown above. Britain now owns 22 capital ships, as compared with 76 belonging to other Powers.

Until the German menace began to develop, the distribution of British capital ships had every appearance of having been designed to avert any danger arising from combined action by France and Russia. In 1902, when we withdrew them from the China Seas, Russia and Japan were the only two Powers which kept capital ships in that part of the world; little more than two