of the Cabinet Ministers on his behalf, the Government is overthrown and the King has to select a new one. That new Government in its turn has to secure the approbation of Parliament for its policy, or in its turn be thrown out. If a set of Ministers cannot be assembled at once to secure the approval of Parliament a dissolution follows, and then a general election. Thus it is that the will of the people in Britain is always the guide of national action. With regard to the Prime Minister it should be said that he is nominally chosen by the King, but of course the King always takes the leader who is acceptable to the party to which he belongs. All this makes it the more remarkable that Mr. Lloyd-George should have secured a position in Britain probably unequaled in its power since the days of Oliver Cromwell. It is true that Parliament still discusses various proposals, but vast powers have been delegated to the ministry. Of this Mr. Lloyd-George is the head and moving spirit. have been given to them reflect the wide vision and the high soul of the communities which have selected them. That these two men are worthy of the historic positions which they have been called upon to hold has been already demonstrated, and will be demonstrated still further in the future. THE LABOR RALLY IN BRITAIN AND AMERICA There is a similarity in the way labor has come to the aid of the situation in both countries. What difference there is is one of degree only-the degree of necessity for sacrifices. The trade unions of America, under Mr. Samuel Gompers's leadership, have shown a patriotism and determination for their country's cause which will certainly be accentuated as time goes on. There is no reasonable doubt that the three million labor unionists here will, if called on, make the same sacrifices that their brothers in Britain have made cheerfully and without stint. It is not possible to compare closely the two Here in America the position has resolved labor movements for the reason that America itself into something very similar, in effect, has been only eight months in the war whereas although the processes are different in form. Britain has been in more than three years. As The wide powers conferred on the President the contest progresses and the strain becomes by Congress have made him the master of the greater that the test will be applied to the daily life of practically every one in the United country as a whole and to labor in particular. States, and be it remembered that whereas There is in England, as in this country, a comBritain is a small compact country with forty- paratively small minority of extreme Socialfive millions of inhabitants the United States ists who, while denying they are pro-German, is a huge continent with a scattered popula- are certainly pacifists, and whose negative tion of a hundred million. The President's attitude may be regarded as injurious to their difficulties and responsibilities are potentially country. In Britain these men, holding vargreater than, though at the present time not so ious shades of pacifist opinion, number probintense as, those of the Prime Minister of Britain. ably about twenty thousand, and that is all But the technical prominence of his position there are among the three million organized necessarily gives him the power which, while in trade unionists of Britain. The remainder form rather more dictatorial than that of of this three million are staunch, ardent paBritain's Prime Minister, is nevertheless of triots who yielded up their hundreds of thousome advantage in times when firm decisions sands of voluntary enlistments before the by a capable man have to be taken without draft was set up and who throughout the war too much regard to minor consequences. have relinquished trade union principles, When all is said and explained about these have worked to the limit of physical endurance two dictators of the two great democracies in order to secure ultimate victory, of which there remains the fundamental fact that, not a man is in doubt. The enormous importneither could remain for long in his extraordinary position but for the inherent qualities possessed by them, qualities of brain, but more than that, qualities of character, for it is trust of the individual man which has rallied to each the whole-hearted support of the free peoples over whom they have been selected to govern. The great powers which ance of this fact will be realized when it is said that owing to the extraordinarily effective organizations of industries it would have been possible for the labor movement to have stopped the war so far as England was concerned. There are more than 300,000 members in the railway men's union of Britain and more than 600,000 in the miners' union. These two systems of national work might have been paralyzed if leaders and men had not been filled with a patriotic spirit. In the shipbuilding yards, in the great engineering works, there has been manifested similar feeling. In these latter industries particularly the workers have been called upon for sacrifices. By a half century of continuous work against unparalleled difficulties they had built up the fabric of trade unionism to protect their labor from exploitation, to safeguard their hours, and to secure healthful conditions for themselves and their families. Bitter experience had taught them how tightly it was necessary to hold to rights secured under such severe handicaps. But these same rights and privileges which enabled them to say that so many hours' work should be done, that unskilled men should not be employed at skilled operations, and that piece-rate payment should be severely restricted-all these conditions and many others were sacrificed by them on the appeal of the Government in order that there should be a great outpouring of material for the purposes of the war. The Government, and Mr. Lloyd-George in particular, at a very early stage realized the importance of labor in Britain for the purposes of the war, and it was in the administration of Mr. Asquith that the chairman of the labor party, Mr. Arthur Henderson, was made a minister, and two other labor leaders were made subordinate ministers. When Mr. Lloyd-George formed his cabinet he appointed eight labor ministers altogether, three of them being in the Cabinet. The longer the war has gone on, the more it has become evident that labor must be heart and soul in the national cause in order to secure victory. There is every indication that in both Britain and America labor will have a part which will be noteworthy in history for its patriotism. CONSCRIPTION OF BRAINS One of the most remarkable similarities between America and Britain has been the enlistment in the service of the state of the best executive brains in private life. When America entered upon the war President Wilson promptly took action, and invited the services of many private leaders in running the new and tremendous war business of the United States. Mr. Daniel Willard, the well known railroad president, is now the head of the War Industries Board. Mr. Vander lip, a great bank manager, was called in by Mr. McAdoo, Secretary of the Treasury, to help in the flotation of the Liberty Loan. Mr. Julius Rosenwald, the head of the mailorder business of Sears, Roebuck & Co., in Chicago, has charge of the buying of readymade supplies for national purposes. Mr. Baruch, one of the most successful stock exchange men in Wall Street, is in Washington helping, with his great talents, to secure the immense quantities of raw material at a proper price, and under proper conditions. Mr. Edison, one of America's greatest men for all time, has been busy day and night for months devising, with his fertile brain, schemes for the protection of the overseas traffic. In Britain there has been a similar call upon the acuter brains of the nation. Lord Devonport, a recently created peer who made a huge fortune from a chain of grocer shops throughout the country, was appointed Food Controller, and, though he has since retired, he laid the foundation of the organization. Sir Joseph Maclay of Glasgow, unknown in public life hitherto, has been appointed Shipping Controller, and when the importance of the organization of the mercantile marine to Britain in particular and to the Allies in general is realized, it is obvious that the appointment is one of supreme importance. Sir S. H. Lever, an expert financier also unknown in public life, was appointed financial secretary of the Treasury. Sir Rob ert Stanley, a successful railway man, was appointed president of the Board of Trade, which is concerned with the commerce of the country. Sir Eric Geddes, a young American railroad official who distinguished himself by organization work, is at the present time the chief of the Admiralty. But these appointments, important as they have been, are only an indication of the way in which the talent of the country has been conscripted. When Mr. Lloyd-George was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and had to remodel the financial conditions soon after the outbreak of the war, he called into consultation the chief bankers and financiers of the country, asked their advice and assistance, and remodeled on their counsel a scheme which met with almost universal approbation. Later, when he was setting up the munition factories all over the country, he not only called to his assistance engineer experts in London, but he also persuaded manufacturers in each locality to gather together, and to devise schemes to produce munitions in their own particular districts. Subsequently at Whitehall, there have been committees of the most eminent men in the country in their particular departments, devising schemes and making plans for output to the limit of the activities with which they are most familiar. Wherever specialists could be found they were invited to assist in the great work the country has on hand. In Britain and in America men making great fortunes in their private businesses have given them up, and have come forward without remuneration to labor arduously for their country's good. WOMEN IN THE WAR Up to the present the women of America have not been called upon to do as much as the women of Britain, but no one who has lived in the United States can doubt that when the call comes American women will respond to it at least as enthusiastically as the women of Britain. There are a hundred things the women can do without too great a strain on them. They may be found now acting as conductors of the trolley cars and omnibuses, not only in London but in all the great towns of the country. They are operating the elevators, and many of the taxicabs as well as private automobiles are driven by them. They have very largely taken the place of the ticket examiners at the railroad stations, and they are to be found in most ticket offices taking the fares from railroad passengers. Many are employed in the parks and public gardens. Indeed, there is hardly any of the lighter occupations previously in the hands of men which have not been largely taken up by the women of Britain. The necessity for this kind of social revolution has not yet come upon America. But an indication of the spirit of American women and their potentiality for future service is evidenced by their enthusiasm in Red Cross work, in service for the army canteens, and in the working guilds for the provision of additional clothing. They are displaying a skill and determination which matches that of their British sisters. England, like America, is separated into two main political parties with basic differences of principle with regard to the conduct of national affairs. While the Republicans and Democrats on the one hand, and those of the Conservatives and Liberals on the other, do not exactly correspond, there is, nevertheless, a good deal of similarity in the organization of opinion behind each section. There are, moreover, the personal rivalries and animosities which are bound to spring from strong aims on either side. Before the war broke out President Wilson and his political programme provided a constant target of criticism for his leading opponents. Sometimes it was hard to imagine that he could do anything right—if one were to be entirely guided by what one heard from his critics. All this has been changed by the war. The Republicans and Democrats have been bound together in the whole-hearted spirit of the head of the State. Indeed, it has been remarkable in many discussions in Congress to find that some of the strongest help for President Wilson has come from the Republican side. It just goes to show that when America is at war domestic differences do not count at all, and that all right-minded men are strenuous in their help by word and action for the leader of the Nation. That help, of course, is much stimulated and heightened when, as in the case of President Wilson, the leader proves by his conduct of affairs that he is strong, clear-sighted, and a man with vision as well as purpose. The position here is more or less paralleled by that of England. Before the war Mr. Lloyd-George, while a very popular figure with one section of the community, was regarded as a sinister politician by the other section of the population. He was bitterly assailed in some of the most influential circles, and at one period the hatred which encircled him was really phenomenal. Incidentally it may be stated that this arose not merely from his policies, nor from the pungent character of his oratory, but almost entirely from the fact that he was a man who put things through, and who carried into legislation and into administrative effect the various policies which he had initiated. By the force of events this man has been placed in the position of the leader of the nation, and, what is still more remarkable, the very qualities which at one time made him thoroughly hated have now made him the presiding chief of all the people, and have caused those who were loudest and fiercest in their denunciations to pay tribute openly to him as the one man fitted to lead the country in this great emergency. This old stable, which used to hold a thousand cab-horses before the day of the taxicab in Paris, was cleaned, remodeled, and converted into a warehouse in record time. It now provides the Red Cross with a million cubic feet of storage space. There are sixteen American Red Cross warehouses in France THE RED CROSS-INTERNATIONAL B USINESS is business. Philanthropy is sometimes business, also. But the Red Cross is bigger than business and overtops philanthropy. It is international engineering. Forgetting, for the moment, the sudden distress of Italy, the horror at Halifax, and the destitution of Belgium-that corner of Belgium which is still in Belgian hands-and the practical extinction of Serbia, and the incoherent helplessness of Russia, and the suffering of Rumania, where wounds have been dressed with sawdust because there was nothing better, and the unspeakable misery of the Armenians and Syrians-the single fact that our ally, France, faces the ruin of a civilization which the world loves makes the task of the Red Cross as compelling as it is tremendous. France lost almost 2 per cent. of her whole population last year. Her birth rate is falling + abruptly while her death rate rises. A third of her young men have died since the Germans plunged through Belgium. And while men wounded twice, three times, four, five, six times are sent back again and again into the trenches, while the feeble-minded are being used in military work behind the lines, the whole fabric of daily life and industry throughout France is threatened. To define the work of the Red Cross in France to-day you must first conceive of a nation-not an army alone-in need, and then try to imagine another nation working to meet that need through a highly specialized organization with a great producing staff here, a highly organized transportation system, and a distributing staff on the other side. And then you must add to your picture the vast bulk of misery in Russia, and Rumania, and what is left of Serbia, and Italy, and Belgium, and MR. ELIOT WADSWORTH We are, then, to all of us. helping a nation which is at the same time helping us. Our help to them and theirs to us is conducted by mutual coöperation. Run your finger down the list of enterprises which the American Red Cross has launched in France, and you will find very many which represent either a definite piece of coöperation with the French Government or a definite reinforcement of an existing agency which recognized the need long ago and has been forging bravely ahead despite tremendous handicaps. It is not well for us to overestimate the service of America in France, nor to misunderstand it. But it is a service of which every American can justly be proud. It is no longer possible, obviously, to define the work of the Red Cross in terms of hospitals and nursing alone. You must think of factories, motor trucks, lunch-rooms, hospitals, asylums, traveling dispensaries, shower-baths on wheels, ocean shipping, warehouses, chapter workrooms; of home workers, laboratories, doctors, orderlies, business men, carpenters, lawyers, financiers, cooks, chaplains, chauffeurs, nurses, railroad experts, waitresses, and hundreds of men and women of other sorts and conditions. Harris & Ewing Formerly of the engineering firm of Stone & Webster, of Boston, vice-chairman of the Central Committee of the American Red Cross and ex-officio member of the War Council trace the march of relief into each of these nations as well. There are more than five million Americans (and it will be fifteen million by Christmas) projecting themselves and their hardheaded sympathy and their business acumen and their engineering skill across two oceans to help six nations rebuild themselves. Not that Americans have any reason to feel that they are conferring a favor on France, or on any other of their Allies. France is selfreliant. Circumstances have made France endure a very large share of a task that belongs The War Council has defined the principles on which the Red Cross is working in the following words: 1. To be ready to care for our soldiers and sailors on duty wherever and whenever that care may be needed. 2. To shorten the war-by strengthening the morale of the Allied peoples and their armies, by alleviating their sufferings in the period which must |