The Lawyer : a Pest or a Panacea? more important gift than this has ever been made by the great capitalist, who has been fittingly styled the "Star-Spangled Scotch man." He is as ardent a believer in inter national arbitration as is Nicholas II.; and far more free to act in accordance with that belief. This harmony of thought and pur pose between the greatest captain of armies and the greatest captain of industry is a happy harbinger for the world at large; and especially for the legal .profession. This Temple of Peace is to be the permanent abiding place of International Justice. To places on its judgment seat will be sum moned from time to time great jurists, whose duty it will be not simply to apply existing rules of law, but to evolve new ones. They will find themselves often in the situation of Lord Mansfield, when engaged in laying the foundations of the modern commercial law of England. We are told that when a mer cantile case came before him, he sought to discover not only the mercantile usage which was involved, but the legal principle under lying it. It was this habit which called forth the oft-quoted eulogium of his disciple and colleague, Mr. Justice Buller: "The great study has been," said he, "to find some cer tain general principle not only to rule the particular case under consideration, but to serve as a guide to the future. Most of us have heard these principles stated and reasoned upon, enlarged and explained, till we have been lost in admiration of the strength and stretch of the human under standing." Let us hope that we may have many Mansfields on the judgment-seat at The Hague. The bar of this international court will necessarily include the flower of the legal profession. Its members will not be called upon to expend their energies upon points of procedure, nor will their success depend upon their memory of the narrow and tech nical iules of their national legal systems. They will be picked men, those who have
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won distinction in their respective States, for their ability to discover the true principle underlying a great controversy, and their capacity to elucidate and apply it. Their anxiety to win a particular case will be tem pered, as in every private law suit it should !>e tempered, by a prevision of the ultimate results of victory. They will appreciate, as the ordinary lawyer often fails to appreciate, that present success is dearly bought, if it is gained by winning the court to the adoption of an unsound doctrine. Such a doctrine will surely return to plague the inventor. The bar of this court will illustrate very clearly the part played by the legal profession every where, in the development of law. As new cases arise, new rules must be formulated for their decision. The true greatness of a lawyer will be seen to consist in the accuracy with which he apprehends, and the lucidity and persuasiveness with which he expounds the principles of justice and the considera tions of public policy, which must form the basis of every enduring rule of law. Undoubtedly, it will take more than a gen eration; it may require more than a century to realize the ideal of the Czar and the iron master millionaire. But the mere existence of this Temple of Peace will exercise a potent influence. The fact that its portals are to be always open for contending nations; that their strifes may here be settled in the calm and peaceful atmosphere of a judicial tri bunal: that the victories to be won sHall be those of the intellect and the moral sense, all this will tend to strengthen the demand for international arbitration. More and more the law suit shall supersede the battle as a means of settling controversies between States, as it has almost wholly supplanted it in the adjustment of disputes between in dividuals. The lawyer shall take the place of the warrior as the champion of contending nations. The jurist, rather than the monarch shall speak the final word in international disputes.
