663 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



Mather, PC, LL.D.) in the chair. At this meeting- Sir William Ramsay gave a 

 very important address, which we referred to in our issue of October 191 5. The 

 second number of the journal contains an important letter by the President to the 

 Prime Minister ; the Report of the Microscope Committee, which recently met 

 (and contained members of the Guild, of the Royal Microscopical Society, medical 

 men, and the leading microscope manufacturers) ; a list of universities, education 

 committees, and schools which support the proposal to use only British-made 

 chemical glass apparatus for a period of three years after the war ; a paper bv Dr. 

 Howard S. Wilson on " Organisation and Education," and one by Prof. R. A. 

 Greeorv on the " Introduction of the Metric System " ; with an Obituary of the 

 late Prof. Meldola, whose death all will deplore. 



We are convinced that it is the duty of every man of science to belong- to the 

 Guild. Unless the Guild has the full weight of men of science behind it in this 

 country it cannot exercise the full influence in the councils of the nation which 

 science and the workers upon science require. More than this, we are prepared to 

 say from our knowledge of the working of the Guild that it is by no means one of 

 those bodies which stagnates in the historv of its past, but that it has before it the 

 whole interests of science and of those who endeavour to advance science. The 

 thoroughness of its working- will be understood from the fact that it possesses no 

 ess than nine committees in addition to its Executive Committee. 



The International Defence League 



Mr. Maclagan, the Founder of this League, gave three lectures on January 20, 

 27, and February 3, at the Queen's Hall, London, in order to create a public 

 opinion in favour of his scheme for the future elimination of war. Before he began 

 to expatiate on this scheme, however, he made his audience clearly understand 

 that neither he nor any member of the League held pacifist views, but that all were 

 entirely and whole-heartedlv with our own Government and with the Allies in their 

 determination to fight this fight to a finish. 



The scheme he now lavs before the world is based on universal co-operation, 

 the initial difficulty consisting in the formation of a plan of action to which all 

 nations will agree. The reason for the failure of all other ideas hitherto mooted, 

 Mr. Maclagan declares to be the absence of all effort to discover the fundamental 

 interest common to all nations. This common idea, he says, is Defence. What 

 nation in the whole world from the most civilised to the most savage does not 

 desire primarily to defend itself from aggression ? That this is fact and not 

 surmise is proven by the presence in our midst of Civil Law. If to-day a private 

 person attacks another private person with the intent to destroy life he is summarily 

 dealt with by the law ; and so powerful is the mere idea of its presence that there 

 are few persons now who dare to risk its enforcement. And yet this idea, which 

 has proved so beneficent when applied within the boundaries of any country, 

 remains in abeyance when nation treats with nation. This League, therefore, now 

 proposes to extend the idea of civil order to embrace international peace. Treaties 

 such as the Hague Convention have proved useless for the simple reason that 

 their clauses were based on the legality of war. War being permissible, it must be 

 waged on such-and-such lines ; but if an International Council were formed on the 

 understanding that war under no circumstances is permissible, something might 

 be done. A Council composed of representatives from all nations is to be formed 

 for the one and only purpose of preventing war. All armies, for the immediate 

 future at any rate, are to be kept up to their present working efficiency ; and 



