^34 ETHICAL PRINCIPLE OF EQUITY. 



t 



These rival ideas of judgeship may be called the inquisitor 

 and the umpire. Both are bent on doing the fullest possible 

 justice, and in their highest forms they wish to continue legal 

 justice and equity. But the inquisitor emphasises the equity, 

 whilst the umpire emphasises the legality. The inquisitor is so 

 bent on doing absolute justice that he takes a hand himself in 

 eliciting the full truth; the umpire has his eyes sO' fixed on the 

 legal code, that he leaves all argument to the parties. Thus 

 the intricate game of special pleading has grown up in courts 

 where the ideal of the umpire prevails. Those who know some- 

 thing of the habits of English and French courts will have at 

 hand many other points df difiference between these systems. I 

 only wish to note that it is the ethical conviction, that there is a 

 higher form of human justice than a verdict based on the letter of 

 the law. which has produced these two categories of judges. 



The same conviction shines through all the legal activities of 

 the best men as far back as our records go. None of them could 

 ever be fully satisfied with the technical justice of the mere 

 positive enactments of the law ; they demanded a more substantial 

 justice. Equity was the source of the higher justice which 

 springs from the breast of man. " Seen from the side of ethics 

 and psycholog>% it represents the tendencies and habits of the 

 typical good man, who desires to treat his neighbour as he would 

 be treated himself."* 



Chemical Warfare Service. — The United States 



Secretary of War announced recently that the organisation of 

 the Chemical Warfare Service had been completed, with Major- 

 General W. L. Sibert in command. All phases of chemical war- 

 fare will in future be controlled by the newly-organised depart- 

 ment. Previously chemical work in connection with the war 

 had been administered partly by the Medical Department, partly 

 by the Ordnance Department, and partly by the Bureau of 

 Mines. The Medical Department was charged with designing 

 and manufacturing masks for men and animals, and procuring 

 appliances for clearing trenches and dug-outs of gas ; the Ord- 

 nance Department directed the production of gases and the 

 filling of gas shells ; the Bureau of Mines had been carrying on 

 chemical research for new gases and protection against known 

 gases. The newly-formed Department will also be responsible 

 for providing chemists for all branches of the Government, and 

 for procuring chemists for industries essential to the success of 

 the war. Every chemist in the United States Army will now be 

 removed from his unit and placed under the direction olf the 

 Chemical Warfare Service, to which all newly-drafted chemists 

 will also be assigned. 



* Lord Bryce: "Studies in History and Jurisprudence," 2, 143. 



