earnings are constantly increasing. Until 1917 the traffic for a calendar year had never exceeded 4,900,000 tons, and from 1917 to 1919 the amount transported each year had never exceeded 7,000,000 tons. But in 1920 more than 11,000,000 tons of cargo were carried through the Canal, and it seems that the growth of this year is only a beginning; the records for January, 1921, which are the best available, show that the tonnage of ships passing through the Canal again exceed all records for previous months. The number of vessels last year increased 32 per cent. and their tonnage, cargo, and tolls were all half as much again as in preceding years.

When a voyage is shortened from three to five days, the saving is sufficient to pay the tolls at the Canal; and when it is considered that the distance, from New York to San Francisco is decreased by 8,000 nautical miles, and from New York to Valparaiso by 3,700 miles, the tremendous value of the Canal becomes apparent. The traffic from the Pacific to the Atlantic slightly exceeded that in the other direction, which is not surprising in view of the fact that 2,000,000 tons of nitrates alone were carried from the west coast of South America to countries on the Atlantic. Eastward bound cargoes also included large amounts of cold storage products, lumber, sugar, and especially wheat and flour. Oil is the greatest westward bound cargo, most of the crude product going from Mexico to South America; but there are also large shipments of coal and coke, and steel and iron.

Vessels from the west coast of South America to the east coast of the United States were the chief users of the Canal, their cargoes amounting to one eighth of the total shipments which passed through in both directions. Only slightly less, however, are the cargoes from the Atlantic seaboard of the United States to the Far East, and from the west coast of South America to Europe.

In 1920 2,814 merchantmen passed through the Canal, 32 per cent. more than in 1919; and of these 1,281 were sailing under United States registry with a tonnage which exceeded the 867 British vessels by 1,196 gross tons. The vessels of the two Anglo-Saxon nations together comprised 76 per cent. of all the users of the Canal. Such figures are not only a tribute to the commercial initiative of America, which accomplished this great engineering project, first proposed four centuries ago; they are also a

significant example of the rapid progress which is being made by American commerce.

S

Law and Order in New York City

EVERAL civic organizations in New York City recently joined in a testimonial dinner to Dr. John A. Harris, a special Deputy Police Commissioner. Doctor Harris is an effective and unpretending citizen who has performed a service almost unique in the history of his town. in the history of his town. For several years the haphazard methods which prevailed in New York for regulating traffic on Fifth Avenue had appealed to his reforming spirit. These methods differed little from those used in other large capitals. A traffic policeman located at important crossways ruled his little kingdom with autocratic sway. When, in his judgment, the automobiles, buses, and other vehicles going north or south had possessed the thoroughfare for a reasonable period, this gentleman lifted a tyrannical right hand, and perhaps blew a whistle. At these signals the vehicles came to a stop, giving the east and west bound traffic their chance. This would be a perfect system if there were only one junction point involved. The confusion was caused by the fact that, on Fifth Avenue, there were about fifty such centres, with the corresponding number of uniformed policemen, making not the slightest effort at cooperation. Each traffic despot managed his own particular point with no reference to what was taking place a block ahead; a vehicle would get beyond one corner only to be held up at the next, the result being that progress was a slow and extremely irritating matter.

Doctor Harris proposed a simple solution for this problem. That was to have the entire procession, reaching from Washington Square to Fifty-ninth Street, move as a mass. It either advanced as a unit, or stood still as a unit. He arranged a succession of electric signal towers, which gave the signals for traffic changes simultaneously. When a white light appears, the whole Fifth Avenue caravansary, for its entire length of nearly three miles, moves north or south. When a red light is flashed the whole aggregation stops as one; then comes a green light, which informs east and west bound traffic that it has the right of way. Like most reformers, Doctor Harris had trouble in convincing the authorities that this simple plan would succeed; he therefore

installed the system at his own expense. So successful has it proved that the merchants and bankers of the city have honored him with a public dinner in recognition of his great public services.

But Doctor Harris has done more than solve the problem of a congested city street. The most cheerful result of his enterprise is the demonstration that the people of New York have the utmost capacity for law and order. The chief value of the Harris signal towers is that they are great cultivators of good citizenship. For many years Englishmen boasted that the people of London were so law-abiding that merely the upraised hand of a London bobby would instantaneously halt the densest traffic. New York has improved upon this manifestation of a reverence for law and order. The flash of an electric light now produces the same effect upon a Fifth Avenue crowd. At night time the policemen are withdrawn from most of the intersecting points. Yet the mere appearance of the red and green light has a magical effect. The autos and buses come to a sudden stop and patiently wait until another colored light tells them to go on. Occasionally a bad citizen may break through the rule, but such performances are extremely rare. The records show that not a single summons has been served for violation of the traffic rules since the new plan was adopted.

Americans need education in few things so much as in a reverence for law. Doctor Harris's chief claim upon popular gratitude is that his system gives the New York public a splendid opportunity to train this faculty. That the people have responded so quickly gives grounds for optimistic belief in the permanence of the Republic. While most of the world is in turmoil, Fifth Avenue is showing the blessings that accrue to the masses from the observance of law and order.

mutable one, the specimen lost neither life nor function. This piece of a chicken heart, removed from the living body and confined in a test tube, continued to behave as naturally as though existing in its accustomed habitat. Moreover, the passing of time apparently had no influence upon its vitality. It manifested no signs of growing old. Dr. Carrel discovered that two simple precautions would keep it in the bloom of perpetual youth. At stated periods it was given a bath in an antiseptic solution; at the same time it was provided with certain food which supplied all of its physiological needs. So long as these simple precautions were observed, this minute section of a chicken heart not only kept living and proliferating-more startling still, it also showed not the slightest sign of growing old.

Far back in 1912, when this daring experiment was begun, Doctor Carrel was asked how long his specimen would live. His answer was amazing. So long as these precautions were observed, he saw no reason why it should not live forever. If it were frequently sterilized, thus eliminating all possibility of infection, and if it were judiciously and periodically fed, he could see no necessity of death. For two years the experimenter gave his precious tissue his personal attention— and it continued to keep young and vigorous. Then the World War took Doctor Carrel to France, where he remained four years. During his absence an assistant religiously tended this new kind of vestal flame; so that, when the distinguished Frenchman returned to his duties, he found his little piece of chicken heart still alive and proliferating-as active and vigorous as when he left. Nine years have now passed and the first sign of decay has not yet appeared. All chickens contemporary with that from which this specimen was obtained have long since gone the way of all flesh; but this section lives on, apparently immortal. Time has no effect upon it. It is just as young to-day as on the day when it was removed from its parent. The usual graduations of human experience-infancy, youth, maturity, senescence, death-are not for it. At last science seems to have found the fountain of eternal youth.

While this Carrel demonstration will not abolish death it will inevitably lead to a revision of certain current ideas on that subject. Until this piece of chicken heart had upset their definitions, scientists had usually divided death

On the Pennsylvania system it has taken as much as 70 cents out of every dollar which that road has received. After other expenses of operation and maintenance have been met, there was an operating deficit shown on the reports of all the roads of the country in January. In other words, the combined figures showed nothing at all earned for interest on bonds or dividends on railroad stocks. Some roads did better than this poor average; but until wages are reduced, no permanent material improvement in railroad net earnings seems likely to take place.

Control over wages has now passed almost completely out of the hands of the railroad managements. Under the new railroad law a Federal Railroad Labor Board has been created to which questions relating to wages and working conditions are to be referred if the roads and their employees cannot come to a mutual agreement by negotiation. This new machinery will undoubtedly delay the downward adjustment of wages, but it will not stop this adjustment unless the Labor Board fails completely to take account of the economic principles involved. Under the Transportation Act it was provided by Congress that this Board should take into consideration: (1) The scale of wages paid for similar kinds of work in other industries; (2) the relation between wages and the cost of living; (3) the hazards of the employment; (4) the training and skill required; (5) the degree of responsibility; (6) the character and regularity of the employment; and (7) inequalities of increases in wages or of treatment, the result of previous wage orders or adjustment.

Railroad wages have mounted from $1,740,000,000 in 1917, the last year under private management, to $3,800,000,000 in 1920. There is no question that in many cases they are now higher than the class of work justifies, and that many adjustments in conformity with item seven above should be made. Some of the national working agreements established under Federal control are particularly unfair to the roads, due to variation of conditions in different parts of the country. One of the economies that the railroads are now trying to effect is to keep trains on schedule time so as to avoid payments of large amounts for over-time. A train crew that makes a two hours' run in the morning and another two hours' run in the late afternoon may get not only a day's pay but

over-time pay at the rate of time-and-a-half for the afternoon run as well. Another possible economy will come through the reduction of many of the new positions created on the railroads while they were under Federal management. But these savings can only be effected gradually; for if they were all put into effect at once they would upset operations of the roads. Furthermore, many of them depend upon coöperation on the part of the men themselves, a thing that cannot be hurried but which will bring about the more efficient operation required to meet the present situation.

mon.

With a reduction in wages, a return to more normal conditions in business should find the railroads doing much better than they have for some years past. Competition on the part of the motor-truck is being felt in some sections of the East where short hauls are comIt is reported that as bulky a commodity as lumber has been carried fifty miles in New England by truck for less than the railroad charge. Although this short haul business is not profitable to the railroads because of the handling charges, just at present, however, there is no long haul business to take its place and the roads have not yet had time to adjust themselves to the loss of it. With a revival in business, there will be need for all our transportation facilities. In the long run the motor-truck will probably be called upon to pay more than it is to-day for the upkeep of public highways and this will put rates on a closer competitive basis.

I

The Pope and Conscription

'N AN article in the January WORLD'S WORK ON "Garvey's Empire of Ethiopia," Mr. Truman H. Talley used the following phrase:

"A precise analogy is to be found in the Pope's decree in the World War that conscription was immoral and should be resisted."

The WORLD'S WORK has received letters from several of its Catholic readers expressing their indignation that one of its contributors should have accused the Pope of issuing a decree against conscription. They call attention to the fact that millions of Catholics were conscripted for the World War. Their attitude is perhaps best expressed in a statement addressed to the editor of this magazine by Mr. Michael Williams, writing in behalf of the National Catholic Welfare Council:

The fact that more than one million Catholics were conscripted in the United States, not only without opposition on their part, but with the full encouragement of the Government's action given by the official pronouncement of the Catholic Archbishops, whose letter to President Wilson offering the support of the Catholic body was the first public pledge of patriotism to be received from any religious organization; the fact that the Catholics of Italy itself, where the Pope's influence presumably is most powerful, were conscripted by the millions; the fact that the Catholic citizens of France were conscripted, and had been conscripted for many years before the war, also by the millions; the fact that the Catholics of England were also conscripted; and the fact that the Catholics of Germany and of Austria and Hungary were conscripted by the many millions, should certainly have given Mr. Talley pause before he penned his astounding and utterly false statement that the Pope had issued a decree declaring conscription to be immoral. The opposition to conscription in Ireland and Australia, and the much less violent flurry of opposition in Quebec, were purely political in their nature. They had nothing whatsoever to do with any moral question, or any religious question, except most remotely, and even then without connection with any decree or utterance of the Pope. Conscription, as a matter of fact, was and had been the prevailing condition in all European countries save Great Britain long before the war, and no decree by any Pope can be pointed to which declares such a step to be immoral. As a matter of fact, the burden of the Church's teaching is all the other way. Catholic education has always stressed the doctrine that a lawful government has a just claim upon the services of its subjects or its citizens in case of war."

When asked for his statement of the case, Mr. Talley has replied:

Concerning the protest of Catholics I shall have to admit a technical error in the wording employed, though not in the meaning intended to be conveyed.

It might have been more strictly correct to say 'in a Catholic decree,' or 'in the Papal approval of a decree,' or 'in the Vatican sanction of a Hierarchical edict,' for so far as I know the Pope never publicly issued such an order, though the evidence in certain countries, or certain sections of coun

tries, is irrefutable that the Vatican gave tacit approval and withheld all semblance of disapproval of anti-conscription decrees issued by the highest and most responsible governing church officials.

Ireland is the particular instance. In 1918 the Hierarchy of Bishops at Maynooth, Ireland-the most powerful of hierarchies in the Roman Church and the most influential in Vatican politics, because of Ireland's preeminence among Catholic fields— issued an edict stating 'compulsory military service is immoral and should be resisted.' That is a matter of history, as is also the fact that this edict evoked no remonstrance of any kind from Rome. That an edict of such significance should have been issued by the Maynooth Hierarchy without the advice and even the consent of Rome is a theory too thin to be credited, and it is not credited by any chronicler of contemporary times except of course certain Sinn Feiners-though some Sinn Feiners are proud to boast that their Church came to their aid in that matter. It is also a matter of history that upon the issuance of that edict there was formed in Ireland the Anti-Conscription League, with branches in every parish and with the local priest either the local chairman or treasurer, and in most instances both.

Mr. Talley instances similar decrees issued by Archbishop Mannix in Australia and the Hierarchy in Quebec.

On the basis of these statements it is the judgment of the WORLD'S WORK that Mr. Williams has the better of the discussion. Indeed, Mr. Talley frankly admits that his statement was an error and that he can produce no decree of the Pope of the nature in question. Mr. Talley was clearly thinking of conditions in Ireland and of the decree of the Archbishop of Maynooth. Whether the Pope approved, or did not approve, this particular decree, is not the point at issue; the only point is whether the Pope issued a general condemnation of conscription as "immoral" and therefore "to be resisted." As no such document is produced, and as the millions of Catholic conscripts show its existence to be highly improbable, the WORLD'S WORK regrets that this sentence has appeared in its columns.