The Supreme Federal Court with its five judges administers justice and is also the Court of Appeal. Trial by jury appears in the Constitution but it is never practised. The administration of justice has long been acknowledged to be in an unsatisfactory state and attempts to improve it have not borne much fruit. Cases are known in which Englishmen have been kept twelve months in prison awaiting trial, and if this is the case with foreigners it may be supposed that natives have much cause for complaint. In his last Message to Congress (May, 1909) the President, while paying a tribute to "the patriotic diligence of our magistrates," remarked that the ordinary Courts of Justice of the capital still leave something to be desired as regards rapidity of action, and he attributes the delay to the fact that the population has outgrown the system, which, he said, "is too cramped to cope with the demands on it, and I think there is urgent and imperious need for reform if we desire to avert a permanent cause for complaint and discredit." Undoubtedly the foreign man of business, whose capital and enterprise is essential to the development of Argentina, will be more deterred by defects in the administration of justice than any other circumstance, for if there is the probability of pecuniary loss in civil cases and discomfort and persecution for his subordinates in the criminal Courts, the advantages of the country as a field for capital must be seriously discounted. It is, however, in far-away, scantily populated districts where the hard cases occur, but it is generally acknowledged that there is considerable room for improvement in the administration of justice.