'Thus Huns the World Away': Outstanding Events of the World: Armistice Day, 1924-Armistice Day, 1925

I

IF one goes with Mr. Garvin, Sir George Hunter, and others of the like atrabiliar complexion, one must conclude that Britain is sick almost to doomsday and that it befitteth the whole kingdom to be contracted in one brow of woe. And, indeed, much has happened in the last twelvemonth to justify the densest gloom: still further depression of the greater industries and trades — coal, iron, steel, cotton goods, shipping; a strike of coal-miners averted only by the grant of a huge Government subvention to maintain wages at the existing level; the loss of the tremendously important Chinese market through the boycott; the vicious and cleverly managed Communist offensive, culminating in the Bolshevist resolutions of the Trades Union Congress at Scarborough; increase of unemployment; increase of the excess of imports over exports (it may reach a total value of £450,000,000 for the year) to the point that, some say, the gap is no longer bridged by the ‘invisible’ exports and Britain is now living on her reserves; the increasing demoralization consequent on the doles; much else in the like dismal sort.

And here is a consideration to silence your facile optimist; the disease of the British coal industry appears to be mortal. British supremacy in worldtrade was based on coal. Coal has ceased to be the mainstay of that trade. British coal cannot maintain the competition with American and German coal, because of its far greater cost at the pit mouth; and this cost is due primarily, not to excessive wages, but to the difficulty of extraction, because of the depth and awkward conformation of the seams.

‘Patience,’ counsels Premier Baldwin, ‘patience’; the world is recovering, and with that recovery the lost British markets will be regained. But is not that a fallacious hope? In the competition for the revived markets will the odds favor Britain? ‘Now, listen!’ as my Broadway girl would say. Important orders for construction of craft for British use have gone to Dutch and German shipyards; seeming to indicate, not merely that Britain is no longer able to wage aggressive economic warfare, but even that she cannot maintain a successful defensive. Prior to the Great War, 80 per cent of the new marine shipping of the world was being turned out of British yards; the percentage is now less than 50, perhaps as low as 30. And if British iron and steel are now losing ground visibly, month by month, what will be their plight when Lorraine iron and Ruhr coal are close allied, as they certainly will be? By consequence from the war, the capacity of industrial production of several Continental nations has grown portentously; not so of Britain. Victorian England was the workshop of Europe; England is now only one of several workshops, and not the most efficient. Patience, forsooth, with such a face of things, and with an annual addition of over 200,000 mouths to be fed, the birth-rate holding its own, emigration declining!

The Empire will save us, you say! But is it not, for example, labor lost and fatuous policy to attempt to keep Canada out of the economic orbit of the Colossus of the West, looming Djinn-like? And is not India as good as lost? And the struggle to make South Africa a White Man’s country utterly vain? Macaulay’s famous passage about London Bridge haunts the memory. Dean Inge, take our ears — a permanent loan!

But are there not hopeful arguments of virtue to grapple and throw such arguments of despair? Yes, but only on a long view and on the precarious supposition that economic statesmanship of the first order shall dominate the scene.

A clean sweep must be made of certain fallacies. It must be recognized that the Victorian supremacy of Britain in trade and industry is definitely of the past, and that ‘ there are others,’ with a wanion. On the other hand, it should not be held to follow that Britain must therefore fall into a decline.

The Coal Age, so-called, is over. The Age of Oil, White Coal, and Electrification is here. But Britain has no oil in the natural state and little white coal. Worse and worse, then, it might seem. No; for she has coal. So, then, we have boxed the compass, so to speak. What, above all, Britain needs to enable her industries to compete successfully in the world-field is cheap power. She can get it by reorganization and readaptation of her coal industry, and simultaneous general reorganization and reconstruction of industries and transport on the basis of electricity and oil. Low-temperature carbonization of coal gives three products: oil, gas, and a smokeless fuel (the 70 per cent residue) of calorific value equal to that of the best raw coal. Carbonize the coal at the pit mouth; you get enough oil to satisfy all the needs of shipping and ‘motor transport.’ Use what may be needed of the gas and smokeless fuel for generating (in proper centres at or near the coal fields) electric energy for distribution at low cost to the manufacturing plants, railroads, and so forth; and enough smokeless fuel (solid or powdered) and gas will be left for heating and the sundry miscellaneous necessities of power. As an instance of the saving by the process, it would utilize all the inferior coal (25 per cent of the whole), which now goes mostly to waste. The best expert opinion, I understand, endorses the above programme. With its realization Britain should compete in the world-field with restored confidence.

Britain is anxiously awaiting the report of the Royal Commission on the Coal Mining Industry, to be rendered by next May. Presumably its recommendations will embody some such programme. But realization thereof would, you say, imply an industrial revolution. Precisely so; but the alternative is disaster and decadence. Wherefore I observed that the situation calls for economic statesmanship of the first order, boldly to decide, gallantly to challenge the inevitable dangers, to cross the Rubicon. The July crisis in the coal-mining industry was the most important episode of 1925 in Britain, in the Empire, in the world. It brought home the absolute necessity of epochal, revolutionary decisions if Britain is to be saved. Mr. Baldwin yielded temporarily to the miners. His subsidy was to ensure peace till May, to gain time for definite formulation of policy. Next May there will be another crisis, far more important; out of it a fighting chance for Britain, or sure decline.

I said ‘a fighting chance’; but even that must be qualified. Under present conditions Britain is overpopulated by ten million souls. Realization of the programme above indicated, supplemented by a thorough scientific general programme of anti-waste, might provide well-being for the present population of the kingdom and the natural increase of a decade or two. But the point of saturation would soon be reached again. Obviously the increase should be steadily offset by emigration. The Empire Settlement Act of 1922 was a move in the right direction, but in the first two years of its operation it accomplished but a tenth part of its intention. It should be properly amended and made to work under the direction of some happy tactful genius. The Baldwin Government is quite aware of this, but will it have the courage to take order accordingly?

I have dealt with two matters of supreme importance to the British realm and the British Commonwealth of Nations. I may only glance at a third: namely, the tariff policy of the realm. Free Trade moderately tempered by camouflaged Protection is the present policy. Obviously Mr. Baldwin is at a stand. He probably thinks that under present circumstances a moderate policy of general protection — adequate, at the least, to cover a considerable extension of operation of the principle of Imperial Preference — would be the ticket. But where to draw the line? Theoretically the Empire, no doubt, could be made economically self-sufficing; but so to talk is nonsense. ‘T is against the spirit of the age, which really tends to economic internationalism rather than economic nationalism or imperialism. The ideal policy should promote mutual helpfulness throughout the Empire, should strengthen intra-imperial ties, without prejudice to the foreign trade. Ah! but what is the ideal policy? Doubtless the pattern thereof, like that of Plato’s ideal Republic, is laid up in Heaven; perhaps under the joint guardianship of Cobden and Joseph Chamberlain; never to be known or realized on earth.

But that spectre of German competition; how to lay it? It is said that German payments under the Dawes Plan in full flourish call for trebling of the German 1913 export surplus. ‘Patience,’counsels Premier Baldwin, ‘patience.’ Can he be thinking of M. Loucheur’s International Economic Conference, for which the League is making preparation? That conference, if you believe M. Louchcur, is to deal the coup de grâce to ‘economic nationalism,’to establish an ‘equilibrium between production and consumption,’to effloresce into a United States of Europe! Softly, my Muse! These be wild and whirling words.

I say flatly that the domestic record of the Baldwin Government has been creditable; believing, as I do, that the policy of caution, of sawing wood, of watchfully waiting on developments, was, for the conditions, correct. Unemployment has increased, but not at all alarmingly. Actually employment has increased, but not so as to overtake the normal increase of employables. The key industries have been desperately buffeted, but somehow the British pre-war proportion of world-trade is maintained; world-trade being 20 per cent below pre-war proportions. The very latest returns are definitely reassuring. Baffled, one murmurs that bon mot so mystically true: ‘There are lies, damned lies — and statistics!’ As for the Red Terror, ‘t is but a bug to fear boys and yokels.

In the imperial and foreign fields the record of the Baldwin Government has been brilliant. With the advent of Mr. Chamberlain to the Foreign Office, the high imperial style was resumed. The Russian Treaties, the ink of the signatures scarce dry, died the death — unhousel’d, disappointed, unaneled. The Egyptian affair was admirably handled. The murder of Sir Lee Stack hastened an inevitable crisis. Egypt had to be brought up with a round turn. The British reserved rights were properly asserted and the Egyptians made to see that the provisional gift of a qualified independence to Egypt will not be considered consummated until certain specified conditions have been fulfilled. Better yet, the British position in the Sudan is clarified. It is fairly apparent that the British protectorate of the Sudan will have the same term of life as the Empire; a monstrous good thing for the Sudan — and Egypt. The problem of India is too vast and vague for notice here. I think it may be positively stated that the position of the British Raj has been greatly cased — one reason (sinister, if you please) being that, after a last desperate effort to save it, the preposterous accord between Hindus and Moslems has been fatally disrupted. No doubt important decisions have been taken respecting the experiment in self-government. Is the Dyarchy to be continued in a much revised form, or is the experiment to be carried forward by a different route? For the experiment will go on.

For the most part, the outlying members of the British Commonwealth of Nations have had a prosperous year. In only one of the self-governing States is the prospect gray: namely, the Union of South Africa. But she has rightly diagnosed her malady. For some time white emigration has exceeded white immigration. Why? Because British white men and women, looking whither to migrate, repelled the lure of South Africa, misliking the thought that their descendants might be Negroids. The remedy is segregation of the blacks, which can be accomplished in a perfectly humane manner. After all, the blacks south of the Zambesi are of a migration almost as recent as that of the whites.

Mention must be made of two dangers ahead; the danger of a blow-up in Ireland when the report of the commission delimiting the frontier between the Free State and Ulster is published, and the danger of a war over Mosul. It cannot be doubted that the Baldwin Government will be true to Britain’s pledges to Irak. If Ghazi Mustapha Kemal is really boiling for a fight, apparently he can have one. But I doubt he is such an ass.

II

I feel a certain delicacy about the inclusion of our country in this review; for we are, in the comparison with the rest of mankind, prosperous out of all cess, and brocade should not flaunt itself before rags. Our favorable balance of trade for the fiscal year 1925 was over a billion dollars, and we are putting out a billion yearly on foreign loan. While world-trade averages something like 20 per cent below the 1913 level, our foreign trade tops by 15 to 20 per cent our pre-war total. We have half the gold in the world. Our national wealth increased by 35 per cent in the decade ended in 1923, totaling in that year about $321,000,000,000. Eighty-six persons in the United States paid taxes for 1923 on taxable incomes exceeding in each case one million dollars. Incomes, if you please! Our national debt is fast being reduced, and the national budget has been cut nearly a half since 1920. Though the 1924 reductions made the Federal taxes easily tolerable, we are assured a further easement by the new Congress. Great Britain and most of our smaller debtors have funded their obligations to us, and no doubt France and Italy will soon follow suit; for they cannot long continue to kick against the pricks. I would fain avoid this delicate subject, and will, but must make one observation. Our system of government is perhaps, on the whole, the most admirable in the world; at least for us. But obviously it does not permit that generosity in the debt settlements which belike (I am not sure) the people might favor. At the Paris Conference in January we secured something more than our due share of the Dawes Plan annuities.

We have no Red menace, no unemployment worth mentioning, no threats of war. We are in jolly good humor, as proved by our imperturbability respecting the inconvenience caused by the anthracite strike. We can spend eight billions annually without a flutter for automobiles and their maintenance; and, since Britain puts up the price on rubber, we have $100,000,000 available for planting Liberia in rubber (soil O. K., climate not so bad, labor cheapest on the planet), and, if necessary, we’ll convert Central America, Mexico, the Philippines, and so forth, into rubber plantations, and run Britain out of the market. Put that in your pipe, Mr. Churchill, and report the flavor! We’ll show you that it does n’t pay to try to put anything over on the U. S. A. We need deny, and in fact do deny, ourselves nothing. There is a constant stream of galleons conveying to our shores the art treasures of Europe, which soon will see the last of the Old Masters. If bored little Betty cries for a dinosaur egg, she has it. Our annual bill for cosmetics exceeds imperial budgets.

We are at the dawn of an immense development of commercial aviation. The chief result of the lamentable disaster to our first giant rigid dirigible — the Shenandoah — will be to stimulate experiment toward eliminating the weaknesses of that type. The best of arguments for moving forward boldly in the air is the magnificent success of the Air Mail Service. Mr. Hoover’s statement before the Air Board has convinced us that commercial aviation will develop lustily without Government subsidies provided that: (a) a bureau of civil aviation is established in the Department of Commerce for rendering services to commercial aviation analogous to those rendered by the Government to commercial navigation; (b) a body of aviation law is enacted, corresponding to merchantmarine law; (c) carriage of the mail is contracted out; (d) ample air-ports are established at the important municipalities (by the municipalities themselves). The prospect stirs the imagination. We are indeed prosperous —whoopingly, almost terrifyingly prosperous. We are — to put the thing in our direct and simple American way — It.

Yes, but the things cited are but the trappings and the suits of prosperity. There may be that within which is not so satisfactory. Despite our authentic triumphs in architecture, and that within a generation we have added three (Whistler, Saint Gaudens, Sargent) to the small choir of ‘Old Masters,’ the fact remains that our characteristic art is that of Murder, as our national religion is that of Publicity — a religion whereof the rites are as hideous as those of Baal or Ashtoreth. The chief ceremony of that religion in the past year was the trial of Mr. Scopes. Our banditry record of the year puts China to shame. Obviously banditry in China is in its infancy. Our divorces are overtaking our marriages. Soon there will be more divorced than married adults in the U. S. A.

In its final short session the Sixtyeighth Congress made little progress; no doubt because the balance was held by the ‘ Progressives.’ Its most striking piece of legislation was that increasing the salaries of Members of Congress and Cabinet Members. No doubt the increases were proper, though the austere life may be commended to our representatives; but the manner of carrying it was an offense to the national olfactories. That there was so little outcry upon the occasion was lamentable; perhaps, after all, we were a little proud of our legislators for ‘putting it over’ so deftly.

The more important legislative proposals which failed of consummation by the late Congress were the following: the Muscle Shoals Leasing bill; sundry farm-relief bills; amendment of the Transportation Act (looking especially to promotion of railroad consolidation); ratification of the Turkish treaty and the Isle of Pines treaty; and the proposal of adhesion to the World Court. I expect consummation of the greater part of these proposals by the Sixtyninth Congress. Already the new Senate, briefly meeting after the inauguration, has ratified the Isle of Pines treaty after a preposterous delay of twenty years, and it can hardly reject Admiral Bristol’s advice to ratify the Turkish treaty. The President neatly summed up as follows his conclusions upon the report of his commission of nine appointed to evolve a ‘programme for the permanent stabilization of agriculture.’ ‘Almost the entire difficulty of agriculture,’ says the President, ‘is on the side of distribution.’ Adequate scientific legislation for the promotion of the coöperative marketing of agricultural produce and live stock is expected of the Sixty-ninth Congress. There is to be a ferocious conflict in the next Senate session over the Senate rules. General Dawes has declared war to the knife against old Filibuster.

There are no dangers observable in the navigation ahead. We may confidently expect that

III

It is the knowing thing utterly to condemn the French post-war Governments prior to that of M. Herriot for piling up so huge a national debt; to decry their financial policy as a blend of the fatuous, the vicious, and the pavid. It is, indeed, quite true that a Colbert or Hamilton was not vouchsafed to France in her desperate need and that the management of the fisc left much to be desired; but the members of those Governments were neither rascals nor fools nor cowards. The war over, the preëminent and pressing concern was reconstruction of the devastated area. The psychology of the situation forbade increase of taxation to this end if it could anywise be avoided. Clearly domestic loans were ‘indicated,’since they would soon be redeemed by German gold. It seemed simple. Human nature being what we see, it is not strange or discreditable that even the trained official French mind was only slowly disa bused of the fallacy that the greater part of the costs of the war could be recovered from Germany. When Poincaré, in consequence of the Ruhr fiasco, saw the light, he made suggestions to the Reparations Commission which resulted in the Dawes Committee and the Dawes Plan, and he instituted a régime of drastic retrenchment and heavy taxation. For the latter he was sent up Salt Creek, and the Left came into its own again, in May 1924. But reconstruction, thanks to an unprecedented fury of devoted effort financed by the loans, was well toward completion, although the lending capacity of the people was well toward exhaustion.

I lack space for detail of subsequent developments in the French domestic situation. The desperate fiscal problem confronting Herriot demanded in chief: (a) a genuinely balanced budget; (b) satisfactory arrangements respecting the domestic debt; (c) funding of the debts to the United States and Britain on tolerable terms. To achieve these desiderata and avoid inflation — hic labor, hoc opus erat. Herriot had gone far toward the achievement of (a) when his fall was precipitated by an extraordinary error of tactic which would have ruined the career of a man less transparently honest. He was succeeded, in April 1925, by a Left Government under Painlevé, with (could such a quick reversal of fortune seem possible even in this our World Turned Upside Down?) Caillaux for Finance Minister. And it was scarcely less staggering that Briand should accept to serve, as Foreign Minister, in a cabinet including Caillaux.

Briand’s acceptance of the Foreign Portfolio did great credit to his patriotism. He was the man for the hour. Representing with supreme address the majority sentiment of his nation, he perhaps contributed even more than did Chamberlain or Luther to the success of the negotiations recently consummated by the Locarno instruments. The selection of Caillaux startlingly illustrated the desperateness of the plight of the fisc. The French are the most experienced and on the whole the most civilized of peoples; but their civility is after all a mere film. In their extremity they resorted to magic and summoned the ‘wizard,’ Caillaux. And Caillaux was not found entirely wanting. He is, in the opinion of this writer, an absolutely unmoral egotist. But on this occasion his professional pride was piqued; he was resolved to justify his reputation as an economic master. He acted as though he had — and, belike, the strange man has — a professional conscience. He was not, in my opinion, given a full chance. The Ghost of his Past stalked him, and one might almost say that Retributive Justice dashed his plans. His budget operations were magnificent, but the 1925 budget was knocked galley-west by the unexpected Rif and Syrian wars. His conversion loan, which was expected to ease the pressure from maturing Government obligations, was a failure (the Ghost, you see, terrifying the cautious). As to his failure at Washington, I know not what to say; but I have a feeling that Fate dealt shrewdly with him at that supreme crisis.

Our Debt Commission did not play the Shylock. The present value of the total payments contemplated under their last offer would be about $2,800,000,000. The total of the French debt is about $4,020,000,000. The present value of the total payments contemplated under the last French offer would be about $1,750,000,000. But it is doubtful that, even with our agreement to terms approximating the last Caillaux offer and like generous treatment from Britain, France could win through her present difficulties without dangerous dislocations, without terrible impairment of her social and economic fabric. For consider these figures (furnished by the National Institute of Economics at Washington, and shown to be remarkably accurate by my own researches): The debt of the French Republic is the equivalent of about $22,000,000,000 (eight billions deadweight foreign debt), as against our Federal debt of about twenty billions, all domestic. At present — with negligible payments on the foreign debts — the French people are paying at least 20 per cent of the national income in taxes, as against 18.5 per cent for the British people and 11.5 per cent for the people of the United States; whereas the national income per capita in France is only $195, as against $395 in Britain and $605 in the United States.

Now, Messieurs Borah et al., is your attitude quite the one indicated by humane considerations or (but that is another story) the enlightened selfinterest of our nation?

I quite agree with the Institute of Politics that only by a major operation can France be saved from extreme misery and probably disaster of the first magnitude. The economic boom of late 1923-late 1925 was altogether deceptive, unwholesome and hectic. The reaction has already come. Let us pay this tribute to Caillaux. By his counsels, of a salutary brusqueness, he persuaded the patient of the necessity of the operation.

The war with Abdul Krim has been a pure calamity to France. It aggravated the fiscal embarrassments; it imperiled the superb achievement of Marshal Lyautcy; it even (thanks, in part, to a considerable sentiment in France against colonial commitments, which took this occasion to assert itself) endangered the entire position of France in Africa. Regretfully I omit detailed notice of the war, and merely remark that, unless political developments should change the face of things, next spring should see the ‘liquidation’ of Abdul Krim’s glorious effort. It remains, however, to see whether Marshal Lyautey’s work will securely survive his departure from the scene. He proved himself the equal of any colonial administrator of history — Roman proconsul, British viceroy, Chinese Warden of the Marches in the great Han or T’ang days, name you whom you will.

That was a stupid act of Herriot, to supersede General Weygand as High Commissioner for Syria by General Sarrail. Against initial difficulties, the tact and sympathy of General Gouraud and General Weygand had given assurance of success to the French mandate. But, as Herriot must have known, Sarrail, though a good general in the field, is perhaps the most tactless person in the world, as he showed at Saloniki during the war; and tact is the quality most required in dealing with that kittle folk, the Syrians. The French ‘manner of dealing’ with Damascus was, it would seem, a masterpiece of tactlessness and bad judgment. The French will have hard sledding henceforth with their Syrian mandate. Says the wise Confucius: ‘ If remoter people are not submissive, all the influences of civil culture and virtue are to be cultivated to attract them to be so; and, when they have been so attracted, they must be made contented and tranquil.’

IV

The Germans are eating more meat than they ate prior to the war, and the full alcoholic content of German beer has been restored. Germany has come back.

It may be added, by way of secondary proof, that the greater industries — such as iron, steel, and coal — have made tremendous gains; that the shipping arrivals at Hamburg exceed by 25 per cent those of a year ago; that the financial position continues sound; that the budget shows a healthy surplus, revenue receipts very considerably exceeding expectations; that the railways, as consolidated and reorganized under the Dawes Plan, show a splendid profit; and that unemployment in mid-September totaled only 250,000.

There are pessimists who declare that the economic boom is artificial, and to be credited entirely to the very favorable first-year arrangements under the Dawes Plan, the payments of the first year being almost covered by the international loan; that, as the burden of payments increases, black clouds will succeed that first Rose of Dawn. But, though Germany cannot hope entirely to escape deflation pangs, her economic recovery is in fact guaranteed by the Allied and Associated Powers. The Dawes Plan provides for flexibility in its application, so that the burden of payments may never be fatally prejudicial to German recovery. Germany is definitely and securely on the economic up-curve.

Viewed from another angle, the German comeback is still more remarkable. Germany is rid of the most vexatious servitudes imposed by the Versailles Treaty, and further riddance is assured unless the Nationalists ‘gum the cards.’ Germany is far, very far on the road to recovery of her proper (always assuming good faith and no return of militarism) political position in the society of nations. She has sat as equal with the great Allies at the council table, and as an equal has initialed the Rhine Pact, one of the most august of human instruments.

Of the Locarno instruments it is sufficient to remark that, when or if they are consummated, only by a superequivocation at which the Father of Lies himself might baulk can a loophole of justification be alleged for aggressive war by Germany on France, Belgium, Poland, or Czechoslovakia; or vice versa in each case. I think it quite likely that in the negotiations which led to Locarno the Germans were at first actuated by cunning rather than generous motives, but I believe that in initialing the Locarno instruments Chancellor Luther fully shared in that ‘spirit of Locarno’ felt and magnificently expressed by Briand. To be sure, the Locarno instruments have not been consummated by the required formal signatures and ratifications; but there is every reason to expect that they will be, and with the happy incidental effect of emphatically reducing the Nationalist influence in German politics. Say, if you please, that the ‘ spirit of Locarno’ was but a momentary gleam, an illusion—at the least the Rhine Pact safeguards France and Belgium; for the British sense of honor is the least illusory thing in the world.

Little comment is required on the year’s developments in German domestic politics. The December 1924 elections were in one sense reassuring, in another unsatisfactory. The Reichstag representation of the parties unequivocally loyal to the Weimar Constitution is considerably greater than it was in the old Reichstag and greater than the representation of the parties leaning back toward monarchy (I assume, though a little dubitatively, the People’s Party to be of that grouping); on the other hand, that representation was not quite a majority, so that it had to be either a Bürgerbloc Government, to include the Nationalists, or new elections, and after much manœuvring the former was the choice. It may be said that on a flat show-down of Republic versus Monarchy the Communists would hold the balance; but probably the Republic is safe. The election of Hindenburg was not really a Nationalist victory, but rather a remarkable tribute to that splendid warrior; and, as it has turned out, a deserved one. The popular instinct discovered in him a man to be trusted; and not only Germany, but the whole world, is much beholden to his great good sense and massive integrity.

V

The decision taken at last by Spain (with what a wrench to pride!) to cooperate in Morocco with France, has probably ensured a settlement during the coming year of the problem of the Spanish Zone which shall end that hideous nightmare — a boon, a boon indeed! And then what, as to peninsular Spain?

Primo de Rivera has organized a political party y-clept the ‘Patriotic Union’ to which in due time is to be entrusted the task of carrying forward under ‘a restored régime of constitutional normality’ the programme of the Military Directory. Some months ago the Marqués took the people into his confidence and with charming ingenuousness admitted that the progress made to date was far from correspondent to his first hopes. But I incline to think that he understated his achievement. Despite the increased expense of the Moroccan War, he has reduced the budget deficit by 40 per cent, and with the end of the Moroccan business the budget should be balanced; the syndicalists and their brethren of like appeal have ceased from troubling; there is little unemployment. The great achievement of the Directory, to my mind, is the Municipal Statute, which restores those Communal Councils anciently so rich in promise. This is to be followed by a Provincial Statute of analogous intention — that is, decentralization according to a programme indicated by geography, history, and the manifest genius of the Spanish people. At the best, Catalonia will furnish a difficult problem for many years to come, but it is a problem certainly solvable by enlightened and patient statesmanship. The caciques have been run to cover.

But still the programme is far, far from realization. Primo de Rivera is entirely vague as to the date of transfer of his task to the Patriotic Union. ‘ The road of purification stretches far ahead.’ There’s the rub. Sure provision must be made against return of the caciques. Now what does Primo de Rivera mean by a ‘restored régime of constitutional normality’? Does he mean restoration of the old parliamentary system, or anything like it? That system, a preposterous travesty of English parliamentarism, has been discredited, as a like travesty has been discredited in Italy. With restoration of that absurd system, the Augean stables which the Dictator has been at such pains to clean would soon be in a hideous mess again. Does he contemplate for his Patriotic Union a function like that of the Fascist Party in Italy? He has in the Somaten (a revival and nation-wide extension of a provincial organization) an instrument not so unlike the Fascist militia.

We shall watch developments in Spain with eager interest . The reported activity of the Communal Councils may be earnest of a Spanish renaissance, or it may be that the Spanish people are too sunk in torpor to thrill even to a Cid.

VI

An ancient Chinese poem begins thus in translation: ‘At this low ebb, at this low ebb.’ That would have been consonant to the mood of Fascismo a year ago; and joyous, lilting ‘Giovinezza’ must then have rasped. The Matteotti murder had given an opening to the Opposition which they were quick to seize. They gave loud publicity, with suitable garnishment, to sundry acts of Fascist zeal untempered by decency, and the Fascists were reduced to the humiliating necessity of explanations, of admissions, of promises to purge out or effectively discipline intransigent elements which discredited the holy cause. Fascismo was in the doleful dumps, and the Duce himself fell desperately ill.

But the Opposition went too far. The personal charges against Mussolini could not be made good. People reminded themselves of the Red Terror to which Fascismo had been the answer. The Fascists recovered confidence. Certain acts they wisely forbore to defend, instead repudiating the perpetrators; others they assigned to the category of ‘sacred violence.’ For it seems that when a Fascist knocks a Communist o’ the pate, the violence may be ‘sacred’; but not so t’ other way around. On March 22 the sixth anniversary of Fascismo was celebrated with incredible enthusiasm throughout Italy. Addressing a vast concourse in Rome, Mussolini, recovered of his illness, shouted: ‘This meeting marks for me and for you resumption of Fascist action against all our enemies.’ (Pause, that ‘spak sic things.’) ‘Will you follow me?’

Well, rather. And ever since Fascismo has been going it strong. In October, Fascismo definitely arrived at its ‘constructive phase.’ The great Fascist Council passed certain resolutions which are to be presented to Parliament for enactment, and of course it may not be doubted that Parliament will enact them. They contemplate the political and economic reorganization of Italy very largely on an occupational basis — an adaptation of Guild Socialism. Not less important, they provide for immense enhancement of the power of the Premier, who is to be vested with effective control of the new system of corporations and syndicates. A happy balance will be maintained between the power of the workers and the power of the employers, all disputes incapable of simple adjustment to be referred to Labor courts. It is of first significance that magistrates to preside over these courts are to be appointed by the Central Government and to be backed by the necessary force. The constitution of the Camera is not to be changed, but the Senate, much enlarged, is to be reorganized, four fifths of its members to be elected on an occupational basis, one fifth to be appointees of the King; the rôle of the Camera to become insignificant. Considering Mussolini’s declared contempt for shams, one may expect the Camera to be relegated to Lethe’s wharf in the near future.

The proposals as drafted are rather foggy, but no doubt they will be given clarity and precision in the process of enactment. If a really genuine experiment in Guild Socialism adapted to modern conditions should be forthcoming, the world would be immensely indebted to Mussolini therefor; but the magnitude of the powers proposed for the Premier provokes a certain dubiety. It is proper, however, to suspend judgment.

On the whole, Fascismo has been justified of its works, and on the whole Mussolini’s Dictatorship has been beneficent. He has balanced the budget, improved trade, greatly reduced unemployment, immensely enhanced efficiency in all the services, and raised the international prestige of his country; and now apparently he proposes to scrap the constitution. The Italian parliamentary system, like that of Spain, was a preposterous travesty of British parliamentarism, and it behooved to scrap it. It remains to see whether Mussolini will, by providing a satisfactory substitute, approve himself a constructive statesman of the first order.

Mussolini has told us repeatedly of late that Julius Cæsar is his model. He could choose no better one. May one be bold to suggest that an even closer imitation of that model would not be amiss? There is for Dictators a great deal of importance in style, and the style of Mussolini increasingly mislikes me. Cæsar did never threaten, nor boast, nor exult. He never posed. He had a proper sense of limitations; he halted at the Rhine and the Thames. His most distinctive quality was a humorous equanimity. If one may presume to advise: Study your model, good Benito, and keep cool.

VII

Ghazi Mustapha Kemal continues his salutary task of abolishment of shams and of consolidation of the New Turkey on a Nationalist basis. But I am not so sure that he is so well advised in his ‘habilatory endeavors’; ‘t is, methinks, a work of supererogation. I suspect the Ghazi has been reading Sartor Resartus in a Turkish translation, and has missed something. The fez, to be sure, is preposterous; but is it any more so than the sundry models proposed to us by Messieurs Dunlap and Knox? And look you, Sir, do not the Turkish breeches afford more ample accommodation than do our unmentionables, for the Purse? If you would assimilate Turkey to the West, remember, remember: The Purse is the Thing. In divorcing his wife, no doubt the Father of New Turkey had in mind to pay us the flattery of imitation and so win our Senate to ratification of the Turkish Treaty; and to encourage in Turkey a practice which has contributed so much of wholesome and picturesque to our social life.

The inevitable reaction in Turkey was nipped i’ the bud with the suppression of the Kurdish insurrection and the ‘pendulous illaqueation’ of its leaders.

VIII

It is quite out of the question to explain in a paragraph or two the developments of the past year in China. One should not forget that China (the 18 Provinces and Manchuria) is of about the same area and the same population as Europe exclusive of Russia; that she is now undergoing a transformation, social, economic, and political, the most stupendous and profound yet seen in the world; that our sources of information are meagre, and the more important processes are obscured.

The growth of Chinese Nationalism is one of the most important phenomena of recent times. It arose out of resentment of the utterly selfish and damnable encroachments by the Powers. It developed a determination to recover all that had been lost by those encroachments. After its first blind and ferocious expression, in the Boxer uprising, it was until recently chargeable with very little antiforeign violence.

The major credit for that astonishing increase of Nationalism belongs to ‘Young China’ — that is, the considerable and ever-growing body of Chinese who have received some tincture of education along Western lines. The majority, including the best, of the leaders of Young China have not countenanced antiforeign violence. They have hoped to recover Chinese rights by the Confucian methods of reason and persuasion, supplemented, if necessary, by the boycott, that Chinese invention. But always there was the danger that the extremist leaders, the intransigents of the Left wing of the Kuo Min-tang or Radical Party, would seize some opportunity to provoke a violent and vicious explosion of antiforeign feeling. Those gentry found an opportunity in the industrial disputes of the midyear in the foreignowned mills. Observe, however, that gradually, except for Canton, — which is differentiated from the rest of China much as Barcelona is differentiated from the rest of Spain, — the more sensible and Confucian-minded leaders regained the ascendant.

But the wave of Nationalist feeling is still at height. ‘Unhand me,’ says China; and the Powers, however reluctantly and ungraciously, are proceeding to comply. It were, perhaps, better for China, as well as for the Powers, that the process of restoration of the sovereign rights filched from her should be gradual; but, if developments have made it necessary to speed up the process, the Powers have no ground of complaint. China’s resentment for the wrongs and humiliations inflicted on her, resentment so just and so deep, may not be trifled with.

The politico-military situation of China is of the usual fantasticality. There are three grand groups of Tuchuns: the group which backs the Provisional Peking Government, whereof Chang Tso-lin, that hard-shelled old Tory and ex-bandit, is chief; the group headed by Feng Yu-hsiang, the ‘Christian General’ and traitor; and the group of Yangtse Tuchuns headed by Wu Pei-fu, who has ‘ come back’ strong. Feng is playing around with Moscow, while Chang is regarded by Japan with benevolent eye. I think Japan is sincerely desirous to keep out of Chinese complications, but she will not allow her position in Manchuria to be compromised and surely would not permit open intervention by Russia in China. As for Wu Pei-fu, I consider him China’s best hope, quite probably a genuine disinterested patriot. Almost anything of weird or fantastic might develop out of that triangle. I am an optimist concerning China, but only on a long view.