Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

C.

THE RHINE FRONTIER AND GERMAN FEDERALISM

Looking Backward and Forward

POPULATION PRESSURE IN EUROPE AND ASIA

The World and Its Teeming Millions

PAPA CAVOUR AND THE NEWBORN ITALY

A Great Leader and His Handiwork

Albin Michel and Karl Brockhausen

Alfredo Panzini

G. Ercole

Paul Pelliot
F. Schwerz

TO ANGORA WITH ISMET PASHA
Turkish Leaders in Their Capital

THE VATICAN AND THE MONGOLS DURING THE CRUSADES

Papal Negotiations with the Khans COLLECTING PAPER MONEY

A Cheaper Hobby than Postage Stamps
MODERN ITALIAN LITERATURE
THE SMALLEST LIVING THINGS

What Are the 'Filter-Passers'?
BANDA LEGEND AND PHILOSOPHY
LEIGH HUNT AS A PROSE WRITER

Edouard Schneider
R. J. V. Pulvertaft

If you are not a subscriber, and would like to receive
the magazine regularly, fill out the coupon below

Gino Gori Roger Ingpen

THE LIVING AGE

Rumford Building, Concord, N. H., or

8 Arlington Street, Boston (17), Mass.

Gentlemen: Enclosed find $5.00 for my subscription to the LIVING AGE for one

year beginning.

Name

Address

City

4-28-23

THE LIVING AGE

VOLUME 317-NUMBER 4112

APRIL 28, 1923

A WEEK OF THE WORLD

THE PLIGHT OF BRITISH AGRICULTURE

GREAT BRITAIN is very seriously alarmed in regard to farm laborers' wages and the general condition of agriculture. The report of the deputation of farmers and farm workers that the Prime Minister received the middle of last month was, as the Daily Telegraph said, 'most deplorable reading,' especially taken in connection with the fact that some thousands of farm laborers had gone out on strike, after a last fruitless effort to reach an agreement, rather than submit to a further wage-reduction, averring that their wages had already been 'cut to the bone.' Twenty-five shillings a week, the average winter wage, certainly means starvation fare. The laborers have now had two miserable years in succession, and their plight is getting very near desperation. As the Telegraph puts it:

'It must be borne in mind, moreover, that it is not in this country alone that the agriculturists are crying out; the farmers in Canada and the United States are also bitterly complaining that at the ruling prices they cannot grow at a profit, and there has even been a very strong agitation among the farmers for American interference in European affairs because the German

market has been closed to their produce. When, not only in cereals, where British prices are governed by world prices, but in potatoes, where we are entirely self-supporting, heavy losses are made by the growers, what practical steps can be taken by the Government to help an industry which is in so parlous a state?

"The nationalization of the land, which is offered as a remedy by the Labor Party, because that is the one quack-medicine bottle to which they have recourse whenever they are asked to prescribe for an industry in difficulties, does not offer the slightest hope of raising the laborer's wages or keeping him on the land. Agriculture is short of capital; the big landlords, who used regularly to come to the rescue of their tenants in bad times, are now crippled and overburdened with taxation and have no money to spare. Rural land has had burden after burden flung upon it without a thought as to how the money was to be raised. . . . Agricultural land, in fact, is waterlogged by the rates, and the farmer pays very dearly for the smooth and costly roads through his district, toward which he contributes an amount entirely disproportionate to his use of them.

"The future is as black as it was in the eighties of last century. In fact, it Copyright 1983, by the Living Age Co.

is worse, for certain remedies then suggested have been tried and speedily abandoned. bluntly told those who waited upon him that they must not look either for subsidy or for Protection, and, compared with these, the measures which the Government has in hand are palliatives of limited scope.

The Prime Minister

'We must await, of course, the report of the Tribunal of Economists, which was appointed last Christmas to investigate what other nations have done to stay the processes of agricultural decay, before the Government can be asked to see whether another attempt at a national agricultural policy is possible, which shall be accepted by all parties in the State. But we are not optimistic. Such a policy must inevitably demand some sacrifice of cheapness from the urban dweller, who, we fear, has little knowledge or understanding of the countryman; while the constant teaching of the Labor Party is that the landlord is an incubus and the farmer a hard-fisted tyrant toward the laborer.

'But if agriculturists are finally told that they must just do the best they can for themselves, because the State can do nothing for them, the acreage under the plough will shrink rapidly and the number of those who live by agriculture in the villages will dwindle at a similar pace. That will be an unqualified disaster for the arable counties, and a disaster also for the highest national interests of the State.

'It is notorious that hundreds of those who bought their farms at high prices and largely on borrowed capital three years ago are to-day either hopelessly insolvent or on the brink of insolvency, in spite of the £46,000,000 loaned to the farming industry by the big banks, which have more than vindicated their reputation against the

common reproach that it was from their close-fistedness that the farmers were suffering. The farmers have their neck in the forks, and we do not see how they are to be extricated. . . .

"The British farmer cannot grow cereals except at a heavy loss at the world prices now ruling, and any British Government which proposed a measure of Protection on his behalf would at once be swept away by the torrent of agitation from the urban populations, who look to no interest where the price of food is concerned but their own, and are so taught by their political and party guides. Nor would a temporary subsidy be of any avail. Other industries, such as mining, have asked for it, and have been refused. Prices, indeed, may rise and the position improve somewhat; on the other hand, they may go lower, and the position will get worse.'

SHERRY AND DRIED FISH

Ir seems an odd combination, but it is threatening to throw out of gear the economic machinery of several European states, namely Norway, Spain, and Portugal. The question is particularly important for Norway, as the sale of dried codfish is one of the main sources of her wealth, this commodity having been, in times past, sold mainly to Spain and Portugal, many varieties going thither exclusively. But there arose suddenly an absolute antagonism between fish and sherry-in other words, between the idealistic reformers of Norway and the wine-growers of Spain and Portugal. The interesting and tragic tale is thus told by the Manchester Guardian of March 26:

'In view of the importance to Norway of this trade, there were commercial agreements between these countries and Norway, establishing reciprocally favorable import duties, the main

exports of Spain and Portugal being, of course, wine. This arrangement was brusquely interrupted when in 1920 Norway prohibited within her borders the sale of liquor containing more than 14 per cent alcohol. The decision,based on a somewhat inconclusive plebiscite result (one third of the population did not trouble to vote), made havoc of Norway's trade treaties.

'France, as the most important complainant, was squared with the promise that 400,000 litres of heavy French wine "for medical and scientific purposes" would none the less be imported annually. Long and tiresome negotiations with Spain took place next, and Norway had to consent to import, on a similar pretext, 500,000 litres from Spain. Smallest and least powerful, Portugal showed herself the most exacting of all, and would not hear of a lesser concession than 850,000 litres.

'Meanwhile the commercial treaties had been denounced, and thousands of fisher-folk were only being kept from ruin by Government aid. A Government Commission had, however, decided that Norway's annual requirements of wine for medical and scientific purposes were only 300,000 litres. The Storting felt, with reason, that it was below the dignity of Norway to remain in so equivocal a situation, professing on the one hand to have "gone dry," on the other hand promising to import six times as much heavy wine as she really needed "for special purposes." It was on the refusal of the House to ratify the Portuguese agreement that the Radical Blehr Cabinet fell a few days ago. A Conservative Cabinet has now taken office with the expressed intention of repealing the Prohibition Act and restoring the old pre-prohibition trade agreements as far as possible.

"Theoretically, there is a majority of prohibitionists in the Legislature, and the Repeal Act is doomed to be cast

out, which will mean another Cabinet crisis and a continuance of the dire situation of the fishers. It is possible, however, in these circumstances that some of the less extreme Dries may vote against their creed.

"The position is one of great complexity for all concerned. It illustrates well the extreme difficulties which attend efforts on the part of small and progressive countries to go ahead of the rest of the world in social policy. We sympathize with the Norwegian idealists, but one can also understand that the Spaniards and Portuguese are somewhat startled to find the generous vintages of the warm south classed with opium as unfit objects of commerce.'

JAPANESE FARMERS' POLITICAL
APATHY

THE old complaint of American leaders, and never more often repeated than to-day, that the average citizen is too little interested in politics even to go to the polls, is now being seriously raised in Japan. Mr. Bunji Suzuki, often called the 'father of labor organization in Japan,' has expressed himself very pessimistically on this subject in a recent number of the Taiyo, his article being summed up by a writer in the Herald of Asia of March 10. No doubt the repeated failure of the manhoodsuffrage bill to become law in Japan has much to do with Mr. Suzuki's pessimism.

'In the first place Mr. Suzuki mentions the undeniable fact that the ancient doctrine, "Don't let the people learn, but rely on the Government," still holds sway over the minds of much the larger half of Japanese population. True, the Restoration of 1868 completely overthrew the feudalistic régime of Tokugawa Shogunate; but those who succeeded to power then were not of the merchant or farmer

class, but of the samurai or aristocratic class, though of a somewhat lower

stratum.

'In 1891 constitutionalism was adopted with the promulgation of the Constitution and the establishment of Parliament; but the representatives then elected were all from the intellectuals and the well-to-do people, as they still largely are. Thus, even after more than half a century since the fall of feudalism, and after more than thirty odd years of parliamentary régime, politics and the government still remain in the hands of the bourgeois class and political parties which make a business of it not in those of the people in general.

'Secondly, Mr. Suzuki points to the wave of pollution and corruption now sweeping over the political world of the country, as causing many people to turn away with disgust from anything taken up by political parties. The fact is, the people at large being divorced from politics, bureaucrats and political parties can do almost anything, when they join their hands, and the situation gets worse when any one party gets into power and has the government under its control. All scandals are stifled and silenced by the powers that be, at the beck and call of the party on top.

"Thirdly, Mr. Suzuki says the influence of those who despise politics must not be overlooked. The number of such as these may not necessarily be very large; but the fact is undeniable that the syndicalistic and anarchistic propaganda has of late been bearing fruit among the working class.

"The preceding observations cause Mr. Suzuki to doubt that the Japanese people as a whole are possessed of any political ideas. Destitute of such ideas, a very large number of Japanese are, of course, without political ideals. Democracy is an ideal, and the latter

day political movement in Japan, especially the suffrage agitation, is unquestionably heading toward that ideal. But the people at large don't know it and don't care about it.

'However, Mr. Suzuki is by no means disposed to be hopeless concerning the political capabilities of the Japanese people. Everything in the past has been against their understanding or taking interest in politics. He is fervently hopeful that the better-informed leaders among the populace will take up the matter and form a popular political body to engage in this all-important work of giving a sound political education to the people, the masses.'

PERPLEXITIES OF NATIONALITY

M. GABRIEL HANOTAUX Comments in La Prensa upon the difficulty of inaugurating a 'policy of nationality' in many parts of Europe, due to the fact that 'races are so intermixed that it is almost impossible to justly assign to each its rightful territory, its own parish, its origin, and its ancestors.'

'In Constantinople,' M. Hanotaux says, referring to the time of his ambassadorship in Turkey, 'I had among my servants a huge man a terrible figure with an enormous moustache, whose principal occupation consisted in running before my carriage, armed to the teeth, with pistols and daggers in his sash and a lance in his hand, "to clear the way for His Excellency." However, he was a fellow of the sweetest and most submissive disposition. One day he appeared, his face streaming with blood, to ask my protection. Knowing that, in spite of Mohammed's prohibition, my "cavas" never despised the blessed fruit of the vineyards, I at first paid no attention to his complaints. But they became so insistent that I decided to listen to his

« PreviousContinue »