ate, and if that may be called propaganda, it is particularly effective.

"The socialist labor-unionists, who during the war were the backbone of anti-Germanism, have sent aid and encouragement to the Ruhr workers, and at the recent Geneva meeting of the Council of the League of Nations it was their leader, Hjalmar Branting, who raised the question of the practically French administration of the Saar, which was later debated also in the British House of Commons. In addition to the formal protest against the Ruhr occupation, sent to the French Government by the Swedish bishops, Nathan Söderblom, the energetic and internationally-minded Archbishop of Upsala, formerly a student in Paris, has since sent communications of the same tenor to the French press on his personal responsibility.'

Under the heading, 'It Does Concern Us,' the most eminent Swedish Liberal organ, the Göteborgs Handels och Sjöfarts Tidning, writes editorially on May 1 as follows: 'One Swedish business man after another returns from Paris with fresh exhortations to the Swedish public, and first and last to the Swedish press, to observe all caution when speaking of Reparations and the Ruhr. The French have their eyes on us, and are much put out with Sweden. They regard us as victims of German propaganda, easily deceived by its twists and lies. Moreover, they contend, their relations with Germany do not concern us. Unless we hold our tongue, they won't buy our wood. Consequently we had better behave. . . .

"To qualify morally French treatment of disarmed Germany is perhaps unnecessary. History will pass its own verdict. But it may be permitted to recall that those of us who condemned the German invasion of Belgium and the proceedings in northern France were then regarded in Paris as compe

tent to judge, while we are now called incompetent. . . . What was then admirable is now brazen effrontery.'

Ellen Key, the famous radical feminist, writes: "From my youth I have been opposed to the Germany of the Empire, and shall so remain to the end. The Germany of the Rathenau and Landauer assassinations and antiSemitism, as well as that of militarism and the monarchy, is the greatest possible antithesis to the Germany of Goethe. . . . Now, on the other hand, one protest after another echoes against the wrongs committed in the Ruhr. But we all know what satisfaction our bishops obtained from Poincaré and the French protesters. . . . All our political parties, newspapers of all colors, stand united in condemning the French procedures on the Rhine and in the Ruhr. . . . I know that millions in France itself suffer from the violent deeds in the Ruhr. Within a week I have received two testimonies of how deeply French men and women feel. At a time like this it would be easier, they think, to be the anvil than the hammer.'

On the other hand, M. Lazare Weiller, an Alsatian, now representing his province in the French Senate, although originally opposed to the Ruhr occupation, has a word to say in its defense. M. Weiller is an important personality in the industrial world. He is largely interested in railways, mines, and electrical works, was educated at Oxford, and is a Moderate in politics. He recently said in an interview:

"The Ruhr occupation has revealed to many of us what my recent visit to Germany has revealed to me personally; and that is that there is a temper of hatred and revenge in the country which many of us had not suspected. The spirit of Germany remains a danger to Europe. . . . You do not appear to realize in England that under the

cloak of the collapse of her monetary system Germany is building up for herself the most formidable economic power of any country in Europe. By giving herself the appearance of insolvency she is remaking her resources, building railways, canals, museums, and, above all, a merchant navy, which in a year or two will be as strong as before the war.

"The fall of the mark has meant that the German internal debt has virtually disappeared. In a few years there will be a Germany with no internal debt, with no military burden of expenditure, and with an external debt which will consist solely of what she owes to the Allies. This will put Germany in a very strong position politically. It will also greatly increase her capacity to pay. In spite of the latter fact, I should myself be glad to see us accept a very reasonable sum for Reparations, if it were paid at once, rather than look forward to a much larger sum, which would only be liquidated in thirty years' time. . .

"The political danger should, however, in my opinion, be our chief care. It is our security, which is more important to us than anything else. The essence of that security is some kind of buffer state between us and the Rhine. I do not say that later, when we feel ourselves to be no longer in danger and when the temper of Germany has changed, we may not be prepared to make, in harmony with our British friends, territorial or colonial concessions. . . . Meanwhile, we feel the need of some barrier between ourselves and the invader.'

THE KRUPP VERDICT

THE sentencing of Herr Krupp and two of his colleagues to ten and fifteen years' imprisonment and fines of a hundred million marks each, impresses

We regard these monstrous sentences with surprise and dismay, but we are glad to note that protests have been raised in France as well as elsewhere on the ground that such severity will certainly defeat itself. If the Krupp directors had plotted to murder French generals, or had even been consenting parties to infamies of that sort, there would be something to be said for the severity. As it is, we regard it frankly as savage. This is the way to increase German resistance, not to stop it; and yet everybody knows that the French really want to stop it. If Germany had won the war the German Emperor would, no doubt, have treated his victims in this way; but the whole object of the Allied victory, as we conceive it, and, indeed, as it has been officially stated to be on all hands, is to mend what was broken, not to continue the ghastly destruction.

Naturally the Nation, which now stands for Mr. Keynes's policy toward the peace settlement, is even more emphatic in its condemnation:

A handful of French troops having lost their heads in Essen in March, and slaughtered eleven workmen at the Krupp works without a hair of their own heads being touched or threatened, Herr Krupp von Bohlen is in May sentenced by a French court-martial to fifteen years' imprisonment and a fine of a hundred million marks

presumably for the crime of being Herr Krupp von Bohlen, since the evidence given at the trial (the actual charge was complicity in resistance to French orders) revealed no ground of any sort for the infliction of a day's imprisonment or a fine of a mark. This, however, was not the supreme achievement of the court. Herr Schrapler, who was present, and three Krupp directors, who were absent, get twenty years' imprisonment and fines of a hundred million marks apiece. Savagery of this order appears to have caused astonishment even among French in Essen.

The French press gave the decision little editorial comment, though the

trial was reported in full. Captain Duvert, who conducted the prosecution, related the history of the disorders at the Krupp works, where a small detachment of French soldiers was mobbed by the workers when it tried to seize certain automobiles belonging to the establishment, with the result that a conflict ensued in which several employees were killed. Figaro reports his plea as follows. 'Here are the essential phrases of his charge:

'Picture to yourself the directors, the great leaders of the immense Krupp works, remaining impassive in their offices when the mob, at their instigation, threatened to massacre ten poor French soldiers. Imagine their smile as they watched the spectacle from behind the windows of their offices; that smile that they had during the war; their generals wore that smile when German troops burned French villages and massacred their inhabitants.'

German bitterness at the sentence passes description. The correspondent of Berliner Tageblatt says:

clined to interpret it as political. The miners argued that they were merely taking advantage of a favorable economic contingency to strike when they were most likely to win.

According to the Manchester Guardian, although the entire mining community of the Saar suffered greatly, there was 'no violence, rioting, or disturbance whatever.' Notwithstanding this, the Commission issued an extraordinary decree from which we quote the following:

Persons [in the Saar Basin] committing any of the following offenses shall be liable to imprisonment for a period not exceeding five years, and, should the Court so decide, to a fine not exceeding 10,000 francs: In public or at a meeting: (1) casting discredit on the Treaty of Peace of Versailles; (2) insulting or traducing (a) the League of Nations, its members, or the States signatories of the Treaty of Peace of Versailles, (b) the Governing Commission, its members, organizations or officials responsible for the conduct of its administration.

This decree, which was made a subject of protest in the British House of Commons, has since been repealed, but it calls attention to the unsatisfactory nature of the League of Nations' government in this district. The British press asserts that the Commission has been packed by France. The Chairman is a Frenchman close to Poincaré. The Belgian representative always votes with the Chairman. The representative from the Saar is practically a French nominee, replacing a predecessor found guilty in a public court of falsification and perjury; and the representative of Denmark is only nominally a Dane, having resided most of his life in Paris, and speaking French better than his native tongue. The Chairman of the Governing Commission receives a salary, payable from the revenues of the Saar, of 150,000 francs per annum. The other members