their cattle to graze without adequate guard. Even yet there is much underfeeding in many parts of the country, and the foreign rations, as dear as they are, must still be accepted. Alto gether, the several foreign organiza

tions feed over 1,500,000 children and 130,000 grown persons.

A correspondent indulges in the following slap at Americans: 'American philanthropy is criticized as being extremely expensive. Not only are the representatives of the A. R. A. (American Relief Association) quite as good business men as they are philanthropists, but they have caused complaint by their demands, which are out of all comparison with the scale of living in Russia. An American day's ration costs the Russian Government twice what a Russian ration costs.'

The belief and trust in their own efforts is beginning to show among the Russians. The peasant's vitality is working out his salvation.

It is by no means an impossibility that, under the changed conditions of to-day, the question of financial control may serve as a basis for new negotiations with satisfactory results. If Germany makes an for her withdrawal, it will prove a clever effort to build for France a golden bridge move; for either France will gladly grasp the opportunity to escape from her Ruhr adventure, or Germany will in any case have shown the world that she has laid all her cards on the table, and is willing to allow her creditors full opportunity of assuring themselves of the injustice of the charge that she has been guilty of deception or concealment in the matter of resources herself in the right and France in the wrong, of every kind. Germany will have put which from the standpoint of morale –

must eventually, if not at once, bear fruit.

A SHEAF OF AMENITIES

THE League of Nations is nothing anyhow but a branch office of the famous French Buccaneer Company, Limited, the stockholders in which do not reside on the Seine.

(RICHARD MAY, in Das Demokratische Deutschland, March 8)

Lloyd George is an indefatigable author. The Daily Chronicle prints a new article from his pen on the Ruhr scientiously he enumerates every smallsituation. It is touching how conest lost opportunity to do something. them all, only the pictures get skewed Without any doubt he is right about round a little in his hands. Nobody but villains appear on the scene, among chief rôle he is anathema anyhow. whom of course Bonar Law plays the Only one villain fails to appear, owing to the modesty of the author!

(Das Demokratische Deutschland, March 3) One can conceive many ways in which the situation (in the Ruhr) may develop, but one hardly conceives of any way in which it would so develop

was

The vast majority of Germans have not desired to throw in their lot with the Bolsheviki, but it is what they will do if no other hope is left. . . . The Treaty of Versailles is a bad treaty; but it cannot be dealt with by France alone as a 'scrap of paper'; it can only be superseded by the consent of the original signatories. The war fought by Britain and America to prevent arbitrary action based on military strength from jeopardizing the general interests and the life of nations. The war was fought to substitute a reign of counsel and of law. . . . The one absolute condition is that this country shall have an equal voice and that our interests shall be equally regarded in all matters concerning economic revival and the future of peace. As a vital concern of our own security and livelihood, that equality must and will be asserted, whether within the Entente or outside it. What is not to be tolerated is a 'scrap of paper' policy excluding this country from the rewriting of the Treaty; and what is impossible is that the British Empire, after its vast war, can become a cipher in the peace.

(London Observer, March 11)

The Government has failed to make its policy clear in regard to the Ruhr, to Mesopotamia, to Palestine, and to rent and housing. But it must place it beyond all possibility of doubt or misconstruction that it means to lower the taxes that at present cripple industry, curtail employment, and prevent that accumulation of new wealth without which we pay off our debts at the peril of making ourselves bankrupt!

(London Sunday Times, March 11)

In our opinion Lord Balfour's Note broadly and generally expressed the underlying truth of the inter-governmental financial transactions - though the phraseology employed did not adequately or precisely express the complicated nature of the transaction.

(London Times, March 12)

MINOR NOTES

THE following little satire is printed in Vorwärts, the official organ of the German Social-Democratic Party:

'Richard B. (proprietor of a prosperous grocery). Oh, the times! If next year is n't better than last, I shall have to shut up shop and go to work!

'Note. Richard B.'s business was never as prosperous as in 1922; particularly last fall, when he sold raisins, almonds, apples, oranges, candles, Christmas-tree decorations, rum and liquors, cigarettes and cigars, soap and perfumes, as fast as he could hand them over the counter. He has just built a third house.

'Hugo H. (baggage master at the railway station). Oh, the times! I don't know where I'll get money to live! That d-d Revolution!

'Note. Hugo H. was hard up before the war. A son and three daughters depended on him for support. Now the son and one of the daughters are married and supporting themselves.

The second daughter is engaged and expects to help her husband in his business. The youngest daughter is married and lives at home. Her husband earns more than Hugo H. This reduces household expenses. They buy many luxuries that they could not have were the families living separately.

'Paul N. (tenement owner who raises poultry and pigeons as a side-line). Oh, the times! My property is my ruin. It's eating up my earnings and my savings and making me a beggar.

'Note. Paul N. has poultry yards in his garden, and a pigeon cote in his attic. His chickens and pigeons win valuable prizes at poultry shows. He sells his best specimens abroad for foreign money, or to landowners, manufacturers, and dealers, taking payment in kind. He gave his wife for Christmas one hundred Dutch gulden, and each of his children fifty. The family Christmas table was loaded to capacity with bolts of cloth, china, jewelry, and other gifts.

'Emil Gr. (a young man). Oh, the times! There's nothing good left in the world. If this continues, I'll shoot myself!

'Note. Emil Gr. lives with his parents, who are well off. His allowance equals what many have to support a whole family. He dresses in the latest style from his shoes to his expensive velour hat. He always wears new kid gloves, and no one has yet seen him without a cigarette in his mouth.

'Bruno F. (gentleman farmer). Oh, the times! Unless they mend, agriculture is ruined!

'Note. Last fall his only daughter was married. The wedding festivities lasted four days, and forty-eight guests were entertained. The manor house has just been renovated. Although the old mansion is roomy enough, a new wing was added. In spite of all these expenses, the father was able to present his daughter a piano for her birthday, and a set of skunk furs for Christmas.'

COMMANDER KENWORTHY, a brilliant young naval officer and once champion boxer of the British navy, is the son and heir of Lord Strabolgi, but in spite of these facts is now sitting as a radical Laborite in Parliament, where he is generally regarded as an enfant terrible. Not long ago he returned from a visit to Russia and, in reply to the question as to what will happen if Lenin dies, said:—

Nothing. The Government is quite strong enough to go on without him now. Two years ago it would have been a different matter. Now the Government is strong enough to carry on itself. The only thing is that the moderate element will be weakened and the natural evolution that is taking place as the result of Lenin's success in obtaining the adoption of the New Economic Policy will be retarded. It is a great pity that we did not come to an understanding with Russia before the possibility of Lenin's death or retirement occurred, for we shall not get such good terms now.

ONE of the consequences of the German revolution was the dislocation of the State. It was not unforeseen: statesmen who well knew their fellow countrymen, as Bismarck in his Thoughts and Reminiscences, and Prince Bülow in his German Policies, predicted that revolution in their country would generate anarchy and moral decay. Experience has confirmed these predictions. This phenomenon is the more remarkable because the German State, as conceived by its philosophers and realized by its creators, the State apotheosized by Hegel and exalted above the people for the inIdividual to be sacrificed to it, was the strong State. It implied the condition of never being shaken at its foundations. But the military defeat and the revolution have not only given it a body blow; they have well nigh destroyed the army, weakened and demoralized the civil service bureaucracy that supported the State, and have left the workingmen's syndicates and the trusts at the mercy of new forces that have grown strong under favorable conditions. The workers have overturned the Government; but the big industries are the ones who up to the present have profited by this upheaval.

In Germany, as in other belligerent countries, the exigencies of national defense had given a tremendous impetus to manufacturing. At the same time, its importance grew because of its representatives' influence with the Government, which could not spare

them. The same phenomenon has been noted in other countries; but, whereas in those countries peace gradually put things in place again, the social upheaval of the German revolution has prevented the reëstablishment of an equilibrium.

By giving power to the representatives of the working classes, who used it to introduce into the Constitution and to put in practice the most advanced principles of democracy, the revolution has created a powerful reaction on the part of trusts. These clearly understood that their very existence was jeopardized, and they organized for the struggle. First of all they were prudent enough to refrain from hurting the workingman's feelings. The numerous and complex problems that grew out of the new situation were studied by them jointly with the workingmen's syndicates in the Workmen's Clubs formed in 1918'

enormous trusts, which embrace whole series of industries, from raw material up to the perfectly finished product, the managers of the manufacturing interests represent a moral and material force which the Government cannot avoid reckoning with: all the more because the German State, as the Germans themselves confess, is in a condition of disintegration. Deprived of its traditional mainstays, it has so far found no new ones. Even the Socialists, infatuated with the idea of Councils (Soviets), no longer have their former blind belief in the omnipotence of the State. Grappling with the external difficulties of fulfilling the Treaty of Versailles, the German State is at the same time obliged to meet domestic problems resulting from its financial straits.

In the face of this distress, the industrials see their power grow in virtue of the enormous riches they control. Inflation has ruined three fourths of the population; the small and middle bourgeoisie, the intellectuals, the government employees, the small capitalists, the retired officers, have all been reduced to a degree of misery that we can hardly conceive. Without any violent shocks, as fully complete expropriation took place in Germany as that produced in Russia by the advent of Soviet Communism. The industrials alone managed to escape disaster; in fact they even profited by it, increasing their profits at a rate impossible under normal conditions. The progressive depreciation of the mark allowed them to increase their exports, and consequently enabled them to hoard reserves of foreign money. They further insured themselves against loss by acquiring landed properties and developing their factory equipment in such a way as to increase their output.

Have they offered to help the State

with the riches which they have acquired at the expense of the masses? So far they have either refused or else offered it on conditions which the State deemed impossible to accept in spite of its dire need. The only regular direct tax in Germany to-day is that on salaries and wages, which is automatically deducted from the pay rolls on each pay day. Whenever there was question of loans, the industrials met the Government's demands with either complete inertia or outright refusal. They have tried to take advantage of this to obtain possession of all the railroads of Germany, under the pretext of an inefficient administration of these railroads by the Government.

Recently the question of stabilizing the mark came up, and the industrials showed themselves violently hostile, alleging that measures of stabilization would ruin German industry.

The influence of the captains of industry upon the Government is quite outside of any action of the Parties in the Reichstag. The Volkspartei, which represents their interests, only numbers sixty-two members. They are too clever to attempt to govern directly, while the workingmen's syndicates would have found it quite proper to establish a Labor Government responsible neither to Parliament nor to electors. What they really want is to have a nominal representation which shall bear the whole burden of responsibility in the eyes of the German people and of foreigners. In this manner they enjoy such freedom as would be impracticable if they shared officially in the management of the State.

The manner in which the German Parliament is functioning must also be borne in mind. It is not a majority system like that of England or even of France, where the minorities submit- whether or not of their free