MR. BALDWIN, PREMIER MR. BALDWIN's appointment was received with a good press not only in Great Britain but on the Continent. Le Temps said: 'We are happy to see that the outcome corresponds with our silent wish.' In general, the French papers reveal the hope that the new Cabinet will strive to restore the broken ties between London and Paris. Some of the German papers profess to see no prospect that a Conservative Cabinet in Great Britain, no matter who is Premier, will materially change that country's policy toward Reparations; but their comment is friendly. The London Daily Telegraph would have preferred Lord Curzon, but reconciles itself to the King's choice with a good countenance. The London Outlook ob serves: A silent constitutional revolution has taken place this week, which will be duly chronicled by some future Hallam of Parliament. The King's action in passing over Lord Curzon may have been well-advised, and perfectly right in the circumstances, but it does mean that in future no Peer can hope to be Prime Minister. The great Lord Salisbury, who resigned twenty years ago, was the last of a line which included Russells, Derbys, and half the great names of England. There is something ironic in the conclusion that no peer shall get to the top. The Times quotes the characterization of Mr. Baldwin which it published last December on the eve of his departure for America in connection with the debt negotiations: We would find him, if we troubled to take it down from our shelves, in a volume of the Spectator or in a novel of Jane Austen's. He is the type of country squire who, but for the increasing demands of high office, would rarely visit London and would be more at home in ancient Athens than in Paris. Mr. Baldwin is a blend of several characteristic English types. He is at one and the same time a captain of industry, a country gentleman, a scholar, and a politician. Several papers quote as characteristic of the man his remark at the complimentary luncheon given to T. P. O'Connor a few weeks ago, expressing his wish to go back to his country home 'to read the books I want to read, to live a decent life, and to keep pigs.' The Liberal Manchester Guardian, while it rates the new Premier a leader of the Die-Hards, who were implacable toward Ireland, and a Protectionist, on account of his record in securing a tariff on fabric gloves, grants that he is to be preferred to Lord Curzon in foreign policies, which he approaches with an open mind. That journal assumes Copyright 1923, by the Living Age Co that he favors the new-school Leagueof-Nations type of diplomacy, considering that he could not have secured Lord Robert Cecil as a colleague unless he had satisfied him on that point. It may not be so generally known that Mr. Baldwin's domestic associations are literary and also that he has a Radical member in his own household. Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Professor Mackail are his first cousins and favorite companions. One of his sons, Mr. Oliver Baldwin, is a proved Socialist, though a violent opponent of Bolshevism, on account of his experiences with the Bolsheviki in Armenia. REVIVING RUSSIA ACCORDING to information received from a gentleman who has just returned from the Crimea, where he has resided for five years, most of the time under Bolshevist rule, the famine is gradually passing away. One notes the change upon the streets, where it is no longer a common thing to see the bodies of animals and human corpses lying unattended. Horses again look well-fed; and most of the wares found in western Europe can be purchased in the shops if one has enough money. Crop prospects are excellent so far as the fields have been planted; but it will take several years to restore normal agricultural prosperity on account of the shortage of seed and of draft animals. The famine has been followed by a plague of mice, due to the fact that most of the cats were eaten during the famine. To-day a good mouser is worth sixty million rubles. In Asiatic Russia a process of political and economic centralization is under way. At an economic congress held at Tashkent last March, it was decided to establish a single commercial, agricultural, postal, and railway administration for Bokhara, Turkes tan, and Khiva, and to abolish the paper currency issued by the individual states. Simultaneously the Russian system of taxes will be introduced in Khiva and Bokhara. These changes mark a reversal of the policy of decentralization hitherto followed by the Soviet Government. The resumption of private trading has made progress in the cities, but lags behind in the country, because merchants in the provinces are still subject to the arbitrary dictates of local authorities. Ruinous taxes are levied upon them, and they cannot secure credit. The result is that many of the private shops opened when the new decree went into effect have been closed, and those who thus embarked their capital have lost all they possessed. Between the Bolshevist revolution and the introduction of the new economic policy a year ago, the population of the cities rapidly declined. With the partial restoration of private trading and private industry, the urban population is again increasing. For example Moscow, which had 952,000 inhabitants registered at the end of August, 1920, now reports 1,441,744. Many provincial towns have grown thirty to sixty per cent. Arcos, Ltd., which acts as the commercial agent for the Russian Government and handles practically all the trade between Great Britain and Russia, has published full-page advertisements in the English papers, containing a summary of its transactions through the United Kingdom. These aggregated, between January, 1920, and April 30, 1923, - a period of two years and four months, somewhat over $100,000,000; or in round numbers $60,000,000 worth of goods purchased through Great Britain, and $40,000,000 worth of produce sold to that country or through British agencies. Further more, Arcos has made contracts to deliver the present year some $65,000,000 worth of timber, grain, flax, oil, minerals, and furs to the United Kingdom, and is negotiating for the purchase there of coal, machinery, and chemicals to the value of over $15,000,000. 'Last year Arcos chartered eightytwo British steamers for this business, apart from the large number of part cargoes which went by regular lines.' The announcement concludes as follows: There is one point on which there seems to be considerable misunderstanding in the British Press - the question of compensation for property nationalized by the Russian Government. On more than one occasion the Russian Government has stated its willingness to come to terms with former owners of property in Russia. That this is no mere empty promise is proved by the agreements concluded, for example, in connection with the timber industry of Northern Russia. THE SANTIAGO CONFERENCE WAS the Pan-American Congress at Santiago a failure? The South American and the European press so rate it. La Prensa, of Buenos Aires, attributes this to the deep and secret resentment the Latin-American delegates felt at the preponderant influence of the United States, and Washington's desire 'to bring about an economic and commercial unification of all America.' It compliments the American delegation, however, and especially Dr. Rowe, Director of the Bureau of American Republics, for showing 'great talent and delicate tact in handling the situation.' In addition to this fundamental obstacle, 'the absence of Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia, the unsettled question of the Pacific, the protests of Haiti and Santo Domingo against the military intervention of the United States, and the reciprocal irritability of other Re At the present time the majority of publics made the success of the Con claims relating to the northern timberregion have been settled — including that of the British Government for £180,000. Private claims have actually been settled through the establishment of a number of mixed companies with Norwegian, Dutch, and English capital; among these may be mentioned the Russangloless, the Russhollandless, and the Russnorvegoless. These companies have been granted concessions by the Russian Government and have in fact already made considerable progress in their work. Out of the profits representing their share in the enterprises, the former property-owners find the compensation for their former rights. There can be no doubt whatever that if other so-called 'creditors of Russia' would enter into negotiations they would probably be equally successful in getting a settlement of their claim, which, while giving them the material compensation they desire, would at the same time help in the restoration of Russian industry, to the mutual benefit of all parties. ference hopeless.' Its failure was signalized by its virtual sanctioning of an armed peace against the real conviction of all the delegates; and therefore the Pan-American Congress adjourned leaving an unsolved problem of transcendental importance for this half of the hemisphere: the problem arising out of the struggle between two ideals, the feudal romanticism of military castes, and the liberal aspirations of those who would preserve and redeem our civilization:' España, a Madrid Liberal weekly, says: "The only triumph at Santiago was the triumph of the people in a hurry,' for the Conference concluded its labors with model promptness. The failure to agree upon disarmament is regarded as a disaster. 'A modern cruiser costs to-day about 5,000,000 pounds sterling, a sum that would build and equip ready for operation 600 miles of railway in South America.' A Spanish correspondent of L'Europe Nouvelle interpreted the Congress as a struggle between the United States, which desires to monopolize the Monroe Doctrine for its own interests, and Latin America, whose Governments are seeking to put that Doctrine in the keeping of a Pan-American League. Spain hoped that the Conference might mark the beginning of an era of fraternal coöperation among the American Governments a hope that seems destined to be disappointed. The German press attributes the comparative non-success of the Conference to the unanimous resentment of the South American Republics at Washington's attitude toward Mexico, but hails with approval the Disarmament Treaty entered into by the Central American Republics, and the Arbitration Treaty agreed upon by the representatives of the same States, to which our country is also a party. British dispatches are, almost without exception, sarcastic and critical. The correspondent of the Daily Telegraph reported that the Conference 'gave evidence of a high spirit of solidarity,' but that 'from a practical point of view nothing has been done.' The Argentine delegation was honestly in favor of disarmament, but Brazil and Chile, who were working together, defeated this programme, the former by demanding an unfair army-ratio, the latter by placing the naval minimum too high. The Times speaks of the Conference as a comparative failure. It emphasizes the compromise reached in regard to representation in the Pan-American Union, which was formerly confined to diplomatic representatives accredited to Washington. That system enabled the United States Government to exclude from the Union any country it desired by refusing to recognize its Minister as happened, for instance, in the case of Mexico. Under the new arrangement, a Government whose diplomatic relations with the United States are interrupted nevertheless has the right to name a special representative. The change is regarded as a victory of Latin America over AngloSaxon hegemony. The stress laid upon economic questions in the agenda was offensive to many Latin Americans, who regarded it as an attempt on the part of the United States to secure a privileged position in their markets. The shadow of the Monroe Doctrine lay over the Conference. It became more and more apparent as the weeks went by that the Doctrine must be considered as the special and sole possession of the United States, something in whose application no help is needed or desired. However right and expedient this may seem to the Government of the United States, it nevertheless presents the Monroe Doctrine to LatinAmerican eyes rather as the right of North Americans to interfere in their affairs than as a guaranty of political independence against European conquest; and the happenings at Santiago, rightly or wrongly, If anything, it was the spirit of Latin-Americanism rather than Pan-Americanism that was encouraged at Santiago. have increased this fear. A Spanish-American resident of Great Britain concludes a sarcastic letter to the Times upon the Conference with the following sentence, which is illuminating, not as expressing the attitude of all or perhaps even an influential minority of the people of our sister republics, but nevertheless as voicing a sentiment that must be reckoned with and understood: So long as our elder brother of the North' will persist in instituting a Pan-American Confederation with a Central Government at Washington, so long will it be 'not a bad joke'! Among the measures of European counter-propaganda to the Santiago Conference may be included the Congrès de la Presse Latine at Paris. At this meeting, which was reported at length in South American journals and attended by several Latin-American journalists, it was decided to establish a permanent Latin press-bureau at Paris; and the editors present agreed 'to publish a department in their papers entitled "Latin-American News," in order to accustom their readers to the idea that there are Latin and nonLatin countries, and that the former are their closest kin in both mind and blood.' The comment upon this conference discloses the sentiment that inspired it: 'English and Americans have the immense advantage of absolute linguistic unity. There is no Anglo-Saxon language, only the English tongue. The Scandinavian countries, Holland, Germany, and German-Austria, are closely allied by ties of language, literature, and thought. . . . Spanish is already a more important commercial language than French, on account of South America. . . . That is an opening through which Germanic influences find ready access to purely Latin territory.' IRISH ISSUES LAND, labor, and religion promise to be outstanding issues in Ireland - if British and Irish press-comment afford a basis for reliable prognosticationas soon as the personal and political animosities, already beginning to spend their force, have subsided. The land question will not down, especially in the West, the region of the small farmer. Land and politics are closely associated. Fathers are conservative Free-Staters, while landless sons whose chief aim in life is to get a farm, and who are not particular how they do so, favor the Republicans. Indeed, Sovietism is cropping out here and there. The Freeman's Journal reports several rural Soviets in West Clare. These do not aspire to the higher and more idealistic functions of government upon which Lenin and his colleagues lay much stress. Their aim is exclusively practical and material. They consist of groups of landless men who organize and seize considerable stretches of farm land and grazing-country and levy rents from the legitimate owners. The Freeman's Journal says: "The real blame rests, not with the peasants who exploit the chaos for their own profit, but with those who provide them with the opportunity. . . . The Toorahara Soviet and other enterprises in Clare and outside it are the concrete expression of Irregular theories in practice.' A correspondent of the Manchester Guardian predicts that the coming elections will return some twenty Republicans out of a hundred and fifty seats to the next Parliament, and that the discontented and semilawless class of small farmers' younger sons will constitute the most numerous element in the Republican electorate. However, Labor is proselyting among the rural laborers and encouraging agrarian discontent. Some of its radical leaders propose to confiscate not only the big estates but the excess holdings of all farmers who own more than two hundred acres. The cooler heads among the Labor people do not back such a programme, but it is likely to divert a part of the restless rural vote to the Labor ticket, and may give that party one third of the seats in the next Parliament. There is certain to be an agricultural bloc in any Irish legislature. Indeed, it will probably be the strongest group in the coming Parliament. Its members are expected to support the present Free State Government, because they will be Moderates and Conservatives anxious to restore order as speedily and |