garia and is nothing more than sour milk gone solid, and Turkish coffee scented with rosewater.

So perhaps after a meal of that sort the Byronic prescription may not be altogether amiss.

III

THE LAND OF THE WRONG WAY ROUND

Psychology is supposed to interpret all things nowadays, and I should very much like a psychological explanation of a very curious way they have in Greece. The Greeks are, and always have been, a people who gesticulate freely when speaking. But it is with an almost uncanny sensation that you suddenly realize that their gesticulations mean precisely the opposite of our own.

Watch a man in the street calling to a friend. Instead of beckoning to himthat is, instead of crooking his finger and drawing it towards him-he pushes his hands vigorously outwards, and then gives a little backward gesture. And if he wants his friend to go away, sure enough he starts to beckon.

In

In

It is the land of the wrong way round. For if you are observant you I will notice that this trait is repeated a hundred times in the national life. Take the case of language. One of the great difficulties of learning modern Greek lies in the words "yes" and "no." the other languages one learns the negative always begins with an "n." French it is non, in German nein, in Spanish and Italian and English it is no. And so when you hear a Greek say nay you think, quite naturally, that he means "no." But nay is the Greek for "yes," and when you want to say "no" you have to make strange noises in your throat which make you feel quite ready to agree to anything.

STORMS OF TWENTY-TWO CENTURIES"

In

It is the land of the wrong way round. Even nature seems to be affected. the green lemon groves of the Peloponnesus I have seen the wavy lemon blossoms bursting into bud on the lower branches, while the top of the tree is loaded with ripe yellow fruit.

It is a land where, literally, they sow before they plow. You see the peasants scattering seed on the hard fields. And then you see them go with their primiitive plows and churn up the earth till you would think that there was no seed left to come to fruition.

It is a land where even in social life one sees the same upside-down tendency. When you arrive in Athens, you must You not expect people to call on you. have to call on them first and leave cards on quantities of people with highly barbaric names and highly civilized butlers. (The Greeks have a passion for leaving cards, and I have seen an elaborate screen decorated with the names of thousands of callers in the house of a particularly popular hostess.)

Finally, I have just eaten a meal in which we began with a sort of liqueur and ended with white wine and tea. And I have just received a letter which was addressed on the envelope to "Esquire Nichols." Have you any need of further proof?

IV

THE AMBER CHAIN

At first I thought it was for a friend of the other sex. Then I thought it had something to do with religion-like a rosary. And, finally, I was told that it was chiefly popular as a cure for smoking.

What is this strange thing which might have so many uses, and which one sees everywhere in the streets of Ath

ens?

Watch the crowd that surges down the streets of white marble, and in the hands of one man out of every ten you will see it glittering-a chain of amber beads.

For somebody, in a moment of inspiration, discovered that a great deal of the pleasure of smoking lies not only in its narcotic effect on the nerves, but in the mechanical pleasure of holding something between the fingers. Appease that pleasure by giving yourself something to play with, and half the craving for tobacco is gone.

It sounds extravagant, and, wellforeign. One can hardly imagine a fashionable young Englishman wandering down Bond Street with a necklace of beads in his hands. And yet an English officer told me that during the war. when he had to keep watch for hours at a time, when smoking was forbidden, his little amber chain was the one thing that kept him quiet.

And so all over the south of the Balkans there are fingers playing unceasingly with these yellow beads. One seems to hear the echo of them even in the distant hills.

This habit is typical of the mingling of West with East. For Greece is, of all countries in the world, the one in which it is hardest to decide in which century you are living.

Of course, superficially, you are as The modern as anybody in Athens. streets are full of trams, which run off the line in the most natural manner possible, and on any of the outlying hills of the Greek capital you may meet a Ford climbing up with true American persistence.

You can stay at a hotel where the cocktails are the best you ever tasted, and where you sleep in a room with

IN

N these days of business depression it is not surprising that, as in similar industrial depressions in the past, the unthinking masses should look for relief through increasing the supply of the medium that buys things-money. To the question, Why do not the one hundred million consumers buy the food, clothing, and other commodities of which there is more than enough for all? the reply is obvious: Lack of money. Therefore let the Government make more money seems to be the casier way to start the clogged streams of distribution, and so we have again a revival of what may be termed the "cheap money" movement that has occupied so largely the field of National politics at recurrent periods during the past forty years.

During the general depression that followed the Civil War the popular demand for more "greenbacks" would have swept the country into an era of irredeemable currency and long prevented an industrial and trade revival had it not been for the firmness of President Grant, who vetoed the bill providing for increased issues of the paper money that had been resorted to as a war measure. Then came the fight, led by Richard P. Bland, for the free and unlimited coinage of silver dollars at the ratio of 16 to 1, that was defeated only by the adoption of what was .known as the Sherman Silver-Purchase Act, under which the Government was forced to purchase annually large quantities of silver bullion, against which Treasury certificates were issued. This action delayed for a time the popular agitation for free coinage, but when in 1893 President Cleveland, alarmed by the effect on the National finances of the rapidly increasing hoard of useless silver, successfully urged upon Congress the repeal of the Sherman Law, the demand for what was termed "the money of the Constitution" became so strong that in 1896 the Democratic National Convention was controlled by the freesilver advocates, and W. J. Bryan was nominated for President on a platform declaring for the immediate resumption of silver coinage at the 16-to-1 ratio. Although the Democrats had the support of many free-silver Republicans in the sensational campaign that followed Mr. Bryan's nomination, the sound common

CHEAP MONEY

BY WHIDDEN GRAHAM

sense of the American people prevailed, and, while in 1900 the Democratic party reaffirmed the platform of 1896, free coinage was dropped as the chief issue and Mr. Bryan made his second campaign on the platform of opposition to what he called the imperialistic policy of the Republicans following the war with Spain.

Apart from the free-silver movement the early nineties saw the rise of the Populist party in the Southern and Mississippi Valley States. While the Populists declared themselves to be essentially an anti-monopoly party, with varying platforms in different States, they agreed in favoring the abolition of the National banking system and the issuing of Government notes based upon stable farm products stored in public warehouses. For a time the new party, which polled over a million votes in 1892 for General Weaver as Presidential candidate, threatened to hold the balance of power, but with the capture of the Democratic party by the free-silver contingent it soon faded away.

The very grave defects in our National banking system, which furnished an insufficient supply of an unelastic currency, were conceded for many years, but the public sentiment in the farming districts of the country was so strongly opposed to what was thought to be "the banker's monopoly" that it was impossible to secure action by Congress establishing a better system. Any plan put forward for the adoption of better banking methods was promptly condemned by Senators and Representatives, who professed to speak for the farmers, as the work of Wall Street and the "money king," and thus sorely needed reforms were long delayed, with great injury, not only to commercial and industrial interests, but chiefly to the welfare of the farmers.

The enactment of the Federal Reserve Bank Law, under the wise leadership of President Wilson, was made possible only by his skillful management of his party's leaders, who ignored the traditional attitude of hostility toward banks dating from President Jackson's attack on the United States Bank, and by the cordial co-operation of the Republicans in both houses of Congress. Of all the legislation enacted during the eight years of Mr. Wilson's Administration

the adoption of the Federal Reserve Act is by far the most important. Without it there can be no question that we should now be suffering from the effects of a Nation-wide panic that would have resulted in almost universal bankruptcy.

During the five years of inflation and high prices for farm products that re sulted from the World War the farmers were prosperous, and the money question dropped out of sight in National politics. The urgent demand for capital for the purchase of implements, fertilizers, etc., needed to assure greater production of farm crops was met to a large extent by the Federal Reserve System and the Farm Loan banks. Prices of staple farm products advanced one hundred per cent and there was a ready market for everything the farmers had to sell. With their greater incomes the farmers vastly increased their purchases of all kinds of goods, thus adding to the prosperity of our manufacturers, merchants, and bankers. The price of farm lands in most sections of the country steadily increased, and many thousands of farms were bought or leased at figures far beyond the prevailing values of 1913. The sales of motor cars to farmers mounted up to millions and of motor trucks to hundreds of thousands. It seemed as though the farmer had at last come into his rightful share of the wealth that his industry produces.

From this dream of permanent 'prosperity came the rude awakening of 1920, when almost without warning the farmers found themselves confronted by an amazing deflation in values of all farm products. How far this was due to world-wide conditions that checked the ability of other countries to buy our surplus crops need not be considered here. Whatever the causes, the fact remains that the shrinkage in values of staple farm products has already amounted to at least ten billion dollars, a direct loss to the farmers of that amount, with consequent widespread distress and in many thousands of cases bankruptcy. Tenant farmers who had made long leases based on war-time prices found themselves unable to meet expenses or to pay their rent, and are being forced off the land. In Iowa alone, Herbert Quick, a well-known authority on farm conditions, asserts that thousands of farmer tenants have al

the ready been evicted, and that the renter's

the an

situation is daily becoming more acute. Similar testimony from experienced observers everywhere confirms President Harding's statement to the recent Agricultural Conference at Washington, to the effect that millions engaged in farming are in sore distress and must have immediate relief if they are barely to exist.

In considering the farmer's protest against existing conditions it must be remembered.that the process of deflation from war prices has not, to any material extent affected his expenditures. Retail prices of manufactured articles have fallen somewhat, but are still from forty to sixty per cent higher than seven years ago. Freight rates are very much higher, coal is at least one hundred per ecent dearer, and fertilizers, farm imple

16

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ments, and other things that the farmer must have cost much more than before the war. The farmer, therefore, has a real grievance in that he has had to bear the greater burden of the collapse in prices.

Given these conditions, what is the remedy? To millions of farmers it appears to be a return to higher prices through Government action in increas

to a ing the supply of money and giving better facilities for loans on farm lands and staple products. In some quarters there has developed a strong sentiment in favor of Federal fixing of prices, so as to guarantee the farmer a minimum price, but this is admitted to be of little permanent value. It could not apply to our large surplus of products, for which a market must be found abroad, since the foreigners would not buy our products so long as such countries as Australia, the Argentine, and Canada have a surplus for export at lower rates. So the drift of farm sentiment is turning again to the problem of more money as an agency for inflating prices and to enable the farmers to hold their crops for more favorable selling conditions. The relatively small contraction in the Nation's volume of currency is pointed to as one of the contributing causes of low-priced farm products, and in every farming district of the South, Middle West, and Northwest the cheap money agitators are busily engaged in propaganda for one method or another of increasing the money supply. The first indication of a return to the belief in Government aid through more money and direct loans of public funds to the farmers manifested in Congress was the demand for the appointment of a farmer to the Federal Reserve Board. The speeches in the Senate in support of this innovation were filled with attacks on banks and bankers, quite in the style of the Populist and free-silver days, and showed that many Senators believe, or are willing to assert, that to a great extent the fall in farm prices was due to the wicked banker's action in calling loans and restricting credits. They also exhibit the old fallacy that the Government has an unlimited supply of credit

that it can extend to a deserving industry, without regard to ultimate results, a notion that has so recently been confuted by the experience of Russia with its Bolshevik paper rubles that it needs no comment.

Another symptom of the return to the more-money delusion as a remedy for economic ills is found in the National Monetary Conference held in Washington, D. C., in December last. Delegates from twenty-four States, including W. H. Har'vey, of "Coin's Financial School" fame (who was one of the leaders in the freesilver movement of 1896), met in convention to arrange for a systematic educational campaign on behalf of what they call an "honest monetary system," under which the power to issue currency will be taken away from the banks, all money to be issued directly by the Government and loaned to individuals through a loan bureau to be created as a branch of the United States Treasury. A bill for this purpose has been introduced by Senator Ladd, of North Dakota, and a vigorous agitation to secure its enactment is to be prosecuted by the National Honest Money Association, which has appropriated the name of an organization formed in 1896 to correct the fallacies of free silver. The Association indorsed Henry Ford's attack on the gold standard; demanded that all paper currency should be issued by the Federal Government and made a full legal tender, not redeemable in coin or metallic reserves, and asked that the making of contracts discriminating against this Government currency should be made a criminal offense. Working along the lines of the Anti-Saloon League, the Association plans to give its support to the candidates for Senators or Representatives in Congress who are most likely to favor its policies, and does not contemplate the formation of a new party. I am informed by representatives of the organized farmers that, while the leaders in the great farm associations have not the slightest sympathy with this new cheap-money movement, it has undoubtedly secured a considerable following, particularly among the farmers of the South and Middle West, and they believe that unless there is a material improvement in farm condi tions the sentiment for radical changes in our banking and currency systems will find expression in Congress to an extent that may seriously hamper the adoption of sane and practical legislation for the relief of agriculture.

Henry Ford's announcement a few weeks ago that he had abandoned his anti-Jewish campaign, for the purpose of leading in a movement for the abolition of the gold standard and the issuing of "energy money" based on wealth production, has aroused the sympathetic interest of all the varied schools of the fiat money and anti-bank propaganda. His statement as to the nature and function of money coming from almost any one else would have been laughed at, but it must be remembered that it

is an American trait to defer to the successful business man as an authority on matters outside his own calling, and there are millions who believe that Mr. Ford's success in manufacturing qualifies him to give advice on almost any subject. His weekly paper has a wide circulation among the farmers, and if, as the fiat money school fondly hope, he puts a small part of his enormous fortune behind his new movement, he may lead the forces of unrest and discontent to an attack on the very basis of our present financial system that will make trouble for years to come.

It is only fair to Mr. Ford to say that in his criticisms of the gold standard he is to some extent encouraged, if not justified, by the arguments put forward by Professor Irving Fisher, of Yale, in favor of what he calls "stabilizing the dollar." Professor Fisher has for some years been engaged in a propaganda to secure legislation by Congress providing for what he thinks would be a "stable dollar" by the simple process of theoretically adding to, or taking from, the amount of gold in the standard coin when the index of a large number of staple commodities shows an advance or decline in price. An organization called the Stable Money League, recently formed for the purpose of promoting an investigation into the subject, owes its existence largely to his efforts to establish what would in effect be a commodity standard for gold, instead of the gold standard for goods. In so far as this League raises the question of stabilizing the prices of farm products by legislation it is directly playing into the hands of Mr. Ford and other enemies of the gold standard, and creates confusion of thought that leads to a totally wrong conception of the nature and functions of a government-established measure of value.

The National Agricultural Conference adopted a programme for legislative action for the benefit of the farmers that should meet with general approval. In the long run the only laws that will help the farmers are those that make it possible for them to co-operate in helping themselves. That there are some defects in our present banking and credit systems that call for amendment may be conceded. If there is discrimination by banks against the farmers, an alleged fact that has not been established, action should be taken to correct abuses of banking power. But there is no justi. fication for a renewal of the warfare against banks as instruments of oppression and agents of monopoly that has so often threatened our financial stability, so essential to the permanent prosperity of all our industries. It will be a calamity if the failure to legislate wisely along the lines suggested by the representative farmers in convention assembled should plunge the country into another sham battle over the money question that would side-track the really important economic issues that urgently demand a prompt solution.

T

HE Goncourt Academy, in crowning "Batouala," a novel by René Maran dealing with life among the natives of Central Africa, has again created surprise. The laureate, a Negro born on the island of Martinique, but educated in France and at present employed in the French colonial service, was perhaps even more obscure than Ernest Pérochon, the village schoolmaster who won this prize in 1920. Probably the good fortune of these unknown writers should be partly attributed to the desire of the Academy to discourage "literary strategy"-the efforts of authors and publishers to influence the Goncourt jury in their own favor. Each year publishers and critics lay siege to the jury, an abuse until recently almost unknown in literary manners. Obviously the temptation is not easy to resist, since victory assures the laureate's fame. For, although this one Goncourt prize of five thousand francs, awarded since 1903, represents in money scarcely a third as much as some of the scores of prizes bestowed by the French. Academy, yet it now attracts more attention than all those combined.

This time the Goncourt contest was unusually close, novels having been submitted up to the day before the decision, in spite of a regulation fixing the final date as six weeks earlier. From among the various volumes there eventually emerged three favorites: "L'Epithalame," by Jacques Chardonne; "A Bord de l'Etoile-Matutine," by Pierre MacOrlan; and "Batouala." At some time during the balloting both Chardonne and MacOrlan received five votes each, the highest number cast for Maran. However, they did not, like Maran, have the support of President Geffroy. It was his ballot that carried the day for Maran. Chardonne's novel, which enjoyed the largest favor with critics, resembles in composition Flaubert's "Education sentimentale." It exhibits the same sober style, the same minute and detailed realism. Like Flaubert's novel too, unfortunately, "L'Epithalame" is faulty in perspective, since it lacks outstanding portraits. As a stylist MacOrlan certainly excels Chardonne. His fascinating story of maritime life at once delights and disconcerts, thanks to its fantasy and originality. Even though defeated in the last "campaign," MacOrlan and Chardonne bid fair to rank henceforth among the important contemporary novelists of France.

Concerning René Maran critics are likely to disagree. His "objective" realism, besides its burden of incomprehensible dialect, is marred by an illogical didacticism. To be sure, "Batouala" may be called a novel according to the Goncourt conception af art. Its descrip

tive elements, at least, resemble photographic reproductions of life, reflected upon a background made up of minute touches harmoniously blended. Few novelists have surpassed Maran's description of a wandering flock of ducks, a glowing sunset, or a drenching thunder-storm. Scarcely less admirable are certain psychological features of the book. For portraying such emotions as jealousy, revenge, and superstitious admiration Maran reveals himself a finished artist. Excellent too, albeit rather meager, are his pictures of monotonous tribal life, with its appalling hardships, occasionally animated by orgies and the chase. Most interesting of all is his treatment of native sorcery and mythology, especially superstitions regarding the sun, the moon, and the Spirit of Fire. While less pathetic and penetrating, "Batouala" reminds one of Ernest Psichari's African novel, "Lands of Sun and Slumber." The Negro writer, in depicting the fortunes of his chief Batouala, excels for local color, but lacks Psichari's vision and broad sympathy. In a word, his art impresses us as a bit fragmentary.

A more serious shortcoming is Maran's tendency to moralize. Contrary to the

impassive attitude of the naturalists, he violently denounces the infamy and rapacity of the whites who colonizecertainly a legitimate point of view. As is evident from the Pan-Black Conferences held in Paris and London last summer, the Negro question demands serious consideration by the colonizing nations of Europe. Literature exposing oppression and exploitation of the natives should therefore be welcome. All we ask is that the writer be convincing. Unhappily, Maran fails to substantiate the scathing accusations contained in his preface. Only two whites appear in the story, and nowhere do they wrong the natives. True, the white man's crimes and the black man's burdens are mentioned, though they form no part of the story. "Batouala" depicts none of the horrors imputed to the whites. In a work of fiction intended to correct abuses and effect reform one expects something more than mere denunciations. As Henri Fabre shows so admirably in "The Grasshoppers," his drama dealing with abuses in French Indo-China, colonial administration may work serious harm to the natives. Maran, however, has failed to prove his charges. Indeed, to judge by his por