custom by putting the bill in shape before Congress met. Neither would it threat of muck-raking. There is no se- The World Court's Opponents Ο have been possible had not the miracle except in the single case of the irrecon- O of non-partisanship occurred. But, even with these exceptional aids to despatch, any other House that we have had for a long time would have been able to delay action indefinitely. The Democrats continued unswerving in their support of this Administration measure. Only ten Democrats voted in opposition on final passage. Voting with them were ten so-called Republicansthe nine Wisconsin members and a single Republican, Schafer, of North Dakota. With them, also, were the two Socialists, the two Farmer-Laborites, and the single independent, a total of twentyfive. No revenue measure was ever before so promptly passed in time of peace, and probably none was ever passed even in time of war with so little actual opposition. Only once was there anything resembling division along party lines. The Democrats stood with the Republicans in voting down all amendments. They made a mere formal show of party strength on the motion to recommit for the purpose of increasing the surtax maximum from 20 to 25 per cent. Now for the Senate UT the Tax Bill is still far from be BUT ing a law. The middle of February is about the time when, in optimistic opinion, it may be expected to pass the Senate, and then only because the Treasury is urging final action on the bill by that time in order that the machinery may be put in gear for the first payment of taxes on March 15. It is not to be hoped, even by the most optimistic, that the Senate, even when it comes to consideration of the Tax Bill, will pass it as promptly as the House did. And the beginning of its consideration in the Senate waits upon the termination of the World Court debate, now fairly begun. There may be more opposition to the Tax Bill in the Senate than there was in the House. There may even be amendments. The Senate has a fondness for the blue pencil. But it is safe to say that the Senate Democrats will not fight this Tax Bill, as they did the last one, and there is a fair prospect of genuinely non-partisan action in that body too. On the whole, the early indications are that this is to be an orderly session of Congress. A strange, almost a startling, tranquillity prevails, not alone as to parties, but as to individuals. There is no cilables who oppose adherence to the Aside from the World Court thunder (C) Henry Miller News Picture Service, Inc. PPOSITION to the World Court as now constituted seems to be of two sorts. On the one hand, there is opposition to a world court as such, and it is directed to the Permanent Court of International Justice because it is permanent and is international and is a court of justice. On the other hand, there is opposition to this Court, not because it is a court, but because it is alleged to be created by, subordinate to, and dependent upon the League of Nations. Such opposition as rests upon distrust of any form of world court has become virtually negligible; but opposition to the present Court because of its connection with the League is strong, and is led by Senator Borah, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Mr. Borah's speech, of which he delivered the first part on December 18, is likely to be the basis of the opposition in the Senate. His chief point is not that the Court is agent of the League (for that could be met by the argument that it is no more the agent of the League The relations of the Court to the maintenance of peace is discussed editorially elsewhere. cloud, there is only one speck in the sky, session. That, however, is for the future. For the present, we can afford to enjoy, without too much indulgence to our apprehensions, the unusual good fortune of having a Congress that transacts its own business and, in the main, lets the business of others alone. America and the country is strongly directed toward all reasonable and even some unreasonable reduction of armament. This is why such a proposal as that of the League of Nations to America to take part in a conference on disarmament has met with a favorable popular response. No Administration which valued public support could ignore such a request. This is not because the American people are less determined than they were to keep out of European political entanglements, but because after every war they have shown the disposition of Cincinnatus, and have welcomed every chance to replace their weapons with tools. At the same time the Administration at Washington sees clearly that there is very little that America can contribute at present to world-wide reduction in armaments. We have already reduced our land forces to a size none too large for police purposes, and would have no contribution to make to a conference on land armament except advice, which would be irritating, or economic pressure, which would be provocative of resentment. To any conference on naval armament we could make no such offer as we made at Washington, for the advantage in capital ships we had there was sacrificed to a larger end, and we have no corresponding advantage now to offer. In spite of the fact that the letter of invitation to our Government has been received, it is not quite clear what is to be expected of us in the proposed conference. Evidently the purpose of this particular meeting of representatives of the nations would be to lay down a plan for a further conference and to settle certain preliminary questions. For example, among the questions to be discussed are the means of measuring the armament of one country against the armament of another and the possibility of ascertaining whether an armament is primarily offensive or defensive. In the list of questions submitted there is opportunity for almost endless discussion. The really effective conferences have been those in which, as at Washington and Locarno, the membership and the objectives have been definitely limited. Uncle Sam's Railway IT will surprise many people to learn that the United States Director.General of Railroads, James C. Davis, has just sent in his resignation after rendering his final report. Most of us supposed that the not very happy chapter of railway management by the Government had ceased long ago. But it appears that when control of the roads was passed back to the owners at midnight of February 29, 1920, there were enormous sums involved in claims against the Government, and it has taken nearly five years to clean things up. For instance, Mr. Davis had to settle or resist 50,000 lawsuits for personal injuries or damage to property, and there was a little difference between the railroads and the Government of about half a billion dollars as to the balance of financial claims of each against the other. It is quite a triumph of tact or hard work or both that these last-named claims have been adjusted (or nearly so) without litigation. President Coolidge rightly President Coolidge rightly congratulated Mr. Davis for winding up a liquidation probably the greatest in all the experience of this country and perhaps of the world. There is general agreement that the thirty-two months of actual Government control and operation and the six months of a guaranty period left Americans less, rather than more, disposed to believe in Government railway management in the future. Making all allowance for the fact that the Government was not trying to set an example of public operation, that the railways were run to help win the war and not to save money, and that personal convenience and business facilities were shoved one side for actual or supposed military needs, it still remains true that this huge experience in railroading was inordinately costly, and that, especially after the end of actual war, politics and red tape and inefficiency were such as to leave deep distaste for any further experimentation in this direction. The Outlook has long maintained that, not operation, but control within just and reasonable limits, is the true governmental policy. The end of what has been called an ill-starred and melancholy adventure confirms that belief. Bigger and Better Reclamation R ECLAMATION no longer means exclusively the making of irrigated farms. It, apparently, has ceased to mean mainly that. It means now, and will increasingly mean for the future, reforestation of lands that should grow trees but are now nude and restoration of fertility to lands that should grow crops but are now sterile from exhaustion. The scene of reclamation is to be no longer exclusively in the arid regions of the West. It is to be more largely in the humid regions of the East. And on arid or humid, Western or Eastern lands reclamation is to be quite as much conservation as utilization. All of this appears from the proceedings of the Conference on Reclamation and Colonization of Idle Lands, recently held in Washington. Secretary Work, of the Department of the Interior, and Secretary Jardine, of the Department of Agriculture, were the principal speakers. Secretary Work declared that "We must begin again in the East, as did our forefathers, . . . not to conquer the land, but to restore it." He pointed out the fact that Eastern reclamation is much less expensive than Western. He stressed the necessity of Eastern production for Eastern consumption. "The Great Divide," he declared, "is already a rent in the economic fabric of a nation." Secretary Jardine agreed with the policy announced by Secretary Work, but he went on to say that there is no present need for bringing additional lands under the plow. Too much land is already under cultivation, he said, resulting in overproduction and a consequent economic problem, and agricultural expansion is still going on too rapidly, particularly in the Great Plains region. By this he did not mean to advocate abandonment of reclamation. Within the next ten or fifteen years, he said, population will have increased to the point where greater agricultural production will be necessary. What should be done now, he continued, is to make plans and lay out a policy for that time. That policy, he pointed out, should not leave reclamation standing alone, but should correlate it with other policies, such as inland waterways development and reforestation. Nothing that occurred at the Conference can be taken as indicating that there is to be any lessening of interest in the reclamation projects on irrigated lands. Solicitude for the future welfare of the settlers on those projects was apparent throughout the proceedings. Their interests will be safeguarded-perhaps more thoroughly than ever before. But, if the policy now fairly formulated continues, the ditch-digger will get less and the forester and soil chemist more of the money spent on reclamation projects in the future. control for forestry education and experiment. Some or all of this land is in New Hampshire, not far from the town of Keene. The present gift will adjoin the existing reservation and very largely increase it. Dean Henry S. Graves, of the Yale Forestry School, points out, not only that will it help to educate foresters, but that it may be a source of interest in forestry to the thousands of pleasureseekers and tourists who pass through this section in summer. Ultimately Yale will have perhaps 2,500 acres in charge, and even now, Dean Graves points out, "the forest is a living demonstration of the science of forestry in actual practice which may convince the public and private forest owners of the economic advantages in managing such property in accordance with sound principles." A Department Gets a Home S A WALRATH Confederate monument here in Washington that outbulks all of those in the eleven seceding States. It occupies the whole square bounded by Fourth, Fifth, F, and G Streets." That is the location of the Pension Office. Perhaps there was cruelty in the words, justifiable only on the ground that they constituted the retort to a taunt. But that there was a modicum of truth in them is suggested by the fact that, since the surviving veterans of the Civil War have grown few, the Pension Office is to be transferred to unostentatious quarters in the Department of the Interior Building and the Pension Office Building is to become the home of the Department of Labor. Protests have been received from old soldiers, but, since the program is economy and since this shift will have the effect of taking a whole department out of a rented building and housing it in one Governmentowned, the change will be made-unless the protests become much louder. This particular shift is really a part of a general program the object of which is twofold to assemble the bureaus of the same department as nearly as possible, and to get rid of the expense of as many rented buildings as possible. Mosul Still a Bone of Contention THE frontier line decided upon by the Council of the League of Nations between Turkey and Irak in the disputed Mosul section is known as the Brussels Line, as it was originally suggested at the Brussels Conference. It is bitterly opposed by Turkey, although it does not grant to Irak the full demands advanced for her by Great Britain, which holds the mandate for Irak. It will be remembered that the League sent a commission to Mosul equipped with every conceivable kind of expertsgeographical, topographical, linguistic, racial, historical-so that the enormously long report made by the commission was one of the most formidable and yet one of the most interesting documents ever printed. The League held that Turkey and Great Britain had agreed to accept this report as a basis; Turkey vehemently denied this; and that question was submitted to the International Court at The Hague, which affirmed the power of the League to hold Turkey to its bargain. The disputed territory, as will be seen by the accompanying map, is small in area, but it is important because it contains much oil, because its mountain range is a valuable military asset to the country which has it within its own boundary, and because its extremely mixed and partly wild races are a source of danger. In addition to fixing the boundary the League's Council proposes that the British mandate shall be renewed for twentyfive years after its expiration in 1928. British opinion is by no means unanimous as to approving this proposal. There were violent protests in and out of Parliament when it was first broached. Presumably the Government thinks it desirable for the sake of peace and security, yet the Prime Minister was quoted only a few days ago as saying: "The Government believed that if Great Britain took the mandate for Irak it would expire far short of the maximum of the twenty-five years specified." The subject came up in Parliament on December 21 on a broad proposal to indorse the Government's policy in principle. The motion was carried by a vote of 239 to 4, but the Labor members left the House before the debate, in protest against what they regarded as precipitate action. The Prime Minister's announcement that he was to meet the Turkish Minister at once with a view to reaching Correction and instruction must both work Ere this rude beast will profit (Measure for Measure, Act III, Scene 2) Kirby in the New York World Walking the floor with it From D. S. Imrie, New York, N. Y. a friendly compromise was cheered. The Is France Pulling Itself question of Mosul will be fully discussed Together? in the House of Commons after the holi-ONE of the ironies of history has been days, probably in February. The British reason for opposition to further responsibility for Irak is that it is too costly. The British taxpayer grumbles at spending $20,000,000 a year in addition to an enormous initial ex pense on a distant Eastern province when business and employment at home are in bad condition, is skeptical about future profit from the investment, and doubts the pressing importance of the international problem. Doubtless the decision of the League Council was hastened by a report of General Laidoner, the Czechoslovakian officer who headed a second commission sent out to examine rumors of Turkish atrocities on the Mosul border. statement, gained largely from talks with refugees, charges the Turks with horrible cruelties and slaughter of Chaldeans and Kurds as well as Christians. His It seems hardly possible that Turkey will challenge England to war by sending her army into Mosul. More likely she will accept certain financial and commercial advantages suggested in the League's award, and then bargain and clamor for larger and more definite compensation. exhibited in the comparative value of French and German credit. The na- nominally defeated at arms, repudiated Canada and the ANADA is not a member of the loose CANADA association of republics of North and South America known as the PanAmerican Union. It was suggested the other day at the Pan-American Commercial Congress, an unofficial body, that she should become a member. This is not a new idea. It has been in the thought of some people, in fact, almost since the organization of the Union. It|| is reported that a chair bearing the Canadian seal was actually built, along with chairs for the United States and the Latin-American countries, ready to be placed at the big conference table in Washington where the members of the Governing Board of the PanAmerican Union assemble in monthly meeting. Circumstances have so changed since the proposal was first made that the chief obstacle to Canadian membership has largely disappeared. Canada's presence at the board would not imply, much less actually constitute, any disregard of the Monroe Doctrine, which has always been zealously defended by the United States. When Canada's admission to the Union-then known as the International Bureau of American Republics-was first broached, it would have been virtually tantamount to the admission of Great Britain. Now Canada's position in the British Commonwealth of Nations has so changed that no such reason against Canada's admission could be advanced to-day. Canada's wishes concerning member ship in the Pan-American Union are not known. The Canadian Government has never seriously considered the random suggestions that she join. There has been no clamoring on her part for admission, and it is not known whether she would receive favorably an invitation. The day will doubtless come when Canada will gladly become a member of the Pan-American Union; and she will then be warmly welcomed by the United States and the twenty other American Nevertheless the future of France just republics. In the meantime the discus According to certain common standards of success, the example of Germany was a good one to follow. Fortunately, those standards are not universally accepted. There is a moral sense in the world that prefers the record of devastated France to the record of unscathed Germany. now looks rather dark. Another Minis- sion of the subject can do no harm. |