ent Powers. This for us Americans is absolutely settled. It is not open to debate.

The President at this writing appears to hope that Germany may abandon her claim to disregard the laws of war and her practice of making war upon unarmed non-combatants on the high seas. We do not share the President's hope. The leaders of the military party in Germany announced before the war that they would pursue this policy of submarine attack upon merchant vessels. The German Government has sanctioned this purpose and has carried on the war in accordance therewith. It has defended the submarine warfare conducted in accordance with this purpose, and its official and semi-official organs have exulted in the wholesale assassination which has resulted from this criminal violation of the laws of war. It has been accurately said that the sinking of the Lusitania was not an act of war—it was an act of piracy. In our judgment, the time has come when the United States, not merely by words, but by deeds which speak louder than words, should utter its protest against these acts of lawlessness, this making war upon unarmed non-combatants upon the high seas in violation of the long-established and well-recognized laws of war.

How?

There are at least three ways in which the United States could fulfill its pledge to call Germany to "a strict accountability" for its lawless course:

America could declare non-intercourse with Germany. It could, by act of Congress if not by Executive act, forbid all trade with the offending nation. It could refuse to sell goods to her or buy goods from her. It could refuse to issue passports to Americans to travel in her country or to recognize passports issued by Germany. It could invite other neutral Powers to unite with it in this policy of non-intercourse. Such a policy of non-intercourse pursued by the United States alone might not be materially effective, but if other neutral Powers joined with the United States in such a policy it would not be wholly ineffective, and at all events it would have a moral effect greater than any words unaccompanied by action.

nothing more to do with a lawless nation until it discontinues its lawless acts.

It might go even further than this. It might say to Germany, You refuse to us the rights of a neutral. You have torpedoed our ships and you have put to death scores of our citizens who were unarmed and committing no offense against you. So long as thus you refuse to recognize our rights as neutrals, you have no right to expect us to perform the duties of neutrals. You have estopped yourself from all right to claim neutrality of us. America might put guards upon the German ships in our ports as a means of notifying Germany that they were held subject to such claim as we might make hereafter for damages. It might open its ports to the fleets of the Allies and furnish their war-ships with provisions and munitions of war. It might send freely to the Allies goods, whether contraband or not, with the sanction and support of the Government, and it might say to Germany, We will not resume the obligations of neutrality until you recognize our rights as neutrals.

The United States could thus discontinue commercial intercourse, discontinue political intercourse, cease to assume the obligations of neutrality, without declaring war against Germany, though if, as a result of either of these courses, Germany declared war against the United States, the United States would have to prepare itself to meet the crisis.

We do not urge any one of these policies upon our Government. We do not even offer them as a complete and comprehensive statement of policies which could be pursued. We simply attempt to show to our readers that the United States is not helpless, that it is not compelled to acquiesce in the lawless course of Germany simply because it is not prepared to make war upon Germany. There are other remedies at its hand, and if verbal protests fail to secure the justice which our Government has rightly demanded, there are ways by which it can give expression to that protest by deeds as well as words. The note which the President sent last week to Germany should be the last argument offered in words; any further argument which he may offer should be expressed in National action.

The press of other countries has made it clear that Germany's violation, not only of the laws of war, but of the essential spirit of humanity, has aroused among all neutral nations a deep indignation. Of all neutral nations

the United States is the largest, the richest, the most influential, if not the most powerful. The United States cannot with honor confine itself to safeguarding the lives and

THE STEEL CORPORATION DECISION

property of its own citizens. It should make itself, by its courageous action, the leader of all neutral nations in safeguarding the rights of all non-combatants.

It is not often that a decision by a United States Circuit Court, subject, of course, to appeal and final decision by the Supreme Court, is so widely and instantly accepted as of great importance as that rendered by the Federal Circuit Court at Trenton, New Jersey, last week, in the Government's suit, brought five years ago, to dissolve the United States Steel Corporation. Whether or not the decision is sustained on appeal, it is a notably clear statement of fundamental principles. Elsewhere in this issue of The Outlook we speak editorially of the positive and, as The Outlook has long held, indisputable declaration that big business is not a proof of bad business, or, as the decision says, "The normal and necessary expansion of business to any size is not forbidden by the Sherman Law unless such expansion is accompanied or accomplished by an undue restraint or obstruction of trade."

The United States Steel Corporation is the largest industrial corporation in the world. While many hold that it was over-capitalized at the start, it is probably quite as true that its business has caught up, so to speak, with that capitalization. As to its conduct to competitors and customers, no claim has ever been made of such offenses as were charged against the Standard Oil or the American Tubacco Company when the Government moved for their dissolution. Faults there have been, doubtless, and this decision recognizes that there were such faults-such as the informal accord on selling prices at the much-talked-about Gary dinners, a process contrary to law, the Court thinks, but abandoned before this bill was filed. In some instances the Corporation has corrected without compulsion matters that might technically violate the law. But, in the main, the Corporation has behaved fairly, has been humane in its relation to employees, and has not wrongfully restricted competition or obstructed trade under the reasonable meaning of the Sherman Law. This the Court holds ;

and it holds also that the purchase by the Corporation of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company at the time of the panic and with President Roosevelt's tacit approval was justified and legal. A hint is given that some of the questions as to proper procedure and methods may in such cases now be controlled by the new Federal Trade Commission.

The question involved is different from that in the Northern Securities decision ten years ago or more, for monopoly in railway combination has quite different possibilities from attempted monopoly in general industries, and the Supreme Court has itself pointed out that there was a great difference between a combination of connecting railways and a combination of parallel, competing railways.

Applying the various definitions of separate Supreme Court decisions as to unlawful restraints and monopolies, the Circuit Court asks and answers in the negative such questions as whether the Steel Corporation has prejudiced the public interests by undue restriction or obstruction of trade; whether it is guilty of unfair business competition, such as unfairly to force competitors out of the business; whether it has exacted unfair prices or has bought up competing plants to dismantle them, or has unfairly reduced wages or has furnished the public with inferior goods. Such acts, the Court says, were found to exist in the great cases like that of the Tobacco Company and others named, where dissolution was ordered. They do not exist here, and the claim for dissolution is disallowed, and for that reason.

As a matter of fact, it is well known that from the very beginning of the operation of the Sherman Law the Steel Corporation has voluntarily opened its books and accounts for the widest possible investigation, and has sent to Washington of its own accord immense quantities of records. Instead of destroying its competitors, the Court finds that in 1911, when this bill was filed, the competitors were making and marketing nearly sixty per cent of all the steel and iron of the country.

If

the Steel Corporation's business grew rapidly, so did its competitors-nine of them gained by a much larger percentage than the Corporation in the ten years after the Corporation was formed. This does not look like strangling competition. "The field of business enterprise in the steel business is as open to and being as fully filled by the competitors of the Steel Corporation as it is by that company." Its rivals are to-day offering strong present and prospective competition, and the test of monopoly, says the Court, "is not the size of that which is acquired, but the trade power of that which is not acquired." Fair, genuine, and unrestricted competition for ten years was testified to by buyers and competitors. So, too, with the foreign trade in steel. So, too, with the publicity of the business. So, too, with the methods of selling and distributing. So, finally, with the relations between the Corporation and its subsidiary branches. In short, minor faults aside, the Court sees nothing in the Steel Corporation business inconsistent with such success and magnitude of that business as are the rewards of fair and honorable endeavor, nothing which corresponds with those evils to destroy which was the intention of the Sherman Law.

PESTERING PASSENGERS

Annoyance, discomfort, confusion, and delay were experienced by countless railway passengers on June 1, when a new law as to valuation of baggage was suddenly put in force by the railways. Until that day the general public seems to have known nothing of the law or its application to baggage. If it were debated before its passage by Congress, no attention was paid to the matter publicly. Indeed, it seemed at first that the application of it in this way was purely inferential, for the law itself, which is before us as we write, does not mention railway baggage, and Senator Cummins, who introduced it, is reported as saying that "Congress never intended that baggage should be included within the purview of the Act," and that the railways, being opposed to the general purpose of the Act, were attempting to make all the trouble they can " for the passengers. This, however, is clearly an incorrect view to some extent, as the Inter-State Commerce Commission, in a special report dealing with the Cummins amendment, says directly that its terms do apply to the transportation of baggage because that is part of the contract

for the transportation of the passenger. The exact manner in which the law is being applied by the railways to baggage is, however, inferential, especially as regards extra charges for values over one hundred dollars and the form of the declaration of value made by the passenger.

The main purpose of the Cummins amendment to the law of 1906, which regulates commerce and enlarges the powers of the Inter-State Commerce Commission, has to do with freight shipments, with freight schedules, to be made public under the law and with the liability of common carriers for loss or damage. At one time it was the practice of railways and express companies to attempt to limit their liability by one-sided contracts printed, usually in very fine type, on bills of lading and receipts, usually not read or understood by the shipper. A law was passed forbidding this and making the companies fully liable, regardless of such alleged limiting contracts, and this law was altered by the law of 1906, which also distinctly forbade the practice, but was found to have flaws. Of late, through the use of so-called standard contracts and by roundabout methods aiming to avoid the 1906 legislation, common carriers have in certain classes of freight shipments, and especially with live-stock shipments in the West, managed (so at least Senator Cummins and others allege) to limit the damages they would pay before the shipment, and to make stipulation for a small proportion of the true value of the property. It is to do away with this evil that the new amendment was passed. Already disputes have arisen as to the exact meaning of the amendment, apart from the baggage situation, and, although it is not long, it certainly seems complex to the layman not used to dealing with the legislation and rules now applying to inter-State transportation.

The provision of the law which is applied to baggage orders that if goods are hidden from view by wrapping, boxing, or other means (as in a trunk) the carrier may require the shipper to state specifically in writing the value of the goods; that the carrier then is not liable beyond the amount so stated, and that special rates may be established for the transportation by the Inter-State Commerce Commission on the value of the property as stated.

As applied to baggage by the railway companies, the passenger is obliged to state the value of his property; if it is under one

hundred dollars, no payment is exacted; if over a hundred dollars, ten cents is charged for each additional hundred dollars or frac tion thereof. In any case, the owner of the baggage cannot recover for more than the amount stated, and in any case also the amount stated is not conclusive evidence of the value.

As with the Income Tax Law, Congress seems to have been negligent in not foreseeing the exact effect of its enactment. Passengers have been made to feel that at the last minute of starting on a journey they must give an exact valuation of personal belongings very difficult to value. As a matter of fact, common sense must prevail in such matters, and no one need feel afraid to give an honest, but not exact, valuation; it is only in an attempt to collect upon a wrongful valuation that a passenger will get into trouble.

It certainly ought to be possible to make proper regulations for the valuation of freight shipments by business men without annoying and pestering railway passengers at the beginning of their journey.

Those convicted were found guilty of manslaughter. This seems a moderate conclusion, very likely a compromise conclusion, in view of all the circumstances. There had been no action by the striking workmen which in the least justified the shooting by the guards; in fact, the strikers were unarmed. The so-called deputy sheriffs---for it is more than questionable whether they were legally such-were not paid by the State or the city, but by a company which was engaged in an industrial war with strikers. The use of firearms to subjugate and drive away these unarmed men had not the slightest color of law or reason behind it. As we pointed out at the time, to allow private individuals to hire armed guards to deal with strikers outside the premises of the employers is to insure private war. currently reported at the time of the shooting, and has not, so far as we know, been

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contradicted, that these hired gunmen or temporary deputy sheriffs were not for the most part citizens of New Jersey, but were hired by the employers from a New York detective agency. Some of these at least were continued in the pay of the employers after the murderous assault upon the strikers.

It seems evident that something more than the conviction of a few of these men is needed in New Jersey. When the public was excited over the matter, immediately after the crime was committed, it was stated that a legislative investigation would be made of all the circumstances, and if it appeared that it was lawful for one of the parties engaged in a labor dispute to hire armed men from outside, not only to protect the premises of employers, but to march through the streets and assume to do police duty without any proper authority, then changes in the law should be recommended and pushed through the Legislature. What, if anything, has been accomplished we do not know. Most assuredly, both in New Jersey and wherever any such condition of affairs may exist, stringent action should be taken to make such a crime as the killing of these strikers as impossible legally as it is atrocious morally.

THE WEEK'S WAR NEWS

The importance to an army of adequate equipment, and especially of a plentiful supply of ammunition, was illustrated and emphasized in most of the important war despatches of the past week. The failure of the longheralded spring drive of Kitchener's armies to materialize has been due to a lack of ammunition, the Minister of Munitions, Mr. Lloyd George, told the recalcitrant workmen of Great Britain. The initial successes of the Italian armies have been largely due to their splendid equipment. Finally, the loss of Przemysl and the defeat of the Russians in Galicia have been brought about mainly by the tremendous superiority of the Germans in ammunition and sinews of war in general.

The Italians, in their double campaign aimed at Trent and Trieste, continued to make progress during the week, but the defense of the Austrians stiffened as the invaders advanced, and apparently the Italians will soon be put to the test that will come when they meet the full strength of the Teutons.

Italian columns have been advancing on

Trent from three sides. There is a chance that the force which has come through the Tonale Pass in the Rhætian Alps will cut off Trent from Bozen, which is the point of concentration for the Austrians in the Trentino; and if the report be true of the capture by the Latins of Rovereto, about fifteen miles south of Trent, that coveted city may already have felt the shock of shells from the big guns of King Victor Emmanuel.

The Italians who have been assigned the task of recovering Trieste made rather less progress during the week than their brothers in the Trentino. All along the Isonzo River from Caporetto to the sea, some fifty miles, the men of the peninsula have been attacking with a reckless ferocity, but have, however, made little impression on the lines of the stubbornly fighting Austrians. The town of Monfalcone, which may almost be called the key to Trieste, was attacked several times simultaneously by sea and by land, but has not fallen as this issue of The Outlook goes to press.

The belligerency of tiny San Marino, the twelfth nation to be counted into the war, is not to be treated flippantly, as many newspaper paragraphers have treated it, despite the fact that San Marino's diminutive size makes her participation in the war on the side of the Allies seem ludicrous. Situated on a high plateau nine miles from Rimini, on the Adriatic, San Marino has been described as a piece of land entirely surrounded by Italy." The little Republic has an area of 38 square miles, a population of 12,000, and an army of 38 officers and 950 men. But the fact that she is at war with Austria will make it possible for the Italians to make strategic use of the midget nation's territory, which dominates the surrounding country and the Adriatic.

PRZEMYSL

RECAPTURED

The recapture of Przemsyl by the AustroGermans, with the exception of the entrance of Italy into the great conflict, was the most dramatic single event of the war since the Polish city was taken by the Russians on March 22. Realizing that the citadel could not be held with the meager supply of ammunition at their command, the Russians saw to it that only a small garrison was in the battered town to be captured when the Teutons entered. The victors wasted no time celebrating their success, but at once began

to follow up the Slavs in their retreat to Lemberg. As this is written it is reported that this city, the capital of Galicia, is being encircled as Przemysl was encircled, and the fall of Lemberg seems likely. If the Teutonic allies capture Lemberg, they will hold practically all of Galicia in their sway, and in all probability it will then be their plan to send large reinforcements to the Italian frontier. At any rate, whether Lemberg falls or not, it will probably be a matter of weeks before the Russians can resume any serious offensive in Galicia, although now that the ice has melted in Archangel Harbor the Czar will find it easier to get the arms and ammunition of which his men are sadly in want. It is reported that some of the Russian troops captured in Przemysl were without rifles and bayonets, being armed only with steel rods and sharpened crowbars.

LLOYD GEORGE AND SLUMBERING ENGLAND

The same paucity of "powder and shot' which has handicapped the Russians has been hindering the Allies in the west. Their gains were small during the week, and such as they were they were mainly made by the French. With the exception of the fall of Przemysl, the most significant piece of news relating to the war during the week was the report of the appeal of the new British Minister of Munitions, to which we have already referred, for the unanimous co-operation of the British workingmen in the effort to equip adequately the forces under Sir John French. This co-operation the Government has not had since the first day of the war.

In a speech at Manchester, one of the great industrial centers of England, after declaring that "it depends more upon the masters and men occupied in running workshops than upon any part of the community whether Great Britain will emerge from this colossal struggle beaten, humiliated, stripped of power, honor, and influence, and a mere bond-slave of cruel military tyranny, or whether it will come out triumphant, free, and more powerful than ever for good in the affairs of men," the Minister of Munitions said that the German victory in the east had been due solely to a superiority in equipment; such that, for instance, on one occasion the Russian line in a single hour had been sprayed with 200,000 shells.

"Had we been in a position to apply the same process to the Germans on our front,"