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ways either by Government ownership and operation or by the employment of private capital worked under the incentive of private property. Nobody but a visionary proposes to-day that the Government should build and. operate water power plants. Some system must therefore be devised for the development of water powers as a natural resource by private genius and private capital.

Dangers to the Public. By their very inherent nature water powers are monopolistic. There is only one Niagara, one Mississippi, one Columbia River. Experts can almost mathematically tell how many spots there are in the United States capable of water power development. The company that controls the Keokuk dam on the Mississippi controls the water power of several hundred square miles, while a thousand companies can build steam power plants in the same territory. When steam railways, which through their terminal facilities and trackage are necessarily monopolistic, were introduced into the United States, their control was grasped by individuals and groups of private citizens who used the monopolies in many instances for selfish ends. We are just beginning to emerge from the overwhelming social, industrial, and financial evils into which the country was plunged by unregulated private control of railway monopolies. The public is determined that similar evils shall not be allowed to germinate in the development of water power monopolies. It is this danger of selfish, private monopoly which the Federal legislation of the last ten years has been designed to avert.

The Justice of Federal Regulation. That the Federal Government possesses the power to regulate hydroelectric plants is not open to debate. That power is exerted to-day and is confirmed by the Supreme Court. Nor do we think it is debatable whether Federal control is preferable to State control. The rights of water power builders as well as of the public can be better protected by a central authority than by the conflicting authority of forty-eight different States.

But the Federal authority must be as just to the builders of and investors in water powers as to the consuming public. This justice to both sides can be maintained if the following principles are observed in water power legislation:

The Government owns and should retain the ownership of all public lands on which water powers are built.

The water power owners should be tenants

only, and the relation of the Government to the water power owner should be that of landlord to tenant.

The lease should be long enough to justify the water power owners in investing their capital, and short enough to enable the landlord to protect his interests by re-leasing the property.

A water power company should either have the opportunity to re-lease at the expiration of the term agreed upon or the Government should buy the plant and improvements at a fair market valuation to be determined at the time.

The water power men and the executive officers of the Government are in general agreement as to these principles. They also generally agree that a term of fifty years is a reasonable period for the duration of the lease. There is, however, vigorous disagreement as to one other principle which is essential to this question.

Shall the water power builders as tenants pay any rent to the Government?

On the one hand, representatives of the water power builders say that no rent is necessary, and that any rent imposed will be charged inevitably to the consumer. If the Government wishes, therefore, to protect the consumer, they urge that it should charge no rent.

On the other hand, there are some legislators. who, under what we believe to be the mistaken impression that the profits of the water power industry are beyond the dreams of avarice, would charge a very high rent in order to cut those profits down. The just course seems Some rent should be charged in order to make the analogy of landlord and tenant clear, and to form the basis of a leasing contract which shall give the Federal Government effective control over the social, industrial, and financial operations of the water power companies. This rent should be nominal to avoid danger of increasing the cost to the public, but it should be real in order to establish the fact that the water power companies are tenants and not perpetual owners.

to us to be a middle one.

No officer of the Government has given a greater amount of thought or shown a more practical wisdom in dealing with the water power question than Secretary Lane, of the Department of the Interior. His attitude is based, we believe, upon the general principles which we have here endeavored to set forth. We hope they will be embodied in the legislation of the present Congress.

Our attention has been called to an editorial in the " Frankfurter Zeitung" of December 24 last which very properly calls upon The Outlook to explain the source of a paragraph in The Outlook of December 1, attributing to the "Frankfurter Zeitung" certain sentences which that paper states-and states truly, we fully believe-never did appear in its columns. The German paper is kind enough to refer to The Outlook as "one of the most esteemed of American publications," but uses our error (quite illogically, it seems to us) as an occasion for denouncing the American press at large. "Can one wonder," it exclaims, " at the vulgarity of the daily press of a country whose most distinguished [but] mistaken journals capable of such knavish tricks?" The "Zeitung" further comments: "It is a saving of time to add that during the whole of the war The Outlook has shown itself, as a member of the American Entente ring, to be one of the most passionate of German-haters, and incapable of any unpartisan feeling." We have deliberately quoted the Frankfurter Zeitung's angriest words, because it has, in a measure, a just grievance, but we will once more record the fact that The Outlook hates neither Germans nor Germany, but it does hate and will always denounce Germany's violation of Belgium, Germany's murder of innocent non-combatants, and Germany's autocratic militarism, which recognizes no rights in others and almost deifies its own might.

As to the sentences wrongly ascribed to the Frankfort journal, we admit reprehensible carelessness, but deny the crime of forgery or even the fault of intentional misrepresentation. The facts are these: The passage in dispute appeared in cabled press despatches in one or more New York daily papers, and was probably published in other papers. We should have said: The Frankfurter Zeitung,' as quoted in the press despatches," as it is our custom to do in such cases; but we unhappily neglected to do this, and thereby violated a fundamental rule of journalism: "Always state your source of information." We owe the "Frankfurter Zeitung" an apology, and here tender it.

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would be seriously impaired by economic conflicts.

As to the proper understanding of rights and duties, of the position of Germany in Europe, and of the necessity in that connection, only time, a great, important, well-aimed work of enlightenment, and if necessary a firm hand [wrongly translated "the mailed fist" in the version published in The Outlook] in dealing with American Chauvinism, will lead us to the goal, together with very much patience and indulgence for certain weaknesses of the state and the national character.

There is certainly a great difference be tween a mailed fist and a firm hand, but we may hope that such dealing with "American Chauvinism" as may be necessary may be exercised by America and not by Germany.

these two democracies are Switzerland and Australia. In order to appreciate and compare the systems of these two countries it is well to consider how the problems which they have had to solve differ from or resemble the problems which confront the United States.

The menace to Switzerland's security is one which requires a means of meeting sudden and powerful attack. Her neighbors are close at hand, her territory is compact, her terrain remarkably well adapted to defensive. operations, and her people have been trained by tradition and experience to know that liberty is not the fruit of indolence or inertia.

Unlike Switzerland, the problem of Australia is continental in size. This English dominion, organized, like America, as a federation of states, each possessing strong traditions of independence and sovereignty, nevertheless has had the wisdom to place the control of its military and its naval defenses under the single head of its Federal Government. The population of Australia, almost completely British in extraction, has been passing through many of the same stages of development which have marked the progress of the United States. The bulk of Australia's population is concentrated on the seaboard, as was the early population of the United States. Her citizens are individualists of the type of the pioneer in all countries. Living conditions range from those to be found in cities like Sydney and Melbourne, of

more than half a million, to those found in the almost trackless interior. The menace against which Australia has armed is one which must of necessity come across the sea. Her chief international problems have arisen from her fear of invasion or settlement at the hands of a race alien in custom and tradition to her own Anglo-Saxon inhabitants. Australians in this have much in common with citizens of our Pacific slope.

It will be seen at once that the problems of Australia are much more nearly those of the United States than are the problems of Switzerland. It is natural to expect, then, that the means which Australia has taken for her defense would be those most deserving of attention in America.

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THE SWISS SYSTEM OF TRAINING

Both the Australian and the Swiss systems have been very adequately summarized in reports collected by our War Department and published as public documents.1 From this collection of reports the following statement has been constructed:

In Switzerland universal education to the age of fifteen is compulsory, and during this period simple gymnastic exercises under the direction of a schoolmaster are required of all pupils as a preparation for military service. Apart from this obligatory work there are almost everywhere volunteer cadet corps, composed of boys from eleven to sixteen, in which the future defenders of the Republic of Switzerland can practice the manual of arms, marching drills, and setting-up exercises.

Each corps adopts its own uniform. The Federal Government furnishes a light musket and a certain amount of ammunition for target practice. Professional officers of the regular establishment serve as instructors for these corps, and the state gives a subvention of five francs to each cadet soldier whose marksmanship comes up to a certain standard.

When the Swiss boy has reached the age of sixteen, he may, if he chooses, become a member of a more formal military organization operating on the same lines as the cadet corps, except that the regular army musket is supplied and that more attention is paid to target practice. Gymnastics and shooting are the two chief requirements of these older preparatory military organizations. The upbuilding of the body and the mind, rather than the inculcation of machine-like discipline, is the object

'Senate Document 796, Sixty-third Congress, Third Session.

sought. The state gives no money support to these organizations, but furnishes arms and ammunition. It may be interesting for Americans to note that, as is the case with the cadet corps of which we have already spoken, the target practice of these older military organizations takes place on Sunday.

When the Swiss boy becomes twenty years of age, about midsummer, he must present himself for active military service. Following a severe physical examination, which eliminates nearly fifty per cent of those taking the test, and an equally severe examination in the three R's and the history and geography of Switzerland, the recruit is given his soldier's register. If he fails in the mental examination, he must attend school until he reports for military duty the following spring.

When the next spring or summer comes, our Swiss recruit receives a notice to report at the training ground of his own district. There are in Switzerland eight such training grounds for infantry-one for each infantry division of the army, located in the district from which the division is recruited. The artillery, cavalry, and engineers have separate training grounds. Each training school comprises targets, storehouses, rifle range, and training grounds ample for a regiment of in fantry.

When the recruit reports for duty, he is fitted out with uniform and equipment complete in every particular for field service and a military rifle. When he has completed his training, he takes his full equipment home with him and keeps it until the end of his military service, at the age of fifty. Whenever he is called to military duty, he must present himself, fully equipped, and if anything is lacking he can be fined and imprisoned.

These recruit schools are under the command of professional soldiers, of whom there are about two hundred in Switzerland's corps of permanent military instructors. Under these professional soldiers, working with a body of trained non-commissioned officers to assist them, the new recruits are divided into companies, sections, and squads, much as is the fourth class at West Point, or as were the Plattsburgh "rookies" at last year's summer camp.

In the training of infantry, for instance, the first and longest part of the school period is devoted to the instruction of the individual soldier, the squad, and the section. The next part is devoted to the training of the several companies, and the last week of

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the cadre or organization framework of these schools for non-commissioned officers. These men usually go home after their four weeks' work with a promotion of one grade to their credit.

Having become a corporal, the recruit can aspire to a commission, second lieutenants being appointed from the whole body of noncommissioned officers. He must, however, spend at least seven weeks as a corporal or sergeant as a part of the cadre of a battalion in the recruit school for privates to which we have already referred. If this work is satisfactorily completed, he becomes. eligible for the officers' school, to which he may either be ordered or request an assignment. From this point on the officer, if he passes successfully through a series of tests and training periods, may hope to reach ultimately the command of a division of militia.

This training which the citizen of Switzerland receives from his Government is vitally assisted by the fact that rifle shooting in Switzerland occupies the place which baseball does in the United States as a national sport.

The origin of the present Swiss shooting clubs and of target shooting as a national sport dates back to an early law which decreed that every Swiss citizen must be ready to defend his country and that he should be furnished by the state with a suitable musket and ammunition for learning its use. If shooting clubs existed in the United States in the same proportion that they exist in Switzerland, they would include nearly five million citizens in their membership.

AUSTRALIAN SYSTEM OF DEFENSE

In Australia, as in Switzerland, primary education is compulsory. In most of the Australian states children have in the past been required to remain in the free public schools until the age of fourteen. This requirement has already, or will shortly, become universal. As in America, public schools are to be found even in thinly populated districts, and they are attended by three-fourths of the children of the country. The other one-fourth attend private schools, the majority of which are maintained by the churches.

When the time came for the reorganization of the military system of Australia, the Commonwealth Government was prepared to undertake a system of military training for boys of school age, but the fact was recognized that it would be better if this could be done by the schools directly. Hav