II THAT "WORKINGMEN OUGHT NOT TO SHARE THE PROFITS, BECAUSE THEY DO NOT

SHARE THE LOSSES "

that he is not earning as much money as he is spending? He proposes to his wife to reduce their living expenses. "We must economize somehow," he says. "Can't we cut down on the grocer's bill or the butcher's bill? If not, we shall have to take John out of school and set him to work." By one or the other of these plans he proposes to reduce the liv

most organized industries they want, and ought to have, some voice in the conduct of the business. But that is another tion not here considered.

ques

LYMAN ABBOTT.

A GENTLE CYNIC' ROFESSOR Morris Jastrow has

WHA

For all successful businesses in a civilized community two elements are essential: the man and the tool. To farm there must be a plowman and a plow; to make shoes there must be a cobbler and a cobbler's bench; to weave there must be Silas Marner and a loom. If the loom wears out, Silas Marner must remain idle; if Silas Marner wears out, the loom must remain idle. Therefore to continue his business he must receive from his industry enough to keep both him and his loom in good condition. If he is underfed and becomes sick, he cannot continue his business; nor can he continue if his loom wears out and he has not the money to repair it, or if the material is exhausted and he has no money to buy more. If he receives from his business just enough money to keep himself and family in good condition, and also to supply his loom with adequate material and keep the loom itself in good repair, his business is self-supporting. If he receives a little more than is necessary for this purpose and can put ten dollars in the savings bank at the end of the week, he is making a profit. If he receives less and has to draw money out of the savings bank in order to buy food for himself or material for his loom, he is carrying on his business at a loss, and when the savings bank money is gone the business must stop.

In the place of Silas Marner and his loom imagine in a village a factory employing five hundred workers. The problem is bigger and more complex, but is essentially the same: instead of the tool and the man there are tools and men. It is essential to the business that both the tools and the men be kept in good work-. ing condition. If the mill receipts are just sufficient to keep the mill and its machinery effective and the workers so well paid that they are satisfied and efficient, the work goes on and is self-supporting, but is not making profits. If the receipts are sufficient to keep both tools and men in good working condition, and also to pay dividends, there is profit for the stockholders. If the receipts are not sufficient and it is necessary to borrow from money the bank or levy assessments on the stockholders to be paid out of the future profits, there is a loss; and if this loss continues indefinitely, eventually the mill must stop its work.

if he reduces his purchases for the mate rial for his loom or his expenditures for necessary repairs he impairs the sources of his income. If he says to his wife, "I was going to paint the shop this fall, but I am afraid I shall have to let that go over," his wife, if she is a prudent economist, will reply: "Look out, Silas; if you leave it too long, you will have to put on two coats instead of one, and you will lose. more than will save. you

wages

The managers of the mill pursue the same policy if the receipts are not enough to keep the mill in good condition and also to the pay it has been paying. If it is paying no dividends, it is not run at a loss, it is simply running without a profit. But if it is running at a loss the managers say to themselves what Silas Marner says to his wife, "We must cut down living expenses." That means," We must reduce wages."

The great proportion of strikes occur either because the business is prosperous and the workingmen think that they are not receiving a fair share of the profits and that the only way to get such a share is by demanding increased wages; or be cause the business is unprosperous and the managers can see no way to reduce the expenses except by reducing the wages. One of the worst strikes we have ever had in this country was the famous railway strike in 1894. The immediate cause of that strike was the action of the Pullman Company, which reduced the wages of its workingmen and neither reduced the dividends which it paid to its stockholders nor the salaries of its highly paid officials nor the rents which it collected from the cottages which it leased to its employees. In that case they levied all the loss on the workingmen.

In order to carry on any business the receipts from the business need not be enough to pay any profit to either the tool owners or the tool workers. But they must be enough to provide the life of both the tools and the men. If they are more than enough, the surplus is a profit; if they are less, the deficit is a loss. And a loss, if it continues, always means sooner or later and generally sooner-a reduction in wages. The profit ought also to mean an increase in some form in the income of the tool workers as well as in the income of the tool owners.

That alone will not satisfy the reason

author and added to the Bible a new book.

The book of Ecclesiastes has long been a puzzle to commentators. It is a book of contradictions. Is it a poem or a philoso phy? Is its voice that of cynicism or that of faith? Is its message the empti ness of life or the glory of life? It begins with "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." It ends with "Fear God and keep his commandments." Which conclusion does. the author mean us to accept?

The notion that the book was written by Solomon has been abandoned by most modern scholars. Probably the opinion which of late years has been generally entertained is that of Dean Stanley, who compares it to Tennyson's poem of "The Two Voices." This theory of its inter pretation was thus defined by Lyman Abbott in his Sunday evening lectures on the Bible given in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, in 1896:

The book of Ecclesiastes, portraying the complicated experiences of life, is a dramatic monologue-conflicting voices speaking in it, but the conflicting voices that speak in a single man. The man is arguing to himself; he is weighing and measuring the phenomena of life over against one another. A philosopher would take these things in order. He would first consider the efficacy of wisdom; then pleasure; then ambition; and when he had finished, then he would draw his lesson there from as to the teaching of life. But the writer of Ecclesiastes is not a philosopher; he is a poet; and it is not by this method of ordered thinking we do our meditating. On the contrary, thoughts come tumultuously into our mind; they fight their battle out within our consciousness; they contend for the mastery-ambition, sensuality, wisdom, conscience. There are no parliamentary laws in the human soul and no one to keep orderfirst one voice speaks, and then another, shouting against one another and drowning one another. Thus the book of Ecclesiastes is purposely confused, deliberately and of intention confused, because it is the portrayal of the confused experiences of a soul divided against itself.

Professor Jastrow propounds a different theory; so far as we know, he is the first one to propound it. His theory is that a "gentle cynic" wrote the original book; that as it issued from his pen it

A Gentle Cynic. Being a Translation of the Book of Koheleth, Commonly Known as Ecclesiastes, Stripped of Later Additions. Also Its Origin, Growth, and Interpretation. By Morris Jastrow, Jr., LL.D., Professor in the University of Pennsylvania. The J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia and London.

was by a Hebrew "Omar Khayyám ;" that some orthodox critic-there may have hebeen more than one-added to it comments, emendations, corrections, replies, and gave it to the world in its amended form; and that the proverbs which are scattered through the poem or essay were I added by him or by other commentators from time to time to illustrate and enrich the thought of the book.

A remote analogy might perhaps be De found in Coleridge's "Aids to Reflection," the reflections being suggested to him largely by select passages from Archbishop Leighton. Archbishop Leighton is now generally forgotten and "Aids to the Reflection" finds its place in our libraries ? Ite for the sake of Coleridge's comments. Somewhat similarly it is supposed that the original Ecclesiastes has been forgotten and it is to the comments of the orthodox editor that the book owes its place in Tour Bible. Professor Jastrow, with much edh

painstaking and much literary skill, has he eliminated from the Book of Ecclesiastes

10

stands apart from the world and laughs at it, but laughs quite good-naturedly, and the reader laughs with him. Like Bernard Shaw, he takes nothing seriously, not even himself.

66

Again and again he declares that life is but a chasing after wind.". This is a favorite figure with him; nine times he repeats it in his short poem. Professor Jastrow thus interprets it in a note: "Ambition is like chasing the wind, you can never catch it, and if you did it would be of no use." We are but children running after soap-bubbles; foolish boors trying to find the end of the rainbow for the pot of gold we have been told is buried there.

A single brief quotation will best give to our readers an idea of the spirit of the poem which Professor Jastrow has discovered in the Book of Ecclesiastes or created out of it:

bad venture, the son begotten by him has nothing.

He cannot carry anything that he has acquired by his toil away with him.

Surely this is a sore evil, that just as he came, so he goes. Therefore what profit is it to him that he toils for the wind and that he spends all his days in saving and in constant worry and sickness and distress?

Therefore, it seems to me the thing that is good and proper is to eat, drink, and to have a good time with all one's toil under the sun during the span of life which God has allotted to one, for that is his portion. Every man to whom God has given riches and possessions and who has (also) the power to enjoy it and to take his portion and to be happy in his toil-this is a gift of God. For he should remember that life is short and that God approves of joy.

Professor Jastrow's Ecclesiastes is not inspiring, but neither is it depressing. It is not profound, but it is keen and caustic. And it leaves the reader a little in doubt whether the original author is satirizing life or satirizing the pleasure-seeker's view of life which he assumes for the purpose of poking fun at it.

We must leave the expert Hebrew scholar to deal with Professor Jastrow's theory. But we wish that he might be persuaded to print in a little booklet the Book of Ecclesiastes as he interprets it, and so put before the ordinary lay reader this delightful satire, which in the present form will be accessible only to Biblical scholars.

W Dr.Wolle's flexuous fingers at Beth

WHEN the Bach Choir sings under

lehem, it is more than the making of music -it is the creation of an atmosphere. Thoreau says it takes two to speak truth-one to speak and one to hear; and after laboring a whole year behind closed doors it is a final inspiration for the two hundred and forty-seven singers to be openly heard by an audience which devoutly follows in many cases word by word and note by note the corps of singers hurling their very souls after their voices into ethereal space beyond all architectural confines. The listeners are as necessary as the performers, and they listen for the music's sake and not for the lure of the renown of any individual musician. Dr. Wolle himself lays all the laurels he has gathered in the course of fourteen festivals at the feet of the Cantor of Eisenach-"ad majorem gloriam Dei." How strange it seems that in Bach's own day he was badgered and hectored by a myopic school committee who hadn't the least idea of the ultimate leading of the celestial sounds which to them were only the ugly and hateful contraptions of the devil's maleficence!

Some people to-day are residuary legatees of the ears of that school committee, and they say that Bach is too much for them or even that they cannot abide him. Each year Dr. Wolle makes converts of many who first endure and then embrace the alleged inhuman austerities of the music; which accounts for the fact that the convocation in Packer Church of Lehigh University this year hailed from eighteen States and overflowed the big church to the living green of the bird-haunted, forest-clad, sundappled academic acreage.

There were given on the first day (June 6) eight cantatas which do not require naming; the Mass in B Minor, according to custom, glorified the second and final day. The chorales interspersed among the cantatas made it clear how many fine professional voices there were in the audience-or congregation, as one pleases. It is a great relief-a safetyvalve to pent-up emotions-to rise and sing one's head off and one's heart out with the rest. The whole assemblage takes the contagion from the wonderful ascendency of Dr. Wolle over the Choir, and here the shining ideal of community

-a safety

singing is realized. The leader gives himself utterly to the singers and the singing, and so unsparing is he of his nervous vitality that he must perceive that virtue has gone out of him with every measure he surcharges with his electrodynamic personality.

With the very first notes of his peculiarly long-drawn version of "The StarSpangled Banner" Dr. Wolle tied himself in bowknots, and from that moment he was "all over the shop" till the last protracted "Amen" of "Dona Nobis Pacem was sounded. Said one of the veteran basses: "With that crook of his little finger Dr. Wolle becomes a fisher of men and women; he seems to haul us by a kind of hypnosis after him."

With the full orchestral apparatus plus the organ in the background, one becomes conscious principally of a single overwhelming polyphonic cataract, to which the several currents of the eight divisions of the voices contribute in due

hearer remarked-with the enamored care and the perceptive feeling one finds in the work of the best of the Florentine painters. The sole inartistic thing Dr. Wolle allowed himself to do came with the "Amen" after the "Dona Nobis Pacem." To show that his singers after all the racking exactions of two days were not exhausted he let them display their extraordinary breath-control by making this final" Amen " a dozen times as long as Bach wrote it to be, tapering the sound down to the tiniest pianissimo, and then letting it outwell again just as one sup

posed it was to die away altogether. It was amazing, it was enlivening, but it was unlawful. It was what the schoolboy calls a "stunt" pure and simple.

To other choruses the lesson of the Bach Choir is that an agglomeration of good singers does not make an effectual singing unit without downright yearround labor that spurns the thought of union hours and does all for love. Dr. Wolle does not have extraordinary material at his command. Many of his singers have been at work with the Bethlehem Steel Company making the guns and

the shells which the still, small voice of their own music at last cries down and brings to discomfiture. There is a text for the moralist in this salient anomaly. If these singers were heralded artists competing for repute, they would be noted and praised, no doubt, but they would not have reached the high pinna cle of prestige whereon to-day their Choi stands. The cathedrals of old were reared by humble folk who built their own aspi rations, their own hungering dreams of the Infinite, into the work of their finit hands; and that work lives after them.

SIN

INCE the middle of May Canada has had a long series of labor troubles which have resulted in considerable disturbance of business conditions and inconvenience to a large proportion of her citizens. For a time there was a threat of serious trouble of a nature not usually associated with strikes, but happily the worst fears were not realized.

In Canada, as elsewhere, labor is of opinion that increases in wages have not kept pace with the rapidly increasing costs of living. There has been much unrest in Canada, as elsewhere. The general discontent made easy the task of a few dangerous and ambitious agitators whose scarcely concealed ambition was to raise the red flag of revolution. The recent labor disturbances which have troubled the life of the Dominion were not ordinary strikes. They were poorly planned and clumsily executed attempts to set up Bolshevist governments in several communities. Apparently a soviet government was actually, if not nominally, in control of Winnipeg, the principal city of the western provinces, for a period of about two weeks. True, the red flag did not float over the City Hall, as was reported at the time in outside papers; but for two weeks such places of business as remained open and the few public utilities that were permitted to serve the public were for the most part allowed to operate only by the express leave of the strike leaders. Even the mail service was paralyzed. Telegraph communication with the outside world was shut off. The newspapers were not permitted to be published. The police were under the control of the strike committee. The firemen were on strike, and the only fire protection to be had was afforded by an energetic band of citizen volunteers working under the handicap of the dangerously low water pressure permitted by the strike leaders.

Early in the year, at a big labor convention in Calgary, definite plans for the organization of Canadian labor in "One Big Union"

were presented by the extremists among Canadian labor leaders and adopted in spite of considerable opposition. In the weeks that followed the idea was adopted by many of the labor

unions, although it meant severing connections with the international organizations of which Canadian trade unions have long been members. The saner elements in Canadian labor, conspicuous among which were the railway brotherhoods and the typographical unions, held aloof; but the movement spread rapidly nevertheless.

Trouble started in Winnipeg, where the "One Big Union" leaders, through a committee, made demands on behalf of the metal workers. The employers were prepared to recognize the regularly constituted unions, but they refused to negotiate with this new committee; whereupon a general strike was ordered by the "One Big Union " leaders, and the life of the city was paralyzed for a time. When it became apparent that the battle was going against them, the leaders sent out a call-by messenger, for there were no mails, telegraphs, or telephones-for sympathetic general strikes in other cities. The avowed object was to tie up every Canadian city from Halifax to Vancouver. The response was disappointing to the strike leaders. General strikes were called in several cities in which there were no local causes of dispute, but the strike orders were not always obeyed, and because of general public reprobation most of these sympathetic demonstrations were short-lived. It was only by deliberate misrepresentation of the issue at stake that the leaders were able to control their following in Winnipeg or to win any considerable support in other cities. The principle of collective bargaining was never in dispute; the actual quarrel was over the recognition of the "One Big Union.'

The plans of the leaders were told in the "Western Labor News," which was the only paper permitted to be published in the early days of the strike in Winni peg. It foretold a general and Dominionwide strike which would include the postal service and the railways. "Should that be necessary," said this organ of the strike committee, "it will have results that at present are beyond contemplation. The federal Government would have proved its incompetence, and would have proved its incompetence, and would have to go in a hurry. The present industrial

system would also be given its first effec tive blow. Its end would, because of this be materially hastened. The financia system would also come in for seriou thought, and in the ramifications of th Dominion-wide strike the serious finan cial condition of the nation would look bare and inadequate also, and its en would be hastened."

This could mean only an attack on th present system of government and th overthrow of the industrial and financia systems of the country, to be replaced presumably, by a Bolshevist Utopia. Th head of the strike organization declare that in a short time there would be n need to use the weapon of the strike "We shall not need to strike," he said "when we own and control industryand we won't relinquish the fight unt we do control. This is not revolution The workers are docile, but the worker realize their importance, and they see n reason why they should not own and eTE joy, since they produce all."

The stubborn resistance of the citizen of Winnipeg, fortified by the firm att tude of the Dominion Government towar the striking postal employees, broke th strike where it began; and, once broke in Winnipeg, the movement soon died or elsewhere. A committee of one thousan Winnipeg citizens undertook the oper tion of the more essential of the publi utilities. The Government announce that striking postal employees would b discharged if they did not return to wor immediately. Various corporations mad similar announcements, and thousands trade-union men who found that the had been deceived by their new leader returned to their work. The strike lead ers were broken and discredited. Canad is not Russia; Canada will not tolerat Bolshevism. Canadian trade-union me will not tolerate Bolshevism, but thor, sands were misled for a time by the ap peals of the men who were trying to wor revolution.

To the credit of the strikers in Winni peg and other Canadian cities be it sai that, although passions ran high and defea was bitter, there were few riots of an magnitude and little actual damage wa done to property. If the extremists ha

planned anything of this sort, they were overruled by the sober sense of the great majority, who have always had respect for law and order. The truth is that the great majority of the strikers had dropped their tools against their own better judgment. As often happens, the inarticulate majority were overruled and bullied by a noisy and headstrong minority. The issue had been misrepresented. Thousands of law-abiding, loyal, and respectable citizens who have never been led astray by the Bolshevist doctrines of the leaders of the "One Big Union went on strike believing that they were fighting for the principle of collective bargaining, which is dear to the hearts of all trade-union men. Later they found that this was not the issue, and they were then in an awkward situation. They had been loyal to their leaders, and those leaders had bestrayed them. They began then to seek for the easiest way out of their difficulties, the way that would involve the slightest loss of their self-respect.

In other times it would not have been o easy for leaders of the sort who ruled he situation in Winnipeg to gain the donfidence of Canadian labor. It was the revailing discontent over hard conditions af living in this era of abnormal costs of tall the necessaries of life that enabled a isionary and dangerous minority to work ers will with a majority that in ordinary imes could not easily have been influ

الله

enced to disregard its contracts and agreements.

The Hon. G. H. Robertson, Canadian Minister of Labor, is himself a labor leader who has long been prominent in labor circles in the Dominion. Quite naturally his sympathies are with labor in all its worthy attempts to better its conditions. There was considerable criticism from employers when he was selected as Labor Minister. When the trouble commenced in Winnipeg, he hurried to the scene to attempt to secure arbitration. Strong labor leader that he is, he soon came to the conclusion that arbitration was impossible. Any compromise would be a compromise with Bolshevism. On the point at issue there could be no surrender, no compromise, unless the whole financial, industrial, and economic system of Canada were to be changed. He made no attempt, therefore, to secure arbitration. His whole effort was to persuade labor that it had misunderstood the issue. In that attempt he met with a large measure of success.

Before leaving for Ottawa, at a time when the result of the strike was no longer in doubt, he gave an interview to the "Manitoba Free Press," which in the interval had been able to resume publication.

"The promoters of the Winnipeg strike," he said, "now sit in the ashes of their folly. Labor leaders who advocate

that only might is right, who hold that law, justice, and honor should be discarded at will, merit and receive the condemnation of all good citizens.

"Sympathetic strikes must always fail. Socialism has chosen the 'One Big Union' idea as a popular primrose path along which to lead the trade-unionist, urging him to discard his honorable obligations and join the big show.

"The Winnipeg strike is the first rehearsal of the play written at Calgary. The Winnipeg rehearsal has cost approx. imately two million dollars in wages lost in western Canada alone, and has proved the play to have been badly written and unpopular with both the public and most of the performers."

Undoubtedly this striking evidence of public unrest must lead to a serious examination of the economic conditions that made such disturbance in law-abiding communities possible. Two months ago the Canadian Government appointed a commission to investigate the possibilities of an industrial system under which labor would be represented on the boards of big employing corporations and share in the annual profits. That commission is to report some time this month, and legislation of some sort is promised for this session in case the recommendations are favorable. The result may be interesting. FRANK MAITLAND. Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, June 4, 1919.

ILL the Balkans, which have proars Europe has had in the past halfntury, produce a casus belli in the es between the Jugoslavs and the alians which have arisen on the very ve of the settlement of the great war etween Germany and the Allies? Before this can be published some Frangement may have been concluded etween the Italians and the Jugoslavs; at will that arrangement be permaently satisfactory to both sides?

The Teutons, who dragged the whole orld into war by refusing to arbitrate heir quarrel with the Slavs in the Balans, are openly exulting over the Balkan ontroversy which has broken out between Slavs and Latins. The sagest observers f politics in the chancelleries of Allied tates are frank in declaring there can be 10 secure peace in Europe until the dispute affecting Fiume and Dalmatia is ettled to the satisfaction of both parties to the dispute. As I write this such a ettlement seems about as hopeless of attainment as a settlement between France and Germany which would please both of them. It would seem that there must be developed a willingness to compromise in

the hearts of both parties to this controversy before the Peace Conference can adjourn with a fair prospect of a stable peace for Europe. Whatever may be the position of the Italians, the Jugoslavs are preserving a commendable composure, to judge by the attitude of their delegates in Paris. I recently went to see Mr. Nicholas Pasitch, First Delegate of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes to the Peace Conference. Mr. Pasitch is a handsome old man with fine big eyes, straight nose, and full beard. He looks like a very distinguished Santa Claus. The interview was arranged by Professor Pavle Popovitch, of the University_of Belgrade, and the head of the Press Department of the Jugoslavic Delegation to the Conference. Mr. Bogumil Vosnjak, the General Secretary of the Delegation, acted as interpreter.

"Above all, I want to emphasize," said Mr. Pasitch, "the fact that we do not consider the Italians our enemies. We want always to preserve good relations with Italy and to remain a friendly neighbor of hers. Even if ever it should come to a war, you can be sure that in no case would it ever be we who would provoke it, and that we shall always do

everything possible to prevent that possibility and to avoid everything which might result in placing on us any responsibility for such an event.

"Such a war would benefit only our common enemies; a reasonable policy ought to commend itself to the two nations in order to avoid a war, and indeed to suppress anything tending even to weaken the friendship between the two peoples.

66

Germany sowed distrust among us in the Balkans," continued the distinguished first delegate of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, "as well as distrust between Europe and us, and this all with the single aim of justifying her animosity toward us and her rigorous measures to keep us in a state of servitude. Now, sir, every people has the right to defend its liberty and its national development. The peoples who have had to support the yoke of foreign domination have conceived such a hatred for the policy of enslavement and despoilment of other people's land that they would never themselves think of adopting such an imperialistic policy. We are a peaceful people, we have never enslaved foreign tribes or nationalities.

"All that the Jugoslavs want is to

unite, to be free, and to consecrate all their intellectual and material forces solely to their development and their progress. Thus you see that even at present they are asking only for what belongs to them; they demand only the realization of the very principles which you have proclaimed, you Americans, as a base for international life in the future."

Mr. Pasitch swept some papers off his desk with a broad sweep of the right hand and sat more erect in his chair. "Of course you are familiar with the issues between us and Italy," said he; "but let me give you a reiteration of our position. We Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes demand only this-that the settlement of this question be made on national lines. As far as the port of Fiume is concerned, the Italian claim is specious if you are ignorant, but that is all that can be said for it. Fiume belongs to us by every standard-by the ethnographic standard, the historic standard, and by the economic standard.

"The Italianization of Fiume is very recent. Personally I can remember when Fiume was overwhelmingly Slavic. The introduction of the Italians was promoted by the Magyars as a political maneuver against the Croats.

"To-day the Italians are claiming that they have thirty-three thousand of their people in Fiume as against less than eleven thousand Jugoslavs. I don't know where they find any justification for such figures. The official Austro-Hungarian statistics for 1910 report 24,212 Italians

and 15,687 Jugoslavs. But even those figures are misleading. They were compiled and published by the municipal authorities of Fiume, who were either Magyars or Italians, with every reason to make Slavic strength in their city appear as slight as possible. But there are still two important points to be remembered. First, included in that 24,212 are Italianisanti or Italianized Slavs. In the second place, both the Italian and Magyar statisticians count the population of Fiume as if Susak were not properly included. Now Susak, which is divided from so-called Fiume by only a narrow canal, is as much a part of real Fiume as the city just north of the Harlem River is a part of real New York. In Susak there are 11,706 Jugoslavs as against 658 Italians. Therefore in greater Fiume there are altogether 27,393 Jugoslavs as against 24,870 Italians.

"For economic reasons it is a matter almost of life and death for us to have Fiume. With its fine rail connections this port serves the very heart and, indeed, the whole interior of our country. Look at the other ports which might be available to us. Ragusa (Dubrovnik) is linked with the interior only by a narrow-gauge railway. Ogulin-Knin has no connection with our capital. It is true that Spalato (Split) is a good harbor which may be connected with Belgrade. But even if that railway is built, it will be a tremendously expensive task and one which cannot be accomplished for a long time. "In short, Fiume is indispensable to It is not indispensable to Italy. If

us.

our trade had to pass through an Italia Fiume, Italy would hold our whole co merce in her hands. She could blocka us when she pleased. For us that wou be a situation not to be borne. We re our claim to Fiume, however, not questions of expediency but on questio of principle. By the fundamental prin ple of the self-determination of people Fiume belongs to the Serbs, Croats, a Slovenes.

"Even now, in our conflict with Ital we are asking for arbitration, we a putting the solution up to the judgme of your just and eminent President, b our adversaries will not accept the jud ment of just men. We are asking th the people themselves be allowed to deci by a plebiscite what they want and whom they wish to unite themselves. T Italians will not accept even that. C rather, they are ready to accept the su gestion that Fiume shall decide her ov fate by a plebiscite, but they refuse the right of this same plebiscite to t villages in the immediate proximity Fiume.

"An issue is thus raised between t principles proclaimed already, in the nar of which this war has been conduct against violence and imperialism, a secret treaties based on the law of co quest.

"The conflict must be decided betwee two parties, of which one defends justi and the liberty of all peoples, and which the other is actuated by secr treaties, by the ideas and tendencies outworn imperialism. Jugoslavia, form