It is

One established fact is that Mr. Lind, the President's special agent in Mexico, and Mr. O'Shaughnessy, our Chargé d'Affaires at the Mexican capital, had several conferences with Huerta's representatives and that Mr. Lind returned to Vera Cruz. believed that Huerta declined to accept any plan looking to his own elimination. The time for seating the new Mexican Congress is at hand, and Huerta holds that only this Congress can pronounce on the validity of the so-called presidential election or of its own election, or arrange for a new election. Huerta (or his spokesman) exclaims with outraged feeling at the idea that he can control the action of the new Congress—a delicious bit of opéra bouffe in view of what he did to the last one. Incidentally may be quoted a newspaper letter from an American in Mexico: "It is a fact sustained by proof that Huerta notified all his Governors in advance to send in election returns electing Blanquet and him; also that he issued to them lists of names of men to be elected to Congress. Of course the ele ction was the veriest farce."

Another of the few positive pieces of information of the week was that Mr. William Bayard Hale, presumably acting as an unofficial agent of President Wilson, visited General Carranza at Nogales, Mexico, over the line from Nogales, Arizona, and had conferences with him. It is asserted that the question of removing the embargo on arms from the United States was discussed and that Carranza continues to declare that this is

the only step needed to secure the success of the Constitutionalists. It is asserted also, but without positive evidence, that Mr. Hale asked for assurances of a free election and a responsible and satisfactory policy of government if Carranza should succeed in overthrowing the Huerta régime.

One of the most important events of the week was Prime Minister Asquith's explanation of Great Britain's position as regards Mexico and the United States. This is outlined and commented upon in an editorial on another page, in which is offered a plan of action for the United States. Mr. Asquith's explanation was followed by a despatch from Berlin, which says:

As a result of conferences between Count von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador, and Secretary Bryan in Washington, and Ambassador Gerard and the Foreign Minister in Berlin, Germany agrees with President Wilson that it is imperative that a man capable of restoring order and ending the chaos be placed at the head of the Government in Mexico. the whole, Germany agrees to support President Wilson's efforts to settle the situation, leaving it entirely to the United States to decide how best this can be done. The German Government insists, however, that present conditions cannot be allowed to continue much longer.

On

account we have seen) to be in the form of Yes and No answers to two questions :

1. Was Yuschinsky wounded within the Zattseff works in various parts of the body with intent to draw blood and then murdered?

2. Was Mendel Beilis associated in the murder and actuated by superstitious motives?

The reply "No" to the second question acquitted Beilis completely, but the reply "Yes" to the first seems to have been all but ordered outright by the Court, and to intimate a belief that the murder was for "ritual or sacrifice purposes. The verdict was received with a burst of applause in the court-room. Allowing for the pressure by Court and Government, the acquittal of Beilis is proof that the common people of Russia may be trusted to do justice even though the Czar himself may seek to do injustice. The Russian Government has always contended that the hatred of the common people for Jews virtually forced it to adopt and pursue an anti-Jewish policy; but countless Russian protests against blood libel, together with the verdict, show that the haters of Jews, are not the people of Russia, but the Czar, his associates and his Ministers. The jury was virtually a peasant jury, drawn in a city where the popular prejudice against Jews is supposed to be strongest, and yet it acquitted the accused in strict accordance with the evidence. No ritual murder case as important as this one has ever ended with a single trial, but if the Czar and Minister of Justice are well advised they will accept the verdict of the Kiev jury as final, and make the vindication of Jews complete by arresting and bringing to justice the real murderers, namely, the criminal gang in the Cheberiak tenement-house.

The trial took place before a bench of judges and a jury. The latter was composed of

THE TRIAL OF THE CASE

seven peasants, two townsmen, and three petty Government officials. Its mental and educational status was low, but no lower perhaps than that of the Russian common people in general. The prosecuting attorney for the Crown was a Government barrister named Vipper, who, so far as we can judge from the proceedings, is bold, unscrupulous, domineering, and extremely irritable. He was assisted by two "civil prosecutors," Shmakof and Zamyslovski. The latter is a Black Hundred member of the Duma, and a fierce hater of the Jews. Beilis

was defended by able counsel, including Gruzenberg, Karabchevski, Margolin, Zarudny, and Maklakof. Gruzenberg had already defended Jewish prisoners successfully in a previous" ritual murder " trial, and is therefore a man of experience in this field, as well as a lawyer of distinguished ability. Maklakof is a leader of the Constitutional Democrats in the Duma, and is generally regarded as one of the most eloquent and convincing speakers in that body. The indictment of Beilis filled twelve and a half closely printed newspaper columns, but only one-eighth of it was devoted to the accused and the evidence against him.

The Government, in the opinion of good judges on both sides, failed to connect the accused with the murder in any way whatever. Its witnesses were mostly "shady' characters, criminals, or children, and their testimony was contradicted or completely overthrown. Two of them-Vera Cheberiak and the Black Hundred student Golubef-fainted in the court-room and had to be removed. The former, who was the head of the gang of robbers in the Cheberiak tenement-house, has been exposed as an adulteress, a fistfighter, and an acid-thrower, and, although she is a Government witness, she has been convicted of fraud in another case and is awaiting punishment. The impression made even in conservative circles by the Government's presentation of its alleged evidence against Beilis may be summarized in the words of Prince Obolenski, ex-Procurator of the Czar's Holy Synod. Speaking to an interviewer from the St. Petersburg journal 'Reitch," the Prince said:

The charge of ritual murder made against the Jews has no more foundation than the similar charge of using blood which was made at one time against the Christians. From the indictment of the accused, and from all the evidence thus far produced, I have come to the conclusion that the relation of Beilis to the murder is no closer than that of any other man. I have seen no proof which would lead me to suppose that it was Beilis, and not some other man, who committed the crime."

The ex-Procurator of the Holy Synod can hardly be regarded as prejudiced against the Czar and in favor of the Jews. His opinion, moreover, is supported by another dignitary of the Holy Orthodox Church, Bishop Nikon, who, in a similiar interview, said:

"It is absolutely impossible that Beilis

In Riga, for example, the street sales from the news-stands increased 20,000 in the first three days after the trial began. Three wires from Kiev to St. Petersburg were wholly given up to telegrams and press reports relating to the case, and it is estimated that 100,000 words of "murder news were telegraphed from Kiev daily to the periodicals of Russia and western Europe. There were fifty reporters and special correspondents in the court-room, and there would have been two hundred if all the press applications for admission had been granted. Twenty-one newspapers were suppressed, confiscated, or fined by the Government for comments on the testimony in the first four days after the trial began, and some of the confiscated papers were in such demand that the few numbers which escaped seizure were eagerly bought up at five rubles ($2.50) a copy, and people who could not get them borrowed them temporarily, and paid one ruble (50 cents) for the mere privilege of reading a single number.

But the popular interest in the case was no more remarkable than the outburst of popular dissatisfaction which it caused. The prosecution of a Jew on the charge of "ritual murder " was followed by appeals, remonstrances, and protests in all parts of the Empire and from all classes of the population.

Owing to the restraints of the press censorship and the denial of the right of public assembly, the people of Russia have never been able to express dissatisfaction through the newspapers, by public meeting, or in any other normal way; and they have therefore resorted, in late years, to "demon

strative strikes." If the Government begins a more active campaign against Finland, or orders the flogging of political offenders in the Siberian prisons, or interferes with the paying of honor to the memory of a popular hero like Tolstoy, some class of the population goes on strike, for one day, two days, or more, as a demonstrative protest against what it regards as injustice.

was

The beginning of the Beilis trial caused an epidemic of strikes in nearly all the large cities and in most of the higher educational institutions of the Empire. Seventy thousand factory and mill operatives went on strike in St. Petersburg, and many more thousands in Warsaw, Wilna, Riga, and other large Russian towns where the liberal sentiment is strong or where the persecution of Jews is disapproved In the universities and high technical schools the protest against the "blood libel almost unanimous. All, or most, of the students went on strike in the Universities of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Kazan, Saratof, Odessa, and Warsaw; in the women's colleges of St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Kiev; in the women's medical institutes of St. Petersburg and Kiev; and in a dozen other colleges, institutes, or high technical schools in the capital or the provinces. There were demonstrative strikes in eleven of the higher institutions of learning in St. Petersburg alone.

In addition to these manifestations of popular feeling, the lawyers who conducted the defense of Beilis have received nearly a hundred telegrams of encouragement and sympathy, some of them from places as remote as Archangel, on the White Sea, and Russian towns in the Far East.

not a little feeling in religious circles generally and in missionary circles particularly. One hundred and twenty-three prisoners, most of them Christian converts, were arraigned in the court of first instance, and one hundred and six of them were found guilty; but when the case was heard in the Taiku Court of Appeal, in March, 1913, one hundred of the accused were acquitted, for the reason, apparently, that there was no conclusive evidence against them except the confessions of guilt which they were said to have made in the course of the preliminary investigation. These confessions, they subsequently declared, were wrung from them by means of torture. No evidence was offered by their counsel in support of the torture charge, and no investigation of it was made, either in the Seoul local court or in the Taiku Court of Appeal. That some form of "third degree pressure was brought to bear upon the accused by the police is probable enough; but it is almost certain that they were not subjected to the inhuman treatment which some of them described. The higher courts, however, gave them the benefit of the doubt, and acquitted all except Baron Yun Chi-ho, an ex-member of the old Korean Ministry; Yang Keuitaik, of the Korean "Daily News ;" An Tai-ku; Im Ching-chong; Yi Sung-hun; and Ok Kwan-pin.

The Japanese Government has not "wiped out the Christian movement" in the peninsula, as the Continuation Committee of the Edinburgh Conference thought it would. On the contrary, it has treated all Christian workers in that part of the Empire, not only with fairness and tolerance, but with sympathetic consideration. The Government still continues to give 10,000 yen annually to the Korean Young Men's Christian Association; private Japanese have contributed more than 2,000 yen this year to the same organization; and Count Terauchi himself has made a donation of 2,500 yen to the building fund of the Salvation Army. Christian work in the peninsula has continued to prosper, and in his latest report of progress the GovernorGeneral states that there are now 2,102 Christian churches in Korea, with 281,000 native converts.

As an indication of the Japanese sentiment in Korea with regard to this incident, we quote from an editorial in the Seoul

tone.

Now that sufficient time has elapsed for their ardor to cool down, they have seen that our authorities are not such enemies of the Koreans as they once thought, nor are they bent on wiping out the Christian movement in Korea.' We believe that even these few American missionaries are

now our good friends. As for the majority of the American missionaries in Chosen, they have been, from the beginning, very good friends of our authorities, and some of them have defended them in all sincerity and earnestness against unjust and unfounded foreign criticisms. All have loyally co-operated with our authorities in the work of uplifting the Korean people, and have proved themselves powerful allies."

THE CURRENCY BILL

Those who think that discussions of the Currency Bill are always dry and technical should have been at the dinner of the Economic Club of New York City held at the Hotel Astor last week. It was the occasion of a remarkable debate upon the merits of the bill now before Congress-a debate in which Professor Joseph French Johnson, of the chair of Political Enomy of New York University, and Mr. Frank A. Vanderlip, President of the National City Bank of New York City, opposed the bill, while Senator Owen of Oklahoma and Representative Carter Glass of Virginia defended it. appearance of Senator Owen and Representative Glass in this debate was of special interest because they have been active in framing the Currency Bill, they stand sponsors for it, it bears their names, and is popularly known as the Glass-Owen Bill.

Aside from the value of this debate as a contribution to public knowledge regarding the creation and construction and provisions of the bill, it was a notable illustration of the power of the orator to influence his audience by sheer force of character and intelligence. We suppose Mr. Glass would be the last man to regard himself as an orator-indeed, he apologized for what he feared was the ineffectiveness of his address on the ground that as a journalist he was a better writer than speaker. But his apology was unnecessary. He was the last speaker of the evening and began at a late hour; the financial sentiment of New York City is opposed to the bill, and therefore his audience of twelve hundred bankers and leading men of affairs was an unsympathetic one. Professor Johnson and Mr.

Vanderlip had preceded him and had spoken with authority and effectiveness-one with the authority of the scientific economist and the other with the authority of the accomplished financier. But before Mr. Glass had finished he had his audience with him, eliciting laughter for his incisive and witty comments and loud applause for his clear reasoning and for his manifestly accurate knowledge not only of the bill but of the history and the operations of American finance. Twice when he essayed to stop he was greeted with loud cries of "Go on from all parts of the room, and his speech, one hour long, was listened to with appreciative attention from beginning to end.

Mr. Glass accomplished perhaps more than he himself realized in removing misconceptions, misunderstanding, and prejudices regarding the bill, which unfortunately have prevailed to too large an extent in the financial metropolis of the country.

THE ARGUMENTS OF

THE DEBATE

The entire country knows that the almost unanimous objection of the bankers to the bill has been based upon the feature of Government control. As we have before pointed out, except with regard to the very important and fundamental principle of Government control the bill does not greatly differ in structure or in potential operation from the bill of the Monetary Commission, known as the "Aldrich Bill," which the bankers of the country supported almost to a man.

The Aldrich Bill provided that the directors of the Central Reserve Association should be elected by the bankers. The Glass-Owen Bill provides that the directors of the Federal Reserve Board shall be appointed by the President. It is true that the bankers claim that there are other fundamental differences. They protest that under the Glass Bill the National banks are compelled to come into the system by law, whereas the Aldrich Bill made their coming in a voluntary matter. Mr. Glass demolished this objection by pointing out, amid the laughter and approval of his hearers, that the Glass Bill "compels the bankers to come in, while the Aldrich Bill made it impossible for them to stay out," and pertinently asked what practical difference a banker could find in the two provisions. Mr. Vanderlip objected that under the Glass Bill the circulatory notes are to be issued by the

Government, and argued that they should be issued by the banks, as provided by the Aldrich Bill and as they are now issued under the National Banking Act. For our part, we have never been able to understand why a five-dollar National bank bill, bearing on its face the name of the "Cornwall National Bank," and circulating throughout the country because it is guaranteed by the United States Government, is not to all intents and purposes a Government note.

But Mr. Vanderlip claims that the Glass Bill permits the Government to issue "fiat money." Mr. Glass exposed the weakness. of this objection by pointing out that 33 per cent of gold and 663 per cent of carefully scrutinized assets, representing material commodities, will underlie every dollar of the new notes, and, moreover, that the Government will not redeem the bills in gold, unless the regional bank responsible for them goės into bankruptcy. It is true that there will be a fiduciary element-that is to say, a mere promise-to-pay element-in the new notes, but there is the same, although much smaller, fiduciary element in the notes of the Bank of England and the Bank of France. The question is not whether the new notes will be "fiat" notes, but whether the fiduciary element is too large a percentage of the notes. Some economists think that it is, some economists think that it is not. In our judgment, the only way this problem can be solved is by practice. If the Federal Reserve Board is of sufficient caliber and distinction, it can protect the country against the dangers of so-called inflation of the promise-to-pay or fiduciary element by regulating the rate of discount.

The most singular fact which was brought out at this dinner was the absolute right

THE CHANGE OF BANKING OPINION

about-face which the bankers of the country have made on the question of Government control. Six months ago, having protested that the Glass Bill provided too much Government control, the bankers now protest, if Mr. Vanderlip may be accepted as expressing the best sentiment of American bankers, that the bill does not insure sufficient Government control and power!

Mr. Vanderlip, at the Economic Club dinner, presented the outlines of a bill which he has recommended to Congress. It provides for the establishment of a United States