is the oldest living French composer. He continues the tradition and influence of César Franck, whose pupil he was and of whom Daniel Gregory Mason once said in these pages:

When we turn from the brilliant Parisian we have been studying [Saint-Saëns] to that obscure and saintly man, César Franck, the only French contemporary of Saint-Saëns who is worthy to be ranked with him as a great composer, we can hardly believe ourselves in the same country or epoch; it is as if we were suddenly transported from modern Paris into some medieval monastery to which the noise of the world never penetrates, where nothing breaks the silence save the songs of worship and the deep note of the organ.

D'Indy served with Saint-Saëns on the committee to welcome the appearance in Paris of Walter Damrosch's New York Symphony Orchestra. That international courtesy is being returned by the invitation extended to him to visit this country as a guest conductor of the New York Symphony Orchestra. Under his direction that orchestra has given the first performance anywhere of his symphonic poem in four movements entitled "On the Shores of the Seas." In this composition d'Indy combines the austere and impressive harmonies which are characteristic of the work of César Franck with very modern orchestration. It is music that does not stir the emotions, nor does it give the memory much to grasp. It indicates that the composer is perhaps not so much a poet as a scholar; in any event, he is a master of the grammar of music and the technique of the orchestra. His visit cannot fail to produce on this country a favorable impression of French art and French artists.

Rachmaninoff also gives the impression of dignity and virility on the concert stage. He is one of the foremost of Russian composers and pianists. His mastery of brilliant technique has hardly been surpassed by any of the great foreign pianists who have visited these shores during the last quarter of a century. As with most Russians, there is a vein of somberness in his art, both of composition and performance, which,

(C) Underwood

maninoff plays Chopin well because the Russian and the Pole have certain common characteristics of the Slavic race and tradition in spite of the fact that they have often fought in the past and are still in an antagonistic mood politically. Rachmaninoff is evidently fond of Liszt, and at his recent recital in New York played two of the compositions of that master of the piano. But the four numbers of Chopin which he played confirm the growing belief that from the point of view of creative genius Liszt's reputation is diminishing while Chopin's is constantly rising. Rachmaninoff is likely to leave behind him for future generations a worthy name as a composer. We hope he will allow this element in his musical nature free and spontaneous play. One of the most beautiful of modern songs, distinctly Russian in character, his "O Thou Billowy Harvest Field," has in it elements of symphonic grasp and power.

Supreme Court of the State of Washing. ton has decided that under the Constitution of that State the people possess no one of these rights. The school au thorities cannot even examine students in Bible study carried on out of school and give them credit for a successful passing of such examination.

What is the Bible?

It is a collection of the history, the laws, and the literature of an ancient people to whom, more than to any other ancient people, we are indebted for some of the fundamental elements in our modern civilization.

It contains an account of what is probably the first attempt in history to put constitutional limits on the powers of an absolute monarch; to organize a national popular assembly containing representatives of the plain people; to provide popular, if not universal, suffrage; to guard the state against the danger of a landed aristocracy; to make the priesthood absolutely dependent on the people for their subsistence; to provide popular education for the peasant class; to create a quasi-federated union of independent states united in one national organization. To the ancient Hebrews we are largely indebted for the germs of our political institutions.

There is not in any literature, ancient or modern, a better epitome of moral rights and moral duties than the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. To the Hebrews we are largely indebted for our moral ideals.

There is not in any literature a clearer expression of religious reverence for a God of character as distinguished from a God of power than the One Hundred and Third Psalm. To the Hebrews we are largely indebted for our religious ideals.

There is not in any literature a life more worthy of our following or a character more worthy of our reverent admiration than Jesus of Nazareth. Pagan, Jew, and Christian unite in tributes to him.

There is no one collection of English literature which furnishes the pupil so many illustrations of pure and elevated English as the King James Version of the Bible, none to which references are so frequent in all literature since the seventeenth century.

The books of this unique collection were written in different epochs by authors of different intellectual ability and of widely different temperaments, from the moralist to the mystic, but all of them inspired by a religious spiritthat is, a spirit of justice, mercy, reverence, and humility. For this reason the collection is rightly classed as religious literature.

Why should the State forbid its youth

from becoming acquainted with this ancient literature in the only schools which the majority of its youth will ever attend, the schools established, supported, and controlled by the State? An overwhelming majority of the States encourage this larger liberty. The few who deny it say to their teachers, You may teach the Vedic Hymns but not the Hebrew Psalms, the Greek myths but not the Hebrew stories, the Proverbs of Rochefoucauld but not the Proverbs of Solomon, the laws of Justinian but not the laws of Moses, the fables of Esop but not the parables of Jesus. Why? Because a few ecclesiastics are unwilling

that the Bible should be taught as other collections of literature are taught and a few religious enthusiasts fear that their children will be contaminated by the public reading in the schools of the Book which was an inspiration to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.

It is now proposed to undertake a campaign in the State of Washington to amend its Constitution so as to give its people the same right to free and full instruction that is now enjoyed by more than three-quarters of the States in the Union. If the Christian churches should

unite in such a campaign, animated not by a desire to glorify the churches or even the Bible but to enlarge and enrich the education of the youth of Washington, and if it should be conducted without bitterness, it could hardly fail, and it would afford those who love the Bible and desire to impart its inspiring influence to the youth of the State an unequaled opportunity to give to the people of all classes and all opinions an understanding of the value, not only of the Book, but of the political, moral, and religious ideals which are interpreted by that Book in sermon, song, and story. LYMAN ABBOTT.

A

T the head of the long table sits a very short, very spare man. His light-brown skin is stretched tight over his high cheek-bones. His eyes seem to be hiding behind the narrow slits of his eyelids. Around his mouth and eyes there are the traces of a smile that plays, as it were, a counterpoint to the sternness of the compressed lips. There is something about his face that reminds me of the pictures of Leo XIII --suggestive of astuteness rather than craft, with a hint of sagacious humor.

Along the sides of the room, some seated at the table, others seated behind them, and still others standing against the wall, are some sixty or seventy-five men. From one here, from another there, come questions in English. From the directness, the coolly undiplomatic directness, of these questions even more than from the manner of speech, one may judge at once that most of these questioners are American. Some of the men in the room are obviously Japanese; some, Chinese; but they seldom ask a question. Occasionally a man among the questioners betrays by his speech the fact that he is English; occasionally one speaks who spices his question with a foreign accent. For the most part, however, the questioners speak after the manner of newspaper men in the United States.

And Admiral Baron Kato, Minister of the Japanese Navy and a high naval officer (for in Japan only a naval officer can be what Americans would call Secretary of the Navy), with never a sign of annoyance or irritation or impatience, listens to these questions put to him in a foreign tongue. It is said that he understands English very well. I can believe it, for sometimes when the pertinence of the question verges on impertinence (in soundly American fashion) the Baron's sense of humor renews the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth.

When the interpreter, professor of Japanese at Stanford University, California, puts into Japanese the question, with evident amusement at the persistence of the questioner, the Baron smiles again and answers in Japanese. Then the smile, transferred to the interpreter, reaches the company of men, and occasionally breaks into audible laughter. Baron Kato is never caught. He seems to enjoy the game; and when he leaves shakes the hands of those whom he passes.

Such appears to be the chief spokesman of Japan at the Armament Conference. What he says he says in terse sailor fashion. And, terse though his speech is, even terser is his silence.

It is Japan's silence, which Baron Kato has known so well how to preserve, that has placed Japan before the people of this country, and in a measure before the peoples of other countries, in the position of holding up and apparently endangering the decision, to which she had agreed, to stop the building of offensive navies.

Last week I said that there were no goblins to be feared, but that there were lions in the way. This is one of them. Until Japan's reluctance to agree specifically to stop building battle fleets and stop now is removed, there in the way, directly in the path of the progress of this Conference, that lion will remain.

Because it is in the foreground, this appears to be the biggest lion of them all. It has occasioned the most fears. It has led to some discussion (not within the Conference, but among some of the observers) as to whether it might not really stop the progress of the Conference altogether. It has suggested the thought to some timid souls that perhaps the best plan was to avoid the lion by going around another way.

Upon examination this particular lion, however, proves not to be as big as it looks.

When Mr. Hughes made his proposal, he accompanied it with a definite explanation of what stopping now meant. Among other things it meant that from now on for ten years among the three nations engaged in the naval race there should be no change in relative naval power. This relative naval power is what is meant by the term-often used in the newspapers nowadays-"ratio." In addition to the fact that battleships and battle-cruisers form the real substance of offensive navies, there was reason in taking the displacement tonnage of such capital ships as a yardstick to measure naval strength. Such tonnage is not only a common denominator for gun-power, armor, and speed, but it is something that can be added and subtracted. It is a definite and arithmetical, as well as a fair, measure of strength.

By omitting those old battleships known as pre-dreadnoughts, which are not practically useful in modern naval warfare between first-class naval Powers, and which Great Britain had already discarded, there would be left ships under construction (whose keels had already been laid) and completed and commissioned dreadnoughts and superdreadnoughts. These showed a ratio as between the United States and Japan of 100-45. As Japan as well as Britain had spent money on material for some battlecruisers which had not been actually laid down, these were included. That raised the ratio to 100-53. To be fair, ships under construction ought not to be counted as equal to ships in commission; so such ships were counted according to the percentage of completion. That lowered the ratio to 100-49. The American experts not only made their own estimates of the stage of construction of Japanese ships, but also, to be fair, used a table of the estimates of the Japanese themselves. The ratio was unchanged: 100-49. Even if the Japanese estimates

of both American and Japanese ships were taken, the ratio went no higher than 100-60; but of course that was no fairer than to take the American estimate of Japanese ships. The fairest ratio thus far is therefore 100-49. But to give every advantage to the Japanese, there were included battleships over twenty years old which the Japanese wished to include (though these ships do not actually contribute to practical battle strength). That made the ratio 100-55. By every method of calculation of actual naval power (power that could be used in future warfare) the ratio never rose higher (in fact, remained at best somewhat less) than 100-60. So the American proposal was made to give Japan the benefit of every doubt, and it was announced that after the naval holiday began, to date from November 11, 1921, no new ships (built to replace those becoming worn out and useless) should change the ratio between the United States and Japan from this ratio of 100-60, the highest of all the estimates. The figures were examined by the experts of all three countries, and their accuracy was not questioned.

Then from Japanese sources came statements to the effect that this was not high enough. Indeed, the chief naval adviser of the Japanese delegation proposed that the ratio be made 100-70. The only tonnage that could be used to support this ratio was that of existing super-dreadnoughts. In other words, no ships under construction would be

counted at all-even the most powerful superdreadnoughts that could be commissioned within a year (the last war continued for over four years) and sent into battle-fifteen in all, on which the American people have already spent $330,000,000. All these the American people-if the naval race is stoppedare willing to scrap; but it is inconceivable that the American people would consent to ignore them in estimating their country's naval power. That proved obvious. So the argument shifted to the point that seventy per cent was necessary to Japan for defense. That argument, if accepted, meant the abandonment of the whole plan to stop and stop now. It opened the way for endless disputes as to what is necessary for defense-disputes based, not facts, but on opinions. It meant the repudiation of the very principle of the American proposal. Indeed, the argument of necessity for defense is the argument on which nations have depended for justifying their part in the naval race. Justice to the Japanese delegation requires it to be stated that not once did the authorized spokesmen for Japan commit their country to this argument. It was clear to them that the choice lay between stopping the race and continuing it.

So the lion which looked so large has turned out to be very small indeed. Japan's silence has not been due to any flaw in the plan for limiting naval armaments. That plan, in all its essential

structure, has stood, as Mr. Balfour said it would stand. Nobody is going to remove it in order to avoid the lion of Japan's reluctance to accept it.

It is not reasonable to believe that Japan wishes to continue the naval race, which is even now costing her more than she can afford, when she can stop it without any loss of her present position. It is inconceivable that she wants another and more terrible alternative; for she has not needed the example of Germany's downfall to dispose her to peace. However it may be with her peo ple, her representatives are too well ac quainted now with the facts to think that any compromise on the ratio is pos sible without a violation of the principle which they have accepted and which is as advantageous to Japan as to the other two countries.

What, then, has Japan been holding out for?

Some observers have answered that she is holding out for a bargain. Perhaps, they surmise, she is withholding her consent until she can extract from us a promise not to fortify our possessions in the western Pacific. I can hardly think so, because she must know that the United States has never shown any disposition to yield its sovereign right to build defenses on its own territory, though it may make clear-though in at least one case, the Canadian fron tier, it has made clear-its intention not to do so. Perhaps she is seeking some quid pro quo in the Far East; or is even holding out merely to make her consent when given seem the more valuable, and therefore to piace herself in a better bargaining position in future negotiations.

Such surmises, I think, scarcely take fully into consideration Japan's history or her present state of mind.

When she was ushered into the modern world, she found one friend, America, but many enemies. She was taught in the school of fear. She was an apt pupil. Under her Western teachers, who instructed her in the arts of compulsion, she developed a military and naval power that has raised her from a state of dependency to independence. The art that was practiced on her she has prac ticed on others. As a consequence today she finds but one other great nation, the United States, as economically free as herself. As Professor Demangeon, of the Sorbonne, in his book "America and the Race for World Dominion" declares, the heirs of Europe are the United States and Japan. Stretching in an arc like a great breakwater from the Gulf of Amur to Formosa Strait her islands inclose the waters washing the shores of the richest part of undeveloped Asia. Her people, responding to the impetus of modern industry, crave the raw materials that can turn to wealth in their hands and keep them alive and growing on the islands where they prefer to live.

Meanwhile Japan has been learning that the bayonet which has brought them power has brought them hostility too. Japan has found that possession,

which may be nine points of the law, is sometimes worth nothing even in material reward and less than nothing in indispensable friendship and good will. And suddenly she is called to this Conference of Nations by the most powerful and richest of them. Was she to be shorn of the power she had so laboriously and skillfully developed through the years? Was she to be shut out from access to the wealth so near to her hand? To many of us any fear on the part of Japan may seem groundless; but to any one who has even a superficial knowledge of Japanese history during the past two generations it does not seem strange that she should seem at least cautious. And when it is remembered that her Government is still in the hands of those who have provided her 3 with her military power, it does not seem strange that she should hesitate to part with any of that power until she is sure that she is getting its equivalent in exchange.

The real lion at this Conference is the one that confronts Japan. It stands in the way she has marked out for herself in her advance upon the riches of Manchuria and Siberia. Until that lion is removed Japan will hesitate.

It is worth while to repeat that the 1 fundamental questions at this Armament Conference are not questions of armament but questions of the Far East. They are questions of national policy. They are questions concerning nations as neighbors. Is Japan going to insist upon an attempt to shut out other nastions from access to the lands which her 1 islands guard like ramparts from the waters of the Pacific? Is America going to insist that the door at which Japan seems to stand as sentinel be open, and is America going to back up her insistence with not only words but deeds? Are the other nations going to agree to

let Japan have a free hand to the north provided she allows them to have their way in China's eighteen provinces and in Tibet? Or is there going to come out of this Conference some better understanding by which all the nations, including China, shall have a square deal, an even chance?

Even including China.

Among the lions in the way of this Conference not the least is the disorderly feebleness of China herself. Almost every act of aggression by which the Western nations, in late years joined by Japan, have deprived China of sovereignty and territorial and administrative integrity can be explained, if not excused. Hongkong, Annam, extraterritoriality, customs duties, railways, Weihaiwei, Shantung, post offices, mining concessions, are merely names for a train of complicated problems that cannot be considered apart from such other problems as are involved in a dense population on the edge of famine, a Government that is not a government, a country capable of surviving such a catastrophe as the Taiping Rebellion, which numbered its dead by millions in excess of those of the World War, an officialdom built upon what we should call corruption, a recognized system of bandits, a despotism that never really ruled, an ancient civilization that has persisted through unexampled turmoil, and a people who through it all have developed inventiveness, capacity for recuperation, mercantile .integrity, and a profound respect for learning.

An entire article on any one of the problems in China or the phases of Chinese life could only touch the surface. All the space at my command would not be enough to describe the tangle, and no book has succeeded in unraveling it. Perhaps as judicial and trustworthy an account of China as can

be found in any compact form is in the volume entitled "The Development of China," by Kenneth Scott Latourette;' but even that does not contain enough specific information to explain some of the issues that are debated here in Washington. The fact is that China has never been a nation in the sense that the United States is a nation. Even when there was an Empire and an Emperor, the throne was a ceremonial symbol rather than a power. The complaint that China has been deprived of her sovereignty by the concessions which foreigners have obtained largely ignores the fact that many of these concessions were granted because the Chinese merchants trusted the foreigners more than their own officials, or that in some cases the concessions were really attempts to play the foreigners off against each other to the advantage, or supposed advantage, of the Chinese themselves.

Now conditions have changed. A new consciousness of unity has appeared among the Chinese people. To-day at Washington China is represented by men educated in the lands of people the Chinese used to call barbarians. Koo (pronounced Goo) is a. former student of Columbia University, and Sze (pronounced as Americans pronounce the last letter of the alphabet) is a former student of Cornell. These men speak better English than many Americans or English do, and they think in Western terms. Neither these men, however, nor any others, can change China in a day-or a generation. The delegates from China here are received as representatives of a Government at Peking; but they, in fact, represent a Foreign Office in China that is but slightly affected by the personnel either at Peking or at the seat of the other Chinese Government at Can

1 An article on the Far East by Mr. Latourette was published in The Outlook for November 16. -The Editors.

ton. What power have these representatives over the internal order of China? If the nations say, "We will withdraw our railway guards if you supply adequate Chinese police to protect the railways," what pledge can these men make? If the nations say, "We will yield our rights, secured by treaty, to demand that China limit her tariff rate to five per cent provided the obnoxious likin taxes [cumulative provincial customs like the old French octroi] are abolished," what can these men do to bring about a change of mind in the rulers of the provinces? It is the chaos in China and the feebleness of China that make it difficult for other nations, even those well disposed to her, to find a way out of the tangle. And the nations are seeking a way out, even for their own good. They are offering to give up some of their leases. It is easy enough to doubt their good faith; but it is easier to believe in their good sense. Chinese and Japanese delegates here are engaged in a common discussion of Shantung, where Japan has the lease that Germany held. Japan has wanted to settle this matter with China, but has not wanted other nations to become involved in what she thought concerned them alone. China, wary of "direct negotiations" with Japan, whose advantage is obvious (one of the advantages being that under international law it would be difficult to find a technical flaw in Japan's rights), wants the matter threshed out in public, where it will cease to be a merely legal question and become a moral issue. By the "good offices" of Mr. Hughes and Mr. Balfour they have been persuaded to sit down together (thus saving Japan's face) in the presence of American and British

observers (thus saving China's face), and report the result to the Conference. Another of China's problems is Manchuria, and that is Japan's problem, too -in fact, the world's problem. Manchuria is, according to Japan's chief spokesman here for I heard him say it -a part of China; yet Manchuria is an essential part of Japan's strategic defense, and at the same time is the key to the "Open Door."

As a lion in the way China is looming larger and larger. To transform that lion to what shall I say? a lamb?will take more than one Conference. But a beginning has been made. Perhaps something like a consortium, with China or Chinese representatives as an integral part, may be found to be the transforming wand.

And then there is the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. That lion turns up every now and then and roars. At first it roared very gently. Britain gladly accepted the main features of the American naval proposal; but when Japan hesitated we can believe that Britain suggested to her ally that she inquire as to assurances for her own security. And now that Manchuria is under discussion, Britain as Japan's ally cannot be indifferent to Japan's desire to preserve her privileges there. And the existence of the AngloJapanese Alliance has set France, or at least some of the French, to courting America with the offer of something to offset it. Perhaps that particular lion can be removed by an understanding that would bring in all four Powers, with China besides. It may inspire caution for the time being, but it cannot long survive if the nations here really get together on other matters.

Perhaps the biggest lion in the way of

the success of this Conference is America's ignorance of the Far East. Over Shantung, it is true, Americans, without knowing much about it, became aroused; but Shantung was the symbol of the under dog, and America was guided less by her understanding than by her sympathy. Now America is stirred by this Conference, but almost wholly by its proposal to dramatize peace by scrapping battleships; very little, I think, by the attempt to build up peace by reaching a common understanding and finding a way to justice.

The other day I was talking over some of these questions of the Far East with an admiral of the United States Navy. We agreed that America would never make a pledge by treaty to go to war to enforce a policy in China, and that even if she did a war would not necessarily settle it. "What can settle it?" I asked. "There's only one thing," he an swered; "moral force."

Is America going to be sufficiently interested to bring to bear the moral force of its public opinion upon such distant points as Manchuria and Siberia? If it is, the success of this Conference is as sured in advance. If America is wise, she will not stand in the way of Japan's resolve to retain her strategic defenses in Manchuria, such as Korea and the Liaotung Peninsula, and retain unim. paired the natural advantage she has in being at the seagate of the rich territories of Manchuria and Siberia; but if America is informed she will keep ready to mobilize her public opinion against the credit of any nation which will venture to risk the future peace of the world by undertaking to make the resources of these lands its own monopoly. Washington, D. C., December 5, 1921.

A NEW PHASE

T

HE American public does not yet realize that a profound transformation is affecting the economic relations of France and Germany.

It has not happened suddenly, nor is it a result of the personal policy of this or that statesman. Statesmen of to-day, especially European statesmen, have their moves dictated by circumstances and imposed by anonymous conditions. A very narrow margin is left for initiative. The recent agreement of Wiesbaden, which starts a new era in the problem of German reparations, was a necessary consequence of the general economic situation. And it is worth noticing that the negotiators were not ordinary diplomats. Both M. Loucheur and Herr Walter Rathenau have the reputation of being practical and successful business men; so the practical,

matter-of-fact nature of the agreement is guaranteed. The problem of reparations is slowly being shifted from the diplomatic, military, and financial ground, on which it was forced to stand for the two years after the signing of the Peace, to that of normal international business and trade.

The year 1920 saw the failure of purely financial methods in providing the means for collecting the German indemnity. The situation was the following: On one side France painfully rebuilding her liberated provinces. Out of 4,500,000 acres which had been devastated, 4,000,000 were given back to cultivation; 3,200 towns or villages were reoccupied by their inhabitants; eighty per cent of the destroyed factories were rebuilt. And for this work of reconstruction France paid through Govern

ment loans mostly subscribed to by the French public. On the other side, Germany's factories were intact, her indus trial efficiency was unimpaired, but from her no serious payments could be obtained. Both countries were suffering from a tense political strain as a conse quence of this abnormal situation. Germany's financial instability, together with her economic prosperity and easy recovery from war, was a curious paradox.

In January, 1921, at Brussels, there was a first outlining of some reparations in kind to be substituted for the hy pothetical payments hitherto expected. The German Minister von Simons and the Fehrenbach Cabinet did not give this scheme a chance to materialize. Political relations became tense, an ultimatum was sent, and economic sanc