ity. If they had been literary in the highbrow sense, or, let me say with apologies to Christopher Morley, in the Santayana or Pater sense, I should probably never have read them, and therefore probably never should have known George Borrow. For it was Augustine Birrell who nearly twentyfive years ago introduced me to George Borrow, one of the happiest literary acquaintanceships of my life. George Borrow's extraordinary autobiographical essay, "The Bible in Spain," is diurnalistic or journalistic, and yet he never wrote for the newspapers.

But all this is beside the mark. I started out to criticise William Lyon Phelps and to point out how he, the mighty one, has fallen, and I am startled to find that I have filled most of the space allotted to me in praise, explicit and implicit, of his journalistic essay writing. I must turn sharply to my criticism.

In the little, artistic, perfectly formed, cameo-cut, thumb-nail essays that compose his "As I Like It" column in "Scribner's" Professor Phelps is a stickler (again, contrary to the lexicographers, I employ the word in a commendatory sense) for the use of correct English. A solecism is a black beast to him. In the September "Scribner's" his readers-and there are thousands of them-will find that one of his captivating little columnar essays is devoted to "English gram

S'

mar or good usage." He rightly thinks the standards need raising, and as an aid to that desirable end he makes an admirable suggestion:

I am often asked, What is the best treatise on the art of writing English -where the aim is not so much to give elementary instruction in grammar, punctuation, etc., but to assist those who wish to write not only correctly but persuasively, elegantly, artistically, creatively? My answer is Barrett Wendell's "English Composition." This book came out of the author's long experience as a teacher of advanced pupils at Harvard. It is a good illustration of its precepts, for it is written with grace, vivacity, and charm; it is steadily interesting. It is the only book on rhetoric that I ever succeeded in reading straight through.

a

Now what would the spirit of Barrett Wendell think if it could compare this passage a model both of good English and good advice-with passage in the August "As I Like It" column in which may be seen in undraped exposure the barbarous phrase "without hardly any sleep"!

In writing of P. T. Barnum Mr. Phelps makes this comment; the italics are mine:

When we remember what hardships he endured on the road, what reverses of fortune he suffered, enough to shatter a less indomitable spirit, when we remember the long weeks without hardly any sleep and the wretched cold food he ate in impossible conditions, the fact that he lived

to be over eighty must be reckoned among his achievements.

What have you to say in defense of yourself, Professor Phelps? Nothing will be accepted by the jury except the solemn asseveration that you wrote "with" and that a German linotyper or a Hungarian proof-reader transformed the simple and obvious preposition into that rough and discordant "without." If you must plead guilty, it will be a palliation of your crime if you will in some future column say of the phrase "without hardly any sleep" what you have just said in your September column of a much less reprehensible rhetorical outcast, "I do not think I have seen this very often, but I hereby confer upon it my official damnation. All those who on and after this date use it are excommunicated. It is, as my correspondent says, sufficiently banal."

All of which will perhaps be considered by Professor Phelps, by his followers, and even by my own (if I have any) as the merest hot-weather trifling in view of the coal strike, the Franco-German war in the Ruhr, and the bombardment of the Greeks by the Italians. But when all the world has gone mad, as it appears to have done, in its economic, political, and social relations, it sometimes seems as if one's tense, strained, and overwhelmed mind can be saved only by inoculation with a little harmless persiflage.

HALLOW minds and fanciful imaginations only can prophesy how the morrow is going to turn out in Europe, for they do not even stop to think about the real causes of the European catastrophe. However remote I may be, on the whole, from the cycle of Signor Nitti's ideas, I am still constrained to admit that the contents of his book, "Europe Without Peace," are in perfect accord with the actual reality.

The whole of eastern Europe is in a state of complete chaos: there is an economic crisis, a political catastrophe, and a general decline of all the old standards of living.

Russia, with which the great sages of Versailles have for some strange reason thought it unnecessary to reckon, now stands before the parting of the ways. Her attempt at a gigantic social reconstruction has failed, and after this abortive attempt a yawning abyss has opened up in eastern Europe which threatens to swal

BY JULES SAUERVEIN

low everything, in the domain of ideas as well as of social relations. Perhaps the most complicated thing in the whole situation is the fact that, while the Soviets have not succeeded, a restoration of the Czarist régime is still less likely to succeed. At the price of painful struggles and suffering, Russia will have to establish a régime equally remote from the Czarist and the Soviet system, a régime that will enable the broad masses of the Russian people to take part in modern civilization and the achievements of modern democracy. No such opportunity was given the Russian people under Nicholas Romanoff or Nicholas Lenine. It were thoughtless for us to lose sight of the fact that all attempts to establish a proper régime in that immense bleeding country, shaken to its very foundations, must inevitably be accompanied by many ills and degeneracy before its final regeneration.

Russia's withdrawal from the ranks of the European Powers five years ago

has created throughout the chain of small states extending from the Black Sea to the Baltic an ominous situation which is at any moment liable to explode in a political upheaval or a social revolution. But even if we should for a moment forget about Russia, we will find in eastern Europe, even without the corrupting influence of the Third Internationale, plenty of microbes fatal to the health of Europe.

The only comparatively stable country in the celebrated Little Entente seems to be Rumania. This because, in spite of all attempts which had been made at Versailles to spoil her map, Rumania still turned out to be fairly well reconstructed, both from an ethnographic and a geographic standpoint. To be sure, national minorities were incorporated also in Rumanian territory, but, fortunately, they make up not more than seven per cent of the total population. At first sight this alone seems like some guaranty of the stability of the state and

1923

the firmness of its domestic situation. But if we will look a little closer we shall find our optimism shaken also in the case of Rumania.

To gain a closer insight into actual conditions we must turn to the Dardanelles, where we see even to-day, for some unfathomable reason, British garrisons, creating a situation which turns the Dardanelles from being straits of vast importance to commerce into a canal through which all anti-Christian propaganda will pass into central Asia and India. And when we speak of Turkey we ought not to forget Bulgaria; for, no matter how deeply she may be humbled by the Treaty of Neuilly, even this country will never give up her claims to vitally important outlets to the open seas of Europe.

In Jugoslavia we observe a daily growing discontent. The highly cultured Croatians are chafing very much under the dominion of the less cultured Serbs, and after the dazzling splendors of the Austro-Hungarian Empire the poverty and gloom of halfruined Belgrade cannot of greatly impress them.

Hungary too feels deeply offended; to-day this proud and warlike people finds itself within a ring of enemies, but a day is bound to arrive when, at the very first sounds of the European explosion, all Hungary will rise like one man and sweep across the territories it has been deprived of.

If we turn to Czechoslovakia, we will find here too a similar illusory prosperity. The only advantage that Czechoslovakia can boast of is the fact that there are at the head of her Government some outstanding personalities; but their qualities of course cannot help to correct the geographic and ethnographic defects of that young state. The frontiers of Czechoslovakia, extending from Bavaria to eastern Galicia, are absolutely defenseless against attack from without. To these dangers from without are added domestic weaknesses: a numerous German element, highly advanced culturally and gravitating of course to Berlin or Vienna, and not Prague, and the very primitive culture of the Slovaks and Carpatho-Ruthenians.

The greatest alarm, however, is inspired by the fate of Poland, which, to my mind, relies too much upon the support of France. French support can in no way save Poland from the peril threatening her from Lithuania (because Poland has seized genuine Lithuanian territory), from Russia (because Poland committed an irreparable blunder in occupying the White Russian provinces), and, finally, from her eastern Slavonic minorities, who are exceedingly hostile to the Polish language, Polish culture, and the Catholic Church, and resent the rudeness of the ignorant Polish gen

"I

CAN state positively, without any fear of exaggeration, that in July, 1919, Germany was prepared to turn over at once, in cash, from 7,000,000,000 to 8,000,000,000 German It must gold marks..

be admitted in all truthfulness that the responsibility for the failure to take advantage of that favorable opportunity rests entirely with Clemenceau."

These sentences are taken from the second part of M. Jules Sauervein's article, "The Europe of To-Morrow," in which he outlines his plan and his hope for the settlement of Europe.

darmes. The only thing capable of saving and strengthening Poland would be a lasting peace, but, since I cherish no particular hopes of the promotion of peace where everything is loaded with powder, I believe that France is sadly mistaken if she thinks she has found in Poland a buffer state capable of standing for many years between a Russia of Soviets and a Germany of revanche.

In this way we see that all these countries, which in 1919 had been made so happy, are equally weak both from the political as well as the economic standpoint, and no insurance company would risk insuring them against the possibility and the results of war. For, even though this alliance of helpless frailties proudly styles itself the Little Entente, it can never muster any real strength for armed resistance. The Governments of Warsaw, Prague, Bucharest, and Belgrade may command some diplomatic influence and may, if they should only pull together, postpone the outbreak of war; but no sooner may this war start than the utter negligibleness of the military significance. of the Little Entente will become obvious in the face of a gigantic, even though anarchic, Russia led by German engineers and German officers. As for the small Baltic states, it is even idle to mention them, for their very existence can last only so long as it may be useful and desirable to the Moscow Government. At the very first signs of a European catastrophe the Baltic states will either submit to orders from Moscow or cease to exist.

Such is the dismal picture presented

55

by eastern Europe. It changes, however, most strikingly when we turn to western Europe. Both France and Italy are sound. Mussolini has saved Italy for many years to come from the perils which threatened her from the Communists. And France, which in spite of her budget troubles is relatively well off, can muster, together with Italy, a population of about 80,000,000 people of Latin race who would be in a position, in case of a European catastrophe, to speak the decisive word. In addition, they would have a reliable vanguard in Belgium, which, notwithstanding the momentary conflict between her Flemish and Walloon sections, impresses me as a country with a bright future.

All this, however, refers only to the event of a war. If we stop to consider the conditions of peaceful reconstruction, we shall have to reiterate what has already come to be a commonplace: France cannot enter upon a realization of its great plans of peaceful reconstruction as long as Germany refuses to abandon the thought of revanche, or until she shall be made to meet her obligations. And it is superfluous here to add that the entire future of Europe depends exclusively upon the manner in which the FrancoGerman conflict may be solved. this conflict should be solved satisfactorily, and if, in addition, western Europe, after having resumed relations with present-day Russia, should succeed in leading her from the road of anarchy to that of democracy, all Europe may hope for a peaceful breathing space lasting through one or two generations. In point of duration and in its nature this would be a breathing space such as history once presented to Europe for a period of thirty-eight years-from the fall of Napoleon to the Crimean War.

If

I now want to explain why, in my firm conviction, such a respite must be regarded as the maximum of all that we may hope for, and why Europe will not find lasting peace as long as the Governments of Europe refuse to resort to more radical cures for their troubles. I shall begin, as is but natural, by pointing out the primary and most essential condition of European peace-the annihilation of a revanche-dreaming Germany and of this constant threat hanging over Europe. A fully disarmed Germany would mean a respite even to Balkanized Europe, for the reason that without Germany's support and sympathy Russia would not go to war, and without the egging on and the provocation from Berlin the Little Entente could refrain from fighting. Needless to say, France is not going to fight unless indubitable evidence shall be offered to the Parliament and the people of France showing French territory again to be jeopardized.

D

URING the period of the Wash

ington Conference I have watched the attitude of the American Government and people, and found that they were trying to clear away the rumors of a possible war between the United States and Japan. Such talk was never more than rumor, and it was never seriously considered in Japan, but there were some people in America who gave these rumors credence; therefore the United States Government sought to clear away such a disagreeable atmosphere.

At the conclusion of that Conference the text of the treaties agreed upon was made public, and the American people believed that everything had been settled. The Japanese delegates, especially, were given high praise by the American people.

However, the Washington Conference did not take up any questions dealing with the internal affairs of the United States or any of the individual States, and, as a consequence, the questions which have been for long years pending between Japan and America were not brought into the discussion at the Conference. These pending questions, as all know, are

summed up in the one phrase: "the Californian question"-the antiJapanese land laws, the racial discrimination laws, the law prohibiting the intermarriage of Japanese and whites, the problem of Japanese immigration and dual domicile, the questions of education and religion, the problem of American agrarian economy, and many others.

These are not internal questions for the United States only, but have a serious effect upon the relations between Japan and the United States; therefore, after having watched and studied the questions with impartiality, I have come to the conclusion that the problems enumerated above are the real issue between the two countries, and the Washington Conference has not settled them at all. The necessity still remains for investigating the causes of these problems thoroughly and carefully, giving due weight to both the pros and cons, with careful consideration of the fears of the United States as well as the desires of the Japanese.

These long-pending questions must be solved if we are to maintain the cordial and amicable friendship which

has existed nearly seventy years unblemished and undisturbed in every way.

I am sure that the Washington Conference has cleared away the war cloud and has set at peace the minds of America and Japan for the time, but there are yet other problems to be solved the problems that are most intricate and that underlie the everyday intercourse of the nations. Unless they are settled amicably and harmoniously, there may be from time to time many questions coming to the surface to irritate the minds of the two peoples, and thus cause a discord in the relationship between the two Governments.

So far as I have been able to judge from my study of the situation and my observation of both the Republican and Democratic parties, the American people have neither gone seriously into the matter nor investigated this problem thoroughly.

When I was leaving America in 1905, President Roosevelt told me that during the Russo-Japanese War the American people had shown to Japan their sincerest sympathy and had done everything a neutral people could do to assist Japan in that great struggle for national existence. But there is, he said, in California a germ of irritation and trouble, which might result in friction and cause the relationship between the two peoples to become serious and difficult. Such possible trouble, he declared, must be nipped in the bud if America and Japan. are to continue in mutual good friendship.

So long as he lived, the President said to me, Japan could depend upon him, and he promised to do everything. he could to eliminate any symptoms of trouble that might occur in future..

Now, within a year of the Washington Conference, which assured the two peoples peace, the anti-Japanese agitation has been resumed in California and in some neighboring States.

Therefore I now urge upon the people and Governments of Japan and America to consider my proposal for the organization of a Joint High Commission, to be appointed by the two Governments, to take up this question and study the facts thoroughly and investigate the reason, and then make a full report for the two Governments to act upon.

The history of the Joint High Commission which acted for the United States and Great Britain in 1869 to solve and decide many difficult questions is an object-lesson for us now.

Again, in 1919, when serious riots