all things; where water exists there is life, fertility, productivity. And the extent of this area of animation depends with mathematical precision upon the amount of water making its way to the surface at that point. To increase the flow of existing springs and to create new springs and new oases was one of the first problems to claim the attention of French engi

neers.

An incident that was not without its elements of drama occurred during the very first of these experiments. The enginers, after a study of several oases in the desert of South Algeria, concluded that they all must be fed from the same source by a subterranean stream which, flowing not far beneath the surface, passed through the district. From the formation of the land the engineers were able to judge accurately the course this buried stream must take, and at one point, far from any existing surface water, they determined to sink a shaft, hoping it would tap the hidden channel below. Drilling machinery was brought out into the desert and the work began. It continued day after day; natives, suspicious and half hostile, clustering about, jeering at the folly of this obscure enterprise set up in the midst of the waterless desert. Nearly a month the work continued; then, to the incredulous wonder of the spectators, the hidden channel was reached and a veritable flood of life-giving water gushed to the surface.

A new oasis had been created, an oasis which within a few years was covered by a forest of tufted date palms, by a village of flat roofs and earthen walls, by herds of camels and goats. Merely by sinking a hole in the desert a new unit of life had been

created, a community complete in itself and economically self-sustaining. This wonder has been repeated again and again in the desert; new settlements have been created, and the borders of existing oases have been extended manyfold.

There is another problem in connection with the conquest of the Saharathat of transportation-which has in it elements no less adventurous. There has always been a romantic flavor about travel in the Sahara; no one can escape this who has, for instance, witnessed the arrival of a caravan at an oasis. The slow, swaying column of laden camels appears from beyond the illimitable horizon, moves to the edge of the settlement, and there, in the gathering darkness, makes quiet camp. It is all very quiet and very mysterious. The next morning it passes on, still silent and romantic, beyond the opposite horizon toward its unknown destination. It is the camel alone which for centuries has made possible Saharan travel, and the French, of necessity, have had to depend heavily upon its aid in all their enterprises. But their eyes have all the while been fixed upon more rapid, more dependable, means of transportation. Already at several points they have pushed railways south for some hundreds of miles. But in the vastness of the Sahara these efforts seem puny enough, and some years ago a scheme was proposed which by its magnitude and daring captured the imagination of the French people. The project was no less than that of linking Algeria by means of a transSaharan railway with the French colonies of West Africa. The French people, ever enthusiastic supporters of vast engineering enterprises, have defended the scheme stoutly, and there

can be no doubt that eventually this tremendous scheme will be carried through.

The plan is to continue the present line in South Algeria, which ends Touggourt, southwest through th immense heart of the Sahara, to Tim buctoo, on the opposite edge of th desert, nearly twenty-five hundre miles distant. Twenty-five hundre miles, a distance equal to that from New York to Denver, through a bar ren, almost uninhabited waste; th prospects for the commercial succes of this line do not at first sight seen good. But there are advantages no at once obvious; the existence of the railway undoubtedly would open u the Sahara to a new era of develop ment, agricultural and mineral France's large possessions in tropica West Africa would experience a simi lar awakening through the existenc of railway communication with the Mediterranean; and, lastly, a trans Saharan line connecting at Timbucto with a railway to the South Atlanti would shorten by many days the mail routes to Cape Town and to South America.

But the trans-Saharan railway will not spring into existence at once; years must necessarily elapse before it can be a reality. Meantime the French have been experimenting with another means of desert transportation. In the fall of 1922 great interest was aroused throughout France by a projected new experiment, that of at tempting to cross the Sahara in a caravan of motor cars specially equipped with caterpillar tractor attachments instead of the usual rear wheels. In preliminary experiments with the deep sands and rocky, roadless surface of the desert, these caterpillar cars had shown themselves extraordinarily capable, and when the caravan started at length upon its immense and lonely journey there were hopes that at last the camel had been supplanted. Equipped with wireless, the cars reported their daily progress; the slow, day-by-day advance toward Timbuctoo was watched in France with the closest interest. Maps appeared daily in the Paris newspapers showing their progress, and when at length word was received that the dusty caravan had arrived, that the desert had been crossed, enthusiasm was everywhere manifested, everywhere one could see pictures of the triumphant expedition.

It is too early as yet to estimate the effect that this last conquest of the Sahara will have. It is, however, another link in the chain of progress that is gradually abolishing the old obstructions and clearing the road for the entry of the New Sahara into a position of more importance in the

world.

HA

BY ALINE KILMER

OOK below the title, and you will note that this article is unsigned.

There is abundant excuse.

In order to talk frankly, in ungloved shion, about a certain tendency I ve seen developing in business pracce and to support the criticisms I ant to make I need to tell actual inances and incidents. Were I to sign y name, some of the individuals in e quoted instances would almost cerinly identify themselves. With hese men I have no bone to pick. My uarrel is with a system which they ave allowed to master them.

If there was any single characterisic which marked the outstanding aders in previous generations in merican commerce, industry, and nance, it was self-reliance. Each made his own decisions, assumed enire responsibility for the outcome, nd gladly accepted or rather, inisted upon the full burden of leader

hip.

To-day a quite different system is n vogue. That system is the "confernce" plan of management, working variously through "managing boards,' 'sales committees," "managers' comnittees," and all the other devices which place the policies and actions of a business concern under group control.

It is exactly as if Napoleon had surrendered his responsibilities to a Board of Strategy composed of subordinates.

Let me say here, in explanation of what follows, that my work has taken me into a score or more of business institutions where I am intimately received and can see "the wheels go round" in the formulation of policies. In some of these institutions I have sat in session with the very "committees" which I must criticise. Nor are these institutions small, struggling, or inexperienced. All are concerns selling from coast to coast, and every

reader would recognize one or more of the names could they be mentioned here.

What I have seen in these sessions has convinced me that the conference system of management is dangerous, even though the danger lies not in the theory behind it but in the usual method of its application. Please reread that statement, because it is my whole text.

The two schools of business management can be well expressed by a pair of well-known sayings which are diametrically opposed. The one says, "A business institution is the lengthened shadow of one man." That is the foundation on which American business history has been built. The other reads, "Two heads are better than one." This is the theory which is behind most modern management.

Superficially, then, I appear to be fighting the latest development in business progress. Actually, I would be the last to argue that it is unwise, when time permits, to allow the qualified individuals in a business organization to contribute their counsel before a vital or far-reaching decision is made.

Let's have as many wise heads as possible submit their reasons and recommendations. Then let's have one man make the decision.

Do you grasp the wide distinction? Committees don't decide--they compromise.

A year ago this spring I sat "in conference" in the president's office of a plant whose products sell to all the continents. At the head of the table sat the man who, by twenty hardfought years of untiring personal effort, had built the structure. Down the sides of the table were his lieutenants, mature men whom he had brought into the institution from time to time to take over portions of its complex responsibilities, but men who were at best only detail men when

compared to their chief. The decision to be made concerned a sales opportunity open to the company only if grasped quickly. It was the third session on the same topic within a week.

In his kindly manner the president summarized and patiently explained his views again, laboring to convince his associates. The meeting dragged on and on. Finally the decision was put to a vote. Two votes blackballed it-the factory manager's and that of the sales head of another department. Under the committee system, their two unqualified opinions made unanimous action impossible, and the president refused to wield the whip.

A business opportunity was sacrificed that day to the faulty judgment of two men whose titles gave them voice on matters beyond their experience, abetted by a too kindly man's desire to have perfect unanimity behind every policy.

Such outcomes, I have found, are too often the result of committees and committee action. It has been my observance that after a period of dependence on committee approval heads of businesses appear to lose reliance and confidence in their own judgment. They become timorous or else refuse to overrule their associates because of an unwillingness to appear "hardboiled" and create ill feeling. And the business suffers.

I know another business which grew remarkably until seven years ago, when committees were instituted. I was present one day when the head of that business said to his associates in regard to an important policy, "I give up. I've tried for a year to make you fellows see the light, but I can't fight any longer." Shortly after committee government began, that business started to slip. It slid slowly but steadily backward year by year until this spring when a subordinate, more willing to risk antagonism, began to

take decisions into his own hands and force the committees into the background, where they were no longer dangerous. Now, with one-man control again in force and wobbly committee-made policies a thing of the past, the company's stock is again climbing upward point by point, almost instantly reflecting the reversal in method of management.

Another president of my acquaintance once conceived a new and striking sales policy planned to win the active support of the most important group of his present and potential distributers. He called in his advertising counsel, who was quickly enthusiastic, and asked that a tentative announcement to the trade be prepared. It was soon ready, and a conference of the managing committee was called to discuss the proposed policy.

The sense of the meeting was that the new policy was well worth adoption "if." And then the "ifs" followed.

This plank was modified. The next was eliminated. A third was changed "slightly." Like a political platform," when it was finally passed by the board its original author couldn't have recognized it. Then the advertising counselor won the displeasure of all the amendment contributors by flatfootedly refusing to be responsible for any announcement of so patched and mutilated a policy.

The conference ended shortly thereafter with the proposed innovation. tabled indefinitely. Within a very few weeks later the committee which had killed the idea had the dubious pleasure of seeing a competitor announce the proposed policy and win a prompt and profitable response in increased sales.

I know of another "managing committee" where the vice-president is so jealous of the secretary that the latter is compelled to arrange so that all of his suggestions shall be first voiced by some one of the other members. Any other method rouses the vice-president to immediate and unyielding antagonism and promptly splits the committee. In this instance the vicepresident is a man of National prominence, invaluable to the company in his individual specialty, and an influential stockholder as well; but it also happens that he is a man poorly informed on almost every problem outside of his own immediate province.

A committee at its worst is a committee aligned in inflexible factions. A certain Nationally prominent combine, for example, has marked time for years simply because the managing board, which is composed of one. representative each of the original companies, is shot through with suspicion and distrust. No progressive

policies, no changes from past routine. can be adopted while this condition continues. If a single strong individual had been vested with a reasonable part of that committee's authority, he could have made the institution's history read quite differently. Fortunately, the second generation realizes the situation and is already developing an entente cordiale which promises a quick improvement when the younger element finally comes into the saddle.

It would be fairly easy to go on and on quoting further characteristic failures of committees to function profitably, but it would be unnecessary and tiresome to pile up additional evidence. We all know only too well from political history that taking a vote does not guarantee intelligent selections or sound decisions. Merely because a vote is on a smaller scale does not assure wise action.

A simple catalogue of the dangers arising from committee management may, however, prove food for thought. We need not take space to illustrate each with an example "from life." My own experience goes to show that every one of the dangers listed here is so common that it will pay any concern operating under the conference system to be on continual guard against them all.

In the first place, committees rarely decide they compromise. As a result, a committee-made policy is very apt to lack clear-cut clarity and force. The tendency to compromise is probably the most serious indictment against the committee method. Where a strong man would grasp a nettle firmly, a committee toys with it.

A committee is, by very nature, unwieldy, and hence slow in action. Therefore it is usually unfitted either to meet a sudden emergency or to grasp an opportunity which demands an immediate decision. Committees palaver while Rome is burning.

Committees-like mass-meetingsare more apt to be dominated by the plausible talker than by the sound thinker. A clever, adaptable debater often negatives the constructive study and research of several better qualified members not so glib and persuasive in their conversation. In swaying committees the gift of gab is more to be desired than sound logic.

Committees, being human, play internal politics and (sometimes quite unconsciously) bargain for votes. Tom supports Dick's proposal this week, not because Tom has any whole-souled conviction of its value, but because he doesn't want to alienate Dick's support next week when his own pet suggestion will come up for discussion. And Harry opposes Dick because last week Dick threw cold water on Harry's proposal.

Committees do not hew inflexibly to an established line-they waver amend, and reverse themselves. The policy that spells success in the long haul but calls for a hard fight on the way is rarely formulated and main tained by a committee. Whenever business precedents are upset and con quered, you'll almost invariably find that it was one-man vision that sensed the opportunity and one-man backbone that fought the uphill fight. (A "com mittee" tried to induce Henry Ford to make higher-priced cars!)

Committees waste time. Starting out sincerely and with the best inten tions as businesslike bodies, they soon allow their meetings to degenerat into endless discussions of petty topics or else into a lifeless and uninspiring routine. This is most true of com mittees which meet on a set and fre quent schedule.

Committee meetings are expensive A wise executive computes the hour cost of a committee's salaries and overhead and then, before calling a meeting, attempts to estimate whether that meeting can be reasonably ex pected to repay its cost. A two-hour conference of five executives whose salaries average $5,000 a year costs in the neighborhood of $50 if both salaries and overhead are taken into consideration. If, in addition, the meeting penalizes other work in proc ess, the cost goes proportionately higher.

Too many cooks-too many conflicting interests-too many dissimilar viewpoints-have spoiled too many

Committee management suffers from the same scarcely to be avoided handicap.

Committee counsel is quite another matter.

Of the concerns which I know intimately the most ably managed are almost without exception headed by men who call conferences as often as the situation makes it desirable, listen carefully to all opinions and sugges tions submitted, and then, after weighing the conference's contribu tions, personally decide what shall be done. In each instance a strong man utilizes all that his committees have to offer, but reserves the right of decision to himself.

One-man decisions or committeemade compromises?

There will always be mistakes under either system, but from what I have seen of the two I would rather, as a stockholder, have one able, forceful man, unafraid of responsibility, mak ing strong decisions than to have a committee dallying, disputing, bar gaining, and compromising about my property.

Committees for counsel-one man for decisions!

L

A DELINEATOR OF SMALL SOULS

BY ARNOLD MULDER

OUIS COUPERUS was unfortunate enough to be born in a lit

tle country that counts only seven million inhabitants and in which the edition of a new novelist's books is seldom over a thousand copies. Although the Netherlands has island possessions with a population of over fifty million, the number of those who can read Dutch literature or at least appreciate the work of a delicate artist like Couperus is necessarily small. During the greater part of his life. Couperus was a writer confined within the cramping walls of a language which, in spite of its beauty and vigor, is comprehensible to only a handful of the earth's people. Had he been born. in France or in Russia or in Germany or in England or in America, assuming that in every other respect he had been the same as now, it is inconceivable that he would not have been classed with the names that are known around the world.

Consider the case of a writer in a small country. Even at very best his audience is extremely small. He does not make much of a stir in the world, and unless some publisher or translator with imagination takes him up he is left in obscurity so far as the outside world is concerned, no matter what the quality of his work may be. This is so true of the writers of the Netherlands that a number of them, as, for instance, Maarten Maartens, chose to write in English or French. And who can believe that Joseph Conrad could have his present enormous reputation throughout the world if he had written his books in Polish, his native tongue?

And here was Louis Couperus, unquestionably a major novelist of the world, hidden away in the Dutch language, worshiped by a small body of readers who were fortunate enough to be master of that tongue, but unknown to the rest of the world during nearly the whole of his career. It was probably not more than half a dozen years before his untimely death in July of this year that he was available for readers of English; and, since it took some time after his introduction to England and America before he became known in the new tongue, it is not surprising that even now millions of Americans and Englishmen have never heard of him.

1

I had been priding myself on the thought that I could pick the winner

1 Small Souls. The Later Life. The Twilight of the Souls. Dr. Adriaan. Old People and the Things that Pass. Ecstasy. The Tour. The Inevitable. Majesty. The Hidden Force. Each $2, net. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York.

Courtesy of Dodd, Mead & Co.

LOUIS COUPERUS

a

two-and-a-half-line item on the financial page of a morning newspaper announced his death! He cannot even be considered now under the terms of the will of Alfred Nobel, a living writer being required; and even if he could be considered, I am far from asserting that he had as yet done work that entitled him to that recognition. But he seemed to me potentially a Nobel prize winner.

It is a curious fact that Couperus was the product of two civilizations as were Kipling, Thackeray, and al number of other writers who count In him the East and the West met, as Kipling said they never could meet and as they met in Kipling himself, as if in ironic refutation of his own famous pronouncement. Born in The Hague, Couperus spent much of his boyhood in the Netherlands East India, and the life of Java is in many of his books. Throughout his le he kept going back to that island osses sion, and he had returned from visit to the scenes of his boyhood not a month before his death. And this youth spent in the East had a tremendous effect on Couperus. His books are full of echoes of his life in Java. The book perhaps best known to English and American readers, "Old People and the Things That Pass," reeks with memories of the Netherlands East India. It was there, sixty years ago, when the story opens, that the ancient tragedy occurred which has cast its pall over the old, old man and the old, old woman, both long past ninety, but once lusty with youth and athrill with passion, over their chil dren and grandchildren and greatgrandchildren. That night of passion and murder and horror sixty years ago in Java is still a menacing though only half-recognized presence in the multitudinous families of the clan in the gray Netherlands at the time of the story's action.

Couperus is never a mere local colorist. Characters from Java are never introduced for their own sake, to display how much the author knows about that country and its inhabitants. There are some strange foreign words, but usually they are the words that would be naturally employed by a native Netherlander who has spent many years in Java; they help to create an atmosphere, and one feels that they come almost unconsciously to Couperus's own tongue in recalling the scenes of his boyhood stay in Java. And always there is a suggestion of a subtle interaction between the East and the West-the sunshine of Java, with its passion and its color and its vivid sense of life, reacting on the gray skies of the Netherlands and on the subdued tempo of the life of its people. The scene of a story is never laid in Java, but Java is often present in the narrative in the form of a re turned daughter or son who has been in the Government service or in business in East India. And these characters bring the East with them into the precise Dutch homes. The Dutch in Couperus's stories are extremely clar nish, almost to the point of regarding the family as a patriarchal institution,

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