American Federation of Labor, Premier Lloyd George appointed certain eminent representatives of labor to be added to the already appointed British Commission to this country. Prominent among the labor representatives were the Rt. Hon. C. W. Bowerman, Privy Councilor, Member of the House of Commons, and Secretary of the British Trades Union Congress, and James H. Thomas, another Member of the House of Commons, and General Secretary of the National Union of Railway Men of Great Britain and Ireland, who last week was included as Privy Councilor in the King's birthday honor list. Though pressing business at Washington kept Mr. Balfour and his diplomatic colleagues in Washington, the labor representatives have been able to make a tour of the Middle West, and have done much to enlighten us concerning the co-operation in England between labor and capital necessary to the conduct of the war. At Cleveland, for instance, Mr. Thomas declared that before the war labor and capital in England "were as far apart as the poles " and that revolution was never nearer; consequently, Germany "staked her all on our internal disruption." But, he proceeded, "when a common enemy appeared at our gate, we stood united to defeat her. A united trades-unionism said, 'While this danger lasts there shall be an industrial truce; we'll forget our temporary grievances; we'll fight them out later.' " Mr. Thomas then described the particular successes of labor in getting the Government to increase soldiers' allowances and the allowances to soldiers' wives and children, to their widows and orphans, and to the crippled veterans. He asserted that the Government was "not running a charity bureau," but, through the post-office, was paying great sums to the people, not only in war allowances, but also in special school fees for children, and even special house payments and insurance policies for those rendered incapable of keeping them up because of the services in the war of the head of the family. Mr. Thomas also showed how Premier Lloyd George corrected the house congestion ills through his introduction of a bill in Parliament by which a landlord is prevented from raising the rent paid by the wife of a soldier.

"Munition volunteers," Mr. Bowerman added, "forced to leave their families to work in our big new factories receive a subsistence allowance.'

Through it all labor has not been cheapened," he concluded, “and I warn you of America to be on your guard. Do not let National emergency be exploited so as to introduce cheap labor."

The testimony of Mr. Thomas and Mr. Bowerman as to conditions in England and as to how they have been met should be of aid to us in this country in resisting attempts to break down legal safeguards for labor under the plea of war exigency.

THE TEMPERANCE SITUATION
IN NEW YORK CITY

The temperance forces of New York State, captained by the Anti-Saloon League and with the active support of Governor Whitman, have gained an important victory. They have not yet succeeded in passing the Optional Prohibition Remonstrance Bill, which has been described and supported by The Outlook on more than one occasion, but they have succeeded in extending over a tremendous area the opportunities and advantages of local option.

The cities of the State have in the past been denied an opportunity to vote on the question of wet or dry. Now, with the exception of New York City, they have all, by an Act of the Legislature, become local-option territory. For New York City there is the privilege of voting whether or not it shall become local-option territory at a special election to be called by a petition of its citizens.

IN DEFENSE OF THE CLASSICS

Aroused by the movement to make education more utilitarian, and especially by the educational proposals of the General Education Board, under the leadership of Mr. Abraham Flexner, discrediting the study of Latin and Greek, Dean Andrew F. West, of the Graduate College of Princeton University, with the approval of his colleagues, arranged for a

Conference on Classical Studies in Liberal Education, which was held at Princeton on June 2.

Among the several hundred men and women who attended there were, of course, a large proportion of classical teachers, members of various associations and clubs devoted to the classics, and trustees and members of the faculties of various colleges.

What was most significant about this Conference, however, was the testimony of men whose calling was far from academic. Among those who either by address or by letter or telegram thus testified to the value of the so-called classical studies were the President and the two ex-Presidents of the United States. Mr. Taft spoke of the classics" as an essential element in the best liberal education." Mr. Roosevelt declared that "every liberally educated man should be familiar with Greek or Latin, and, if possible, with both, as well as at least one of the great modern culture languages, and a wide sweep of general history and pre-history." President Wilson wrote urging that since we should not "throw away the wisdom we have inherited and seek our fortunes with the slender stock we ourselves have accumulated" we should hold every man we can "to the intimate study of the ancient classics." Such American statesmen as Elihu Root and Senator Lodge also testified as to their belief in the value of studying Latin and Greek.

Even more impressive was the list of scientists and business men who were witnesses for the usefulness of the classics. Such were H. H. Donaldson, Professor of Neurology at the Wistar Institute; Charles H. Herty, formerly President of the American Chemical Society; Lewis Buckley Stillwell, formerly President of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers; Thomas Hastings, an eminent architect; Professor Henry W. Farnam, of Yale, formerly President of the American Economic Association; President Fairfax Harrison, of the Southern Railway; Alba B. Johnson, President of the Baldwin Locomotive Works; and two eminent editors, Mr. Charles R. Miller, of the New York "Times,” and Mr. Edward P. Mitchell, of the New York "Sun."

The values of such testimony lay, not so much in the nature of the arguments presented, which were not unfamiliar, but in the character of the witnesses themselves, who spoke from their knowledge of the effect which classics had had upon their varied activities.

Such testimony as this cannot be ignored. In making changes necessary to fit education to our modern needs educational reformers should bear in mind the truth that Viscount Bryce stated in a cabled message to the Conference: "The modern world needs ancient writings as much as ever, not only because they furnish perpetual delights as models of style, but also be cause by their very unlikeness to modern conditions they touch imagination, stimulate thought, and enlarge our view of man and nature.'

THE DRAMA OF MEMORIAL DAY EMORIAL DAY for many years has come to us like the epilogue of a great drama. It has meant to us the memory of a fulfilled ideal.

M

Year after year the hosts of those who marched up Pennsylvania Avenue in victory and of those who turned back to their broken homes after the tragedy of Appomattox Court-House have been melting away like mountain snows in a spring thaw.

But Memorial Day, 1917, brought to the Nation no vain regret for these melting hosts, no easy satisfaction in a completed task, but rather the challenge of a great crusade whose purpose we know better perhaps than the men of '61 knew the portent of Sumter's guns, but whose end it has not yet been given to any man to see.

The broken ranks of the veterans of the Civil War seemed doubly close to the heart of the Nation as they marched on Memorial Day beside the regiments whose call to service in the cause of democracy is so near at hand.

More than a half-century has passed since the veterans of the greatest civil war in history laid down their muskets. To other days other arms; but the living presence of these veterans in the streets of our cities and of our villages brought home to the youth of 1917, as nothing else could have done, an understanding of the truth that democracy was not born to die.

NATIONAL PROHIBITION IN WAR
TIME

In time of war personal interests and personal liberties are modified by considerations for the public safety. This is one of the results of war which is at once perilous and beneficial. Thus We the amount of food which a family may consume and the price da they must pay for it are in time of peace left to be determined by the free choice of the individual and the conditions of an open market. All that the law attempts to do is so to control or prevent monopoly as to make the market open and leave the in choice of the individual free. But to-day in Germany, France, and England the amount of food a family may consume and the price they must pay for it are partially determined by the Government, and we are warned that the same necessity may before long impose the same restraint upon us in the United States.

Whether a free republican government ought to prohibit the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in time of peace is still a disputed question. Whether the advantages of compulsory abstinence will compensate for the disadvantages of governmental restraint of individual liberty is hotly contested. But the civilized world has apparently reached a nearly unanimous conclusion that the exigencies of a great war justify a governmental restraint, if not a governmental prohibition, of alcoholic beverages. The individual liberty must yield to the national necessity. How far, without an amendment to the Federal Constitution, can the United States Government go in the direction of prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages as a war measure? We have obtained what we believe is trustworthy legal advice upon this question, and on that advice the following statement is based :

Prohibitive Tax. A prohibitive tax may be laid on the manufacture or sale of liquor. This method was used to destroy the phosphorus match industry and the production of opium for smoking purposes. There is no limit on the power of Congress to levy a prohibitive tax on liquor.

Rules for Land and Naval Forces. The power of Congress (Article I, Sections 8-14) to "make rules for the government and regulation for land and naval forces " authorizes laws prohibiting the sale of liquor in military and naval stations or for certain distances around them. Congress has established dry zones around Indian reservations. The Supreme Court sustained the legislation. There seems to be no limit to the power of Congress to extend the dry_zone around such territory for military purposes. The Draft Law now prohibits the sale of liquor to a person in uniform, or the sale of liquor in military or naval stations or camps.

Inter-State Commerce. The inter-State commerce clause as construed by the Supreme Court gives Congress power to provide" the most minute directions of inter-State commerce." It has unlimited power over liquors which move between the States. Provisions similar to the Harrison Drug Act may be applied to liquor, and such liquor can probably be defined as a habitforming drug and placed under the Harrison Act.

may

on

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General Welfare and Common Defense. The preamble of the Constitution sets forth as one purpose of the Federal Government to provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare." Under this clause "it has been argued that the Congress has the authority to exercise any power that it think necessary or expedient for advancing the common defense or the general welfare of the United States." Of this claim it is said by Professor W. W. Willoughby in his work The Constitution of the United States" that "it scarcely needs be said that this interpretation has not been accepted by the Court." On the other hand, it is claimed that decisions of the Supreme Court in cases arising out of the Civil War give, by analogy, authority to Congress to prohibit the liquor traffic throughout the country in time of war in the interests of general welfare and common defense. Thus, how far Congress could go under this general provision in restraining or prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages within the States in time of war is a disputed question which only the Supreme Court can finally decide.

But the power to lay a prohibitive tax, to prohibit the sale of liquor within defined military zones, and to prohibit its trans

portation by inter-State commerce we do not think can be questioned.

We do not here attempt to consider the question what of these measures it is expedient for our Government to enact. We simply inform our readers what measures can be enacted by Congress under the Constitution in obedience to a popular demand.

IF GOD REIGNS

If God reigns, why does he not stop this terrible war? He could easily swallow up the Kaiser's army by an earthquake, as Dathan and Abiram were swallowed up; he could destroy them by a pestilence, as the Assyrians were destroyed. Why not?

Because God is not an autocrat. He does not rule in that fashion. He is a democratic God. He governs men by teaching them self-government. At least, it is thus that God is represented in the Bible.

Jehovah was king of the Jews, but he did not impose his authority upon the Jews. They elected him their king. He called Moses up into the mountain and told him to report to the people that the God who had delivered them from Egypt would be their king, and they should be unto him a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, provided they accepted him and would be obedient to his rule and keep the constitution which he proposed to them. Not until Moses had carried this message down to the people and they had voted upon the proposition did Jehovah enter upon his kingship. He was a constitutional king; the relation between him and his people was defined by that constitution. When they violated it, he withdrew his protection. If he had violated it, they would have had a right to withdraw their allegiance. More than once the prophets asked Israel what Jehovah had done which justified their disregard of the covenant between them and their king.

Jesus is called King of Kings and Lord of Lords. How did he exercise his authority? Only over those who accepted it. His subjects were all voluntary subjects. The striking illustration both of the nature and the extent of this authority is furnished by an incident toward the close of his life. To rebuke the factional dispute among his disciples for pre-eminence and to teach the meaning of his declaration that in his kingdom whoever would be great must be servant of all he girded himself with a towel and proceeded to wash their feet. Peter cried out against this reversal of positions. "My feet," he said, “ thou shalt never wash." Jesus refused to give any explanation; he simply replied, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me." Jesus would exercise no authority except over those who yielded to his authority, but he would have no divided or hesitating allegiance.

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God's law, says the prophet, shall come out of Zion-that is, it shall be enforced by reverence and conscience. The law of the Lord, says the Psalmist, is perfect, for it converts the soul. The law, says Paul, is written in the hearts of men. The object of God's law is not to coerce men's conduct, but to change their character. Hence his law is a law of liberty.

Such is God as the faith of the Jew and the Christian understands him. His kingdom is a volunteer kingdom; born in it, we can desert; born outside it, we can come in. We can belong to it or not as we please. The kingdom of heaven, says Jesus, is within you, or, as some read it, among you. Either translation is possible; both translations convey the same meaning. It is among us because it is within us.

Suppose God should by almighty power destroy the German army. The only enduring effect would be to confirm the world in the notion that might makes right. A new Kaiser would raise a new army. The nations of the earth would carry on their old selfish policies and seek God as an ally to aid them in their schemes. The war of to-day might end, but the world of men and women would remain unchanged.

But now the world of men and women is not remaining unchanged. It is learning in the school of bitter experience lessons which it will never forget.

The world is learning lessons of national righteousness: the sacredness of treaties, the sanctity of law, the rights of neutrals and non-combatants, the fact that the fundamental obligations of man to his fellow-man are unchanged by war.

The world is learning to give to the word "democracy" a

new meaning and a religious significance: the right of small nations to exist, to live their own lives, to think their own thoughts, to make their own contributions to the world's civilization. In 1864 Abraham Lincoln said: "It is in order that each one of you may have, through this free Government which we have enjoyed, an open field and a fair chance for your industry, enterprise, and intelligence that you may all have equal privileges in the race of life with all its desirable human aspirations; it is for this that the struggle should be maintained, that we may not lose our birthright. The Nation is worth fighting for to secure such an inestimable jewel." It is for this the civilized world is struggling to-day. In the struggle it is learning what it never knew before-how priceless a jewel is this right of humanity.

The world is learning a new internationalism; an internationalism which transcends all treaties and diplomacies, an internationalism which will forever forbid any civilized nation to say that the life-and-death struggle of another nation is a matter of no concern to the neutral, an internationalism which will create in the national consciousness the sense that no nation can live to itself, an internationalism which will bind the nations of the earth together in a brotherhood transcending all brotherhoods of creed, nationality, or race, because it embraces them all. De Tocqueville has said that there is a difference between the love of liberty of a Frenchman and that of an American. The Frenchman loves liberty for himself, but the American also for his neighbor. This difference is being burned up in the fires of this war. Americans, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Italians, are fighting for each other's liberty, not merely for their own.

The world is learning anew both the meaning and the value of peace. Three years ago a few philosophers and humanitarians were seeking for some better method of settling international disputes than war. Their efforts were pretty largely regarded with an amused in difference by men engaged in practical politics. To-day the great statesmen of Russia, Italy, France, England, and the United States are giving themselves eagerly to the quest of some method by which the sword can be discrowned, by which it can be made safe for peace-loving peoples to "beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning-hooks."

The world is learning by experience the sacredness of sacrifice. "Saved by the blood of the Son of God," which has sometimes been the cant of pietists and often the scorn of skeptics, is taking on a new meaning in the tragedy of this hour. The stories of the war portray this change. "I can't describe to you," says one character in "Aunt Sarah and the War," "with what a new wonderful gravity the Uncle Philip who has done nothing but jest with us all our born days said, God gave his only Son. And so have these fathers-aye, and these Mary-mothers too. God gave one Son-and now he spoke with a kind of awe that transfigured him— God gave one Son, and some of these fathers have given two sons.'

6

It is currently believed that in "Mr. Britling Sees It Through" Mr. H. G. Wells has described his own religious experiences, and Mr. Wells's more recent volume," God the Invisible King," gives some warrant for this belief. "The real God of the Christian," says Mr. Britling, after his own son has been killed in battle, "is Christ, not God Almighty; a poor mocked and wounded God, nailed on a cross of matter. Some day he will triumph, but it is not fair to say that he causes all things now. ... A finite God who struggles in his great and comprehensive way as we struggle in our weak and silly way-who is with usthat is the essence of all true religion.'

Is this the last word that Christian faith can utter respecting God? No. There is no last word. Mr. Wells writes many books, and his next book may be written to show us that struggle and sacrifice are not impossible in an infinite God. Meanwhile we are learning that struggle and sacrifice are necessary to our divine life on the earth, and that by living that life we draw near to God. We are learning that love, not power, deserves our reverence; that our loyalty is due to God, not because he is All-mighty, but because he is All-loving.

It is vain to assume to speak for God or to justify his ways to men; but it will help us to understand what is otherwise obscure if we see that regard for our word and for the rights of our

fellow-men, mutual respect born of a common courage on the field of battle, a spirit of universal brotherhood uniting all nations, creeds, and nationalities, a new sense of the infinite worth of a life of service and the infinite meanness of a selfish life, a realization of the infinite sacredness and solemn joy of sacrifice, have made more progress during the last three years than in any thirty years, probably in any three hundred years, in the previous history of the world.

WAS STEVENSON A PLAGIARIST?

There are many delicate questions connected with any charge of unfair and improper use of one author's work by another. Where the charge is one of plagiarism pure and simple, there is little to be said. But where the charge is, not that the author has plagiarized literally, but that he has taken the ideas of another or has made use of imaginative incidents or plots, the case is less easy of determination. Every one remembers Kipling's famous lines, and every one knows that Shakespeare, as well as Homer, took his material where he found it. It follows that where two writers have gone to a common source for a theme or incident the critic should be extremely careful in imputing wrong conduct or reprehensible literary practices. Still more, when the evidence that this partial use of material has taken place is such as cannot be laid before the public plainly and clearly, there is an obligation to comment with generosity and without imputation of wrong-doing.

An illustration of this general principle is seen in the charge made editorially by "Munsey's Magazine" that Robert Louis Stevenson was guilty of "a crime" (to quote the title of the article), "moral turpitude," and of plagiarism" defined

as

"specific and demonstrable." But if the evidence is examined, nothing of the kind appears. When Stevenson wrote "The Bottle Imp," he found what he himself called the root idea of the story in an old play printed about the year 1800. He acknowledged his obligation to this play in a note which prefaces "The Bottle Imp" in all collected editions of his works. He stated also that he had adapted the tale for a Polynesian audience, and that he had, he believed, made an entirely new thing out of the story. Now the author of the "Munsey's " article shows a malicious desire to discredit Stevenson by laying stress on the fact that when the story was first printed in New York newspapers it did not, contain this note. Any one familiar with the conditions of the serial publication of stories sent from a distance must dismiss a criticism like this as being trifling and contemptible.

The very fact that the author of the article in question lays so much emphasis on this point is presumptive evidence that he is struggling hard to make out a case. One feels, therefore, not at all inclined to take seriously the further charge made in this article, namely, that Stevenson really took "The Bottle Imp from an old collection of stories published in London in 1823, and called "Popular Tales and Romances of the Northern Nations." This volume is not obtainable by ordinary readers. It is admitted that there is no verbal plagiarism. But the critic asserts that the "deadly parallel is not less deadly because it is not textual," and enlarges on what he calls that broader sort of plagiarism which consists of "purloining a writer's personality, methods, and mannerisms -as if Stevenson were in any need of purloining the literary methods and style of any human being. After all this positive and injurious assertion the reader naturally expects some demonstration of the charge made. Of this, however, there is absolutely none. We beg to point out to the writer of the accusation that it is his duty as a critic and as an honest man either to sustain his charge or to withdraw it.

To expect the literary world to accept such a charge as this without any presentation of evidence whatever, and on the bare assertion of one man who says he has read the story in question, is astonishingly naïve. Any one who has had experience in tracing the origins of literary productions will see at once a theory much more likely to account for the facts than a charge of plagiarism. This theory is simply that both the author of the story in the volume of "Popular Tales" and Stevenson himself found the root material of their respective stories in the old

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ORWAY, Sweden, and Denmark have rendered the Allies valiant service by keeping open the ways of traffic on land and sea. The Bergen-Christiania Railroad has become a world artery. The congestion at the Swedish-Finnish border has forced the Russian and Swedish Governments to rush to completion the long-delayed bridge connecting the two railway systems at Haparanda and Karungi. Over this road thousands of invalids from the Russian as well as the Central armies have been transported to their homes by the Swedish Red Cross. The number of packages carried by parcel post alone from England to Russia by this route have sometimes numbered as many as a hundred thousand a month.

Norway has been obliged, for her own sake, to keep up her shipping, which is the bone and sinew of her prosperity. Early in the war the Norwegian Government assumed eighty per cent of the risk of war insurance, and the common sailors have lived up to the grim motto of seafaring men: "It is necessary to sail the sea; it is not necessary to live." The Norwegian merchant marine at the beginning of the present year numbered 3,521 vessels with a total tonnage of 2,762,271. More than eighty, perhaps nearer ninety, per cent of this fleet is employed in the carrying trade for foreign nations, principally for the Allies. It is no doubt with a clear perception of Norway's usefulness to Great Britain that Germany has directed an especially savage war of extermination against the Norwegian fleet, and two-thirds of the ships hitherto destroyed in the submarine campaign have been Norwegian. In return for supplying Norway with coal, England has imposed certain conditions. Every ship loading coal in a British harbor must first bring a cargo of goods needed in England, and before returning to Norway with its anxiously expected freight must make two trips to a French Channel port or one trip to a French Mediterranean port carrying coal. În order to keep Norway's tonnage in European waters England has even put difficulties in the way of her obtaining coal from the United States.

By far the greater part of the food produced in Scandinavia is exported to Great Britain. In view of this fact, Scandinavians have heard with consternation, and not without resentment, the rumor that the United States is thinking of cutting off the supplies which they have depended on since their imports from the belligerents were stopped. In 1913 Norway received from Russia grain to the value of $4,098,796; from Germany, $6,664,476; from Great Britain, $975,130; besides lesser amounts from France, Belgium, Austria, and Rumania. Denmark received grain and fodder from Russia valued at $10,010,000; from Germany, $19,240,000; from France, $2,210,000; from England, $1,950,000; from other European countries, principally Rumania, $1,690,000. With the outbreak of the war these imports abruptly ceased, and the shortage had to be made up from America. A report of the War Trade Statistical Bureau in England shows that the aggregate imports of grain to Scandinavia have not increased. Swedish official statistics for 1914-the latest available-indicate that even then the total imports of grain to Sweden had shrunk to $13,419,120 from $16,975,400 the year before.

Famine prices have long obtained everywhere in Scandinavia. Sweden and Denmark have for some months had sugar and bread cards, and the Swedish Government has even gone to the length of forbidding the peeling of potatoes before cooking. Embargoes have been laid on every article of food, and only small amounts are allowed to be exported under strict

supervision and in return for goods most urgently needed. Thus England has the option on all the Norwegian fish that she desires to buy in return for giving coal to the fishing fleet, and only after England's needs are satisfied is a smaller quantity allowed to be exported to Germany.

Sweden, on the other hand, is dependent on Germany for coal, and therefore has been obliged to export a small part of the food so sorely needed at home in return for German coal. The recent change of Ministry in Sweden was due to the pressure of the popular will on the Government to conclude with all speed the long-pending trade agreement with Great Britain. Although the ostensible cause was an appropriation for defense, this, according to an authoritative Liberal source, was only a pretext, since all parties are agreed on the need of preparedness. The underlying force was the urgent desire of the people to have the way opened for the import of food and coal from the west. Then came the fear that American supplies might be withheld, and the discontent broke out in a demonstration before the Riksdag building. It may be noted that the outstanding figure in Swedish politics to-day is Hjalmar Branting, leader of the Moderate Socialists and the Liberals, who together constitute a majority of the whole Riksdag, though the Conservatives are still in force in the upper house.

In Denmark a semi-official agreement was entered into by the Merchants' Guild with the British Government at the end of 1916. The rumor that Denmark is feeding Germany rests largely on the fame of the "gullasch barons," who in the early part of the war made fortunes by cutting up old cows, tinning them in highly spiced sauce, and exporting them to Germany. The "gullasch" man, his villas, his champagne suppers, and his wild purchases of art gave the Danish journalist a welcome relief from the grim commonplaces of want and suffering at home and abroad. But the Government soon put an extinguisher on the "gullasch" man by restricting the export of meat. According to the contract with the Merchants' Guild, the export of Denmark's meat and dairy products is to take place in the same proportions as before the war, and this has been so strictly adhered to that when the German submarine order for a time paralyzed Danish shipping the goods destined for England were loaded on ships in the harbor of Copenhagen and held there until they could be transported to England in Norwegian ships.

Before the war England was Denmark's chief customer, and is so still. Of meat, for instance, fifty per cent is exported to England and fourteen per cent to Germany, while thirty-six per cent is kept for home consumption. Through the great cooperative societies it has been possible to control the distribution. As the Germans offer a higher price than that obtained either in England or at home, there is the greatest temptation to bad faith. A wave of indignation swept over the country last March when it was found that the co-operative butcheries had been guilty of exporting to Germany thirty-nine instead of fourteen per cent of their products during the months of December and January. The matter was adjusted to the satisfaction of the British Government, but the Danes themselves will not soon forgive the men who endangered the neutrality of their country for profit at the same time that they diverted the food so badly needed at home.

The Merchants' Guild in Copenhagen has likewise undertaken to guarantee against re-export any goods consigned in its care, and drastic punishments have been meted out to those who

have attempted to evade their contract. In Norway and Sweden individual firms have similar agreements with the British Government, and all three countries have passed laws making it a criminal offense to break such guarantees. It may be positively stated that no appreciable re-export takes place with every road guarded and double guarded by the Scandanavian authorities and by British agents.

In Denmark and Norway the general feeling is normally one of friendliness to the western nations, and, on the whole, that friendliness has stood the strain of the British blockade and all its accompanying irritations. At present it is not unlikely that Norway may be driven by Germany's submarine war to a closer affiliation with the Allies. In Sweden the ruling powers have looked on England's restraint of trade as a more insidious attack on the liberties of the country than even the German outrages at sea, and there is, besides, the fear of Russia always hovering in the background of Swedish consciousness; but of late both these influences have been weakening. The people demand a trade agreement with England, and there is a growth of friendly relations with Russia. During the entire war the Swedish papers have scarcely contained a hostile word against the eastern neighbor, and the Conservatives have not been able to rouse

the people by pointing to the recent fortification by Russia of Aland, fifty miles from Stockholm. It is a fact not hitherto published that at the beginning of the war Sweden asked Russia to withdraw the troops massed on the northern part of the Finnish border, and Russia complied. Of the Swedish ships destroyed in the war on neutral commerce only two have been victims of Russian shells, and for these two apologies and rep aration have been offered. Indeed, Scandinavians openly say that of all the belligerents Russia has been the most humane and most considerate of neutrals. Although nothing can alter the geographical fact of Russia's need of harbors that Norway and Sweden possess, there is an optimistic feeling that the matter may be amicably settled. The Russian Revolution with its proclamation of freedom for Finland has profoundly altered sentiment in Sweden, or, rather, it has removed the barriers of suspicion and given free flow to the natural liking that has always existed between the Russian and Scandinavian peoples. Economic forces are contributing to the same end. The increase of commerce with Russia has been so rapid that Sweden has recently found it necessary to double the staff of its consular office in Petrograd, and preparation is made for the great export of Swedish manufactures to Russia which will surely follow the war.

up there. Never saw better material for officers." "But aren't we slow in getting started? September 1 as the date for getting the conscript army into the cantonments seems a long time off.

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Put it November 1," he said, "and still we needn't complain. Do realize that we shall have several hundred thouyou sand green men coming along as recruits to the regulars and the National Guard that we must take care of first? Civilians don't understand what that means in the way of uniforms and equipment and officers."

Then he went on to explain about how we had profited from the mistakes of the Spanish-American War. He was a volunteer at that time. We had permitted every man who so desired to raise a company and to get a commission if he had the requisite pull. A captain might be a barber or a lawyer or a grocer. It made no difference whether he knew anything about military tactics or not. "At the end of the war," my friend said,, "my regiment was simply a mob."

So now we are training forty thousand men for officers in camps throughout the country. A very large share of them are expected to make good. These men in a few weeks will be competent to take hold, with the trained officers of the regular establishment and the National Guard, to lick the raw recruits into shape. Roughly, about forty-five thousand officers are needed for a million men. But there ought to be at least as many more in reserve to replace what is euphemistically called the "wastof war. The men now under training are expected to give us enough officers to handle our first million men. But a second series of will be necessary at once to provide for a decent

age

reserve.

camps

This introduction to Washington in war time was reassuring. There had been disquieting reports of chaos in all departments, of conflicts between the advisory boards and the departments, of much activity with slight accomplishment. But the captain's remarks suggested that, after all, something was being done, and an inquiry on the ground confirmed this impression.

Washington in war time doesn't look particularly different from Washington during any session of Congress. There is nothing yet of the tremendous activity that has developed a Ministry of Munitions in London, with ten thousand employees,

exclusive of stenographers. The hotels are crowded, real estate

men

are rejoicing over an influx of clerks and volunteer workers, the White House grounds at night are alive with guards, and it takes a pass to get into the big State, War, and Navy Building. But there are few men in khaki on the streets, and nothing disturbs the expansive peace of Pennsylvania Avenue.

And yet there is something in Washington that has set going Plattsburg and the other camps, that is handling the tremendous results flowing from Registration Day, and that is preparing to lay down keels by the hundred all up and down our coasts. That something is the Advisory Board of the Council of National Defense, acting in conjunction with the War and Navy Departments or perhaps it would be more nearly accurate to say the Advisory Board, the departments, and General Goethals. For ship-building to replace the submarine losses is an essential element in the strategy of this world conflict.

We neglected to make the most obvious preparations for a possible war. (It was said in Congress the other day that we had manufactured only sixty-six thousand Springfield rifles since the beginning of the war!) Although the submarine was the evident danger-point for at least a year, we failed to concentrate on a programme of ship-building directed against it. We were hopelessly negligent at almost every point except one. We somehow had the inspiration to create the Advisory Board of the Council of National Defense, which took the preliminary steps to correlate the Nation's industrial resources with its possible war needs.

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A few weeks ago this Board occupied a few offices. Now it uses floors of the big Munsey Building on the avenue," and it has developed sub-committees by the score. We took Daniel Willard, head of the Baltimore and Ohio system, and put him in charge of problems of transportation. We took Julius Rosenwald, the organizing genius of Sears, Roebuck & Co., and put him in charge of supplies. We took Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, and turned over to him the labor problems. We took Howard E. Coffin, engineer for the Hudson Motor Car Company, and asked him to look out for munitions and manufactures. We took Bernard M. Baruch out of Wall Street and gave him raw materials as his province. We put Dr. Franklin Martin over medicine and sanitation, and Dr. Hollis Godfrey, President of the Drexel Institute, over science and research.