Magna Charta was wrung from King John because of what the Catholic Encyclopedia calls "the surrender of England into the hands of the Pope." If this history were merely transitory, it would have been forgotten long ago, or remembered only as an episode in the dead past. But the political power of the Roman Catholic Church has never been surrendered. To-day the temporal power of the Pope may be said to have disappeared except in its ghostly exercise within the confines of the Vatican; but it remains in the very theory that the Pope is a prisoner since he cannot allow himself to be subject to the sovereign rule of any civil power. And though the claim of the Papacy to such power as it once exercised in the political affairs of nations has seemed to become attenuated, nevertheless in such documents as Pope Pius IX's Syllabus of Errors and Pope Pius XI's encyclical last year instituting the feast of the Kingdom of Christ it is possible to find expressions that can be reasonably interpreted as claiming the ascendency of the Roman Catholic Church over the civil power of nations.

If this were merely the survival of a theory, the question of the purposes of the Roman Catholic Church in relation to civil power would not affect the minds of most Americans, whether Catholic or Protestant; but it is not merely a theoretical question. Between European governments and the Vatican there are diplomatic relations similar to those between national governments. And within several European nations there are parties that are frankly Catholic. It is true that there are also parties known by Protestant names. For example, in the Netherlands there is a Calvinist party. The difference, however, between Catholic and Protestant parties in European countries lies in this fact that the Protestant parties are national in scope, whereas the Catholic parties represent an international organization and involve an allegiance which whether consistent with allegiance to the State or not is distinct from it. The international character of the Roman Catholic Church has been recognized in a statement made by an eminent New York Roman Catholic lawyer in a brief drawn up on behalf of the Cardinal Archibishop of New York. In this brief Mr. William D. Guthrie cites a decision of the United States Supreme Court recognizing the Roman Catholic Church as a corporate body with a recognized status in international law. This corporate body is clearly not the creation of the State. It therefore differs from those corporations which are the creatures of the State. It

is in that respect foreign to the State. In that sense the Roman Catholic Church in America is naturally regarded as a foreign Church. Indeed, in that respect it is a foreign Church in every land. If Americans have learned to be vigilant concerning those corporate bodies, commonly known as trusts, which are creatures of the State, is it surprising that they should feel it necessary also to be vigilant with regard to a great international corporate body, having a long history of political influence and power, which is not the creature of the State? Complete tolerance in one's attitude toward the religious creeds of others may thus be consistent with vigilance in respect to a corporate body which happens to be associated with a creed. In particular, does such vigilance seem to many Americans justified in view of the history of the efforts which have been made for the employment of the power and the treasury of the State on behalf of the Church? It has been necessary in this country to rally public opinion against the proposal to use public funds for the benefit of Catholic schools, to prevent the passage of laws to give the Catholic Church immunity from the sort of criticism or attack to which other institutions are open, and to insure public investigation and supervision of Church institutions which serve public needs.

A friend of mine who is by no means intolerant has stated the question in this wise: Suppose, he said, that the Episcopal Church was an organic part of the Church of England; suppose that every Episcopal bishop were appointed by or with the authority of the King of England and was regarded as having a princely status; suppose an ecclesiastical representative of the King of England should come to this country and be received with princely honors; suppose the occupant of a high political office should do him obeisance, kissing the signet ring that was the symbol of his relationship with the King of England; would it be regarded as an expression of religious bigotry for those who remembered the Declaration of Independence to wonder whether there was not some danger to the institutions of this country in such an episode? This is not an analogy; it is merely an illustration of that state of mind which, altogether apart from creed, it might be possible for loyal Americans of the Roman Catholic faith to understand if not to share.

In this issue of The Outlook is printed the account of a visit to region made sacred by one of the saints of the Catholic Church. The power of that faith which guided St. Francis of Assisi is one

...

Did

which men of all faiths and men of no faith at all may well covet. In such a life there is that which brings people together. Of the influence of such a life and such a faith there is no fear. When a member of the Society of Jesus describes the secret of such a faith as Father Tierney does in an article on Catholic sociology published twelve years ago in "The Catholic Mind," he wins a common assent. Father Tierney writes: "When the great Precursor lay in his prison cell and sent messengers to Christ, asking if He were the Messiah, what word did Christ send back? He expound lofty doctrines? No; He simply said: Go back and tell him that the blind see, the deaf hear, go back and tell him that the halt are no longer infirm, go back and tell him that the poor have the Gospel preached unto them. Our charter is clearly drawn up in the twenty-fifth chapter of St. Matthew, beginning with the thirty-fourth and ending with the fortieth verse. You all remember it well, how the souls of the saved appear for judgment before the King who smiles and says: 'Come ye blessed of my father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me to eat: I was thirsty and you gave me to drink: I was a stranger and you took me in.' The blessed soul then asks: 'Lord, when did we see thee hungry and fed thee: thirsty and gave thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and took thee in?' And the King answers: 'I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.' There is our charter." In the number of the saints which have lived according to the charter as thus described by Father Tierney the Catholic Church is rich; and among them are innumerable saints whom the Church herself has trained but has never canonized. The religious influence of the Catholic Church is something not to be feared but to be prized and emulated. No one honors it more than the true Protestant.

Meanwhile we who are Protestants need to be on our guard against the exercise by Protestant bodies of the very political power which we would deny to the Roman Catholic Church. We cannot preach to others what we would refuse to practice ourselves.

All freedom to the Church which sways men's minds and lives through the power of reverence; but until Americans change radically their views of free political institutions they will reserve the authority of compulsion and all control that goes with it to the State.

ERNEST HAMLIN ABBOTT.

T

WO articles in current magazines have set me thinking about the interesting relation of Science and Literature. It is not only the poets who must know how to express ideas in appropriate language; the research workers in the vast and mysterious field of physical or psychical phenomena must cultivate the art of self-expression, or their discoveries and deductions fall on stony ground.

Perhaps in no man of recent times was the scientific attitude towards life more highly developed than in Pasteur. Yet he once said, on his election to the French Academy:

The brain alone is sufficient to meet the exactions of Science; but the soul and brain are co-workers in Literature, which explains the secret of the superiority of Literature in the march of civilization.

The two articles which recall this saying of Pasteur's are one on golf by Bernard Darwin in the "Atlantic" for May, and one on the city skyscraper by Henry James in the "World's Work" for May. The thing that especially interests me about these two articles is that their authors are the products of a scientific heredity and environment, and are yet pre-eminently men of letters. Their scientific cast of mind is, however, manifest in the exactness, reasonableness, and tolerance of their writings.

Bernard Darwin is a grandson of Charles Darwin, the monarch of biologists, and a son of Francis Darwin, the eminent botanist. A graduate of Cambridge, he was called to the bar, but

abandoned that semi-scientific profession for letters and specializes in the literature of golf. There is much discussion whether golf is a science or an art. Indeed, philosophers are put to it to define the shadowy line that marks the boundary-line between science and art. It is sufficient to say that the greatest geniuses in plastic, pictorial, and architectural art have been students of such sciences as anatomy, optics, and engineering. The point is that Charles Darwin's grandson is an artist in his chosen field, although his grandfather sometimes sorrowfully complained that his devotion to the exactions of science had led to the atrophy of the artistic cells in his own brain. In the case of Bernard Darwin it may be a case of atavism, for Charles Darwin's grandfather-that is to say, Bernard's great-great-grandfather -Erasmus Darwin, had a fondness for verse and wrote a long didactic poem on the "Loves of the Plants" which had sufficient vogue in its day to be translated into French and Italian.

It is less surprising that Henry James, author of the second magazine article above referred to, should be an artist in literary expression. Though he is the son of a scientist-if pragmatic philosophy may be called a science-his grandfather, Henry James the first, was a man of letters. That great connoisseur of literary art, E. L. Godkin, the founder of the New York "Nation," once said of the elder James, "I suppose there was not in his day a more formidable master of English style." Henry James the second, the acknowledged prince of

stylists in the realm of modern English fiction, was the uncle of the inquisitor of skyscrapers; and his father was William the inexorable thinker who James, the inexorable "wrote philosophy like a novelist." It is little wonder that the present Henry James, while a lawyer by profession, has contributed to American biography one of its most delightful and perfect works -"The Letters of William James."

William James himself as a youth thought of being a painter, became a student at the Lawrence Scientific School, graduated from the Harvard Medical School, began his teaching career in anatomy and physiology, and finally landed in the chair of Psychology and Philosophy at Harvard. I do not recall the career of any American intellectual in which Science and Art have been so strikingly mingled. His love of literary art constantly displays itself in his letters. He speaks somewhere a little contemptuously of the "Ph.D.-ism" of our universities. In another letter he refers to "the gray-plaster temperament of our bald-headed young Ph.D.'s, boring each other at seminaries, writing those direful reports of literature in the 'Philosophical Review' and elsewhere, fed on 'books of reference,' and never confounding 'Esthetik' with 'Erkentnisstheorie.' Faugh!" And again, "I am getting impatient with the awful abstract rigamarole in which our American philosophers obscure the truth."

The Darwin family and the James family are both exponents of the important truth that the dignity of Science does not require her to be dowdy and run-down-at-the-heels, but that she may properly adorn herself with the best style of Literary Art, obtained, if necessary, at the always accessible shops of the poets and essayists.

I

N spite of assaults from the unregenerate, from H. L. Mencken, and from the wets, the Methodists continue to be the most potent denominational force in the United States. Standing at the head of the Protestant procession, with the Baptists a close second, their number is sometimes overestimated because of their manifestations of energy. The "World Almanac" notes that of so-called Methodists there are 8,920,790 in the communion, but this includes fifteen varieties. The total credited to the Methodist Episcopal brand is 4,516,

of the campaign for prohibition, and has since supplied much of the sustaining moral backing of the Anti-Saloon League. It has been accused of meddling in politics, though the exact amount indulged in has never been reliably revealed. The Democrats of Indiana assert that the Church dominates the Republican Party there and keeps it in power. Probably the best Republican politicians in the State are Methodists, and so make a stronger appeal to their fellow-members than some Presbyterian Democrat would. The Superintendent

less of the Pope, they have established a strong center in Rome. To it they have drawn a considerable number of Italians, besides rousing much hostile feeling. This is a Methodist specialty. It is not their bigotry that annoys, because they have, on the whole, become pretty liberal; it is the amount of steam they seem capable of getting up and keeping at high pressure.

Just now their hands are plainly visible in foreign affairs. The Church has taken a firm stand in support of President Calles, of Mexico. When the imbroglio over excluding foreign-born clergy from the Republic arose, the Methodists accepted the limitation and proceeded to offset Catholic opposition in the United States. So, with the Knights of Columbus pleading for intervention in the name of religious liberty, the Methodists indorse the Mexicans and have tried to make themselves heard at Washington. The "Christian Advocate," published in New York, and edited by Dr. James R. Joy, has spoken unmistakable words of warning to President Coolidge and Secretary Kellogg.

The Methodist enterprises in Mexico are large and well supported. The Church takes the stand that Mexico

knows what it is doing and has ample reasons for its course. Incidentally, it has educated enough Mexican Methodist shepherds to take care of all the flocks. In the welter of confusion which has grown out of the situation south of the Rio Grande the Methodists discern a movement of distinct benefit to the Mexican people, and propose to do their share in seeing it through. A good many Klansmen are Methodists, and, naturally, look cross-eyed at a controversy where Catholicism is chiefly concerned. The bishops and editors, however, gaze much higher than that. They want to see education and mental liberty given a chance.

So, too, in China, where the Church has an enormous investment in missions and educational institutions, its stand is in favor of a China for the Chinese. It has protested against any Government interference that would check the progress of new China toward its goal. There is a visible cleavage between the Church and commercial interests in this matter. Big business prefers to deal with power, the Methodists with the multitude.

It is an unusual spectacle to see a great Church come forward and take a stand in international affairs, especially as missionary policy has always been supposed to keep religion out of politics. In the two instances now exciting the world something more than politics has come into being; that is, something more than the politics of party-to wit, the rights of man. This the Methodist authorities and "Advocate" have not hesitated to proclaim. If all this is a de

parture from strict spirituality, the Methodists do not mind. The Church is out for humanity, and will take its chances at the crop of sinners when things settle down once more.

That a single denomination should stand out so conspicuously in the turmoil is unusual. The timid will, of course, wish to chase the Methodists back to the pulpit and the mission. It is a safe assertion that they will not go. From the days of the circuit riders they have fought their way with the vigor of pioneers and a good humor that has never failed, probably using, on the whole, less brimstone than any other orthodox sect in the field. If it represents a good deal of unrefined Americanism, it also contains elements that have always been important in the Nation's progress.

Most of the energy comes, of course, from the Methodist Episcopal source. The fourteen other varieties are less potent from lack of numbers, and more intent on sustaining schism than performing good works.

It is not the purpose of this article to discuss the proprieties, but, instead, to show how a Church can stand out in a crisis. Those who dread the coming together of all denominations in the Federal Council of Churches see in it a menace to our primal liberties. It may be so. But the Federation has fallen short of its purpose, though ably manned. Its power, if any, is in the size of its shadow. The Methodists have rarely stood still long enough to cast one. They are now moving faster than ever before.

N the evening of April 16-even while the members of the late Wakatsuki Cabinet were gathered in the pallid circle of an extraordinary Cabinet session framing their resignation-Baron Giichi Tanaka and his Seiyukai seemed to have about as much chance of riding into power as a mouse at a congress of Cantonese rats. Nobody paid a really serious attention to any such possibility-especially the politically wise of Tokyo.

And on the 18th Tanaka was suddenly picked out of political nowhere and placed on the dais of the Premiership of Japan.

A man of ability-of real ability-a man who can really do things, is actually put into the conning tower of political Japan.

By ADACHI KINNOSUKE

It is not the first time, of course, that such a thing has happened. Men of ability had worked into the Premiership of the Empire more than once in spite of all the cut-and-dried schemes of the political mice and the powers unseen. But in such cases it was largely due to their mastery of the gentle art of pulling the wire tangles behind the scene. The late Premier Kei Hara, who fell at the hand of a boy assassin at the time of the Washington Conference, was an outstanding example of a man of unquestioned ability making the top through this route. But mere genuine abilityespecially of an aggressive type such as Tanaka's has proved about the worst guide to our political peaks.

Just what, then, has now happened? Well, there always is one way open to

the courage and wisdom for going through the painful operation of deflation following the war boom. Then, as the climax of a long series of bank failures, came the closing of the Bank of Taiwan (Formosa)—a semi-governmental institution-and of the 15th Bank. And that struck home even into the bewildered understanding of the people the full meaning of the catastrophe. Especially, the 15th Bank. There was a bank counting among its thousands of depositors the Imperial Household Department and some three hundred peers of the realm. It has been known as perhaps the most conservative among the big banks of the land.

It is quite a storm. It is big enough for any Taro and Jiro on the street to see the bigness of it. No mere goldbraided egg-shell of a bureaucrat can be trusted with the hallowed ship of state in a storm of this magnitude. That much was quite plain. And the one exceptional way opened for a man of ability and action.

This precisely was the way through which Great Saigo stepped into the supreme command of the Brocade Banner (of the Emperor's forces) in those birthdays of the Meiji era in 1867.

So to-day, as in the critical times sixty years ago, it is a great storm which has at last forced the lone surviving Elder Statesman, Prince Saionji, and a group of precious antiques furnishing the council chamber of the Empire to call out a political Moses.

B

ARON GIICHI TANAKA is not much of a prophet--witness the spirited manner in which he charged right into the jungle of the Siberian expedition when he was the War Minister under Hara. But he has this advantage over a mere prophet: He typifies his own country in its ups and downs as no other public leader now living seems to do. His life story is the political history of Nippon in little.

He was born in the city of Yamaguchi in the famous clan of Choshu. Many historians look upon that as the cradle city of the New Nippon. With Takachika Mori, Lord of the Choshu Clan, gathering the young men of aspiration there, it was certainly one of the fountain-heads of pro-Kyoto inspiration. Tanaka was born there in 1863not quite five years before the world heard the birth-cry of the New Nippon, with the Meiji Emperor back on the dais of the Mikado.

It was from this same historic city of Yamaguchi that a young man called Aritomo Yamagata came. He was serving the Lord Mori as a young and hum

ble retainer in those days. It was this same young man who later became Prince Yamagata, famous as the father of the Japanese army, and by far the most powerful of the Elder Statesmen of Japan. And, more interesting still to this brief sketch of our new Premier, it was the same Elder Statesman who later achieved the distinction of becoming a relative by marriage to Tanaka.

Young Tanaka started his life as a

Photograph from Adachi

Baron Giichi Tanaka

soldier. And in that very first act of his career he was mirroring the aspirations of his land and time. When Nippon woke from the three-century dream of feudal isolation in 1853 under the persuasive muzzles of the American fleet under Commodore Perry at Uraga Bay, she saw an array of impressive things: that the British Empire was the master of India; that the same Power drove the opium trade and many an unspeakable dose of humiliation down the protesting throat of her mighty neighbor, the Middle Kingdom; that the same Power was also the undisputed master of all the trade routes of the world and would not even let the august sun have a few hours of sleep over its globe-girdling domain

all these through what magic power? Even to the sleep-heavy eyes of Nippon the answer seemed simple and clear: Through the gesture of its mailed fist, through the strength that was in its modern arms, through the application of modern scientific knowledge to the service and art of war. Naturally enough, the New Japan tuned her aspiration on the same key. Young Tanaka became a soldier.

His rise in the army was swift. Soon, not only the army, but the whole Empire was talking of him as the particular pet son of the powerful Choshu.clique. And when he married a blood relation of Prince Yamagata the whole country was delighted to say that the mantle of the mighty Elder Statesman would find ample shoulders to fall upon.

And precisely at that moment of his triumph the world current suddenly turned and left him swirling in a shadowy eddy.

T

HE World War had come to an end; with it, militarism rusted in the shell-holes of France. It took Tanaka

some little time to find the real significance of it all. He was reported to have backed the Siberian expedition of the Hara Cabinet with all his might. It ended as a stupendous failure-dismal and very expensive for Nippon. The storm of bitter criticism broke; it centered its fury on General Tanaka. Perhaps it was the precious lessons he learned then that persuaded him a few years later to take the fateful step. Let's have it in his own words:

As years passed [he wrote last year, reviewing his reason for quitting the army] the tide of aggression and force that once threatened to strike Japan at the root subsided. A new worldtide of peace came on. Japan of the future must thrive under this world peace, and achieve the full enjoyment of human happiness.

In order to realize this ideal, I laid aside my sword and military uniform in April, 1925, to enter political life here. As a politician I am nothing but an inexperienced man. The party, however, which has honored me with its leadership is a great and powerful one, with the reputation of being the oldest political organization in Japan.

But just what does Baron Tanaka and his Cabinet propose to do? What is their program?

Speaking at a great mass-meeting of the Seiyu Party in the city of Niigata, early in October, last year, Tanaka said:

The negative policy of the present Cabinet [the Wakatsuki Cabinet] has throttled the spirit of people's enterprise. It has damaged the smooth

working of our economic machinery. It has resulted in the wreck of credit; it has brought about an extreme pressure on the money market; unemployment everywhere. We are suffering from a business depression unparalleled in recent years. . . . I stand for a constructive policy of placing the country on the foundation of productive industries. Full supply of foodstuffs and an unfailing flow of industrial raw materials are the greatest problems which govern the destiny of the Empire. We must open up the uncultivated land within our domain, improve the land already under the plow, and develop our natural resources, of course. But, more than that, we must consider means of securing our industrial raw materials

from the sections of the continent which are in intimate economic relations with the Empire. It naturally follows that the Chino-Japanese economic alliance and the safeguarding of the special sections in Manchuria are the problems of absolute importance to our Empire. And that is why we should center our entire energy upon our diplomatic relations with China and watch the peace and disturbance in the special regions of Manchuria and Mongolia. And we entertain the utmost confidence in establishing a suitable policy to attain our aims.

These are mere statements, of course. Woods and the speeches of our politicians are full of them. There is this about it, however. The quotation above

comes from Giichi Tanaka. And that makes all the difference in the world. For there is a man who means what he says. And our people have come to know that what he means he rarely fails to put into action. And no one knows this better than the various leaders of warring factions in both North and South China. Most of them know it through their own personal experience. They know they can depend on the words of Baron Tanaka-about the only man in Nippon who commands their confidence without reservations.

Therefore what Tanaka says about China at this time takes on the emphasis of an epochal statement of utmost importance.

NOREIGN trade, because it dis

F

poses of a country's surplus production, has always been the commercial salvation of every nation since the days when the daring merchantmen of Tyre decided to seek markets for their goods in the countries which lay across the Mediterranean.

To-day, the United States, because of its highly systematized method of mass production, is unquestionably setting the pace in the manufacture of all manner of commodities.

But what of the distribution of these articles in foreign lands?

Unfortunately, I all too frequently find that there is a tendency on the part of many sales executives to be wholly content with domestic consumption. When queried regarding their apathy for foreign trade, these gentlemen explain that they feel that their wares cannot be adapted to the requirements of people who are ignorant of the American standard of living.

Personal observation, particularly in countries of the Far East, where the awakening of modern civilization has been slow, has proved to me that there are markets of undreamed-of size and dependability awaiting our merchants. if they will go out and patiently develop a demand for their products.

To prove that I am not unduly opti

mistic, I will relate briefly the conversation which has taken place more than once when I encounter an American manufacturer who regards the limitless markets of the Far East with timid

ity. When I discover that he fails, to be impressed with my remarks on the subject, I abruptly ask him a question: "When did you last eat sardines?” Surprise invariably sweeps over the

cacy, a great luxury, by Orientals, who, for all their poverty, spend a sum in excess of eleven million dollars annually to please their palates.

he looks puzzled. What possible interest can I have in his diet when I have just been propounding the value of foreign trade? As likely as not, he will reply:

"Well, I really can't remember. Sardines-let me see-think I ate some at a picnic last summer."

Expecting an answer of this sort, I am ready with figures-figures of deep significance because they disclose the vastness of the buying power of the markets of the Far East.

"Quite true," I tell him. "You, and a few million other Americans, eat sardines on an average of about once a year. That is why Pacific coast canners operated on such a small scale for many years. But out in such countries as Malay, and Java, and Burma, and India, over eighty-four million cans of this fish are eagerly consumed each yearthe same kind of fish that is served by American housewives at more or less irregular intervals and those Orientals would eat the contents of another eighty-four million cans if American packers could supply the demand!"

This simple statement of fact never fails to impress.

couraging examples of the vast distribution possible for an American product-really a luxury to the buyers -among races of people who exist on unbelievably small sums of money. Consider that prior to the advent of the American sardine-mind you, it must be an American sardine, one of the large, meaty variety which is caught only on the Pacific coast, and it must be smothered in tomato sauce your Malay Mohammedan, Burmese Buddhist, and Bengali Hindu conformed to the religious restrictions of his faith by eating fish which had been freshly caught a comparatively short distance from the local bazaars; fish which could be purchased for such a small sum of money that it is difficult for us to conceive the reduction of a cent to such fractions.

Back of this widespread demand for sardines is a story which typifies what foresight and initiative on the part of an export official connected with one of the fish-canning companies did in bringing about the sale of fish in countries where fish were already bountifully available at prices so small that they can scarcely be calculated in American money.

'WENTY-FIVE years ago this official a

made a trip to the Far East. In those days such a journey was considered only from the sightseeing angle by