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THE LIVING AGE

VOLUME 317-NUMBER 4111

APRIL 21, 1923

A WEEK OF THE WORLD

THE FRENCH SIDE

HERE can be no doubt of the someat puzzled and hurt surprise of the jority of Frenchmen at the evident k of sympathy, to put it mildly, of a dly portion of the world, and ecially certain circles in Great tain and America, for what a pocal humorist has called the 'deured war' in the Ruhr. The French, ded by M. Poincaré himself, have been backward in defending themes, though they have undoubtedly n handicapped by certain elements France itself. General Malleterre Is a long article in La France Mili-e in this fashion:

It has been reserved for the English mselves to demonstrate to Mr. har Law the justice of France's ion. Four Laborist members of liament, who went to the Ruhr, tainly with no previous intention of ling France in the right, have had bow to the evidence and acknowlze that the Ruhr is not only a colosand prosperous industrial institun, but that, in spite of Berlin's cries distress, the German working classes considerably better off than their glish brothers. They found, too, at the Ruhr, with its treasures of n and coal in the hands of industrial

kings who take their orders from Berlin, constitutes a factory of war material that must always remain a danger to all Europe.'

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The General then offers a constructive suggestion: 'In 1919 we proposed the autonomy of the Rhineland, separate from Germany and especially from Prussia. This would have been the solution of the peace question. It remains so to-day. Let the great Ruhr factory do its work for Europe in its entirety, and not for Germany alone. Let it never be permitted to manufacture any war material whatever, and we shall soon be able to speak of Reparations and peace in quite different terms from those of Mr. Bonar Law and Herr Cuno.'

M. Auguste Gauvain, in the Journal des Débats of March 13, commenting upon Chancellor Cuno's declaration, remarks:

"The eloquent orator terminated his discourse with the assertion that, unless civilization destroyed war, war would destroy civilization. Quite so. But in order to destroy war we must first destroy the will to war. The men

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Copyright 1923, by the Living Age Co.

for the reason that Germany, in this year of 1923, is incapable of that. But they are carrying on an economic and a journalistic war. They started a guerilla war in the Ruhr with assassination, as they did in Silesia. They do not even conceal their intention of starting a real war when the right moment comes.

'According to Baron von Rheinbaben, Chancellor Cuno offers us, in the magnanimity of his heart, the recognition of the frontiers of 1919, and the promise to refrain from all aggression for a generation. After that the new Germany, enriched and strengthened through the blindness of her rivals, would reserve to herself the choice of the instant she may consider the most favorable to throw herself upon us again. Are we to expect that a League of (disarmed) Nations will protect us then?'

The Temps of March 18, in a long editorial entitled 'First Let Germany Stop Her War,' demands:

'No more manœuvres, no more intrigues with a view to provoking mediation or intervention of any description. ... No more soundings by more or less official emissaries, of whatever nationality. . . . No further propaganda of calumny and hatred against France. No more resistance, boycotting, or sabotage in the occupied zone. . . . The day that Germany has any propositions to make she must make them in one way only, namely by addressing them, officially and directly, to the two Governments whose troops now occupy the Ruhr basin. These are the parties, and not the Reparations Commission, with whom Germany has to do. It is understood, of course, that when France and Belgium are in possession of a proposal from Germany, they will communicate it to the other Allied Powers who are Germany's creditors, including, without doubt, the Government of the United States.

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'But let us not anticipate. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. First let Germany stop the war she is now waging.'

It is significant to note that the Franco-Swiss press is quite on the side of France. In its edition of March 10 the influential Journal de Genève says:

'Herr Cuno expresses himself at length concerning the "atrocities" committed by the Army of Occupation. Let us see. Up to a few days ago the number of deaths was nine, and of these five were French!

"There are many points worthy of notice touched upon by the German Chancellor, especially his programme of organized resistance, the stabilization of the mark, and a domestic gold loan. These measures prove what Germany is capable of when she sets seriously to work. If she had applied the same decision and energy that she is showing to-day to the problem of Reparations, she would undoubtedly have been spared the cruel adventure in which she finds herself engaged, and from which no foreign intervention will be able to rescue her.'

The bishops of the Swedish Lutheran Church, having rushed in where other ecclesiastical bodies have feared to tread, and addressed a touching appeal to M. Poincaré to retire from the Ruhr, we find the same periodical (March 12) thus summing up the question:

'While France expects that Germany, paralyzed in her life activities, will promptly ask to negotiate, Germany hopes that France, menaced by ruin, will soon relax her grip. All this is abnormal and dangerous, because it makes the economic recovery of Europe more difficult and because it creates more hatred for the future. At the same time, we are not quite in accord with Chancellor Cuno when he declares that Germany is fighting for right and

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justice, and are of the opinion that the Swedish bishops, instead of mixing themselves up in foreign politics somewhat late in the day, would have been more wisely inspired to occupy themselves entirely with their pious duties at home.'

Figaro publishes (March 16), with very evident delight, a set of resolutions passed by the numerous and important British colony at Pau: 'We wish to make known our warm sympathy with the French Republic and our desire to support it in its championship of the sanctity of treaties, in order that it may recover some small portion of the losses shamefully and inhumanly inflicted upon it by Germany, the pariah state among civilized nations. Vive la France et vive l'Entente Cordiale!'

MORE AMENITIES

DURING the war we called the Germans 'Boches,' while for the English they were 'Huns.' Now the Germans have invented a new name for us which vastly pleases them, namely, 'Apaches,' and their papers are filled with the atrocities committed by the Apaches in the Ruhr.

(L'Opinion, March 16)

In the course of a speech made by Mr. Lloyd George at Bangor in Wales, during a religious meeting, a cock broke in with a vociferous cock-a-doodle-doo. Pausing for a moment in his discourse, the orator remarked: "Two cocks cannot crow at the same time!' A few minutes later, as he was wishing Godspeed to the Welsh missionaries on their departure for the Orient, the cock once more sounded his clarion call. 'You see,' said Mr. Lloyd George, 'the cock approves fully of what I say!' He was rewarded with a burst of laughter; but in this reunion of theologians was it forgotten that it was the crow of a cock

that marked Peter's three denials of the Lord? (L'Opinion, March 10)

When, if ever, the League is expanded, the first thing that perfected organization will do is to query and traverse the actions which have been taken by its imperfect predecessor. From a moral standpoint the abstention of the U.S.A. is less damaging to the decisions of the so-called League of Nations than the exclusion of Germany. The natural and sensible way of making a League of nations is to start by the continents. If Mr. Lloyd George did not know where Teschen was, how on earth can anyone expect the Japanese, for instance, to hold any views worth listening to about Silesia? What Europe should have quickly is a true, full League of European nations, where a German or Bulgarian can state his case, get an international hearing, and then cast his vote. Had Europe been so organized six months ago, neither Chanak nor the Ruhr could have attained their present dimensions. (GENERAL SIR IAN HAMILTON, in the Manchester Guardian, March 18)

I have nothing to say with regard to the political aspect of the occupation of the Ruhr, but there are certain salient outstanding facts with regard to the economic side of it that may be noted. In the first place, there is no doubt in my mind that Germany can pay.

Germany is not crippled. German commerce has suffered no setback since the war, except to the extent that she has been interfered with by the exchanges; her shipbuilding capacity is still estimated at the same power as before 1914, while, allowance being made for monetary inflation, increased cost of raw stuffs, and rising wages, the fact remains that there has been a considerable increase of capital in her industrial and commercial concerns

ever since the Armistice- an increase of 6741 millions in 1920, as compared with an increase of 1069 millions in 1919.

SIR JOSEPH Cook, High Commissioner for Australia, in the Sunday Times, March 18)

It is, of course, well known that there never was in any parliamentary assembly a minority which did not represent the real will of the people against the accidental incident of a majority elected to thwart it. In practice the filibuster is a horrible example of man's inhumanity to man.

(Daily Telegraph, March 14)

There is one means and no other of giving permanent security to France. Britain, Italy, France, and Germany, together, must join in a pact guaranteeing France against German aggression, and Germany against French aggression. . . . All the reactionary and militarist methods of the Ruhr policy have been tried before and failed before under favorable circumstances. The logic of dismemberment has led France from the Western Rhineland to the Ruhr and Mannheim. It could only lead in the future to Frankfort, Munich, and Berlin. Nor could that be the end of it. Napoleon was doubtful of the intentions of Russia, and in search of security he marched to Moscow.

(Observer, March 18)

The makers of the American constitution thought well to guard their people against their own impulses. They imposed delays and hindrances, and to their quadrennial constitutional monarch gave a large share in the power of government. We have no checks in our constitution against any passing fancy. The British electorate is supreme, and can do what it will tomorrow. In this free system the Crown is the indispensable symbol of union, tradition, and continuity, not only for

our own people, but, as this particular Labor group forgets, for the peoples of the Commonwealth. (Observer, March 18)

The Independent Labor Party has good reason to claim the best place at the Socialist table. It has made a most remarkable recovery from the debacle by which it was overwhelmed at the General Election of 1918, when out of its fifty candidates only three were returned to Parliament. The pamphlet attributes this debacle to the fact that the I. L. P. 'dared to say the unpopular thing.' But that is a ludicrous understatement. It would be much truer to say that the electors turned from Mr. MacDonald and his I.L.P. associates with abhorrence because all through the war they had never raised a hand to help Great Britain to victory, but had always sought on one pretext or another to prevent a decisive result from being reached. Mr. MacDonald was a Defeatist from first to last; he has never recanted or acknowledged his error. On the contrary, he boasts that he would do the same thing again, and we quite believe it. (Daily Telegraph, March 19)

THE SUBSOIL QUESTION IN RUMANIA

THE question of the nationalization of the subsoil is indisputably the one which most interests the Rumanian Government and people, although there are other subjects under discussion in Parliament, such as the rights of Jews and the liberty of the press. These three questions are the only ones that divide the political factions in the vital discussion of the new constitution. The question of the subsoil has sharply divided public opinion, many independents, including the President of the Senate, Mr. Phérékyde, having ranged themselves on the side of the opposition as adversaries of the system

of nationalization, while its advocates, led by Mr. Vintila Bratiano, Minister of Finance, and Mr. V. Sassu, Minister of Industry, invoke the principles of justice, inherited from the great revolution, and lying at the very foundation of the State.

The question interests not only the owners of land and of oil wells, but also the general public in a high degree, the more so since upon the manner in which it is solved will depend the fate of the new constitution and of the Liberal régime.

=Article 20 of the project of the constitution to be submitted to Parliament reads as follows: 'Deposits of minerals and other riches of the subsoil of whatever character are the property of the State. Hard rock deposits, quarries of materials used in construction, and peat are excepted, without prejudice to the rights acquired by the State by virtue of previous laws.'

A special law regulates the rules and conditions of valuation applicable to this kind of realty, and fixes the quitrent due the owners of the surface land, as well as the extent in which the owners may share in the exploitation of the subsoil. Exploitation concessions conferred in accordance with present law will be respected for the period of their contracts, and the owners now exploiting their own subsoil will not be interfered with so long as they actually work it. Perpetual concessions are not to be granted. These special privileges, however, are to last only fifty years from the date of the promulgation of the new constitution.

THE COLORED TROOPS OF FRANCE

Ir has often been pointed out by political economists that, in view of the moderate birth rate in France, the color question is bound to become more and more acute, since the birth rate of

the colonies is by no means decreasing. It is asserted that the black tide is rising steadily at the expense of the white, and that this tendency can already be clearly seen in the personnel of the army. In France itself, where there exists no such prejudice against the colored race as has, for example, resulted in the disenfranchisement of many American citizens in our own South, and where few people appear to have any fear whatever of the future, when there are likely to be as many French voters as colored, the question of the equality of the white and black races is being frankly and fearlessly

met.

M. Diagne, Deputy from Senegal, and M. Boisneuf, Deputy from Guadeloupe, have addressed a letter to the President of the Council on the subject of the recall from the Ruhr district of a division containing some two hundred natives of the Antilles, in which they allude to the response of M. Poincaré to a letter written on this same subject by M. Candace.

The two deputies, both of whom are colored, thanked the President of the Council for the sentiments that he had expressed in regard to the colored troops. They recalled the exploits of the colored troops during the war, particularly the recapture of the fort of Douaumont by the forty-third battalion of Senegalese Rifles. They add: 'We are quite indifferent to the calumnies of the Germans against our fellow citizens, as well as the hypocritical and malicious propaganda carried on in several neutral countries. On the other hand, we are sincerely pained by the thought that our Government could have been influenced by these aspersions, even to the point of apparently justifying them by an act irreconcilable with our national independence and incompatible with the dignity of the race that we represent.

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