they were the overlords, — stand in the way of the French hegemony in Europe. That explains the political purpose of Louis XIV, as he himself formulated it: "To destroy completely the power and authority in Germany which the House of Austria has enjoyed for two hundred years.' For this reason the principal point of attack was the Hapsburg possessions in Lorraine. For this reason any German princeling who had a grievance against the Holy Roman Empire or Austrian policy could reckon with certainty upon assistance from Paris, and for this reason the attempt was made, as it is to-day, to catch Germany between the clamps of the border states.

French policy allied itself with that of Sweden, Poland, and Hungary, always against the Empire. And when Louis XIV quietly annexed Strassburg in the midst of peace without the help of a 'commission of experts'!he was careful to goad the Turks into a coincident attack upon Austria.

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A part of the blame for the loss of Strassburg must be placed, to be sure, to the debit of certain German sovereigns who, under the leadership of the Hohenzollerns, united their forces against the Empire. To be sure, the Hapsburgs followed a truly German policy as little as did the Hohenzollerns. Neither dynasty can boast of much in that line. Even Richelieu was able to carry through the first Alsatian annexations by subventioning a German prince, Duke Bernhard of SaxeWeimar. And a hundred years later Francis Stephen of Lorraine gave up his German patrimony in exchange for sunny Tuscany, first to a Pole and afterward to the French.

Again and again German particularism and special interests of the German princes offered openings for the French policy of power and the lust of conquest along the Rhine. In Paris

they were naturally all the more eager to encourage the German 'liberties' (privileges within the Empire), and to help along any opposition to the Emperor.

In this connection it is only necessary to mention the notorious Rhenish League (Rheinbund). We recall the first Rhenish League, founded ten years after the Treaty of Westphalia by the Elector of Mainz for the protection of the privileges of the Estates against the Empire, and in which the French king was welcomed on German soil as a much honored member. We recall still more vividly Napoleon's Rhenish League, which sounded in 1806 the knell of the ancient Holy Roman Empire. Both were ideal examples of French constructive policy, which even to-day many Frenchmen would like to imitate. It is the line along which have moved the several attempts at separation in Bavaria, and in general the whole separatist policy in the occupied zone during the last four years.

The line of French continental policy which we have pointed out, with its double purpose of a Rhine frontier and the weakening of a neighboring state, was not the especial appurtenance of the kingdom or the empire. The French Revolution also proclaimed the policy of the 'Natural Boundaries of France,' and demanded the establishment, outside these boundaries, of a 'girdle of federated republics' (J. P. Brissot, 1792). Thus we see the third republic of to-day, with its Clemenceau, Millerand, and Poincaré, planted exactly in the footprints of the first. Between the two we see Napoleon, the nephew, in the middle of the century carrying out faithfully all the traditions of his predecessors. When the German civil war broke out in 1866, Napoleon concluded a secret treaty with Austria, by which Austria, in case she conquered Silesia, was not only to give up her

possession of Venetia, but to sanction the creating of an 'autonomous Rhenish state.'

The dice fell otherwise, and therefore the Emperor of the French came to Bismarck with other compensation claims, which now had to do with the acquisition of the territory on the left bank of the Rhine, and even Saarbrücken, by the practically vassal states of Bavaria and Hesse. In the work already mentioned Oncken quite rightly points out that the germ of the war of 1870 lay in the refusal of these French proposals.

The question arises, whether the old, traditional Rhine policy of France was in M. Poincaré's mind even before the Great War. We certainly find it as a part of the French war-policy in the agreement of February 14, 1917, in which Russia not only declared herself favorable to the reannexation of AlsaceLorraine, but with a realignment of the frontiers of the ancient duchy of Lorraine, which, as a matter of fact, was always German and never French, and, secondly, with the separation of the rest of the entire left bank of the Rhine from Germany, and the creation of a a neutral buffer-state under French military control.

France was not able to carry out this programme at Versailles in its entirety. But the French nationalists do M. Clemenceau and his colleagues a grave injustice when they intimate that these negotiators lost sight of the idea of restoring Germany once more according to the 'glorious model of 1648.' They did not lose sight of it, and did all they possibly could in this direction. This we know, not only from the English and American publications in regard to Versailles, but from the writings of the French negotiator, Tardieu.

The Treaty of Versailles did not give France the frontier of the Rhine, nor did it bring about the federal dissolu

tion of the German Empire. But it did give France valuable starting-points, from which she might hope to attain her objects in the course of time. For the past few years the crux of the French policy has not been Reparations, but what she is pleased to call security. But it all works out into the old historic aims, which in Paris are now masked under the expressions 'security' and'national defense' in other words the frontier of the Rhine and the dissolution of the German Empire. It would appear that any serious politician, even on the other side of the Vosges, ought to see clearly enough that the effort to attain these purposes by pure force, or by taking advantage of momentary weakness and need, must mean not alone for France but for all Europe not by any means security, but the very greatest insecurity and danger.

How can anybody honestly believe that Germany can ever accept any loosening, of whatever kind, of the bonds that bind the Rhine lands to the Empire? It is a waste of time to talk about a French frontier along the Rhine in the literal sense of the word. Most Frenchmen must recognize the utter hopelessness of the dream of annexation of the Rhine. What they really want is not the taking-over of actual territory as a part of France, but the control of it as a vassal state.

This is not the policy of any single nationalistic faction alone. It has been the policy of the French Government from 1918 till to-day. A year after Versailles we find even such a comparatively moderate paper as Le Temps saying, in regard to the Treaty, 'We thought the hour had finally come to make a definite and conclusive end of the Holy German Empire, to establish once more the independent German states, and to take for ourselves solid pledges of security.' What

Versailles left undone has been the object of the last four years on the Rhine and of all kinds of international conferences to make up for. In this task the French have shown considerably more cleverness in the manipulation of their allies than in their treatment of the peoples France is trying to win. The Allied Rhineland Commission, which is presided over by France, is becoming more and more the tool of the selfish interests and special privileges of the nation having the largest representation among the occu

pation troops. For four years every measure taken by the occupation forces has been for the purpose of fulfilling the wishes of France.

Rhine frontier and German particularism! That has been the policy of France in Europe for hundreds of years and remains so to-day. But Germany has kept the Rhine. She has won her federation after a bitter struggle and will defend it. With old Father Arndt, each one of us must say, 'If the French hold the Rhine, I have lost my German Fatherland!'

WELL over half of all mankind dwells in Asia, but the population is by no means equally distributed over the surface of the continent. On the Siberian tundras and the steppes of Central Asia there is an extremely thin population and the same is true in the higher altitudes of China, Japan, and British India. Such differences in population density as exist between the northern parts of Siberia and certain provinces of China and Bengal are scarcely to be found in any other portion of the globe. The terrific crowding of human beings in China, Japan, and India, and the rapid increase in population in these countries, bring with them problems that are already significant in world. politics and world economics, but which will probably be still more important in the future.

The more these three thickly populated lands are drawn into the capitalistic system and into world commerce, the greater will be the unrest among the masses of the people in their territory, and the stronger, especially among a part of the population of China and Japan, will become the tendency to break loose from their surroundings, to flee from the homeland, and to seek a more profitable means of subsistence, whether permanent or transitory, somewhere else. And even if the industrial system is introduced in China, and if industry spreads still further in Japan, there will still be countless millions of men left over, who can win a livelihood only with difficulty. Even with the industrializing of Eastern Asia and British India, the questions raised by Asiatic popula

tions will grow not simpler but more complex. To be sure, a thoroughgoing industrialization, the spread of mining and other industries, will give work to great numbers; but other numbers whose activity, according to European standards, is mere trifling, an uneconomic waste of time, will be thrown out of work through the industrial process and deprived of livelihood and of attachment to the soil.

Emigration from China in centuries past was steady and fairly large. Chinese coolies sweated over the building of railways in North America and Central Africa; they toiled in Russian and Californian mines, and in the gold mines of South Africa, on the plantations of the Antilles and Brazil, inPeru and Chile as cooks and stokers on European ships. The spread of the Chinese during the European War was especially extensive. Although not so many coolies could be forwarded to Europe, England, France as was anticipated in the beginning, the number of Chinese who in the years between 1914 and 1917 entered Russia was all the greater. Not merely in Asiatic, but also in European, Russia, many hundreds of thousands of Chinese were engaged. Even in Archangel and as far as the Kola Peninsula in the White Sea, coolies were stationed in order to release muzhiks and Russian industrial workers for military service. Chinese labored on the Murmansk Railway and in the great forest-districts of Russia, in mines, as agricultural laborers, spinners, weavers, cloth-makers; and even in the workshops of the Russian Railway Administration great hordes of Chinese were to be found. A great number of these Chinese, now six or seven years away from home, are still living in Russia, but larger throngs are again tending to emigration. The thickly populated territories of Shantung, Hupeh, Pechili, Kiangsu, and

Szechwan can still produce large numbers of emigrants.

In proportion to the population, the emigration from Japan is still more striking. The Japanese population increases seven hundred thousand souls every year. There is, to be sure, enough thinly settled territory in Formosa and Korea that the Japanese emigrant could occupy to a great extent, but the Japanese do not take kindly to either of these territories. Even the establishment of a special Colonial Office for Korea could not greatly promote the emigration from Japan. Korea is too cold for the Japanese, and Formosa too hot. China, being itself very thickly populated, can receive only a few Japanese, and so their eyes turn chiefly to the warm coast of America.

The State of California, since it belongs to the United States, is closed to the Japanese, but the trend toward Lower California and other provinces of Mexico is all the stronger for that. Agreements exist between the Japanese and Mexican Governments that provide for a heavy Japanese emigration to Mexico. Under the coöperation of both Governments, a special organization is to be established to help the Japanese to Mexico, and to care for their subsequent prosperity. In the provinces of Chiana and Oajaca, both situated on the Pacific, the development of special Japanese agricultural colonies is provided for. Japanese laborers are to be employed in the oil industry, in mining, on cotton plantations, and in the textile industry.

Some South American States, principally Brazil, but also Chile and Argentina, are concerning themselves with Japanese immigration. Yet the current of immigration from Japan to Brazil and Argentina, which was strong before the war, is slackening again. Although Brazil has set aside a special premium of 15 pounds sterling

for every immigrant Japanese laborer, the Japanese immigration, which had been six thousand in the year 1913, did not reach a thousand in 1921. The number of Japanese laborers in foreign countries is estimated at present at from six to seven hundred thousand, but within a few years this figure may have grown to a million at least. Recently Japanese girls and women have been emigrating in larger numbers.

The situation in British India is somewhat different. Here no great tendency toward emigration can be traced. The question of population remains rather an internal matter; but it is not without international significance or without effect on questions going beyond the country's borders, for the extreme overpopulation of many parts of India will constantly be a factor in international unrest, especially in times of bad harvest, and specifically an influence that will affect English foreign policy.

Though the population density of China, Japan, and British India is extraordinary, the population in other Asiatic territories is extremely thin, In the northern portion of Asia the scattered population is to be explained on climatic grounds, but there are very large Asiatic territories on which a much denser population could be maintained than at present. Anatolia, on account of the many and long Turkish wars during the last ten years, has lost a great many men, mostly ablebodied men. This heavy loss of population is one of the circumstances that makes the economic revival of Turkey more difficult.

How sick Europe really is one can see from the numerous diagnoses of the physicians who stand by her sickbed and from the quantity of prescrip

Persia also is very weakly populated. As the petroleum industry increases, and the exploitation of other mineral treasures develops, the emigration of foreign laborers may become a problem of the day for Persia also. The population of Turkestan is likewise very thin. In a territory more than three times the extent of Germany, about five million men are living, and yet Turkestan has wide stretches that either are very fertile already or that could be made so. Transbaikalia and Transcaspia are still scantily peopled, though economic administration could make them capable of supporting great numbers of men. The same applies to Nepal. In this country, almost a third the size of Germany, from five to six million men are living. Nepal has rich deposits of copper, iron, and sulphur. There are prospects of intensive agriculture and cattle-raising. Afghanistan likewise is thinly populated.

The thickly populated districts of British India and Japan include only about fifteen per cent of the surface of Asia. Yet in these territories dwell from seventy to seventy-five per cent of the Asiatic population. Even distribution of the Asiatic population, so far as climatic conditions permit, has hitherto been impossible chiefly on account of the imperfect means of communication in the interior of the continent. When, for the first time, great Asiatic overland railways are built, such as are now being proposed, a period of population movements will begin, compared to which all the immigrations and emigrations hitherto observed will be as nothing.

tions that are offered to the patient. Every month a new prophet rises to declare the downfall of Europe. The latest is a retired general, Ottokar