is represented as reactionary and despotic.' This condition is attributed to the arbitrary measures of local officials, who have defeated the intent of the liberal legislation enacted at Paris.

BELGIAN EMIGRATION FIGURES

'L'INDEPENDANCE BELGIQUE' publishes figures showing the remarkable increase of emigration to America through the port of Antwerp. During the first three months of 1920, when this tide was at its beginning, 13,000 embarked for America, of whom 4500 were Poles, 2200 Belgians, 817 Italians, and the remainder distributed among other nationalities. Commenting upon these figures and the steerage lists for the much heavier subsequent sailings, this journal remarks that, comparing present figures with those before the war: 'One is struck first of all by the relatively large number of Belgians among the emigrants. The Poles and people from Southeastern Europe pass through in parties of several hundred, looking like ragged, emaciated diseased paupers, but nevertheless apparently able to pay the high steamship passages now demanded.

which have attained control with the Republican victory.' After quoting numerous statements to this effect from Japanese papers, Preussische Zeitung continues:

The Mexican government recently sent an ambassador extraordinary to visit several European capitals, with an object which will be readily understood. After four months on the continent, this gentleman has now returned. He is no professional diplomat, but a journalist, Felix Palavicini, editor and proprietor of El Universal. He has accomplished several important things; for example, he has arranged for a direct steamship line between Italy and Mexico. Although he was very reticent over the principal object of his trip, he observed in an interview at Venice that some people were casting covetous eyes on Mexico, adding: 'Mexico needs no loan, for its budget shows a surplus. It is the only country in the world where there is no paper money in circulation, where business is done solely on a gold and silver basis.'

A NEW QUESTION IN INTERNA-
TIONAL LAW

As illustrating some of the difficulties likely to attend the resumption of trade with Russia, the London correspondent of Le Temps informs his paper that a certain Martin Luther, director of a sawmill corporation organized in Russia in 1898, has sued an American firm in England, to prevent delivery to it of 109 tons of manufactured timber which the Soviet government sold it last August for 4600 pounds sterling. The plaintiff alleged that this wood was confiscated by the Bolsheviki at the time his sawmill near Novgorod was nationalized, and is his own property. Since the Soviet government has not been recognized by Great Britain, he alleged the confiscation must be held illegal in a British court. In his complaint, since decided in favor of his contention, he added the picturesque detail that when the Bolshevist agents first presented themselves at his mill in January 1919, they were driven away by the employees.

ALSATIAN MATTERS

A TYPICAL illustration of the embarrassments which the change of government has occasioned in Alsace is the difficulty which has arisen there with regard to school attendance. The old German government required religious instruction in the public schools. The French government provides no religious instruction in schools supported by the state. As soon as the French law was extended to the public schools of Alsace most parents withdrew their children and insisted on sending them to private parochial schools. The new government apparently has not prohibited religious instruction in its restored provinces, but the French teachers who have come to replace the former German teachers are not prepared to give religious instruction to their pupils. As a correspondent to Figaro says, they address their students with a sarcastic smile when the religious period comes, saying, 'Now I am going to teach you your religion.'

EX-PRESIDENT POINCARE, writing in Le Temps, complains that many Germans, formerly imperial officials in Alsace-Lorraine or officers and noncommissioned officers of the German army, who have married women of those provinces, have taken advantage of a provision in the Peace Treaty to become French citizens; and that they are employing the status which this privilege gives them to intrigue secretly against French interests there. On the whole, however, the former President seems well satisfied with the impressions he received during his recent visit to the recovered provinces.

A NEW Symptom of the clash of interests between town and country in Europe is the recent formation in Alsace of a Burebund, or peasants' union, with branches through the

province. The president, a Mr. Haeffele, addressing a recent conference of this society at Strassburg, said:

The peasant of to-day is not the same man as before the war. He no longer receives the consideration to which he is entitled. Although he is aware of his importance he cannot make his influence felt because we farmers are not organized. We have been on the verge of revolution. We see indignation and hatred accumulate against us while we remain helpless victims of war profiteers. The working people are being incited against us as 'country usurers.' Let us be on our guard. Let us organize. Let us rally to our own defense. The future of the country depends on us; but we must cultivate a firm will. France has been cruelly wounded but its constitution is sound. Its wounds will heal. We peasants are the phagocytes who will eat up the bacteria undermining the health of the nation.

SOUTH AFRICA AND SECESSION

FORCED by the unstable parliamentary majority in South Africa, General Smuts has called an election to be held in February when the people will vote on the straight issue for or against secession from the British Empire. Upon this issue there is likely to be considerable fusion between the British and the Boers, because the younger generation of Dutch descent is drifting into the Labor Party in the mining district, while others of that race are inclined to line themselves with the English against complete separation, for commercial as well as political reasons. However, the sentiment in favor of complete independence is doubtless strong, and it may derive unexpected support from Radical nonBoer elements opposed to the employment of colored labor and to other policies which they fancy are encouraged by the imperial connection.

RADICALISM IN ASIA

LAST September, the Bolshevist government convened a congress of Eastern nations at Baku, accounts of which appeared in recent papers from

Russia. Its principal object was to arouse the hatred of the Asiatics against the Entente, which seems to have been accomplished with great facility. Zinovieff, the propagandist emissary, who recently carried the congress of the Independent Socialists of Germany into the Third International at the cost of a scission in that party-declared that the moment has come to inaugurate a true, holy war against European imperialists. . . . We proclaim this war first of all against England and we shall continue until we have won a complete victory over our enemies.' According to Isvestia, September 19, this speech produced a tremendous impression upon the 1200 Asiatic delegates.

Whenever Zinovieff mentioned the Entente, the audience arose from its seats, and every time

he pronounced the names of Lloyd George and Millerand, violent shouts of rage echoed from every side. The mere mention of either of those names evoked uncontrollable exhibitions of hatred. Hundreds of poniards and sabers were brandished in the air.

Among those in attendance was Enver Pasha, who was Turkish Minister of War when that country was fighting side by side with Germany.

A TOKYO daily, Nichi Nichi, reports that Japanese Socialists contemplate organizing a Pan-Asiatic Socialist League. The third meeting for the promotion of this project was held secretly at the Imperial Academy in that city recently, and was attended by seventeen Japanese and eleven Korean and Chinese delegates. The headquarters will probably be established in Siberia or China where police supervision is less severe than in Japan.

MINOR NOTES

JAPAN'S new army bill provides for a reduction in the period of military service, for the artillery, engineers, and

quartermasters, and probably for the cavalry. However, this is to be accompanied by an increase of about forty per cent in the number of recruits who will be called to the colors for this shorter period.

DURING the first seven months of 1920, some 310,000 Italian workingmen emigrated, of whom 123,000 came to North and South America.

An agreement has been reached between the Italian Emigration Department and the Brazilian government regulating the condition of emigration to the latter country.

ACCORDING to the Svensk Handelstidning, the recent American loan of $5,000,000 to Norway was really the outcome of an agreement between the Hamburg firm of Warburg & Company and the New York bankers, Kuhn & Loeb. It is regarded as a significant sign of the times that a German firm should be responsible for an American loan to a neutral country. The conditions, subject to which this money was borrowed, are not regarded as very favorable to Norway, and no marked effect on the rate of exchange between the two countries has followed.

THE London Statist reports that eighteen creameries have been destroyed in Ireland by soldiers and members of the royal constabulary during the past five months. The aggregate property loss is estimated at about one hundred and ninety thousand dollars. Sir Horace Plunkett is pressing the government for an authoritive assurance that the compensation will be provided from the imperial treasury for these losses.

WHILE business conditions in Japan. continue to be depressed, the country's