As

s a Canadian citizen I appreciate your excellent editorial in The Outlook of September 16 under the title "A Family Affair." There is one sentence, however, which might well be supplemented. It is in the last paragraph, and reads as follows: "The failure of Canada to accept the reciprocity offer made during the Taft Administration should not deter this Government from considering the possibility of similar overtures in the future."

It certainly is to be regretted that, due to the exigencies of party politics, the reciprocity offer of 1911 was not accepted by Canada. It should be pointed out, however, that in 1922 a resolution passed the House of Commons at Ottawa authorizing the Canadian Government to resume reciprocity negotiations whenever possible to do so. Premier King, of the Government of Canada, has repeatedly stated that his country is ready to negotiate a new agreement.

As you have so well stated, the recent Canada-Australia and the Canada-West Indies agreements do not reflect a less friendly feeling toward the United States, but rather the necessity of seeking new markets to replace those closed by existing tariff regulations in the United States. W. L. ARCHIBALD.

Wolfville, Nova Scotia.

The Outlook for December 23, 1925

Y. M. Mercan'We

Among the largest one-man shovels in the world is this tremendous one, used on the Mesabi Range in Minnesota. It picks up 16 tons of ore at a bite, which it deposits in a car-all in less than a minute.

16

A day's work

at every gulp

A hand shovelful of ore weighs 21 pounds, and a man can handle 200 shovelfuls in an hour. But here is a giant that picks up, in one gulp, more than a man can shovel in a day!

And the G-E motors that animate the giant never get tired.

617

GENERAL ELECTRIC

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Volume 141

A Dragging Play

T

HE Mitchell court-martial proceedings, dragging on interminably, have entered a new phase.

The novelty of the thing has worn off; the wire edge is smoothed down. True, Representative Frank R. Reid, chief of civilian defense counsel, is quite as peppery as ever, but the fact that he must devote some portion of his time to the proceedings of the House of Representatives and to committee work has rendered him somewhat less incessant in objection. The corps of assistant trial judge-advocates, sent in by the General Staff to "stop" Reid, have worn themselves out one after another, and Colonel Moreland, the original trial judge-advocate, is again examining witnesses in his own calm way. All of these things have combined to take some of the flare out of the proceedings, but more powerful in that regard than all of them is the fact that the public has grown tired of heroworshiping at the feet of the defendant. No stage plays long to a gallery that has become unresponsive.

Refutation of of Colonel Mitchell's charges has piled up as one officer of high rank has succeeded another on the stand. In one day two such witnesses as

December 23, 1925

Major-General Hanson Ely, Commandant of the Army War College, and Major-General Robert H. Allen, Chief of Infantry, testified in refutation of Mitchell's contention that aircraft will dominate the warfare of the future. Witnesses have been or will be called to refute practically every point in Colonel Mitchell's charges.

And still the question is undetermined of whether or not any of this mass of testimony offered in defense and in rebuttal will be considered by the Court. There will be a ship-load of testimony to the truth of Mitchell's statements and another ship-load of testimony to the falsity of them. But all of the evidence as to the effect of Colonel Mitchell's conduct on discipline and good order in the Army could be shoved into a lawyer's Army could be shoved into a lawyer's brief-case, with enough room left for the morning paper.

Insurgency Unrepentant
THE insurgent Republicans in the

House of Representatives have saved the regular Republican organization from a supreme folly, and have therefore rendered a distinct service to Republicanism.

The organization leaders in the House

Number 17

held open the door to the party council chamber and, by many nods and winks and yearning looks, invited the insurgents to make some slight gesture of repentance and then to come in and sit down. But the insurgents slammed the door in their own faces, proclaimed themselves flaming radicals still, declared their love for the bleak bigness of the outdoors with its unlimited opportunities for brawling and their contempt for a cozy corner with comfortable committee berths. They voted against Longworth for Speaker and against the revision of rules, thus declining to make the slight show of repentance that had been delicately suggested as a means of "saving the face" of the party caucus.

The insurgents, therefore, are on the outside, deprived for the most part of their important committee places, and the regular Republican majority, though rendered somewhat slender, has maintained its party self-respect against its will.

It is difficult to see, looking at the situation from the outside, why the regular Republicans ever thought it necessary to attempt a compromise with the radicals. Even if there could be such a thing as a hard and fast insurgent-Democratic

coalition, the Republicans would still have a majority of twenty-eight or twenty-nine, enough for all ordinary purposes. There might be occasionally an unusual situation-one of those situations in which regular party men, as individuals, cannot conscientiously go along with the organization-in which the Republicans could not muster a majority.

But there can be no such thing in this Congress as a consistent coalition between insurgents and Democrats. Democracy, as an organization, divorced itself from this strange alliance at the end of the last session. There are still Democratic Representatives who, as individuals, will consort with the radicals, but they are not numerous. Representative Garrett, the Democratic floor leader, is more genuinely the leader of his party in this Congress than he was in the last, and Garrett has always regarded the insurgents as a set of sore-toes and has always believed that Democracy has nothing to gain from association with them.

In the Senate the insurgent situation is not serious. There are a few holdover Senators who have long been off the reservation and on the rampage, but they are definitely located and most of them are effectively surrounded. There is only one new one of consequence, Robert M. La Follette, Jr., and his importance as an insurgent is mainly the inherited importance of his father. The Committee on Committees, at first deadlocked on the question of his status, at last put him on three committees as a Republican. He is likely to be heard from very little at this session. If the Republican organization in the Senate has difficulty anywhere along the line of Administration measures, it will be on the point of

adherence to the World Court. And in

surgency there will be something wholly

different from the old familiar brand of what might now be called regular insurgency.

The Secretary of State Outlines
American Foreign Policy

ing out of the tangle of European international politics is nothing new; it is based on long experience and has been followed consistently from the foundation of the Republic. America has never made military alliances of the sort that has dominated Europe. has dominated Europe. She has uniformly kept herself free to act on her own judgment of events. This has not meant any failure on her part to cooperate with other nations in the interest of justice and good will.

Similarly with regard to China our

International

Behold here a Congressman who in these critical days has been praised. Under the chairmanship of William R. Green, of Iowa, the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives has framed a non-partisan tax bill to the joy of the country and with the commendation of the President

attitude of friendliness is traditional. China's tariff and the exterritorial courts in China were established in China's interest as well as in the interest of other Powers. Now that China wants to change them, America is ready to do anything she legitimately can to aid her in the accomplishment of her purpose. Much depends upon China's internal affairs, and with those China herself must deal.

Secretary Kellogg pointed out that in advising against certain foreign loans by American bankers the Government did not, by implication or otherwise, set its seal of approval on loans it did not oppose. In many cases those might be made that were contrary to the interest of the Nation, as in some instances for the provision of munitions of war. But a loan might be not incompatible with the public interest and yet inadvisable.

As to the exclusion of undesirable.

aliens, the Secretary of State, without mentioning the Saklatvala and Karolyi cases, quoted from the laws which make his legal position impregnable. He has exercised his discretion in matters which have been left to his discretion by Congress. Whether he has done so wisely has been a matter of dispute. He cited with satisfaction the support which his course has received from the American Federation of Labor. Secretary Kellogg defended his policy and decisions with great vigor. Unfortunately, he has not felt free to give the facts, a knowledge of which might modify the judgment of those who, including The Outlook, have thought his course in one case at least inexpedient. Of his right to act as he has done there seems to be no reason to doubt.

The Coal Talk Continues

HE middle of December saw no

THE

hopeful signs of a settlement of the coal strike. Congress or the Pennsylvania Legislature may do something for the future, but the coal user had better make up his mind that he can and must use some other form of fuel than anthracite when his hard-coal bin is empty. Anthracite is not an absolute necessity; millions of people get on without it.

Governor Pinchot in calling a special session of the Pennsylvania Legislature names the strike condition as only one of eight subjects which require immediate attention. The two most important of these other abuses that must be taken in hand with vigor and without delay are what he calls roundly the stealing of votes, against which he calls for certain election law reforms, and prohibition enforcement, which he regards as of "fundamental moral importance."

As to the coal question, Governor Pinchot asks that hard-coal mining (which is confined in this country to Pennsylvania) be made a public utility in the State and that it be regulated by State law and through compacts with other States. It will be remembered that the last National Coal Commission advised Congress to enact legislation to be enforced through the Inter-State Commerce Commission, since a large part of the business is inter-State commerce. Governor Pinchot's suggestion as to interState compacts is at best a makeshift in the absence of Federal control.

President Coolidge has asked Congress, not only to give the Government power to act in such an emergency as