the Turco-Egyptian War of 1832-41, in which Prussia, Austria, Russia, and Great Britain bore their part. They remained closed until the Great War. In August, 1914, the Turks opened them to the Goeben and Breslau, and the Germans abused their hospitality by hoisting the Turkish flag on these vessels and bombarding Russian Black Sea ports, thus bringing Turkey into the war. This question of the free use of the Straits by men-of-war is in need of settlement. It has been brought to a head of late when Greek war-vessels passed into the Black Sea and bombarded Samsoun.

The Turkish forts, mine fields, and mobile ordnance which defended the channels have been destroyed, but in order to insure security for merchant ships it is necessary to prevent any mobile ordnance likely to fire upon them from being mounted within range either of the Dardanelles or the Bosphorus. The method, under the Treaty of Sèvres, of insuring this condition is to establish "neutral zones" on both sides of each of these channels, and upon Britain has fallen the chief burden of the defense of these zones. Those on the European side we can call the Constantinople and Gallipoli zones, those on the Asiatic side the Scutari and Chanak zones, covering the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, respectively. Their defense has been conducted impartially. The Kemalists were

driven off when they first invaded the Scutari zone last year, but, unfortunately, we could not ourselves provide sufficient troops for the purpose at the time, and, in conjunction with France and Italy, we called in the aid of the Greeks. Immediately afterwards, on their own responsibility, they embarked upon operations far into the interior of Asia Minor, which have ended in disaster, culminating in the sack of Smyrna by the Turks. We also kept the Greeks from violating the zones. When the Greek army in Thrace recently threatened the Constantinople zone, it was warned off by the British, French, and Italian High Commissions. The latest development, as I write this, is that the Kemalist Turks, flushed with their victory over the Greeks, have invaded the Chanak zone, and the French and Italians (who for some time have been supplying war material to the Kemalists) have withdrawn their detachments from that zone, leaving the British, unsupported, to defend an area which measures about thirty miles in width by ninety in length, extending from the Sea of Marmora to the Ægean.

The future is in the lap of the gods. When the Kemalist Turks violated the Chanak zone, they had already been told by Sir Charles Harington, the British general commanding the Allied forces, that any attempt at such violation would be "resisted by all the naval and military

forces available," as the Greeks were told when they approached the Constantinople zone. The latest news is that the Turks are mounting guns at Erenkeui, south of Chanak, and within range of the channel. Let us hope that wise counsels will prevail and the zone will be reneutralized (to coin a new word). If not, it may become the scene of a conflict in which Britain-at present unsupported, but with assistance promised from Australia and New Zealand-will again bear the brunt of a conflict embarked upon, not in her own interests, but in the interests of other nations.

From the purely local point of view, it is clear that, given sea command, it is easier to pour troops from the sea into the zone than it is to reinforce an opposing army from Asia Minor, a country deficient both in communications and supplies. But the real point at issue is not the neutrality of the Straits or the sovereignty of the Turk over Constantinople (these points have been conceded), but the future Turkish frontier in Thrace.

If the League of Nations, with the help of America, can settle that question, it will come into its own by putting out a spark which may otherwise kindle a blaze in the Balkans, spreading into a conflagration likely to extend over Europe and Asia.

Woodford, Salisbury, England.
September 28, 1922.

Ꭱ

ADICALISM is rebellion against the golden (capitalist) rule.

How strange that the golden rule, which means to us the rule for man's best conduct, may be used by some to mean the hated rule of gold or capitalism. One means fraternal good will, the other tyranny.

The world is full of strange contradictions. The Jew who has both oppressed and been oppressed is to-day as active as ever and as much feared and hated in Europe.

are

Propagandists, who bribe and bribed, preach Christian charity and pass the hat for the benefit of human haters.

Countries which rest on a corner-stone of liberty and equality make strenuous efforts to foster classes and organizations which are pledged to destroy liberty of opportunity and freedom to labor.

Our souls are wrung because of the hard fate of European nations, but if we loan them money they fight over it and what is not divided up in commissions is appropriated for the demands of the day and not to build a solid to-morrow. The good man left his quiet home in 1914. After eight years of absence he is a wreck. He has fought and suffered or principle, but he has become vain,

greedy, lazy, full of advice for others and excuses for himself, extravagant, corrupt, and drunken.

Something must save him, restore him in mind and soul, make him again the honest, kind, truthful, peaceful citi

zen.

In our pride we have been prescribing medicine when it is a case for surgery. Something must reach his heart and soul.

The theory of the Christian religion fits the case perfectly, but we have seen how poorly it works in modern times. We are most of us nominal believers, but the fires have died out on the altars of the churches and the homes. The priesthood are interested in comfortable living and in self-preservation for themselves and their flocks. This preservation is only partially related to salvation. Salvation is only needed to offset damnation, which is no longer feared.

If we turn to the Old Testament, we find the Lord sending warnings to nations against too much prosperity, threatening to send wars, famines, and pestilence. The next pages tells us that he kept his word, the captains of industry went broke; the money loaners (oh, Isaac!) were ruined, and the midnight frolickers were one with the grafter in

begging bread. A multitude died, the rest went to work. Thus ended a chapter. Several other chapters relate the story with hardly enough variety to make interesting reading.

That is all old stuff. History repeats itself, perhaps, but really there isn't such a God, and he doesn't actually send warnings, does he? We must admit that we have risen above religious superstitions! We now approach all questions of the future with well-poised minds; but we don't like to break a looking-glass, and we positively will not sit thirteen at a table. Some one is smiling at us; perhaps it is the devil, who credits himself with doing a good job.

I did not intend to write on a religious subject, but what is the use of beating around the bush? The world is to-day without authority. It cannot exist, as at present organized, without authority. Unless some preacher comes to the front who can tell us of our sins and of a judgment to come; unless some Christ can, with whip in hand, drive us moneychangers from the temples of corruption, force us looters, liars, and diplomats back to work; unless some God will have pity on us miserable sinners, and incline our hearts to keep his laws of industry. sobriety, and fair dealing, we are done

for, and modern civilization, with its class graft, and idleness, vanity and viciousness, dishonest propaganda and pompous virtue, will jazz itself to destruction. Listen to the music! The world is on its way.

And now come a few tedious details to add to what you already know.

It is practically impossible for an honest man to compete for business now being placed by European nations. From ten to fifteen per cent must be paid to go-betweens; even then some one may bid higher.

A recent transaction was closed for a large lot of Government supplies; the price was one-third higher than the regular price. The terms were cash, and it was paid for. It is not always easy to know where material goes. Recently an order was placed in London by a Swedish company; the goods were shipped to Germany, and forwarded to Russia. Was it Russian gold, German gold, or Swedish gold that went to pay for it? How much "commission" fell to the lot of the officials and introducers along the route?

There is so much competition among

the sellers that all too often conscience is superseded by expediency. The easy way is to accept the suggestion of the buyer-it is also the rotten way. Munitions in some form are moving from Allied countries to Russia via German correspondence and influence. The things that Germany will need for military organizations either at home or in Russia are being procured, regardless of peaceful reasons. Some mechanical elements, some parts of explosive mechanisms, are going in quantities. An English electric manufacturer told me that some things in his line bought recently could be used only with munitions of war.

If you and I know this now, Poincaré has known it for some time. You say, "If the French had been less insistent Germany would be less defiant." The probable fact is that Germany is deliberately wrecking her finances and her prosperity rather than pay indemnities to France. France had two very plain courses-cancel claims on Germany or insist on their payment. The first involves ignominious retreat, national degradation, and a revolution at home The second means carrying out the Ver

sailles Treaty, with or without Allied assistance. This may bring on war, but war is probably more welcome than the triumph of the Teuton.

The British have a detached but negative attitude toward France. Not all are pro-Boche by any means, but in their present security they are impatient of impediments to business restoration. It is little to them to ask France to forget and forgive. I passed the Edith Cavel! statue to-day. If it had not already been built, I doubt if anything of the kind would be proposed just now. It would be considered as needlessly provocative.

Candidly, there is little hope of cooperation in the near future between France and England. Their conditions of security and interest are almost opposite. If a war breaks out on the Continent, England is not more apt to get into it than we are. Nobody has much with which to pay, and neither England nor America would profit by it. Indeed, the strain would probably burst some of our bubbles of inflation and we should illustrate the consequences of the wrath of God.

London, England.

T

THE visit of an Oxford Union debating team to American shores, as Mr. George Moore pointed out in these columns, is a new thing in the relations of English and American universities. It is a new thing for the Union. The visit is bound to start comparisons of standards and values. That these may be just and fruitful it is necessary to understand something of the unique place which the Oxford Union enjoys in England, both as a school for speakers and as a preparation for public life.

I have participated both in American intercollegiate debates and in the debates of the Oxford Union, and as a means of pleasure and development I incline to prefer the latter. But here I need only point out that the two systems are different. As ours is calculated on the basis of a public competition and outside judges and set discussion of a defined issue, so the English is fitted to the needs of a student debating society and cut to the parliamentary model. The Oxford Union is this society at Oxford. Founded in 1823, it is a general students' club, like the university unions in this country. But Oxford goes further, and adds a debating hall, modeled upon the House of Commons, a long galleried room with a high president's chair and Government and Opposition benches. Here the Union debates are held every Thursday of term, in a style, after a tradition, which belong to Oxford and Cambridge alone.

The Oxford procedure is that of a de

BY RALPH M. CARSON

bating society; but the caliber is that of our best forensic work, and the atmosphere is the incommunicable one of a fine parliamentary tradition. At every meeting a motion, usually political, is debated "in public business" from halfpast eight to half-past eleven. It is phrased in general terms, and is accepted with no quibbling intention but in its broad issues. Two members propose it, and two oppose. These four, whose names appear on the notice paper, are, like the officers, in evening dress They speak throughout to "Mr. President," and refer to other members always in the third person and never by name. They speak for or against the motion on any ground that pleases them, and with much or little reference to what their colleague has said. They occupy ten to twenty minutes, but are not sharply limited. After the fourth speaker, the motion is open for debate by the house generally; and fifteen or twenty more members will have time for brief speeches before the hour arrives at which to close the debate. Then the question is put. The remaining members range themselves on the Government or Opposition benches, to be counted. Their total, together with the votes of those who have gone out through the Aye door or No door, makes the division and settles the fate of the motion. The average division is between 150 and 400, all Union members. Visitors attend only in the gallery.

The whole procedure has the stamp of individuality upon it. Within the outer

wall of ceremony, it is free and informal. No one is there to teach speakers how to stand or gesture. There is no rigid time limit. Humor flows freely, and almost always from out the argument. The audience, composed largely of the speakers, pronounces judgment. As an audience it is the most critical (in no captious sense) that I ever spoke to. Though usually good-humored and always fair, it has a mind which must be grappled. And the point is, that every advance which one makes in power of speaking, every step in technique, is made in relation to the big central problem of driving an idea across that mind.

So much for the outlines of a Union evening. Its color is always different. The most personal humor and the best repartee come in question time, when the President announce "The officers will answer questions concerning the discharge of their official duties." At once a saturnine individual in a dinner coat rises from a back bench and drawls in his most insinuating tone, "Mr. President, can you tell me where flies go in the winter time?" The President can only say that there are none on him. "Mr. President," sings the slim Irishman who rises from the Committee bench, "may I ask you a question?" "Certainly, sir." "Will you come to tea Saturday?" The air of jaunty and sweeping generosity thrown into this query justifies the shouts of laughter which greet it. But the house is getting weary of the absurd. "Sir," says a tall man who is to s on the paper, "may I ask you a

question?" The President is all solicitude as he returns in a low and balanced voice, "You might try, sir."

Question time is a great developer of finesse and discretion. I remember the first meeting of a new President. He seemed to have no past, and no one could think of a question to put. The pause had grown noticeable when one who was both the best heckler and the noisiest member arose. "Mr. President, has your presence struck this house with such reverence that I am the only one to venture to ask a question?" The President had an air of perfect command as he replied, "That seems to me the correct definition of reverence;" and it was five seconds before he got his reward.

Oxonians seem to work a spontaneous humor out of their speeches more than we do, just as they deal more in choice language and wayward fancy. Last term at the Union an acid Scot defined democracy as "a government of the fools by the fools for the knaves." On the occasion of the Cambridge visit the Union punster was showering things like this: "Cambridge is not a patch on this ancient seat of learning; since we, having abolished Greek, can make our own breeches with tradition." The eloquent Hindu who described Mr. Lloyd George as a Horatius on the wrong side of the bridge went on to picture the League of Nations in language which was enthusiastically applauded. "It is," he said, "a beautiful beneficent angel beating her wings in a luminous void, while Lord Robert Cecil blows continually into the vacuum in the effort to Iwaft her heavenward."

Real eloquence, founded on conviction and fired with passion, is not absent from the Union, and often prevails. I

recall the debate on British reprisals in Ireland, where Mr. W. B. Yeats, the poet, was to speak fifth. The fourth speaker, a Tory ex-president, with powerful diction and delivery breathed fire and slaughter against the treasonable Irish. When Mr. Yeats arose, the house welcomed the emotional tremor of his voice and broke into cheers as the fine face flashed into ardor and the well-set figure paced down the aisle in an Irish passion of denunciation. I do not remember how large a majority he got. Again, during the debate on American foreign policy, when Mr. Beck, the American Solicitor-General, was to close the debate, an undergraduate from Christ Church made the most moving plea of his Union career. He appealed to the better genius of America for construction and co-operation in language which swept up the whole sympathy of the house, and ended pathetically on the old hope of El Dorado in the West. To vindicate American foreign policy by a majority of 8 in a division of 366 then required all the power and conviction of Mr. Beck.

no

There is much of the trivial and schoolboyish in these anecdotes, doubt, and in the Union. It is a students' society. But it does worlds to keep up at Oxford the vein of solid political thinking which we so much lack in our universities. And its great men give it a historic dignity. Over against the wall on the Government side of the house stand three busts of Prime Ministers, ex-officers of the Union. They are Lord Salisbury, Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. Asquith. Lord Rosebery, also Prime Minister, was a member, but not an officer. The list of distinguished ex-presidents includes Lord Robert Cecil, one of the fathers of the League of Nations;

Lord Bryce, the great apostle of AngloAmerican friendship; Lord Birkenhead, present Lord Chancellor and one of the positive figures in British politics; Lord Milner, the constructive Imperialişt; Sir John Simon, now perhaps the leader of the English bar; Hilaire Belloc; John Buchan; and many others. These men, whose pictures look down from its walls, are not mere names in relation to the Union. They are solid evidence of its place in English life. Because they have come out of the Union to rule England, and have sent their sons to the Union again, they give its tendencies meaning and make its debates and its training almost a part of politics.

I have tried to convey a little of the atmosphere and tradition of the Oxford Union as I experienced it. Nothing in our universities is so characteristic of us as the Union is of England, nor so colorful, nor so individual. By comparison with our debating methods, it seems more real, more informal, and more sensible in many ways. It does not give equally good technical training; but the problem of the speech in relation to the audience it forces upon the speaker's attention from the outset. For one reason or another, it produces speakers who are more complete and better balanced, who use a finer language and a more subtle humor, than speakers in our colleges. Those who come best out of its training begin and end upon personal belief, making statistics and authority secondary. Great personalities are its true fruit. The brilliant and earnest men graduated from the Oxford Union into English public life are, to one who loves Oxford, a fit crystallization of her spirit. Range and power of mind, individuality of expression, belong both to Oxford and to the Union.

W

E think of Iowa as one of the conservative States of the Union, much more SO than Nebraska or Kansas, for example. Just now there is probably more reasonable as well as unreasonable unrest in Iowa than anywhere else in the central part of the country. Iowa farmers complain, of course, at the great deflation of agricultural prices following the war and charge the Federal Reserve authorities with the blame. There is a rising fury at the alleged speculative activities of Wall Street. The Esch-Cummins Railway Law, which bears the name of one of Iowa's own Senators, is unpopular in the extreme. The demand is State-wide for its absolute repeal, as indeed is the e in Nebraska and elsewhere in the le West. Iowa is outraged particu

larly at the six per cent provision of guaranty to the owners of the roads. Why a guaranty of six per cent to the owners of the roads, they say, when the farmers who furnish the freight and the railway laborers have no guaranty to protect them? The public man who points out that the Esch-Cummins Law has some very good features of Government regulation in the general welfare, and perhaps needs amendment rather than repeal, meets with short shrift. He is a tool of Wall Street. The railway workers have no confidence in the Labor Board provision of the law, which their recent experience leads them to think is calculated to take from them their free rights and privileges. The rail brother hoods think that they have the capacity to exercise a share of control in the

management of the roads. The farmers would like to restore competition in the railway field.

Iowans think that the Government should have held on to the railways longer after the war. They say that their Senator Cummins, who was once a radical, but has grown conservative with age and time, came before their Legislature in January of the year the bill was passed with a plan for dividing the country into railway zones, eliminating waste, establishing unity and adequate financial control by government. And then, they say, he went down to Washington, and by June he was pressed into being the sponsor for a very different kind of bill of which a very large number of them disapprove.

The fact seems to be that many agri

cultural Iowans are suffering severely from their own shortcomings. Espe cially the more enterprising of them prospered mightily during the war. Prosperity seems to have turned the heads of a great number. It is declared by those who should know that no less than two hundred million dollars were lost by the people of Iowa in unwise investment in bad securities. The farmers far and wide were the victims of smooth security salesmen. All this is charged up somewhat illogically against Wall Street. Furthermore, the war prices of agricultural products brought on a great land boom, and the men of Iowa proceeded to lay field to field in their eagerness to take advantage of financial opportunity. Now prices have fallen below the cost of production, the land boom has burst, landed indebtedness seems an intolerable burden-and Iowa blames the Government. Government may be partly to blame, but evidently not altogether. There is one level-headed farmer who is going around to agricultural assemblages telling the truth. He says in his speeches: "I bought land beyond any reason, I bought securities that I didn't know anything about, I bought luxuries, I was a damn fool; and if I lose out, me and the old lady will go back to where we were when we started, and we won't blame the Government!"

An Iowa banker who has gone into the figures told me that there is an automobile in Iowa for every four and onehalf people in the State. So, if a great economic flood comes, and the people hear of it in time, everybody in the State can be transported out of it in a motor car. This same banker reckoned that the automobile depreciation and upkeep costs for a year amount to five hundred dollars a car, and eats up in the aggregate two or three hundred million dollars. It has brought a lighter heart and a greater volume of pleasure to the farmers of Iowa and their families than they ever knew, and there is a good deal of pure utility in it besides, but, by and large, it is one of the heavy economic burdens.

The plodders in Iowa appear to be about where they were before the war. The more enterprising of the population have been nipped by the economic frost, and of course the outcry from the more enterprising is very effective in its influence upon public judgment in the State; and yet if the people had not committed the errors which I have enumerated, thoughtful persons in Iowa believe that the State actually would be better off than at any time in its history. The plodder with his eighty acres is as well off as he ever was. The corn crop in Iowa is wonderful at this harvest. And the farmers are feeding the corn to vast quantities of live stock, which they are shipping out at a good profit to Eastern markets. Much to the alleged disgust of the Iowa farmer, the demand from the East is for his lambs and little two-hudred-pound pigs and baby beeves

weighing eight or nine hundred pounds. He raises them and ships them, but he will take you out where the cattle are, and, patting one of the beautiful baby Herefords on the forehead, he says: "There it is, you see; Wall Street is even robbing the cattle cradle for its own luxury, while Iowa fights for a livelihood!"

And this is where Brookhart comes in. the radical Republican candidate for United States Senator to succeed Kenyon, who has become a Federal Judge. Brookhart is a country lawyer, of good average ability, according to all accounts, of tremendous determination and sincerity. He is past fifty, but they say of him that every tooth in his head is as sound as in his boyhood. He is the Middle Western sort who never touched a drop of liquor or an ounce of tobacco in his life. He is dead in earnest. The conservative Cummins was once a radical, but is so no more. Kenyon often spoke radically but was reasonable conservative in action. But the belief about Brookhart is that he means his radicalism as mercilessly as La Follette does. He is probably not as able as La Follette, but he seems to be fully as determined. He has fused both the farmers and the laborers behind him in Iowa, just as La Follette has in Wisconsin. He claims the farmers, the laborers, the drys, the women, and the soldiers. He says that his opponent is welcome to the rest of the electorate. His Democratic opponent is Herring, of Des Moines, the head of the Ford agency for the State, a man of some social cultivation and wealth acquired through energy, foresight, industry, and honesty, according to his neighbors. The discussion between the two men is acrimonious in the extreme. Brookhart maintains that railway attorneys write Herring's speeches, and that his opponent is allied with all the crooked big business of the country. Herring retorts that Brookhart poses as a farmer in overalls when he is not a farmer at all, but a wild-eyed lawyerpolitician; that he has his picture taken while feeding the hogs, and that his hypocrisy should be held up to scorn.

Brookhart insists upon having seven billions of water eliminated from the railway capitalization of the country at one fell squeeze. He is a radical railway reformer who represents quite exactly the temper of a large part of Iowa at this time. He is against what he calls the non-partisan league of Wall Street and all its works. He favors a soldier's bonus, to be paid out of war profits and excess profits generally. He is opposed to ship subsidies. He attacks "predatory blocs," but favors the farmer bloc, the labor bloc, the soldiers' bloc, the mothers' bloc, and any business bloc which is willing to co-operate with his favored list. He is the Republican candidate, but every Republican paper but one in the State is fighting him. When I was in Iowa, nobody seemed to think that regular Republican opposition will make any difference. The people gener

ally seemed to be for him, including the Democrats in droves. More recently many of the regulars have organized. against him and the tide of opposition has risen somewhat. The conservative Republicans will vote for Herring. They are afraid of Brookhart. They thought he would not get thirty-five per cent of the primary vote, as required under the Iowa law, and that the choice would therefore go to a convention. But Brookhart got nearly forty-five per cent of the primary vote. It is the Republicans who are on the rampage in the West, not the Democrats.

There is one reason why Brookhart seems as good as elected. He has been in two wars, the Spanish-American and the World War, and he is the finest rifleman in the State of Iowa and one of the best in America. He was a National Guardsman, and when the World War broke out he was put on the Rifle Commission by the Federal Government. He soon fell afoul of the views of the West Pointers and the army bureaucrats in Washington. They said that there was no use in training the millions of young Americans to shoot at a target, that if a thousand men stood up and fired at the enemy together they were sure to hit somebody; and the practice of accurate shooting, under the circumstances, was a waste of time and money. Brookhart said that it was very important that every American boy should learn to shoot straight. His theory was that a man who knew he could shoot straight and that the nearer the enemy came the better his chances would be of picking him off, would be more stable as a soldier in battle and more likely to stand without flinching or fleeing. He made himself so disagreeable to the army bureaucrats that he was put off the Commission, so I am informed. But high State influence got him a thirtyminutes' interview with Secretary Baker in Washington, and in thirty minutes he convinced Baker that he was right, and Baker took two brigadier-generals off the Rifle Commission and put Brookhart and a friend of his back on the job. And Brookhart set scores of thousands of young men in every army camp in the country shooting at a target every day. And Iowans claim that it helped at Château Thierry and elsewhere in France. When American soldiers began to pick off Germans at eight hundred yards, it was a new and discomfiting experience on the western front.

It seems to me that it will be hard to beat for public office a man with a record like this, especially when he fits into the temper of his State at the moment and into the economic circumstances of the time. Brookhart seems exactly the kind that the people of Iowa want to go to Washington for them just now. And the more cavorting about he does in Washington, the better they will like it. If he metaphorically kicks the roof off, they will applaud. That's what they are sending him there for. Two years from now it may be different.