putting them in the class of profitable investments.

The new Embassy building at Rio de Janeiro is located on Guanabara Bay directly opposite the harbor entrance with its towering promontories, one of which rises out of the water to a height of 1,200 feet, and this has the most commanding, as well as convenient, location imaginable. Stately, harmonious, adapted to the climate and conditions prevailing in the warmer American countries, it will fittingly house the headquarters of the great North American Republic in the largest Republic in South America.

The building is designed in the Portuguese colonial style, adapted to the Brazilian mode. It is constructed of granite and reinforced concrete, with finishings of tile and Portuguese marble, and roofed with mottled colored tile. The walls inclose a patio with a fountain and tropical garden, surrounded on three sides by large arched openings and on the fourth by the main staircase. All the rooms open on the cloisters surrounding the patio.

IN MEMORY

OF LYMAN ABBOTT

J

UST a week after his death Lyman Abbott's neighbors in Cornwall-onHudson, where he had made his home for over fifty years, gathered in the church nearest his home in the village to express their affection for him. The memorial service was conducted by min. isters of various denominations. The Rev. H. R. Fraser, of Monticello, New York, formerly pastor of the church and Dr. Abbott's nearest neighbor, drew in simple words a picture of the friendli ness of Lyman Abbott which his hearers will not soon forget. After the service Dr. Abbott's fellow-townspeople lingered in and about the church, greeting one another as they would at any other neighborly occasion. It was just such a community gathering as he himself had often taken part in. The service might well have been the celebration of his birthday in his absence. No greater tribute could be paid to Dr. Abbott's serene faith than the understanding spirit shown by the people among whom he had lived.

Memorial services were held in many other places. Only a few of these can be mentioned. That in Terre Haute, Indiana, should be recorded because it was there that Lyman Abbott went to take up for the first time his duties as a minister, and it was there that he lived during the Civil War in a community which was divided in its sympathies between North and South. In the church which he then served the Rev. J. W. Herring, the present minis

ter, recalled the service that Lyman Abbott had rendered in those critical days when "he sacrificed himself and taught others to sacrifice popularity where the choice had to be made between popularity and conscience." Mr. Herring said in conclusion: "May we, as a church, never shrink from the level of his courage; may our eyes never waver from the clarity of his vision; may our spirits never lose the sincere generosity of his spirit, a spirit that could fight without hating and love without compromising."

Plymouth Church, in Brooklyn, where Dr. Abbott preached for eleven and onehalf years, was of course the scene of notable memorials. Not only his former parishioners but also a great number of ministers gathered in that historic building to testify by their presence to their affection and respect for Dr. Abbott's memory.

Such memorial meetings as those at Cornell, Terre Haute, and Brooklyn were in true accord with Dr. Abbott's wishes and spirit. It was not only in consequence of the spontaneous wish of those closest to him, but in accord with his own expressed desire, that there was no public funeral. The immediate public commemoration of his passing took the form of a service held at the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, of which Dr. Henry Sloane Coffin is pastor. This church was near Dr. Abbott's New York home, and in the last years of his life he had frequently spoken from its pulpit. This service at Dr. Coffin's church on Tuesday evening, October 31, was attended by the friends and coworkers of Dr. Abbott. David Mannes, an intimate friend, played three violin solos. Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis, of Plymouth Church, Dr. Karl Reiland, rector of St. George's Episcopal Church, and Dr. Coffin were the speakers.

"Lyman Abbott," said Dr. Hillis, "was the man that changed the thinking of the younger preachers of the country by reconciling the old view with the new and teaching us the immanence of God, his daily presence."

Dr. Reiland said: "We have and have had and will continue to have particular churchmen, but, except Dr. Abbott, I cannot think of any one who might justly be called a general churchman, for I believe that most of all he belonged to the church of God in Jesus Christ."

Dr. Coffin spoke of Dr. Abbott as follows: "Estimated by the number of persons whom he reached by voice and pen annually for more than half a century, and by the effect of his words in holding their thought and life, Dr. Abbott was unquestionably the greatest teacher of religion in this country, in this generation. . . . I have looked through a num

ber of Dr. Abbott's volumes, and this comes to me as a constant impression: that he looked upon the living God as a companion. It is a phrase which recurs again and again and again. To that Companion he prayed; of that Companion he spoke as one whom he knew from intimate experience; to that Companion's comradeship he gave himself; and to that Companion's enduring companionship he looked expectantly forth. . . . 'And when even was come, Jesus said, Let us now go over unto the other side.'"

THE BIBLE IN
CALIFORNIA

F a newspaper despatch printed as special to the New York "Times" and also to the "World" is to be believed, a California Court has rendered a decision excluding the King James Version of the Bible from the public schools of the State on the ground that it is a book of sectarian character.

We do not know whether this decision is final. If it is, it practically deprives the great mass of the children of California from learning to appreciate, not only one of the great world literatures, but also one of the classics of the English tongue. If a court should raise a barrier against all study or reading of the literature of the Romans or the Greeks in our public schools, it would be regarded by educators as a calamity. It is no less a calamity for a court virtually to bar from the public schools all study or reading of the equally great literature of the Hebrews. And that is what the Court does, for to the pupils in our public schools the literature of the Hebrews is available only in English, and the opinion of the Court is clearly such as to bar any translation of the Bible. "Controversies," says the Court, according to the newspaper report, "have been waged for centuries over the authenticity of the various translations of the Bible, each sect insisting that its version is the only inspired book." It is this opposition on the part of literalists to translations not receiving their own sanction which, in the opinion of the Court, renders the King James Version objectionable, and must render equally objectionable of course every other ver

sion.

If the arguments of those who assert that the literature of the Hebrews was infallibly dictated to infallible amanuenses and was infallibly preserved and finally was infallibly translated are accepted in law at their face value, and yet those who argue thus cannot agree among themselves which portions of that literature were infallibly preserved

and which translations were infallibly made, it is manifestly impossible for any court to sanction the use of a translation without becoming the partisan of the sect whose translation is sanctioned. If the assumptions of the literalists are true, either there must be a union of Church and State in its subtlest form-through the courts of justice-or the Bible must be excluded from the public school, or the public school must be abandoned in favor of schools supported by the several denominations. Of these alternatives the Court has chosen the exclusion of the Bible. Thus some of the most ardent advocates of the reading of the Bible have defeated their own ends.

It was, however, not necessary for the Court to accept these arguments at their face value. In rendering the decision the judges were not concerned with a question of law, but with an interpreta

Version were destroyed as a separate

body of writing, it would nevertheless continue to live as a part of the living organism of English literature. To it men of all faiths and of no faith have resorted as a model of style, as a vast and inexhaustible treasury of language, as a refreshing and pure fountain of thought. Acquaintance with this classic of their speech is not only a privilege from which Americans should not be excluded; it is a right on which they should insist for themselves and their children.

We deplore this decision of the California Court, not only because it denies this right to thousands of California children, but because it shows what other decisions of other courts have shown-that in too many instances American judges do not know life.

ume of Dante's poems down from the shelf for unconscientious and spontaneous refreshment and beauty, as one takes down Calverley's "Theocritus," or Keats or Browning, or Montaigne, or James Howell's Letters, or three or four of the sonnets of Shakespeare, or three or four of the Psalms ascribed to David, or even the intricate but somewhat mysteriously appealing verses of Emily Dickinson-he simply cannot do it.

This is a terribly ignoble confession, no doubt-its ignobility being emphasized perhaps by the profane venturesomeness of coupling the name of the Yankee spinster and recluse, Emily Dickinson, with that of the great and immortal Italian philosopher and poet. But it certainly is not any more ignoble than for a university professor like Mr. Phelps to expose himself publicly as enjoying any one of a hundred Indiana church steeples as much as the Plain

The sole question for determination was whether the King James Version of the Bible was a sectarian or denominational book.

From the responsibility for deciding that question the judges cannot escape by pleading that they were bound by the law. As they have stated it themselves the question is not one of law. It is a question as to their own knowledge of literature and life.

What are the facts?

The Bible is, in the first place, an ancient literature incomparable in the majesty of its survey of life from primitive days to the beginning of the present era, in its insight into the heart of man, in the elevation of its imaginative flights into spiritual realms, in the conciseness of its words of wisdom, in the simplicity of its greatest narratives. In the variety of its literary forms it is not surpassed by any literature, ancient or modern. In nice perfection of form nothing in the literature of the Greeks exceeds the Song of Songs or the idyll of Ruth. In literary structure not one of the tragedies of the Greek dramatists or the works of Shakespeare overtops the Book of Job. To describe a literature like that in any approximately adequate translation as a "sectarian book" is to reveal a view of life as well as of literature totally inadequate for the decision of great questions such as confront the American people.

In the second place, the King James Version of the Bible is not merely a translation of this great ancient literature; it is itself one of the masterpieces of literature in the English language. Its very phrases have become imbedded in the writings of English-using authors r generations. If the King James

I

N the current issue of "Scribner's Magazine" William Lyon Phelps, of Yale, makes a delightfully whimsical suggestion:

In addition to founding the Fano Club, I have established what I call the Ignoble Prize; for which any one is at liberty to suggest the names of candidates. In order to be eligible for the Ignoble Prize, the thing-whether book or musical composition or building or painting-must have a high reputation, be commonly regarded as a masterpiece, and yet to the individual who submits it be lacking both in interest and appeal. Not for a moment would the works of a popular author with no true fame be accepted; the prime condition is that the object suggested must be both famous and respectable, so that the person suggesting it is in danger of damnation, which gives the game a particular little thrill of its own. Having more audacity than fear, I suggest the Plain Tower of Chartres Cathedral, Raphael's "Transfiguration," Meyerbeer's "Huguenots," Thackeray's "Newcomes," and Dickens's "Little Dorrit" and "Tale of Two Cities." I admit that such a list is enough to take one's breath away; but for some reason, not one of these masterpieces has ever impressed me as the critics say it should. Does any one else dare speak his mind? The interior of Chartres is to me the most sublime interior in the world. But I have looked at that plain tower from every angle, trying conscientiously to see why the critics fall down and worship it. To me it is just a church steeple, matched a hundred times in Ohio or Indiana.

The undersigned dares make application for membership. He has never been able to read Dante. There are lines and metaphors and similes and detached ideas to which Dante has given expression that are, of course, beautiful and appealing. But as for taking a vol

After all, I suspect that under the form of whimsy Mr. Phelps is trying to startle us all into thinking of the truth that there is no universal, mathematical standard of beauty. This truth has been expressed for generations and generations by homely proverbs such as, "What is one man's meat is another man's poison," "Chacun a son gout," "De gustibus non disputandum." If one can take beauty in one form, he is not to be condemned because some other form of beauty does not appeal to him.

There is, really, only one general universal concept of beauty, and to that concept the poet Keats has given expression in his unforgetable "Beauty is truth; truth, beauty-that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

The great beauty of Mr. Phelps's Ignoble Prize is that it is designed to develop truthfulness. Let us hope that aspirants for this prize will not mistake cleverness for truth. This mistake has brought a good many current writers to grief-Margot Asquith, for example. L. F. A.

as those of these two brilliant examples, were valuable and substantial.

But in fact Mr. Page was more interested in public affairs and in history than many of the readers of his delightful stories knew. In proof of this may be cited his biography of Robert E. Lee, his books called "The Negro-the Southerner's Problem" and the "Old Dominion," his excellent article on "Jamestown and Civil Liberty" (published in this journal at the time of the Jamestown Centenary), and many special articles and essays. One valuable outcome of his Ambassadorship was the publication last year of his book on "Italy and the World War," of which Mr. Gino Speranza in an elaborate review in The Outlook said: "It is a book wherein restraint, a high sense of loyalty, and a passion for fairness are evident in every chapter."

Only Mr. Page's intimates know how strenuously and faithfully he carried on the heavy and responsible war work at his post, to the detriment of his own health and to a physical reaction that led to his official retirement and perhaps to his recent death, at the age of sixtynine, at his ancestral Virginian home.

The natural bent of the genius of Thomas Nelson Page was toward the short story. We recall two full-fledged novels, "Gordon Keith" and "Red Rock," but, while these are true yet romantic pictures of Virginia social life perhaps twenty years after the Civil War, they do not have the appeal of his short stories of the old régime, and of these the titles that recur to mind at once are "Marse Chan," "Unc' Edinburg," and "Meh Lady." One minor but yet essential trait of Page's stories of Southern life was that he knew how to write Negro dialect. Together with Joe Chandler Harris and H. S. Edwards, Page revolutionized the stiff, absurd, un musical dialect attributed to the colored people by earlier story-tellers and play/ wrights and reproduced the real talk of the Negroes with its softness, richness, and simple humor.

Mr. Page's enduring reputation as a writer will rest on the short stories named above. They belong to American literature. Of them, and of him, we may repeat what we said fifteen years ago: A Virginian of the Virginians, he has been the secretary and recorder of a form of social life which had the charm of lavish hospitality, of gracious manners, of a generous habit of life, and of a keen sense of personal dignity. Of that old order there are no more charming reports than "Meh Lady" and "Mars Chan," nor are these unaffected and deeply human interpretations of a vanished social order likely to be surpassed in the future. They give one that sense

International

THOMAS NELSON PAGE

of finality which comes only from those things which are so adequately done that the imagination rests content in them.

S

FASCISTI
TRIUMPHANT

UPPOSE the young Americans who served overseas returned home to find America in chaos. Suppose they saw the men who stayed at home engaged in overturning the safeguards of American liberty. Suppose they saw the factories and the other means of production paralyzed by a combination of theorists and robbers. Suppose they saw that men who had escaped service in the trenches and on sea-washed decks were engaged in an attempt to line their own pockets at the cost of the country. Suppose they found rich profiteers escaping taxation while the mass of the people were paying in taxes at least onequarter of their income. Suppose they found their country facing the appalling calamity of a general strike. Suppose they saw the Government at the worst cowardly and at the best powerless in the face of the situation. Suppose they found politicians taking advantage of the disorder to build up a mighty force of office-holders to whom they could give jobs in return for political support to their own ambitions. Suppose they found the railways and the other public utilities under the burden of this bureaucratic body of office-holders breaking down. Suppose they found that thus the Government, instead of being a safe

guard and a protection, had become a means for exploiting the Nation. Suppose they found that the strong men in power were bargaining for their own advantage and the men of good intention were either weak by nature or weakened by circumstance. Suppose they saw their country engaged in foreign adventures which at their best the country, thus weakened, was ill prepared for and which in no case was the Government willing to follow to their conclusion. And then suppose that these veterans, organized as the American Legion is organized, but devoted, not to their own advancement, not for any bonus for themselves, not for the glorification of their own past deeds, but for the salvation of the country from disaster, had proceeded to take matters in their own hands; had organized vigilance committees; had rejected with contempt the idea of acting in secrecy, or under cover of darkness, or in disguise, but had, on the contrary, adopted for themselves a public symbol of orderly government derived from the traditions of the race. such as the speaker's mace in the House of Commons, and had adopted some distinctive mark of dress by which they 'could be recognized as legionaries everywhere. Suppose they had devised for themselves signals by which any number of them in a neighborhood could be summoned in an instant like the MinuteMen of Massachusetts. Suppose they had gone systematically to work to fight openly the disruptive elements in society. Suppose that when the general strike came they rushed to the public service, manned the abandoned trains, peopled the deserted factories with workers, and kept circulating the Nation's life-blood. Suppose these legionaries, having scattered the organized groups of chaosmakers, and having renewed the courage of the people to turn to productive industry without fear of intimidation, turned themselves to the renewal of the Government. Suppose in State after State they got political control and finally secured a majority in Congress and placed their leader in the White House.

That is something that could never happen precisely in that way in the United States, because the vastness of the country, the temper of the people, and the nature of American institutions are sufficient to prevent, not only the application of such remedies for social and political ills, but even such a situation from arising. Nevertheless it is by imagining such an event happening in America that Americans perhaps may understand what has happened in Italy.

Most of the Fascisti are young; and those that are not young in years have the spirit of youth. Sometimes it is thought that youth is radical; but here

is an example of youth acting with vigor and initiative in a spirit which is in the broadest sense conservative. It is because these men and women had suffered in the war to preserve the fruits of Italian liberation that when peace came they were willing to continue to suffer and serve to preserve them.

In order to understand what has happened in Italy we in America must remember that the Italian background is different from ours. As a free nation Italy is very young, much younger than the United States. The people of Italy have welded for themselves fragmentary states into a comparatively new nation. This people, or rather this group of peoples, have no long experience in governing themselves. In this respect they are like most of their neighbors on the Continent of Europe. Their history has been made, not by repeated appeals to the ballot, as ours has been, but by appeals to the bayonet. To us it would be a strange and fearful thing to have to resort to direct action; but to the peoples of Europe, and in particular to the people of Italy, in whose memory are still fresh such figures as those of Metternich and Napoleon III as enemies of their liberty, the natural thing is to turn to direct action as a means of release against wrong. What has happened in

(C) Keystone BENITO MUSSOLINI, LEADER OF THE

FASCISTI

Italy is in essence a normal revolution. That is why it is not strange that the Fascisti come into power with the approval, not only of the people as a whole, but of leaders in their army and their

navy, and, most significant of all, of their King.

The week that has passed since Mr. Roselli wrote his article which appeared in the last issue of The Outlook has seen the fulfillment of what was there predicted. The Fascisti have marched upon Rome; Mussolini, their leader, has, at the request of the King-a request which he could not refuse-taken up the reins of government. He has formed a Cabinet of youth. It is also a Cabinet of inexperience in political management, but it represents, not only the Fascista movement as such, but other elements in the nation that are sympathetic with the object that the Fascisti have set before them. Mussolini has announced his policy in foreign relations as "not a policy of adventure, but one of friendship to those nations displaying friendship for us," and his policy in internal affairs as "one of strict economy, discipline, and the restoration of our finances."

We repeat the hope that Mr. Roselli expressed last week-that the Fascisti will not allow themselves to become permanently a political party, but that, as soon as they have reorganized the Government, they will withdraw and remain a moral force holding all political parties to account.

A

FEW days after the Treaty of Sèvres was signed I called on Marshal Foch and asked his opinion on the subject.

"It is quite good," he answered, "but on the condition that 300,000 French and English bayonets be sent at once over there to enforce its execution."

Since France and England had neither the means nor the will to send those forces to the East, the Treaty of Sèvres I could not be, and never was, enforced.

That sums up the whole story of this unpleasant Eastern affair.

It was not a matter of sympathy or artificiality. It was only a question of power and facts. That is what both English and French had forgotten from the beginning.

The French were the first to realize their mistake, for the only reason that during many months they had had to fight the Turks in Galicia, without the hope of any benefit whatsoever. When they had fought long enough, when they had come to the conclusion that the absurd struggle had lasted sufficiently, they hastened to make peace with the Turks, ho immediately made ready to turn on Greeks.

The English were highly displeased with this Franco-Turkish Agreement and strongly blamed the French for it. The latter answered that they neither could nor wanted to fight the Turks; the only way left to them was to make peace. This answer, though logical and full of good sense, did not satisfy the English.

For he does not know the English who thinks that a logical argument, however strong, can influence them! It is difficult to conceive their contempt for logic and reason when applied to politics. France's readiness to mix up logic with politics or diplomacy seems very extravagant to them. Facts alone appear to them to be of any importance.

Well, facts have just shown the English that the French were right about the Eastern question. Then only have they yielded to necessity. They have at last accepted the solution which France had proposed; that is, give back to the Turks Asia Minor, Constantinople, and Thrace.

The great British plan was to use the Greeks against the Turks in order to push them back into Asia. Unfortunately, the Greeks were not in a position

to fill the part, especially if it were to last a long time. The burden placed upon their shoulders was too much for them to bear; they were completely crushed by it.

A glance at a map will suffice to show that the Greek army could not possibly maintain itself so far from its base, on the far advanced positions that its chiefs-the civil more than the military ones-had been foolish enough to choose.

Twelve years ago I traveled all over that country during a journey in Asia Minor from Smyrna to Koniah, the old capital of the Turks, through AfiaounKaraissar and back to Constantinople.

One has scarcely left the coast, crowded with Greek villages and redolent of Greek memories, when the railway climbs three thousand feet through endless windings to the highlands. which appear to the traveler as a land of desolation and death. No civilization, no fields, scarcely any villages. From place to place a few meager fields which just enable the few inhabitants to stave off starvation. A Turkish shepherd clad in his big coat made of rigid felt reaching to the ground, with a hole for the

head, may be seen watching his flock grazing amid the rocks.

It was a pure folly to maintain a big army so far from its base. All faults and follies have to be accounted for. As this one was most serious, its consequences were therefore terrible.

If only the Greek divisions had been content to protect Smyrna and the near "hinterland"! Backed by strong and well-fortified works, they might perhaps have held their own for a while; they might have stopped the Turks, thus giving the diplomats and statesmen time to arrange for the evacuation of Smyrna in exchange for serious advantages; for instance, a kind of autonomy for the city, under the control of the Great Powers, the protection of the Greek minorities, etc.

But sooner or later the Greek army would have had to give up Smyrna. Sooner or later we should have been forced to negotiate with the Turks. The pity of it all is that we should have waited so long.

The opposition between French and English politics has greatly contributed to increase the difficulties of the Eastern problem; it has greatly delayed its solution.

Who is responsible for this inopportune opposition? Both, without any doubt. In Paris as in London both Governments could plead guilty.

Immediately after the armistice M. Clemenceau, who never took much interest in Eastern affairs, gave the English the impression that France would not be very pressing in her demands on the East, more particularly as to Syria. The English were not long in drawing their own conclusions. Circumstances having given them a high hand over the situation, they immediately let loose all their ambitions, and gave the direction of their Eastern policy into the hands of sub-agents whose only aim was to undermine French influence at any cost.

It was the Golden Age of the Pan Arabic dreams, with all its delusions and all its extravagance. An Oxford professor, metamorphosed into a colonel, the famous Lawrence, gave free vent to his adventurous conceptions, without any regard for the reality of things. He built up chimeric empires for his country over whose destinies the Emir Faisal and his brother Abdallah, the Bedouin Ringlets, sprung from the depths of the Arabian desert, were to preside for the greater good of England. Add to this Lloyd George's distinctly anti-Turkish and pro-Greek disposition of mind.

When one analyzes this policy and tries to discover its chief reasons, one finds a number of elements derived from various origins; foremost, undoubtedly, financial influence, which Lloyd George has always willingly obeyed; then remnants of liberal politics, the anti-Turkish tendency of the old Gladstonian doc

trine; the imperialistic idea of utilizing circumstances definitely to grab Constantinople and the Straits.

All these elements combined have conduced to warp British policy and hide from the British the great Mohammedan interests that are in the charge of England.

Lloyd George stubbornly maintained his views, just as he did in regard to Russia. It was all in vain that part of the British public, the Foreign Office, and those of the Colonial Office still more, opposed him, showing him the breakers ahead. He was deaf to all, until the day of awakening when he had to yield to hard facts.

Happily, the English are great opportunists, the greatest in the world; they always surrender to facts. Lord Curzon accepted an agreement in Paris which a few weeks previously would have made his hair stand on end.

The concessions made by Englandand one must insist on the point-are most important. In order to come back to the road of moderation and good sense the British Government had to go very far!

Thanks to the force of facts, much more than to human will power, France and England have at last come to an agreement over the essential points of the Eastern problem. Many still remain to be solved. Serious differences of opinion may still arise as regards the capitulation, the care of the minorities, the Straits, etc. But what is still to be done is of far less importance than that which has already been accomplished.

It now remains to develop the results already obtained. It was with the Eastern as much as with the reparations question that France and England had conflicting interests. On the former of those questions their interests are now, on the whole, reconciled. Both Governments owe it to themselves and their peoples, whose only wish is to be united, faithfully to try to settle their divergences on the latter also.

The statesmen have been far more to blame over this matter than the public. For on either side of the Channel the almost totality of the country has a distinct feeling that any Franco-British quarrel would not fail to bring about quickly disastrous consequences. Unfortunately, both Governments, instead of forestalling differences, or at least settling them as soon as they arose, have let them multiply. It is not surprising that under such conditions the evil grew.

One point still remains obscure; it is the one dealing with the relations between the Angora Government and the Soviets. What are those relations? What is the exact influence the Bolsh eviks have over the Turks?

The Soviet Government has made a noisy and unexpected irruption in the Eastern negotiations. It has expressed the desire not to be left out, and wants to take part in all discussions. Thus, to use a popular expression, we see Lenine stepping into the Czar's shoes! It is not

the first time, however, that we have witnessed such a thing.

This Sovietic "Bat"-certainly far less pleasant to look at than the one that was shown us by Russian artists-alternately shows its paws and its wings. According to circumstances, it calls itself a bird or a mouse! Sometimes it says that there should be no boundaries, and that the old diplomatic methods should be abandoned. At other times, on the contrary, it appears more imperialistic and more jingoist than the Ministers, generals, and diplomats of the Czar ever proved to be.

That Russia holds a high interest in the settlement of the Constantinople and Straits question cannot be denied.

Any decision taken without consulting her runs the risk of being merely a provisional one.

But one may well ask to what extent is Lenine's Government, considering its origin and tendencies, qualified to speak in the name of the whole of Russia and to pledge her signature. This signature, even supposing it were given, might very easily be disavowed by its successor, when eventually there will be one.

With regard to the near East, the French thesis has prevailed. And now that the French and English Cabinets have come to an understanding, the opportunity should be seized for tackling the big question of reparations and trying to reach an agreement over it.

The two points of view are certainly divergent. But so it was with the Eastern problem. Public opinion in France as well as in England welcomed with a sigh of relief the news that both Governments, after many vicissitudes, many efforts, had at last come to an understanding. Its joy would be tenfold if an understanding could be reached over the reparations question. There will be need for concessions on both sides; but in both countries all reasonable men realize that, and are ready to do their bit.

I have just returned from a two months' stay in the United States. I have talked to a great many peoplebusiness men, political men, journalists, diplomats-about the reparations question. I am under the impression, from what I could gather from these conversations, that the United States will not do anything in the matter until it is shown a programme of Franco-British co-operation. As long as France and England go on pulling asunder, the United States has decided to stand aloof. It has no wish at all to mix up in a family quarrel, which, viewed from so far off, seems unreasonable and ridiculous. But when France and England present the United States with a complete programme, drawn up by both parties, asking for their support, the majority of Americans will not sanction their Gov. ernment's standing aloof. They will bring pressure to bear upon it, and the latter will promptly have to yield. For in no country in the world are the political men more easily swayed by public opinion Paris, France.