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fact, normally Conservative voters revolted against the leaders of their own parties, and a close examination of the registration shows that thousands of members of the so-called Right, and indeed of the extreme Right, must have privately signed the petition. For example, sixty thousand more signatures were registered for it in Berlin than were cast by all the Republican, Socialist, and Communist Parties together in the last Presidential election. The least that this proves is that Germans who may have enough sentimental attachment for the monarchy to vote for Monarchist candidates are not sufficiently devoted to that institution to turn over many million dollars' worth of property to the former monarchs.

Of course, the outcome of the Volksbegehren does not settle the question. The Reichstag may refuse to enact the expropriation law, in which case a referendum must be held. No one can feel sure what the outcome of a popular vote will be. It is generally predicted that a majority of the ballots actually cast will be in favor of expropriating the royal property without compensation, but that the measure will nevertheless fail to secure the approval of a majority of the thirty-nine million registered voters,-many of whom will stay away from the ballot boxes, -as is required by the Constitution.

AN INTERNATIONAL EIGHT-HOUR DAY

A CONFERENCE of the five Labor Ministers of Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, and Italy was held at London last March with a view to putting into effect in their respective countries the Eight-Hour-Day Convention adopted at Washington some years ago. The broad purpose of the Convention, as

most of our readers know, is to provide that persons engaged in industry shall normally work not more than an eight-hour day and a forty-eight-hour week. The present meeting was for the purpose of establishing uniform bases for the legislation to enforce this Convention, which has not been ratified because none of the governments principally interested has been convinced that its interpretation of this agreement coincided with that of rival industrial nations. At London a joint memorandum of fourteen articles designed to secure a uniform interpretation of the Convention was accepted and signed by the representatives of the Powers in question.

Now that the five great industrial countries of Western Europe have agreed upon a programme, a revival of interest elsewhere may be expected. Last January a member of the Japanese Parliament interpellated his Government upon its failure to fulfill its obligations under this Convention. When the latter was adopted certain exceptions were made in favor of Japan, in return for which her representatives accepted and agreed to carry out the decisions of the Conference. To be sure, Japan passed a Factory Act in 1923, but it did not embody all the provisions of the Washington Agreement, and it has not yet been put into effect. The Premier, in replying to the interpellation, shared the regret of his questioner at the delays that had occurred in enacting and applying the requisite legislation. He hoped that the Factory Act would soon be put into force, adding naïvely: 'It is not exactly in conformity with the decisions of the Washington Conference, but it can be said that the spirit of the decisions has been included to a considerable extent.' He pointed out more cogently, however, that Japan had been no more dilatory than the other countries who

signed the Agreement in conforming from the payment of the tax that the with its requirements.

A GREEK SPEAKS FOR NEW TURKEY

A LIVELY description of public opinion in Turkey, printed in Eleftheron Vima, an Athens Venizelist paper, last March, throws considerable light upon political conditions in Mustapha Kemal's 'republic.' The Opposition, according to this journal, is made up chiefly of merchants who acquired their fortunes before the war by usury or contraband and have tripled them since the war by buying up at ridiculous prices the seized properties of the Armenians. These opulent gentlemen are reënforced by many of the great landowners, former army-officers, Government officials, and certain classes of the Mohammedan clergy. Not a few of the landowners are Kurds, who carry with them their ignorant feudal subjects. Even the Kurd estate-owners are for the most part absolutely illiterate. All these elements of reaction fear Kemal Pasha's reforms, which sooner or later are bound to liberate the common people from their clutches. The landowners treat the peasants as slaves, the merchants exploit them ruthlessly, and the army officers and ex-officials are eager to recover access to the public crib.

Mustapha Kemal's opponents take advantage of some of his reforms such as the emancipation of women and the effort to purify the priesthoodto play upon the ancient prejudices and religious passions of the people. When they affect liberalism-for instance, in demanding freedom of the press it is because they would use the press to excite the fanaticism of the mob. In condemning the new reforms, their deeper aim is to restore the old tithe-system, to keep the peasantry in debt by usury, and to free themselves

new Government has imposed on all uncultivated land, which constitutes seven eighths of the acreage of the big estates. They would dismiss wholesale the ablest and best-educated teachers in order to replace them with the old turbaned hadjis who formerly almost monopolized the instruction of the youth. They just now protest against the wholesale expulsion of the Greeks, but are at heart intensely xenophobe. They criticize the exchange of populations provided in the treaty, alleging that Russia will use it as a precedent for expelling the Turks when she seizes Eastern Anatolia Eastern Anatolia-a danger upon which they constantly harp. By perpetually prophesying a Russian occupation they keep many Turks from investing in real estate or in new industrial enterprises.

ITALY IN THE LEVANT

ITALY'S willingness to take over the French mandate in Syria naturally raises the question whether the people of that province would be happier under her 'protection' than under that of their present nominal masters. Few nations show a natural gift for ruling alien peoples, even when they are inspired by the most benevolent motives and when the alien people themselves are not pawns in international rivalries. We have had our own difficulties in the Philippines, and much more conspicuously in Haiti and Santo Domingo. Great Britain has had episodes in India, as has the South African Union with certain of her mandatory charges, that have required the hush-hush treatment to avoid a scandal. Might the difficulty not be aggravated where the trustee Power is afflicted with the Nationalist high temperatures common in Rome to-day? Some evidence to that effect appears in the following account of conditions in the Dode

canese Islands, which Italy holds under a rather cloudy title, -published some weeks ago in the New Statesman:

'Religious processions, sanctioned for centuries by the infidel, are forbidden by the spiritual subjects of the Pope. It is a crime to display the Greek national flag; so the people paint their houses blue and white instead. All schoolmasters are compelled to go to Rhodes to learn Italian; and, for the benefit of the observant stranger, all boatmen coming offshore to ships must speak Italian, and all cafés and street signs at the ports display the same coherence. Such transparent devices have lately bamboozled several correspondents of the English press.

'Materially, the prosperity of the islands is rapidly on the decline. In 1912 there were 143,080 inhabitants, in 1917 only 100,148. There are now less than 80,000. One example will suffice. The inhabitants of Kalymnos were completely dependent on the industry of sponge-fishing for their living. This the Italians deliberately prohibited, in favor of their sponge-beds off North Africa. In 1912 the population was 20,855; in 1917 it was 14,445. It has now sunk to barely 10,000.

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tourist will have some difficulty in landing. The authorities will seize on the smallest quibble to prevent him. Should he succeed, he will be shadowed, and unless he can pass as a Greek the inhabitants will not dare confide in him. There are reasons for these restrictions. Hitherto my facts-and they are facts straight from the mouths of exiles and eyewitnesses arriving in Athens have touched simply on the principle of racial freedom, which England may or may not concern herself to uphold. In the Naval and Air base at Leros there is more concrete ground for interest. In the first place, the kind of work in progress provides definite proof that the Italians regard their occupation as permanent. On the shores of the bay they are building barracks, airplane hangars, and an arsenal, on a large scale. They have installed big modern guns. And they have a second air-base in preparation.'

THE HOUSE MEMOIRS AGAIN

L. G. MAXSE'S Tory and anti-American review of The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, which he entitles 'Some Indiscretions of Colonel House,' unfortunately reached our desk too late to be paired with the more liberal articles printed in our issue of last week. For diversity of opinion is always more interesting than unanimity, and this review certainly adds the dash of bitters to the cocktail, or the Tobasco sauce to the dressing, in British criticism of these two volumes. Their principal service, in Mr. Maxse's mind, is in the revelation they afford of the ingenuousness of great, wise, and eminent personages in Washington and London... singularly wanting either in worldly wisdom or in common-sense,' 'At present, however, the interested and their principal lesson for England

"The conquerors have also adopted the ancient method of plantation, in the hope perhaps that by 1935 the process will enable them to bow gracefully to the political convention that demands the maintenance of treaties ing on an anti-Greek majority in the promised plebiscite of Rhodes. To any Italian marrying a Dodecanesian a reward of five thousand lire is offered. Should the wife bring a house as dowry, the husband is given the legal right to purchase, without more ado, all the land around it. He settles, and to the interested tourist will appear indigenous.

and Europe is that 'the Eastern Hemisphere is regarded by Western politicians as a convenient stage on which to fight out their domestic battles at the expense of foreign nations and with the least possible risk to their own country.' The pilgrimages of the "Texas Talleyrand' to Europe, though made in the guise of an idealist seeking the good of mankind,' were really taken with a keen eye to the main chance in Washington, his special and governing solicitude being the political fortunes of his President.' Once he was abroad, the more realist European statesmen acted with curious unanimity upon the principle that 'the only thing to do with an amateur diplomat is to pass him on to some other fellow.' Mr. House is assumed to have been unduly impressed by his conversation with the Kaiser because Americans are always 'an easy prey to any German who can talk fluent and forceful English and thereby spare them the humiliation of exposing their linguistic deficiencies.' Altogether, therefore, Colonel House's peace missions were predestined to failure from the very

outset.

MINOR NOTES

GREAT BRITAIN'S drink bill in 1925, in spite of unemployment and industrial depression, was more than three hundred and fifteen million pounds sterling, or approximately one and onehalf billion dollars. The consumption of absolute alcohol is declining, however, there having been a reduction of over forty-two per cent since before the war. Nevertheless it is estimated that the average expenditure for drink of every nonabstainer family in the United Kingdom last year was a hundred and seventy-five dollars.

THE Saturday Review, in discussing Great Britain's adverse trade-balance, observes that British shipyards are working to only one third of their capacity and have less tonnage under construction than for the past sixteen years. What is worse, the British no longer seem to be pioneers of the industry. "The total motor tonnage now on the slips about equals the steam tonnage: in five of the principal Continental countries it is more than double, but in Great Britain and Ireland it is only half.'

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PLAIN TALES FROM SYRIA1

BY PEOPLE ON THE SPOT

[LAST February the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations met at Rome and received and approved the reports of various mandatory Powers, including the one submitted by France for Syria. Representatives of the Syrians protested there against the administration of the mandatory authorities, to the intense indignation of certain French papers like Journal des Débats, which criticized the Commission bitterly for giving audience to 'these shameless agitators.' A different light from that which the public received from Rome is thrown upon the Syrian situation, however, by the two articles we print below. The first, by the Beirut correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, is confirmed vividly by the second, which is the substance of a private letter written by an American correspondent of undoubted veracity, then a resident of Damascus, about the time the Mandates Commission was in session.]

I

THE chance traveler who returns to Syria after two or three months' absence can see little apparent difference in the situation. The towns that one passes on the road Homs, Tripoli, even Beirut itself seem to be occupied with ordinary daily activities as though the war were miles away. Beirut is still busy with the re-laying of its tram-lines, Tripoli with the construction of its new municipal park.

1 From the Manchester Guardian (Independent Liberal daily), March 11, and a private letter

Only the presence of the mass of obvious refugees- the experienced traveler in the Near East has become so used to similar sights since the war that he can 'spot' a refugee at first glance - would lead one to suspect that anything untoward was happening.

The people's attitude reminds one painfully of the mental atmosphere of the trenches in France in the midwinters of the war. In Syria people seem to have forgotten that there really is such a thing as public security and law and order, and accept quite complacently the news that so-andso's goods have been stolen by the Druses on the railway to Damascus, or that so-and-so's son has been murdered on the road to Homs. Public confidence in the Government has completely evaporated. Men say openly that the thing may go on for months and even years, and, considering that the Government, after six months, is still unable to police the short line of road and railway connecting Beirut and Damascus, there seems to be some foundation for the fear.

Although the French have a garrison of ten thousand in Damascus, the Druses still come in to the city almost daily. A party of Druse leaders recently attended a service at a leading mosque in the town, actually depositing their rifles and bandoliers, with their shoes, at the door, and remained inside for half an hour unmolested by the police! Within the last few days a train has been wrecked on the Beirut

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