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enemies in the army, is in command of the Lemberg Corps. While officers of lower rank and the common soldiers are enthusiastic Pilsudski men, the higher officers are mostly against him.

A few months ago, when the latter were called upon to vote for members of a Higher Army Board, consisting of seventeen generals, Pilsudski's ticket received twenty-five and Sikorski's more than sixty ballots. Warsaw looks upon the intrigues at Posen and Krakow as dangerous secessionist movements. Crisscross through these territorial divisions runs the cleavage between the big landlords and the agrarian reformers. The squireocracy has come out for a monarchy, partly to block the programme for the compulsory partitioning of the big estates and their sale to small freeholders. Such a measure was easily applied to the big Posen properties owned by Germans, for that was regarded as patriotic; but when it comes to enforcing it against Polish estate owners in former Austrian and Russian Poland the shoe is on the other foot.

Another high point in world affairs during May was in Morocco, where peace negotiations between Abd-elKrim and his opponents were broken off. It is difficult to judge the merits of this case, though we have a suspicion that if France had been dealing alone with the Riffian chieftain they would have reached an agreement. In fact, the French have gained, at least for the time being, all they are fighting for the security of their zone in Morocco. But the Spaniards have not attained their objects. They have seized a new debarkation point in Riffian territory, but they have not been able to join up this precariously held area with their main base at Tetuán. In fact, the negotiations with Abd-el-Krim were initiated at the instance of France, and with only the

reluctant assent of the Spaniards; and from the first Madrid has been prolific in prophecies that they would fail. That opinion has been shared, however, by many veteran French campaigners in Africa, who accuse the Riffi of treachery, insincerity, and intrigue in diplomatic dealings, and allege that Abd-el-Krim's only object in negotiating was to delay the advance of his enemies until June, when the intense heat and lack of water seriously handicap the operations of European troops. On the other hand, the Riffi can say: 'Let us alone and we will let you alone. You are uninvited guests here. Your terms amount to virtual subjugation to the loss of our independance. We will fight rather than yield.' Abyssinia is the only other acutely controversial point in Africa at the moment, and to its problem we shall devote an informing article next week.

France's campaign in Syria is apparently approaching a termination, though at the cost of a military effort that seems strangely inconsistent with the theory of mandatory control elaborated by the League of Nations. Meanwhile England and Turkey are busily but secretly negotiating for an amicable settlement of their Mosul dispute. Alluding to these conversations, naturally without disclosing their details, - Tevfik Bey, Mustapha Kemal's Foreign Minister, has defined Turkey's programme as follows: 'Our whole foreign policy is very simple and comprehensible if you bear in mind that we are trying to establish peace step by step, since it is impossible to settle all our controversies at one time.' Turkey has definitive boundary treaties with Russia and with France, and hopes to reach the same sort of settlement with Great Britain. Meanwhile an agitation has started in the Moslem world for a Mohammedan

League of Nations, and an assembly of delegates from every important Mohammedan country, from Morocco to the Moro provinces of the Philippines, convenes at Cairo this month to consider this question in connection with the election of a new Caliph.

The Chinese kaleidoscope has assumed several new patterns since the fighting around Tientsin and the evacuation of Peking by General Feng's armies. That commander has vanished mysteriously for the moment from the public stage. The native press suspects that he is lurking within the confines of the country and forming new combinations against his enemies; but he is elsewhere reported to be visiting his Russian friends at the Soviet capital. However that may be, practically all of the China north of Canton with which the Western world comes into immediate contact is now in the hands of Chang Tso-lin and Wu Pei-fu, last year's enemies and this year's allies. On the whole, the recent developments are supposed to be in line with the wishes of the Western Powers, especially Great Britain and Japan. Public attention in Japan itself is primarily engaged at present by domestic questions: relief from overpopulation, remedies for the business depression, a way to keep the people from deserting the farms and crowding into the cities, the feminist movement, parliamentary reform, and the formation of a Proletarian Party. So far as surface indications show, a complete swing of the pendulum has occurred in that country, from the aggressive, self-confident, expansionist nationalism of a few years ago, to introspective pessimism. The Wakatsuki Cabinet is credited with a rather grandiose scheme to transfer Koreans in large numbers from their native land to South Manchuria, and to encourage the settlement of Japanese in the districts thus

partially evacuated. But the press views such projects with skepticism.

The Tacna-Arica controversy remains the all-absorbing international topic in Latin America, although our present and prospective relations with Mexico likewise command much attention. On the twenty-fifth of March, after several postponements, the Plebiscite Commission held a meeting to consider the Peruvian demand that the provinces be 'neutralized' for the election, and that the date of the balloting be deferred in order to permit a complete registration. This demand was refused at that time, although in denying it General Lassiter stated that Chile had not fulfilled the requirements indispensable for an honest election, and later the decision was reversed. Alberto Ulloa, Professor of International Law at the University of Lima, in an article that has attracted some attention in Latin America, protested at the time of this refusal: "The fundamental weakness in President Coolidge's decision is that in his capacity as arbiter he has not regarded the case in the light of abstract justice. He has looked upon it simply as a question of fact, as a material question. He has not considered whether a plebiscite ought to be held or not, but whether it can be held or not. The mentality of his race compels him to subordinate the idea of right to the idea of might.'

The West Coast Leader, which has been an ardent champion of Peru's case, thus summarized the situation at the end of April from the Lima-American standpoint: 'If, out of the welter of controversy and discord now agitating Washington and half the capitals of Latin America, a definitive agreement finally emerges, offering some assurance of harmony and amity in the international politics of the West Coast of South America, it will undoubtedly be the fate of Secretary Kellogg to go

down in history as one of the greatest constructive Secretaries of State. Taking the formula of his predecessor, Hughes, and finding it impracticable for his purpose, he has been laboring ever since to erect some sort of tenantable structure over the ruins. Whether the structure is a permanent palace of peace, or merely a temporary lean-to against the wind and rain, remains to be seen. If he fails to get up even a leanto against wind and rain, he will undoubtedly go down in Pan-American diplomatic annals as a lamentable a lamentable failure.'

Chile has contended for a plebiscite because she is confident that she can carry it as long as she is in de facto control of the disputed provinces. Peru does not want to submit her case to a popular vote unless the provinces are placed under neutral jurisdiction. A certain element in Chile, including some very influential men, has tried to discredit a diplomatic settlement which contemplates a division of the disputed territories, and an independent outlet to

THE TWO TARTUFFES

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the sea for Bolivia, by associating such a solution with North American financial intrigues, and insinuating that our people would receive a big fee for their good offices in the shape of profitable concessions in this region. This attitude is excusable in so far as Chile undoubtedly stands to gain more from the strict enforcement of President Coolidge's original decision than from a diplomatic compromise. For the latter would mean for Chile the sacrifice of some territory, albeit, so far as known, of little economic value, — and also the loss of considerable Bolivian business for her railway system, since the La Paz Government would undoubtedly throw its country's trade into an independent outlet to the sea. Argentina - though this is a rather remote speculation-probably favors Bolivia's claims, since the railway from La Paz to Arica, if under the latter country's flag, would give her own railways direct land communication to the Pacific outside of Chile's jurisdiction.

AN AMERICAN IN PARIS

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1

THE BRITISH COAL SITUATION 1

BY THE RIGHT HONORABLE CHARLES F. G. MASTERMAN

[THIS article, by a former member of the British Government who was in charge of the department dealing with the coal mines under the Liberal Ministry, was written before the recent strike; but the conditions it describes have not been materially modified by that event.]

THE Report of the Coal Commission received enormous newspaper publicity when first issued, and has formed ever since the subject of national discussion. There are two reasons for this concentrated interest on a document which is the latest of a succession of similar investigations that have been carried on in connection with this industry ever since the signing of the peace of Versailles. The first is the desperate condition into which the coal industry itself has fallen, which has made everyone desire to know more about the intricate nature of the forces that have wrought this ruin, and to hope that someone will suddenly discover some method by which their consequences may be averted. The second is that this collapse in the mines has had wide reverberations outside the mining areas owing to the sudden granting by Mr. Baldwin last year, twenty-four hours after he had refused it, of a subsidy in support of wages and, to a limited extent, of profits, in order to avert a threat of a general up

1 From the Contemporary Review (London Liberal monthly), April

Publication rights in America controlled by the Leonard Scott Publication Company

heaval, whose consequences no man was able to foresee. This fear remains. The situation has not materially changed so far as the hard facts of commerce and trade are concerned. Therefore this Report, the outcome of much industry and energy by men with knowledge of business and skilled economists, appears to most persons as the last word that can be said on the subject, upon which must be based any plan of substantial improvement.

Let it be confessed at once that hopes are probably dupes, even if fears may be liars. The Report is written with great skill, and even distinction, of literary expression. It is written in such an attractive form that the most complicated factors in the situation are smoothed and straightened out. As a diagnosis of the condition of the British coal industry it can hardly be bettered. In a particularly short space it leads even the most ignorant almost from the fundamental idea of what a coalpit is, through the conditions of coal production, of coal distribution, and the extraordinary wage-scales which have grown up in the coal fields, to the forces which have made for previous disputes, to the life of the inhabitants of the coal villages. These represent from three to four millions of the flower of the working population of this country. They live upon the earnings of the breadwinner of the family from raising coal, which is Britain's gold, and placing it at the disposal of the British manufacturer and of the British export trade. The

Report also describes the complications that have arisen in the personal relations of operators and miners, the gradual fissure between employers and employed until they are both bound in the two strongest associations that exist in any industry in the country the Miners Federation and the Mining Association. It describes the continual bickering; the distrust; the belief of the men, or at least the belief expounded by the leaders of the men, that the owners are always endeavoring to reduce their standard of living in order to obtain greater profit; and the belief, on the other hand, of the employers, or that which is expounded by the leaders of the employers, that the men are always being stimulated by agitators to obtain wages beyond the rate that will enable the coal fields to be worked, with a view to an ultimate end-these coal fields being taken away from private ownership and being handed over to the State under some form of what is vaguely called nationalization.

This poisonous atmosphere of suspicion is unique in the trade organizations of this country. Normally, in cotton and other textiles, employers and trade-union leaders pretty well understand each other, and manage to rub along by compromises when difficult times come. The iron and steel industry has not had a strike for thirty years, and works under an agreement of wages regulated by a sliding scale adjusted to the amount of production. The railway workers, though occasionally disturbed by lightning strikes, find their leaders on the best possible terms with the railway directors and managers, and have learned to settle almost automatically by negotiation questions of hours, wages, and conditions. But in the coal fields there is no Locarno spirit. War is assumed to be the normal condition between employ

ers and employed. Although this sentiment of hatred does not exist universally between the individual workers and employers, it is characteristic of all the relationships which from time to time arise in confronting new conditions, or readjusting prices or hours between one body and the other, with the help of Government Committees or Acts of Parliament.

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In so far as the Report fails, it fails as those who were familiar with the facts knew it was bound to fail. It has no real remedy for bridging the gulf that has suddenly opened between the price at which coal can be sold and the price at which coal can be raised. Although it examines a variety of expedients, sometimes half-desperately asserting that science will come in to multiply efficiency, and sometimes, with almost excessive optimism, believing in the recovery of foreign markets that have been lost, it really leaves to the acute observer the position as to curing a great sickness almost precisely the same as it was when the owners endeavored to enforce lower wages and longer hours upon the men last summer, and when the men, supported by the other trade-unions, compelled Mr. Baldwin as an alternative to provide money from the public revenues to enable the same wages to be paid and the same hours to be worked as heretofore.

The demand for British export coal, which maintained the prosperity of some of the greatest British coal fields, -Durham, Northumberland, South Wales, - has suddenly sunk by millions of tons per year. There are a variety of reasons for this change: the development of 'white coal,' or electric power, from water in the Continental nations; the determination of foreign countries to be freed from the slavery of British coal which our Allies especially experienced during the war,

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