aside the meretricious ornaments she has borrowed from the West. Only that will save her. 'If she returns to her very self, her real and genuine self, she will become fit for any task that lies before her.'

AND NOW FRANCE?

FRANCE expected M. Briand's Cabinet to meet stormy seas when the Chamber assembled late in May. Since these prognostications, however, the Morocco campaign has been brought to a successful termination and the descent of the franc has been checked. But the ratification of the Washington debt accord is still a difficult hazard to be played. The Communists on one extreme and the Parties of the Right on the other are hostile to its terms; and the Socialists also are inclined to oppose it. Enemies have turned up

even among the Republicans and Radicals, who constitute the central phalanx of the Cartel. M. FranklinBouillon, President of the Chamber's Committee on Foreign Affairs, is said to be in favor of rejection. His old Parliamentary adversary, André Tardieu, who has acknowledged no Party trammels since his late reëlection, is equally against ratification.

Nevertheless, M. Briand is so clever a political tactician, and the general public is so impatient to get the impediments to a return to currency stability out of the way, that at present writing a favorable vote is predicted. Abd-el-Krim's surrender and a feeling that the worst of the financial slump is over favor the Premier. Aspirants for office, moreover, are not eager to bring about a crisis when important measures of as doubtful popularity as the American debt settlement are up for decision.

There were no signs of violent passion or prejudice or undue pugnacity. The omens were favorable; we all of us not only hoped but believed that a settlement would be reached. In such circumstances the responsibility for a breakdown can lie only with one Party

namely, the Party which wields the whole power and authority of the State, and whose duty it is either to secure that which everyone wants or to make room for other men of greater courage and capacity.

The disaster was in fact precipitated by a single foolish decision, taken at a very late hour on Sunday night — or, rather, Monday morning. We refer to the letter in which the Government broke off negotiations. Some sort of excuse for the preposterous form and content of that document may perhaps be found in the fact that it was drafted by a group of very irritated and perhaps frightened men, worn out by days and nights of apparently fruitless discussion. But such excuses Governments have no right to plead. We do not suppose for a moment that if they had waited for the calmer thoughts of the next morning any such official ultimatum would have ever been issued. But once issued it could not be withdrawn, and so Monday passed without the slightest attempt on the part of the Government to avert a quite clearly avertible catastrophe - for it seems almost certain that if the discussions had been continued for another twentyfour hours a basis of agreement would have been reached.

The Government offered two reasons for breaking off the negotiations. The first was that it was impossible and even improper to negotiate under the threat of a general strike. In view of the fact that the Government had already been negotiating under the said threat for thirty-six hours it is difficult to take this reason very seriously. The second reason was that 'overt acts' threatening the freedom of the press had already been committed. This referred of course to the incident which occurred in the office of the Daily Mail late on Sunday night and of which news had been telephoned through to Downing Street. It was an essentially trivial incident due to the action of only a score or so of men acting, not only without orders, but against the whole spirit of the general instructions which had been issued to them. Their refusal to run the machines unless a certain leading article - it was a very harmless and commonplace sort of article were altered was utterly indefensible, so indefensible that even their fellow trade-unionists in the composing rooms protested against it. It is true that on the following day similar and more serious incidents occurred in other newspaper offices in London, but that was after the Government had declared war by breaking off negoby breaking off negotiations and a wholly new situation had arisen. The Daily Mail affair was merely a piece of sporadic mutiny. In regard to the general position it was quite irrelevant, proving nothing save that nerves were on edge on both sides. Thus a few Daily Mail machine-men were allowed to precipitate the greatest and most unnecessary strike that has ever occurred in any country. Their action was a blunder and a crime; but the counteraction of the Government was a thousand times greater blunder and greater crime. It would be incredible, if the Prime Minister himself

had not admitted it in the House of Commons on Wednesday, that it was this incident this incident-the unconsidered action of twenty or thirty irresponsible machine-men- which induced the Cabinet to break off negotiations and make a general strike inevitable. Mr. Baldwin has admitted also that the negotiations seemed at that moment to be on the very verge of success -a 'formula' had at last been discovered which the miners' leaders appeared to be willing to accept. In a few more hours peace would probably have been achieved. But the Prime Minister took up the challenge of the hot-heated employees of the Daily Mail and sent the trade-union leaders packing. Words fail us to describe such a decision. Foolish, incomprehensible, idiotic-no epithet seems to be adequate.

For this crucial decision, at any rate, it is not possible to throw any blame either upon the mineowners or upon the miners. On the general merits of the coal dispute we certainly think that the mineowners are in the wrong. They have shown themselves a very stubborn and stupid set of men. But they have only acted, after all, as most owners act in trade disputes. That is to say, they stood out for impossible terms, knowing them to be impossible, but unwilling to make concessions until the real bargaining should begin. For that we cannot reasonably blame them; nor can we blame them for having refused to withdraw their lockout notices. They would, of course, have withdrawn them quickly enough if the Government had insisted upon their doing so; but without some such external pressure they could not be expected to make so great a preliminary concession.

As for the miners, we really do not see that they can be blamed for any single step that they have taken. They are defending a standard of life which for tens of thousands of them is ap

pallingly low-lower than that of casual unskilled laborers in many other trades. The terms proposed by the owners would have reduced a large proportion of them to the level of bare starvation. They were willing, however, to negotiate, on this and all other questions. The Prime Minister's statement in the House of Commons on Monday, that they had definitely 'refused to accept either a minute extra or a penny off' was utterly untrue. He may have thought it was true; indeed, since he is a truthful man, we suppose he did; but if so he had most woefully failed to understand the situation.

The miners' leaders were willing to discuss certain wage reductions, but they refused, and quite rightly refused, to pledge themselves to any reduction unless they received adequate assurances that some serious attempt would be made by the Government to enforce the reorganization of the industry upon more efficient lines. And no such assurances were forthcoming. Mr. Baldwin, it is true, had said that he was willing to accept the recommendations of the Samuel Commission on this subject, but in view of the impenitent attitude of the owners an assurance of that sort was obviously worth nothing at all, unless the Government was prepared to offer a definite scheme of reorganization, with a promise to enforce it if necessary by legislation. The miners were prepared to face misfortune and to accept a measure of privation for a year or two if they could obtain some real assurance that every effort would be made in the meantime to place the industry on its feet as it certainly can be placed — within a reasonable period, but they were not prepared to accept immediate and concrete reductions in return for mere platonic expressions of good-will on the part of Mr. Baldwin. And who can say that

'All parties,' however, had by no means accepted any such measures; nor had the Government avowed any serious and practical intention of securing reorganization. Yet Mr. Baldwin, while apparently supporting the owners' demand for a longer working day (which the Commission condemned and rejected), complained that it was the men who were refusing to accept the Report-simply because they would not bind themselves in advance to agree to wage reductions.

Upon this attitude some very severe comments might legitimately be made. This is not, however, a moment for any recrimination which can possibly be avoided. What is urgently necessary is simply that the facts of the present situation should be clearly understood. Negotiations, which should never have been broken off, can be resumed at any moment. Whether the strike is to go on for hours or for weeks depends entirely upon the Government — upon its ability, that is to say, to repair its blunder of Sunday night. Negotiations can be reopened as soon as Mr. Baldwin chooses to reopen them. If the coal lockout is canceled the general strike will be instantly canceled. But even without any

such cancellation there is no reason why conversations should not be resumed. The sole obstacle is the attitude of those who believe that it is time the men were 'taught a lesson' and that there must therefore be 'a fight to a finish.' People who think in such fashion do not seem to understand that in struggles of this kind there can be no fight to a finish, nor any lesson taught save how to fight more effectively next time. If the Government has really any worthy lesson to teach, it can only be that reason is more effective than force and that good-will is the great solvent of all such disputes. If the men cannot negotiate they must fight. What else can they do? Are they to surrender and crawl to Downing

Street on their knees. Mr. Baldwin will hardly expect any section of his fellow countrymen to do that. But what then does he expect? To what finish is he fighting? When will he again be willing to talk with men like Mr. Thomas and Mr. Clynes, whom he well knows to be as rational and patriotic as himself. His present non-possumus attitude is for him the most unnatural of poses. He can stop the strike within twenty-four hours whenever he pleases, without surrendering anything save his earlier refusal to negotiate. His only alternative is the 'fight to a finish.' But what finish? Is it likely to be a finish that he can justify in the eyes of his fellow countrymen and of the watching world?

[We have already printed articles and extracts from the English press attributing American prosperity to a new invention in economics. The two articles that follow, from the London Economist of May 1 and the London Statist of the same date, respectively, view our situation from a rather more skeptical standpoint.]

I. SPECULATING ON THE FUTURE

It has recently been given out on high authority that the total number of passenger motors in the world is rather less than twenty-one millions, and that of these twenty-one millions over seventeen millions are owned in the United States of America. As the

population of the United States is probably about 110,000,000, we are led to the amazing conclusion that apart from motor omnibuses there is one passenger car in use for every six and a half members of the populationmen, women, and children. If in imagination we can transfer these figures from America to England, and apply them to our own neighborhood,

suburb, village, or country town, picturing to ourselves what the place we live in would be like if every household of six people owned and drove a car, with the whole working-class population — laborer, mechanic, typist, daily girl — riding to work in a private motor-if we can envisage