This hour, O Master, shall be bright for thee:

Thy merchants chase the morning down the sea,

The braves who fight thy fight unsheath the sabre,

The slaves who toil thy toil are lashed to labor,

For thee the wagons of the world are drawn

The ebony of night, the red of dawn!

This song comes from Flecker's unpublished drama Hassan, which those who have seen it consider immeasurably the finest thing that he ever wrote. It has remained in manuscript since his death, awaiting stage production. His Yasmin' is another song from the play, and his well-known 'Golden Journey to Samarkand' is its epilogue. Ishak is the Court poet of Harounal-Raschid.

SEVERAL German scholars and writers have visited England since the armistice. Some of them, like the venerable economist, Lujo Brentano, have renewed old acquaintanceship there while attending public conferences. Others have gone to report the state of popular sentiment, and to prognosticate political developments which are likely to affect the future of their own country. The correspondent from whose pen comes the first of the following articles, represents the Frankfurter Zeitung, well known as a leading organ of German Liberalism. During the war the editorial policy of the great liberal dailies showed a consistent de sire for early reconciliation with Great Britain. This attitude was particularly marked in case of the Frankfurter Zeitung and Berliner Tageblatt, and in a somewhat less degree of the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten. These papers opposed a predatory peace; they criticized the harsh treaties that Germany forced on Russia and Roumania; and they were bitter adversaries of unrestricted U-boat warfare and of inviting American intervention. It is natural, therefore, that the same papers should be among the first to resume journalistic intercourse with the country from which they have de

rived many political ideals. Probably it was no mere accident that a freetrader like Brentano should have been one of the earliest emissaries of economic coöperation to visit the country that was the birthplace of the doctrines which he has so stanchly supported.

Just what facilities a German journalist would have at the present moment to ascertain the state of political sentiment among English working people is, of course, unknown to us. But besides being a picture of British political thought, as it presents itself to a German observer, the article is interesting as a very early example of the reviving reaction through normal peace channels of English public opinion upon that of Germany.

REMARKABLY little has appeared in the secular press upon the profound influence which the revolutionary movement, now covering the greater part of Europe, is likely to have upon the status of the Christian Church, and, indeed, of every religious organization. At present writing, we hear much of the attempts of the Bolsheviki to employ Pan-Islamism in their campaign against British India. About fifteen million of the former

Tsar's subjects were Mohammedans. One of the conspicuous buildings on the banks of the Neva, in Petrograd, was a mosque, whose white minaret stood in view of the ornate Cathedral of St. Isaac. However, the present friendly relations between Bolshevism and Islamism, if they actually exist, are due solely to political causes.

In the spring of 1919 the German and Austrian press contained several accounts of the active propaganda conducted by the Bolsheviki in Afghanistan and Persia, and among other Mohammedan peoples of Central Asia. Bolshevist dispatches were printed referring to editions of one hundred thousand or more pamphlets or tracts in the languages of those countries, designed to show the essential identity of the economic and social theories of Bolshevism with those of the Koran.

A powerful military party has evidently grown up in Russia during the Bolshevist régime. According to the Pravda, the People's Commissioner Gusef, at a session of the Petrograd Soviet, asserted that even if peace were made between Russia and its enemies it would only be an armistice in the war to the death between Bolshevism and capitalism. He said: 'We must be prepared to keep our army at its highest strength. Only by armed force can Bolshevism maintain its principles at home and abroad.' This military party stands for a direct negation of the platform upon which the Bolshevist régime originally won the support of the Russian working people and peasants. It seems to represent a revival, not only of old imperialist ideals, but also of policies associated with the former imperial bureaucracy. The pursuit of conquests abroad is advocated in order to distract attention from evils at home. A campaign against India would be a Bolshevist

resumption of the traditional Czarist programme interrupted by the AngloRussian Entente that followed the victory of Japan in Manchuria.

Returning to the topic of our article, the hostility of the Bolsheviki to the Orthodox Church is sometimes interpreted as retaliation for previous persecution by men high up in revolutionary councils who, though they have become strangers to the doctrines of the synagogue, are still inspired by reminiscences of its ancient racial resentments. However, the antagonism between Socialism and every established Church is based upon more general causes. It has manifested itself in Germany, Austria, Italy, and France as well as in Russia. But it is natural that the conflict should be more intense in Russia than elsewhere; for in that country supreme political and ecclesiastical authority formerly were vested in the same person, and the connection between Church and State was more intimate than in Western Europe. Our article, describing the persecution, not only of the Orthodox Church, but of all other religious communities and denominations, by the Bolsheviki, shows vividly how difficult it is to reconcile Socialist theories of property with the continuance of any organized form of worship which is not itself entirely committed to Socialist principles.

THE first Parliamentary elections in Western Europe, after the war, indicated that while the tide of Socialism was at that time ebbing in France and England, it was rising rapidly in Italy. Some of the economic causes for this condition are touched upon in the account of the Italian Government's programme which we republish from the Anglo-Italian Review.

Early in December, serious disorders occurred at Rome, Mantua, and

elsewhere, during which the Bolshevist element acquired temporary control of the mob. The Italian papers published the details of these happenings somewhat tardily, perhaps on account of the difficulty in obtaining authentic information. A number of officials, and as usual some innocent bystanders, were killed, stores were sacked, in at least one case, prisoners were set free, and the rioters were armed with looted rifles. In Mantua, the immediate cause of these disorders was the calling of a general strike by the Socialist party, as a protest against the rough handling of one of the Parliamentary delegates from that city, by the police in Rome.

The concern caused in Italy by these occurrences was very great. The Corriere della Sera, which but a few days previously had rather scouted the idea that Italy was in danger of such incidents, printed an appeal to the reason of the nation, which we republish as a picture of sentiment, rather than an account of the facts to which it refers. Miglioli, the head of the Catholic syndicalists, to whom reference is made in connection with the clericals, headed the element in the latter party which opposed Italian intervention in the war. In Italy, as in Germany at the present moment, everything depends upon the attitude which the army takes toward the forces of law and order.

AT the time of writing, Germany appears to be passing through a crisis of domestic disorder which repeats, on a less serious scale, incidents of the January and March uprisings of a year ago. This is our apology for printing another account of German political sentiment in this issue. The article is taken from the leading National Liberal paper of Vienna, and represents the point of view of a Democrat

who stands midway between Radicalism and reaction or near that centre of equilibrium where we hope the swaying political struggle in the former Central Powers will ultimately come to rest. Recent events suggest that the situation in Berlin may be a little worse than it promised to become last November. But there is no suggestion yet of irresolution on the part of the government, or disloyalty among the troops.

The Workers' Council Bill, which was used as a pretext for the recent demonstration, has been a point of controversy from the very beginning of the revolution. Essentially the issue is: Shall the employees or the employers control industry? Shall the latter retire to the position of widow and orphan shareholders in a large American corporation, or shall they continue to determine the policies and operating methods of the business with which they are associated? The Radicals would take away these powers to a very great extent. Moreover, they would incorporate the workers' councils in the government itself, and endow these glorified shop committees with political authority as well as industrial control. The government, which represents the Majority Socialists and the Liberal wing of the Democrats, insists upon retaining a political constitution much like our own, but a system of industrial control in which the workers and the public shall have a far larger voice in determining conditions of production, and particularly conditions of employment, than the working people have in America. However, the government's plan would not deprive the present managers and owners of factories, works, and commercial establishments, of the powers of direction and disciplinary authority which it believes necessary in order to insure efficient production.

UNLESS an American chances to be descended from one of the Baltic races, or to have traveled extensively in that region, he usually has a vague impression of the circle of little countries that have been flung off like asteroids from the great body of Russia during its present convulsions. Indeed, the situation in the territories these diminutive nations occupy is hopelessly complex even for the best informed. Languages, religions, ancient historical titles, racial class questions, racial economic questions, divisions between Radicals and Liberals and conflicting international sympathies and interests, combine to complicate the solution of the problem they present. Among the new Baltic nations, Esthonia seems in the fairest way to reach political equilibrium, providing it is not overwhelmed by the Bolsheviki. It is comparatively free from the class conflicts and the racial dissensions that impair the unity of Finland. Its people are more closely allied with the Finns by temperament, commerce, social intercourse, and ties of blood and language than with any of the nations south of the Baltic. The people are mostly Lutherans and have received a strong infusion of North German culture. Their land had become something of an industrial centre prior to the war. Reval was a manufacturing town of consequence. The French impression of the young republic which we print this week, gives a recent and sympathetic picture of the problems the young government is meeting and the measures it is taking to solve them.

EGYPT'S plea for independence is one of the many discordant undertones that mar the harmony of the concord of nations. We have not heard much of the Egyptian side of this question, and the National Movement in that

country is probably associated in many American minds with unpleasant street disorders, such as recent European experiences have taught us to distrust. Egypt's case seems to resemble slightly that of the Philippines. Its economic welfare probably will be best consulted by continuing the present government. The opposition to that government is founded on sentiment rather than on self-interest. But some splendid though forgotten economic arguments were advanced in their day against our own independence. Probably most of the Americans who before the war used to drop in for a few days every winter at Shepherd's Hotel, cherish deep doubts of Egypt's ability to govern itself and to maintain its present level of material and social well-being. The Egyptians argue that their material and social well-being is after all their own affair, and insist on their right to political progress and poverty, if they prefer that to political repression and prosperity. Their moral case is clearly strengthened by the promises to withdraw from Egypt at an earlier date, made by former British administrations. These promises add to the long list of examples of the inconvenience of trying to combine the functions of statesmanship and prophecy in the same officials.

Lord Milner is chairman of the British Commission referred to in our article. When it arrived in Egypt business houses put up their shutters and a proclamation was circulated calling upon the people to refuse to confer with it. The Egyptians allege that since a state of siege had been proclaimed, witnesses would be under duress. According to the French papers, the Commission finding its reception so unsympathetic in Cairo proceeded to Lower Egypt to pursue further inquiries in a friendlier atmosphere; and several prominent