tion announced that the question would be referred to the Disarmament Commission of the League of Nations, which could no doubt work out a satisfactory solution. The League has since been working on an agreement between the ABC countries, to stop the armament race and ugly feeling started at the Santiago meeting.

Following the Santiago Conference, a movement has been launched in Buenos Aires, by influential university professors and students and other prominent men, for the establishment of a Latin-American League. They are publishing a paper and pushing their organization with all enthusiasm.

The old idea of a Pan-Latin League has also been revived, taking advantage of the growing distrust of the United States. While King Alfonso was visiting the Pope recently, Mussolini and Primo de Rivera were planning a new entente between these two Latin countries and Spanish America. Portugal also has been drawn into the movement and the proposed visit of King Alfonso to South America is expected to contribute largely to it. France, always recognized as the inspiration of the spiritual life of Latin America, is more active than ever in its promotion.

VI

Altogether, this is a dark picture. It is a severe indictment of our imperialism an imperialism which the author believes has not been developed deliberately, but has stolen over us as a part of the materialistic spirit of the times. It is a departure from the ideals of our fathers. The North American visitor in the Caribbean these days, sensitive to those ideals, often blushes with shame and suffers the deepest humiliation on beholding sights enacted in the name of our fair America

- acts which his fellow citizens at

home would deem impossible. So one who has seen much of these things and has become alarmed at their rapid spread is constrained to risk all the penalties of plain speaking in order to challenge this un-American movement

un-American although some of the finest men one can meet have been caught up in its onrush. These men have often built good roads, established sanitary codes, and enforced peace. But these are not worth the surrender of American principles, the bowing before materialistic gods, the hatreds and the sacrifice of the spiritual, which the programme involves. Even if such a programme should help Latin America, the people of the United States cannot go on destroying with impunity the sovereignty of other peoples, however weak, cutting across the principles for which our fathers fought, without the reaction being shown throughout our whole body politic.

Some day we shall realize that the whole rotten mess of investigation now being played with at Washington runs directly back to the mental attitudes and the combinations involved in the policy of 'cleaning up' our nextdoor neighbors door neighbors - a phrase which may seem to have moral significance to the average innocent citizen and official, but which, for the privileged few, takes on the more modern significance of 'cleaning out.' No one objects to legitimate business with our neighbors. On the contrary, it is vital to all concerned. But the continuance of this dollar diplomacy, with its combination of bonds and battleships, means the destruction of our nation just as surely as it meant the destruction of Egypt and Rome and Spain and Germany and all the other nations who came to measure their greatness by their material possessions rather than by their passion for justice and by the number of their friendly neighbors.

THE main objective of all the diplomatic skirmishing over the Turkish situation has been much obscured in the confusion of the many side-issues of this dramatic play. Behind the maze of press dispatches and magazine articles dealing with refugee movements, technical treaty work, theoretical economic wealth, and desertion of the harem by Turkish women, there has been one main story running. This is the story of the political antagonism which arose between Great Britain and France over the control of the Mesopotamian oil lands.

It was just before the war, about 1912, that the potential value of the petroleum-bearing regions in Asia Minor was fully recognized. Immediately, the strongest European powers took occasion to concern themselves in the economic welfare of Turkey, and there was a rush to win concessions covering these territories. Momentary dismay reigned when it was found that American interests had, in 1910, already obtained the enviable Chester concession, admitting railroad rights through all the valuable oil regions and including the privilege of mineral development. However, satisfaction ran high again in Europe when it was seen that American capital hesitated to enter a dubious oil-promotion venture in so distant a field, particularly when production of petroleum at home was so far exceeding consumption. And since the Chester rights were not

I

strongly followed up, the Germans, French, and British got a shoulder in. According to the sentiment prevailing in Germany, France, and England about 1912, petroleum was nearly worth the cost of a war. To Germany and France, struggling under a rankling monopoly held by the Standard Oil Company, an assured oil supply meant industrial independence, while to England fuel oil meant the turningpoint in English naval supremacy. So 'catch-as-catch-can' rules were resorted to in the diplomatic contest for the favored-nation' pledge from Turkey and for the exclusive right to exploration of petroleum-bearing lands under her dominion. Three years after the signing of the Chester grant by the Turkish Minister of Public Works, Germany, France, and England had secured later concessions duplicating the privileges conceded to Mr. Chester and placing in the hands of these European Powers practically all the territory promised to American interests.

The German project was the Berlinto-Bagdad railroad. The Turkish Government looked upon this with favor, since it would open a main stream of commerce between the European markets and the productive agricultural districts of Mesopotamia. To the Germans the railroad meant control of the Mosul region-richest of the oil regions.

French entry into the arena was effected through a railway concession.

in northern Anatolia, duplicating in part the lines proposed for construction by the Chester grant. The concession is dated 1913, and the French paid a considerable portion of a loan of 500,000,000 francs to the Turkish Government to secure their rights.

British capital made the most direct effort. The Turkish Petroleum Company was organized for the stated purpose of developing the Mesopotamian oil regions. The British Government itself held a controlling share in this Company. Turkey was much interested in the enterprise, and in 1913 the Turkish Petroleum people secured concessions from the Government covering the Mosul and all the productive Mesopotamian territories.

So, at the beginning of the Great War, German and British oil interests found themselves facing each other on the same ground, with France edging her way in. Mesopotamia became one of the chief objectives of the fighting forces. Germany was apparently ready to place a considerable portion of her strength on this front to protect her cherished 'Berlin-toBagdad' railroad, while the British Foreign Office felt that the realization of this project must be forestalled at any cost. To foil this scheme,' said Sir Charles Greenway, of the AngloPersian Oil Company shortly after the cessation of hostilities, 'was the sole purpose of the British army in Mesopotamia during the war.'

Even the imminent danger of collapse of the Allies' Western front did not divert the minds of the European nations from the problem of oil. Probably it was because of the constant reminder pressed by the hampering shortage of fuel oil and the dependence of the Allies' navies upon the American oil companies. That France was not overlooking the material advantages of occupation of the Mesopo

tamian field was evidenced when as early as 1916 she asked for the Syrian mandate. The British continued to allow the Mesopotamian forces vast extravagances. The opposing armies in the East were pushed back; Palestine, the Mosul, and Bagdad were won over, and a British mandate was set up over these territories. But this was accomplished at a cost which made all England indignant when the bills were reckoned up after the Armistice. Meanwhile, on the Western front, America carried the Allies to victory 'on a wave of oil.'

II

The Peace Conference opened. The American people, now that the spectre of a German victory had vanished, showed a pronounced unwillingness to lend counsel in any of the readjustments through which Europe was passing beyond the advice of President Wilson. This left France and England to settle things by themselves, with possibly a little advice from south of the Alps. So these two saviors of civilization coolly decided, it seems, to wring every possible advantage from the situation in Eastern Europe, and to divide the proceeds into two portions only. And secretly, as evidenced by later events, the English and French leaders determined to yield no emolument to each other which could be retained for one country alone.

At the conclusion of the Armistice, France pointed out that it was her right to hold the mandate over Syria, both by right of her concessions in that territory gained from the Turkish Government before the War, and through her operations in that field during the conflict. This mandate was granted, Great Britain holding a similar control over the adjoining regions of Mesopotamia. The English

were now in a somewhat disadvantageous position, because the French controlled nearly the entire coast. The British army held the Mosul, to be true, but there was no outlet for the oil, either from this region or from Persia, where the Anglo-Persian Oil Company was operating other valuable concessions. Somehow there must be a link between the oil fields and the Navy. It was necessary to secure the coöperation of the French, and the British were afraid they would be pinched and forced to pay dearly for an outlet to the sea. So the British Foreign Office set about to devise a plan by which the French could be made to ensure safe passage of the British oil to points on the Mediterranean, and at the same time prevent France from profiting from the strategic position she held.

It was first necessary to prevent the oil interests of France becoming estranged from those of England. There had been much talk in France, just after the war, of floating new oil companies. France held rights in the oil lands of Russia, Rumania, and Mesopotamia, as well as potential fields in her African colonies. She wished to become independent in regard to the problem of fuel. British capitalists determined to divert this interest of French capital in oil, and a clever scheme was hit upon which won the support of French capital for the English oil companies.

Early in 1919 when the pound was rising and the franc dropping, English bankers commenced to flood France with shares of the Royal Dutch, Shell Transport, and other English-controlled companies. French capital accepted these eagerly, since the shares could be bought at a fair figure, and then sold at a considerable profit as the franc dropped. The French brokers were so interested in this speculation

and easy profit that much of the capital originally ready to enter the support of the new French oil companies went to buy blocks in the British companies instead. A little later the pound began to drop and the franc to rise, as the British had suspected it would. To sell the English oil shares now meant a loss for the French speculators. There was no turning them to profit except by holding them and waiting for dividends. The franc rose steadily, and much of the stock was sold out at a loss, recrossing the Channel to England. Thus the French brokers who still retained shares were forced to back the projects of the English companies to save their investments. This left insufficient capital to finance the visionary French-producing companies, and the considerable French capital invested in English companies exerted no great influence there. France would still have to ask favors from her Ally.

This was the occasion on which the British industrialists made their offer to France. France wanted oil, and France had insufficient unemployed capital to produce oil herself. So through the British Foreign Office the following proposals were presented to Clemenceau: that Great Britain and France undertake the mutual exploitation of all oil lands formerly belonging to enemy powers; that British capital be allowed to develop the oil resources of the French colonies and of the French mandate in Syria; that England grant to France twenty-five per cent of all the oil produced in Mesopotamia through the Government exploitation, or, in the event that exploitation should be carried out by a private company, that the French should be allowed a twenty-five per cent participation in the same; that in return for this 'gift' of the oil so produced, France should coöperate with England to the

extent of guaranteeing the security of pipe-lines across Syria from the Mosul and Persian oil fields to Mediterranean ports.

These proposals seemed to the French to be fairly conceived. The guarantee of twenty-five per cent of the oil produced in Mesopotamia was an important consideration. Still, the less impetuous French statesmen were reluctant to enter so binding an agreement. There were many influencing circumstances, however. The Arabs had begun to grow uneasy under the French dominion in Syria, and under the leadership of the native king, Feisal, commenced to resist the authority of the French troops. A campaign against Damascus was initiated, and the situation demanded the support of Great Britain's military forces in Mesopotamia. Lord Curzon said, 'Sign the Mesopotamian oil agreement, and we will help you secure Syria. If our military interests should be coördinated, so also should be our commercial interests, and we must have a contract of coöperation.' Yet the French diplomats hesitated.

Then came the question of whether France should have the left bank of the Rhine. Lloyd George said, 'Certainly our old Ally shall have it; but if we are willing to rest in accord with France in the attaining of so important an object, France should be willing to grant us the favor of her coöperation in the project of the Mesopotamian oil development.' Clemenceau was eager to see French troops in control of the left bank of the Rhine, and quickly granted the 'favor.' So the secret Pact of San Remo was signed on April 24, 1920, confirming the propositions previously presented by the British Foreign Office; and on the same day a twenty-five per cent holding in the Turkish Petroleum Company was transferred to the French Government.

The British forces united in action with the French in Syria, and the Arabs were subdued in their restless movements, though again at enormous expense. Then a second secret pact was signed, definitely assigning to France the old provinces of Syria and Lebanon. The conclusion of these pacts was followed by the signing on August 10, 1920, of the Treaty of Sèvres with Turkey, by which the feeble Turkish Government sanctioned vast concessions to the Turkish Petroleum Company, in accordance with the plan of the Anglo-French exploitation of the oil in Russia, Rumania, and Mesopotamia, as well as northern Africa.

III

Now came a turn in French opinion. The more conservative and skeptical political elements began to point out that the officers of the nation had naïvely delivered to the British every advantage in Asia Minor. The possession of the twenty-five-per-cent share in the Turkish Petroleum Company gave France little influence in determining the tactics of this organization, and the control of the entire oil business centred in London. On their part, the French were guaranteeing a British pipe-line across their territory, a privilege for which England could have been made to pay dearly, if properly 'sold,' since it was the only outlet for the Persian and Mosul oil fields. Public addresses were made by Barthou, Briand, and Tardieu, condemning in the severest terms Clemenceau's hasty action in entering the San Remo Pact. To increase the excitement of the French, the Arab forces under Emir Feisal continued to threaten the invasion of Syria, and the British refused to put more men into that field. The Paris periodicals shouted that Curzon intended France to be pushed