sultation between Dominion cabinets and the Secretaries of State before any serious action is taken, such inter-communication needs to be regularized, and to be ultimately controlled by Dominion Parliaments. For one of the things that few Australians seem to realize is that the present loose practice enables their own ministers to do many things under the authority of Imperial ministers, without the knowledge of their local Parliaments, and sometimes actually against their wishes.

The war has seen a serious development of this tendency. The discussions at the Peace Conference disclosed the uncomfortable fact that Australian ministers had, in consultation with the British War Cabinet, come to certain agreements regarding foreign countries, which vitally affected Australia's interests. Is not this the beginning of secret diplomacy? Is Australia to be drawn into the dangerous meshes of the diplomatic net? Hardly one of us would willingly consent to that event. The way to avoid it is, primarily, to seek to abolish all secret diplomacy in international affairs; but in our case at least to insure that our Executive does not commit us, under the cloak of British authority, to any foreign policy whatever without our full knowledge and consent. To leave foreign policy entirely in the hands of a British Cabinet, without even the check of Parliamentary discussion in London, is not only undemocratic, but it is a serious danger to Australia's future.

Unfortunately, the ignorance of our own citizens of foreign affairs is our worst danger. The Australian is too self-complacent in his view of the

safety guaranteed by his own institutions. In his characteristic opposition to being drawn against his will beyond the pale of his immediate interests, he forgets that the world is rapidly becoming a unity, whose welfare depends upon the close coöperation of its parts, and that largely depends upon the knowledge of each part of the conditions of every other. One significant example of this determination not to look outward from the Commonwealth is the fact that before the war the Australian labor movement had no international sentiment, though as a movement it was among the strongest in the world. But its intense Nationalism made Australian feeling antagonistic both to any closer union within the Empire and any interference in international affairs.

I have tried to show that the day for both these forms of exclusiveness has gone by. Australia has become part of the world system. We must accept our international responsibilities. I believe we can do so without any danger to our democracy. We can legitimately oppose any form of constitution which would threaten our democratic privileges, but we have no right to refuse to coöperate with other Dominions and Great Britain in strengthening the Commonwealth of British nations to become a great society within the League of Nations, helping the League toward closer unity by the strength of British unity, and sacrificing British self-interest for the interest of the world of states. This would not be Imperialism. It would be but the fulfillment of the true function of democracy, which is to make the world the best possible place for all human beings to live in. Stead's Review (Melbourne)

MARY JANE, EX-MUNITION WORKER,

DEMOBILIZED, SPEAKS

Tune: Milton's Lycidas

YET once more, O ye Joneses, and once more,

Ye Matthew-Browns, and Willoughbys-deVere,

I come, to serve your bevies harsh and crude;

And with forced fingers rude,

Shatter your plates before the mellowing

year.

Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compels me to return my Season due:
Die Weltherrschaft is dished, dished in its
prime,

Die Weltherrschaft, and left me dished here:

Who would not strike for Weltherrschaft?

I knew,

Myself, to strike, and lift the lofty dime.
I must not turn me to your watery beer,
My throat a victim to the parching wind,
Without the mead of some war-profiteer.
Alas! what boots it with incessant care

To tend the homely, slighted, skivvy's trade,

And daily castigate the Master's shoes? Were it not better done, as once I'd use, To sport with Bertie Tompkins in the shade,

Or with the bear's-grease on Augustus's hair?

As killing as the flapper to the beaux,

Or chorus to the lordling herds that gaze,
Or cook who dons her mistress' underwear
(Until the housemaid 'blows');
Such was, alas, this ex-munitioneer!

Kathleen O'Brien.

VISCOUNT KATO 'once Ambassador in London, and lately Foreign Minister in the Okuma Cabinet,' finds that the West is too cryptic for him to understand:

'. . . Although I flatter myself I have made a careful study of things Western

yet I confess that there are still many things which are beyond my comprehension. For instance, . . what in the world induced the U. S. . . . situated so far from the actual field of conflict, to take a hand in the war? . . .' Naturally doubts arose in certain Japanese minds as to whether all the fine things preached by President Wilson and written up by the American press might not be mere camouflage. . . . I have not been free from these doubts myself. . . . Careful study of the press and magazines,' writes the Viscount, has convinced me that in all likelihood President Wilson is actuated by the lofty ideals he expounds. . . . Few Japanese have a clear conception of the League of Nations, which is so earnestly advocated by President Wilson and Viscount Grey.' Viscount Kato asks how can all causes of future conflict be effectually removed by the proposed League of Nations? As for myself, I do not think that such a feat is possible, and I am even inclined to proceed to England for the express purpose of studying the question.'

BALKED of their desire for Fiume, certain groups of Italian nationalists have fallen into a sulky humor which the press under their control all too faithfully repeats. The latest target for their shafts is the new-born League. Witness this angry paragraph found in a recent issue of the Idea Nazionale:

"The League of Nations is an expedient, devised by the mercantile and puritanical spirit of the Anglo-Saxons to exploit for the benefit of America and England, the common victory of the Entente. No one knows better than the Anglo-Saxons how to make universalist ideologies serve their own interests. Wilson consents to leave out of discussion the problem of the freedom of the seas and Lloyd George in exchange recognizes the Monroe Doctrine by which America is immune from any European intervention, while the League of Nations

puts Europe under the control of America. The whole Conference of Paris is nothing but a continual barter of moral and material concessions, to insure better the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon people. A few days since an Egyptian delegation arrived in Paris to demand, according to the Wilsonian principles, the independence of Egypt. England had proclaimed her protectorate over Egypt during the war. The recognition of such an act ought to form the object of deliberation for the Conference. But, behold, the very day on which the honorable Mr. Wilson intimates to Italy that she must renounce her just claims and to the Entente that they must tear up their treaties, that very day the English papers announce with calm impudence that the United States has recognized their protectorate over Egypt. Thus the League of Nations begins to function in the Conference. It begins its work by proclaiming the civil and human inferiority of the Japanese and dispossessing the continental peoples of Europe of their sovereign rights. The League of Nations is only Anglo-Saxon hegemony masquerading as humanitarianism. The Germans wished to establish German hegemony with their own blood. The Anglo-Saxons are trying to establish their own hegemony upon the democratic credulity of the other peoples. The League of Nations must not enter the Adriatic.'

THE following estimate of the situation in America is the work of Sidney Brooks, an exceedingly competent observer and careful journalist, now 'covering' American affairs for the London Outlook. Americans will find these conclusions, intended as they are for British readers, of real interest.

'Two of the most effective opponents of the President and of the League Covenant are Senator Lodge and Senator Knox. Mr. Lodge is virtually the leader of the Republican party in the Upper House, and as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, to which all measures and resolutions dealing with external affairs must first be referred, his power both to initiate and to obstruct is considerable. A keen, cultivated, practical, and humorous personality, he keeps alive more conspicu

ously than anyone else the old New England tradition that associated literature with politics. Judging him on his public form, I used to think Mr. Lodge antiBritish. Twenty-odd years ago his speeches and writings showed more than a trace of the prevalent prejudice. But after meeting him I soon saw that what I had mistaken for Anglophobia was only a stalwart Americanism vigorously expounded. Mr. Lodge is one of the American statesmen who have never forgotten Great Britain's friendly attitude during the Spanish-American war. It led in his case, as in others, to the revision of certain preconceptions; and since then, in his references to this country, he has combined a genuine friendliness with a not less serviceable candor. If Sir Cecil Spring-Rice has left any memoirs, and they are ever published, it will be seen how much he relied upon Mr. Lodge's advice during the trying time of American neutrality. Rooted in realities, seeing what he sees with concentrated clarity, and always a master of pungent speech, Mr. Lodge is a formidable obstacle in the President's path.

'Had Mr. Wilson been a bigger man in his personal and political relationships, he would have made some effort to associate Mr. Lodge in the negotiation of the peace. He would frankly have consulted with him as by all odds the best-equipped authority on foreign affairs in the United States Senate. He would have invited him to attend the Conference in Paris as an official representative not only of his country but of the treaty-making power of the Senate. Such a policy would have soothed many susceptibilities, have conciliated the Republicans, have been an act of shrewd magnanimity which the American people would have appreciated. But Mr. Wilson it is one of the reasons why the feeling against him is so bitterly personal — is temperamentally incapable of this order of handsomeness. He does not relish sharing either credit or authority; and the severe rebuff that he suffered last November at the hands of the electorate has rather stiffened him than otherwise in his self-engrossment. One's inclination in any vital issue of foreign politics is as a rule to back the President against the Senate. It is still my inclination in the present case.

That is to say, I expect Mr. Wilson to succeed in the end in procuring the assent of the Senate both to the Treaty of Peace and to the Covenant of the League. But it is certain that he has himself enormously added to the difficulties of his task by a tactless and ungracious handling of the personal factors.'

THE following letter has been addressed by Mr. Balfour to Lord Reading on the termination of his Ambassadorship at Washington.

'My dear Lord Reading:

'You will in due course receive a dispatch from the Foreign Office dealing at length with your period of service now unhappily ended as British Ambassador at Washington, but I cannot allow our official relations to terminate without sending you a less impersonal message of thanks, gratitude, and regret thanks and gratitude for all you have done - regret that we shall no longer be fellow workers in the same great cause. The heavy responsibilities and the unceasing anxieties which weigh upon the diplomatic representatives of the belligerents and neutrals when half the world is fighting are known to all observers.

'Very different but not less formidable were the problems which faced the associated governments after America entered the war, and which had to be solved if the coöperation of the two countries was to bear its full fruits. It is with these problems and their solution that your name will always be connected. The difficulties were great; they were without precedent; they were quite outside ordinary diplomatic routine; they involved most complicated questions of finance, shipping, food supply, troop transportation, and armaments. Though they profoundly affected the fortunes of all the Allies, they had to be dealt with in the main between Great Britain and America, and you provided the most important personal link between the two great associated powers.

'This is not the occasion for dwelling in detail upon even the most critical episodes in the colossal effort by which America succeeded in throwing in her decisive weight on the side of the Allies. The difficulties sometimes seemed overwhelming.

I remember in particular how in the early winter months of last year the very elements seemed fighting for our enemies. In the spring the first successes of the German offensive compelled a complete and sudden alteration of all the plans for the collection and transport of American troops to Europe. Incidents like these enormously complicated an already too complicated situation. They involved endless communications between the heads of governments, between departments of governments, and the great international organizations with the Associated Powers found themselves compelled to call into existence.

'In all these labors you took your full share, and their success has been greatly aided by your tact, your clearness of exposition, and your mastery of detail. We owe you much, and on both sides of the Atlantic the magnitude of the debt is fully recognized. After your brief but momentous excursion into the regions of war and diplomacy you now return with added fame to the calmer labors of the Bench Perhaps as time goes on your recollection of what you did through these strenuous months may gradually grow somewhat dim. Should this be so you may easily refresh your memory for the record of your achievements will assuredly find its place in every history of the great war.

'Yours very sincerely,

'Arthur James Balfour.'

By the death of Weedon Grossmith, the London stage will lose an old favorite. He was the son and the grandson of popular entertainers, although his brother, the late George Grossmith, led the way to the real stage. The Grossmiths were, in fact, hereditary reporters at Bow Street Police Court, with divagations to the penny reading and the Mechanics' Institute.

Mr. George Grossmith was spotted by Mr. D'Oyley Carte and Sir Arthur Sullivan, and thereafter spent a lifetime in the interpretation of Gilbert and Sullivan opera, though he never abandoned the rôle of a society entertainer.

He began life as a pictorial artist, and painted in a desultory way to the end of his life. It was, in fact, accident that first induced his appearance on the stage, with

Miss Rosina Vokes's company. With her he first played Lord Arthur Pomeroy, in A Pantomime Rehearsal, a part forever afterward inseparable from his name. He was Irving's Jacques Strop in Robert Macaire at the Lyceum.

That was in 1888. Meanwhile, Mr. Weedon Grossmith has seldom been absent from the London stage, mostly preferring to appear under his own management. He got quite a long run out of The New Boy, at the vaudeville, and out of The Night of the Party, at the Avenue.

He was often 'selected' by Sir Arthur Pinero, notoriously fastidious in the casting' of his plays; and was notably successful in The Amazons. In later life he often appeared on the music hall stage.

Mr. Weedon Grossmith had a facile pen. He wrote something for Punch, 'dodged up' a play or two, and penned an interesting volume of reminiscences. He was a connoisseur in prints and old furniture. He married Miss May Palfrey, an actress, who practically retired from the stage.