arrived. Produce from the Islands and Western Asia Minor can now be brought to the city with less difficulty, and its price is falling: grain, coals, and petroleum are arriving from the Black Sea, but the price of petroleum is still very high. Railway connection with Salonica has been reopened and it is hoped that the Budapest-Constantinople train, via Nisch, will soon run again, but since diplomatic relations with Bulgaria have been broken off it is out of the question at present.

At a recent session of the Chamber the Finance Minister stated that of the last German loan of £T.45,000,000, some 26,000,000 had become available, and the government was now paying out this sum. The Ottoman National Debt Office still possessed quantities of new unsigned paper money which, if Germany consented, would be signed, and sent to Berlin. No paper money of the Entente Powers was in circulation, since it was exchanged at the banks for Turkish money which was put in circulation. In order to increase the national revenue, the country's mineral wealth and other sources of revenue were no longer to be left to individuals to exploit at will. The Ottoman Government has collected £T.11,000,000 with which to pay arrears of interest to the Entente Powers.

THE MUSKERRY HOUNDS

THE Sinn Fein Executive, for some reason, has put riding to hounds under the ban. The following very characteristic paragraph has been clipped from the Irish Times.

Our Cork Correspondent has telegraphed: The Muskerry Foxhounds met to-day at St. Anne's, County Cork, when, in the absence of Master Rohan, the huntsman was in charge of the pack. The screen and covers along St. Anne's were drawn, no hostility being experienced at the outset. At the top of the valley two men endeavored to prevent the hunters from passing, but the owner of the land and a Roman Catholic clergyman who took part in the chase protested, and the opposition was not further pressed. At the end of the screen a fox was found, and after a short run he went to ground. The meet then journeyed

to Ballyshoneen cover. While this was being drawn whistles were heard, following which a hostile crowd of Sinn Feiners, who had been in ambush, burst into view. They carried hurleys and sticks. The huntsmen, realizing the position, endeavored to get the hounds from cover, whereupon the Sinn Feiners belabored the hounds with their sticks. The clergyman protested against the treatment of dumb animals. His protest only drew the retort that he should be ashamed of himself to be seen hunting with these fellows.' The huntsman next endeavored to get away with the hounds, but the crowd indulged in stone throwing, and one of their number hit the clergyman's horse with a hurley. Four or five of the field very courageously stood their ground, and sought to cover the retreat of the huntsman and hounds One of their number was struck with a hurley in the face, and his nose was injured, but he retaliated with his riding whip, sending his assailant to the ground. Other members of the hunt sought to make good their escape, but were assailed with hurleys, sticks, and stones. At this time there were but eight or ten of a field of twenty-five left, and as they moved away they were again made targets for volleys of stones. When the Sinn Feiners succeeded in getting into close quarters they again made free use of their hurleys. Finally a revolver shot was fired, and there were shouts of 'Now will you obey Sinn Fein and the orders of our Executive?'

The scene was the most disgraceful that has yet been witnessed in the hunting field. LORD ROBERT CECIL DISCUSSES THE

MONROE DOCTRINE

A good deal has been said about the Monroe Doctrine. If the Monroe Doctrine meant that there should be no interference in the affairs of the American Continent by European Powers, without the consent of the United States, then so far from that doctrine being weakened by the covenant, it would be strengthened and reinforced by it, because the United States would be a member of the Council of the league and of the body of delegates, and no action could be taken by either without the consent of those who were represented in other words, no international action

could be taken by the league which was opposed by the United States unless it were action against the United States itself, which could hardly arise so far as the Monroe Doctrine was concerned. Such a case might be dismissed from consideration. If, of course, the view was intended to be sustained that there ought to be a complete and water-tight division between the American Continent and Europe, then, no doubt, any concerted action in which America took part would be an infringement of that doctrine directly or indirectly. But if that was what was meant by the Monroe Doctrine then I should regard any such doctrine as disastrous for the future of the world.

The world has left the United States in a position of enormous power, in some respects comparable to the position occupied by England after the Napoleonic Wars in 1815-in some respects it is even more powerful. With that gigantic power comes a great responsibility

a responsibility, if I may respectfully say so, not only to the world at large but to herself. The peace of Europe and of the world is not only of European interest, it is of American interest as well. America cannot in these days afford to say that she disinterests herself altogether from what goes on in Europe without being untrue to her responsibilities, to the world at large, and, if I may say so, to herself as well.

A PARLIAMENTARY ANECDOTE FROM THE PAST

I THINK there can be no doubt as to what is the biggest Parliamentary joke on record and the consequences of the⚫joke were both serious and satisfactory. The facts are related by Bishop Burnet in his History of His Own Times, and they show that the Habeas Corpus Act was really dodged through the House of Lords in 1680 by a merry trick quite worthy of the pantomime season. This is the Bishop's account of the affair:

'It was carried by an odd artifice in the House of Lords. Lord Grey and Lord Norris were named to be tellers. Lord Norris, being a man subject to vapors, was not at all times attentive to what he was doing,

so a very fat lord coming in, Lord Grey counted him for ten, as a jest at first, but seeing Lord Norris had not observed it, he went on with this misreckoning of ten; so it was reported to the House and declared that they who were for the Bill were in the majority, though indeed it went on the other side, and by this means the Bill was passed.' This seems almost too good to be true a sort of Parliamentary Joe Millerism. But it is on record that Mr. Speaker Onslow years later corroborated the story by a reference to the official records of the House of Lords, and to a comparison of the number of peers that day present with the number reported as being in the division; and he must be a hardy skeptic who would doubt a statement made by a Bishop and confirmed by a Speaker.

THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION IN ALSACELORRAINE

If the religious question in AlsaceLorraine be handled by the French Government in the spirit of a letter which has appeared in the Journal des Debats over the signature of the Republican Deputy, M. Lazare Weiller, there should be no doubt of a satisfactory settlement. After declaring that all parties are agreed to regard the question in the light of the existence of the Concordat in the two provinces, M. Weiller says:

In what concerns questions connected with the clergy and Catholic religious establishments, the French Government, substituted provisionally for the King of Prussia, who himself had been substituted in 1871, cannot, without entering into a conversation with the other contracting party to the Concordat of 1801, insure the continuity of worship in accordance with our national interests, the wishes of Alsace-Lorraine, and the solemn promises made to the people delivered. At Metz and Strassburg there are German Bishops who cannot be replaced without an understanding with the Pope. Their position, which is very much like that of the Bishops suppressed by the Concordat, cannot be regulated by any other procedure. As holder

of the executive power in Alsace-Lorraine since the armistice of November 11, in virtue of the rights and charges of the Concordat of 1801, of which the Convention of The Hague constitute it the holder, the French Government has the right to accredit to Rome a chargé d'affaires whose mission would be confined to the religious questions of Alsace-Lorraine, and to those which cannot but arise in the Rhineland districts, which are and will long remain in our occupation. No one will admit the diplomatic paradox that the representative whom revolutionary Germany has been careful to keep at the Vatican can continue to dispute our sovereignty there by occupying himself with the religious affairs of Alsace-Lorraine. Such is the very simple solution for which, I am convinced, the Foreign Affairs Commissions of the Senate and Chamber would not refuse their support to the government. As thus defined and clearly limited, with a formal reservation of all other questions, it should not raise any difficulty of a parliamentary kind. In this I have written nothing that is not in conformity with the ideas and feelings of all men in politics who are conversant with the situation of Alsace-Lorraine, and of the imperious needs of national interests in our recovered provinces.

A DISCUSSION OF DREAMS

THE Freudian theory of dreams as fantastical expressions of a carefully concealed desire, the form of the nocturnal play being suggested by some recent physical experience, does not explain the following complicated nightmare. A middle-aged person dreamed he was at the National Sporting Club, getting ready to fight a fifteen-round contest with a big, hefty youth, an ugly customer to look at. While searching for a pair of boxing boots - he had forgotten to bring any - he found to his surprise that everybody had left the theatre and assembled in the supper room, where they were eagerly bending over a long, narrow tank on the floor. They were racing sardines, taking them out of a tin in pairs and betting large sums on each race. This seemed to him, however, to give him a chance of escaping a fight which could only end in a humiliating defeat. So he doffed his boxing gear hurriedly - but excepting his shirt, all his clothes had disappeared. He was searching the theatre for his trousers, when all the members flocked back and began jeering at his bare shanks, which were certainly not so 'beautiful' as Alan Quartermain's. awoke to find the bedclothes had slipped down, which accounts for part of the dream. But how did the sardine racing come in?

He

J. Ramsay MacDonald, once member of Parliament for Leicester, is perhaps the best known of the Extremist group of British radicals.

E. T. Raymond is the author of the very successful book, Uncensored Celebrities.

America's Bid for Foreign Trade' has been reprinted from the Saturday Review, a weekly of strong Tory and Nationalist principles.

The Pravda is the 'official' journal of the Bolshevik Government.

BY ROBERT NICHOLS

THE MERCIFUL

Then it was He who gave me all His joy, His light, His song, His treasure,

And I went forth, in feast and brawl

BY EDWARD THOMAS

The thrush on the oak top in the lane
Sang his last song, or last but one;
And as he ended, on the elm
Another had but just begun

His last; they knew no more than I
The day was done.

Now it is I who give Him all—

The coward soul that could not give

me...

I turn. But back, He doth me call And gives, lo! more than first He gave me.

A laborer went along, his tread
Slow, half with weariness, half with