not keep it there for nine months. People are depressed when they look at the empty shops, the silent warehouses, the grass growing between the flagstones of the wharves. Many of the business men, I gather, are bitter against him now, however they may have shouted with the rest at the beginning. Fiestas, bands of music, reviews, are all very well, but every now and then a wave of pessimism passes over the city. Then he makes them a speech, and does what he likes with them. As the magnificent periods unfold themselves, all doubts and difficulties disappear; the crowd dances to the tune he pipes, he twists them round his little finger. And all is right till the next time.

EUROPE DEALS WITH THE LIQUOR

TRAFFIC

THE United States is not the only country that is abolishing or curtailing the liquor traffic. In 1907 and 1908 the Finnish Parliament adopted a prohibition law which was approved by a referendum to the people, but was prevented from going into effect by the Russian government. Immediately after the country attained its independence the law was reenacted and went into force last summer. It prohibits the manufacture, importation or sale of intoxicating liquors containing more than two per cent of alcohol, and provides no compensation for manufacturers and dealers previously engaged in the business.

Belgium has prohibited since last September the sale of distilled liquors in bars, hotels, restaurants, and other public places, for consumption on the spot. Liquors can still be bought in limited quantities at licensed houses for consumption at home. However, the law provides for gradually decreasing the number of licensed houses and increasing their fees.

Norway, which passed restrictive laws in 1916 and 1917, adopted a plebiscite last October forbidding the manufacture or sale of distilled liquors. This law has not gone completely into operation on account of the protests of

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'I don't think that any man does any great service to the cause of the League of Nations by cantor talking over-confidently about its present or its future. Still less do I think any advocate helps imitin that cause by overlooking or ignoring the stuin propendous difficulties which lie in its way; but I and claim that no nobler, no worthier, and no more on ha necessary duty lies at the door of every honest cohol and patriotic citizen of this country and of all great civilized countries of the world than to try with with all his power to understand these difficulties, grapple with them, and defeat them. They can be grappled with, and they can be defeated, if an immense effort is made on behalf of all civilized nations.

IN

GENERAL SMUTS ON THE LEAGUE

It will be recalled that General Smuts, the representative of South mes Africa at Paris, signed the Versailles Fra Treaty under protest, and that he won

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an equivocal victory in the recent CroSouth African election as a defender of the League. His recent speech in the South African Parliament, replying in the debate on the League of Nations, is a confession of his disappointment in regard to the latter's success. He attributes the failure of the League mainly to three things. The first of these is the defection of America, which is the only country powerful enough to give it an effective start. The second is the usurpation of the functions of the League by the Supreme Council. After Japan and the United States stood apart from the work of the council, the control of international affairs fell largely into the hands of a triumvirate, consisting of the premiers of Great Britain, France and Italy. Since the last of these countries is now involved in critical internal difficulties, Great Britain and France have become largely responsible for the conduct of world affairs. The third great blow to

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the League of Nations, in his opinion, is the Polish war, which had done more to make people realize its impotency than any other of the many disappointing incidents which have occurred since its formation.

JAPAN AND SIBERIA
COMMENTING upon

upon the the present situation in Eastern Siberia, the Tokyo correspondent of the Morning Post says that there is reason to fear lest the independence of both China and Siberia may be menaced or sacrificed to the selfish interest of Occidental finance under the protection and guaranty of Japan. People familiar with the Far East are skeptical as to the success of such a policy, inasmuch as former assurances and guaranties of equal treatment have in no way prevented the Japanese from affording their own nationals great advantages over their western competitors in the commerce of the regions already within the jurisdiction. In continuation this correspondent says:

Recently three parties of distinguished American financiers, led by a Mr. Alexander, of San Francisco, Mr. Thomas W. Lamont, of the J. Pierpont Morgan firm of New York, and another party under the leadership of Mr. Vanderlip, of New York, respectively, have been holding unofficial conferences with Japanese of corresponding place and distinction in regard to differences of opinion with the United States. The Siberian question has been one of the most knotty under discussion, and also the Shantung question. It is not likely that the Japanese expect much to result from these conferences, as they are prone to regard their visitors as coming mainly to spy out the land. But there is much in the assertion of Mr. Vanderlip that if the ambitions of Japan are as altruistic and disinterested as he has been assured in Tokyo, America must support Japan through thick and thin; but if he has been deceived America must oppose Japan at all costs.

It is worth while for those who are now inclined, with a shrug of the shoulders, to acquiesce in the present foreign policy of the Allies, and to condone the re-arming of Europe which is still proceeding apace, to consider for a moment what 'the next war' will probably be like. For it is undoubtedly true that every political cause of war which existed before 1914 is rapidly finding its counterpart in the situation which now exists in Europe, and that, so far from having made the world safe for an epoch of peaceful development, our statesmen have done their best to leave it, when all the Peace Treaties are signed, with the trains of gunpowder carefully laid to every magazine, and matches lying loose about the place in all directions. Perhaps there are some minds which do not regret this situation, or even find a curious satisfaction in the thought that the natural pugnacity of man runs no present risk of atrophy.

Even if it has settled no problems, the late war has at least profoundly changed the psychology of Europe, and especially of the industrial classes. It is probably true, as many observers maintain, that a successful revolution could not have taken place, or at least could not have held its ground, in Russia, but for the conditions produced, both in Russia and in other countries, by the war. At all events war is the most fertile breedingground of revolutions. Under present

dustrial conditions the profound disturbance in industry and among the

industrial population produced by wa creates exactly the conditions whi are most favorable to violent soc revolution. During the late war, in this country never passed beyo the stage of small semi-revolutiona movements such as those of the sho stewards; but it is significant th these movements arose precisely those industries, such as engineeri and mining, which, being most esse tial to the conduct of the war, we most affected and transformed by i and were compelled to retain at hon the largest proportion of young me One reason why we never went furth than the comparative mildness workshop agitation was that the def nite anti-war party in this countr was in 1914 at least a very small m nority. A second was that, here a home the war never came home to u with anything like the intensity wit which it came home on the continent

It is safe, however, to say that, un der whatever conceivable circum stances the next war that is, th next great European war-might b fought, there would be, in every coun try in Europe at least, a very large mi nority of people altogether opposed to it, and probably in some cases a ma jority. Moreover, if it came at al soon, it would come upon countries materially exhausted; and whenever it came, the problems of financing it would altogether dwarf those of financ ing the great war from which we have emerged. Beginning under these auspices, with at any rate a substantial

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risk of further wars very great indeed, there is still hope left in the present situation that can be turned to full advantage, and still a chance that the possible commitments which we have taken up can be discarded. Certainly the one hope for those who believe in a peaceful transformation of society lies not merely in the revision of the Peace Treaties, but in the definite 'scrapping' of most of their economic and many of their territorial clauses.

minority of the population against it, a great war would put a quite impossible strain on the already yielding, and, in places, worn-out structure of our present social system. It would be impossible for the governments by any means to check the spread of anti-war propaganda: it would be impossible by w for them to prevent the uprising of a wh proletarian movement of revolt on a t so very much larger scale, and with a very war, much wider objective, than the movebeyaments which existed during the late tion war. In most countries it would be ne shavery difficult for them to keep their t th populations fed and clothed; and the sely occurrence of the bread riots which so neering often form the spark that fires the ess revolutionary train would be, in several , we countries at least, only a matter of a by comparatively short time. In fact, tho revolution in some countries would be gma practically inevitable, and revolution furth in others would be extremely likely to follow.

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The French government, fresh from the bloodless victory over the premature and ill-considered semi-revolutionary movement of the Confédération Général du Travail, will perhaps take the view that this conception of the danger is exaggerated, and that it, and the lesser countries which it so lightly urges on to deeds of blood, will be able to stand the strain even of another war. But the case of Poland may well serve as a warning. For, although there is probably no immediate likelihood of a Polish revolution, there can be no doubt that, when the tide finally turns, and the defeat of the Polish megalomaniacs and their abetters in their war of simple aggression against Russia becomes manifest, the internal situation of Poland will at once become one of extreme peril, and the chances of revolution very great indeed. A defeated Poland will largely reproduce

e de Moreover, it is very difficult to reount sist the conclusion that if we could not all manage the affairs of Europe better ere than to plunge into another great war, to revolution would be not only probable, but would appear actually necessary tine and desirable to a very large part of the population. It would prove the rcu utter bankruptcy of the present diplomacies and governments of Europe, ht and would lend strong color to the view that there is no way out of their bunglings except by a clean sweep of them all. The making of wars is too serious a matter for the peoples to at afford to give those who bungle one ntre European settlement the chance of bungling another. It is therefore neces

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the conditions of Russia in 1917, and there is a good chance that like causes will lead to like results.

Of course, it is possible to hold that, whatever may happen in Europe in the 'next war,' we at least are safe and can wash our hands of it. But, apart from the fact that no one but a lunatic can afford to wash his hands of what happens in Europe, should we ourselves be safe? There are two reasons at least why we should not. In the first place, we have succeeded in unsettling and setting by the ears, not

only Europe, but the whole East. A new war would confront us simultaneously with an extreme reluctance of many Englishmen to say nothing of Irishmen to fight on the side of our rulers, and with the immediate probability of a general uprising in the East. Nor would our self-governing Dominions be likely to take too lenient a view of those who had brought the British Empire into another war. At the least there would be 'trouble' in South Africa, and there might well be actual disruption. And while these things were taking place abroad, while Ireland, India, Egypt, and Africa, to say nothing of Persia and other of our new commitments, were in a ferment, our government would have to combat an increasing reluctance of our population either to fight or to produce the wherewithal. This would happen even if our cause were a comparatively good one as causes go. Still more would it happen, of course if the war were merely a futile and hopeless squabble, such as might so easily arise out of the Peace Treaties, and in relation to which right and wrong would have hardly a meaning at all. And it would happen most of all if our cause were definitely bad-if, for example, we were fighting Russia in the interests of European capitalism.

we are even now, despite official de nials, deliberately preventing pacifica tion and encouraging and abetting th war-makers, with a disregard of wide consequences which is astonishing eve in our Elder Statesmen.

In such a situation, the psycholog. of the returned soldier, which is pe culiar in several ways, is a factor whic has to be taken into account. The ma who has had an actual experience of wa is, in one way, much less ready, and, i another, much more ready, to shoot He knows what war is like, and he ha no wish to go through the experienc of it again. But, on the other hand, h is not a conscientious objector! He i able to handle a weapon, and he ha not that psychological inhibition against violence which he had befor his spell of pain and discomfort in th trenches of France or Flanders. whichever side he finds himself in a future upheaval, he is far more likely to shoot than even the most class conscious revolutionary who has hac no direct contact with the war. It is not that the returned soldier is usually a revolutionary by conviction, or tha he goes about his daily work meditat ing deeds of blood. Far from it. But he has got used to the idea of conduct. ing an argument with the aid of a machine gun, and he has been taught by his rulers and leaders that this is the proper way of conducting one. It is an inevitable consequence of war that the strong inhibition of the ordinary civilized man against the personal employment of violence is to some extent broken down. That, indeed, is a large part of the case against war.