the existing Cabinet will not live thirty days, have aroused widespread distrust and indignation, which in turn have been aggravated by unskillful censorship. Hungary is in danger of again becoming the victim of domestic agitation fomented by men locally described as 'self-appointed Messiahs.'

Reduced to its just proportions, this is what the so-called 'White Terror' so abhorred by the International Trade Union Alliance amounts to. It is a reprehensible thing, and it may develop into a military dictatorship; but we should give credit to the patriotic efforts of the Cabinet and the National Assembly to save the situation. First of all, Admiral Horthy, whose good intentions have never been questioned by those who know him, is employing all his influence to restore discipline in the army. The so-called 'strong arm squads,' consisting of irregular groups of soldiers, are being broken up; and General Soss, the new Minister of War, is taking strict measures with the officer corps. Parliament, at a memorable session, has just passed a unanimous vote demanding the reëstablishment of law and order.

The only just criticism we can make here is that these efforts have been too long delayed. We should bear in mind, however, that they at least antedated the boycott. The Hungarian Legislature and the Executive have not awaited the threats of foreign Trade Unions in order to take the measures necessary. The International Alliance should have waited long enough to see whether those measures might not be successful, before starting a blockade. Their stupid and criminal act has struck a blow at the Hungarian nation by paralyzing its commerce, exciting the resentment of its reactionaries, and adding to the distress of its working classes. The first

victims of the blockade will be the toilers themselves. Lack of raw ma terials will close the factories and throw them out of work. The secon victims will be the people of Vienna for Hungary will counter this move by stopping the shipment of vegetable and fruit to Austria.

[Arbeiter Zeitung (Vienna Official Socialis Daily), June 29]

II. A Socialist Opinion

The negotiations between the Inter national Trade Union Alliance and the representatives of the Hungarian gov ernment have now begun at Vienna The position which the Trade Union Alliance takes is as clear and unam biguous as the attitude of the Hunga rian government is indefinite anc vacillating. The Trade Union Alliance does not assume any legislative or administrative authority over Hungary. But inasmuch as the Hungarian government has shown itself incompetent to defend its own working classes and to guarantee them the first rights of citizens, their protection naturally becomes the duty of the International Trade Union Alliance, of which the Hungarian Trade Union. Alliance is a member. The boycott is directed against an attempt to intimidate the working people of Hungary and to deprive them of their rights as Trade Unionists and citizens by violence and terror a violence and terror that have become such a scandal as to be a matter of international concern for the working men of all countries.

Since the attempt to destroy the trade unions of Hungary constitutes a threat to Trade Union rights in every nation, the proletariat is firmly resolved to fight the struggle to the bitter end. The Horthy newspapers

in German-Austria are endeavoring to convince people that the boycott will ruin our own prosperity and benefit Hungary. As a matter of fact, however, German-Austria will be deprived of nothing from the boycott except fresh fruit; while Hungary, in addition to the moral and political pressure thus put upon it by being pilloried for its atrocities before the whole world, will be deprived of indispensable goods. The country is in urgent need of salt. Six hundred carloads destined for that country are now held up on German sidings. Hungary needs print paper for its presses. Not а roll of this has crossed the border. Hungary needs coking coal and other fuel. In all probability the Czecho-Slovak workers will use their power to prevent further coal from going to Hungary, and will divert it instead to German-Austria. The Hungarian government threatens to close the Danube and cut us off from provisions arriving from Yugoslavia, Roumania, and Bulgaria, but it is counting without its host. It forgets that the Danube has been neutralized, and that the Hungarian government has neither the power nor the right to interfere with commerce via that route. The Hungarian Prime Minister has been forced to admit these facts publicly; and it is very likely that in doing this, and thus depriving Hungary's previous threats of their force, he was acting under the pressure of the English government, which in turn has been forced by the Labor Party at home to assert itself against the Horthy atrocities. This freedom of the Danube is of the greatest importance in enforcing the boycott, and in creating a situation which will compel the Hungarian government to accept the moderate, humane, and justified demands of the Trade Union Alliance.

་

Japan Weekly Chronicle (Kobe AngloJapanese), April 15]

JAPAN AND SIBERIA

MANY times it has been asserted that Japan is in Siberia only for the purpose of keeping order and preserving property. Many times it has been asserted that Japan is indifferent to the form of government adopted by the Russians, which is their own affair entirely. Originally it was agreed with the Allies that Britain, America, and Japan should send each 7000 men into Siberia for these purposes. Japan immediately sent 100,000, the other 93,000 being dispatched via Korea and Manchuria in order to fulfil the terms of the Sino-Japanese Military Agreement, under which Japan undertook to protect the Chinese frontier. Incidentally the Agreement was forced upon China against her will, and Mr. Chen Lu has told the American Chargé d'Affaires that China will on no account coöperate with Japan in making war on the Russians.

It has been stated that as soon as all the Czechs are 'rescued' the Japanese troops will be withdrawn. Vague conditions were added concerning order and safety, which, Japanese critics complained, meant that the promises given were entirely insincere. The event has justified this criticism. We have, to the point of being wearisome, pointed out repeatedly that the presence of the Japanese troops in Siberia. created the very conditions which prevent their withdrawal. There has been absolutely no need of them. The whole plan and procedure of intervention has been a disaster. From the Tsarist and from the Bolshevist points of view, and from every intermediate point of view as well, the Japanese intervention has been nothing but destructive. Japanese military operations against the Bolsheviki were con

fined to the surrounding and destruction with all their inhabitants of certain villages supposed to be Bolshevist. For the rest, the movements of great bodies of Japanese troops only monopolized the rolling-stock that Koltchak needed and reduced his train service to chaos, prevented supplies from reaching him and paralyzed his movements, so that that Koltchak's 'death 'death trains' and other horrors were due as much to the mismanagement of the Siberian railway by the Allied Commissions and to its being blocked with Japanese troops as to the indifference and stupidity of the ragged robbers of which the All Russian army consisted. The Japanese command even prevented Koltchak from disciplining his own officers, supporting brigands like Semenoff and Kalmikoff in their insubordination, and finally leaving Koltchak to the vengeance of his enemies. Without the Allies' ammunition, food, uniforms, and munitions of war of all kinds, Koltchak would have never begun his disastrous war on his own country. The Bolsheviki have to thank Japan's intervention for the fact that it failed so dramatically.

Interference for its own sake in the most irritating manner appears to have been the only consistent policy followed in Siberia. That no party received definite support was only a sign that the Japanese military authorities were equally the enemies of all. They professed to be in Siberia only for the purpose of protection, but they have protected nobody and have only wrought havoc. At last, in spite of all playing off of one party against another, Siberia passed into the hands of the Russians! In Asia, as in Europe, the presence of enemies in their country united them. In order to allow the Japanese to act honorably and retire without losing face, they patched up a semi-independent form of govern

ment, with which relations could have been opened without making the previous verbiage about damming the eastward tide of Bolshevism appear too ridiculous. This did not suit the military authorities at all. The passing of Siberia into a true state of self-determination was the signal for a grand coup It was apparent that great forbearance would be necessary in the event of misunderstandings and minor collisions yet, with no better excuse than ar alleged sniping of pickets (which the Russians deny) the Japanese troops in the whole of the Maritime Province suddenly surrounded and disarmed the whole of the Russian forces, and treated their prisoners with the greatest indignity. At Nikolsk there was not even the excuse of sniping given There, it was alleged, the Russians were posting pickets, and this was the signal for an attack of the most unprovoked and bloody description. The Russians resisted strongly, but were overcome by superior numbers, armaments, and position. Judging by the fact that in most places the Japanese casualties were only one or two, against the hundreds of the Russians, it would appear that it was a carefully prearranged coup; but in some places, such as Nikolsk and Habarovsk, there were more, and it is probable that, as in the case of the Great War itself, the militarists who planned the coup got into a panic as military men nearly always do when conspiring against their neighbors' peace, and rushed into the thing prematurely. This view is supported by the frantic hurry with which a combined military and naval force destroyed the great bridge over the Amur- which it will take the best engineering talent in Japan to restore

for no better reason than that they believed that the Russians had an armored train. A few rails torn up are enough to prevent all the armored

trains in the world from passing, but this was not enough. They had to put the unpassable Amur flood between them and that train. Other bridges are also reported to have been destroyed, and a tunnel blown up. We have heard a great deal about the number of bridges that the Bolsheviki have destroyed per month, but there has been nothing to equal this wanton destruction of the bridge above Habarovsk.

What are the intentions of the military authorities? Russians of every class denounce the whole coup as unprovoked and inexcusable. General Or, whose idea of strategy seems to be to throw bombs from upstairs windows at men in the street if he thinks they look suspicious, has succeeded in uniting all Russians against the Japanese. Japan has captured the whole Maritime Province, and has cut it off from communication by land or sea. She has even put one of her own creatures in nominal command of the

Russian troops, and caused him to proclaim his entire independence of foreign support. It is stated that the Consular Body at Vladivostok protested against the efflorescence of Russian flags on every public building, and that they have been taken down in consequence. Now, as in the case of Shantung, we must wait for the negotiations which will be demanded prior to withdrawal.

There will not, for the present at any rate, be any alteration in the promise to withdraw, but there may be an attempt to create an independent Russian state. It has often been argued that the Allies had less to fear from Bolshevism than Japan, since

they had the independent Baltic States between them and the Bolsheviki. What could be more simple than to use the Maritime Province, or perhaps all Transbaikalia in the same way as the Allies have used the Baltic States? And what better precedent could there be than the Allies have provided? It will be easy to discover that Transbaikalia is really desperately eager for independence, and depends on Japan's support for getting it. It is true, this development has been much discussed during the past month or two, but one had to be off with the old love before being on with the new, and it became obvious many months ago that all Japan's horses and all Japan's men could never set up Tsarism in Eastern Siberia again. The new programme will presumably be the creation of a moderately democratic state, in which Japan will have a 'special position' compared with which her special position in China will be very weak tea.

Meanwhile we have the military occupation of a friendly country, the disarmament of its forces, the destruction of its communications, the killing of those who resist, the imprisonment of those who surrender, and the hoistof foreign flags on its public buildings. This is the result of an intervention undertaken for purely pacific purposes and without the slightest intention of interfering with the self-government of the country. Thus have we established public right, made the world safe for democracy, laid sure and firm the principle of self-determination, abolished the old diplomacy, dethroned militarism, and the peaceful settlement of international disputes!

.

DUBLIN, May 22. A MODEST two-story building stands next door to the Dublin custom house, which is a monumental British edifice of the Eighteenth Century. The entrance to this little building is as unimposing as that of a private residence. A flight of steps, rather too steep, but having ornate decorations, rises to a public hall, where a visitor usually finds hundreds of people almost any day or evening-people who have no time to change their worka-day clothing for their Sunday best. This is Liberty Hall, the stronghold of the Irish Labor Party and Trade Union Alliance. When I called, Mr. Tom Johnson, the leader of this party, was sitting in an almost empty room. He is a man with the physiognomy and the urbane manner of a Catholic prelate. Johnson is a Bolshevist and does not deny it. In spite of this he is moderate by temperament and education. He explained to me that it was natural for the town to take the lead over the country in political matters; that had likewise happened in other countries. He thought that certain limitations to the right to vote were justified, and considered the Russian Soviets a most perfect form of government. However, Mr. Johnson maintained 'we are no doctrinaires,' and is not in favor of immediately socializing agriculture, although he believes, as the result of certain small experiments in that direction, that this system would eventually find favor with the peasants. Tom Johnson is a power in Ireland.

It was he, and not the Sinn Fein executive, that ordered the general strike, which at the last moment forced the government to release the political prisoners who were on a hunger strike. But Mr. Johnson is not only a powerful man, he is likewise a very shrewd one. Northeastern Ireland, where the Unionists constituted a large majority of the population, naturally took no part in this political general strike. It also would have failed in southern Ireland, if the middle classes had not valiantly supported it. In order to overcome the exceedingly bad impression which the defiance of his authority by the Belfast trade unions had occasioned, he shortly afterward called a second strike to better the distressing conditions of the city working men. The longshoremen, for instance, refused to load Irish butter and bacon, which goes largely to the English market, and took it upon themselves to fix a maximum price for these commodities in Ireland. Naturally the Orangemen up in Belfast, who were quite in sympathy with that measure, joined it enthusiastically. This strike was completely successful. To-day every Irish peasant, before selling his butter to an English trader must get a written permit from the trade union officials. The latter demand the privilege of inspecting the farmer's books before they will grant such a license. Since that time butter and bacon have been enviably cheap in the Irish cities; but on the other hand,