Idees. We have more than once invited our readers to enlighten us as to the political divergencies between Mr. Asquith, Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Bonar Law, but so far there has been no response. Except that they call themselves by different names and claim to be either 'Unionists,' 'Liberals' or 'Radicals,' they are as like as a row of ninepins.

ness depression. While the season of 1919 was very prosperous and the resorts were crowded, the present summer is witnessing empty pensions and scantily patronized hotels, with heavy losses to their proprietors.

YUGOSLAV IRRITATION

A BELGRADE correspondent of the N Berliner Tageblatt writes that Yugoslavia's relations with Italy are precipitating a succession of political crises, which the government is constantly trying to allay. The recent h riots in Trieste and Spalato, where t South Slav business houses were There mobbed, have probably increased the tension of public sentiment. This writer says that maps are displayed in shop windows showing how much territory the Italians have seized on the

Politics everywhere, whether under the written American Constitution or under our elastic Parliamentary government, have degenerated into a competition for place and power. The single issue before the American people is whether the Washington government shall remain in the hands of the Democrats or be transferred to the Republicans, or to some third party manipulated by Mr. Hearst. Britons everywhere can watch the struggle with equanimity, and will remain calm under the provocations which are common form at every Presidential Election. It is self-evident that neither we nor the Americans have solved the problem of human government, considering that one country has remained for several years at the mercy of Mr. Wilson's whims and fancies while the other does not know how to shake off the incubus of Mr. Lloyd George. We are therefore not in a position to laugh at one another. We are all in the same boat, and that boat steered by politicians!

DEPRESSION IN CENTRAL EUROPE

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many thousands of the Serbs' 'Slavic brothers' are being 'enslaved' by the Italians. A crowd gathers around. A young peasant says to his father, "We will soon be at it again, and I must enlist.' The old father comments calmly, 'No fear, my lad, I'll be with you.'

Premier Giolotti's organ, La Stampa, has advocated concessions to to the Slavs, and as recently as last January asserted that, 'The eastern Adriatic coast, which Italy is claiming, will be under constant pressure from the people of the interior, and this pressure will continue to increase. The attempt to stem that tide is useless. What real profit do we get from these strategic positions, and from shutting the Slavs off from the sea like enemies? We shall never be able to extend our rule over those Balkan countries and the only result will be to make a desert of that coast.' Moreover the new Foreign Minister, Count Storza, who was Italy's ambassador to Serbia while the government of the kingdom was exiled at Corfu, is recognized to be very

ALTHOUGH Czecho-Slovakia gives evidence of as hopeful political and economic progress as any of the recently erected states in Central and Eastern Europe, its food situation still causes concern. The Minister of Supply recently stated that the store of provisions in Prague would be exhausted in July, and in one of the suburbs people had been without bread for six weeks. The rise in wages has increased to cost of coal and raw materials and prevented manufacturers from competing in foreign markets; and indeed they are now having difficulty in defending their own markets. In fact Czecho-Slovakia, Jike Germany, finds its foreign trade suddenly checked by the improvement of exchange. In the latter country, the bad season at northern beaches and summer resorts is cited as an evidence of the general busi

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friendly to the Serbs. In spite of these

the apparently favorable conditions, however, the common people distrust the Giolitti ministry more than they did that of Nitti, with which they looked forward to concluding a speedy understanding.

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PROFITEERING IN ANCIENT ROME

PEOPLE who believe in Spengler's theory, that our present civilization shows evidences of decadence analogous to those which accompanied the last days of the Greco-Roman era, will find confirmation for their opinion in a work by Theodor Birt entitled Late Roman Characteristics (Spätrömische Charakterbilder), in which he cites a wealth of inscriptions and other documentary materials to show that during and following the reign of Diocletian the depreciation of the currency and resulting rise in prices paralyzed industry and pauperized the people. Constant efforts to set maximum prices and to adjust wages to the rising cost of living proved a failure. Diocletian finally stated in one edict that people 'profiteering in the products which God has given us, demanding four. times and eight times their normal price,' shall be punished with death. His successor, Julian (A.D. 361-363), discovered to his sorrow that, when he attempted to check the operations of wealthy speculators who bought up Egypt's grain crops and sold them at an enormous increase to city consumers, the only result was to create a famine.

POLISH PROPAGANDA IN GERMANY?

THE Hamburger Nachrichten prints a communication from a Polish member of its staff in the Ruhr district, describing the alleged efforts of the Polish miners in that neighborhood to disorganize industry. They are charged with being Bolshevist propagandists.

The Ruhr district is overrun with Polish agents sent from Warsaw and well provided with money apparently from French sources to undermine the industries of the district. The intimate understanding between Poland and France is shown by the frequent trips which the Polish consul in Essen makes to Paris. These are hardly pleasure trips. Just now a great effort is being made to get Polish mine workers, and especially coal hewers, to go to France. It is hoped to attain two objects by this means. To injure the German mining industry, which is especially short of hewers, and to strengthen the ties between Poland and France. Polish emigration agents even have the impudence to promote the emigration of German miners. But many of the Poles who were induced to go to France are coming back dissatisfied with their adventure.

This sounds like the alarmist report of employers at a labor migration to the devastated areas of France, to which high wages are drawing workers from all parts of Western Europe.

LABOR SENTIMENT IN POLAND In an optimistic letter to the London Economist, a Warsaw correspondent comments as follows upon labor 'sentiment in that country:

It is pretty certain that Poland is not a ground on which Bolshevism can hope to carry a successful propaganda. At a congress held by the Socialist trade unions all Bolshevist resolutions were rejected; among others the majority declared itself strongly against the introduction of 'factory soviets,' similar to those which have destroyed all industrial organizations and discipline in Russia. Besides the Socialist trade unions, which dispose of 564,302 members, there are in Poland National and Christian Unions, with an aggregate membership of 453,612 workers. Those unions are decidedly antiBolshevist.

It may be said that the period of social neurasthenia, which made itself felt after the armistice, and manifested itself in political strikes, and in a decrease of the productivity of labor, is now quite over. This is clearly shown by the statistics of coal output. The monthly average of coal, extracted by one workman, amounted in 1912 to 12.44 tons; in January, 1920, to 14.29; in February to 13.56 tons.

FAMISHED CHILDREN IN RUSSIA

A FEW weeks ago we printed an extract from Alderman Ben Turner's

account of his recent visit to Russia, as Chairman of the British Labor Delegation, in which he spoke highly of the care which the Soviet government is taking of the children. Probably conditions vary widely in different places and at different times. At least quite a contrasting picture is given by a Russian schoolmistress, who describes everyday life of the school children under her instruction as follows:

You cannot even imagine to what an extent the children are starved. When there was a talk once about the need for them to cross the road after lunch to other premises for their lessons, they gathered round me and quite seriously said: "You ought to know that we cannot do it. We will have to go four times up and down stairs and cross a street. We get so tired. . . . It would be too difficult for us.' The children remain sitting in the same seats the whole day; it is very difficult to get them out during recreations, when the classrooms have to be aired. Sometimes you can guess by the expression in their eyes that they are ready to do anything except rise from their seats and leave the

room.

They begin to get a little livelier when they are going to lunch. Then, gathering all their strength, they run as fast as they can to the tables, tear the food out of the hands of one another, crying and imploring the matron to give them more. I have seen myself how their faces and their eyes brighten up at meal times; some sickly color appears on their cheeks and they look somewhat like ordinary children. But after meals they seem to wither up again; they go to the classrooms and sit bending over their desks, half asleep and half awake.

MINOR NOTES

ACCORDING to the Petrograd Krasnaya Gazeta, 217 strikes took place in Russian nationalized factories during June. Twenty of them were accompanied by violence and were terminated only by threatening to send the strikers to forced labor camps. So disturbing have these constant disputes become that the Bolshevist Supreme Council of Industry has decided to establish 'colleges of political enlightenment' in every factory. All employees will be obliged to attend

lectures describing the benefits of Soviet rule, and will receive full pay for the time thus spent.

In England and Wales the number of convictions for drunkenness in 1919 was nearly double the number for the previous year, thus confirming the experience of the other belligerent countries with the effects of demobilization and reaction from war discipline. The British Home Office suggests as the reasons for this increase in drunkenness: more men at home and fewer in uniform; more hours for drinking; more and stronger liquor; more light in the streets; more money; more leisure, and less self-control.

A SUB-COMMITTEE of the Commission appointed by the German Parliament to investigate the conduct of the war has just presented a report containing the following two conclusions:

1. Wilson's attempt at mediation in the winter of 1916-1917 created a situation which rendered peace negotiations possible. The Imperial government refused to avail itself of this opportunity.

2. The reason why the government did not use the opportunity to begin peace negotiations was the decision taken on January 9, 1917, to resume unlimited submarine warfare.

THE latest German newspapers t which reach our desk discuss at length the results of the Spa Conference. The organs of the Socialist Parties, which have perhaps the widest circulation, naturally interpret the Conference as 'a desperate effort of shattered and bankrupt capitalism to keep itself erect.' They predict with the utmost confidence the eventual failure of the agreements there made. However, they welcome compulsory disarmament in Germany and lay stress upon the fact that the German government continues to spend several billions of marks annually upon its military and naval establishments.

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LAST autumn when Denikin's troops were in front of Orel, and his armies were lying in a great bow extending from the Roumanian frontier beyond Kieff and to the middle courses of the Volga, and when his government controlled South Russia, the granary of the former empire, everyone believed that the last hour of Bolshevism was about to strike. Orel had not been captured. Trotsky defiantly called it "The Red Verdun.' But shortly thereafter 'Red Verdun' fell, and the antiBolsheviki were jubilant. Kolchak, driven back against the Urals, breathed a sigh of relief. The capture of Moscow and the extirpation of Bolshevism seemed but a question of days.

But the new structure which Denilekin had erected was already rotten to

the core. The people of the territories Phe had liberated, who formed the foundation stones of that structure, were discordant, disunited, and discontented. His policies, which should. have been the mortar to cement them together, were mistaken and perverse. He was unable to stabilize and solidify his creation. It needed but one powerful blow to level his ambitious edifice to the dust.

The blow came. The man who delivered it understood his task. He was the son of a Cossack, a child of the Steppes, who had spent his life from

infancy on horseback. When the old Tsarist régime collapsed and public order ceased, this man became a bandit leader, and while thus engaged became convinced that the slow-moving, stolid Middle Russian peasants and workers unaided would never be a match for the mobile mounted Cossacks of Generals Schkuro and Wrangel, the cavalry leaders of Denikin's army. He took the side of 'the people.'

Soon his battle cry was heard throughout the land. To horse, Proletarians!' His freebooter band became a Red regiment. He- Budyonny-became a cavalry colonel. His sensible recognition of the necessity of system made him obedient to higher orders when the situation demanded. His experience as a sergeant-major of Cossacks during the World War had taught him the essentials of military tactics. Personal courage pushed to the bounds of recklessness, and a genius for dealing with the simple minded, rough human materials at his hand, made him the idol of his troops.

He attacked Denikin furiously. Orel had to be surrendered. Relentlessly the former Cossack sergeant-major hurled himself against the crumbling Denikin front. Immediately every weakness of the latter stood unveiled - his political blunders, and the false