by borne by the whole world, and will be so borne unless the United States, which alone maintains mans a gold currency, attempts to force prices down again in its own territory. The local rises will continue until the various governments concerned stabilize their currencies. This country has made a beginning by limiting the issue of uncovered treasury notes. There seems no reason why this example should not be followed. When the conference meets it would do well to consider how it may best enable every Sovereign state to bring its note issue into a fixed relation with its gold reserves. Commenting upon this paper the London Statist says: After reading the professor's thesis no one can doubt the validity of his arguments in favor of reducing inflation, but the remedy which he proposes namely, increased rates for money seems ineffective unless there is a halt called by the various governments to the creation of credits. Credit manufacture inevitably expands the currency and raises prices, so defeating the very purpose of high money rates in the Swedish scheme of reform. Looking at the matter from another point of view, it seems as if undue importance might easily be attached to the possible remedial effects of purely financial reforms. Finance is ever the handmaid of industry, and money as the medium of exchange must always occupy a secondary position in our commercial economy. A low bank rate in any country under present conditions belies, indeed, the money market, since it induces a wide-spread belief, utterly without foundation, that capital is in abundant supply. But it seems an undue extension of the argument to conclude that the wholesale raising of rates will prove a panacea for industrial and general economic ills, in the absence of other and more comprehensive measures to curtail wasteful expenditure, increase savings, and devote greater energy to the production of useful consumable goods. * Jevons' numbers adjusted. ALLEGED FRANCO-WRANGEL CONTRACT ACCORDING to the London Daily Herald the following memorandum of an agreement between the French government and General Wrangel has reached its Stockholm correspondent: For the promise of official recognition by France, and military and diplomatic support against the Soviet government, General Wrangel engages himself: (1) To recognize with priority all debts due to France by the Russian State and municipalities, to be paid in compound interest. (2) The Soviet government having been overthrown, France converts all Russian debts to a new loan, at a yearly interest of 62 per cent for 35 years, with partial yearly amortization. (3) The paying of interests and the yearly amortization of capital is to be guaranteed by: (a) The handing over to France for exploitation of all railways of European Russia for years. Note: The number of years for points (a), (c), (d), and (e) to be settled by a special agreement, not yet drawn up. Points (b), (c), and (e) take effect immediately after Wrangel's conquest of the corresponding territories. The sums obtained by the export of raw materials should be used for the payment of interest for old debts. (4) To the Russian financial, commercial, and industrial ministeries shall be attached officials of the French financial and commercial Chancellories, whose rights shall be settled by a special treaty. (5) Russia engages itself to restore liability to military service upon the same basis as before the war. (6) France undertakes to restore the Russian rifle and munition factories and the primary equipping of the new army. France and Russia enter into a military offensive and defensive alliance for 20 years. By a secret treaty is settled the policy of France concerning the border States separated from Russia, and their mutual relations to Russia. AMERICAN-GERMAN SHIPPING LINES THE Manchester Guardian quotes in its commercial review the following comment in the Copenhagen Politiken upon the German-American shipping alliance described in our issue of September 4: It means nothing less than a huge GermanAmerican commercial alliance against England, a turning-point in the history of German shipping. Soon we will see a newly prosperous Hamburg. In our country (Denmark) much has been said about Copenhagen's chances as a Baltic trading centre, but nothing seems to have been done to further this project. Hamburg, on the other hand, threw itself into the work with wonderful energy and widespread propaganda, in order to keep its position as the greatest harbor in the German Empire in the battle for the world's trade. The article goes on to to describe America's alleged efforts to 'usurp' Great Britain's position as first seaPower by the construction of a huge fleet, and proceeds: Ships alone will not accomplish this gigantic task, and America lacks the experience and the technical apparatus required for this purpose. There are many other important things lacking, such as marine instinct, geographical position, customs, and tradition which are the result of many centuries' experience. Since the armistice it has become impossible to get hold of the necessary crews. But what America lacks, Germany can supply. The big German shipping companies have no ships but they have an army of experienced sailors, engineers, and technicians. In other words they have the requisite technical apparatus. Under the circumstances, nothing is more desirable than an American-German shipping alliance for both these countries. According to another issue of the same paper, the cotton industry of Great Britain is facing an acute depression. Spinning has not been affected to the same extent as weaving, but the situation in both branches is regarded as bad enough to justify combined action by mill owners to limit production. High costs are frightening buyers. While food has risen 162 per cent above pre-war prices, and minerals 182 per cent, textiles are now 321 per cent dearer than in 1914. Heavy cancellations of foreign orders are reported. S to 2 A the Mr. Herrick, our United States ambassador, remained in Paris voluntarily when the French government withdrew to Bordeaux in August, 1914. At one time he narrowly escaped a bomb dropped by a German aviator. Referring to the incident he is reported to have said: ‘A dead ambassador is sometimes more useful than a living one.' Just before the battle of the Marne a message is said to have reached Mr. Herrick from the German higher command, urging him to leave Paris with all his staff. He replied that he believed it his duty to remain at his post, not only to defend the interests of his country, but also to protect Frenchmen and neutrals, and works of art from the invading troops. GERMAN FIRMS IN BRAZIL A CORRESPONDENT of the London Daily Telegraph, describing the effect of the war upon the German settlements in Southern Brazil, says that the first official German colony in that region was founded in 1826. A quarter of a century thereafter, 'a flood of German settlers' poured into the extreme southern section of the Empire. About 1855 the German government forbade further emigration to Brazil, and for many years afterward the only Germans going. to the country were merchants and professional men attracted by business opportunities in the prosperous German settlements. Consequently, the German speaking residents of the Republic at the outbreak of the war were mostly descendants of the third and fourth generation from the original settlers. firms, controlling coastal and river steamship lines and a lion's share of the inland trade, exercised a great influence throughout this region. They had displaced nearly all of the formerly prosperous British firms. During the first year of the war some of these establishments maintained a large force of experts 'engaged in preparing, printing, and distributing violent German propaganda.' When Brazil entered the war, it confiscated the trading steamers of these companies; and enabled new mercantile companies to establish themselves, which, in the opinion of this correspondent, have permanently ended the old German commercial monopoly of that region. WAR PRISONERS IN SIBERIA ELSA BRANDSTROM, a Swedish Red Cross nurse, who has just returned from five years' service among the war prisoners in Siberia, reports that there are still two hundred thousand military and civilian prisoners held in that region. Many a man had appealed to her on his deathbed 'never to tell my mother how I have died.' On one occasion she met the only five survivors of a labor company which had originally consisted of six hundred men. On another occasion she worked where seventeen thousand prisoners confined in an internment camp were reduced by an epidemic of typhus to five thousand survivors in the course of a single winter. She says the world will never know the immensity of the human suffering which the last five years have witnessed among these unfortunates, and cautions her readers against being misled by the favorable accounts of prisoners who have been lucky enough to escape, but whose experience does not represent that of the great majority: Russia is a country of the greatest conceivable contrasts. The experiences of war prisoners have However, powerful German trading been incredibly varied. To judge their condition 777 justly, we must remember that those who have succeeded in escaping are usually the most vigorous, intelligent, and lucky of their fellows. In many cases they were able to live better during their detention in that country than war prisoners in any other country. The reports of such men may give a totally false impression of the true state of things. THE BOLIVIAN REVOLUTION A LA PAZ correspondent of the London Times, describing the recent revolution in Bolivia, was told by the deposed President, Dr. Jose Gutierrez Guerra, who has British blood in his veins, was educated in England, and speaks English perfectly: I received confidential notice of the Revolution very early in the morning, rose, and went to my garden to take the sun a little before I should be arrested, and sat there from seven o'clock till eleven, but no one came. Dr. Saavedra, who headed the revolution, is a former college professor, and has written a sociological treatise. Although a few people were killed in the outlying districts, very little bloodshed attended the overthrow of the old government. In La Paz itself the pueblo soberano picknicked in the plaza, listening with impassive faces to the bands and speeches of the latter days of the week. The causes of the Revolution appear to be fairly simple, the chief being that the Liberals had been too long in power. Opportunity for action was offered by the recent illness of Dr. Gutierrez and his practical retirement from active work. The depression consequent upon falling prices of Bolivian minerals and the high cost of foodstuffs helped to foment discontent. The question of a port for Bolivia of course enters into all political platforms. The late government pursued a policy of friendship with Chile, and aimed at securing Arica, an agreement to this effect having been reached between the Bolivian Minister in Paris and the Chilean Minister in London. POPULATION QUESTION IN FRANCE THE Journal Officiel of the French government has recently published vital statistics for 1919 of the 77 unin vaded French departments. For that year the total births were 403,502 and the total deaths 620,688, giving a loss of population of 217,186. This condi tion, while sufficiently alarming, shows naturally a considerable improvement over that of 1918. As compared with pre-war years, the number of births is considerably less, although the number of marriages is almost double. The number of deaths is practically normal. With this situation in mind a new and practical proposal for assisting the birth rate has recently been put before the Chamber of Deputies. Instead of the previous government plan of bestowing bronze, silver, and gold medals on the mothers of large families, a project of state insurance is proposed, which would aid prospective and recent mothers, giving them, if of the working class, payment of full wages during at least two months, together with monthly allowances or bonuses for each child until he or she is sixteen years old. The full details have not been announced, but enough is known to show the interest of the state in the child, and that for the parents, 'parenthood must be made worth while.' A RECENT speech by Lord Milner, reviving the long mooted plan of an imperial federation, has been received with marked disfavor in Australia. The antagonism to this proposal is strongest within the Labor party, which interprets it as a device 'to break down the White Australia principle and pour into our undeveloped territories the hordes of cheap colored labor which other parts of the empire can supply.' The Liberals are also hostile, refusing to agree to any arrangement by which Australia will surrender its defense to an outside body. A DISCIPLE of the theory that the rôle which human personality plays in the progress of civilization is negligible, will scarcely agree with my view of Lenin, as a source of energy, without which the Russian revolution could not have assumed the form which it has assumed. Once I compared Lenin provisionally with Peter the Great. Many laughed at my comparison, finding it exaggerated. But it was, really, only a provisional comparison; for I consider Lenin's rôle as a social reformer for Russia of smaller significance than his importance as a world revolutionary. He is not only a man whose will has been chosen by history for the performance of the stupendous task of stirring up to the very bottom that variegated, clumsy, and indolent human ant-hill, known as Russia: his will is a tireless battering ram the blows of which shake to the very foundations of the monumentally upreared capitalistic states of the West, and the ugly, slavish heaps of the thousand-year old despotisms of the East. I still think, as I thought two years ago, that, for Lenin, Russia is merely the material for an experiment on a universal, planetary scale. Formerly, this thought, pushed to the background by a feeling of pity for the Russian people, infuriated me. But as it becomes more and more apparent to me that the development of the Russian revolution, becoming broader and deeper all the time, is stirring up and organizing forces capable of shattering the foundations of the universal capitalistic order, I now feel that even if Russia is destined to serve as the object of such an experiment, it is utterly unjust to charge this against the one man, who is making every effort to transform the potential energy of the Russian working masses into active, kinetic energy. It is right and just that each nation should receive its just deserts. A people which had become stagnant in an atmosphere of a monarchic order, inactive and lacking in will power, robbed of faith in itself, not sufficiently 'bourgeois' to be strong in resistance, yet not resolute enough to destroy in itself the beggarly, though deeprooted desire for 'bourgeois' well-being, such a people, by the logic of its uninspiring history, must, apparently, pass through all the dramas and the tragedies which inevitably befall passive races exposed to an epoch of a ferocious class war such as has its most dastardly expression in a monstrosity like the slaughter of 1914-18. Of course, I am not attempting to compose a speech in defense or justification of Lenin. I do not need to do this; nor has he any need for it. But I know Lenin somewhat, and when I hear 'objectively thinking men blame him for the cruel civil war, the terror, and the other crimes which are being perpetrated in Russia, I recall Mr. Lloyd George, who in 1913-14 praised the Germans to the skies in speeches which he delivered to a party |