Foreign News-[Continued] example, when God Save the King was played, the Union Jack run up on Mr. Belmont's private pole, and the Baron appeared in the paddock and on the judges' stand, many thousands of gullets manufactured right lusty and hearty cheers. Lord Renfrew's hat created so much sensation that reporters forgot to mention the rest of his attire. It was a Panama with the brim turned down all the way around-as they are usually worn in the Isles of Britain. In every other respect it resembled other Panamas, but even this last distinction was effaced by the Belmont multitude which was seen furtively turning down Panama brims. Occasion was taken by reporters to inform the plebs that the Baron has two Panamas, one senescent and one neoteric. The new variety caused the commotion. Tuesday activities for the Prince included the writing of a letter to his royal parents and participation in a polo game at the Phipps estate, where he played at No. 1, made a goal for his side. The Balance of Power On Oct. 1, French and German delegates will meet in Paris to negotiate a treaty of commerce between their That fact is of respective countries. tremendous importance to Britain for two reasons: Political. Before the War, Britain's influence on the Continent of Europe rested snugly upon the doctrine of the balance of power. In those days, the Continental Great Powers were Germany, Austria Hungary, Russia, France. "Balance of power" meant to Britain the equal division of these Powers so that she could, at a given time, exert a decisive influence. After the War, the application of balance of power was more simple, but less efficacious. France and Italy were the sole Great Powers on the Continent; but national animosities kept them apart and thus played into the hands of Britain. Alone of the ex-enemy States, Germany remained a potential Great Power. In the manifold disputes which from time to time arose between France and Germany, Britain was able, although not always successfully under the new economic conditions, to exert considerable pressure upon one side or the other. With unmistakable evidence, France and Germany began to display a desire for an economic rapprochement which is to take definite form at Paris in October. It is freely predicted by political sages that Britain's balance of power plans are to be forever upset. Economic. In London last week, political circles were thrilled by a speech from Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowden, "Enemy of Capitalism," as some still like to call CHANCELLOR SNOWDEN "In that sharp, rasping voicehim. His words were prophetic, revealing, in the present, a rift within the Labor Party and, in the future, the shoals of dangerous commercial enmity. His utterance, issued in that sharp, rasping voice that verges upon the disagreeable, implicated the Free Trade platform upon which Labor stood at the last election (TIME, Nov. 26 et seq.), and gave shape to a political crisis that may, some predicted, involve the country in a general election next December. It has been said that Premier Ramsay MacDonald is a politician and an opportunist before a Socialist. Philip Snowden is a Socialist before all else, yielding nothing, "consumed with one passionate purpose," "a Robespierre of concentrated and remorseless purpose." When Mr. Snowden became Chancellor of the Exchequer, enemies gazed upon his crippled form-the result of a bicycle accident when young-and declared him an idealist, a pacifist, a radical, a man without training for the high office of Chancellor. To them he was a despicable figure. Then came his budget (TIME, May 12). People were forced to change their views. When that "pallid, hatchet-faced man, small, leaning heavily upon his crutches, dragging one foot helplessly along the ground," took his place upon the Treasury Bench in the House of Commons, made his budget speech, they recognized him as a master of finance and economics, an outstanding Chancellor among the outstanding Chancellors of Britain. Even Conservatives cheered him to the echo. The words of such a man are not to be taken lightly. At London, last week, apropos of the Experts' Plan and the jeopardized future of British trade, he said in effect: "By the Experts' Plan it was hoped to expand British trade and find work for our million unemployed. But a Franco-German trade agreement may well offset this expected result." The Chancellor went on to make a veiled attack upon the Premier which was construed as meaning that Mr. MacDonald must rely more upon his Ministers and less upon himself; for it had become known that the Cabinet was not consulted upon the Anglo-Russian settlement (TIME, Aug. 18). Philip's Conservatives interpreted speech as a plain statement in support of protection, which means preferential tariffs for Commonwealth products. The prophets heralded a new general election in which the following problems would be paramount: 1) Future British trade, implicating a revival of the age-old Protection versus Free Trade controversy; 2) The Irish boundary dispute (TIME, Aug. 11); 3) The Anglo Russian (TIME, Aug. 18). Treaty Significance. The economic situation on the Continent gave poignancy to Snowden's speech. What did he mean by saying that a trade agreement between France and Germany "may well offset this expected result?" This: By the Treaty of Versailles Germany's Ruhr coal was separated from her Alsace-Lorraine iron ore. The coal remained in Germany; the ores went to France. France has not enough coal; Germany has not enough iron ores. The logical thing for France to do is to follow the advice of that ex-Premier of France and economic genius, M. Joseph Caillaux, and seek an economic association with Germany. This can have but one result: The close coöperation of the two industries will form the largest steel combination in the world. Germany and France will be enabled to control many world markets to the complete exclusion of the British; and their combined power will, until Russia becomes once more a Great Power, be ever a standing challenge to British influence on the Continent and an unremitting foe to British commerce. It must be remembered that Joseph Caillaux's scheme of things was to end British interference in Continental affairsa policy which Premier Herriot of France is following while paradoxi Foreign News-[Continued] cally clinging to the Entente Cordiale. British miners besought Premier MacDonald to prevent Germany from paying any more reparations in coalFrance, to a large extent, and Germany, to a lesser degree, have in recent years been the largest coal customers of Britain-and generally warned him of the effect that the London Agreement (TIME, Aug. 25, INTERNATIONAL) will have on the industry. Political leaders are beginning to growl; for British trade and British influence were being threatened on the Continent by a likely combination that is to give a new meaning to the doctrine of the balance of power. FRANCE Alsace-Lorraine in Premier Herriot announced Paris that in October he would pay a visit to Alsace and Lorraine (those two long-lost daughters that were returned to the bosom of La Mère Patrie in 1918) in order to study how legislation can be modified progressively and French law introduced into the restored Provinces. Behind this innocent little statement lies a wealth of detail, much burning resentment, the most difficult of French domestic problems, principally religious in nature. From 1918 until the present, the Government of France has supported Roman Catholicism. Relations were established between Paris and the Holy See. The congregations (religious bodies) excluded by laws passed at the beginning of the present century, began to return. Catholic Alsace and Lorraine were permitted to retain their own laws and customs which had been granted to them under the Hohenzollern régime. Not even the most rabid Nationalist dared to foist French laws upon the people of those Provinces; religious privileges, denied to French men and women in France, were freely exercised in Alsace and Lorraine. Then came the election of May 11, 1924 (TÍME, May 19), and the political face of France was radically altered. Anti-Clericalism had supplanted Clericalism. In a ministerial statement M. Herriot declared: "The Government is persuaded that it will interpret faithfully the wishes of the dear population at last restored to France by hastening the day on which will be effaced the last differences between the legislation in the recovered departments and the rest of the territory of the Republic." A hue and cry was raised throughPeople out the liberated Provinces. who had enthusiastically acclaimed the French as their long-lost brothers after the Armistice, were now driven to unconcealed dismay. On the one hand was the clear impossibility of maintaining German laws in French Provinces; on the other hand was the fervid determination of the Catholic population a large majority-not to submit to anti-Catholic laws of the French Republic. The situation is best summed up by the people of Colmar: "The Catholics of Colmar, gathered together to protest against the religious war that the present Government has declared upon them, raise their voices against the project of unchaining religious strife in Alsace and Lorraine, without taking heed of the extremely difficult political situation of France both in the interior and in the foreign domain. "They declare that the project in the most brutal fashion ignores the inalienable rights of the members of the Catholic religion and the imprescriptable rights of believing parents. They consider it as the shameful breaking of a pledge given by France to the Alsatians and Lorrainers to respect their liberties and their traditions. "They energetically demand the maintenance of the laws which governed the schools and the relations between the Church and the State at the moment of their return to France. They demand the withdrawal of the teaching personnel and the withdrawal of the scholastic books which do not respond to the spirit of the confessional schools. This personnel and these books have been surreptitiously introduced in the schools by the educational authorities. "They demand, in place of the decisions of certain municipal councils which are in flagrant opposition to the will of the parents, to be allowed to make known what is the will of the people in the questions which concern the Church and the schools. "They declare that they are firmly resolved to use all the means which are in their power to obtain the immediate realization of their claims, and are resolved to defend with an inflexible energy their rights, their liberties and their traditions." Those who have gazed at the tall spire of the Strasbourg Cathedral, shrouded in Gothic mystery, remember that this is the place where Goethe received his education. They will remember that the Provinces were, until the time of Louis XIV, a part of the Holy Roman Empire, that from 1871 until 1918 they were part of the old German Empire. Gazing around the streets, these people will find German signs faintly obliterated by French; they will become conscious every now and then that German is being spoken by the passerby. The opponents of M. Herriot ask: "How can a country so impregnated with German customs be assimilated to France in the twinkling of an eye?" Premier Herriot was forced to see the point. He announced last week that any project designed to modify the present status of Alsace and Lorraine would be submitted to Parliament before being put into effect. This statement was taken to indicate that the Government had abandoned its plan to alter immediately the laws of the Provinces in favor of a progressive assimilation to La Mère Patrie. M. Herriot's proposed trip to the Provinces gives additional corroboration. RUSSIA Battle for Life In the days before the Revolution, one man haunted Russia-he was the arch-conspirator, Gen. Boris Savin kov. One snowy day in Moscow, the Grand Duke Sergius was blown to pieces at the Kremlin gate-one Kalayev threw the bomb; but the man who engineered the plot was the arch-Terrorist, Gen. Boris Savinkov. Three Ministers of the Tsar died violent deaths; and three men were hanged for their deeds. They and the girl, Fanny Kaplan, who came within an ace of killing Lenin in 1918, took their orders from the arch-fiend, Gen. Boris Savinkov. One gray morning, the body of Father Gapon was discovered on an island in Lake Ladoga, near St. Petersburg. He has been strangled to death, so the police said, by the strong hands of the arch-murderer, Gen. Boris Savinkov. Then came the Revolution of 1917, with Kerensky at its head; the active support of his régime was the archrevolutionary Gen. Boris Savinkov. When Kerensky was ousted by the Bolsheviki, Savinkov fled to Paris. In Paris, a Russian was told that his country was enslaved by a tyranny surpassing that of the Tsars. Others told him that his Fatherland was at last free. Recently he decided Foreign News-[Continued] to go to Russia and find out the truth for himself. At the frontier, the Bolsheviki were awaiting him. He was imprisoned and brought up for trial at Moscow, scene of many of his assassinations. The opening days of his trial were held in camera. He told his judges that President Masaryk of CzechoSlovakia had contributed several thousands of dollars to a murder plot against Lenin, Trotzky and other Bolsheviki. He told of his disagreement with Lenin-how he had advocated murder and Lenin had advocated the organization of the proletariat to oust the Tsar from his throne. He told of a plot to kill Rakovsky (now Chargé d'Affaires in Great Britain), and Foreign Minister Tchitcherin in Berlin as they returned from the Genoa Conference in 1922. He told of many more interesting things. The final day of the trial came last week; and the Soviet Government opened the courtroom to the public. There was the Supreme Judge of the Military Tribunal, Ulrich, guarded by three stalwart soldiers. There was Kamenev, Acting Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, sitting with his beautiful wife. Side by side sat Krassikov, President of the Supreme Court; Kursky, Commissioner of Justice; Minjiniki Elyava, Head of the Trans-Caucasian Federation; Karl Radek, famed diplomat; another arch-devil, Bela Kun, quondam Red Dictator of Hungary. In the dock was a small man, quite bald, about 45, dressed in a cheap doublebreasted grey sack suit and a thin black tie. His face was reminiscent of a youthful Napoleon, but "cadaverous and drawn with deep shadows under the eyes." He was unafraid and viewed the spectators lazily. He was the arch-desperado, Gen. Boris Savinkov. The trial began. "Make your final statement," said the Judge. Replied the prisoner, in a low, weak voice: "I am not afraid to die. I know your sentence already, but I do not. care. I am Boris Savinkov, who always played on the threshold; Boris Savinkov, revolutionary and friend of revolutionaries, to be judged now by your revolutionary court. "I am here by my fault, my unwilling fault. You represent the Russian people-the workers and the peasants. Judge me for my faults, my unwilling faults, toward Russia." After reviewing his ghastly life as a Terrorist, he pleaded with outstretched hands for his life; or, if he was still impervious to his fate, his words belied him: "I turned against you for four reasons: First, my life's dream had been the Constituent Assembly. You smashed it; and iron entered my soul. I was wrong. Our Russia isn't ready for self-government. You knew it; and I didn't. I admit my fault. "Second, the Brest-Litovsk Peace, which I regarded as a shameful betrayal of my country. Again I was wrong; and you were right. History has proved it; and I admit my fault. "Third, I thought that Bolshevism couldn't stand, that it was too extreme, that it would be replaced by the other extreme of monarchism and that the only alternative was the middle course. Again I was proved wrong and again I admit it. "Fourth, and most important reason, I believed that you didn't represent the Russian masses-the workers and peasants. I have lived always in the water-tight compartment of the conspirator. I knew nothing of the feelings of the Russian masses. But I thought that they were against you; and so I, who have given my life to their service, set myself against you also." He then told the court why he had come back to Russia. His reason was that he wanted to find out the truth, "to see it with my own eyes, to hear it with my own ears." "Now I know," he went on, "and my life is cheap as the price of that knowledge. I say here before your court, whose sentence I know already, surrounded by your soldiers, of whom I have no fear, that I recognize unconditionally your right to govern Russia. I ask not your mercy. I ask you only to let your revolutionary conscience judge a man who has never sought anything for himself, who has devoted his whole life to the cause of the Russian people. But I add this: Before coming here to say that I recognize you, I have gone through worse suffering than the utmost you can do to me." The presiding Judge announced a 15-minute interval. Said Kursky: "I think he is telling the truth. And, what is more, our investigations have shown no attempt on his part to start Terrorist activities here nor to get in touch with anti-Bolshevik organizations. For one thing, there are no such organizations in existence, though he may not know that. Anyway, I believe he is honest." Bela Kun dissented: "Savinkov is a bold fellow, who has always carried his life in his hands. But he is a romantic creature, not a Marxist. He has been tracked and threatened a thousand times and has lived ever in an atmosphere of murder and sudden death. Now he is up against it and, like the true romantic, gives us a beautiful story." The 15 minutes were up. Said Judge Ulrich: "We have heard your statement. Have you anything more to say before judgment is passed upon you?" The prisoner replied: "I know your sentence and I don't care. I am not afraid of it nor of death. But one thing I do fear-that the Russian people will misjudge me and misunderstand my life and its purpose. I never was an enemy of the Russian people. I have devoted my life to serving them. I have made mistakes, but I die unashamed and unafraid." There was another adjournment, after which the court passed sentence upon the die-hard revolutionary, Gen. Boris Savinkov, but recommended him to mercy. Gen. Savinkov knew then that he would not die. Karl Radek summed up the trial: "It's a perfect melodrama. Cesare Borgia in the rôle of Hamlet. What an amazing scoundrel is this Savinkov, drenched in blood, yet compelling us to believe in his sincerity, making us understand and even share his soul's agony! For me, I would shoot him out of hand. He is so utterly the plotter, so profoundly devoted to murder and destruction as to be incapable of anything else. And yet the man has elements of greatness. In his warped mind, I believe there is a genuine devotion to Russia, who needs the service of all her sons so much. Perhaps, after all, it is better that he live." Foreign News-[Continued] of Chihli Province. He is the ablest military mind of China. Under his control is the whole north and centre of China, except Manchuria. He is the Lord Protector of Peking, which is in his province. Although a democrat, he aims at reunifying China by the sword, which policy has brought him into conflict with the Tuchun of Manchuria and Dr. Sun Yat-sen, of the South. One of the anomalies of the situation in Peking is that President Tsao-Kun was once an enemy of Gen. Wu. At the time TsaoKun was made President of the Chinese Republic (TIME, Oct. 15), Gen. Wu made no opposition and it was alleged that he had been "bought off." Apart from being a military genius, he is a man of culture, scientific and literary. He studies hard. Recently he began to learn English, employed a tutor, gave him his only spare hour-4:30 a. m. to 5:30 a. m. He is known as a "man who speaks softly and carries a big stick." Gen Chi Hsieh-yuan, Tuchun of Kiangsu, friend of Gen. Wu. Gen. Lu Yung-hsiang, Tuchun of Chekiang, once military commissioner of Shanghai, an enemy of Gen. Chi. He is about 57 years of age. After he became Tuchun of Chekiang, he had Gen. Ho Feng-lin appointed to the Shanghai post, although Shanghai is not in his Province. Gen. Ho Feng-lin, military Commissioner of Shanghai, in the Province of Kiangsu. He is about 47 years of age and is under the influence of Gen. Lu. Marshal Chang Tso-lin, Tuchun of Manchuria, an avowed Imperialist-that is, a Monarchist. He is a young man of great brains and tremendous power, but no match for Gen. Wu, who once sadly defeated him. Manchuria is about the size of Texas and Colorado, forming enough territory in northern China to make Marshal Chang's title of War Lord of the North no empty epithet. The Row. The cause of the present trouble in China centers in Shanghai. So numerous have been the reasons for the rumpus that they have varied with the political complexion of each sinologue interpreter. The immediate cause is that Gen. Chi wants Shanghai under his thumb. As it is, he thinks the Military Commissioner in Shanghai ought to be a man of his choice. Having tried peacefully to oust Gen. Ho from the Commissionership, he is now resolved to do it by force, which brings him into con Shanghai is an extraterritorial foreign settlement situated at the extreme southeast of the Province of Kiangsu. Its great harbor is indispensable to foreign trade in China. Its poltical importance can be gauged when it is stated that all Chinese political refugees find protection within its borders. flict with Gen. Lu, who is equally determined to preserve his influence in Shanghai. The general cause of the dispute is MARSHAL CHANG "His title is no empty epithet" inherent in the political chaos which besets China. The Tuchuns, who exercise almost sovereign power in their Provinces, are split up in many factions, 'due largely to personal jealousies. The immense power which the Tuchuns wield is naturally the greatest obstacle to the reunification of China. China as such is internationally little more than a geographical expression. Nothing short of a civil war between the Centre under Gen. Wu, "biggest man in China," the South under Dr. Sun Yat-sen, and the North under Marshal Chang can ever clear away the political strife which for years has thrown the country into annual turmoil. Warning. Sir Ronald Macleay, British Minister to China and Acting Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, sent the Chinese Foreign Office a note from the Powers reminding the Government of China that it would be held responsible for loss of life and damage to property of foreign nationals. The note read: "We, the undersigned representatives of Great Britain, Japan, France and the United States, learning of the grave danger of hostilities breaking out between the provincial authorities of Kiangsu and Chekiang, feel it our duty to repeat and reaffirm in the most solemn manner the obligations of the Chinese Government in the present crisis, to prevent loss of life and prop erty to members of the foreign community in and around Shanghai." Foreign Forces. The principal Powers that are diplomatically represented in Peking keep military and naval forces in China for the protection of foreigners, who are not subject to the laws of China but to the laws of their own countries, and who are under the jurisdiction of their consulates. With trouble brewing around Shanghai, ten warships were sent to the harbor to watch over the inhabitants of the city and its outlying area. Rear Admiral David Murray Anderson, of the British Navy, was designated Commander-in-Chief of all foreign vessels: four American, three British, three Japanese. Peace. It has been said, perhaps too often, that money has frequently stopped a Chinese War. Perhaps with that in view, the Shanghai merchants essayed to bring about agreement between the threatening troops. The chances of success were said to be small. Attempts were also made to induce both sides to designate a neutral zone surrounding Shanghai. It was not known if they were successful. LATIN AMERICA Mexican Notes Recently there has been sitting in Mexico City a Special Claims Commission which is to consider and adjust claims for losses or damages suffered by U. S. Citizens in Mexico during the revolutionary period (1910-1920). At Washington last week, a General Claims Commission met to adjust Mexican and American Claims, excepting those which arose from acts connected with recent revolutions. The first Commission is to decide all claims within five years; the second is complete its task within three; both were provided for under Conventions (TIME, Aug. 27, 1923) signed in September 1923. Americans and Mexicans claimed millions of dollars from one another. Green Hat* BOOKS Michael Arlen's Rare Way -Iris, Napier, Venice The Story. Near Sutton Marle, in England, there was a great ash tree, very old and smelling of fairies and moonlight. Forking away from that tree there were two roads. Iris March and Napier Harpenden went there often as they grew up together, and they said goodbye there when Sir Maurice Harpenden parted them young because the March line was poor and running down. They said goodbye and took their two ways. Napier, whose face was that of an acolyte, took the way of old England and the gentry. It led him to Venice Pollen, of the lion-cub head and bursting, boyish spirit. Iris, whose face was white and slender beneath tiger-tawny curls, who was a March and was therefore never let off anything by Fate, took the way that was left her, courageously, defiantly. Boy Fenwick, her first husband, flung himself out of the window on their wedding night, and Iris told people he had died "for Purity." As people will, as she intended they should, they fastened the impurity upon Iris. Boy Fenwick's known chasteness bore them out and Iris went about her life in a manner that seemed to bear them out. She married again, lost her baby, drove her second husband away by murmuring Napier's name in her dreams, then took men here and there, in disdain, in anguish, in hunger and longing. Just before Napier and Venice married, Iris and Napier met again. That was a fateful dawn. When Napier and Venice went through Paris the next Winter, Iris lay there in a nursing home near death with another still-born baby and septic poisoning. But Venice was no coward. She fought on their side when Iris and Napier were for running off together. At a scene at Sutton Marle, Iris faced Sir Maurice Harpenden and loosed her hate upon him for the hell he had sent her through in the name of old England and the gentry. Venice came in at the end of the outburst and played up like the grand sport she was. It was Napier who showed badly. He must have the woman he loved a woman respected by her friends. So he went for his father, too, and he blurted out the truth about Boy Fenwick's suicide-that THE GREEN HAT-Michael Arlen-Doran ($2.00). The Significance. Many think of Michael Arlen's writing as "a delicious sewer." Others feel that he strains palpably at cleverness. Neither criticism is wholly just. Arlen's "decadence" need hardly be called sewerish for it is quite sincere, never vulgar, anything but reprehensible to fair minds. Arlen's "cleverness" is indisputable, save by the very dull; and it is beside the point that his people are wholly impossible as well as wholly charming. They are created by a sensitive person possessed of a gorgeous sense of the ridiculous, a rare way with words, and a perception half dissolute, half profound. The Author. As one might imagine, Michael Arlen is no Englishman. He plays, dines, dances and drinks with the blither young spirits of Mayfair-the social "Mugs" as he has called them. But he is not of them. Born on the Danube in Bulgaria, of Armenian parents, he was taken to Manchester as an infant, educated in schools of the "plebs" and in Switzerland. He became a journalist in London, knew poverty and loneli ness. New Books The following estimates of books much in the public eye were made after careful consideration of the trend of critical opinion: THE HOME-MAKER-Dorothy Canfield-Harcourt Brace ($2.00). Wearily Lester Knapp lay down at night, and in the morning roused up wearier. He hated his job in the dry-goods store, and was a failure at it. His wife scrubbed the floor, harangued the children, cooked the food, ate her heart out. On the day Knapp lost his position he came home to find his house on fire; he climbed up on the icy roof, praying that he would slip. He did. Down to the pavement he fell, injured his spine, with resulting paralysis of the legs. The next week Mrs. Knapp went to the store, got a job in the cloak-and-suit department, worked to the top until she was making three times as much as her husband ever did. He, though not adept at darning socks, made the children happy because he understood their minds and did not fuss if they tore their rompers. But one night he found he could use his legs, and once more Tragedy bared its teeth at him. He would have to go out and work again, his wife would have to come back to her cage. Deliberately he unlaced his shoes and sat down in his wheeled chair. All this goes to prove that a woman's place is not always in the home. Mrs. Canfield has many facts ranged at her fingertips like ivory keys; for every fact she has a sympathy, musical, quick. Upon this subtle instrument a fugue is played. WINGS Ethel M. Kelley Knopf ($2.00). The caricature of a complacent male reviewing, through the smoke of his cigarette, his many loves .. ladies, who for desire of his smug lips are hanging by the neck from his shoe-strings, plunging to death from the bridge of his nose, smothering themselves in his pockets. Such a caricature is Jasper Hutchinson. Also, he is a genius, and resembles a Greek god; possibly the Greek god Priapus.* The story of his devastating parade through the lives of many women begins with the last-the little debutante whom he is to marry. Drinking the honey of his vows, she once cries out: "Oh, whom have you said these things to before?" Comes his suave reply: "To no one but you, believe me." Miss Kelley devotes the rest of this cleverly and sometimes brilliantly written book to giving him the lie. *Priapus-the god of fertility. 1 |