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inspirers or ardent champions of every territorial claim put forth by the new Polish state.

For some years before the war, the Tsar's officials followed a policy of consistently favoring the Ruthenians, Little Russians, or Ukrainians-whichever name for these people is preferred in the borderland provinces between the Polish-speaking and the Russian-speaking areas of the Empire, for the express purpose of creating mutual hostility between these nationalities, and thus making them more easy to govern. On the other hand, Austria had for a generation or more followed an opposite policy, of favoring the Polish landholders in its Galician realm against the claims of the resident Ruthenians.

In all these regions, whether in Russia or Austria, the Poles are usually the wealthy landlord class, while the Ruthenians are largely a peasant tenantry. So economic class hatred as well as political hatred exists between. these two Slavic nationalities. In Old Russia this division is still further accentuated by the fact that the Poles are Roman Catholics and the Ruthenians members of the Russian Orthodox Church.

During the war, consequently, the Ruthenians living in Galicia and Bukovina were friendly to Russia. The German press reported many instances where Ruthenian subjects of Austria betrayed the cause of their rulers, by deserting to the enemy, sending the latter information, and even diverting trains of munitions and reinforcements to places where they were not needed or were likely to fall into

Russian hands.

These are the people with whom the Poles have been contesting the control of Galicia ever since the armistice. The Ruthenian claims to self-government do not accord with the plans of

France, inherited from the days of Napoleon, to make Poland large enough to be a powerful military ally on Germany's eastern border. This policy has several weak points, among the most important of which are the internal insecurity of a Polish state embracing a large rebellious population, who have been first promised and then denied the right of political selfdetermination, and the instability of the social order where race sentiment rallies to the support of an agrarian unrest that embraces not only subject. nationalities, but also the Polish peasantry itself, and that affords fertile soil for the propagation of Bolshevism, with its seductive promises of free land for all.

THE moral exaltation of combat; the unmoral intoxication of victory; the reluctant recognition of self-defeat

are not these typical stages of a war epoch? Is victory ever more than a wine vision? In the sober reckoning time, when the piper presents his scot, the clouds of illusion drop from the cliffs of reality and nations see the true difficulty of the path before them. Thereupon, since the victors have not lost the war, they fancy they have lost the peace.

This seems to be the state of sentiment in France to-day. A correspondent of an old royalist paper of Berlin, in his first letter from Paris since the war, finds the formerly gay capital on the Seine as sadly thrifty as old-time Prussia; while almost simultaneously, a French Socialist editor cautions his country against the prevalent prodigality, and warns his fellow citizens not to dance upon the brink of the cataract. But all parties unite in blaming peace for not healing at once the wounds of war, for not making actual the wine visions of victory. A Paris correspondent of the Times,

after characterizing 1919 as 'a year of disillusionment,' says: 'While we were inebriated with the champagne of our triumph, we did not note that the substantial meal of restoration was slipping away from our fork.'

Europe demands a scapegoat for a bad peace almost as exigently as it demanded a scapegoat for a disastrous war. Nations, like individuals, take comfort in personifying the causes of their ills. To quote again the same correspondent:

'Wilsonianism is put down as the primary calamity. The Peace Conference soared up for six months in the clouds of the "Society of Nations" while Germany was rising to her feet on the hard ground; no serious reparations secured; no Allied policy in Germany, none in Russia, a disastrous one in Italy; and, finally, no interAllied financial arrangement to avert bankruptcy in Europe.

'A second idol in the temple, whose ear should catch the change of tone in popular feeling, is M. Clemenceau himself. I quite discard, of course, the spiteful and systematic recriminations of the Extreme Left; I refer to the evolution of feeling or, if I may say so, to the "coming to " of many of his devotees. The greatest civilian victor of the war, Clemenceau, has well-nigh failed in his peace task; he has failed to cope for the last year with all the practical and mortal problems of reconstruction at home.

"The fault assuredly is not personal, though perhaps induced by his autocratic temperament; but he has not been adequately seconded by his ministers, nor would he be, by the very choice he made of third-rate politicians. In spite of his presence at the helm, we do not feel, to quote a famous utterance of his, I think, long years ago, that "we are sufficiently governed," or we have been made to re

alize, which is worse, that we are governed badly.

'To sum up, public opinion is beginning to question whether the right man in war time is not on the wrong pedestal in peace time.'

England, also, is asking whether the men who ran the war are the best qualified to perform the tasks of peace; and the heavy drift of voters toward the labor party indicates that many are answering this question in the negative.

THE European newspapers have been much occupied with the revelations concerning the secret peace negotiations initiated by Austria in 1917, through Prince Sixtus of Parma, to which we referred in a recent issue. The story of these negotiations is, briefly, as follows:

Prince Sixtus, who was serving as an officer in the Belgian army, was summoned to Switzerland in January, 1917, by his mother, who informed him that Emperor Charles of Austria wished to confer directly with him regarding peace. He received a letter from the Emperor while there, confirming this information, and informed his mother that he believed the minimum requirements of the Allies would be the restoration of AlsaceLorraine to France; the evacuation of Belgium and Serbia; and the surrender of Constantinople to Russia. In February, the Prince returned to Switzerland, where he was met by a representative of the Emperor who delivered a letter from the latter to him. Early in March he had an audience with President Poincaré, to whom he handed a memorandum from Count Czernin. The French President considered the latter vague and indefinite.

However, a secret personal letter directly from the Emperor was more to the point. That ruler wrote: 'We will support France and exert pressure

upon Germany.' Poincaré thought this was a firm basis for peace. Returning to Switzerland, Prince Sixtus had an interview with Count Erdoeli, who had been sent by the Austrian Emperor, from whom he received formal peace overtures from Austria; and on March 23 he had a personal interview with the Emperor himself at Laxenburg Castle.

The Emperor stated that he would do all in his power to induce Germany to make immediate peace. However, since he would not sacrifice his own monarchy to the madness of his ally, he was willing, as a last resort, to make a separate peace. The next day, the Emperor handed the Prince a letter confirming his definite proposals. On April 12 the Prince had another interview with Poincaré, and was informed that England favored the proposals made. Meantime, Italy was told of the negotiations.

Toward the end of April, Prince Sixtus had another interview with Count Erdoeli; and on the twenty-fourth of May the latter brought the Prince the astonishing news that Emperor Charles had informed him that an ambassador from General Cadorna had been in Bern for three weeks, trying to negotiate a peace with Austria on a basis of the cession of Trent to Italy. The Prince again visited Vienna, where he received another memorandum from the Emperor in which all these facts were summarized. The Emperor said he was determined to see the matter through to a successful conclusion, but wanted some guaranties in return. Czernin told the Prince that he would not allow himself to be intimidated by the threatening attitude of the German army leaders, and that open negotiations must begin. He added a note to the Emperor's memorandum insisting that in case boundary concessions were made, the

integrity of the monarchy itself should be guaranteed. He assured the Prince that if this condition was assured, Austria would make a separate peace. Interviews followed between the Prince and Poincaré and Ribot, who was then Premier of France, in Paris, and with Lloyd George and the King of England in London. After the latter interview he returned to Paris to wait for further developments. Immediately thereafter, however, the whole project fell through.

ALTHOUGH so many German working people are dissatisfied with the conservative provision of the new Shop Council Law, the passage of which was the occasion for the recent riots in Berlin, many employers regard that enactmen with great distrust. The Kölnische Zeitung, a conservative paper now issued under British control, in commenting upon this legislation says: "The law ends, once for all, the age of living machines and inaugurates the era of Socialism. It gives the employee equal rights with the employer in the direction and ownership of a business. The law is a war measure against the existing economic order.' This paper fears that the working people will take advantage of the privileges they acquire under this law to extort still greater privileges from employers. It prophesies that the law will have the following effect:

1. Very capable employers will be able to work in coöperation with a Shop Council composed of intelligent conservative men or to put it better by the exercise of unbounded tact and patience, they will be able to carry on for a time without particular loss. In exceptional instances, the employer may find the new system to his personal advantage, or be quite unconscious of any embarrassment on account of it.

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OF the higher Soviet officials, ten belong to the Russian nobility. The most prominent of these are Lenin and Lunacharsky. Most of the Bolshevist Civil Service is recruited from the

bourgeoisie. Among the bourgeois leaders of the new bureaucracy are Bucharin, Krylenko, and Kamenef. Only two come from the working classes Kalinin and Schlaintof. All of these we have named so far are Christians. Among the Jews prominent in the present administration are Trotzky, Sinovyef, Radek, Kamenjef, Uritzki, Livenof, Joffe, Larin, and Stettlof.

It is obvious that the Soviet government is not a 'workers' and peasants" government. Most of the higher officials come from the former nobility or the bourgeoisie. The same applies to the army. Most of Trotzky's general staff were high officers in the

army of the Tsar and belonged to the nobility.

EUROPEAN publishers continue to increase the price of their periodicals, and New Year's witnessed a considerable addition to the high subscription rates already prevailing. In commenting upon this action, the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger published prices showing that type metal had risen during the war from less than half a mark to nine marks a kilo, an increase of nearly two thousand cent. per Machine oil rose during the same interval from less than half a mark to more than seven marks a kilo, or more than fourteen hundred per cent. Printing ink increased in price from less than four marks a kilo to twenty-eight marks a kilo, or nearly six hundred per cent; while the price of coal mounted from twenty-two marks to one hundred and eighty-six marks a

ton.

PROFESSOR LAMMASH whose death we mentioned last week, was one of the first representatives of German scholarship and opinion to receive a direct hearing in France after the war. Both he and the Breslau jurist, Heilberg, one of the oldest members of the Executive Committee of the German Peace Society, have been given an opportunity to criticize the peace treaties of Versailles and St. Germain in a Paris review. Their articles appear in La Paix par le Droit, an organ of the French Pacifists edited by Professor Theodore Ruyssen of Bordeaux.

[L'Opinion (National-Liberal Weekly), January 17, 1920] WHAT DOES THE TREATY SIGNIFY?

BY JACQUES BARDOUX

THE Protocol provided that on the tenth of January, 1920, before entering the Clock Hall, at an hour set and at a point indicated, the plenipotentiaries of the Allies and of the Germans should shake hands.

I realize perfectly that in diplomatic relations, as in social life, this expression of cordiality, this manifestation of esteem, confidence, good will, and harmony, has lost its meaning.

How many simple souls and unenlightened minds cherishing faith in their newspapers or in the Protocol have doubtless misinterpreted this handshake! Peace is actually here. The stage of wrangling is over. The demobilization of the diplomats has begun. Our good people in France will at last be able to forget the Boche not only their helmets and their poison gas, but also their spectacles and portfolios and turn their thoughts to their vacant firesides and the coming harvest.

How many handshakes will still be exchanged between German diplomats and French ministers in the reception halls of the Quai d'Orsay before the people of France enjoy any practical profit from the advantages they have so dearly won?

To appreciate the number of things that still remain to be done, one ought to read the official volume enumerating the obligations laid upon the Germans and the period allowed for their execution. In the treaty signed at Versailles on June 28, 1919, and ratified at Paris on January 10, 1920, the mere list

covers nineteen quarto pages. Their execution extends from the eleventh of January, 1920, to the eleventh of January, 1935. The financial clauses are calculated to remain in force until 1950.

Twenty-nine interpretations and agreements should properly have been settled since the eleventh of January, and twenty-nine others are now due to be settled immediately. Of these fiftyeight items, twenty-seven impose obligations upon Germany alone and relate to such varied subjects as the restitution of stolen documents; the dissolution of military organizations; the presentation of a statement of all artillery equipment; the demolition of war vessels in course of construction; the restitution of live stock; and the delivery of aeronautical materials. In this selection of items the execution of which will be laborious and difficult to superintend—I have omitted all pecuniary damages and penal clauses. Now, the latter are already in force, and it is important for us to estimate the resistance that is likely to be offered to their execution.

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Germany is required by the treaty to issue immediately gold bonds, free from taxes and payable to bearer, to the value of one hundred billion marks, as a guaranty and recognition of its debt. Of these bonds twenty billions are to be issued immediately, payable the first of May, 1921, or later, without interest. Forty billions are to be issued immediately and to carry interest of two and one-half per

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