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Keg.^o.1 3-^139      Sheirao.  A^M 


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^3Shitc  ^unb. 


/  --36 


THE    LIVING    AGE 


E  Pluribus  Unum 


'These  publications  of  the  day  should  from  time  to 

time  be  winnowed,  the  wheat  carefully  preserved, 

and  the  chaff  thrown  away.' 

'Made  up  of  every  creature's  best.' 

'Various,  that  the  mind 
Of  desultory  man,  studious  of  change 
And  pleased  with  novelty,  might  be  indulged.' 


Volume  350 
March,  1936 — August,  1936 


New  York 

THE  LIVING  AGE  COMPANY 


1 3  3  r^  J 

SOOH  -  ^50 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 
-OF— 

THE  LIVING  AGE,  VOLUME  CCCL 

MARCH,  1936— AUGUST,  1936 

ARTICLES,  INDEX  BY  AUTHORS 


Allard,  Paul,  Business  As  Usual 307 

Auden,  W.  H.  Seaside 339 

Bell,  Clive.  Inside  the  ^ueen  Mary 329 

Berlin,  Lyubov.  Coming  Down  to  Earth . .  437 

Bonorko,  Professor.  Spain  Catches  Up . .  423 

Bowra,  C.  M.  Housmans  Scholarship. .  .  502 

Bruce,  Malin.  The  Corpse 526 

Chiaramonte,  Nicholas.  The  Nature  of 

Fascism 515 

Coline,  Constance.  Diogenes  in  Rome ....  404 

Coolen,  An  toon.  The  Good  Horse 1 50 

Connolly,  Cyril.   The  Poetry  of  A.  E. 

Housman 499 

Corbach,  Otto.  Japan  and  Siam 128 

Delaisi,  Francis.  fVho  Pays  the  Piper? .  .  197 

Demaitre,  Edmond.  The  Yellow  Terror. .  218 
Dugdale,  Mrs.  Edgar.  The  Desert  and  the 

Sown 419 

F.   L.    Czechoslovakia:    The    Dangerous 

Corner 426 

Galinier,  Pierre.  The  White  Mens  Road.  429 

Habaru,  A.  Steeltown,  France 480 

Hillekamps,  C.  The  Argentine  Recovers. .  162 
Hirsch,  Felix  E.  With  Honors  Crowned. .  393 
Hoult,  Norah.  Miss  Manning's  Fight. . . .  241 
Hu  Shih,  Dr.  An  Open  Letter  to  the  Japa- 
nese People 8 

Jones,  Ernest.  The  Psychology  of  Consti- 
tutional Monarchy 117 

Joseph,  Michael.  The  Intelligence  of  Cats .  23^^ 

Kassil,  Lev.  Makaroonovna 6^ 

Kunikos.  The  Sky-Blue  Circle 494 

Lania,  Leo.  Moscow  Buys 142 

Laski,  Harold.  Four  Tears  to  Rebuild 

Spain 159 


Li  Tsung-jen,  General.  /  Call  China  to 

War 384 

Lindt,  A.  R.  *  Poteen' 523 

Maillart,  Ella.  The  Open  Door  in  Man- 

chukuo 15 

Mannin,  Ethel.  Whither  Russia? 60 

Money-Kyrle,  Roger.  Paranoia  and  War  1 1 1 

Nuttall,  William.  The  Proletarian  Reader  209 

Odet,  Charles.  /  Decide  to  Be  a  Deputy . . .  204 

O.  R.,  Dr.  Holland  Clamps  Down 66 

Palazzeschi,  Aldo.  Signora  Eulalia 2Z 

Pierre-Quint,  L6on.  On  Rereading  Marcel 

Proust 50 

Pleyer,  Kleo.  An  Epistle  to  the  Discon- 
tented   237 

Pol,  Heinz.  German  Concentration  Camps  30 

Price,  Willard.  Japan's  Island  Wall 130 

Rychner,  Max.  A  Conversation  in  Cologne  31 1 
Schreider,  Eugene.  Moffgolia,  Land  of 

Contrasts 1 26 

Serrigny,  General.  Hitler  s  Motor  High- 
ways    102 

Sieburg,  Friedrich.  Berlin  Revisited..  ...  146 

Siegfried,  Andre.  America  s  Crisis 290 

Sitwell,  Osbert.  The  Conspiracy  of  the 

Dwarfs 332 

Smith,  Logan  P^arsall.  On  Writing  Letters 

to  the  Times 214 

Stein,  Giinther.  News  From  Japan 12 

Taylor,  George  E.  The  Prospects  of  Com- 
munism in  China 389 

Thury,  Zsuzsa  T.  Mr.  Szabo 340 

X,  General.  Germany's  War  Machine .  .  .  301 

Yanaihara,  Tadao.  Japan  Looks  South. .  .  491 

Zarek,  Otto.  Days  in  Switzerland 68 


TABLE 

ARTICLES, 

Adelphi 

The  Corpse.  Malin  Bruce 

Berliner  Tageblatt 

Japan  and  Siam.  Otto  Corbach 

Blut  und  Boden 
An  Epistle  to  the  Discontented.   Kleo 
Pleyer 

Candide 
I  Decide  to  Be  a  Deputy.  Charles  Odet. . 

Canton  Truth 
I  Call  China  to  War.  General  Li  'Tsung- 
jen 

China  Weekly  Review 
Bureyastroy  and  Biro-Bidjan.  A  Harbin 

Correspondent 

The  Coming  War  in  the  East.  A  Harbin 

Correspondent 

Daily  Herald 

Four  Years  to  Rebuild  Spain.  Harold 
Laski 

Daily  Telegraph 

The  Conspiracy  of  the  Dwarfs.  Osbert 
■     Sitwell 

Economist 

Britain's  Betting  Business 

'They' 

Europe 

On  Rereading  Marcel  Proust.  Leon 
Pierre-^uint 

The  Nature  of  Fascism.  Nicholas  Chi- 
aramonte 

Frankfurter  Zeitung 

Berlin  Revisited.  Friedrich  Sieburg 

GiusTiziA  e  LibertX 

The  Second  Roman  Empire.  UOsserva- 
tore 

Independent  Critic 

An  Open  Letter  to  the  Japanese  People. 
Dr.HuShih 

IZVESTIA 

Makaroonovna.  Lev  Kassil 


OF  CONTENTS  [iii] 

INDEX  BY  SOURCES 

Journal  de  Geneve 

526      The  Argentine  Recovers.  C. /^/7M«w/>j .     162 
The  Open   Door  in   Manchukuo.   Ella 

Maillart 15 

128 

Kaizo 

Japan  Looks  South.  T^adao  Yanaihara  .     491 

^37  L'EuROPE  Nouvelle 

Diogenes  in  Rome.  Constance  Coline. .  .  .     404 

Life  and  Letters  Today 

Miss  Manning's  Fight.  Norah  Hoult. ...     241 
Paranoia  and  War.  Roger  Money-Kyrle .  .     1 1 1 

384 

Listener 

Seaside.  fF.  H.  Auden 339 

Inside  the  Queen  Mary.  Clive  Bell 329 

4»7 

London  Mercury 
222 

The  Proletarian  Reader.  William  Nuttall.     log 

Lumiere 

159      Mongolia,  Land  of  Contrasts.  Eugene 

Scbreider 126 

Steeltown,  France.  A.  Habaru 480 

332  Manchester  Guardian 

Hitler's  Secret  Police.  A  Special  Corre- 
spondent      108 

^        The  Desert  and  the  Sown.  Mrs.  Edgar 

^^^         Dugdale 419 

The  Third  Reich  Today.  A  Special  Cor- 
respondent        25 

-        Young  China  Goes  to  School.  A  Special 

Correspondent 121 

5^5  Marianne 

The  Yellow  Terror.  Edmond  Demaitre ...     218 
146      The  White  Men's  Road.  P/Vrr^Ga//«/Vr.     429 

Nouvelles  Litteraires 

Signora  Eulalia.  Aldo  Palazzeschi 23 

400 

Neue  Weltbuhne 
German  Concentration  Camps.  Heinz  Pol      30 

Q 

Neue  Zurcher  Zeitung 

A  Conversation  in  Cologne.  Max  Rychner    311 
62      'Poteen.'  A.  R.  Lindt 523 


[iv] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


Volume 


Neues  Tage-buch 
Moscow  Buys.  Leo  Lania 14^ 

Neues  Wiener  Tagblatt 
Holland  Clamps  Down.  Dr.O.R 66 

North-China  Review 
The  Sky-Blue  Circle.  Kunikos 494 

New  Leader 
Whither  Russia?  Ethel  Mannin 60 

New  Statesman  and  Nation 

A  Note  on  the  Poetry  of  A.  E.  Housman. 
Cyril  Connolly 499 

On  Writing  Letters  to  the  Times.  Logan 
Pearsall  Smith 214 

The  Psychology  of  Constitutional  Mon- 
archy. Ernest  Jones 117 

The  Prospects  of  Communism  in  China. 
George  E.  Taylor 389 

Pester  Lloyd 

Days  in  Switzerland.  Otto  Zarek 68 

Mr.  Szabo.  Zsuzsa  T.  Thury 340 


Spain  Catches  Up.  Professor  Bonorko . . .     423 

Pravda 
Coming  Down  to  Earth.  Lyubov  Berlin . .     437 

Revue  des  Deux  Mondes 

America's  Crisis.  Andre  Siegfried 290 

Hitler's  Motor  Highways.  General  Ser- 


rtgny. 


Spectator 


Japan's  Island  Wall.  Willard  Price 130 

Housman 's  Scholarship.  C.  M.  Bowra. . .  502 

News  From  Japan.  Guntber  Stein 12 

The  Intelligence  of  Cats.  Michael  Joseph  336 

Vu 

Armies  of  the  Left.  Anonymous 19 

Business  As  Usual.  Paul  Allard 307 

Germany's  War  Machine.  Gtf««"a/ A!".  .  .  .  301 

Who  Pays  the  Piper?  Francis  Delaisi 197 


Weltwoche 

Czechoslovakia:  The  Dangerous  Corner. 
F.L 


426 


DEPARTMENTS 


AS  OTHERS  SEE  US 

American  Neutrality  in  British  Eyes ....  167 

An  American  Vignette 87 

An  Englishman  Finds  Fault 255 

An    Englishman    Looks    at    the    Con- 
stitution    85 

Heil  Lincoln ! 257 

Hommage  a  Philadelphie 170 

Inhuman  America 348 

In  Single  Combat 258 

The  Impassioned  Preacher  of  Royal  Oak  169 

BOOKS  ABROAD 

Bates,  H.  E.  A  House  of  Women 450 

Baudhuin,  Professor  Fernand.  La  De- 
valuation du  Franc  Beige 262 

Bodley  Head.  l!he  Years  Poetry 176 

Brentano,  Bernard  von.  Theodor  Chindler  447 

Canetti,  Elias.  T)ie  Blendung 357 

Celine,  Louis  Ferdinand.  Mort  a  Credit. .  446 

Colette.  Ce  que  Claudine  n'a  pas  dit.  .  . .  181 

Crowther,  J.  G.  Soviet  Science 351 

Duhamel,  Georges.  Fables  de  mon  Jardin  360 

Ensor,  R.  C.  England,  1870-1^14 259 


Gascoyne,  David.  A  Survey  of  Surrealism  178 
Germain,  Andre.  Deutschland  und  Frank- 

reich 75 

Gooch,  G.  P.  Before  the  War 175 

Green,  Julian.  Minuit 546 

Griffin,  Gerald.  Gabriele  D'Annunzio 73 

Guilloux,  Louis.  Le  Sang  Noir 75 

Hook,  Sidney.  From  Hegel  to  Marx 541 

Hornung,  Walter.  Dachau — Eine  Chronik  72 

Huxley,  Aldous.  Eyeless  in  Gaza 543 

Ishimaru,  Toto.  Japan  Must  Fight  Brit- 
ain   r 267 

Jonqui^res,    Henri.    La    Vieille    Photo- 

graphie  depuis  Daguerre  jusqua  1870.  362 
Keynes,  J.  M.  The  General  Theory  of  Em- 
ployment, Interest  and  Money 17^ 

Laski,  Harold  J.  The  Rise  of  European 

Liberalism 444 

Lewinsohn,    Richard.    Les    Profits    de 

Guerre  a  travers  les  Sihles 263 

Lewis,    Wyndham.    Left    Wings    Over 

Europe 537 

Ludwig,  Emil.  Der  Nil. 180 

Mann,  Klaus.  Symphonic  Pathetique 268 


350 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


[v] 


Marignac,  A.  de.  Cyclades 361 

Martin,  Everett  Dean.  Farewell  to  Revo- 
lution    264 

Mauriac,  Francois.  Les  Anges  Noirs . . . .  358 

Olden,  Rudolf.  Hitler 71 

Orr,  Sir  John.  Food,  Health  and  Income .  160 

Plomer,  William.  AH  the  Lion 354 

Rachmanova,  Alia.  La  Fabrique  des  Hom- 

mes  Nouveaux 452 

Rosenberg,  Arthur.  A  History  of  the  Ger- 
man Republic 350 

Silone,  Ignazio.  Brot  und  Wein 545 

Smith,  Logan  Pearsall.  Fine  Writing.  ...  355 

Studio,  The.  Art  in  the  U.S.S.R 77 

Tirala,  Lothar  Gottlieb.  Rasse,  Geist  und 

Seek 539 

Vollard,  Ambrose.  Recollections  of  a  Pic- 
ture Dealer 79 

Wingfield-Stratford,  Esme.  Good  'Talk:  A 

Study  in  the  Art  of  Conversation 454 

Zimmern,  Sir  Alfred.  The  League  of  Na- 
tions and  the  Rule  of  Law,  igi 8-1^35 . .  1 74 

LETTERS  AND  THE  ARTS 

Cezanne    at    the     Orangerie.     Jacques 

Mathey 535 

Films  Abroad.  Raul  Schofield 441 

French  Literature  Today.  Denis  Saurat. .  164 

Nazi  Kultur.  Ruth  Norden 344 

None  So  Blind.  Andre  Lhote 534 

Picasso's  Mind.  Clive  Bell 532 

Shakespeare  under  Hitler 166 

The  Age  of  Symbolism.  Paul  Schofield. .  440 
The  Art  of  Displeasing.  Raymond  Mort- 
imer    529 

The  Chinese  Art  Exhibition.  Paul  Scho- 
field   82 

The  Salon  d'Automne.  Paul  Schofield. .  .  84 

OUR  OWN  BOOKSHELF 

Angell,  Sir  Norman.  Raw  Materials, 
Population  Pressure  and  War 368 

Armstrong,  Hamilton  Fish  and  Dulles, 
Allen  W.  Can  We  Be  Neutral? 88 

Baker,  Ray  Stannard.  Woodrow  Wilson: 
Life  and  Letters 88 

Blumenfeld,  Simon.  The  Iron  Garden .  .  .     185 

Bradley,  Phillips.  Can  We  Stay  Out  of 
War? ^f^^ 

Brock,  Werner.  An  Introduction  to  Con- 
temporary German  Philosophy 366 

Carlson,  Oliver  and  Bates,  Ernest 
Sutherland.  Hearst,  Lord  of  San 
Simeon 461 

Clark,  Grover.  A  Place  in  the  Sun 551 


Clark,  Grover.   The  Balance  Sheets  of 

Imperialism 551 

Crecraft,   Earl   Willis.   Freedom   of  the 

Seas 88 

Das,  Taraknath.  Foreign  Policy  in  the 

Far  East 273 

Deak,   Francis   and  Jessup,   Philip   C. 
Neutrality:  Its  History,  Economics  and 

Law 88 

Doob,  Leonard  W.  Propaganda:  Its  Psy- 
chology and  Technique 548 

Eddy,  G.  P.  and  Lawton,  F.  H.  India's 

New  Constitution 365 

Einzig,    Paul.   Bankers,    Statesmen    and 

Economists 550 

Einzig,    Paul.    The    Exchange   Clearing 

System 550 

Einzig,  Paul.  World  Finance,  191 4-1  gj^  550 
Falk,  Edwin  A.   Togo  and  the  Rise  of 

Japanese  Sea  Power 272 

Fallada,  Hans.  Once  We  Had  a  Child.  . .     368 
Florinski,  Michael  T.  Fascism  and  Na- 
tional Socialism 366 

Ford,  Guy  Stanton.  Dictatorship  in  the 

Modern  World 185 

Foster,  Henry  A.  The  Making  of  Modern 

Irak 274 

Gunther,  John.  Inside  Europe 272 

Harbord,  James  G.  The  American  Army 

in  France 459 

Heckscher,  Eli  F.  Mercantilism 457 

Helfritz,  Hans.  Land  Without  Shade.  ...     186 

Hesse,  Max  Rene.  Doctor  Morath 186 

Hubbard,  G.  E.  Eastern  Industrializa- 
tion and  Its  Effect  Upon  the  West.  .  .  .     365 
Huxley,  Julian  and  Haddon,  A.  C.  We 

Europeans 457 

Irwin,  Will.  Propaganda  and  the  News. .  548 
Jameson,  Storm.  In  the  Second  Year. .  .  .  368 
Jessup,  C.  Philip.  Neutrality:  Today  and 

Tomorrow 'Tfy^ 

Keith,  Arthur  Berriedale.   The  Govern- 
ments of  the  British  Empire 183 

Lansing,  Robert.  War  Memoirs  of  Robert 

Lansing 88 

Lasswell,    Harold    D.   Propaganda   and 

Promotional  Activities 548 

Lasswell,  Harold  D.  World  Politics  and 

Personal  Insecurity 548 

Leamy,  Margaret.  Parnell's  Faithful  Few  549 
Lundberg,  Ferdinand.  Imperial  Hearst. .  461 
Main,   Ernest.   Irak,  from  Mandate  to 

Independence 274 

Malraux,  Andre.  Days  of  Wrath 552 

Middleton,  Lamar.  The  Rape  of  Africa.     367 


[vi] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


Millin,  Sarah  Gertrude.  General  Smuts. .     460 

Mowat,  R.  R.  Diplomacy  and  Peace 2^3 

Muir,  Ramsay.  How  Britain  is  Governed  1 83 
Phillips,  W.  Allison  and  Reede,  Arthur 

H.  Neutrality:  The  Napoleonic  Period.     2>^Z 
Reddaway,  W.  B.  The  Russian  Financial 

System 9^ 

Royal  Institute  of  International  Affairs. 
Unemployment:  An  International  Prob- 
lem   '. 1 84 

Saint-Helier,  Monique.  The  Abandoned 

Wood 274 

Salvemini,  Gaetano.   Under  the  Axe  of 

Fascism 45^ 

Seymour,  Charles.  American  Neutral- 
ity        88 

Shephardson,  Whitney  H.  and  Scroggs, 
William  O.  The  United  States  in  World 

Affairs  in  1934-1933 88 

Smith,  Andrew.  /  Was  a  Soviet  Worker    551 
Squires,  James  Duane.  British  Propa- 
ganda at  Home  and  in  the  United  States 

from  1914  to  1917 548 

Stalin,  J.,  Molotov,  V.  and  Kaganovich, 

L.  Soviet  Union,  1933 458 

Stein,  Rose  M.  M-Day 363 

Stratton,  George  M.  International  Delu- 
sions       366 

Strong,  Anna  Louise.  China's  Millions. .  91 
Strong,  Anna  Louise.  This  Soviet  World  458 
Takeuchi,  Tatsuji.  War  and  Diplomacy 

in  the  Japanese  Empire 270 

Toller,  Ernst.  Seven  Plays 462 

Toynbee,  Arnold  J.  Survey  of  Inter- 
national Affairs 271 

Turlington,  Edgar.  Neutrality.  The  World 

War  Period Z'^Z 

Varga,  E.  The  Great  Crisis  and  its  Politi- 
cal Consequences 185 

Wiechert,  Ernst.  The  Baroness 368 

Willert,  Sir  Arthur.  What  Next  in  Eu- 
rope?        91 


Williamson,  Henry.  Salar  the  Salmon  . .  552 

Young,  Eugene  J.  Powerful  America. ...  461 

Zweig,  Arnold.  Education  Before  Verdun  367 

PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES 

Badoglio,  Marshal 317 

Blum,  Leon.  Louis  Levy 407 

Degrelle,  Leon.  Arved  Arentam 505 

Eckener,  Dr.  Hugo.  H.  R 320 

Edward  VIII.  Philip  Guedalla 43 

Herriot,  Eduard.  Odette  Pannetier 45 

Hodza,  Milan.  Hubert  Beuve-Mery 133 

Housman,  A.  E.  Percy  Withers 414 

Howard,  Leslie.  C.  A.L 512 

Ibn  Saud.  M.  T.  Ben-Gavriel 410 

Karageorgevich,  Paul.  Pierre  Lyautey . .  509 

Kipling,  Rudyard.  Rebecca  West 38 

Lubitsch,  Ernst.  A  Film  Correspondent.  325 

Maurras,  Charles.  D.  W.  Brogan 231 

Milhaud,  Darius.  M.  D.  Calvocoressi 1 40 

Ribbentrop,  Joachim  von 328 

Sarraut,  Albert.  Odette  Pannetier 136 

Schuschnigg,  Chancellor  Kurt  von.  Fe- 

rax 225 

Tukhachevski,     Mikhail    Nikolaievich. 

Max  Werner.  . 234 

Ulmanis,  Karlis.  RenS  Puaux 323 

THE  WORLD  OVER 

I,  95,  189,  283,  377,  471 

WITH  THE  ORGANIZATIONS 

93,  186,281,375,469,  557 

AMERICA  AND  THE  LEAGUE 
A  Symposium 

275»  369,  463,  553 

ERRATUM 

Vol.35o,No.4437  (June,  i936),p.  309,  col.  1,1.2: 

For  1,008,642  francs  read  1,000,008,642  francs. 


THE    LIVING    AGE 


CONTENTS 

for.March,  1936 

/ 

■  '*     Articles 

The  World  Looks  at  Japan 

I.  An  Open  Letter  to  the  Japanese  People T>r.  Hu  Shih  8 

IL  News  from  Japan Giinther  Stein  1 1 

in.  The  Open  Door  in  Manchukuo Ella  Maillart  15 

Armies  of  the  Left 18 

After  Four  Years 

L  The  Third  Reich  Today 25 

IL  German  Concentration  Camps Heinz  Pol  30 

Signora  Eulalia  (A  Story) Aldo  Palazzeschi  22 

On  Rereading  Marcel  Proust Leon  Pierre-^uint  50 

Inside  Russia 

I.  Whither  Russia? Ethel  Mannin  60 

IL  Makaroonovna  (A  Story) Lev  Kassil  62 

Refuges  for  Refugees 

L  Holland  Clamps  Down Dr.  0.  R.  66 

IL  Days  in  Switzerland Otto  Zarek  68 


Depar 


tments 


The  World  Over i 

Persons  and  Personages 

RuDYARD  Kipling Rebecca  West  38 

Long  Live  the  King Philip  Guedalla  43 

Big-Hearted  Herriot Odette  Pannetier  45 

Books  Abroad 71 

Letters  and  the  Arts 82 

As  Others  See  Us 85 

Our  Own  Bookshelf 88 

With  the  Organizations 93 

Thb  Living  Age.  Published  monthly.  Publication  office,  10  Ferry  Street,  Concord,  N.  H.  Editorial  and  General  offices,  253  Broad- 
way, New  York  City.  SOc  a  copy.  $6.00  a  year.  Canada,  $6.50.  Foreign,  $7.00.  Entered  as  second-class  matter  at  the  Post  Office  at 
Concord,  N.  H.,  under  the  Act  of  Congress,  March  3,  1879.  Copyright,  1936,  by  The  Living  Age  Corporation,  New  York,  New  York. 

The  Living  Age  was  established  by  E.  Littell,  in  Boston,  Massachusetts,  May,  1844.  It  was  first  known  as  Litteix's  Living  Age,  suc- 
ceeding LiUeU's  Museum  of  Foreign  Literature,  which  had  been  previously  published  in  Philadelphia  for  more  than  twenty  years.  In  a 
prepublication  announcement  of  Littell's  Living  Age,  in  1844,  Mr.  Littell  said: '  The  steamship  has  brought  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa 
into  our  neighborhood;  and  will  greatly  multiply  our  connections,  as  Merchants,  Travelers,  and  Politicians,  with  all  parts  of  the  world  : 
so  that  much  more  than  ever,  it  now  becomes  every  intelligent  American  to  be  informed  of  the  condition  and  changes  of  foreign  countries. 

Subscribers  are  recjuested  to  send  notices  of  changes  of  address  three  weeks  before  they  are  to  take  effect.  Failure  to  send  such  notices 
will  result  in  the  incorrect  forwarding  of  the  next  copy  and  delay  in  its  receipt.  Old  and  new  addresses  must  both  be  given. 


THE  GUIDE  POST 


W^  LEAD  OFF  our  issue  this  month 
with  a  document  of  prime  importance:  an 
'Open  Letter  to  the  Japanese  People'  in 
which  a  prominent  Chinese  editor  and 
publicist  speaks  with  a  frankness  rare 
among  Orientals  of  the  mounting  bitter- 
ness and  hatred  Japan's  policy  is  engen- 
dering in  China.  Dr.  Hu  Shih's  letter  was 
first  published  in  his  own  newspaper,  the 
Independent  Critic^  of  Peiping.  A  few  days 
later  a  carefully  censored  version  of  it  was 
printed  in  Japan,  along  with  an  elabo- 
rately evasive  (and  much  more  character- 
istically Oriental)  Japanese  reply.  Dr. 
Hu's  letter  and  the  translation  of  the 
Japanese  answer  were  then  widely  re- 
printed in  China,  where  they  are  being 
vigorously  used  for  propaganda  pur- 
poses in  schools  and  colleges.  Dr.  Hu  may 
therefore  be  said  to  give  us,  in  as  straight- 
shooting  a  form  as  we  are  likely  to  get  it 
anywhere,  the  point  of  view  of  the  Chi- 
nese intellectuals  and  students  whose 
anti-Japanese  demonstrations  and  riots 
have  been  giving  the  authorities  of  both 
nations  so  much  concern  lately,  [p.  8] 

NEXT  we  have  a  statement  by  an  Eng- 
lish-speaking German  of  the  difficulties 
which  lie  in  the  way  of  the  journalist  who 
attempts  to  interpret  Japan  to  the  West. 
Mr.  Giinther  Stein,  former  foreign  corre- 
spondent of  the  Berliner  'Tageblatt^  is  now 
stationed  in  Tokyo,  from  whence  he  sends 
frequent  reports  to  his  present  paper,  the 
Pester  IJoyd,  and  articles  to  the  English 
and  American  weeklies.  The  piece  which 
we  reprint  from  the  London  Spectator 
tells  of  some  of  the  obstacles  to  'getting 
the  story'  in  Japan,  [p.  12] 

FROM  JAPAN  we  return  to  the  mainland 
of  Asia,  where  we  listen  in  on  a  conversa- 
tion which  some  Europeans  and  Ameri- 
cans held  in  a  caf6  in  Port  Arthur  a  few 
weeks  ago.  Ella  Maillart,  one  of  the  foreign 
correspondents  of  the  Journal  de  Genive, 


was  there  to  report  what  she  heard,  and, 
thanks  to  her,  we  are  able  to  learn  how 
Western  businessmen  stationed  in  the  Far 
East  feel  about  the  future  there,  [p.  15] 

LAST  MONTH  we  published  a  careful 
estimate  by  an  anonymous  contributor  to 
the  French  topical  weekly,  Fu,  of  the 
strength  of  the  various  Fascist  'leagues' 
of  France.  This  month  we  perform  the 
same  service  for  the  forces  of  the  Left,  the 
various  groups  which  together  form  the 
Popular  Front.  If  France  is  peaceful  to- 
day, it  is  so  thanks  to  the  watchful  eyes 
and  the  strong  arms  of  the  members  of 
this  organization.  And  if  France  is 
plunged  into  civil  war  tomorrow,  it  will  be 
these  '  armies  of  the  Left '  which  will  de- 
fend the  liberties  for  which  democracy 
stands,  [p.  18J 

THREE  YEARS  ago  this  month  the 
Nazi  Reichstag,  elected  after  Hitler  had 
been  appointed  Chancellor,  voted  to 
grant  the  Nazi  Cabinet  dictatorial  powers 
for  four  years;  and  then  adjourned  sine 
die,  leaving  the  field  to  the  administrative 
wing  of  the  Government.  What  has  Hitler 
accomplished  since  that  day,  and  why  are 
hopes  for  his  speedy  overthrow  so  much 
dimmer  today  than  they  were  then?  A 
special  correspondent  of  the  Manchester 
Guardian  attempts  to  answer  this.  [p.  25] 

BUT  IF  the  Nazis  stay  in  power  by  giving 
away  cigars  and  excursion  tickets  to  the 
milder  members  of  the  German  nation, 
they  stay  in  power  also  by  continuing  the 
methods  of  persecution  and  repression 
with  which  they  so  shocked  the  world 
three  years  ago.  At  least  that  is  the  con- 
tention of  Heinz  Pol,  whose  article  on 
German  concentration  camps  we  trans- 
late from  a  recent  issue  of  the  Neue 
WeltbUhnCy  one  of  the  leading  German 
6migr6  weeklies,  [p.  30] 

{Continued  on  page  ^4) 


THE    LIVING    AGE 

Founded  by  E.  Littell 
In  1844 


Marchy  igj6  Volume  J50,  Number  4434 

The  World  Over 

The  death  of  king  GEORGE  V  and  the  accession  of  King  Ed- 
ward VIII  will  not  leave  British  policy,  foreign  and  domestic,  unchanged. 
The  young  King's  tastes  in  entertainment  have  been  compared  to  his 
grandfather's;  his  political  sympathies  are  another  story.  For  King 
George  V  inherited  from  his  father  a  strong  anti-German,  pro-French 
bias  in  foreign  affairs.  By  19 10,  when  George  came  to  the  throne,  his 
country  was  already  committed  to  the  Franco-Russian  Alliance,  and 
British  statesmanship  had  no  choice  but  to  fight  Germany  in  1914.  In 
1936,  however,  British  diplomacy  is  not  committed  to  support  the 
Franco-Soviet  pact,  and  if  King  Edward  VIII  has  anything  to  say  about 
it,  his  country  will  not  definitely  join  the  anti-German  coalition. 

As  Prince  of  Wales,  the  new  King  took  several  occasions  to  show  his 
sympathy  for  Germany  and  to  express  his  hope  that  bygones  would  be 
bygones.  Last  June  he  proposed  that  the  British  Legion  should  send  a 
good-will  delegation  to  Germany  to  visit  the  Nazi  ex-Servicemen.  The 
Left-wing  press  at  once  raised  the  cry  of  Fascism  and  recalled  that  Ed- 
ward had  also  praised  the  British  Officers'  Training  Corps  and  had  at- 
tacked its  critics  as  'misguided  cranks.'  Yet  during  the  General  Strike  of 
1926  he  did  not  hide  his  sympathy  for  the  miners,  whom  he  later 
visited.  His  bitter  comments  on  the  condition  of  the  underprivileged 
classes  upset  many  aristocrats,  and  the  report  of  a  trip  he  made  to  the 
northern  coalfields  was  never  published. 

But  it  is  precisely  this  sympathy  for  the  poor — ^like  his  desire  for  in- 
ternational reconciliation — that  lays  the  new  King  open  to  the  charge  of 


[2]  THE  LIVING  AGE  March 

Fascism,  because  he  is  at  the  same  time  an  advocate  of  military  pre- 
paredness and  might  even  speak  to  Hitler  on  the  street.  Whether  or  not 
King  Edward  will  take  the  role  of  the  man  on  horseback,  for  which  he  is 
superbly  equipped,  he  is  not  likely  to  depart  from  the  time-honored  tra- 
dition of  upholding  the  status  quo.  According  to  the  Independent  Labor 
Party's  New  Leader^  King  George  used  his  political  influence; — 

To  support  Ulster  against  the  Home  Rule  Bill  in  19 14. 
To  support  intervention  against  Soviet  Russia  in  1919. 
To  secure  the  establishment  of  a  National  Government  in  1931. 
To  secure  the  restoration  of  King  George  of  Greece. 

To  advance  the  Hoare-Laval  Peace  Pact  in  order  to  save  the  Italian  Royal 
Family. 

From  this  Hne  King  Edward  VIII  is  not  likely  to  deviate  sharply. 

THE  NEWS  as  we  go  to  press  that  the  Baldwin  government  plans  a 
two-billion-dollar  rearmament  program  will  not  be  greeted  with  com- 
plete enthusiasm  in  London  financial  circles.  The  Westminster  Bank,  for 
instance,  one  of  the  *Big  Five,'  has  attacked  the  statement  by  another 
*Big  Five'  director  to  the  effect  that  a  costly  rearmament  program 
would  promote  money.  S.  Japhet  and  Company,  a  large  international 
banking  establishment  with  headquarters  in  London,  has  made  the  same 
point  in  its  annual  financial  review.  Since  1929  international  trade  in 
armaments  has  more  than  doubled,  yet  this  represents  only  a  portion  of 
total  domestic  armament  expenditures.  Replying  to  the  argument  of 
Neville  Chamberlain,  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  that  armament  ex- 
penditures stimulate  employment,  Japhet's  financial  review  states: — 

Heavy  armament  expenditure  leads  ipso  facto  to  international  nervousness 
and  thereby  is  an  additional  stumbling  block  to  genuine  international  trade  and 
more  so  as  this  nervousness  is  exploited  by  the  advocates  of  national  self-suffi- 
ciency. This  vicious  circle  is  at  the  same  time  tending  to  perpetuate  trade  restric- 
tions as  well  as  subsidies  to  certain  home  industries. 

Defense  expenditure  we  must  still  have  in  this  imperfect  world,  but  a  reduc- 
tion of  this  costly  item  and  a  release  of  capital,  labor  and  raw  materials  for  other 
more  productive  uses  will  only  be  achieved  when,  inter  alia,  the  fallacy  of  rearma- 
ment as  a  means  of  furthering  economic  prosperity  is  realized. 

When  international  bankers  preach  disarmament — that's  news. 

THE  CONDITION  of  the  London  banks  at  the  end  of  1935  explains 
these  misgivings.  Their  current  and  deposit  accounts  showed  the  all- 
time  record  high  figure  of  £2,091,313,000 — a  rise  of  £120,000,000  in  a 
year,  of  £151,000,000  in  two  years,  and  of  £330,000,000  since  the  crisis 
year  of  193 1.  What  this  figure  means  is  that  British  industry — ^like  Amer- 
ican industry — oflFers  few  opportunities  for  profitable  investment.  People 


/pj<5  THE  WORLD  OVER  [3] 

with  property  prefer  to  keep  their  assets  in  a  liquid  condition,  while  the 
banks,  in  turn,  prefer  to  put  their  money  into  short-term  bills  rather  than 
long-term  government  securities.  Already  in  December  they  had  fore- 
seen and  allowed  for  the  additional  government  borrowings  on  which  the 
rearmament  program  will  have  to  be  based.  Needless  to  say,  England  is 
not  alone  in  its  defense  preparations;  in  fact  its  delay  in  following  the 
lead  of  Germany,  Japan,  Italy  and  the  Soviet  Union  may  cost  it  dear. 
Since  1932,  for  instance,  the  price  of  tungsten  has  risen  more  than  three 
and  one  half  times,  and  production  is  more  than  twice  what  it  was  in  1913 
— the  peak  year  of  the  pre-War  arrhament  race.  Output  has  increased 
from  9,000  tons  in  1932  to  over  20,000  tons  in  1935,  and  virtually  all  the 
increase  went  into  armaments.  Today  the  supply  cannot  meet  the  demand. 

THE  OVERTHROW  of  the  Laval  Cabinet  marks  the  beginning  of  a 
new  period  of  crisis  in  France  at  least  as  serious  as  the  one  that  led  to  the 
riots  of  February  6,  1934.  And  again  the  parties  of  the  Left  in  general 
and  the  Radical  Socialists  in  particular  seem  to  have  blundered.  For 
months  the  six  Radical  members  of  the  Laval  Cabinet  made  no  objec- 
tions to  its  pro-Italian  foreign  poHcy  and  to  its  subservience  to  the  Bank 
of  France  on  the  question  of  currency  devaluation.  It  was  not  the  Radi- 
cals or  even  the  Popular  Front  they  had  formed  with  the  Socialists  and 
Communists  that  forced  Laval  to  support  the  League  instead  of  Italy;  it 
was  the  action  of  the  British  electorate  in  demanding  the  resignation  of 
Sir  Samuel  Hoare.  After  that,  even  Laval  saw  that  he  could  not  hope  to 
buy  off  Mussolini  with  a  huge  slice  of  Ethiopian  territory.  Meanwhile 
the  militant  opposition  of  the  French  people  to  the  Fascist  leagues  forced 
Laval  to  modify  his  domestic  policy  and  forbid  the  Croix  de  Feu  to  drill 
and  demonstrate  with  arms.  In  view  of  these  two  concessions  by  Laval  it 
is  difficult  to  account  for  the  withdrawal  of  the  Radicals  from  his  Cabi- 
net, for  they  had  a  much  stronger  case  against  him  three  months  ago 
when  he  was  working  hand  in  glove  with  Mussolini  abroad  and  with 
Colonel  de  La  Rocque  at  home.  The  deflationary  policies  of  the  Bank  of 
France  were  strangling  all  economic  activity  and  bringing  the  parties  of 
the  Right  the  same  unpopularity  that  the  Republicans  suffered  from  in 
the  United  States  during  the  Presidential  campaign  of  1932. 

WHY  THIS  DECISION  not  merely  to  withdraw  from  the  Laval  Cabi- 
net but  to  accept  responsibility  during  a  period  when  the  existing  gov- 
ernment automatically  courts  displeasure?  The  answer  probably  lies  in 
the  personalities  of  the  two  chief  Radical  leaders — ^Herriot  and  Daladier. 
It  was  Herriot  who  caused  Laval's  downfall  by  withdrawing  from  the 
Cabinet  and  then  resigning  his  presidency  of  the  party.  He  had  never  ap- 
proved of  the  Popular  Front  and,  fearing  disaster,  wished  to  dissociate 


[4]  THE  LIVING  AGE  March 

himself  from  the  Radicals  in  order  to  be  able  to  join  a  government  of  na- 
tional concentration  at  some  future  date. 

As  for  Daladier,  he  welcomed  the  opportunity  to  strengthen  the  hold 
of  the  Popular  Front  on  the  Radicals,  not  all  of  whom  care  to  be  asso- 
ciated with  the  Socialists  and  Communists.  Yet  in  matters  of  foreign 
policy  Herriot  stands  far  to  the  left  of  Daladier.  For  the  past  fourteen 
years  he  has  advocated  closer  Franco-Russian  relations,  and  it  was  one  of 
his  governments  that  initiated  the  Franco-Soviet  Pact.  Daladier,  on  the 
other  hand,  rarely  mentions  the  League  of  Nations,  and  it  was  one  of  his 
governments  that  sent  Fernand  de  Brinon  to  Berlin  and  began  making 
propaganda  for  the  pacifism  of  Adolf  Hitler.  All  France  today  is  divided 
on  the  subject  of  whether  to  back  Moscow  or  Berlin,  but  few  individual 
Frenchmen  pursue  such  contradictory  policies  as  Herriot  and  Daladier. 
The  confusion  of  these  two  leaders  on  matters  of  foreign  and  domestic 
policy  reflects  the  confusion  of  the  country  as  a  whole. 

ON  ONE  TOPIC  only  does  there  seem  to  be  no  doubt  whatever  in 
France  and  that  is  the  fate  of  the  currency.  The  year  1936  has  begun  like 
every  one  of  the  past  three  or  four  years  with  prophecies  that  the  devalu- 
ation of  the  franc  by  20  per  cent  or  25  per  cent  is  a  matter  of  months  if 
not  of  weeks.  Indeed  the  only  question  is  whether  devaluation  will  come 
before  or  after  the  May  elections.  The  answer,  however,  does  not  lie  ex- 
clusively in  Paris.  A  British  loan  might  carry  the  franc  over  the  elections, 
and  if  London  were  to  make  such  a  loan  contingent  upon  certain  dicta- 
tions of  policy,  the  result  on  the  United  States  might  be  extremely  un- 
pleasant. No  one  knows  how  large  a  part  French  and  foreign  funds  have 
played  in  the  recent  rise  on  Wall  Street,  but  if  the  franc  were  to  be  stabi- 
lized on  gold  at  a  lower  level,  considerable  funds  that  moved  across  the 
Atlantic  during  1935  would  return  to  Paris.  Furthermore,  the  dominant 
financial  groups  in  New  York  and  London  have  not  forgiven  President 
Roosevelt  for  torpedoing  the  World  Economic  Conference  of  1933  and 
would  like  nothing  better  than  to  embarrass  him  with  a  stock  market 
slump  during  the  election  year.  The  London  Economist  hints  that  1936 
may  see  another  burst  of  competitive  currency  devaluation. 

WHILE  THE  SOVIET  UNION  leads  all  nations  in  its  oil  exports  to 
Fascist  Italy,  it  also  welcomes  financial  credits  from  Nazi  Germany. 
Chairman  Molotov  of  the  Central  Executive  Committee  of  the  Soviet 
Union  has  reported  that  the  German  government,  which  granted  his  own 
Government  a  five-year  credit  of  250  million  marks  last  April,  wants  to 
oflFer  still  larger  credits  over  a  ten-year  period.  'Full  of  contradictions  as 
the  situation  in  modern  Germany  is,'  announced  Molotov,  'we  do  not 
decline  to  consider  this  practical  offer  of  the  German  government.' 


/pj(5  THE  WORLD  OVER  [5] 

Needless  to  say,  the  offer  cuts  two  ways;  in  fact  it  works  more  to  the 
disadvantage  of  Germany  than  of  Russia,  for  the  Russians  will  be  the 
ones  to  reap  the  benefit  in  the  form  of  superior  equipment.  But  the  Ger- 
mans cannot  be  too  scrupulous,  provided  their  industries  get  the  Russian 
orders.  Profits  are  increasing;  prices  of  luxury  goods  doubled  during 
December;  but  there  is  a  real  shortage  of  butter,  fats,  meat  and  eggs. 
Even  those  with  the  money  to  buy  food  must  stand  in  line  and  receive 
rations  as  in  wartime.  In  consequence  Doctors  Goebbels  and  Ley,  repre- 
senting the  Propaganda  Department  and  the  Labor  Front  respectively, 
have  declared  war  on  Doctor  Schacht,  while  Goring  favors  a  coup  d'etat 
by  the  army  if  Goebbels  and  Ley  make  trouble.  Hitler  stands  with 
Schacht,  but  even  his  power  has  shown  some  signs  of  decay.  He  has 
agreed,  for  instance,  to  a  ruling  by  his  Cabinet  members  to  submit  his 
speeches  to  them  for  approval  before  they  are  issued  for  publication  in 
Germany  or  abroad.  He  no  longer  speaks  direct  by  radio  but  has  a  record 
made  of  the  approved  portions  of  his  talks  and  these  are  broadcast  after 
the  actual  meeting.  Such  details  may  mean  much  or  little,  but  seen  in 
conjunction  with  a  general  economic  deterioration  they  do  not  make  the 
future  of  National  Socialist  Germany  look  too  hopeful. 

GERMANY  APPEARS  ALSO  to  have  suffered  a  reverse  abroad. 
Colonel  Beck,  Poland's  Foreign  Minister,  made  a  speech  before  Parlia- 
ment in  the  middle  of  January  and  did  not  mention  the  subject  of 
*  bilateral  pacts '  which  he  had  endorsed  only  a  year  before.  This  omis- 
sion and  its  significance  were  not  lost  on  the  Berliner  Tageblatt^  which 
criticized  him  for  his  sudden  conversion  to  collective  agreements  and 
regional  organizations.  Colonel  Beck  reminded  the  Soviet  Union  that 
Poland  had  been  the  first  to  sign  one  of  its  non-aggression  treaties  back  in 
1932,  and  he  paid  special  homage  to  Great  Britain: — 

I  have  no  right  to  define  Great  Britain  as  one  of  the  parties  to  the  Abyssinian 
dispute,  for  this  is  being  handled  in  accordance  with  the  prescribed  procedure  of 
the  League.  Our  relations  with  Great  Britain  are  of  the  best,  as  is  shown  by  ac- 
tivities in  Geneva  and  by  the  favorable  development  of  our  economic  intercourse 
with  that  country.  Any  differences  between  Great  Britain's  fundamental  aims  in 
Europe  and  the  vital  interests  of  our  policy  seem  to  be  improbable. 

While  calling  the  'universalism'  of  the  League  a  failure,  he  did  in- 
dicate that  Poland  would  continue  to  support  that  organization: — 

We  do  not  pass  judgment  on  the  Covenant  of  the  League,  nor  upon  its  possible 
reform.  But,  so  long  as  it  is  recognized  by  a  great  number  of  countries,  it  binds  us 
equally  with  the  others:  no  more,  but  no  less.  We  cannot  contribute  to  the  weak- 
ening of  this  instrument  of  international  collaboration.  This  consideration  was 
decisive  in  the  line  of  action  which  we  took  at  Geneva  (on  the  Italo-Abyssinian 
conflict). 


[6]  THE  LIVING  AGE  March 

Between  the  lines  of  these  utterances  any  nation  or  group  of  nations 
that  wants  Polish  cooperation  can  read  the  message  that  'Barkis  is 
willin' ' — at  a  price. 

GERMAN  MINORITIES  in  the  three  Little  Entente  countries  have 
become  one  of  the  most  embarrassing  problems  in  modern  Europe. 
Rumania  and  Yugoslavia  have  about  halfa  million  citizens  each  of  Ger- 
man origin;  Czechoslovakia  has  three-and-a-half  millions.  But  the  Ger- 
mans of  Rumania  and  Yugoslavia  enjoy  greater  prosperity  than  the 
average  citizens  where  the  Czechoslovak  Germans  enjoy  less.  There  are 
700,000  unemployed  in  Czechoslovakia  and  half  of  these  are  Germans 
who  form  only  22  per  cent  of  the  total  population.  Partly  because  of  this 
distress  and  partly  because  of  their  proximity  to  the  Third  Reich,  no  less 
than  70  per  cent  of  the  Germans  in  Czechoslovakia  have  joined  a  politi- 
cal party  on  the  Nazi  model,  although  its  leader,  Conrad  Henlein,  denies 
having  any  personal  contact  with  Hitler. 

The  chief  resistance  to  Henlein  comes,  not  from  the  Czechs,  but  from 
the  workers,  both  Czech  and  German;  the  employing  class,  on  the  other 
hand,  supports  his  anti-Marxist  doctrines.  Gangs  of  thugs  beat  up 
Socialists  and  Communists  while  the  German  radio  urges  Henlein 's  fol- 
lowers on.  The  Czechs  believe  that  Nazi  Germany  aims  to  destroy  their 
state,  but  they  do  not  take  Henlein's  emotionalism  seriously  and  wait  for 
the  future  to  discredit  him.  The  German  minority,  in  turn,  reacts  with 
increased  violence  because  they  see  their  birth-rate  falling  while  the 
Czech  birth-rate  rises.  Meanwhile  the  smaller  German  minorities  in 
Rumania  and  Yugoslavia  show  fewer  symptoms  of  unrest  and  less  desire 
for  unity.  Some  subscribe  to  Hitler's  racial  doctrines;  others  are  more 
inclined  to  let  well  enough  alone;  and  it  is  this  latter  element,  curiously 
enough,  that  has  the  support  of  the  German  Nazis.  For  the  Third  Reich 
knows  that  the  German  minorities  in  Rumania  and  Yugoslavia — ^unlike 
the  much  larger  German  group  in  Czechoslovakia — can  accomplish  noth- 
ing independently.  On  the  other  hand,  the  governments  of  both  countries, 
especially  in  army  circles,  have  pro-German  and  anti-French  tendencies 
which  might  bring  them  over  into  the  Nazi  camp. 

ITALY'S  INVASION  of  Ethiopia  has  given  rise  to  a  series  of  diplo- 
matic maneuvers  in  the  Near  East.  Turkey,  Iran,  Iraq  and  Afghanistan 
have  drafted  a  non-aggression  pact  which  Arabia,  Yemen  and  Trans- 
jordania  may  also  sign.  But  whatever  comes  of  this  particular  project, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  the  rising  nationalist  movement  has  become  the 
most  important  single  factor  in  the  Near  East.  Mustapha  Kemal  was  the 
first  man  to  organize  this  sentiment,  and  Turkey  therefore  stands  to  reap 
the  reward  of  his  foresight.  When  his  troops  defeated  the  Greeks  in 


igs6  THE  WORLD  OVER  [7] 

1922,  Kemal  really  defeated  Great  Britain,  and  he  did  so  without  ac- 
cepting the  aid  that  the  Soviet  Union  offered.  Foreseeing  Anglo-Russian 
rivalry,  he  made  Turkey  a  neutral  buffer  state,  and  then,  by  liquidating 
the  Moslem  religion,  he  removed  many  religious  controversies  from  the 
political  arena.  In  this  way  Kemal  assured  Turkey's  immunity  from 
Russian  or  British  attack  and  at  the  same  time  set  an  example  of  anti- 
clericalism  that  was  long  overdue  in  the  Mohammedan  world.  The  tem- 
poral ruler  of  Turkey  no  longer  claimed  spiritual  leadership  over  all 
Mohammedan  peoples.  Today  Kemal  stands  at  the  head  of  the  inde- 
pendent nations  of  the  Near  East  and  has  led  them  rather  more  in  the 
Russian  than  in  the  English  camp.  Ibn  Saud  of  Arabia,  on  the  other 
hand,  stands  at  the  head  of  the  Pan-Arabian  movement,  which  is  more 
or  less  under  British  influence.  These  two  leaders,  the  one  a  hard-drink- 
ing agnostic,  the  other  a  teetotalling  Moslem  fanatic,  have  it  in  their 
power  to  dictate  terms  to  all  the  Great  Powers  in  the  Near  East. 

THE  YEAR  1935  saw  Japan  break  many  records.  The  population  of  all 
the  possessions  of  the  Island  Empire  surpassed  100  million,  and  indus- 
trial production  doubled  as  compared  with  1928.  The  industries  working 
for  armaments  and  exports  showed  the  greatest  gains,  and  total  exports 
increased  17  per  cent,  while  imports  advanced  only  10  per  cent.  The 
total  volume  of  trade  exceeded  5  billion  yen  for  the  first  time  in  Japanese 
history,  and  the  unfavorable  trade  balance  of  only  30  million  yen  was 
more  than  overbalanced  by  the  so-called  'invisible  imports'  from  foreign 
investments. 

Three  factors  made  these  records  possible — first  and  foremost  the 
superior  efficiency  of  Japanese  factories  in  turning  out  low-cost  goods; 
second,  increased  exports  to  the  United  States;  third,  the  ItaHan-Ethio- 
pian  war,  which  opened  several  markets  to  the  Japanese.  Of  particular 
interest  to  American  citizens,  who  are  being  urged  by  such  British 
spokesmen  as  General  Smuts  and  Sir  Frederick  Whyte  to  fight  Japan  in 
behalf  of  England,  is  the  fact  that  Japanese-American  trade  is  now  three 
times  as  great  as  Chinese-American  trade.  The  fly  in  the  ointment  lies  in 
the  Japanese  budget.  This  will  show  a  deficit  of  757,500,000  yen,  or  two- 
thirds  of  the  total  government  expenditures,  excluding  the  military  and 
naval  appropriations,  which,  in  turn,  account  for  46^^  per  cent  of  all 
expenditures. 


A  Chinese  editor  talks  turkey  to  the 
Japanese,  and  two  European  journal- 
ists report  on  conditions  in  the  East. 


The  World  Looks 
at  JAPAN 


News  and  Views 
FROM  THE  Orient 

I.  An  Open  Letter  to  the  Japanese  People 
By  Dr.  Hu  Shih 

Translated  by  Yu  Hsi-chicn 
From  the  Independent  Critic,  Peiping  Independent  Weekly 


Tc 


O  THE  Japanese  People:  cannot    restrain    myself   any    longer 

This  open  letter  is  written  in  com-  from  laying  bare  to  you  what  is  in  my 

pliance  with  a  request  made  by  one  of  heart. 

your  prominent  scholars,  Mr.  Taka-  The  first  message  that  I  wish  to 

nobu  Murobuse,  three  months  ago.  My  convey  to  you  is:  I  sincerely  beseech 

delay  in  writing  it  has  been  due  partly  that  from  now  on  you  will  cease  to  talk 

to  pressure  of  affairs  during  the  past  about    the    so-called    '  Sino-Japanese 

few  months;  but  the  main  reason  is  amity.' Whenever  during  the  past  four 

rather  that  I  doubt  very  much  whether  years  I  have  heard  any  Japanese  use 

such  a  letter  will  ever  serve  any  good  this  sweet-sounding  phrase,  it  has  al- 

purpose  at  all.  If  I  should  write  in  a  ways  given  me  a  sickly  feeling  ofpain 

sweet  tone  to  please  you,  it  would  be  — the  same  feeling  of  pain  that  I  suf- 

against  my  conscience.  And  if  I  should  fered  whenever  I  heard  any  Japanese 

allow  myself  to  speak  straight  from  my  militarist  speak  of  the  *  rule  of  benevo- 

heart,   I   am   afraid  that  you  would  lence.'  To  speak  frankly,  I   do  not 

turn  a  deaf  ear  to  me.  understand  what  these  phrases  mean. 

Nevertheless,  I  have  now  made  up  Your  militarists  talk  about  the  'rule 

my  mind  to  write  this  letter  because  of  benevolence,'  when  everyone  can 

the    strained    relationship    between  see  that  what  they  really  mean  is  the 

China  and  Japan  has  recently  pro-  'rule  of  malevolence.'  And  you  talk 

gressed  so  much  for  the  worse  that  I  about  striving  for  Sino-Japanese  mu- 


THE  WORLD  LOOKS  AT  JAPAN 


[9] 


tual  help  and  amity  when,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  every  one  can  see  that  you 
are  only  doing  your  utmost  to  sow  the 
seeds  of  mutual  hatred  and  enmity. 
I  presume  that  you  must  have  enough 
sentiment  and  common  sense  to  realize 
that  under  such  circumstances  it  is 
entirely  meaningless  to  talk  about 
*  Sino-Japanese  amity.' 

I  wish  that  you  would  turn  over  in 
your  minds  the  following  questions: 
what  have  you  accomplished  in  your 
four  years  of  endeavor  for  mutual 
amity?  Are  we  more  kindly  disposed 
toward  each  other,  or  are  we  plunged 
in  even  deeper  hatred? 

It  was  only  last  June  that  the  Chi- 
nese Government  was  coerced  by  the 
Japanese  militarists  into  issuing  a 
'Love  Your  Neighbor'  decree  pro- 
hibiting all  anti-Japanese  speech  and 
activities.  It  is  true  that  the  decree  has 
succeeded  in  suppressing  all  anti- 
Japanese  speech  and  activities.  But  it 
must  also  be  true  that  the  decree  of  a 
government,  no  matter  how  stringent, 
can  never  suppress  the  inner  thoughts 
and  emotions  of  a  people.  And  as  it  is 
impossible  for  these  thoughts  and 
sentiments — thoughts  and  sentiments 
of  deep  hatred — to  find  expression 
through  their  proper  channels,  it  is  but 
natural  that  they  should  become  even 
more  firmly  entrenched  in  their  hearts 
and  take  on  an  ever  deeper  and 
deeper  hue.  This  is  but  common  sense 
about  human  nature.  It  is  difficult  to 
understand  why  the  Japanese  mili- 
tarists and  citizens  should  have  ut- 
terly overlooked  it. 

Therefore  my  first  admonition  to 
you  is:  I  pray  that  you  will  stop  your 
talk  of  *  Sino-Japanese  amity.'  Our 
present  problem  is  essentially  one  of 
finding  a  way  to  end  '  Sino-Japanese 
enmity,'  not  one  of  promoting  *  Sino- 


Japanese  amity.'  So  long  as  this 
mutual  hatred  is  not  dissolved,  all 
talk  about  friendship  and  amity  is 
simply  insult  on  the  part  of  the  Japa- 
nese, and  false  professions  on  the  part 
of  the  Chinese. 

II 

The  second  message  that  I  wish  to 
give  you  is:  I  sincerely  hope  that  you 
will  not  treat  lightly  the  hatred  of  a 
people  numbering  four  hundred  mil- 
lions. *  Even  the  sting  of  a  small  wasp 
is  poisonous;'  it  will  not  be  hard  for 
you  to  imagine  what  injury  may  re- 
sult to  you  from  the  deep  resentment 
of  four  hundred  million  people. 

I  believe  you  must  agree  with  me 
that  for  the  past  four  years  the  Chi- 
nese Government  and  people,  with  all 
their  patience  and  submission,  have 
gone  far  enough  in  prostrating  them- 
selves before  your  unreasonable  de- 
mands— demands  backed  by  force. 
This  they  have  done  only  because 
they  recognize  the  superiority  of  your 
army  and  navy  and  have  tried  to  avoid 
every  possibility  of  armed  conflict,  so 
that  under  this  forced  submission 
they  might  be  given  a  chance  to  re- 
build their  badly  shattered  nation. 

But  as  we  watch  patiently  the  ac- 
tivities of  your  militarists,  we  have 
finally  come  to  the  painful  realization 
that  there  is  no  limit  to  their  greedi- 
ness. Manchuria  is  not  big  enough  for 
them,  so  they  must  have  Jehol.  Still 
not  satisfied,  they  invaded  the  eastern 
part  of  Chahar.  And  now  even  the 
demilitarized  zone  of  northeastern 
Hopei  will  not  satiate  their  greed  for 
another  puppet  state  in  the  five  prov- 
inces of  Northern  China.  And  so,  step 
by  step,  they  are  eating  their  way  into 
the  heart  of  China.  True  it  is  that 
there  is  no  limit  to  their  greediness; 


[lo] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


but  they  must  have  overlooked  the 
fact  that  there  is  a  limit  to  Chinese 
patience  and  submission.  And  the 
time  may  come  when  the  Chinese 
people,  maddened  by  too  much  insult 
and  hatred,  will  make  a  desperate 
effort  to  hit  back. 

The  recent  resistance  of  Abyssinia 
against  Italian  invasion  could  hardly 
have  given  us  a  better  example  or  one 
that  more  quickly  puts  us  to  shame 
and  incites  us  to  fresh  effort.  'Can't 
we  catch  up  even  with  the  Abyssin- 
ians.^'  is  a  current  query  that  can  be 
heard  everywhere  in  China. 

Be  it  granted  that  to  catch  up  with 
the  Abyssinians  is  no  easy  task  for  the 
Chinese,  still  I  can  assure  you  of  one 
fact:  should  it  come  about  that  China 
be  pressed  so  hard  that  she  has  no 
way  out,  then  there  will  be  only  one 
thing  left  for  her  to  do — stake  every- 
thing in  a  desperate  counter-attack, 
let  her  big  cities  and  industrial  centers 
be  blown  up  by  the  most  up-to-date, 
deadly  bombers  and  cannon.  Two 
years  ago,  one  of  your  military  leaders 
sounded  a  'policy  of  ruins.'  If  that  is 
what  your  country  is  going  to  do  with 
China,  then  you  can  be  assured  that 
we  have  really  come  to  our  journey's 
end  and  are  bound  to  find  some  way 
out.  What  you  have  allowed  us  is  a 
narrow  path — the  path  of  the  life- 
and-death  struggle  of  a  bound  animal, 
the  path  of  counteracting  the  Japa- 
nese 'policy  of  ruins'  by  the  Chinese 
'policy  of  ruins.'  And  it  is  very  doubt- 
ful whether  Japan  will  benefit  much 
by  a  ruined  China. 

I  hope  you  can  be  convinced  of  this 
truth:  so  long  as  any  two  countries 
have  decided  to  go  to  war,  it  is  quite 
usual  for  the  strong  to  conquer  the 
weak;  but  it  need  not  necessarily 
foster   hatred   in    the    mind    of    the 


defeated.  The  Russo-Japanese  alli- 
ance was  concluded  not  more  than 
five  years  after  the  Russo-Japanese 
War.  It  was  not  more  than  ten  years 
after  the  Sino-Japanese  War  that  the 
majority  of  Chinese  sympathized  with 
the  Japanese  in  their  war  with  Russia. 
Again,  it  was  not  long  after  being  de- 
feated by  Prussia  that  Austria  entered 
into  alliance  with  her  former  adver- 
sary. Defeat  in  battle  does  not  neces- 
sarily create  hatred  in  one's  mind.  It 
is  only  when  one  is  struck  without 
warning,  or  taken  advantage  of  while 
in  so  straitened  a  position  that  he  is 
unable  either  to  strike  back  or  stand 
and  defend  himself — the  sort  of  thing 
that  a  country  like  Japan,  where 
chivalry  has  long  been  a  social  tradi- 
tion, should  not  stoop  to  do — that  one 
feels  most  embittered. 


Ill 


My  third  message  to  you  is:  as  an 
admirer  of  Japan,  I  strongly  advise 
that  you  take  care  not  to  despoil  your- 
selves of  your  marvelous  achievements 
of  the  past  and  the  great  future  that 
lies  before  you.  The  great  achieve- 
ments of  Japan  in  the  past  sixty  years 
not  only  present  a  glorious  picture  of 
the  Japanese  people,  but  may  also  be 
viewed  as  one  of  the  great  'miracles' 
of  all  mankind.  Anyone  who  reads  the 
glorious  records  of  Japanese  history  in 
the  past  sixty  years  cannot  help  feel- 
ing both  awe  and  admiration. 

But  let  me  remind  you  of  another 
Chinese  proverb:  'A  task  well  started, 
if  not  carried  on  in  the  same  good 
spirit,  is  likely  to  end  sadly.'  It  may 
take  endless  pains  for  a  people  to  build 
up  a  great  country,  but  it  takes  only  a 
moment's  rashness  to  break  it  into 
pieces.  I  am  not  going  to  cite  instances 


i93(> 


THE  WORLD  LOOKS  AT  JAPAN 


:ii] 


from  the  huge  empires  of  the  past.  It 
was  only  about  two  hundred  years  ago 
that  Spain  occupied  about  half  of  the 
globe,  and  her  colonies  took  up  every 
corner  of  the  earth.  But  where  is  her 
big  empire  now?  The  swiftness  with 
which  Japan  rose  to  a  world  Power 
could  not  find  a  better  parallel  than 
the  Germany  before  the  Great  War. 
Before  19 14,  Germany  excelled  every 
country  in  almost  everything — mili- 
tary equipment,  political  organization, 
industry,  commerce,  culture,  science, 
philosophy,  music  and  art.  But  the 
destructive  effect  of  four  years' 
wretched  warfare  turned  this  most 
admired  country  into  the  most  dis- 
orderly and  impoverished  country  in 
the  world.  In  spite  of  her  hard  struggle 
for  nearly  twenty  years,  her  position 
now  is  still  far  below  her  pre-War 
status.  The  more  we  examine  these 
historical  instances,  the  more  we  are 
convinced  that  we  should  'be  careful 
to  end  well.' 

No  country  can  expect  a  more  prom- 
ising future  than  Japan.  Her  progress 
will  be  obstructed  by  nobody.  Her  only 
obstacle  is  her  own  desire  to  destroy 
herself. 

Mr.  Arnold  Toynbee,  an  English 
student  of  international  relations, 
pointed  out  three  years  ago  that  the 
reckless  behavior  of  the  Japanese 
militarists  amounts  to  no  less  than 
hastening  the  suicidal  process  for  the 
whole  Japanese  people. 

I  profess  candidly  that  I  have  ever 
been  one  of  those  who  hold  the  highest 
opinion  of  the  past  achievements  of 
the  Japanese  people.  I  have  conceived 
of  the  great  future  that  is  in  store  for 
Japan;  of  the  unbroken  line  of  her  suc- 
cessive emperors,  all  coming  from  one 
family;  of  the  diligent,  thrifty  and 
patriotic  spirit  of  her  people;  of  her 


tradition  of  chivalry,  love  of  art,  and 
studious  and  scholarly  atmosphere.  I 
have  observed  in  her  people  a  combi- 
nation of  the  best  traits  of  both  the 
German  and  the  English  and  have 
visualized  the  future  Japan  as  de- 
veloping peacefully  into  the  most  ad- 
mired and  respected  country  in  the 
Orient. 

But  as  I  follow  the  recent  political 
tendencies  of  Japan,  I  have  great  mis- 
givings about  her  future  development. 
In  the  first  place,  the  democratic  con- 
stitutional spirit  manifested  in  her 
political  organization  for  the  past 
sixty  years  was  within  a  very  short 
period  replaced  by  the  dictatorship  of 
a  few  militarists.  Secondly,  a  country 
always  noted  for  political  order  and 
discipline,  she  now  suffers  a  sudden 
change  to  political  dislocation  and  de- 
rangement, so  that  a  foreigner  is  often 
bewildered  as  to  wherein  lies  her  po- 
litical sovereignty  and  wherein  her 
military  sovereignty.  Thirdly,  Japan, 
a  country  that  has  always  been  ad- 
mired and  respected,  is  now  feared  as  a 
menace  to  world  peace,  and  is  sur- 
rounded by  enemies  at  every  turn. 
Fourthly,  the  new  international  situa- 
tion created  by  the  Japanese  force 
could  only  be  maintained  in  statu  quo 
by  an  even  greater  force,  which 
necessitates  an  unlimited  expansion 
of  her  armaments.  The  Japanese  ex- 
pansion of  armaments  will  in  turn 
encourage  other  powers  to  start  an 
armament  race,  and  may  eventually 
precipitate  the  outbreak  of  another 
World  War. 

With  a  huge  seized  territory  in 
hand,  the  hatred  of  four  hundred  mil- 
lion people,  a  strong  military  oppo- 
nent on  land,  and  two  strong  naval 
rivals  at  sea,  Japan  has  never  needed 
such    wise    statesmanship    and    far- 


.12] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


sightedness  to  handle  a  situation  as 
she  does  now.  A  slight  deviation  from 
the  right  course  will  result  in  the  most 
deplorable  consequences  and  plunge 
the  whole  nation  headlong  into  self- 
destruction  ! 

The  ancient  saying  'check  your 
horse  speedily  at  the  edge  of  a  preci- 
pice' is  the  hardest  golden  rule  for  any 
statesman  to  follow,  and  there  have 
been  very  few  such  instances  in  the 
political  history  of  the  whole  human 
race.  But '  there  is  no  end  to  the  bitter 
sea  ahead,  while  a  safe  beach  is  just  at 
your  back.'  The  danger  of  not  turning 


back  and  landing  on  the  safe  beach  is 
inconceivable. 

Therefore  my  last  admonition  to 
you  is:  I  hope  you  will  highly  treasure 
the  glorious  achievements  of  your 
past,  as  well  as  your  bright  prospects 
for  a  great  future.  I  feel  constrained  to 
offer  you  sincerely  the  above  advice, 
because  I  do  not  believe  that  the 
annihilation  of  Japan  would  be  a 
blessing  either  to  China  or  to  the 
world  at  large. 

Yours  sincerely, 

Hu  Shih 


II,  News  from  Japan 
By  GuNTHER  Stein 

From  the  Spectator,  London  Conservative  Weekly 


XHE  difficulties  of  a  correspondent 
in  Japan  are  numerous.  They  are 
partly  artificial,  though  not,  perhaps, 
to  the  same  extent  as  in  Soviet  Russia, 
Italy  or  Germany.  More  important 
are  the  natural  obstacles;  and  these 
are  so  immense  that  the  authorities 
can  content  themselves  with  a  small 
measure  of  interference.  Even  to  a 
correspondent  who  has  lived  in  Japan 
for  many  years  the  country  remains, 
in  many  of  its  aspects,  a  closed  book. 
He  will  still  divine  rather  than  know 
the  essential  facts. 

The  chief  barrier  is  the  language.  To 
learn  Japanese  in  the  same  way  as  an 
English  journalist  at,  say,  Berlin  or 
Paris  can  learn  German  or  French 
would  take  not  less  than  ten  years  of 
intensive,  and  perhaps  exclusive,  study. 
A  superficial  knowledge  of  colloquial 
terms,  which  is  quickly  acquired,  may 
be  sufficient  for  deaHng  with  the  taxi- 
driver,   the   maid-servant,   the   shop 


assistant  or  the  waitress.  It  does  noth- 
ing to  facilitate  journalistic  work. 
The  reading  of  Japanese  newspapers 
can  be  approached  only  with  a  real 
knowledge  of  at  least  three  thousand 
complicated  Chinese  symbols  in  all 
their  manifold  individual  and  com- 
posite meanings. 

It  is  nearly  impossible,  moreover,  to 
obtain  a  satisfactory  assistant  who 
will  not  merely  translate  but  select 
matters  worth  translating.  Most  for- 
eigners, therefore,  have  no  means  of 
opening  up  the  mine  of  information 
contained  in  the  large  and  largely 
topical  Japanese  book  literature,  while 
acquaintance. with  the  important  po- 
litical magazines  must  remain  hap- 
hazard and  incomplete.  The  cause  of 
this  difficulty  is  not  merely  the  general 
lack  of  linguistic  ability;  it  is  largely 
the  traditional  reticence  of  every 
Japanese  towards  the  foreigner — an 
attitude  which  survives  even  personal 


i93(> 


THE  WORLD  LOOKS  AT  JAPAN 


[13] 


friendship.  In  centuries  of  isolation 
this  reserve  has  become  a  part  of  the 
Japanese  character.  A  brief  period  of 
relaxation  during  the  *  liberal '  political 
experiment  has  been  completely  wiped 
out  by  recent  propaganda  of  the 
'national  emergency.' 

Further  difficulties  arise  from  the 
lack  of  analytical  and  critical  thinking, 
which  is  a  conscious  aim  of  Japanese 
education.  It  is  often  for  this  reason 
that  the  simplest  questions  fail  to 
draw  satisfactory  replies.  Finally,  the 
mass  of  cumbersome  traditions  of 
polite  intercourse  threatens  to  envelop 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  searching  jour- 
nalist in  an  avalanche  of  misunder- 
standing and  waste  of  time,  of  frustra- 
tion and  angry  struggle.  Many  are  the 
persons  who  combine  to  hinder,  inten- 
tionally or  otherwise,  the  correspond- 
ent's work.  There  is  the  translator 
who  omits  or  waters  down  a  report 
*  because  it  might  give  an  unfavorable 
impression.'  There  is  the  policeman  in 
uniform  or  mufti  who  on  journeys 
overland  appears  at  the  hotel  with  the 
dawn  and  appoints  himself  guide  and 
censor  of  the  visitor's  itinerary — he  is 
apt  to  interpret  any  use  of  the  camera 
as  a  dangerous  act:  the  other  day  a 
group  of  Americans  were  arrested 
after  photographing  rows  of  radishes 
in  a  drying  shed.  There  is  the  amiable 
local  dignitary  who  will  not  under- 
stand that  the  foreigners  have  come 
for  any  purpose  but  to  consume  long, 
sumptuous  meals. 

To  be  a  policeman  appears  to  be 
the  day-dream  of  every  Japanese. 
Some  time  ago  I  was  traveling  to- 
gether with  an  American  journalist 
when  we  were  visited  in  our  rooms 
by  a  man  who  desired  to  know,  in 
a  mixture  of  Japanese  and  English, 
details  of  our  respective  age,  place  of 


birth,  married  state,  number  of  chil- 
dren, purpose  and  time  of  sojourn,  and 
political  views.  He  made  copious  notes 
of  our  willing  answers,  and  it  was  only 
afterwards  that  we  discovered  him  to 
be  an  ordinary  hotel  guest  without  any 
connexion  with  the  authorities. 

Again,  the  Japanese  newspapers  do 
not  oflFer  the  information  usually 
found  in  the  European  or  American 
Press.  They  are  frequently  misleading, 
and  their  idea  of  truth  is  oriental,  that 
is  to  say,  subjective.  Their  aim  is  to 
achieve  the  largest  possible  circulation 
with  the  least  possible  offence  to  the 
authorities.  Accordingly  they  not  only 
respect  the  recognized  political  'ta- 
boos,' but  also  censor  themselves  so 
effectively  that  the  Government  rarely 
has  occasion  to  intervene.  The  Press 
enjoys  freedom  of  criticism  only  in 
the  sense  of  still  greater  patriotic 
fervor;  otherwise  its  freedom  lies 
mainly  in  an  extraordinary  populariza- 
tion of  public  personalities.  Thus  the 
Prime  Minister's  love  of  Sake,  or  the 
family  affairs  of  Japanese  diplomats, 
can  be  discussed  without  reserve. 
On  the  other  hand  the  news  service, 
particularly  that  from  China,  is 
heavily  influenced  and  usually  reflects 
without  balance  the  existing  disa- 
greements between  Japanese  diplo- 
macy and  Japanese  generals. 


II 


Among  the  constructive  supports 
of  the  Tokyo  correspondent  is  the 
tri-weekly  meeting  with  the  Director 
of  the  Information  Department  in  the 
Foreign  Office,  Mr.  Eiji  Amau.  The 
assistance  offered  is  not  very  sub- 
stantial, and  often  the  exchange  of 
views  with  one's  colleagues  in  the 
ante-chamber  is  far  more  productive. 


[14] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


Even  at  these  meetings  a  strict  cere- 
monial is  observed.  Regular  visitors 
have  their  own  reserved  seats  ranged 
according  to  the  importance  of  their 
journals.  Confronting  Mr.  Amau  is 
his  principal  adversary,  the  corre- 
spondent of  the  Soviet  Tass  agency; 
next  to  him  the  seasoned  representa- 
tive of  an  American  agency,  who  acts 
as  unofficial  spokesman  of  the  foreign 
journalists;  further  on  the  greatly 
respected  correspondent  of  the  London 
and  New  York  'j'imes,  and  the  repre- 
sentatives of  Reuter  and  Havas.  In 
the  background  there  are  some  twenty 
other  journalists  from  many  countries. 
Mr.  Amau,  who  is  about  forty-five 
and  has  uncommonly,  curly  hair,  a 
short  moustache,  and  vivid  eyes,  talks 
informally,  though  with  an  undertone 
of  sarcasm  which  is  thrown  back  by 
his  visitors. 

Most  questions  are  answered  by 
stereotyped  phrases  such  as  '  I  have  no 
information  on  this  matter.'  Equally 
unhelpful  are  the  familiar  explanations 
about  'Japan's  responsibility  as  the 
only  stabilizing  factor  in  the  Far 
East;*  about  Japanese  intentions  sadly 
misjudged  by  the  outside  world;  about 
the  'insincerity'  of  China;  the  Red 
menace;  the  unjustified  attempt  of 
Great  Britain  to  interfere  in  China; 
the  naval  egotism  of  the  United 
States;  and  the  'real  independence'  of 
Manchukuo.  It  is  only  on  rare  occa- 
sions that  these  discussions  produce  a 
sensational  statement  of  policy,  usu- 
ally couched  in  terms  of  a  warning  to 
the  world  at  large. 

The  journalist  who  wants  to  under- 
stand and  interpret  what  is  going  on  is 
thrown,  apart  from  field  work  on  cross- 
country journeys,  upon  the  study  of 
Japanese  history.  Nowhere  does  his- 


tory repeat  itself  so  thoroughly,  with 
whatever  variations,  as  in  this  single- 
minded  country  whose  tactical  tradi- 
tions have  become  national  charac- 
teristics as  much  as  its  political  aims 
have  grown  into  a  State  religion. 
What  the  official  spokesman  will  say 
tomorrow  about  the  conflict  with 
North  China,  Japanese  Ministers  and 
diplomats  have  said  thirty  or  forty 
years  ago  with  regard  to  Korea  and 
three  or  four  years  ago  about  Man- 
churia. How  the  latest  struggle  be- 
tween services  and  bureaucracy  over 
the  spoils  of  the  budget  is  likely  to  end 
can  be  judged  pretty  accurately  from 
the  domestic  history  of  the  last  dec- 
ades, provided  the  observer  is  able  at 
the  same  time  to  judge  the  political 
atmosphere. 

Curiously  enough  it  is  not  very 
difficult,  after  some  time  spent  in 
Japan,  to  get  what  old  hands  call  the 
'  smell '  of  the  political  atmosphere 
here.  It  is  far  more  difficult  to  obtain 
immediate,  concrete  information  to 
confirm  a  guess  which  afterwards 
proves  to  have  been  quite  correct. 
With  all  their  love  of  secretiveness, 
with  all  the  careful  preservation  of 
'face'  in  the  individual  case,  the 
Japanese  are  no  cleverer  than  other 
people  in  disguising  the  unconscious 
expression  of  their  moods  and  inten- 
tions. And  this  accessibility  of  the 
Japanese  atmosphere  is  the  answer  to 
the  question  how  foreign  correspond- 
ents, and  foreign  diplomatists,  for  that 
matter,  manage  time  and  again  in  the 
face  of  enormous  difficulties  to  give  a 
picture  of  Japanese  developments 
which  later  on,  when  facts  become 
available,  turns  out  to  have  been  no 
less  reliable  than  reports  sent  from 
countries  free  of  those  limitations. 


193^ 


THE  WORLD  LOOKS  AT  JAPAN 


:i5] 


in.  The  Open  Door  in  Manchukuo 

By  Ella  Maillart 
Translated  from  the  "Journal  de  Geneve,  Geneva  Liberal  Daily 


Ai 


.LTHOUGH  it  claims  to  be  the 
seat  of  the  Kwantung  Government, 
Port  Arthur  is  a  sleepy  city.  One  feels 
that  the  Japanese  consider  that  they 
have  only  one  lease  there — the  one 
gained  from  their  first  victory  over  the 
white  race,  in  the  Russo-Japanese 
War. 

There,  as  everywhere  else,  my  arms 
were  filled  with  pamphlets — propa- 
ganda and  statistics.  Unless  I  resisted, 
I  was  reduced  to  going  everywhere 
burdened  by  these  printed  documents 
— irrefutable  ones,  no  doubt.  The 
Japanese  bent  in  two  saluting  me,  vy- 
ing with  each  other  in  order  to  impress 
their  courtesy  upon  my  European 
brain. 

But  tonight  I  am  with  people  of  my 
own  race.  And  they  talk,  happy  to 
meet  someone  to  whom  their  problems 
are  still  new.  The  conversation  touches 
upon  all  the  burning  questions  of  the 
day  and,  directed  by  the  most  com- 
petent persons  among  them,  focuses 
upon  the  question  that  I  have  often 
wanted  to  have  discussed. 

'The  Lytton  report?  You  make  me 
laugh!  It  is  the  work  of  people  who 
have  not  the  sHghtest  idea  of  the  Far 
East.  What  should  be  done.?  It  is  sim- 
ple. .  .  .  Boy,  a  whiskey!  .  .  .  You 
should  merely  recognize  the  independ- 
ence of  Manchukuo,  establish  em- 
bassies and  above  all  send  commercial 
attaches.  No,  Madam,  today  it  is  too 
late  to  do  anything  else:  the  Japanese 
are  safely  installed,  all  the  best  posi- 
tions are  taken.  One  of  these  days  they 


will  be  able  to  say  with  a  smile:  "But 
the  country  has  always  been  open  to 
all."  You  see,  they  were  afraid  of  our 
competition,  and  so  they  have  stolen 
a  march  or  two  on  us.' 

*I  see.  Madam,  that  you  are  trou- 
bled by  the  principle  of  the  Open 
Door.'  This  time  it  is  a  merchant  who 
cross-examines  me.  Heavy,  with  a 
poise  gained  from  fifteen  years  of 
China,  he  speaks  slowly,  like  a  pro- 
fessor. 'This  Open  Door  does  exist,  so 
the  Japanese  statesmen  claim — at 
least  those  of  them  who  fear  the  ef- 
fects of  extreme  state  socialism,  and 
those  who  see  the  day  when,  Japanese 
dumping  having  ceased  to  be  profit- 
able, they  will  have  to  appeal  to  for- 
eign capital.' 

One  of  my  hosts  expounds  to  me 
the  primary  aspects  of  the  question. 

'All  this  is  well  and  good,  my 
friends,  but  there  is  the  army.  You 
say  "Ah!"  Madam,  and  you  are  right. 
The  army  is  the  state.  The  army 
doesn't  want  recognition  of  Man- 
chukuo, because  as  long  as  it  stays  un- 
recognized, it  is  the  army  that  will 
remain  in  control.  The  country  is  the 
army's  political  colony,  its  strategic 
point.' 

'And  what  the  devil  would  busi- 
nessmen do  here,'  adds  another,  'if 
not  diminish  the  importance  of  the 
militarists?  And  what  about  the  Chi- 
nese? Do  you  believe  that  one  could 
let  them  have  a  voice  in  the  matter, 
here  more  than  at  Jehol  or  the  north  of 
China,  where  they  are  maneuvered 


:i6i 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


around  as  the  situation  demands? 
.  .  .  Boy,  come  here.' 

And  I  think  of  all  the  uniforms  I 
have  come  across,  of  all  the  lorries,  all 
the  rolls  of  barbed  wire,  of  the  enor- 
mous sabres  in  their  sharkskin  sheathes, 
of  the  officers'  hard  faces.  Yes,  the 
army  is  in  its  domain  and  will  not  stir 
from  it.  But  a  question  burns  my  lips. 
Will  the  war  break  out  here.''  This 
time  they  interrupt  each  other  in  their 
eagerness  to  reply. 

'Good  Lord,  with  whom.?  With  the 
Russians?  But  they  have  just  ceded 
their  Chinese  Eastern  Railway,  that 
apple  of  discord,  and  besides,  everyone 
is  afraid,  if  of  nothing  else,  at  least  of 
not  having  enough  strength  for  war. 
If  this  were  not  the  case,  wouldn't 
the  Japanese  have  taken  Siberia  away 
from  the  Soviets  three  years  ago,  when 
Moscow  was  still  convalescing  ?  * 

'As  for  a  war  to  annex  Mongolia,'  a 
bass  voice  finishes  the  argument,  'it  is 
still  premature,  at  least,  if  the  Japa- 
nese haven't  yet  got  delusions  of 
grandeur.  They  first  have  to  digest 
Manchuria,  which  cost  them  dearly,' 
he  adds  with  a  great  laugh. 


II 


In  the  temporary  lull  caused  by  the 
arrival  of  the  boy  charged  with  re- 
filling the  glasses,  I  think  of  all  the 
commercial  missions  which  have  left 
Manchukuo  with  almost  empty  hands. 
Why?  Couldn't  they  do  business? 

'Our  business.  Madam?  Killed  by 
competition.  The  way  things  are,  we 
should  all  of  us  go  away,  one  after 
another.  Yes,  yes,  I  know,  the  Open 
Door  of  Manchukuo.  The  door  is 
open,  of  course,  but  it  is  only  to  let 
us  out.  It  is  not  that  Japan  doesn't 
want  foreign  capital.  On  the  contrary. 


Simply  that  she  doesn't  want  other 
interests  established  here.' 

'We  ought  to  show  Mademoiselle 
Maillart  the  tobacco  industry,'  inter- 
poses an  American  who  had  hitherto 
been  silent.  'It  is  charming.  The 
British-American  Tobacco  Company 
has  been  paying  the  State  stamp 
duties  of  about  20,000,000  French 
francs  a  year.  A  sizable  sum,  isn't  it? 
Then  a  Japanese  cigarette  mill  and  a 
Manchukuoan  tobacco  monopoly  were 
established  here.  We  will  surely  be 
ruined.  And  mind  you,  it  is  contrary 
to  the  treaty.' 

This  time  they  are  all  excited. 

'And  the  oil  situation?  Still  better!' 

Better?  I  count  on  my  fingers.  There 
is  the  Standard  Oil,  Asiatic  Petroleum, 
Texaco  ...  I  must  have  spoken  out 
loud,  for  I  am  interrupted: — 

'Not  for  a  long  time.' 

'But,'  I  say,  'what  about  the  as- 
surance given  the  foreign  companies 
that  they  will  be  able  to  import  the 
same  amount  of  oil  as  in  the  past?* 

*  You  don't  know  the  Japanese.  They 
have  specified  nothing,  and  Manchu- 
kuo doesn't  buy  anything  from  us 
except  the  raw  oil.  Consequently 
retail  trade,  the  only  kind  that  could 
improve  our  situation  here,  is  out  of 
the  question.  And  then  the  costly 
foreign  equipment  is  bought  up  by  the 
distributing  monopoly  at  a  disgust- 
ingly low  price.' 

'Well  calculated.' 

'Better  than  you  think.  The  Min- 
ister of  Finance  has  deigned  to  tell  us 
that  we  are  going  to  lose  money,  that 
he  is  broken-hearted;  but,  says  he, 
since  it  is  a  question  of  State  interest 
and  the  protection  of  national  re- 
sources. .  .   !* 

This  time  I  follow  them.  How  many 
times  have  they  spoken  to  me  about 


193^ 


THE  WORLD  LOOKS  AT  JAPAN 


[171 


the  war  oil  reserves  to  be  stored  out- 
side of  the  Japanese  metropolis? 
Weren't  all  the  tanks  of  Yokohama 
destroyed  in  1923,  at  the  time  of  the 
earthquake  ? 

'The  new  refinery  at  Dairen  is 
already  producing  5,000,000  gallons  a 
year.  One  can  anticipate  double  that 
amount  for  next  year;  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  one  can  count  on  it.  Just 
imagine  a  monopoly  with  a  capital  of 
25  million,  the  Government  being  the 
shareholder  for  one  quarter  of  this. 
South  Manchuria  for  a  half  .  .  .' 

'And  the  last  quarter?' 

'Can't  you  guess?  The  rivals  Mit- 
sui-Mitsubishi,  associated  for  once, 
doubtless  to  worry  the  militarists  into 
taking  a  hand  in  the  management  of 
the  country.' 

All  the  same,  I  know  that  1 1,000,000 
gallons  have  been  imported  during  the 
past  year. 

*  But  think  of  the  role  that  Fushun 
is  going  to  play  in  the  oil  situation,' 
one  of  my  interlocutors  interrupts. 
'You  ought  to  go  and  see  this.  Madam. 
It  is  only  in  Tonkin  that  you  can  find 
such  a  charcoal  plant.  The  charcoal  is 
extracted  from  bituminous  schists,  the 
supply  of  which  is  estimated  at  five 
billion  tons.  By  exploiting  these 
schists  the  Japanese  will  have  enough 
to  provision  their  navy  for  the  next 
seventy-five  years.' 

Fushun  depends  for  its  transporta- 
tion upon  the  South  Manchuria  Rail- 
way, as  does  the  port  of  Dairen,  and 
also  the  mines,  factories,  forests,  hos- 
pitals, schools,  farms  and  hotels  which 
are  situated  on  ground  near  the  rail- 
roads. These  represent  enormous  capi- 
tal, which  must  be  closely  watched. 
So  the  Japanese  claim  that  four  years 
ago,  when  the  Chinese  constructed 
railroads  that  would  have  ruined  the 


South  Manchuria  Railway,  they  were 
forced  to  attack  China  in  order  to 
protect  their  invested  capital. 

Anarchy  reigned  under  Chang  Tso- 
lin  before  the  'incident'  of  193 1  (they 
never  call  it  war,  because  war  was 
never  declared).  Manchuria  was  any- 
body's prey  who  wanted  to  take  it. 
According  to  the  Japanese,  they  could 
not  run  the  risk  of  having  Russia  take 
possession  of  it.  And  although  there 
are  30  million  Chinese  in  the  country, 
it  never  really  belonged  to  China,  they 
say,  for  it  was  the  Manchus  who 
conquered  the  Middle  Kingdom. 

'To  tell  the  truth,'  concludes  the 
American,  'the  Japanese  wanted  to 
have  a  hand  in  Asia  in  order  to  begin 
their  conquest  of  the  continent,  and 
they  lacked  raw  materials,  as  well  as 
an  outlet  for  their  congested  produc- 
tion. They  have  to  provide  a  livelihood 
for  90  million  of  their  subjects,  in- 
creased by  a  million  each  year,  and 
they  have  no  place  to  emigrate  to.' 

*  To  establish  their  supremacy  in  Asia 
is  the  only  policy  that  they  can  follow 
in  view  of  their  economic  situation. 
They  are  obstinate  and  devoted  to 
their  country  even  to  death.  If  we 
could  only  agree  to  conceal  our  tech- 
nical progress,  if  only  for  a  time,  from 
them  .  .  .' 

'  It  is  our  weakness  that  makes  them 
strong.  They  are  anxious  to  have  a 
strong  ally  in  Europe  .  .  .' 

'Isn't  Japan  today,'  I  venture,  'on 
the  way  to  aiding  Ethiopia  by  all  the 
means  in  her  power,  and  doesn't  she 
find  herself  for  that  reason  on  the  same 
side  as  England?' 

'Yes,'  replies  an  Englishman.  'But 
Japan  isn't  trying  to  join  us  as  an  ally; 
her  purpose  is  to  oppose  the  white  race 
by  supporting  the  colored  race.  Once 
again  they  profit  by  our  mistakes.' 


Here  is  an  appraisal  by  an  anonymous 
observer  of  the  fighting  forces  at  the 
disposal  of  the  French  Popular  Front. 


ARMIES  of 
the  LEFT 


Translated  from  Vu 
Paris  Topical  Weekly 


A, 


.FTER  the  demonstrations  by  the 
forces  of  the  Right  and  of  the  Left 
which  took  place  on  July  14th  last  at 
the  fitoile  and  the  Bastille  respec- 
tively, some  people  who  claim  to  have 
seen  them  declared:  'The  Popular 
Front  is  made  up  of  voters,  but  the 
National  Front  is  made  up  of  soldiers.' 
These  formulas  have  never  been 
more  than  very  rough  approximations, 
and  today  they  are  growing  less  and 
less  true  to  the  realities,  and  even  ap- 
pearances, of  the  situation.  If  the 
Leagues,  and  at  their  head  the  Croix 
de  Feu,  are  managing  to  preserve  over 
their  adversaries  a  very  clear  military 
superiority,  the  Popular  Front  is  be- 
coming increasingly  something  more 
than  a  vague  group  united  by  political 
and  sentimental  ties.  The  task  of  de- 
fending themselves  against  an  eventual 
attack  by  the  Right  on  the  Govern- 
ment, and  even  against  the  prelim- 
inary steps  toward  such  an  attack,  has 
in  fact  evoked  in  the  ranks  of  the  Left 


and  the  extreme  Left  a  will  to  strike 
back  which  has  already  been  trans- 
lated into  organizational  measures 
with  a  view  to  street  fighting. 

The  organization  is  strictly  defen- 
sive, no  doubt,  but  it  borrows  from 
classical  strategy  and  tactics  many  of 
their  most  effective  elements.  Inci- 
dents like  that  of  the  Villepinte  farm 
have  multiplied  and  are  likely  to  be 
revived  frequently  and  on  a  larger 
scale  in  the  near  future  if  nothing  hap- 
pens in  the  meantime  to  modify  our 
political  habits  and  our  political 
scene. 

The  members  of  the  Leagues 
were  amazed  and  will  be  amazed 
again.  That .  is  because  they  do  not 
realize,  among  other  things,  that  the 
Popular  Front  is  not  merely  a  few  mil- 
lion citizens  in  the  hands  of  a  few 
demagogues  but  a  coalition  of  parties, 
syndicates  and  groups,  each  of  which 
represents  a  considerable  fighting 
power.  As  long  as  domestic  peace  did 


ARMIES  OF  THE  LEFT 


[19] 


not  seem  threatened,  none  of  these 
forces  thought  to  use  this  power  for 
any  other  purpose  than  to  preserve 
order  at  its  own  conventions.  But 
from  the  day  when  strapping  big  fel- 
lows of  ambiguous  intentions  began  to 
comb  the  streets  in  autos  and  trucks 
and  to  devote  themselves  to  various 
alarming  kinds  of  drills,  those  who 
thought  themselves  threatened  by 
these  developments  reacted  and  re- 
flected. They  took  stock  of  themselves 
and  found  that  on  their  side  there  were 
not  only  tongues  and  pens  but  also 
arms  and  fists;  and  quite  naturally 
they  thought  of  using  them. 

On  the  day  after  the  6th  of  Febru- 
ary, 1934,  (when  street  fighting  in 
Paris  was  so  violent  that  the  Govern- 
ment itself  seemed  in  danger),  it  was 
only  necessary  for  the  C.  G.  T.,  {Con- 
federation Generale  de  T'ravail — Gen- 
eral Federation  of  Labor),  and  the 
local  union  of  syndicates  of  the  Seine 
to  give  the  sign  for  a  thousand  masons 
and  metal  workers  to  place  their 
physical  strength  at  the  disposal  of 
the  United  Front  leaders. 

In  less  than  no  time  Socialist  and 
Communist  chiefs  constituted  them- 
selves bodyguards.  But  that  is  nothing 
compared  to  what  has  been  done  since, 
and  what  will  be  done  tomorrow.  The 
truth  is  that  the  organizations  which 
form  the  Popular  Front  possess  vast 
reservoirs  of  fighting  forces  and  have 
only  to  dip  into  them  to  find  both 
soldiers  and  officers.  It  is  sufficient  to 
enumerate  these  reservoirs  to  meas- 
ure their  size. 


The  Communist  Party,  which  ini- 
tiated the  Popular  Front,  appears  to 
consist  of  only  50,000  workers,  who 
carry  a  red  card  and  are  flanked  by  a 


million  sympathizers  or  more.  But  in 
fact  these  50,000  have  not  been  as- 
sembled, after  the  fashion  of  the  mem- 
bers of  other  parties,  in  vague  local 
committees.  They  constitute  small 
and  coherent  nuclei  (cells  and  frac- 
tions) in  many  nerve  centers  of  the 
country:  the  big  factories,  railroad 
junctions,  central  stations  of  the  tele- 
graph system,  arsenals,  barracks,  etc. 
Workers'  syndicates,  peasants'  or- 
ganizations (The  General  Federation 
of  Peasants  and  Workers),  veterans' 
organizations,  committees  of  intel- 
lectuals and  workers,  the  Red  Aid  and 
many  other  associations  are  in  their 
hands. 

All  this  permits  them  to  organize 
shock  troops  rapidly  at  the  decisive 
points  of  the  territory,  where  the 
workers'  organizations  have  proved 
responsive  to  their  recruiting:  Seine, 
Seine-et-Oise,  Pas-de-Calais,  Nord, 
Alsace-Lorraine,  Allier.  Less  coherent, 
less  militant  and  less  dynamic — in 
general  at  any  rate, — the  Socialists 
are  at  the  same  time  more  numerous: 
110,000  members,  2  million  sympa- 
thizers. But  where  the  Communists 
are  strongest,  the  Socialists  bring  them 
a  supplementary  force  which  is  far 
from  negligible.  Elsewhere,  in  Flan- 
ders, Haute-Garonne,  I'lsere,  and  the 
Haute- Vienne,  they  serve  to  relieve 
them  and  are  not  indifferent  to  their 
exhortations. 

To  these  two  workers*  parties  the 
Radicals  (150,000  members  and  nearly 
2  million  voters),  the  League  for 
the  Rights  of  Man  and  the  Freemasons 
bring  the  help  of  certain  provinces 
where  notables,  petty  bourgeois  and 
'blue  peasants'  predominate.  And  all 
are  ready  to  get  down  their  auto- 
matics at  the  words:  'The  Republic 
is  in  danger!' 


[20] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


And  then  there  is  that  colossus,  so 
strange  and  so  little  known  to  its  ad- 
versaries, the  new,  united  General 
Federation  of  Labor.  It  is  coming  to 
number  more  than  a  million  mem- 
bers. Half  of  the  Government  em- 
ployees, the  employees  of  the  P.  T.  T. 
(postoffice,  telegraph,  and  telephone 
systems)  and  the  pubHc  service  and 
municipal  workers  have  decided  to  fol- 
low its  watchword.  Doubtless  it  does 
not  command  more  than  minorities  in 
the  metal,  building  and  textile  indus- 
tries. But  these  minorities  are  unusu- 
ally influential,  well  qualified  and 
active.  In  case  of  a  serious  attempt 
against  the  Government,  they  would 
without  too  much  trouble  bring  about 
stoppages  and  walkouts.  In  the  rail- 
roads and  railroad  stations  more  than 
a  third  of  the  personnel  belongs  to  it 
(150,000  out  of  a  total  of  400,000), 
and  the  rest  would  follow,  willy-nilly, 
their  lead.  The  situation  with  the  taxi 
drivers  is  similar. 

Besides,  people  too  often  neglect 
the  fact  that  the  Communist  regions, 
the  Socialist  federations  and,  above 
all,  the  local  autonomous  unions  and 
federations  of  industry  of  the  C.  G.  T. 
are  perfectly  capable— thanks  to  their 
customs  and  their  taste  for  taking  the 
initiative — of  taking  all  useful  steps 
on  the  spot  in  case  of  necessity,  even  if 
a  coup  d'etat  in  Paris  should  cut  them 
off  from  their  central  organizations. 
Finally,  let  us  not  forget  that,  in 
France,  of  the  858  cities  of  50,000  in- 
habitants or  more,  at  least  450  are  in 
the  hands  of  Popular  Front  adminis- 
trations, and  among  these  the  most 
important,  from  the  strategic  point  of 
view,  are  the  cities  of  the  Paris  sub- 
urbs and  the  'greater  Paris'  region, 
the  great  ports  (Marseille,  Nantes, 
Saint-Nazaire)  and,  in  general,  the  big 


cities  of  the  provinces.  Now  an  im- 
portant city  means  trucks,  autos,  fire- 
men, police-forces,  employees,  alarm 
systems — and  the  administrative  au- 
thority. 

From  this  last  point  of  view  it  is 
not  a  negligible  fact  that  a  good  part 
of  the  city  general  councils  have  Popu- 
lar Front  majorities,  are  adopting 
resolutions  against  the  Leagues  and 
are  ready,  if  the  regular  government 
in  Paris  is  menaced,  to  organize  effi- 
cient resistance  in  their  departement 
and  set  themselves  up  there  as  the 
legal  power. 


Ill 


What  has  the  Popular  Front  al- 
ready drawn  from  these  reservoirs  of 
forces  and  from  these  possibilities  for 
auxiliary  military  action?  In  this  re- 
spect many  of  its  members,  and  not- 
ably many  Socialists  of  the  Left,  re- 
proach it  for  a  certain  amount  of 
negligence.  According  to  these  ad- 
vocates of  action  who  disturb  at  one 
and  the  same  time  the  heavy  doctri- 
naires of  their  party  and  the  Com- 
munists, who  are  informed  in  detail 
about  the  problems  of  armed  insur- 
rection, it  will  be  necessary  from  now 
on  to  set  up  opposite  the  shock  troops 
of  the  Leagues  similar  organizations  of 
the  Left.  It  will  be  necessary  to  com- 
bat the  '  Fascists '  by  assimilating  their 
strategy,  their  tactics  and  their  dis- 
cipline. It  will  be  necessary  to  practice 
their  military  gymnastics:  muster- 
ings,  expeditions,  maneuvers,  sudden 
attacks. 

In  place  of  this  theory,  which  they 
qualify  as  '  Put  schist*  and  risky,  and 
which,  they  figure,  is  most  dangerous 
at  the  present  moment  because  of  the 
disappointments  which  it  would  hold 


I93(> 


ARMIES  OF  THE  LEFT 


[21] 


in  store  for  the  militant  souls,  and  the 
reactions  which  it  would  stir  up  in 
public  opinion,  the  leaders  of  the 
Popular  Front  offer  one  which  they 
call  the  'self-defense  of  the  masses.'  It 
is  the  abc  of  revolutionary  policy, 
they  explain,  not  to  mix  up  the  coming 
attack  against  the  bourgeois  power 
with  measures  of  protection  against 
the  Leagues.  The  violent  conquest  of 
the  State  demands  the  creation  of 
specialized  fighting  groups.  That  is  for 
later.  The  resistance  to  the  Croix  de 
Feu  demands  the  application  of  wholly 
different  proceedings.  For  this  purpose 
it  can  only  be  a  question,  at  the  pres- 
ent moment,  of  giving  the  alarm  and 
of  organizing  the  masses  of  the  peo- 
ple whenever  it  is  necessary  to  mobi- 
lize them  against  a  Fascist  maneuver 
or  attempt. 

Let  the  'bruisers*  of  the  cells  and 
the  young  Communists  specially 
grouped  for  this  purpose;  let  the  young 
guards  and  the  T.  P.  P.  S.  {toujours 
prets  pour  service — always  ready  for 
service)  of  the  Socialist  Party, — its 
'availables' — ;  let  the  trusted  men 
in  the  C.  G.  T.;  let  the  volunteers  of 
all  the  organizations  which  belong  to 
the  Popular  Front  be  ready  to  fulfil 
their  role  of  alarmgivers,  sentries,  or- 
ganizers and  liaison  officers — bravo! 
But  let  the  good  Red  god  prevent 
them  from  playing  the  role  of  soldiers 
of  society.  It  is  not  by  borrowing  from 
Fascism  the  techniques  which  are 
bound  up  in  its  nature,  its  ideologies 
and  its  recruiting  that  the  laboring 
and  democratic  forces  will  conquer  it. 
It  is  rather  on  the  plane  of  general 
policy,  by  the  conquest  of  the  masses 
and  the  middle  classes,  that  this  will 
be  achieved.  For  the  rest  it  is  indis- 
pensable to  stick  to  a  strictly  defen- 
sive  organization    which    cannot    be 


distinguished  from  the  collective  op- 
position of  the  people  themselves. 

Such  is  the  present  military  doc- 
trine of  the  Popular  Front.  Now  let  us 
see  what  results  it  has  produced  in 
practice.  We  shall  cite  several  ex- 
amples which  testify  to  the  variety  of 
the  forms  which  this  general  theory, 
inspired  rather  by  political  intelli- 
gence than  by  the  famihar  principles 
of  general  staffs,  can  take  as  the  re- 
sult of  reactions,  circumstances  and 
local  developments. 

In  the  southwest,  in  Bayonne,  the 
District  Committee  of  the  Popular 
Front  has  convoked,  at  the  rate 
of  two  delegates  per  organization, 
a  group  of  militants  representing 
the  Communist,  the  Socialist  and  the 
Radical  Parties,  the  League  for 
the  Rights  of  Man,  the  C.  G.  T.,  the 
C.  G.  T.  U.,  etc.  These  militants  had 
brought  to  this  reunion  the  list  of  the 
members  of  their  various  organiza- 
tions. On  these  lists  they  had  checked 
the  names  of  all  the  men  who  in  their 
opinion  would  answer  the  call  to  arms 
in  their  locality  or  their  quarter,  if  the 
Croix  de  Feu  should  get  the  notion  of 
throwing  itself  into  some  sort  of 
demonstration. 

One  night  they  proceeded  to  mobi- 
lize these  future  scouts,  sentries, 
liaison  agents  and  group  commanders. 
In  a  few  hours  all,  even  those  from  the 
most  distant  villages,  were  warned 
and  placed  each  at  his  post. 

In  the  Aube  they  used  another 
method  successfully.  A  committee  sim- 
ilar to  that  in  Bayonne  launched  an 
appeal  that  an  association  of  'vol- 
unteers of  liberty'  be  set  up  in  the 
departement  ready  to  guarantee  every 
defensive  mission  or  task  if  the  need 
should  arise,  and  determined  to  reply 
at    any    moment    to    the    summons 


[22] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


which  would  be  sent  them  for  this 
purpose.  In  a  very  short  time,  1,500 
citizens  were  enrolled. 

At  Lille,  where  the  section  of  the 
S.F.I.O.  is  by  far  the  strongest  organ- 
ization of  all  those  which  belong  to  the 
Popular  Front,  and  where  the  Socialists 
have  a  firm  hold  on  the  city  hall,  the 
forces  of  a  counter-attack  have  been 
grouped  around  the  municipal  govern- 
ment and  use  its  technical  resources. 
An  alarm  drill,  in  which  a  company  of 
scouts  and  liaison  agents  was  put  into 
action,  made  it  possible  to  prove  that 
the  city,  with  all  of  its  citizens,  could 
be  mobilized  in  two  hours. 


IV 


It  is  a  simple  matter  to  estimate  the 
auxiliary  military  power  which  the 
Popular  Front  will  be  able  to  com- 
mand. The  regional  political  organiza- 
tions on  which  it  relies  include  more 
than  50,000  militant  members  and  are 
the  masters  of  more  than  a  hundred 
communities.  Furthermore,  the  100,- 
000  members  of  both  the  independent 
and  the  confederated  unions  of  the 
Paris  region  are  ready  to  support  their 
action.  There  are,  then,  at  their  lowest 
figure,  200,000  men,  several  hundred 
trucks,  and  several  thousand  automo- 
biles and  taxis  ready  to  lend  their  aid 
tomorrow  in  arousing  the  people  and 
transporting  them  if  the  members  of 
the  Leagues  should  appear  in  the 
roads  leading  to  Paris,  or  if  they 
should  attack,  even  if  only  half  in 
earnest,  a  point  in  the  city's  outskirts. 

This  last  possibility  is  worthy  of  at- 
tention. One  of  the  reasons  for  the  suc- 
cess of  the  Fascist  squads  in  Italy  was 
that  they  attacked  only  the  local  op- 
position groups.  In  Italy  the  'Reds* 
never  learned  how  to  shift  their  party 


members  from  one  community  to  an- 
other and  they  always  fought  each 
part  of  their  struggle  separately.  Here 
in  France  we  are  witnessing  the  begin- 
ning of  concerted  action  on  a  vast  and 
decisive  sector.  Furthermore,  this  de- 
fensive action  is  linked  up  with  the 
urban,  economic  and  social  considera- 
tions. There  again  the  political  in- 
telligence of  the  Popular  Front  is  dis- 
played. 

As  for  the  methods  of  giving  the 
alarm,  one  must  not  forget  that  the 
cities  are  provided,  thanks  to  the 
regulations  concerning  air  defense, 
with  sirens,  special  bombs  and  other 
noise-machines.  In  the  peripheral  dis- 
tricts of  Paris,  and  in  the  communities 
where  the  Popular  Front  does  not  hold 
the  administrative  posts,  its  local 
units  are  already  attempting  to  make 
up  for  this.  In  the  twentieth  arron- 
dissement  the  committee  of  the  Popular 
Front,  in  alliance  with  the  adjacent 
cities  of  the  outskirts,  has  made  provi- 
sion for  the  use  of  drums,  bugles  and 
bombs  to  rouse  the  workers  if  the  need 
arises.  The  militant  members,  who  at 
the  first  explosions,  rolls  of  the  drums 
and  ringing  of  the  bells  would  know 
what  to  make  of  it,  would  invite  all  the 
tenants  in  their  building  to  go  down  to 
the  street. 

If  the  application  of  the  defense  sys- 
tem of  the  Popular  Front  were  only 
pressed  forward  rapidly  enough,  the 
Croix  de  Feu  and  the  members  of  the 
Leagues,  if  they  should  go  over  to  the 
oflFensive,  would  run  the  great  risk  of 
finding  themselves  in  the  perilous  sit- 
uation of  an  army  of  occupation  sur- 
rounded by  a  hostile  and  aroused 
population.  It  is  this  fact  that  the  re- 
cent Communist  suggestion  to  set  up 
a  militia  for  the  defense  of  the  Re- 
public is  calculated  to  further.  Here 


193^ 


ARMIES  OF  THE  LEFT 


[23] 


there  is  something  which  seems  to 
make  the  theoretical  discussion  about 
the  'self-defense  of  the  masses'  and 
'specialized  self-defense'  rather  vain, 
since  the  Left  and  the  extreme  Left 
seem  to  be  well  on  the  road  to  acquir- 
ing those  forms  of  auxiliary  military- 
activity  which  suit  their  practical 
potentialities.  Do  not  many  experi- 
ences like  those  at  Villepinte  and  in 
the  Pas-de-Calais  show  that  at  the 
first  signal  workers,  small  bourgeois 
and  peasants  will  hurry  on  foot,  on 
bicycles  and  in  autos,  surround  the 
enemy,  block  off  his  route  and  over- 
whelm him  with  their  numbers?  Be- 
sides this,  the  general  strike  will  iso- 
late the  *  Fascists '  and  would  paralyze 
them  rapidly  even  if  they  should  suc- 
ceed in  seizing  power  and  occupying 
for  a  short  time  certain  vital  points  in 
Paris  and  the  provinces. 

Yet,  to  say  nothing  of  the  big  ob- 
jection, that  it  all  depends  on  the  at- 
titude of  the  Government,  the  police 
and  the  army,  certain  members  of  the 
Popular  Front  still  criticize  these  de- 
fensive ideas  of  their  leaders.  They 
claim  that  shock  troops,  well  equipped 
and  well  commanded,  can  always 
sweep  up  a  larger  mass  which  meets 
them  in  a  tumultuous  throng  in  spite 
of  small  groups  of  fighters  in  their 
ranks. 

These  critics  recall  also  that  the 
general  strike,  if  it  tends  to  paralyze 
an  enemy,  for  the  moment  victorious, 
runs  the  risk  of  paralyzing  even  more 
the  attack  that  must  be  made  on  that 
enemy.  From  the  day  when  the  rail- 
roads come  to  a  halt,  the  workers  are 
deprived  of  means  of  transportation, 
while  the  'Fascists*  own  many  more 
trucks  than  they.  In  short,  they  are 
concerned  about  the  fact  that  at  a 
time  of  civil  war  the  Popular  Front 


would  lack  at  the  same  time  a  national 
center  of  impetus  and  military  com- 
mand, an  information  and  liaison 
service,  and  real  armed  forces.  This  is 
in  a  more  ample  form  the  old  objec- 
tion popping  up  again.  But  here  again, 
admitting  that  not  enough  has  been 
foreseen  in  the  sequence  of  ideas,  the 
reply  which  is  given  leads  us  back  to 
political  considerations. 


Wherever  Fascism  has  seized  power 
its  success  has  been  due  to  the  indif- 
ference of  Left  Governments  and  to 
splits  in  the  ranks  of  the  workers.  It  is 
thanks  to  the  circumstance  that  the 
middle  classes,  the  peasants,  the  in- 
dustrialists, a  large  part  of  the  moder- 
ate political  personnel,  the  pohce  and 
the  army  have  aided  or  tolerated  it. 
In  France  the  present  situation  is 
wholly  different.  The  occupation  of 
several  Ministries  in  the  capital,  and 
of  certain  nerve  centers  in  the  country, 
would  not  be  sufficient  to  enable  a 
force  which  is,  after  all,  only  an 
auxiliary  militia,  to  govern  against  the 
will  of  more  than  two-thirds  of  the 
country.  Even  if  they  were  over- 
thrown in  Paris,  the  suburbs  and  in 
several  cities  of  the  provinces,  the  de- 
fense forces  of  the  Popular  Front 
would  still  be  enormous. 

One  can  imagine  what  it  would 
represent  by  recalling  the  programs 
adopted  shortly  after  the  events  of 
February  6,  1934,  by  the  general 
councils  of  several  departements.  These 
programs  provided,  in  case  the  parlia- 
mentary regime  were  imperiled,  some 
very  precise  counter-strokes.  Seizing 
legal  power  constitutionally,  each 
general  council  would  form,  under  its 
aegis,  a  committee  to  coordinate  all 


M 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


the  forces  hostile  to  a  coup  d'etat.  This 
committee  would  requisition  all  the 
means  of  transportation  of  the  departe- 
ment  and  would  take  the  practical 
measures  necessary  to  occupy  the 
strategic  points  of  the  region:  railway 
stations,  junctions  and  the  central 
offices  of  the  telegraph  system.  They 
would  place  Paris  and  the  cities  which 
had  fallen  under  the  hands  of  the 
'Fascists'  under  an  economic  block- 
ade. Furthermore,  by  virtue  of  its 
powers,  a  general  council  would  take 
over  the  command  of  the  troops,  the 
gendarmery  and  the  police  under  its 
jurisdiction  and  would  issue  to  them 
all  the  orders  needed  to  put  down  the 
rebellion.  In  view  of  this  objective  the 
general  councils  which  would  be  in  a 
position  to  do  it  ought  to  coordinate 
their  actions. 

When  we  consider  that  the  commit- 
tees of  the  Popular  Front  are  increas- 
ing in  number  and  will  soon  be  found 
in  all  the  departementSy  and  that  wher- 
ever they  function,  steps  of  the  sort 
that  we  have  enumerated  are  taken, 
one  cannot  underestimate  the  defen- 
sive power  that  they  represent.  This 
defensive  power  seems  singularly  in- 
creased when  one  realizes  the  moral 
support  which  the  active  sympathy  of 
the  inhabitants  of  many  of  the  regions 


can  render  it,  and  the  technical  sup- 
port which  it  would  encounter  in  cir- 
cles as  different  as  the  workers'  syn- 
dicates, the  unions  of  government 
employees,  the  city  administrations 
and  the  general  councils.  In  many  cities 
the  labor  exchange,  the  railway  sta- 
tions, the  post  offices,  the  mayor's  of- 
fice, the  under-prefecture,  the  prefec- 
ture and  perhaps  the  local  gendarmery 
and  the  fire  department  would  coop- 
erate against  a  coup  d'etat  from  the 
Right. 

In  Berlin,  in  March,  1920,  General 
von  Liitwitz,  who  had  driven  out  the 
Ebert  Government  without  difficulty, 
was,  like  his  Chief,  Mr.  Kapp,  obliged 
to  give  way  quickly  before  the  re- 
sistance of  the  provinces  and  under 
the  pressure  of  a  general  strike  which 
united  in  a  single  movement  prole- 
tarians from  the  factories,  transpor- 
tation employees  and  Government 
functionaries  of  all  ranks.  These  ad- 
versaries did  not  possess,  however,  an 
organization  and  a  will  to  fight  com- 
parable to  those  which  exist  with  us  in 
the  camp  of  the  anti-Fascists. 

Tomorrow  everything  may  change, 
but  today  the  ratio  of  forces,  even  the 
ratio  of  auxiliary  militia,  is  not  as 
favorable  to  the  leagues  as  many  peo- 
ple think. 


The  question  of  the  manufacture  of  arms  by  the  State  or  by  pri- 
vate firms  has  been  obscured  by  a  certain  amount  of  prejudice.  .  .  . 
The  prejudice  is  the  expression  of  an  honorable  but  perhaps  mistaken 
ideal  respecting  the  sanctity  of  life  and  the  iniquity  of  war. 

— Sir  Herbert  Lawrence,  chairman  of  Vickers  and 
Vickers-Armstrong,  as  reported  in  the  I'imes,  London 


Here  is  an  Englishman's  summary  of  the 
situation  in  Germany,  and  an  account 
of  life  in  a  Nazi  concentration  camp. 


After 
Three  Years 


Two  Views  of 
Hitler  Germany 


I.  The  Third  Reich  Today 
By  A  Special  Correspondent 

From  the  Manchester  Guardian^  Manchester  Liberal  Daily 


T. 


.HE  National  Socialist  Revolution 
is  a  process  of  some  complexity. 
As  its  name  indicates,  it  professes  a 
national  and  a  Socialistic  revolution — 
its  Socialism  cannot  be  dismissed  alto- 
gether as  mere  demagogy  meant  to 
hoodwink  the  *  workers.'  But  it  has 
a  third  element — it  professes  to  be 
anti-capitalist  (Socialism  and  anti- 
capitalism  are  not  quite  the  same 
thing).  The  Nationalism  of  the  revo- 
lution is  indubitably  real — its  Social- 
ism and  its  anti-capitahsm  are  tend- 
encies rather  than  immediate,  tangible 
aims. 

The  principal  effort  of  the  revolu- 
tion has  been,  and  still  is,  national: 
namely,  to  impose  a  homogeneous 
national  idea  upon  the  whole  of  the 
German  people  and  to  make  that 
people  powerful.  Everything  else  is 
subordinated    to    this    end.    German 


rearmament  in  the  air  will  probably 
be  complete  in  about  a  year,  on  land 
in  perhaps  two  years  and  on  the  sea 
in  an  indefinite  number  of  years. 
In  two  or  three  years'  time  Germany 
ought  to  be  strong  enough  to  make 
her  weight  felt  in  Europe  and  begin 
attempting  her  self-set  task  of  achiev- 
ing the  'Greater  Germany'  which 
could  include  the  Austrians,  the  Bo- 
hemians, the  Danzigers,  the  Memel- 
landers,  and  others  of  German  'race* 
who  live  just  beyond  the  present 
German  frontiers. 

The  private  capitalist  has  a  very 
circumscribed  existence  in  Germany. 
But  he  is  not  unhappy.  He  is  able  to 
make  profits  and  he  is  in  favor  of 
rearmament  because  it  gives  special 
opportunities  for  making  big  profits. 
But  he  dare  not,  with  one  exception, 
defend  the  '  capitalist  system '  openly. 


[26] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


The  exception  is  Dr.  Schacht — he  even 
has  the  courage  to  stand  up  to  Hitler. 
Hitler  himself  is  no  economist;  in  fact 
he  rather  despises  economics.  Ger- 
many is  as  full  of  wild  economic  dream- 
ers as  any  other  country,  only  as  some 
of  them  ride  on  waves  of  strong 
revolutionary  mass-emotion,  there  is 
always  a  chance  that  Hitler  might 
support  them.  Dr.  Schacht's  function 
is  to  defend  the  German  financial 
system  against  revolutionary  experi- 
ments. He  knows  that  Germany  is  in 
a  state  of  acute  financial  crisis  and 
that  any  further  disorganization  of 
her  finances  may  be  disastrous  and 
lead  to  inflation  (among  other  things). 
Hitler,  like  so  many  Germans  who 
remember  the  year  1923,  lives  in  dread 
of  inflation,  and  it  is  largely  on  this 
dread  that  Dr.  Schacht's  power  is 
based. 

But  he  is  rather  isolated.  Not  only 
is  there  a  strong  demand  for  economic 
experiments  that  would  be  costly  in 
themselves  and  even  more  costly  in 
their  consequences — the  National  So- 
cialists want  far  more  money  for 
rearmament  and  propaganda  than 
Germany  can  afford.  To  be  attacked 
in  the  German  press  is  a  serious  mat- 
ter, for  that  press  has  no  independence 
but  represents  the  forces  that  rule 
the  country.  Of  late  Dr.  Schacht  has 
been  frequently  attacked  as  a  'cap- 
italist,' which,  in  Germany,  is  as 
much  a  term  of  abuse  as  in  Russia 
(although  in  Germany  there  is  an 
alliance — an  uneasy  one,  no  doubt, 
but  nevertheless  an  alliance — between 
'big  business'  and  the  dictatorship, 
whereas  in  Russia  'big  business'  in 
the  German  or  Western  European 
sense  does  not  exist). 

Hitler  has  tended  to  side  with  Dr. 
Schacht's  opponents  while  still  keep- 


ing him  in  office  for  practical  reasons. 
Dr.  Schacht's  position  is  said  to  be 
shaky,  but  perhaps  he  is  more  power- 
ful than  is  allowed  to  appear  on  the 
surface. 

Amid  the  immense  impoverishment 
of  the  individual  in  Germany  (chiefly 
as  a  result  of  the  expenditure  on 
rearmament  and  the  extreme  form  of 
protection  known  as  'autarchy*  or 
'self-sufficiency')  the  German  work- 
ing class  has  suffered  severely,  and 
the  real  wages  of  unskilled  labor  have 
dropped  more  heavily  than  those  of 
skilled. 

But  real  salaries  have  also  dropped. 
And  never  has  the  German  middle 
class  been  taxed  as  heavily  as  it  is 
now.  There  is  nothing  in  Western 
Europe  at  all  comparable  with  the 
transfer  of  wealth  from  the  pockets 
of  the  German  middle  class  into  the 
national  Treasury.  And  whereas  under 
the  Republic  there  was  a  great  deal  of 
tax  evasion,  taxes  are  now  enforced 
by  measures  so  drastic  that  evasion 
has  become  very  perilous. 


II 


National  Socialism  is,  above  all, 
egalitarian.  The  revolution  of  191 8 
brought  the  monarchy  to  an  end  and 
deprived  the  aristocracy  of  nearly  all 
its  power  and  influence,  and  so 
brought  the  centralized  classless  State 
one  step  nearer  (German  'particular- 
ism* was  always  associated  with  local 
dynastic  interests  and  loyalties).  The 
National  Socialist  Revolution  is  bring- 
ing it  nearer  still:  class  distinctions 
count  for  less  in  Germany  now  than 
they  did  three  years  ago,  and  the 
limited  independence  that  was  still 
enjoyed  by  the  Federal  States  has  been 
reduced  to  almost  nothing. 


/pj<5 


AFTER  THREE  YEARS 


[27] 


Although  the  German  working  class 
has  suffered  more  than  any  other  un- 
der National  Socialism,  it  is  by  no 
means  undivided  in  its  hostility  to  the 
dictatorship.  A  good  deal  of  successful 
demagogy  is  still  practised.  The  in- 
dustrial workman  is  consoled  for  re- 
ductions in  his  pay  by  a  present  of  a 
cigar,  a  sausage,  a  glass  of  beer  at 
Christmas  or  an  excursion  in  the 
summer.  A  tone  of  easy  familiarity 
and  comradeship  between  employers 
and  employed  has  been  introduced  into 
the  factories.  The  hypnotic  influence 
of  skilfully  attuned  propaganda  (in 
which  the  German  has  learnt  much 
from  the  Russians)  continues  to  oper- 
ate. Displays,  parades,  ceremonies 
bring  color  into  lives  of  drab  monot- 
ony (it  is  surprising  what  color  com- 
bined with  boastful  nationalism  can 
achieve). 

But  behind  all  this  stagecraft  there 
is  a  reality,  although  until  now  it  has 
remained  rather  embryonic.  The  em- 
ployer who  has  been — or  is  believed 
to  have  been — unfair  to  his  men  may 
undergo  rough  treatment  at  the  hands 
of  the  Brownshirts.  Unemployment  is 
again  on  the  increase  and  dismissals 
are  numerous  in  Germany,  but  for 
employers  to  dismiss  a  workman  is 
perhaps  more  difficult  now  than  it  was 
under  the  Republic.  Any  workman 
suspected  of  political  heresy  can,  of 
course,  be  dismissed  at  once  without 
the  possibility  of  redress,  but,  apart 
from  this,  a  firm  will  have  to  be  very 
near  total  ruin  and  will  have  to  prove 
absolute  inability  to  carry  on  before  it 
will  dare  to  dismiss  workmen.  Exact 
comparisons  are  difficult,  because  of 
the  absence  of  reliable  figures  (sta- 
tistical unreliabiHty  is  common  to 
all  dictatorships),  but  many  German 
workmen  who  are  hostile  to  National 


Socialism  say  that  the  old  trade  unions 
were  less  successful  in  averting  whole- 
sale dismissals  than  is  the  dictator- 
ship, with  its  legal  and  extra-legal 
methods  of  pressure  and  palliation. 

Many  workmen  will  admit  that  a 
great  deal  of  immediate  (though  per- 
haps not  ultimate)  unemployment  has 
been  averted  at  the  expense  of  em- 
ployers, shareholders,  and  taxpayers 
in  so  far  as  private  firms  have  been 
saved  from  collapse  by  the  interven- 
tion of  the  State  and  for  the  express 
purpose  of  averting  unemployment. 

Many  employers  wish  the  trade 
unions  were  back  again.  The  National 
Socialist  'Labor  Front'  is  no  sub- 
stitute— it  is,  in  fact,  an  imposture  in 
so  far  as  it  is  an  instrument  not  for 
defending  the  interests  of  the  work- 
men but  for  demagogy,  espionage,  and 
intimidation.  That  the  trade  unions 
will  come  back  in  their  old  form  is 
hardly  conceivable,  but  that  they  were 
useful  is  being  widely  recognized  even 
by  National  Socialists.  Old  trade  un- 
ion officials  are  often  employed  as 
advisers  in  National  Socialist  organiza- 
tions that  are  concerned  with  labor 
problems.  They  are,  because  of  their 
integrity  and  technical  knowledge, 
earning  considerable  respect.  It  is 
possible  that  the  'Labor  Front'  will 
be  reformed  by  taking  over  certain 
non-political  but  useful  elements  that 
went  to  the  making  of  the  old  trade 
unions.  That  the  old  Labor  parties — 
the  Social  Democratic  and  the  Com- 
munist— should  reappear  seems  quite 
out  of  the  question. 


Ill 


One  of  the  hopes  based  on  National 
SociaHsm  by  the  older  generation  of 
Germans  was  not  merely  that  it  would 


[28] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


restore  German  military  power,  which 
it  is  doing  with  great  speed,  but  that 
it  would  also  reestablish  the  old 
military  caste.  It  is  true  that  many 
former  officers  and  N.C.O.'s  are  again 
serving  and  again  have  authority  over 
other  men,  but  a  new  generation  has 
been  growing  up  since  191 8,  and  there 
is  nothing  that  resembles  a  new  or 
renewed  military  caste.  The  egalita- 
rian tendency  of  National  SociaHsm 
is  pervading  the  army.  The  younger 
officers  and  N.C.O.'s  live  in  much 
the  same  world  as  the  men — this  alone 
makes  the  new  army  different  from 
the  old. 

The  new  army  is  unpolitical  but  is 
being  carefully  integrated  in  the 
National  Socialist  State.  The  chances 
are  that  the  fusion  between  the  tradi- 
tional military  spirit,  which  was  pre- 
served by  the  Reichswehr  throughout 
the  life  of  the  Weimar  Republic,  and 
the  National  Socialist  idea  will  be 
carried  out  successfully. 

Conscription  is  not  at  all  unpopular 
in  Germany,  and  there  can  be  no 
doubt  of  the  keenness  of  the  recruits 
once  they  are  in  uniform.  The  ma- 
neuvers held  last  year  in  the  region 
round  Luneburg  revealed  an  almost 
fanatical  spirit  of  military  devotion 
and  technical  keenness  amongst  both 
officers  and  men;  these  maneuvers 
were  of  much  greater  interest  and 
significance  than  those  that  were  held 
under  the  eyes  of  foreign  observers  in 
Silesia  at  about  the  same  time.  The 
new  German  army  is  what  the  old 
was  not — a  '  VolksheeVy  a  *  people's 
army.'  It  is,  in  fact,  the  'nation  in 
arms.' 

In  agriculture  the  National  Socialist 
State  has  carried  out  a  whole  series 
of  revolutionary  reforms.  At  first 
sight  these  reforms  seem  to  be  any- 


thing but  socialistic,  for  their  tendency 
is  to  strengthen  individual  farming,  to 
favor  the  rural  at  the  expense  of  the 
urban  population,  to  encourage  own- 
ership and  discourage  tenancy.  But 
these  reforms  are  also  another  instance 
of  national  planning,  and  German 
agriculture  as  a  whole  is  acquiring  the 
status  of  a  single,  controlled  national 
industry.  There  is  nothing  like  the 
English  boards  of  producers,  but  a 
rigorous  control  by  the  State  of  pro- 
duction, marketing  and  prices,  that 
amounts  to  a  socialization  of  the 
home-grown  food  supply. 

These  agrarian  reforms  are  'anti- 
capitalist'  in  so  far  as  the  influence 
of  the  banks  has  been  curtailed.  Farm- 
ers have  been  let  off  a  large  part  of 
their  indebtedness  at  the  expense  of 
the  urban  population  and  of  the  con- 
sumers in  general — here,  more  than 
anywhere  else,  has  the  National  So- 
cialist bias  against  Zinsknechtschaft 
been  shown.  Zinsknechtschaft  is  a  word 
difficult  to  translate,  but  it  means, 
roughly,  the  dependence  of  the  small 
borrower  on  money-lenders  and  money- 
lending  institutions.  Whether  the 
German  farmer  is  any  better  off  under 
Hitler  than  he  was  under  the  Republic 
is,  in  spite  of  the  many  favors  he  has 
received,  extremely  doubtful,  for  he, 
too,  is  involved  in  the  general  im- 
poverishment which  the  dictatorship 
has  brought  about  in  Germany.  Ger- 
man foreign  trade  is  not  in  theory  but 
in  fact  a  Government  monopoly,  and 
importers  have  to  obtain  monthly 
licences  which  allow  them  to  import 
specified  amounts  in  accordance  with 
'national  needs.' 

Like  the  other  two  modern  revolu- 
tions, the  Bolshevist  and  the  Fascist, 
the  National  Socialist  Revolution, 
which   has   much   in    common    with 


193^ 


AFTER  THREE  YEARS 


[29I 


both,  aims  at  the  conquest  not  merely 
of  the  present  but  of  the  future  and  is 
resolved  to  secure  the  unquestioning 
allegiance  of  the  younger  generation. 
This  is  the  essential  purpose  of  the 
'Hitler  Youth,'  which  has  many 
striking  resemblances  with  the  Russian 
'Comsomols'  and  the  Italian  'Balilla' 
and  'Avanguardia.' 

The  Hitler  Youth  has  a  member- 
ship of  about  6,000,000  boys  and  girls. 
Nowhere  is  the  egalitarian  character 
of  National  Socialism  more  marked 
than  amongst  these  young  people  who 
are  being  trained  in  conscious  an- 
tagonism to  the  old  order.  They 
are  anti-capitalist,  sometimes  with  a 
marked  Communist  tendency,  and 
anti-religious — they  have  something 
in  common  with  the  Russian  'anti- 
God'  movement;  they  aredeeplyhos- 
tile  to  all  class  distinctions,  they  are 
contemptuous  of  royalty,  they  are 
rebellious  under  parental  discipline — 
the  German  family  is  menaced  with 
disruption — and  they  are  fervently 
militaristic  and  patriotic  and,  of 
course,  anti-Semitic. 

Those  of  their  members  who  are 
destitute  or  unemployed  receive  a  good 
deal  of  help.  They  get  special  facili- 
ties— which  are  gradually  being  organ- 
ized on  a  national  scale — for  free 
training  and  apprenticeship,  and  a 
certain  pressure  is  brought  to  bear  on 
employers  to  keep  or  make  jobs  free 
for  the  poorer  members  of  the  Hitler 
Youth. 

IV 

There  has  always  been  a  good  deal 
of  Communist  feeling  in  Germany, 
and  it  has  expressed  itself  in  paradox- 
ical and  romantic  forms.  Most  of  it 
has  been  absorbed  by  National  Social- 
ism. The  German  Communist  party 


not  only  helped  to  promote  National 
Socialism  negatively  by  its  unremit- 
ting attacks  on  the  Weimar  Republic 
but  also  positively  by  preparing  the 
minds  of  the  poorer,  more  primitive 
and,  especially,  younger  workmen  for 
the  National  Socialist  idea — it  is  no  ac- 
cident that  those  districts  of  Germany 
which  were  most  strongly  Communist 
once  are  now  most  strongly  National 
Socialist. 

The  price  paid  for  rearmament, 
propaganda,  planning  and  revolution- 
ary reforms,  not  to  speak  of  corrup- 
tion, mismanagement  and  nepotism 
is  not  expressed  in  terms  of  widespread 
poverty  alone.  It  is  also  expressed 
in  the  sacrifice  of  much  of  what  is 
usually  called  civilization.  Liberty 
has  ceased  to  exist  in  Germany. 
The  persecution  of  the  Jews  grows 
steadily  worse,  and  the  standards  of 
justice,  at  one  time  as  high  as  any 
in  Europe,  are  now  the  lowest.  Rus- 
sian justice  is  probably  worse  even 
than  German  in  its  treatment  of 
political  offenders,  but  it  is  far  su- 
perior to  German  justice  in  its  treat- 
ment of  the  ordinary  non-poHtical 
offender. 

The  elite  of  German  skilled  work- 
men are  men  of  intelligence  and  hu- 
manity, and  to  them  the  National 
Socialist  dictatorship  is  an  object  of 
deepest  hatred  and  contempt.  The 
National  Socialist  leaders,  except  Hit- 
ler— and  even  he  is  not  as  immune 
from  criticism  as  he  was, — are  re- 
garded with  widespread  loathing,  and 
not  merely  amongst  the  working  class. 
There  is  in  Germany  today  a  vast 
multitude  belonging  to  all  classes 
that  has  only  one  wish — namely,  to 
get  rid  of  the  National  Socialists. 
There  is  a  French  epigram  that  is 
often  quoted  with  approval  in  Ger- 


[so] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


many  nowadays — namely,  that  the 
National  Socialist  revolution  is  'la 
victoire  des  Boches  sur  les  Allemands.' 
One  of  the  most  striking  phenomena  in 
Germany  today  is  the  number  of 
Germans  who  feel  ashamed  of  their 
country.  Again  and  again  one  hears 
intelligent  and  objective  Germans,  and 
not  emigres  only,  say  that  it,  the 
regime,  cannot  last,  for  the  misman- 
agement is  too  great,  the  rottenness 
beyond  repair. 

But  the  fact  remains  that  a  new 
social  and  political,  though  perhaps 
not  economic,  order  is  being  created  in 
Germany  and  that  National  Socialism 
is  not  meeting  with  effective  opposi- 
tion anywhere.  Discontent  and  disil- 


lusionment are  so  widespread  that  it 
is  sometimes  difficult  to  discover  a 
National  Socialist  amongst  the  older 
generation.  But  fear  of  chaos  as  an 
alternative  to  National  Socialism — a 
fear  that  may  be  quite  unjustified;  fear 
of  dividing,  and  therefore  weakening, 
Germany  at  a  time  when  she  is  at 
last  recovering  her  place  amongst  the 
Great  Powers;  fear  of  arrest,  torture, 
death,  prison,  concentration  camp, 
unemployment  and  destitution  deter 
all  but  an  insignificant  minority  from 
active  'opposition.'  Discontent  and 
disillusionment  remain  passive  and 
negative — so  far,  at  least,  all  that  is 
dynamic  and  positive  in  Germany  has 
followed  the  sign  of  the  Swastika. 


II.  German  Concentration  Camps 

By  Heinz  Pol 

Translated  from  the  Neue  ff^eltiubne,  Prague  Gcrman-Emigr^  Weekly 


T« 


.HE  German  Emigrant  Aid  Asso- 
ciation in  Prague  has  questioned 
refugees  who  have  only  recently  left 
Germany  on  their  experiences  in  Ger- 
man concentration  camps.  The  avail- 
able statements  are  so  ghastly  that  it 
is  almost  impossible  to  repeat  them. 
They  prove  that  even  after  three  years 
of  Nazi  Government  torture  is  still 
being  employed.  All  statements  about 
'individual  excesses,  long  since  reme- 
died,' are  lies:  nothing  has  changed. 
Twenty-one-year-old  Helmuth  Kade- 
man,  who  last  November  succeeded 
in  escaping  to  Prague,  tells  the  follow- 
ing story: — 

'In  March,  1933,  we  came  to  the 
concentration  camp  called  Burg  Hohen- 
stein,  in  Saxony.  As  soon  as  we  entered 
the  reception  room  we  were  tor- 
tured.   For    this    purpose    the    com- 


mander of  the  camp,  Jahningen,  and 
two  storm-troopers,  brothers  by  the 
name  of  Meier  from  Dresden,  used  a 
dog-whip  to  the  end  of  which  a  lead 
pellet  was  attached.  After  I  had  been 
beaten  into  unconsciousness,  I  was 
taken  into  the  courtyard  and  water 
was  poured  over  me.  Then  my  hair 
was  cut  off  with  a  pair  of  hedge- 
clippers  and  a  knife.  I  was  forced  to 
count  the  hairs  and  arrange  them  in 
bundles  of  thirteen  each.  This  took  all 
night. 

'The  next  morning  we  were  driven 
to  work,  and  all  day  long  we  were 
forced  to  push  wheelbarrows,  filled 
with  stones,  to  the  shipping  camp.  We 
had  to  do  this  on  the  double-quick. 
There  was  no  lunch  the  first  three 
days.  During  one  of  the  next  nights  we 
were  taken  to  a  hearing.  To  force  us  to 


193^ 


AFTER  THREE  YEARS 


[31: 


testify,  our  lips  were  burnt  with  red- 
hot  wire,  the  soles  of  our  feet  were 
slashed,  and  pepper  and  salt  were  put 
into  the  wounds.  Then  I  was  laid  into 
a  sort  of  wooden  coffin  in  which  I  was 
unable  to  move.  In  the  cover  over  my 
head  was  a  hole  through  which,  at 
regular  intervals,  water  dripped  on  my 
forehead.  Some  people  who  went 
through  this  procedure  became  vio- 
lent. 

*A  few  days  later  I  was  examined 
again,  this  time  by  Sturmjuhrer  Fried- 
rich,  of  Pirna.  During  this  procedure 
a  storm-trooper  thrust  the  butt  of  his 
rifle  into  my  spine  so  that  I  fell.  To 
force  me  to  get  up,  they  trampled 
upon  me,  and  one  of  my  kidneys  was 
injured. 

*I  then  was  put  in  a  hospital,  where 
they  shackled  my  feet  in  bed,  although 
I  was  in  a  plaster  cast.  After  nine 
months  in  the  hospital  I  was  re- 
turned to  the  concentration  camp, 
only  to  be  immediately  tortured 
again.  New  methods  had  been  in- 
vented in  the  meantime.  Kidneys 
were  no  longer  injured  by  trampling: 
beatings  now  were  administered  with 
sandbags,  which  had  the  same  effects 
but  left  no  visible  marks. 

'On  April  30,  1934,  some  prisoners 
had  escaped  from  the  camp.  Punitive 
drill  was  immediately  ordered  for  all. 
It  lasted  from  five  o'clock  in  the  eve- 
ning to  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon. 
I  had  to  make  genuflections.  A  bay- 
onet was  stuck  into  the  ground  behind 
me.  They  pushed  my  shoulders  down 
so  that  I  had  to  sit  on  the  steel.  The 
injuries  I  suffered  became  infected, 
and  I  had  to  be  taken  to  the  hospital 
in  Pirna. 

'At  the  drilling  there  was  a  man 
next  to  me  whose  name  unfortunately 
I  don't  know.  He  was  to  give  some 


important  testimony.  He  was  terribly 
tortured:  his  tongue  was  half  torn 
out.  He  died  and  was  buried  on  May 
10,  at  the  old  cemetery  under  the 
castle. 

II 

'On  July  2,  1934,  I  was  discharged 
from  the  hospital  and  allowed  to  go 
home.  At  home  I  had  to  register  at  the 
police  station  three  times  a  day  and 
was  not  allowed  to  go  out  from  nine 
o'clock  in  the  evening  to  seven  o'clock 
in  the  morning.  On  January  2,  1935, 1 
was  without  any  reason  taken  into 
protective  custody.  First  I  was  taken 
to  the  city  prison,  and  from  there,  in 
February,  I  was  sent  to  the  concen- 
tration camp  at  Sachsenburg.  The 
chiefs  of  the  camp  were  Standarten- 
JiXhrer  Schmidt  and  Sturmbannfuhrer 
Rodel,  both  from  Bavaria.  On  my  ar- 
rival I  was  told  that  I  would  receive 
fifty  lashes,  as  it  was  the  second  time 
I  was  in  protective  custody.  I  was  put 
on  a  frame,  with  my  head  and  legs 
hanging  down,  my  hands  and  knees 
strapped.  Ten  storm-troopers  hit  me 
five  times  each  with  canes  that  had 
previously  been  soaked  in  water.  Be- 
fore I  got  on  this  frame  I  was  forced 
to  sing  the  song  ''  Steigicb  den  Berg 
hinaufydas  macht  mir  Freude."  [When 
I  climb  the  mountain,  what  joy  it  is 
for  me !]  Later  on,  as  I  could  no  longer 
walk,  I  was  carried  into  the  dun- 
geon. There  we  received  only  one  pot 
of  water  a  day  and  one  slice  of  bread; 
dinner  was  given  out  but  every  fourth 
day.  I  was  there  for  twenty-one  days. 

'There  were  about  one  hundred 
Jews  in  the  camp.  They  were  used  for 
the  hardest  work,  especially  breaking 
stone.  Among  the  Jews  was  a  lawyer 
by  the  name  of  Jacobi  from  Leipzig, 
and  another  lawyer  named  Troplowitz 


[32] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


from  Eisenach.  One  day  a  certain 
Sachs  was  committed.  He  was  sup- 
posed to  have  been  at  one  time  the 
editor  of  the  Bresdener  Volkszeitung. 
Sachs  was  tortured  to  death  within 
nine  days  after  his  admission.  They 
trampled  upon  him  until  his  inner 
organs  had  been  destroyed.  Naturally 
we  were  forbidden  to  speak  about  the 
case.  Another  prisoner,  Paul  Schraps, 
tried  to  cut  his  throat  after  he  had 
been  tortured  for  several  days.  The 
hospital  physician  was  called  and 
deigned  to  come  four  hours  later. 
Schraps  had  died  in  the  meantime. 

'In  the  summer  and  fall  of  1935  the 
number  of  new  prisoners  increased. 
They  had  been  arrested  for  the  most 
trivial  incidents.  One,  for  instance, 
had  exclaimed  that  formerly  one  could 
at  least  have  margarine  on  one's 
bread,  but  today  one  ate  it  dry.  He 
was  especially  maltreated  and  kept  in 
the  dungeon  for  weeks. 

'At  the  beginning  of  November, 
1935,  there  were  in  Sachsenburg  300 
criminals,  400  followers  of  the  so-called 
"Bible-Scholars,"  and  627  political 
prisoners — a  total  of  1,327  men.  For 
these  1,327  prisoners,  who  slept  in 
three-story  bunks,  there  were  four 
toilets  and  twenty-eight  water-faucets. 
It  took  a  full  twenty-four  hours  for 
everyone  to  be  served:  the  first  one 
would  start  at  five  o'clock  one  morning 
and  the  last  one  the  next  morning. 
If  somebody  in  the  camp  falls  seri- 
ously ill,  he  dies,  for  the  so-called 
camp  physician  does  not  raise  a  finger 
for  the  prisoners.  There  are  practically 
no  medical  supplies  at  all  in  the  prison 
zone,  not  even  adhesive  tape  or  band- 


ages. Until  November  the  rooms  and 
dormitories  were  not  heated;  it  was 
said  that  the  puddles  outside  had  to 
freeze  first.  The  food  was  bad  and  far 
too  scarce:  coffee  and  three  pieces  of 
bread  and  jam  in  the  morning;  for 
lunch  a  pot  with  something  warm  that 
always  smelled  sour  and  usually  was 
almost  inedible;  in  the  evening  bread 
with  a  piece  of  cheese  and  a  slice  of 
sausage  twice  a  week,  soup  on  the 
other  evenings. 

'The  camp  of  Sachsenburg  is  situ- 
ated in  the  valley  at  the  river  Zschop- 
pau.  Years  ago  it  was  a  spinning  mill. 
It  is  surrounded  by  a  barbed  wire 
fence  eight  feet  high  which  is  charged 
during  the  night.' 

Another  refugee  who  was  in  Dachau 
confirms  that  there,  too,  nothing  has 
changed.  He  was  beaten  and  had  his 
head  pushed  into  the  sewer  so  often 
that  he  got  an  eye  disease.  Finally  he 
was  taken  to  the  eye  clinic  to  be  ex- 
amined. It  was  found  that  his  right 
eye  was  lost  and  the  left  one  seriously 
affected.  He  was  quickly  dismissed. 
His  eye  was  operated  upon  and  then 
they  wanted  to  arrest  him  again.  He 
fled  to  Prague  and  is  here  under  con- 
stant hospital  care,  as  his  disease  is 
becoming  daily  worse. 

These  latest  victims  of  concentra- 
tion camps  and  penitentiaries,  most  of 
them  living  wrecks,  have  recorded 
everything  they  have  suffered  and 
seen,  including  the  names  of  their  tor- 
mentors and  officials.  Here,  indeed,  is 
enough  material  to  justify  sending  an 
impartial,  neutral  investigating  com- 
mittee to  the  German  concentration 
camps. 


One  of  young  Italy's  best  known  poets 
and    novelists   writes    a    short    story. 


Signora 
Eulalia 


I 


USED  to  go  there  with  Grand- 
mother. The  poor  old  lady  would  pufF 
and  wheeze  as  she  climbed  the  stairs, 
which  were  terribly  steep.  She  used  to 
rest  on  all  three  landings,  and  I  would 
have  the  feeling  that  we  were  not 
making  any  progress  at  all.  She  used  to 
keep  one  eye  on  me  to  see  that  I  did 
not  hang  over  the  banister.  It  seemed 
as  if  we  would  never  arrive  at  the 
fourth  floor.  In  the  middle  of  the 
journey,  we  would  sit  down  on  two 
little  benches  inserted  for  the  purpose 
in  the  two  corners  of  the  landing.  I 
used  to  love  sitting  down  like  that  on 
the  stairway  without  being  tired. 

Signora  Eulalia  received  guests  in 
her  dining  room,  which  was  gloomy 
and  full  of  china  closets  crammed  with 
silver  plate,  glass  ware  and  crockery — 
crowded  together  any  old  way  and  yet 
looking  comfortable  because  it  had  all 
been  there  so  long.  On  the  walls  there 
were  decorative  plates  and  pictures  of 
women  representing  the  Four  Seasons. 

You  would  always  find  two  people 
there — one  was  Signora  Septima,  an 
old  woman  with  a  gray  face  Hned  and 


By  Aldo  Palazzeschi 

Translated  from  the  Nouvelles  LittSraires 
Paris  Literary  Weekly 


chapped  like  a  dried  chestnut.  She 
wore  a  long  saffron-colored  redingote 
and  a  little  black  bonnet  decorated 
with  artificial  red  flowers,  badly  made 
and  all  faded.  She  had  a  way  of  speak- 
ing which  was  very  emphatic  but  at 
the  same  time  full  of  Malapropisms : 
she  would  say  muntions  instead  of 
munitions  and  vices  virtues  instead  of 
vice  versa. 

Signora  Freund  was  a  fifty-year-old 
German  woman,  blonde,  obese,  pink, 
greasy  and  white-eyed.  She  usually 
wore  a  hat  with  a  black  cotton  veil 
which  was  stiff  with  dust  and  covered 
with  tarnished  spangles.  Her  dresses 
were  dirty  and  worn  out,  and  her 
shoes  were  like  a  soldier's.  She  spoke 
fluently,  but  she  would  say  'toctor' 
and  'paby.' 

Signora  Eulalia  was  small,  thin  and 
nervous:  she  darted  from  the  chair  to 
the  window  like  a  fish  leaping  out  of 
the  water.  You  would  take  her  for  a 
faded  young  girl  rather  than  a  sixty- 
year-old  woman.  We  would  make  our 
entrance  and  she  would  just  barely 
greet  my  grandmother.  As  for  me,  she 


[34] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


wouldn't  honor  me  by  so  much  as  a 
look.  If  she  happened  to  glance  at  me, 
her  eyes  seemed  to  ask:  What  is  he 
doing  here  ?  What  is  his  business  here  ? 
Signora  Freund  never  saw  me,  either. 
The  most  that  I  could  hope  for  from 
this  visit  was  a  pinch  of  snuff,  which 
Signora  Septima  would  give  me. 

Sometimes  Signora  Eulalia  gave 
you  the  impression  of  a  general  con- 
ducting from  downstairs  a  battle  that 
was  going  on  over  the  roofs.  Some- 
times she  made  you  feel  as  if  a  very 
delicate  surgical  operation  were  being 
performed  in  the  next  room,  or  they 
were  waiting  for  a  verdict,  or  holding 
a  seance — at  any  rate,  something  very 
serious  and  unusual.  With  her  sud- 
den appearances,  shadow-like,  on  the 
threshold,  Nicoletta,  the  servant,  used 
to  succeed  in  charging  the  atmosphere 
still  further.  *  Is  everything  all  right  ? ' 
the  two  women  seemed  to  ask  each 
other  silently.  'Is  everything  all  right?' 
But  it  was  understood  that  nothing 
was  all  right. 

On  an  armchair  a  cat  used  to  sleep 
placidly.  This  was  Angel-Face.  With 
his  pretty  black  and  white  spots  he 
looked  like  a  little  Dominican,  but 
with  Harlequin's  face.  The  ladies 
would  look  at  him  as  one  would  a 
child  in  a  house  where  someone  is 
suffering  and  dying. 

'Has  he  eaten  his  chicken-liver?' 

The  servant  would  nod. 

'And  his  caviar?' 

'The  caviar,  too.' 

As  soon  as  it  struck  seven,  the  mis- 
tress of  the  house  would  close  the  win- 
dow, and  Signora  Septima  and  Signora 
Freund,  having  collected  all  the  ap- 
purtenances of  their  disorderly  per- 
sonalities, would  leave,  obviously  not 
of  their  own  free  will  but  like  women 
who  have  a  fixed  schedule  and  have  to 


proceed  on  it.  My  grandmother,  on 
the  contrary,  used  to  settle  herself 
more  firmly  in  her  chair  as,  with  a 
superior  air,  she  said  good-bye  to  the 
two  visitors,  who  would  look  at  her 
askance  as  they  went.  Signora  Eulalia 
didn't  use  to  seem  pleased  to  see  her 
stay  either:  far  from  it. 

It  was  then  that  her  son  Amato,  who 
was  a  cashier  in  the  savings  bank  and 
a  member  of  the  Legion  of  Honor, 
used  to  come  home.  The  other  visitors 
would  by  that  time  be  far  away.  But 
Grandmother  used  to  wait  serenely  for 
him,  and  the  two  would  exchange  a 
cordial  greeting,  full  of  affection  and 
understanding : — 

'Signor  Amato  .  .  .' 

'How  delightful  to  see  you.* 

'Now,  really,  really  .  .  .' 

'It's  sweet  of  you  to  have  come. 
Thank  you  so  much.  Come  again 
soon.' 

II 

Like  many  heroines  of  her  time, 
Signora  Eulalia  had  had  her  great 
tragic  love.  But  not  for  a  being  of  her 
own  kind,  as  one  would  immediately 
think.  Her  frantic,  unrestrained  pas- 
sion was — cats.  During  the  lifetime  of 
her  husband,  an  honest  well-to-do 
merchant,  she  had  adopted  a  solitary 
tabby  and  had  ended  by  having  no 
fewer  than  six  cats  in  the  house.  But 
after  his  death,  when  she- lived  alone 
with  her  son  and  wanted  to  increase 
the  number  indefinitely,  there  were 
serious  disagreements.  Nothing  less 
than  summoning  a  policeman  sufficed 
to  put  an  end  to  them.  After  that  it 
was  understood  that  Signora  Eulalia 
would  have  the  right  to  keep  only  one 
male  cat,  and  that  her  son  would  re- 
spect that  right.  Just  one  cat!  It  is 
easy  to  imagine  what  the  effect  of  such 


193^ 


SIGNORA  EULALIA 


hS\ 


a  verdict  would  be  upon  a  woman  who 
was  consumed  by  love  for  the  whole 
species.  It  was  like  offering  a  toothpick 
to  a  starving  man. 

When  they  had  reached  this  point, 
the  son  had  the  idea  that  a  pleasant 
journey  might  calm  his  mother  and 
help  her  forget  her  loss.  She  fell  in  with 
his  scheme,  and  they  agreed  on  a  trip 
to  Rome  and  Naples. 

A  deplorable  idea!  After  two  weeks 
of  torture  the  miserable  man  returned 
home  hvid  with  rage.  In  Rome  Sig- 
nora  Eulalia  had  plunged  into  the 
Forums  and  the  baths,  the  substruc- 
tures of  the  Palatine  and  the  Colos- 
seum. And  among  these  glorious  re- 
mains of  the  'just  and  pious  Empire,* 
as  Dante  calls  it,  she  had  been  able  to 
find  another  empire,  a  living  one,  a 
very  living  one  indeed.  With  her 
'Minnie'  and  her  'Pompom,'  her 
'Blackie,'  and  her  'Rufus,'  her  'Hypo- 
crite,' and  her  'Grimalkin,'  it  was 
impossible  to  keep  track  of  her  among 
the  columns,  the  arches,  capitals, 
pilasters,  and  broken  steps.  In  the 
middle  of  the  Cafe  Aragno  her  son 
had  been  on  the  point  of  leaving  her 
because  her  behavior  on  discovering  a 
cat  on  the  pie  counter  had  brought  a 
crowd  around  her.  In  front  of  the 
gates  of  St.  Peter's  an  enormous 
striped  tom-cat  had  really  seemed  to 
be  waiting  for  her.  She  had  begun  to 
shout  that  that  must  be  His  Holi- 
ness's  cat;  and  that  she  would  love  to 
have  an  audience  with  the  Pope  and 
talk  to  him  about  cats,  which  he  must 
surely  love. 

At  Naples,  where  she  was  abetted 
by  the  natural  amiability  and  exuber- 
ance of  the  population,  things  were 
even  worse:  from  shop  to  shop,  from 
courtyard  to  courtyard,  in  the  con- 
cierges'   booths  .  .  .  Nothing    could 


save  them:  not  the  royal  palaces,  nor 
the  basilicas,  nor  the  beaches,  nor 
Vesuvius  itself.  Nothing! 

When  they  were  back  home  again, 
she  would  answer  her  son's  indignant 
protests  with: 

*  But  what  else  did  you  expect  me  to 


do  there,  idiot  .^' 


III 


As  for  Signora  Septima,  she  was,  as 
the  occasion  demanded,  the  echo,  the 
chorus  or  the  mourner;  Signora  Freund 
was  the  active  friend  and  accomplice. 
She  had  spent  a  fortune  on  cats.  Then 
she  had  married  an  old  paralytic,  and, 
having  become  rich  after  six  years  of 
self-denial,  she  had  had  as  many  as 
eighty  cats.  Now  that  she  had  re- 
lapsed into  poverty,  she  used  to  spend 
her  last  pennies  on  them.  The  attic 
where  she  lived  was  a  hotel  and  a  hos- 
pital: cats  would  come  there  to  sleep, 
to  eat,  to  convalesce,  and  to  lie-in.  She 
and  Signora  Eulalia  used  to  under- 
stand each  other  perfectly;  you  would 
see  them  laughing  together  as  if  they 
were  drunk  with  joy;  or  consoling 
each  other  in  their  afflictions;  or  using 
signs,  bizarre  names  and  all  kinds 
of  infernal  stratagems.  They  would 
stand  in  front  of  a  window  with 
their  arms  around  each  other's  waist, 
awaiting  feline  visitors  or  the  return 
of  Angel-Face,  whom  they  used  to 
send  on  mysterious  expeditions  from 
time  to  time.  Signora  Septima  would 
beam  with  a  beatific  smile. 

Nicoletta  used  to  perform  the  du- 
ties of  a  traveling  salesman.  Every 
morning  at  seven  o'clock  she  would 
set  forth  to  the  butcher's  with  a  great 
basket  on  each  arm.  The  butcher 
would  have  almost  two  hundred  small 
packages  ready  for  her,  and  with 
these  she  would  start  on  her  rounds: 


m 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


the  cloisters  of  Santa  Maria  Novella, 
the  Azeglio  Square,  the  Castle  of 
San  Gallo  and  its  gardens.  Her  mis- 
sion was  to  visit  all  the  haunts  of 
stray  cats,  of  cats  who  had  been 
abandoned,  of  cats  in  quest  of  adven- 
ture, of  the  fugitives,  the  rebels,  of  the 
lame,  the  halt,  and  the  blind.  At  noon 
she  would  come  back  and  report. 

Twice  a  week  Signora  Eulalia  would 
accompany  her.  She  would  dress  in 
haste,  finishing  on  her  way  down- 
stairs, and  the  neighbors  would  see  her 
setting  out  with  Nicoletta,  her  bonnet, 
with  its  ragged  feather,  sitting  crook- 
edly on  her  head,  a  veil  full  of  holes 
drawn  over  her  face  and  tied  in  a  bow 
which  dangled  on  the  back  of  her 
neck,  her  skirt  awry — a  real  witch! 
Like  Nicoletta,  she  would  carry  two 
market-baskets,  one  in  each  hand — 
the  first  full  of  dainties,  the  other  of 
medicines,  gauze  bandages,  ointments, 
and  pills.  As  soon  as  she  appeared,  the 
cats  would  come  running  to  her  from 
all  sides,  crying  'Miaow,  miaow,' 
crowding  round  her  impatiently,  and 
clambering  up  her  skirts.  Children 
would  come  running,  too;  even  grown- 
ups. At  that  time  everybody  used  to 
know  her;  it  was  a  pleasure.  'Come 
and  see!  It's  the  cat-mother!  Come 
quick!  Run!  The  cat-mother  is  here!' 

'She  is  the  "cat-mother,"'  her  son, 
who  was  divided  between  hatred  and 
affection,  used  to  reflect  sadly. 'She  isn't 
my  mother  at  all ! '  He  was  growing  more 
and  more  misanthropic  every  day,  and, 
except  in  his  office,  where  he  was 
liked  and  respected,  he  used  to  feel  ill 
at  ease  everywhere.  Everybody  would 
avoid  his  house  now  that  it  had  be- 
come the  meeting-place  and  the  haunt 
of  lunatics,  of  silly,  intriguing  and  un- 
scrupulous women.  Grandmother  was 
the  only  sane  and  disinterested  person 


who  still  climbed  the  stairs  to  see  him 
from  time  to  time.  She  used  to  do  that 
for  him  because  she  had  known  him  as 
a  child.  Her  visits  used  to  touch  him: 
when  he  greeted  my  grandmother  he 
would  almost  feel  like  crying.  He  used 
to  detest  Signora  Septima  because  she 
was  an  idiot,  and  the  German  because 
she  was  treacherous:  it  was  by  her 
connivance  that  the  cats  used  to  come 
and  go  in  open  defiance  of  the  rules: 
in  baskets,  in  boxes,  in  muflFs,  from 
the  roofs — a  regular  troupe! 

He  used  to  be  well  aware  of  what 
was  going  on,  but  he  would  pretend 
not  to  see  or  know  anything.  When  he 
came  across  the  usurpers,  he  would 
look  at  them  angrily.  As  soon  as  he  got 
home  he  would  throw  open  the  win- 
dows to  blow  out  their  smell.  He  used 
to  detest  Nicoletta,  the  blind  agent  of 
all  this  madness.  He  used  to  detest  the 
cynical  Angel-Face,  who  would  feast 
before  his  very  eyes  on  the  breast  of 
chicken  and  chicken-liver,  choice  bits 
of  fish  and  caviar. 

Sometimes  he  used  to  dream:  he 
would  be  happy;  his  mother,  smartly 
dressed,  would  be  sitting  beside  him 
in  a  well-kept  house,  full  of  respect- 
able people;  or  in  some  fashionable 
place:  a  theater,  a  concert  hall,  a  cafe. 
Instead  of  that,  what  was  his  mother? 
Their  money  went  for  liver  and  lights, 
and  the  old  woman  prowled  in  the 
public  gardens  and  the  moats  of  the 
Fortress,  the  by-word  of  the  whole 
city  and  the  laughing  stock  of  passers- 
by.  If  it  had  only  been  dogs!  Then  he 
might  at  least  have  shared  her  pas- 
sion. But  cats — oh,  horrors!  Those 
hateful  animals,  self-centered,  cruel, 
egotistical,  hideous,  wicked,  mon- 
strous ! 

Even  when  one's  heart  is  devoured 
by  a  great  flame,  one  still  must  die. 


193^ 


SIGNORA  EULALIA 


[37] 


alas !  There  came  a  day  when  the  Lord 
took  to  himself  the  cat-mother.  Un- 
able to  totter  through  the  cloisters 
and  the  gardens,  too  weak  even  to 
watch  the  roofs,  she  lay  for  three  days 
stretched  out  on  her  bed,  mute,  un- 
affected by  any  medicines,  her  eyes 
fixed  on  high,  where  she  seemed  to  see 
incredibly  beautiful  visions:  sleek, 
silky  pelts  on  which  one's  hands 
linger  in  interminable  soft  caresses, 
captivating  movements  of  harmonious 
grace,  the  inexpressible  brilliance  of 
red,  yellow  and  green  jewels  against  a 
dazzling  blue  sky.  Her  eyes  seemed  to 
close  on  this  splendor,  her  drooping 
head  to  seal  the  dream  on  her  pillow. 

Her  son  refused  to  allow  Angel-Face 
to  follow  the  funeral  procession.  All 
the  sophisms  of  Signora  Freund,  all 
the  cries  and  imprecations  of  Signora 
Septima,  all  the  prayers  and  tears  of 
Nicoletta  were  in  vain.  His  office  su- 
periors and  colleagues  were  to  come, 
five  gentlemen  of  many  medals.  And 
several  friends  whom  he  had  not  seen 
for  a  long  time  proposed  to  attend  the 
ceremony.  He  would  tolerate  his 
mother's  friends — but  unwillingly. 

That  evening  it  was  not  to  human 
beings  that  the  bells  cried  'Weep!' 

The  little  coffin  was  standing  in  the 
middle  of  the  illuminated  church, 
hidden  by  flowers,  surrounded  by 
friends,  relations  and  curious  spec- 
tators. On  each  side  the  priests  were 
intoning  the  words  of  their  psalms. 
At  the  foot  of  the  bier,  the  son,  his 
head  bowed,  was  forcing  out  a  few 
tears,  which  seemed  to  him  larger 
than  his  eyes.  The  dead  woman  lying 
there  was  his  mother.  A  miserable 
woman,  a  poor  wretch,  yes!  but  still 
she  was  nobody  else's  mother  but  his. 
The  prayers  stopped.   During  a  sol- 


emn, chilly  silence,  a  priest  left  his 
place  and  went  around  the  bier,  swing- 
ing the  holy  water  sprinkler  before 
him.  The  son  bowed  his  head;  tears, 
refreshing  tears,  fell  from  his  eyes. 

'Miaow!' 

It  was  like  a  wail.  The  son  started 
up.  Other  people  looked  around.  It 
could  only  be  an  hallucination.  A  cat 
in  church?  Where?  In  his  mother's 
coffin?  Impossible.  He  had  taken 
charge  of  laying  her  out  himself. 
Surely  it  must  be  his  imagination.  But 
his  eyes  met  those  of  Signora  Freund, 
who  was  standing  behind  him  and 
staring  at  his  back  with  an  evil,  in- 
solent, provocative  air.  Then  another 
'Miaow,'  sharp  and  clear,  was  heard. 
Yes,  it  was  she.  She  had  a  little  cat 
who  was  crying  in  the  pocket  of  her 
coat.  She  let  him  see  it. 

A  slight  rustle  passed  through  the 
church,  and  the  white  handkerchiefs 
that  suddenly  appeared  were  not  all 
meant  to  dry  tears. 

When  he  returned  home,  broken, 
desperate,  crushed,  to  throw  himself 
down  on  his  bed,  what  was  the  first 
thing  he  saw?  Angel-Face,  installed  in 
his  chair  and  washing  his  face  by 
rubbing  it  with  his  paws.  He  grabbed 
him,  opened  the  window,  and,  raising 
his  eyes  heavenwards,  dropped  the  cat 
like  a  bomb  into  the  street.  Then  he 
looked  out  to  see  the  mess.  But  the 
cat,  twisting  himself  around,  had 
fallen  in  the  best  possible  way,  with- 
out injuring  himself  in  the  slightest. 
That  rubber  animal,  already  on  his 
feet,  was  strolling  away  without  so 
much  as  one  backward  glance.  Was  he 
going  to  announce  to  all  his  kind  that 
their  mother  was  dead? 

Not  at  all!  He  was  simply  going 
calmly  about  his  own  affairs. 


Persons  and  Personages 

RuDYARD  Kipling 
By  Rebecca  West 

From  the  iV^a;  Statesman  and  Nation,  London  Independent  Weekly  of  the  Left 

IHE  chief  tragedy  of  Rudyard  Kipling's  life  was  summed  up  in  two  of 
the  tributes  published  in  the  newspapers  the  morning  after  his  death. 
Major  General  Dunsterville,  the  original  of  Stalky,  boasted:  'In  three- 
score years  and  ten  no  man's  outlook  on  life  could  have  changed  less 
than  that  of  Rudyard  Kipling.'  Sir  Ian  Hamilton  wrote  precisely  and 
powerfully:  'As  one  who  must  surely  be  about  Kipling's  oldest  friend, 
I  express  my  deep  sorrow.  His  death  seems  to  me  to  place  a  full  stop  to 
the  period  when  war  was  a  romance  and  the  expansion  of  the  Empire  a 
duty.'  Those  two  sentences  indicate  the  theme  of  that  tremendous  and 
futile  drama  in  which  a  man,  loving  everything  in  life  but  reality,  spent 
his  days  loathing  intellectuals  as  soft  and  craven  theorists,  and  yet  him- 
self never  had  the  courage  to  face  a  single  fact  that  disproved  the  fairy- 
tales he  had  invented  about  the  world  in  youth;  and  who,  nevertheless, 
was  so  courageous  in  defending  this  uncourageous  position  that  he  had  to 
be  respected  as  one  respects  a  fighting  bull  making  its  last  stand.  That 
drama  explains  why  the  public  regards  Rudyard  Kipling  as  one  of  the 
most  interesting  men  of  our  time.  He  stands  among  those  Laocoon  fig- 
ures who  in  pride  and  strength  are  treading  the  road  to  the  highest 
honors,  when  they  are  assailed  by  passions  which  seem  not  to  be  a  part 
of  the  victims'  individualities  but  to  have  crawled  out  of  the  dark  un- 
charted sea  of  our  common  humanity.  Such  men  are  judged  not  by  their 
achievements  in  action  or  the  arts  but  by  the  intensity  of  the  conflict 
between  them  and  their  assailants.  Such  judgment  had  to  recognize 
Rudyard  Kipling  as  a  memorable  man. 

That,  in  part,  explains  his  fame  on  the  Continent.  His  warmest  ad- 
mirers would  have  to  admit  that  that  is  extravagantly  inflated.  A  short 
time  ago  I  was  present  when  one  of  the  greatest  figures  in  European 
literature  explained  to  our  most  subtle  living  novelist  that  it  could  only 
be  political  prejudice  which  prevented  him  from  recognizing  Soldiers 
Three  and  They  as  permanent  glories  of  English  literature,  very  near  its 
apex.  'You  think  them  very  much  better  than  anything  Shaw  and  Wells 
have  written?'  'Oh,  much!'  'Better  than  anything  Dickens  and  Thack- 
eray have  written?'  'Of  course!  Much  better  than  anything  else  in  your 
modern  English  literature — except  Oscar  Wilde  and  Lord  Byron ! '  The 


PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [39] 

just  cataloguing  of  Rudyard  Kipling  with  two  other  Laocoon  figures 
suggests  that  an  imperfect  knowledge  of  a  language  may  permit  a  reader 
to  see  the  main  pattern  of  a  fabric,  which  a  reader  of  great  linguistic  ac- 
complishment might  lose  because  of  absorption  in  fine  verbal  touches. 
But  it  does  not  explain  the  curious  progress  of  his  fame  in  this  country. 
That  followed  a  course  hard  to  explain  to  a  post-War  generation. 

THOSE  of  us  who  were  born  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineties  remember 
a  childhood  shadowed  by  certain  historical  facts:  the  gathering  trouble  in 
South  Africa,  the  Home  Rule  question,  the  Dreyfus  Case,  the  Diamond 
Jubilee,  and  the  fame  of  Mr.  Kipling.  These  were  of  not  easily  differ- 
entiated importance;  and  it  must  be  remembered  that  Kipling  was  not 
thirty-five  till  the  turn  of  the  century.  He  enjoyed  the  celebrity  and  re- 
wards of  Mr.  Noel  Coward  and  Mr.  Priestley  put  together,  at  less  than 
Mr.  Noel  Coward's  present  age,  with  something  of  the  more  than  merely 
political,  almost  priestly,  aureole  of  Mr.  Baldwin.  He  had  laid  the  foun- 
dation of  this  fame  principally  with  his  volumes  of  short  stories.  Plain 
Tales  from  the  Hills,  Soldiers  Three  and  Life's  Handicap,  his  novel,  The 
Light  That  Failed,  and  his  volumes  of  poetry.  Barrack-room  Ballads  and 
The  Seven  Seas. 

IT  WILL  seem  to  anyone  who  now  takes  up  these  volumes  for  the  first 
time,  or  can  read  them  in  a  state  of  detachment,  that  their  fame  was  not 
deserved.  Those  books  are  the  work  of  a  preternaturally  clever  boy  in  his 
early  twenties,  of  odd  and  exciting  but  limited  experience,  and  they  are 
just  as  good  as  could  be  expected,  and  just  as  bad.  Plain  Tales  from  the 
Hills  are  just  the  stories  a  young  writer  of  parts  will  write  when  he  is 
mastering  the  bare  elements  of  the  story-teller's  craft;  when  he  is  teaching 
himself  to  get  down  on  paper  the  crude  sequence  of  events,  the  mere  me- 
chanical movements  of  people  in  and  out  of  rooms  and  up  and  down 
stairs.  Soldiers  Three,  for  all  they  have  stamped  the  imagination  of  a 
people,  are  anecdotes,  told  with  too  much  gusto  and  too  little  invention. 
Life's  Handicap  are  better  stories,  for  in  them  Kipling  has  perfected  the 
art  of  hooking  a  reader's  attention  as  neatly  as  an  accomplished  salmon- 
fisher  casting  a  fly.  I  cannot  believe  that  a  young  officer  and  his  Hindu 
mistress  would  converse  so  exclusively  in  the  manner  of  conscientious 
members  of  the  Chelsea  Babies'  Club  as  is  represented  in  Without  Benefit 
of  Clergy,  but  I  shall  not  forget  that  story  till  I  die.  As  for  The  Light  That 
Failed,  it  is  a  neat,  bright,  tightly  painted  canvas,  but  it  falls  far  short  of 
deserving  to  cause  a  sensation.  Dick  Heldar  is  a  boy's  idea  of  an  artist 
and  a  man;  Maisie  is  a  boy's  idea  of  a  woman;  Bessie  Broke  is  a  boy's 
idea  of  a  drab;  Torp  is  a  boy's  idea  of  an  adventurer.  The  verse  is  natu- 
rally better.  Poetic  genius  makes  a  qualitative  demand  on  experience; 


[4o]  THE  LIVING  AGE  March 

fiction  makes  a  quantitative  test  as  well.  And  indeed  all  his  life  long  Kip- 
ling was  a  better  poet  than  he  was  a  prose-writer,  though  an  unequal  one. 
In  his  verse  he  was  a  fusion  of  Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox,  Adelaide  Proctor, 
Alfred  Noyes,  George  R.  Sims  {Gunga  Bin  is  as  bad  as  that),  with  a 
militarist  A.  P.  Herbert,  one  of  the  grander  Scottish  hymnal-writers  and 
a  pure  and  perfect  lyrist,  who  could  distil  a  day  of  alien  weather  in  a 
verse  as  bright  and  clear  as  a  dewdrop.  But  it  must  be  doubted  whether 
an  age  that  recited  Gunga  Din  and  The  Absent-minded  Beggar  at  the  top 
of  its  voice  was  really  swayed  by  admiration  for  that  shy  and  delicate 
lyrist  in  its  estimate  of  Kipling's  genius. 

Yet  there  was  nothing  at  all  fortuitous  about  Kipling's  success.  It 
could  not  be  called  a  fluke.  To  begin  with,  his  work  then  and  all  through 
his  life  had  the  curious  property  of  seeming  better  than  it  disclosed  itself 
after  a  few  years.  Some  of  his  work  was  gold;  and  the  rest  was  faery  gold. 
Moreover,  it  had  rare  qualities  which  made  it  superbly  relevant  to  its 
time.  The  first  two  were  the  emphasis  on  color  in  his  style,  and  the  vast 
geographical  scope  of  his  subject  matter,  which  made  his  work  just  the 
nourishment  the  English-speaking  world  required  in  the  period  sur- 
rounding the  Jubilee  and  the  Diamond  Jubilee.  I  do  not  find  that  the 
post-War  generation  realizes  what  marvelous  shows  these  were,  or  how 
they  enfranchised  the  taste  for  gorgeousness  in  a  population  that  wore 
dark  clothes,  partly  from  a  morbid  conception  of  decorum  and  partly  be- 
cause cleaning  was  so  expensive,  and  lived  in  drab  and  smoky  times. 

OF  THE  Jubilee  I  cannot  speak;  but  of  the  Diamond  Jubilee  I  have 
enchanting  memories  of  such  feasts  for  the  eye  as  I  do  not  think  I  knew 
again  until  the  Russian  Ballet  came  to  dip  the  textiles  of  Western  Europe 
in  bright  dyes.  London  was  full  of  dark  men  from  the  ends  of  the  earth 
who  wore  glorious  colors  and  carried  strange  weapons,  and  who  were  all 
fond  of  small  children  and  smiled  at  them  in  the  streets.  I  remember  still 
with  a  pang  of  ecstasy  the  gleaming  teeth  of  a  tall  bearded  warrior  wear- 
ing a  high  headdress,  gold  earrings  and  necklaces,  a  richly  multi-colored 
uniform  and  embroidered  soft  leather  boots.  There  were  also- the  Indian 
troops  in  Bushey  Park,  their  officers  exquisitely  brown  and  still  and 
coiffed  with  delicately  bright  turbans,  the  men  washing  their  clothes  at 
some  stretch  of  water,  small  and  precise  and  beautiful.  They  came  from 
remote  places  and  spoke  unknown  tongues.  They  belonged  to  an  infinite 
number  of  varied  races.  They  were  amiable,  they  belonged  to  our  Em- 
pire, we  had  helped  them  to  become  amiable  by  conquering  them  and 
civilizing  them.  It  was  an  intoxicating  thought;  and  it  was  mirrored  in 
the  work  of  Rudyard  Kipling  and  nowhere  else,  for  nobody  could  match 
his  gift  of  reflecting  visual  impressions  in  his  prose,  and  he  alone  among 
professional  writers  had  traveled  widely  and  had  the  trick  of  condensing 


ig^6  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [41] 

his  travels  into  evocative  runes  which  are  almost  as  much  magic  as 
poetry.  Hence  he  could  restore  confidence  to  a  population  that  had  slowly 
lost  touch  with  their  traditional  assurances  throughout  the  nineteenth 
century  and  give  them  a  new  sense  of  religious  destiny.  Since  they  were 
subjects  of  the  British  Empire,  they  were  members  of  a  vast  redemptory 
force. 

And,  indeed,  that  belief  produced  some  not  at  all  poisonous  fruits. 
One  night,  when  I  was  some  years  older,  my  mother  returned  from  an 
expedition  to  town,  and  with  flashing  eyes  described  how  she  had  come 
on  a  vast  crowd  standing  round  a  hotel  and  raising  cheer  after  cheer. 
Presently  there  appeared  at  the  lighted  window  the  stiff  head  and  beard 
of  Botha,  woodenly  bowing  acknowledgments.  The  crowd  had  gathered 
to  cheer  the  South  African  Generals,  come  to  London  to  settle  the  peace, 
not  (as  one  of  the  post-War  generation  startled  me  by  assuming  the 
other  day  on  hearing  this  anecdote)  because  they  were  pro-Boer,  but  be- 
cause they  were  full  of  the  spirit  oi parcere  subjectis.  Uglier  things  have 
happened  in  history. 

THE  third  quality  which  made  Kipling  the  presiding  genius  of  his 
time  was  his  passion  for  machinery.  He  assured  the  slaves  of  a  mecha- 
nized world  that  what  they  tended  were  civilizing  forces;  that  the  task  of 
tending  them  was  a  discipline  and  high  achievement  and  that  the  hum- 
blest who  performed  that  task  worthily  could  hold  up  his  head  among 
kings.  Again,  he  brought  a  sense  of  religious  destiny  back  into  a  dis- 
organized world.  He  was  able,  in  fact,  to  render  an  immense  service  to 
his  age,  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  in  his  later  years,  when  it  became  ap- 
parent that  that  age  had  passed  forever,  he  refused  to  recognize  the 
change,  and  raised  a  disgruntled  pretense  that  nothing  was  happening 
save  an  outburst  of  misconduct  on  the  part  of  the  intellectuals  and  the 
lower  classes.  It  is  no  wonder  that  he  should  want  to  do  so,  human  nature 
being  as  frail  as  it  is;  but  it  is  surprising  that  the  writer  of  the  masterpiece 
Kim  should  have  found  himself  able  to  do  so. 

It  was  partly  the  consequence  of  a  real  incapacity  for  handling  gen- 
eral ideas  and  grasping  the  structure  of  the  world  in  which  he  lived.  He 
was  full  of  contempt  for  Pagett,  M.P.,  the  radical  English  politician  who 
came  out  to  India  for  a  few  months  and  then  laid  down  the  law  to  ad- 
ministrators who  had  known  the  country  for  a  lifetime.  But  Sir  Edmund 
Gosse,  that  wavering  convert  to  the  conventional,  who  could  never  be 
trusted  not  to  lapse  into  dangerous  penetration  and  sincerity,  once 
pointed  out  that  whenever  Kipling  wrote  about  England  or  any  place 
but  India  he  was  simply  a  Pagett  M.P.  turned  inside  out.  This  was 
partly  due  to  his  Indian  childhood,  but  it  must  also  be  laid  to  the  charge 
of  the  kind  of  education  which  England  provides  for  its  governing 


[42]  THE  LIVING  AGE  March 

classes.  It  is  interesting  to  turn  back  to  his  very  early  travel  book,  From 
Sea  to  Sea,  if  only  to  see  how  carefully  he  hammered  out  that  descriptive 
style  which  has  had  even  more  influence  in  France  than  here,  since  it  is 
the  foundation  of  the  best  in  le  grand  reportage;  but  it  is  interesting  also 
as  an  indication  of  just  how  well  Stalky  &  Co.  were  taught. 

It  begins  with  a  chapter  of  jeers  at  a  wretched  young  man  from  Man- 
chester on  a  trip  through  India,  who  had  bought  some  silly  sham  an- 
tiques and  failed  to  understand  the  working  of  some  wells  on  the  plains. 
But  in  the  later  chapters  Kipling  himself  travels  through  the  Western 
States,  only  fifty  years  after  the  forty-niners,  with  not  the  faintest  ap- 
preciation of  what  the  settlement  of  the  country  meant.  He  gets  ofl^  the 
train  at  Salt  Lake  City  and  has  no  word  of  reverence  for  that  miracle  of 
statesmanship  which  set  a  noble  city  and  a  stable  State  on  a  trackless 
and  waterless  desert.  Merely  he  complains  that  the  Book  of  Mormon  is 
illiterate,  that  the  Tabernacle  is  not  pretty  and  that  polygamy  is  shock- 
ing. Could  any  young  man  from  Manchester  do  worse?  Surely  the  United 
Services  College  should  have  taught  him  better  than  that. 

BUT  the  same  wonder  regarding  the  value  of  our  English  system  of 
education  arises  when  we  look  round  at  Kipling's  admirers  among  the 
rich  and  great.  He  was  their  literary  fetish;  they  treated  him  as  the  clas- 
sic writer  of  our  time;  as  an  oracle  of  wisdom;  as  Shakespeare  touched 
with  grace  and  elevated  to  a  kind  of  mezzanine  rank  just  below  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury.  But  he  was  nothing  of  the  sort.  He  interpreted  the 
mind  of  an  age.  He  was  a  sweet  singer  to  the  last.  He  could  bring  home 
the  colors  and  savors  of  many  distant  places.  He  liked  the  workmanship 
of  many  kinds  of  workers  and  could  love  them  as  long  as  they  kept  their 
noses  to  their  work.  He  honored  courage  and  steadfastness  as  they  must 
be  honored.  But  he  was  not  a  faultless  writer.  His  style  was  marred  by  a 
recurrent  liability  to  a  kind  of  twofold  vulgarity,  a  rolling  over-emphasis 
on  the  more  obviously  picturesque  elements  of  a  situation,  whether  ma- 
terial or  spiritual,  and  an  immediate  betrayal  of  the  satisfaction  felt  in 
making  that  emphasis.  It  is  not  a  vice  that  is  peculiar  to  him— perhaps 
the  supreme  example  of  it  is  Mr.  Chesterton's  Lepanto — but  he  com- 
mitted it  often  and  grossly. 

Furthermore,  his  fiction  and  his  verse  were  tainted  by  a  moral  fault 
which  one  recognizes  most  painfully  when  one  sees  it  copied  in  French 
books  which  are  written  under  his  influence,  such  as  M.  de  St.  Exupery's 
Vol  de  Nuit,  with  its  strong,  silent,  self-gratulatory  airmen,  since  the 
French  are  usually  an  honest  people.  He  habitually  claimed  that  any 
member  of  the  governing  classes  who  does  his  work  adequately  was  to  be 
regarded  as  a  martyr  who  sacrificed  himself  for  the  sake  of  the  people; 
whereas  an  administrator  who  fulfils  his  duties  creditably  does  it  for  ex- 


/pj^  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [43] 

actly  the  same  reason  that  a  musician  gives  a  masterly  performance  on 
his  fiddle  or  a  house-painter  gives  a  wall  a  good  coat  of  varnish:  because 
it  is  his  job  and  he  enjoys  doing  things  well. 

But  the  worst  of  all  was  the  mood  of  black  exasperation  in  which  Kip- 
ling thought  and  wrote  during  his  later  years.  He  had  before  him  a  peo- 
ple who  had  passed  the  test  he  had  named  in  his  youth — the  test  of  war; 
and  they  had  passed  it  with  a  courage  that  transcended  anything  he  can 
have  expected  as  far  as  war  transcended  in  awfulness  anything  he  can 
have  expected.  Yet  they  had  only  to  stretch  out  a  hand  towards  bread  or 
peace  or  power  or  any  of  the  goods  that  none  could  grudge  them  in  this 
hour  when  all  their  governors'  plans  had  broken. down,  for  Kipling  to 
break  out  in  ravings  against  the  greed  and  impudence  of  the  age.  Was 
this  a  tragedy  to  deplore  or  a  pattern  to  copy? 

But  perhaps  the  rich  and  great  admired  Kipling  for  retiring  into  rage 
and  shutting  his  eyes  against  his  times  because  they  were  obscurely  con- 
scious of  the  dilemma  that  must  have  faced  him  had  he  left  them  open. 
Supposing  that  one  has  pledged  one's  imagination  before  the  War  to  the 
ideal  of  a  great  Power  which  would  ruthlessly  spread  its  pattern  of 
civilization  over  all  conquerable  lands  so  far  as  it  could  reach,  without 
tenderness  for  its  executives  or  the  conquered  peoples;  which  would 
count  the  slaves  of  the  machines  as  the  equal  of  kings,  provided  they 
performed  their  tasks  with  competence,  and  far  superior  to  the  intellectu- 
als who  are  infatuated  with  the  notion  of  freedom;  which  asked  of  its 
children  discipline  and  discipline  and  then  discipline  and  stood  proudly 
to  meet  the  force  of  the  world  with  force — what  power  would  claim  one's 
allegiance  after  the  War,  every  year  more  surely?  It  has  often  seemed 
fantastic  that  the  author  oi  Mac  Andrew' s  Hymn  should  have  feared  and 
loathed  the  airplane.  Perhaps  he  felt  that,  had  he  given  his  passion  for 
machinery  its  head,  that  and  the  rest  of  his  creed  might  have  led  him 
straight  to  Dnieprostroi. 


.  .  .  Long  Live  the  King 
By  Philip  Guedalla 

From  the  Spectator,  London  Conservative  Weekly 

It  is  not  easy  for  a  young  man  to  be  King  of  England. 

Even  if  he  is  not  quite  so  young  as  he  appears  to  be,  the  fact  is  slow 
to  penetrate;  and  nothing  will  prevent  men  of  half  his  experience  from 
viewing  him  with  the  indulgent  eyes  of  age.  True,  their  travels  may  not 
have  taken  them  further  than  a  few  Continental  health-resorts,  and 
their  conversation  rarely  moves  beyond  the  groove  of  their  profession. 


[44]  THE  LIVING  AGE  March 

whilst  he  is  equally  accustomed  to  ships  at  sea,  railway-trains  in  Africa 
and  airplanes  above  the  Andes,  and  has  listened  in  his  time  to  almost 
every  kind  of  specialist  talking  shop.  But  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  his 
elders  from  feeling  comfortably  certain  that  they  must  know  more 
about  it  all  because  they  happen  to  be  older. 

Yet  if  experience  is  to  count  for  anything,  it  is  not  easy  to  say  just 
how  many  years  of  average  experience  have  been  crowded  into  that 
short  lifetime.  Men  of  twice  his  age  are  lucky  if  they  have  seen  half  as 
much.  The  years  slide  past  them,  and  they  will  reach  the  honorable  end 
of  their  professional  careers  without  touching  life  at  more  than  a  quarter 
of  the  points  where  he  has  made  contact  with  it.  His  life  has  been  a 
swift  training  in  the  elements  of  commerce,  several  professions,  war  and 
diplomacy,  with  illustrations  on  the  spot  from  men  who  know  their 
business  well  enough  to  be  at  the  head  of  it.  An  education  of  that  order 
is  a  fair  substitute  for  graying  hair.  For  it  ages  a  man  rapidly,  and  he 
can  hardly  help  being  a  trifle  older  than  his  years.  So  possibly  the  King 
of  England  is  not  quite  so  young  as  he  may  seem  to  all  his  subjects. 

But  it  is  not  easy  for  a  man  of  any  age  to  be  the  King  of  England  in 
1936.  Even  if  England  were  all  that  he  has  to  be  king  of,  it  would  be 
anything  but  easy.  For  modern  England  is  a  bewildering  affair,  a  shifting 
complex  of  politics,  economics,  public  services  and  private  enterprise, 
consisting  in  unequal  parts  of  agriculture,  trade  returns,  sport,  unem- 
ployment, national  defense  and  the  West  End  of  London;  and  a  true 
king  must  make  himself  at  home  in  all  of  them.  The  old  simplicities  have 
vanished.  The  happy  days  when  a  mild  interest  in  good  works  and  a 
moderate  familiarity  with  the  armed  forces  of  the  Crown  sufficed  for 
royalty  are  more  than  half  a  century  away.  It  was  so  easy  to  be  charming 
when  life  held  little  more  than  a  few  guards  of  honor  to  inspect  and  a 
few  wards  in  hospitals  to  walk  through. 

But  modern  royalty  has  far  more  than  that  to  think  of — the  heavy 
industries,  afforestation,  shipyards,  the  stricken  coalfields,  salesmanship, 
the  grind  of  poverty,  the  good  name  of  Britain  in  foreign  countries,  wel- 
fare work,  the  cost  of  living  and  a  whole  sea  of  problems  that  are  more 
generally  to  be  found  on  the  agenda  of  board  meetings  than  in  the  thin- 
ner air  of  courts  and  camps.  (One  sees  King  Edward  somewhere  in  the 
picture  in  almost  all  of  them.)  Contemporary  life  has  grown  almost 
intolerably  civilian;  and  even  on  its  higher  levels  it  cannot  be  conducted 
without  a  wider  range  of  knowledge  than  is  customary  among  field- 
marshals. 

Full  recognition  has  been  given  to  that  fact  in  the  range  and  diver- 
sity of  the  new  King's  training.  For,  admirably  lacking  in  routine,  it  has 
effectually  multiplied  his  contacts  with  almost  every  drab  activity  that 
goes  to  make  up  the  common  round  of  England.  He  has  heard  engineers 


/pjd  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [45] 

talk  shop,  listened  to  experts  planning  assaults  on  foreign  markets  and 
watched  the  slow  alleviation  of  maladjustments  in  the  workers'  lives. 
The  higher  salesmanship,  group  migration,  and  the  mysterious  processes 
by  which  frozen  credits  may  be  thawed  have  all  passed  before  him; 
and  few  men  have  been  vouchsafed  a  more  commanding  survey  of  the 
whole  roaring,  creaking,  smoky  rattletrap  of  affairs  and  industry  which 
goes  by  the  name  of  England.  If  it  is  the  business  of  a  modern  king  to 
hear  and  know  about  such  things  as  that,  there  is  not  a  more  modern 
king  in  Europe. 

But,  happily  or  not,  England  is  not  the  only  place  of  which  he  has 
to  be  king;  and  in  the  wider  field  he  has  rare  advantages,  since  he  has 
been  a  persevering  traveler.  If  it  is  an  advantage  to  have  seen  the  world 
as  very  few  have  seen  it,  he  enjoys  it  to  the  full.  A  sight  (and  he  has  had 
more  than  one)  of  North  and  South  America,  Africa,  India  and  the 
Dominions  is  a  generous  education  in  quite  a  number  of  things  that  we 
are  not  customarily  taught  at  home,  and  he  has  had  the  chance  to  learn 
them  all.  That  is  another  means  by  which  his  years  have  been  aug- 
mented in  the  same  process  which  enabled  him  to  serve  his  country 
overseas  in  foreign  markets  and  the  Dominions. 

What  is  the  sum  of  it?  A  modern  king  with  a  far  wider  range  of 
contacts  than  any  of  his  subjects  and  a  complete  awareness  of  their  real 
occupations  and  the  problems  which  confront  their  country;  a  sharp 
questioner  and  a  shrewd  listener  of  wide  experience;  a  busy  mind  that 
finds  its  own  solutions  and  prefers  to  say  the  things  that  it  has  thought 
of  for  itself;  a  man  of  innumerable  and  diverse  friendships;  and  the 
last  man  in  England  to  desire  to  hear  smooth  things  on  serious  affairs. 

Small  wonder  that,  if  there  were  no  monarchy,  he  would  be  the  un- 
crowned King  of  England. 

Big-Hearted  Herriot 
By  Odette  Pannetier 

Translated  from  Candide,  Paris  Topical  Weekly 

[ne  following  sketch  of  Mr.  Edouard  Herriot  was  published  in  France  a 
few  days  before  the  Laval  Cabinet^  in  which  he  held  the  post  of  Minister 
of  State ^  fell.  We  reproduce  it  here  because  it  gives  so  vivid  a  picture  of  a 
man  who^  though  not  at  the  moment  participating  in  the  Government^ 
has  played  and  may  again  play  a  decisive  role  in  French  politics. — ^The 
Editors.] 

"LJE  HAS  a  clumsy  body  that  rocks  from  one  foot  to  the  other,  a  big 

head  that  looks  as  though  it  had  been  drawn  by  Sennep,  hair  as 

thick  as  an  Alsacian  forest,  and  haggard,  moist  eyes,  eyes  with  the  look 


[46]  THE  LIVING  AGE  March 

of  a  man  who  has  a  terrific  toothache  and  whose  dentist  is  away  on 
a  vacation. 

He  loves,  above  all,  to  believe  that  he  is  good.  He  cultivates  his 
soul  as  others  cultivate  lettuce  or  rhododendron.  He  belongs  among  the 
people  who  are  deeply  moved  because  they  are  going  to  give  a  beggar 
six  sous  and  who  believe  that  they  have  thus  pulled  him  out  of  all  his 
misery. 

He  is  always  speaking  of  his  heart;  he  pats,  flatters  and  caresses  it. 
Instinctively  his  hand  is  posed  upon  it,  as  if  to  make  sure  that  it  is 
always  there.  And  it  is  true  there  are  in  this  heart  some  charming  corners, 
corners  that  one  imagines  to  be  as  blue  and  fresh  as  a  bunch  of  forget- 
me-nots,  as  the  gaze  of  a  child  fixed  on  a  bird. 

There  is  something  of  the  midinette  in  him  and  something  of  the 
conspirator.  One  is  likely  to  see  him  stop  to  listen  to  street  singers  ten 
minutes  after  having  betrayed  his  Premier.  He  hums,  laughs  at  life, 
pushes  his  dirty  little  hat  back  onto  his  vast  neck;  he  beats  time  with 
fingers  that  are  stubby  but  sensitive  to  rhythm.  He  feels  seraphic,  and, 
at  the  end  of  the  last  song,  he  thinks:  'The  pig,  tomorrow  he  will  be 
overthrown  .  .  .' 

HE  REPEATS  to  himself  incessantly  that  he  loves  nature.  And  he  is 
bent  on  proving  it  to  himself.  While  the  ministers  go  hunting  at  Ram- 
bouillet  and  have  their  pictures  taken  by  Nathan  Brothers  Newsreel, 
Monsieur  Herriot,  who  hates  such  slaughter,  goes  strolling  in  the  woods. 
He  discovers  mushrooms  which  look  like  goblins,  bends  down  painfully 
to  pick  one,  then  another,  then,  fatigued  by  such  efl^ort,  has  his  chaufl^eur 
pick  the  others.  The  frivolous  diversity  of  the  mushrooms  and  toadstools 
enchants  and  inspires  him.  Merely  for  the  benefit  of  his  chaufl^eur,  who 
yawns  and  thinks  of  his  girl  friend,  he  juggles  with  a  thousand  para- 
doxes, a  thousand  comparisons,  a  thousand  dazzling,  poetic  and  pleasing 
images.  He  offers  to  a  deaf  public  of  trees,  leaves,  brambles  and  grass  a 
lecture  that  might  easily  please  an  audience  at  the  Academy.  He  gets 
back  to  Paris,  his  feet  entangled  in  a  hostile  mass  of  earthy  mushrooms. 
And,  arriving,  he  tells  the  chauffeur:  'Here,  take  them;  they  will  please 
your  wife.* 

He  reads  a  lot.  He  writes  a  lot.  If,  in  the  meantime,  he  does  not  save 
the  RepubHc,  he  thinks  of  the  Academy.  His  old  friend  Israel  assures 
him  that  the  green  of  the  laurels  is  not  becoming  to  his  complexion.  But 
that  is  a  matter  that  would  only  bother  a  coquette.  It  worries  Monsieur 
Herriot  as  little  as  a  fly  would  an  elephant.  He  thinks  of  his  claims  to 
immortality  in  little  swallows,  as  one  enjoys  a  sherbet  or  the  memory 
of  an  hour  of  love. 

Alas!  The  'Right'  wing  of  the  Academy  utters  shocked  cries  as 


/pjd  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [47] 

soon  as  his  name  is  mentioned,  and  the  'Left'  wing  wishes  to  dispose, 
before  his  turn  comes,  of  a  stock  of  somewhat  dusty  candidates  that 
have  to  be  chosen  before  they  are  completely  nibbled  away  by  moths. 

Then,  in  the  absence  of  literature.  Monsieur  Herriot  is  busy  with 
France  and  the  Republic.  That  is,  he  is  busy  with  himself.  This  post  of 
Minister  of  State  at  which  events  have  placed  him  does  not  fit  his  tem- 
perament. He  suffocates  at  the  Place  Fontenay,  where  the  telephone 
girls  have  to  repeat  his  name  three  times  when  he  is  wanted  on  the 
'phone.  He  is  a  little  bit  in  the  position  of  a  man  who  has  saved  three  or 
four  drowning  persons  and  who  is  about  to  be  compensated  with  the 
title  of  swimming  master.  He  feels  strongly  that  France,  deprived  of 
him,  will  approach  the  worst  catastrophes. 

He  loves  the  Quai  d'Orsay.  He  loves  it  physically,  from  the  door- 
keeper who  resembles  Albert  Fratellini  down  to  the  irregular  clock — 
a  funny  clock,  but  gentle  at  heart — which  strikes  one  hundred  and 
forty-two  times  without  stopping.  He  is  homesick  for  the  fireside,  the 
tapestries,  the  little  washroom  of  the  lodging  house,  from  which  the 
shabby  stairway  winds  up  to  the  apartments.  Depriving  him  of  am- 
bassadors is  like  depriving  an  addict  of  cocaine. 

Then  he  is  very  unhappy.  Moreover,  he  cannot  be  anything  but 
unhappy.  He  has  an  intense,  morbid  need  of  being  loved.  When  he 
leaves  his  home,  on  the  Quai  d'Herbouville  at  Lyon,  and  he  craves 
attention,  a  pathetic  little  boy  with  a  face  that  photographs  well  will 
step  up  to  him: — 

*Is  it  really  you,  M'sieur  Herriot?' 

Dear,  opportune  little  boy!  Monsieur  Herriot  seizes  and  hugs  him, 
making guidiguidi  under  his  chin;  sees  to  it  that  the  photographers  are 
ready;  and  poses. 

For  want  of  a  little  boy,  he  chooses  a  railway  mechanic,  a  brick- 
layer, a  woman  coming  out  of  a  comfort  station. 

It  does  not  matter  much  to  him  to  be  hissed,  as  long  as  he  appears 
on  the  screen.  The  essential  thing  is  that  people  see  him:  his  little  hat, 
his  martyr's  eyes,  and  his  wide  open  arms,  always  in  search  of  a  prole- 
tarian to  embrace. 

He  loves  the  people;  that  is,  he  is  bent  on  pleasing  the  militant 
radicals.  He  always  arrives  a  little  late  in  the  party  or  executive  meetings 
so  that  all  are  present  and  can  applaud  him: — 

' B'vo  Herriot!  Viv  Herriot!' 

Then  he  nods  his  heavy  head  as  if  he  had  enough  in  carrying  it. 
His  fingers  describe  little  pirouettes  in  the  air. 

' Merciy  mes  amis,  merci  .  .  .' 

He  is  overwhelmed  and  thankful.  The  ovations  are  redoubled: — 

'B'vo  Herriot!  Viv'  Herriot!' 


[48]  THE  LIVING  AGE  March 

He  turns  to  the  crowd  with  the  look  of  a  crucified  man  who  is  not 
long  for  this  world;  he  stretches  out  his  arms  to  demand  silence;  then 
he  speaks  of  the  Republic. 

He  is  a  sad  figure,  a  great  little  fellow.  He  gives  the  impression  of  suf- 
fering from  life.  One  single  soul  loves  him  truly,  one  single  being  lives 
only  for  him:  Cesarine.  She  is  the  classic  type  of  the  old  servant  whom 
one  sees  only  in  the  theatre.  Cesarine  washes  and  scrubs  him  every  morn- 
ing in  his  bathtub.  And  moaning  under  her  rough  grasp,  Herriot  wants 
Cesarine's  opinion  that  he  is  not  going  to  fall: — 

'What  do  you  say,  Cesarine?  Mandel  president  of  the  Council  with- 
out portfolio  .  .  .  Flandin  Finance  Minister  .  .  .  Me  at  the  Quai 
d'Orsay,  of  course.  .  .  .  Hey?  What  did  you  say?  I  didn't  hear  you  .  .  . 
My  ears  are  full  of  soap.  .  .  .* 

And  Cesarine,  without  stopping  her  scrubbing,  answers: — 

'All  this  will  be  still  more  of  a  nuisance  to  Monsieur.  .  .  .' 

He  is  a  gourmand,  without  wanting  to  be  one  and  without  knowing 
it.  Ingenuously,  instinctively,  like  a  baby  that  vigorously  sucks  its 
mother's  breast. 

He  always  goes  to  the  same  restaurant  and  the  headwaiters  scold 
him: — 

'Monsieur  le  President^  you  aren't  serious?  You  have  eaten  two 
dozen  oysters  already,  a  whole  lobster  .  .  .  Really,  to  have  a  pepper 
steak  now.  .  .  !  Monsieur  le  President  is  still  hungry  ?  Monsieur  le  Presi- 
dent WiW  be  ill!' 

*Go  on,  my  friend,  go  on,'  says  Monsieur  Herriot,  as  if  the  head 
waiter  had  just  revealed  his  intention  to  fetch  a  bumper  of  hemlock. 

Then  he  calls  for  the  cook,  the  scullery-boy,  the  waitress,  and  sol- 
emnly, though  with  much  simplicity,  gives  them  the  accolade. 

He  loves  books  physically.  He  touches  and  caresses  them  with  a  ten- 
der hand;  he  loves  their  bindings,  their  parchment,  the  fantastic  little 
loop  of  the  5  on  page  25.  They  are  better  than  friends,  better  almost  than 
his  children.  When  he  is  with  them  even  the  best  pipe  is  no  more  than  a 
subordinate  mistress. 

He  is  not  a  bad  man.  But  there  is  some  calamity  in  whatever  he  con- 
cerns himself  with.  He  has  only  to  want  to  serve  some  one  to  betray  him 
immediately.  He  injures  everyone  he  tries  to  help.  Whenever  he  admires, 
he  slanders.  He  must  be  a  remote  descendant  of  the  Atridae. 

He  is  full  of  good  intentions.  When  he  wants  to  see  the  picture  of  a 
good  man,  he  looks  into  the  nearest  mirror,  for  he  knows  well  that  he 
himself  is  a  good  and  dignified  man,  a  man  who  loves  France,  the  Repub- 
lic and  the  laity.  He  pities  those  who  doubt  or  reject  him.  Then  he  gives 
his  heart  a  little  pat,  sends  a  look  of  resignation  heavenwards,  and 
dreams  of  the  coming  Ministerial  combinations. 


/pj(5  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [49] 


-T.Seffr^e? 


Mr.  Herriot  Installs  a  Show  Window 

— Sennep  in  Candide,  Paris 


The  author  of  the  best  book  on  Proust 
reexamines  that  great  figure  of  French 
literature  in   the  light  of  new  values. 


On  Rereading 
Marcel  Proust 


By  L^ON  Pierre-Quint 

Translated  from  Europe ^  Paris  Literary  Monthly 


1  HAVE  NOT  opened  one  of  Proust's 
books  for  about  nine  or  ten  years. 
After  publishing  an  important  work 
on  him,  I  felt  that  I  was  done  with 
that  particular  subject.  I  admired  the 
author  as  much  as  ever,  but  I  was  not 
interested  in  him  any  more.  One  loves 
a  book  as  one  loves  a  landscape  or  a 
human  being.  A  certain  amount  of 
time  spent  with  either  one  of  them  is 
sufficient  to  make  the  love  you  bear 
them  to  take  flight;  their  mystery  is 
dissipated.  Then  after  a  while  you 
again  wish  to  find  the  loved  being,  to 
visit  the  places  you  loved  as  a  child,  to 
compare  your  first  impressions  of  a 
book  with  those  of  a  second  reading.  I 
did  not  begin  this  task  without  appre- 
hension. From  the  first  I  felt  im- 
pressed by  the  remoteness  of  the 
youth  of  today  from  a  writer  so  un- 
interested in  the  social  question  as 
was  Proust,  and  I  wondered  whether 
it  is  the  new  generation,  with  its  over 
narrow  conception  of  art,  or  Proust's 
work,  that  lacks  universality. 

In   the  beginning  of  my  book  on 


Proust  I  traced  his  portrait,  consider- 
ing above  all  the  artist  in  him;  his 
abnormal  and  irregular  existence  is 
explained  by  his  sickness;  his  inability 
to  act  in  practical  life,  his  exaggerated 
politeness,  his  eccentricities  are  due  to 
the  natural  complication  of  his  mind 
and  his  exaggerated  sensitiveness.  As 
a  result  we  have  a  sad  Marcel  Proust, 
a  man  of  great  generosity  who  little 
by  little  sacrificed  all  the  pleasures  of 
life  to  his  art.  I  continued  to  believe 
that  this  portrait  was  true,  but  I 
realized  that  it  is  possible  to  delineate 
another  one,  perhaps  equally  true. 
Could  not  one  interpret  Proust's  ex- 
cessive amiability  as  a  kin'd  of  defense 
mechanism,  as  a  way  of  escaping 
from  himself;  his  prolix  compliments 
not  as  a  form  of  poetry,  but  rather  as 
a  sign  of  flattery?  Certain  phrases 
that  are  frequently  repeated  in  his 
letters,  like  *  Don't  repeat  what  I  have 
told  you,'  or  'Don't  tell  this  to  any- 
body,' his  expression  'Silent  as  the 
grave,'  which  means  'to  be  quiet  on 
this    subject' — are    these    not    signs 


ON  REREADING  MARCEL  PROUST 


[51] 


of  hypocrisy?  Could  not  certain  of 
Proust's  gestures,  as,  for  example,  his 
legendary  tips,  be  explained,  rather 
than  by  generosity,  by  the  pathologi- 
cal side  of  his  nature,  by  his  habit  of 
'buying'  his  inferiors,  his  need  of 
dazzling  and  seducing  them? 

It  was  above  all  from  this  point  of 
view  that  I  reread  A  la  Recherche  du 
temps  perdu.  I  took  it  up  not  as  I 
would  take  up  any  book  from  the 
library,  with  a  preconceived  sympathy 
which  is  in  reading  a  book  a  sure 
promise  of  pleasure:  rather,  on  the 
contrary,  with  a  definite  prejudice.  I 
should  like  to  say  at  once  that  even  if 
I  have  a  better  understanding  this 
time  of  certain  qualities  that  the  au- 
thor lacks,  my  hostile  sentiments 
could  not  resist  his  extraordinary 
poetic  powers  and  the  profundity  of 
his  analyses. 

II 

In  describing  French  high  society 
from  1890  to  1920,  Proust  could  not 
pass  in  silence  the  most  important 
political  and  social  events  of  that 
epoch,  the  Dreyfus  affair,  for  example, 
or  the  War.  Generally,  it  is  only  as  a 
novelist  that  he  studies  the  repercus- 
sions of  those  two  events  on  the  in- 
dividual lives  of  his  characters.  But 
the  War  plays  such  an  important  part 
in  Le  "Temps  retrouve  that  he  was 
obliged  to  modify  his  neutral  attitude. 
Nevertheless,  the  reader  cannot  help 
wondering  whether  Proust  has  not 
lacked  courage  and  sincerity  in  speak- 
ing about  the  War.  When  the  noble- 
man-officer Saint-Loup  writes  from 
the  front  that  it  is  enough  for  the 
wounded  soldiers  to  learn  that  the 
enemy  trench  has  been  taken  to  en- 
able them  to  die  with  a  smile,  Proust 
declares,  seriously,  that  he  finds  this 


letter — a  piece  of  official  tosh — 'very 
sympathetic' 

The  entire  country  is  mobilized; 
there  is  an  unprecedented  unanimity 
of  opinion.  Proust  bows  before  it 
as,  having  been  well  brought  up,  he 
would  bow  before  a  duchess.  But  he 
does  state  that  only  a  man  like 
Charlus  is,  thanks  to  his  detachment, 
in  a  position  to  judge  the  events 
wisely,  and  the  opinions  which  he  puts 
into  his  mouth  (precisely  because  he 
lacks  patriotism)  seem  to  him  true  or 
most  nearly  approaching  truth.  For 
Charlus  (and  for  Proust)  the  War  was 
only  a  vast  piece  of  trickery;  the  peo- 
ple, if  they  had  not  been  deceived, 
would  have  no  real  reason  to  carry  on 
this  struggle;  and  that  is  what  makes 
the  War  so  absurd.  In  the  meanwhile, 
Charlus  declares,  the  brilliant  cham- 
pions of  the  newspapers  apply  them- 
selves daily  to  finding  new  reasons  for 
fighting — reasons  which  are  nothing 
but  lies  and  platitudes.  Proust  ex- 
presses through  Charlus  the  following 
admirable  sentiment:  'The  truth  is 
that  every  morning  the  War  is  being 
declared  anew.' 

The  world  behind  the  lines  of  attack 
provokes  the  author  to  the  bitterest 
irony.  From  the  first  pages  Proust 
presents  to  us  women  in  their  new 
shortened  dresses  and  turbans,  pre- 
occupied by  fashions  and  coiffures 
which  are  to  'rejoice  the  eyes  of  the 
fighters!'  Mme.  Verdurin's  salon  has 
become  one  of  the  most  elegant  in 
Paris.  'You  will  come  at  five  o'clock 
to  talk  war,'  says  the  hostess  to  those 
whom  she  invites.  She  considers  the 
war  a  'great  nuisance*  because  the 
front  takes  away  her  'faithful.' 

And  that  is  really  the  author's  point 
of  view  about  the  war,  in  spite  of  all 
the  declarations  to  the  contrary  made 


[52] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


in  his  letters  in  order  to  put  him  on 
record  as  a  'decent  man.'  It  does  not 
interest  him;  it  does  not  mean  any- 
thing to  him  as  an  artist.  The  struggle 
between  the  French  and  the  Germans 
seems  distant  and  unreal  to  him.  He 
considers  the  grotesque,  distant  little 
creatures  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
infinite,  and  thinks  that  men  'are 
completely  mad  to  continue  their 
futile  wars.' 

The  point  is  that  Proust  is  insensi- 
ble to  the  profound  reality  of  social 
life.  For  him  the  individual  plays  such 
a  profound  part  in  his  consciousness 
that  he  cannot  imagine  anything 
above  or  outside  of  him.  Proust  be- 
lieves that  a  nation  consists  of  a  total- 
ity of  individuals,  ignoring  the  fact 
that  when  men  are  united  in  groups, 
in  mobs,  in  nations,  a  new  collective 
consciousness  entirely  different  from 
that  of  each  one  of  the  members  is 
added  to  their  individual  conscious- 
ness. 

Therefore  one  should  not  be  sur- 
prised that  Proust  does  not  speak  of 
the  economic  causes  of  the  war,  of  the 
inflation,  the  misery,  the  wounded; 
nor  can  one  find  in  his  work  the  heart- 
rending horror  of  the  front,  nor  any 
compassion  for  the  lamentable  state  of 
the  combatants.  It  is  only  in  solitude 
that  Proust  feels  the  infinity  of  human 
sorrow  so  intensely.  One  is  led  to  be- 
lieve that  only  in  rare  cases  can  a 
strong  personality  be  equally  sensi- 
tive both  to  the  individual  and  collec- 
tive consciousness.  This  profound  in- 
difference of  Proust's  explains  how  he 
could  so  easily  conform  to  the  patri- 
otic conventions  and  give  us  at  times 
an  impression  of  hypocrisy. 

The  same  mistake  can  be  made  on 
observing  him  at  the  salons.  Opening 
at  hazard  one  of  the  volumes  I  was 


struck,  as  Gide  was  when  he  first  read 
Proust,  by  the  superficial  agitation 
and  profound  inanity  of  all  those 
princes,  dukes  and  duchesses.  Did  the 
author  really  admire  these  grand  futile 
people.''  Was  he  a  snob.'' 


Ill 


It  is  true  that  from  his  childhood 
Proust  had  surrounded  the  great  aris- 
tocratic names  with  poetic  dreams.  He 
created  an  ideal  of  the  Duchess  de 
Guermantes  and  connected  it  with 
that  of  her  glorious  ancestors  whom  he 
had  seen  in  the  tapestries  and  stained- 
glass  windows  of  the  Combray  church. 
Perhaps  a  certain  masochistic  feeling 
entered  into  this  admiration.  Min- 
gling with  the  bourgeois,  voluptuously 
he  felt  himself  disdained,  and  when  he 
remembered  that  the  Guermantes 
once  had  the  right  of  life  and  death 
over  their  vassals,  he  felt  that  he  was 
losing  all  control,  that,  intoxicated 
with  his  own  imagination,  he  would 
presently  fling  himself  at  her  feet,  *an 
earthworm  enamored  of  a  star.' 

When  Proust  reached  the  age  of 
sixteen-seventeen,  he  was  taken  by  a 
frantic  desire  to  know  the  monde^  for 
him  so  full,  because  of  its  very  in- 
accessibility, of  prestige  and  delight. 
One  finds  in  his  novel  frequent  traces 
of  this  period  of  his  life.  He  speaks  to 
us  of  his  'first  highness *-^the  first  to 
whom  he  had  ever  been  presented — 
and  about  his  entree  to  the  house  of 
Madame  de  Guermantes  as  excep- 
tional events. 

This  attitude  of  the  young  Proust 
explains  his  correspondence  with  Mon- 
tesquiou — a  man  who  was  in  a  posi- 
tion to  open  for  him  the  most  inacces- 
sible doors  of  Paris.  Proust,  an  obscure 
bourgeois,  as  yet  unknown,  felt  him- 


193^ 


ON  REREADING  MARCEL  PROUST 


\SZ\ 


self  like  a  little  boy  before  this  grand 
gentleman,  from  whom  he  later  drew 
the  extraordinary  figure  of  Charlus. 
Having  succeeded  in  making  such  a 
connection,  he  does  not  hesitate  to 
submit  to  his  distinguished  friend's 
caprices,  to  obey  him  scrupulously. 
He  has  for  his  cravat,  his  mots^  his 
poems,  hyperbolic  expressions  of  praise, 
like  a  courtesan.  When  Montesquiou 
is  thrown  into  a  fit  of  fury — one  of 
those  legendary  fits  that  usually 
ended  in  the  grossest  abuses — Proust 
replies  to  him  humbly;  in  order  to 
have  Montesquiou  present  at  one  of 
his  parties,  he  is  ready  to  exclude,  for 
that  evening,  his  most  intimate  friends. 

But  gradually  the  letters  greatly 
change  in  tone.  We  can  see  Proust 
outgrowing  his  passion,  working  and 
thinking  of  his  novel  as  his  only  duty 
in  life,  while  Montesquiou  has  re- 
mained a  man  of  the  world.  Proust 
realizes  the  absence  of  culture  in  most 
of  the  nobles  whose  names  seemed  so 
beautiful  to  him,  their  poverty  of 
spirit,  their  pettiness,  their  vices,  and 
their  malice.  There  is  really  no  con- 
tradiction between  the  fanatic  snob- 
bism  of  his  youth  and  the  severe 
condemnation  of  his  riper  years.  This 
apparent  contradiction  can  be  ex- 
plained by  reference  to  each  period  in 
his  life. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  his  per- 
sonal experience  of  snobbery  that  had 
prompted  him  to  portray  so  power- 
fully the  people  of  the  salons.  Proust 
has  imparted  to  them  his  own  worldly 
ambition,  which  is  their  only  obses- 
sion. Snobbery  has  become  a  true  pas- 
sion, violent  and  tyrannic,  analogous 
to  that  for  cards  or  alcohol.  In  the 
middle  of  the  perpetual  excitement 
which  surrounds  all  these  men  of  the 
world,   mere   tender   sentiments   are 


sacrificed.  The  friends  who  cannot 
follow  are  forgotten.  Proust  was  not 
wrong  in  thinking  that,  considered 
from  that  point  of  view,  which  is  the 
point  of  view  of  an  artist,  the  life  of  these 
idlers  is  no  less  interesting  than  that 
of  a  worker  or  a  small  shopkeeper. 

However,  what  Proust  has  de- 
scribed is  less  one  special  social  circle 
than  a  certain  number  of  individuals 
taken  one  by  one  and  each  animated 
by  the  passion  of  snobbery.  Proust 
never  studies  these  persons  in  relation 
to  their  social  convention.  None  of 
them  has  a  profession.  Nobody  works, 
and  they  are  all  people  of  means. 
Here,  as  before,  it  is  the  author's  social 
attitude  that  creates  an  illusion  of 
hypocrisy. 

In  his  description  of  an  individual, 
and  notably  of  love,  we  also  have  this 
impression  of  insincerity.  When  he 
declares  that  he  has  entered  into 
Sodom  and  Gomorrha  as  one  descends 
into  Dante's  Inferno,  is  this  not  a 
piece  of  pretense  on  his  part?  We  see 
Proust  proceeding  to  a  veritable  dis- 
sociation of  his  sentiments  on  love.  On 
the  one  hand,  he  has  extracted  every- 
thing that  has  to  do  with  true  passion, 
on  the  other,  everything  related  to  the 
deviation  of  sexual  desire.  For  this 
reason,  he  has  devoted  certain  parts  of 
his  books  to  his  feeling  for  Albertine 
and  other  parts  almost  independently 
to  Charlus  and  others  like  him.  If 
Proust  has  presented  as  the  object  of 
his  passion  not  a  young  man  but  a 
young  girl,  it  was  because  he  wanted 
to  give  his  work  an  entree  everywhere. 
This  seemed  to  him  all  the  more 
natural  since  the  profound  nature  of 
passion,  its  great  psychological  laws 
(its  crystallization,  anxiety,  jealousy), 
seemed  to  him  unchangeable  in  man, 
whatever  the  sex  of  his  beloved.  Most 


[54] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


of  the  readers  do  not  even  notice  this 
transposition,  for  the  author  in  speak- 
ing of  women  evinces  unparalleled 
skill  and  understanding. 

It  is  true  that  Proust  has  put  into 
this  love  the  most  tender,  freshest, 
purest  associations.  His  love  for  Alber- 
tine  is  linked  up  with  his  youth,  its 
enthusiasm,  its  puerile  gravity,  its 
moods  of  uncontrollable  laughter. 
Hence  the  translucent  and  as  if  nacre- 
ous pages  oijeunes  filles  enfleur  that 
produce  the  spectacle  of '  forms  chang- 
ing unceasingly,'  and  of  a  'perpetual 
recreation  of  primordial  elements  of 
nature.'  Love  in  its  communion  with 
youth  becomes  in  his  hands,  during 
certain  moments  of  exceptional  happi- 
ness, a  sort  of  mystic  rite  which  allows 
man  to  attain  the  ultimate  reality  in 
life. 

IV 

When,  on  the  other  hand,  he  under- 
takes the  description  of  the  homo- 
sexuals, he  describes  only  the  special 
character  of  their  desire  and  its  social 
consequence.  Proust  compares  a  homo- 
sexual to  a  thief,  a  spy,  a  madman. 
He  shows  us  Charlus — and  that  is 
what  makes  his  first  appearance  so 
impressive — obliged  to  watch  care- 
fully every  one  of  his  looks,  his  words, 
his  gestures. 

But  Proust  does  not  rebel  against 
the  persecutions  suflFered  by  the  homo- 
sexual. This  is  because  he  himself  does 
not  feel  the  need  of  unmasking.  He  has 
always  accepted  the  customs  and 
usages  of  the  world  as  one  accepts 
weather.  Of  course,  perversion  seems 
to  him  a  phenomenon  which  is  misun- 
derstood and  vainly  blamed.  He 
knows  the  impotence  of  the  social  laws 
which  seek  to  reduce  it.  But  he  does 
not  express  his  feelings  by  an  open 


protest.  Rather  is  it  apparent  in  his 
description  of  the  homosexual's  actual 
sufferings  and  the  degrading  lies  to 
which  he  is  perpetually  reduced.  This 
treatment  of  the  subject  which  is 
otherwise  so  shocking  for  the  reader 
makes  it  acceptable.  We  must  not 
forget  that  Proust  at  the  time  was  the 
first  to  treat  this  subject  in  literature. 
But  he  has  gone  beyond  this.  He  has 
emphasized  the  ridiculous,  grotesque, 
and  often  repugnant  aspects  of  perver- 
sion, as  in  the  celebrated  scene  where 
Charlus  enters  into  an  understanding 
with  Jupien.  Never  was  Proust  more 
sincere  than  in  these  pages,  for  here  he 
experiences  a  sort  of  a  repulsion  for  his 
own  desire  and,  realizing  its  pathologi- 
cal character,  condemns  it  and  him- 
self 

Proust  never  portrays  homosexuals 
as  transfigured  by  any  marvelous 
love.  He  leaves  them  nothing  but  the 
brutal  pursuit  of  pleasure.  Recipro- 
cated love,  which  is  so  rare  even 
among  normal  beings,  becomes  for 
them  such  an  exceptional  phenomenon 
that  they  are  reduced  to  seeking  in  the 
depths  of  prostitution  illusions  that 
would  appease  their  needs.  This  habit 
of  venal  love  by  its  very  facility 
gradually  spoils  even  the  possibility 
of  loftier  passion.  Money  becomes 
the  only  means  of  satisfying  their 
lust. 

Such  is  the  atmosphere;  with  all  its 
nightmare-like  horror,  that  pervades 
Proust's  cursed  Sodom.  But  this  at- 
mosphere seems  to  spread  little  by 
little  to  all  the  parts  of  the  novel. 
Almost  all  the  characters  reveal  them- 
selves as  'inhabitants  of  the  cities  of 
the  plain:'  Saint-Loup,  M.  de  Cam- 
bremer,  Bloch's  uncle,  in  their  new 
aspect  of  Sodomites,  the  women.  Mile. 
Vinteuil,  Albertine,  Andree,  as  women 


1936 


ON  REREADING  MARCEL  PROUST 


\^^\ 


of  Gomorrha.  Normal  or  abnormal, 
the  men  can  only  attach  themselves  to 
inferior  beings,  to  prostitutes,  cocottes, 
valets.  In  Proustian  society,  love  be- 
tween two  beings  of  the  same  rank  is 
an  impossible  phenomenon.  It  seems 
to  me  that  this  tendency  of  the  author 
to  generalize  in  his  novel  certain 
pathological  traits  of  desire  in  the  end 
obscures  his  vision. 

This  is  a  question  that  is  often 
raised  about  the  works  of  most  great 
writers.  Almost  all  of  Dostoievski's 
heroes  are  epileptics  because  he  was 
one.  But  for  that  very  reason  they  are 
able  to  reveal  unsuspected  depths.  In 
Baudelaire  we  find  a  taste  for  mon- 
strous women;  but  precisely  this  has 
caused  the  poet  to  evolve  marvelous 
aesthetics  of  ugliness.  It  is  as  if  a  cer- 
tain nervous  lack  of  equilibrium,  in 
distorting  a  writer's  perception,  per- 
mits him  to  comprehend  the  aspects  of 
the  exterior  world  which  remain  hid- 
den to  a  normal  man.  The  unwhole- 
some signs  of  decadence  which  might 
embarrass  us  in  Proust's  books  are  in  a 
way  the  ransom  of  his  genius. 

Thus  we  arrive  at  the  following 
general  statement:  both  the  patho- 
logical and  hypocritic  aspects  of 
Proust's  works  are  merely  outward 
signs  of  the  author's  insensibility  to 
the  collective  side  of  life.  But  Proust 
has  attempted  a  sort  of  justification. 
Like  Gide  in  his  Faux  Monnayeurs,  he 
has  interpolated  in  his  novel  a  sort  of 
'diary  of  that  novel':  he  explains  how 
he  had  achieved  such  a  scene,  how  he 
had  made  such  a  discovery,  and  thus 
clarifies  his  aesthetic  concepts.  He 
bases  them  on  the  following  assertion: 
a  writer  should  not  stir  out  of  his  ivory 
tower;  social,  moral,  religious  or 
political  questions  have  no  place  in  a 
work  of  art. 


These  questions,  Proust  explains, 
can  be  only  an  object  of  abstract 
theorizing,  of  endless  discussions:  they 
cannot  take  us  out  of  the  domain  of 
formal  intelligence — precisely  the  do- 
main beyond  which  an  artist  must 
pass.  A  writer  who  prefers  to  depict  a 
labor  movement  rather  than  a  group 
of  idlers  takes  the  easier  way:  a  more 
intense  eflFort  is  required  to  analyze 
the  smallest  emotion  hiding  in  the  ob- 
scure depths  of  our  subconscious  than 
to  deal  with  the  larger  humanitarian 
ideas.  Some  critics  admire  the  objec- 
tivity of  writers  indulging  in  the  latter 
activity.  Proust  calls  it  'false  realism.' 

Of  course,  Proust  did  not  realize 
that  religious,  moral  or  political  sub- 
jects need  not  necessarily  be  reduced 
to  simple  intellectual  problems.  There 
are  for  an  artist  in  collective  life  as 
profound  emotions  as  may  be  found  in 
the  individual  life.  There  is  as  much 
'reality'  in  one  as  in  the  other.  We 
know  that  man  cannot  live  isolated 
from  the  rest  of  society;  and  Proust,  in 
ignoring  that  specific  form  of  human 
activity  which  is  social,  imposed  on 
his  work  limits  which  undoubtedly 
narrowed  his  horizons. 


On  the  other  hand,  the  characteris- 
tics which  constitute  the  true  great- 
ness of  the  author  appeared  to  me 
more  clearly  upon  rereading  his  works. 
Believing,  rightly,  that  pure  ideas 
would  not  permit  the  deepest  possible 
penetration  into  the  subject,  he  holds 
that  a  writer  should  strive  to  pass 
through  the  layers  of  abstract  specula- 
tion, of  ready-made  theories,  of  ready- 
made  images,  of  conventions  and  of 
customs,  to  find  supreme  reality  in  the 
world  of  sensations  and  perceptions. 


m 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


All  of  Proust's  work  is  a  continual  ef- 
fort to  grasp  in  the  depths  of  con- 
sciousness the  essence  of  things,  that 
is,  emotions  in  their  purest  form.  Only 
then  does  he  subject  them  to  the  mi- 
nutest intellectual  analysis.  Thus  he 
produces  a  vision  of  the  universe  which 
is  entirely  different  from  our  concep- 
tion of  it.  This  expression  of  the  Abso- 
lute can  only  be  found  in  the  present 
if  the  author  is  able  to  associate  it 
with  the  resuscitated  emotions  of  the 
past.  When  he  does  that,  it  is  as  if  he 
had  plucked  death  and  time  out  of  the 
moment,  making  it  imperishable. 

His  style  proceeds  precisely  from 
this  method  of  research.  Proust  con- 
stantly strives  to  establish  a  relation- 
ship between  two  objects,  or  to  find 
some  quality  common  to  two  sensa- 
tions and  to  connect  them  by  an  image 
which  is  the  true  metaphor.  Proust's 
metaphors  are  doors  opening  directly 
on  mystery;  they  create  perspectives 
of  veritably  magic  depths.  They  make 
one  forget  Proust's  weaknesses — his 
long-winded  phrases,  reiterations,  the 
occasional  mannerisms  that  date  his 
work;  they  are  a  source  of  perpetual 
poetic  transfiguration  of  the  universe. 
Swann's  estate  and  the  Guermantes' 
castle,  associated  with  the  almost 
mythological  personages  who  inhabit 
them,  become  for  the  boy  Marcel  some 
super-terrestrial  worlds:  Swann's  way 
and  Guermantes'  way.  Here  Odette's 
image  is  associated  with  a  'Florentine 
masterpiece ' ;  Albertine's  with  a  Balbec 
sea-scape;  love  with  a  certain  spot  in 
the  scenery  around  him  or  with  one 
little  musical  phrase  of  Vinteuil's 
sonata. 

These  metaphors  have  a  distorting 
power  also:  they  make  the  most  famil- 
iar objects  appear  other  than  they 
really    are:    a    cocotte  or   Mme.  de 


Saint  Euverte  is  transformed  into  a 
'dame  en  rose,'  or  a  hag;  women  seen  in 
a  stage  box  become  naiads  half  'sub- 
merged* behind  the  balustrades.  In 
the  Temps  retrouve  the  famous  ball  of 
the  Duchess  de  Guermantes  seems  to 
unroll  before  us  in  a  strange,  dull, 
sluggish,  stuffy  atmosphere:  one  can 
almost  believe  that  the  people  were 
rigged  out  as  if  at  a  masquerade  in 
powdered  wigs,  false  double-chins  and 
with  leaden  shoes  on  their  feet.  Thus 
Proust  gives  us  a  direct  and  shocking 
impression  of  their  having  aged. 

Proust's  metaphors  at  times  assume 
the  morbid  power  of  hallucinations. 
Like  the  modern  poets,  like  Rimbaud, 
who  sees  'a  mosque  in  a  factory,  a 
salon  at  the  bottom  of  a  lake,'  Proust 
seems  to  be  haunted  by  a  perpetual 
dream.  We  lose  the  dividing  line  be- 
tween dream  and  reality,  sleep  and 
awakening.  The  conscious  life  im- 
pinges upon  the  world  of  subcon- 
sciousness, imparting  to  his  prose  an 
almost  boundless  power  of  suggestion. 

The  philosophical  conclusion  of 
Proust's  works  is  based  upon  synthe- 
sized relativism  and  idealism.  Outside 
of  the  world  of  poetry,  nothing  seems 
real  to  the  author.  In  the  perpetual 
flux  of  appearances,  in  the  constant 
renewal  of  forms,  he  cannot  attach 
himself  to  any  fixed  landmark.  The 
points  of  view  of  a  child,  an  adult,  and 
an  old  man  are  so  different  from  each 
other  that  a  man  finds  himself  facing  a 
new  world  every  time.  The  Albertine 
whom  Proust  had  loved  is  not  the 
same  girl  as  the  one  by  whom  he  is  no 
longer  charmed;  she  is  not  the  same  as 
the  one  whom  Saint-Loup  sees  from 
his  disinterested  point  of  view.  Thus 
Proust  emphasizes  the  closed  charac- 
ter of  our  personalities,  our  irremedi- 
able solitude. 


193^ 


ON  REREADING  MARCEL  PROUST 


[57] 


This  negativist  pessimism,  which 
reminds  us  of  Ecclesiastes,  may- 
seem  discouraging  to  us.  If  all  in  art 
is  illusion,  why  act  at  all?  Proust,  be- 
ing a  dualist,  had  doubtless  sepa- 
rated too  categorically  the  appear- 
ances from  the  absolute  realities,  the 
mobile  and  ephemeral  images  of  the 
unknown  world  from  the  profound 
vital  force.  Today,  on  the  contrary, 
the  philosophers  have  a  tendency  to 
reconcile  the  'phenomena'  with  the 
'nomena'.  Thus  we  find  the  young 
men  of  today  in  a  sense  arrayed  against 
Proust,  in  that,  having  a  completely 
monistic  and  empirical  conception, 
they  apply  themselves  to  tasks  which 
require  only  observation  and  experi- 
ence. 

The  danger  inherent  in  the  position 
that  Proust  has  taken  is  that  it  may 
inspire  a  man,  because  of  his  disgust 
for  the  world  of  illusion,  with  a  des- 
perate desire  to  be  united  with  God. 
Thus  Bergson  toward  the  end  of  his 
life  has  identified  the  vital  force  with 
catholic  mysticism.  Even  the  posi- 
tivists  have  not  escaped  this  tempta- 
tion: Auguste  Comte  growing  old 
created  a  religion  for  himself.  Toward 
the  end  of  his  life  Proust  prayed  for 
death.  Not  having  any  religious  ideals, 
he  wished  only  to  throw  off  the  endless 
chain  of  illusions,  to  escape  from  these 
pleasures  and  sorrows  which  are  only 
aberrations  of  our  senses,  to  attain  as 
soon  as  possible  the  moment  when  he, 
Buddhist-like,  could  cease  to  stir,  to 
desire. 

VI 

What  can  such  a  writer  bring  to  the 
youth  of  today,  preoccupied  as  it  is 
by  social  questions .?  Here  is  a  man  who 
is  completely  antisocial.  To  the  con- 
temporary youth  Proust  seems  like  a 


hermit — living  apart  from  society,  al- 
though respecting  its  outward  forms. 
Even  family  does  not  seem  to  exist  for 
him:  if  he  loves  his  mother  it  is  not 
from  any  sense  of  duty.  The  pursuit  of 
pleasure  becomes  his  only  duty:  some- 
times an  insignificant  rendezvous  with 
an  unknown  and  easy-going  creature 
(for  example  Mile,  de  Stermaria) 
causes  in  him  an  excitement  seemingly 
disproportionate  to  its  cause.  He  does 
not  hesitate  to  remove  all  the  obsta- 
cles, refusing  on  that  day  to  come  to 
the  aid  of  a  friend  or  to  keep  company 
with  his  mother,  although  she  begs 
him  to  do  so.  It  seems  to  him  that  to 
renounce  this  rendezvous,  to  fail  to 
taste  those  unique  moments,  would  be 
a  crime  that  he  could  never  forgive 
himself. 

However,  having  realized  the  in- 
anity of  all  these  pleasures,  having 
exhausted  little  by  little  all  the  charms 
of  worldly  life,  nothing  is  left  for  him 
but  the  joy  of  creation.  Here  egoism 
seems  to  him  a  necessary  end:  an  artist 
should  not  let  himself  be  distracted 
from  his  work  by  any  intrusion  of  the 
outside  world.  'Human  altruism,' 
says  he,  *  if  not  egotistic  is  sterile.'  It  is 
true  that  he  had  found  in  art  moments 
of  ineflPable  emotion.  He  finds  this 
happiness  in  memories  connected  with 
paintings:  when,  one  day,  Brichot 
comes  to  the  museum  to  see  the  Ver- 
meer  painting,  that  precious  'little 
panel  in  the  wall  painted  in  such  beau- 
tiful yellow,'  and,  suddenly  overtaken 
by  a  heart  attack,  dies,  looking  at  this 
perfect  color  in  a  sort  of  ecstasy  before 
losing  consciousness;  or  in  musical  as- 
sociations, as  one  day  when  Proust 
hears  the  famous  little  phrase  from 
Vinteuil's  sonata  and  feels  that  this 
phrase  opens  up  an  unexplored  world 
to  him;  at  such  a  time  Proust  has  his 


[58] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


moments  of  'time  regained.'  Nothing 
can  seem  more  foreign  to  a  young  man 
of  today  than  such  an  attitude  to- 
ward life.  Nowadays,  in  the  economi- 
cal crises  that  overhang  the  world, 
when  an  adolescent  can  find  no  place 
for  himself,  he  lacks  this  metaphysical 
unrest.  He  does  not  ask  'Why  live?' 
but  'How  to  live?'  He  is  not  inter- 
ested in  finding  a  reason  for  existence, 
but  a  society  adapted  to  his  prime 
needs.  His  ambition  is  not  to  belong  to 
a  salon,  but  rather  to  a  social  group, 
league,  or  party.  Proust's  works  are 
completely  opposed  to  such  preoccu- 
pations. 

But  I  doubt  whether  any  great  ar- 
tist could  respond  to  thought  so  domi- 
nated by  material  worries.  This  is 
precisely  why  art,  which  demands  an 
impartial  attitude,  never  has  mani- 
fested itself  during  the  epochs  of  great 
social  upheavals.  When  a  man's  se- 
curity and  his  possessions  are  threat- 
ened, when  his  spirit  and  his  heart  are 
entirely  absorbed  by  everyday  politi- 
cal life,  when  he  is  constrained  every 
day  to  foresee,  to  decide,  to  act,  he 
finds  himself  quite  incapable  of  crea- 
tion. Neither  the  French  revolution 
nor  the  War  of  191 4,  in  spite  of  the 
greatness  of  these  events,  gave  birth 
to  great  works  of  art.  Only  journalists, 
polemicists,  diplomats  and  politicians 
were  conspicuous  at  those  times.  One 
should  also  add  that  dictatorship, 
which  frequently  accompanies  or  fol- 
lows these  troubled  periods,  such  as 
the  dictatorship  of  Napoleon  or 
Clemenceau,  definitely  extinguishes 
all  personal  creative  eflForts,  and  al- 
lows only  official  and  conventional 
type  of  art. 

These  conditions,  I  am  afraid,  are 
still  not  understood  by  the  majority  of 
the  young  generation.  For  them,  an 


artist  who  strives  to  place  himself 
upon  an  absolute  level  is  a  victim  of 
vain  idealism.  It  is  impossible,  they 
say,  to  seek  beauty  or  truth  in  one's 
self.  An  artist  ought  to  break  down  all 
walls  between  his  ego  and  society. 
He  should  march  hand  in  hand  with 
other  workers,  particularly  with  the 
proletariat.  There  is  no  essential  dif- 
ference between  intellectual  and  man- 
ual work.  Proust,  who  believes  that  the 
activity  of  an  artist  possesses  special 
privileges  as  a  sort  of  free,  spontane- 
ous and  gratuitous  play  of  intellect,  is 
in  their  eyes  an  idler.  Here  is  a  man 
inactive,  sick,  unwholesome,  who  passes 
most  of  his  days  in  trying  to  resusci- 
tate the  past,  activity  which  he  him- 
self calls,  'la  recherche  du  temps  per- 
du.'The  youth  of  today  at  least  agree 
with  him  in  calling  it  'temps  perdu. ' 

The  young  people  of  today  are 
wrong  in  considering  Proust  an  idler 
just  because  he  retains  an  objective 
attitude  toward  art.  If  Proust  tries  to 
revive  the  past  it  is  not  for  the  pleas- 
ure of  self-contemplation:  it  is  in  order 
to  clarify  his  emotions  through  in- 
telligence. There  is  perhaps  no  nobler 
activity  than  that  of  a  man  seeking  to 
know  himself  and  the  world  around 
him.  But  today,  the  existence  of 
gratuitous  activity  of  mind  being 
ignored,  pure  knowledge  for  its  own 
sake  is  neglected  and  despised  by  the 
young  generation.  An  individual,  un- 
cultured but  physically  healthy,  an 
ignoramus  with  a  sense  of  fraternal 
solidarity,  they  say,  is  more  useful  to 
society,  to  the  national  community, 
than  an  egotist  genius;  the  fact  is  that, 
while  the  former  might  be  useful,  he 
could  never  be  an  artist.  There  is  no 
place  for  true  art  in  a  society  domi- 
nated by  such  concepts.  The  history 
of  Sparta  could  be  taken  as  an  exam- 


/pj<5 


ON  REREADING  MARCEL  PROUST 


[59] 


pie  of  such  a  society.  Perhaps  it  is 
necessary  that  we  traverse  these  forms 
of  civilization  before  the  rebirth  of 
new  artistic  vitality.  Has  not  the  art 
of  the  19th  century  been  advancing 
more  and  more  into  an  impasse,  and  is 
not  Proust's  work  perhaps  an  end 
rather  than  the  point  of  departure.? 

Proust's  conception  of  love  is  quite 
foreign  to  the  youth  of  today.  For 
him  Passion  takes,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  form  of  physical  desire,  but  desire 
thwarted  by  circumstances,  so  that 
the  beloved  becomes  a  source  of  mental 
complications  to  the  lover.  Hence  long 
Proustian  analyses  of  jealousy,  anal- 
yses which  disconcert  the  contempo- 
rary young  reader.  These  psychological 
complications,  coquetry,  deceit,  quar- 
rels, explanations,  reconciliations,seem 
to  him  an  outrageous  waste  of  time. 
The  theory  of  love  limited  to  mere 
contact  of  epidermis  has  made  numer- 
ous disciples  among  the  representa- 
tives of  the  new  generation,  which 
wants  to  be  realistic.  Nevertheless 
there  is  nothing  more  unreal  than  this 
negation  of  passion  which  not  only 
exists  but  also  enriches  the  individual 
by  its  existence. 

It  may  be  added  that  it  is  perhaps 
the  fundamental  pessimism  of  Proust's 
works  that  most  disconcerts  the  con- 
temporary reader.  At  times  Proust 
seems  like  a  follower  of  Schopenhauer 
with  Buddhistic  tendencies.  More  and 
more  alone  in  the  last  years  of  his  life, 
Proust  clings  to  art  as  the  only  thing 
that  can  save  him  in  the  changing 
world.  Only  art  allowed  him  to  bear 
his  sufferings;  he  does  not  hesitate  to 
prolong  them  in  order  to  attain  the  es- 


sences of  emotion,  the  ultimate  aim  of 
his  work.  We  see  him  in  his  bed,  sick, 
nervous,  exhausted,  but  while  his 
mind  is  still  lucid  thinking  of  nothing 
other  than  adding  another  passage  to 
his  book,  or  including  a  new  metaphor 
in  a  phrase.  One  could  say  that  out  of 
the  last  moments  of  his  life  there 
emerges  the  figure  of  a  hero  who,  al- 
though weak-willed  and  constantly 
dissipated  in  worldly  pleasures,  yet 
knew  how  to  tap  all  the  sources  of  his 
energy  and  to  achieve  the  extraor- 
dinary inner  concentration  that  was 
necessary  for  his  work. 

Most  certainly  the  young  man  of 
today  has  an  entirely  different  con- 
ception of  a  hero;  he  sees  him  as  a 
physically  healthy  man,  disciplined, 
and  capable,  above  all,  of  sacrificing 
his  personality  to  collectivism.  This 
man  works  with  infinite  joy  and  hope 
for  the  construction  of  a  new  society. 
There  is  nothing  more  vital,  more  en- 
chanting than  such  creative  optimism, 
necessary  whenever  an  individual  de- 
votes himself  to  a  practical  enterprise. 
Nevertheless  Proustian  pessimism  is 
no  less  fecund,  for  it  deals  with  any 
form  of  action  devoted  to  pure  knowl- 
edge. Heroes  need  not  be  limited  only 
to  shock-workers,  builders  of  mills  and 
cities,  great  legislators;  there  is  also 
heroic  life  in  art.  Thus,  Proust  has 
reason  to  claim  that  he  has  served  his 
country  well.  He  could  not  serve  it 
otherwise  than  as  a  writer.  And  a 
writer  cannot  be  useful  to  his  country 
except  when  'he  studies  the  laws  of 
art,  learning  to  think  of  nothing  else, 
(not  even  of  his  native  land),  but  the 
truth  before  him.' 


Inside 
RUSSIA 


An  English  woman  radical  reports  her 
impressions,  favorable  and  unfavorable, 
of  the  U.  S.  S.  R.,  and  a  young  Russian 
novelist  writes  a  satirical  sketch  on 
the  vicissitudes  of  those   who   hoard. 


Fact  and  Fiction 
IN  THE  U.  S.  S.  R. 


L  Whither  Russia?    . 

By  Ethel  Mannin 
From  the  New  Leader ^  London  Independent  Labor  Party  Weekly 


So 


MANY  comrades  have  asked  me, 
concerning  my  recent  big  Russian 
journey,  'What  are  your  general  im- 
pressions?' that  I  propose  to  try  to 
condense  into  this  brief  article  the 
reply  to  that  question,  which  really 
needs  a  whole  book — which  I  am 
writing — to  answer  adequately. 

With  a  Russian-speaking  friend  I 
covered  some  7,000  miles,  traveling 
with  a  consulate  visa, — which  enables 
the  bearer  to  travel  freely,  like  a  Rus- 
sian citizen,  and  which  is  not  easy  to 
get — 'bootleg'  rubles,  and  completely 
unconducted.  From  Moscow  we  went 
down  through  the  Ukraine,  from  Kiev 
to  Kharkov,  down  to  Rostov-on-the- 
Don,  and  into  the  heart  of  the  Cauca- 
sus, from  Sotchi,  a  'Riviera'  resort  on 


the  Black  Sea,  to  Nalchik,  amongst 
the  Caucasian  mountains,  over  the 
Georgian  Military  Highway  to  Tiflis, 
and  from  thence  by  air  to  Baku,  from 
which,  though  we  had  no  permit  to  do 
so, — permits  for  Russian  Turkestan 
not  being  granted  to  English  people 
except  in  very,  very  exceptional  cases, 
— we  crossed  the  Caspian -Sea. 

We  went  right  through  Turkestan, 
from  Krasnovodsk  to  Tashkent,  stop- 
ping off  at  Samarkand,  and  back  to 
Moscow  on  the  five-and-a-half  day 
train.  How  we  evaded  detection  and 
expulsion,  and  the  strange  and  won- 
derful things  we  saw  on  this  vast 
journey,  I  have  no  space  to  recount 
here;  I  outline  the  ground  covered 
merely  to  indicate  that  I  have  per- 


INSIDE  RUSSIA 


[6i] 


haps  some  little  claim  to  knowing 
something  about  the  real  Russia — 
which  claim  all  too  many  people  base 
merely  on  a  knowledge  of  Moscow, 
judging  Russia  by  which  is  as  absurd 
as  judging  England  by  London. 

The  general  impression  is  one  of 
progress — a  visible  progress;  building, 
building,  all  the  time,  everywhere, 
even  out  in  the  deserts  and  in  the  wild 
loneliness  of  the  steppes.  Everywhere 
are  newly-erected  blocks  of  workers' 
apartments,  and  blocks  in  the  course 
of  erection.  After  a  year's  absence  I 
found  Moscow  almost  unrecogniz- 
able, so  rapidly  and  extensively  has 
the  building  progressed.  It  is  now  a 
tremendously  modern  and  American- 
ized city  of  semi-skyscrapers  and  fine 
large  stores  full  of  all  manner  of  luxury 
goods,  not  merely  perfumes,  flowers, 
fancy  goods,  but  luxury  foodstuffs 
such  as  rich  cakes,  pastries,  choco- 
lates, etc.  Also  the  people  are  much 
better  dressed  than  a  year  ago. 

It  is  the  same  story  of  progress  all 
over  Russia,  in  the  Ukraine,  the  Cau- 
casus, Georgia,  Armenia,  Turkestan — 
new  blocks  of  apartments,  workers' 
rest-homes  and  sanatoria,  theatres, 
schools,  universities,  stores,  hotels. 
That  in  the  face  of  every  conceivable  ob- 
stacle and  set-back  which  could  possibly 
impede  the  progress  of  a  country,  the 
U.  S.  S.  R.  has  achieved  miracles,  is  ab- 
solutely undeniable.  And  that  all  over 
Russia  there  are  still  people  living 
under  very  bad  conditions  does  not 
alter  this  supreme  and  obvious  fact. 

After  all  one  has  heard  of  improved 
living  conditions  in  the  U.S.S.R.,  it  is 
admittedly  a  shock  to  find  people,  as 
we  did,  in  Tiflis,  Stalin's  home-town, 
living  in  cellars,  windowless,  with 
earth  floors,  and  in  unspeakable  hovels 
as  on  the  oil-fields  of  Baku;  to  be  ac- 


costed by  beggars,  and  see  people 
sleeping  out  at  night;  and  outside  of 
Moscow  it  is  impossible  not  to  get  a 
depressing  impression  of  a  drab  level 
of  poverty  where  the  crowds  in  the 
streets  are  concerned. 

But  everywhere  throughout  the 
Union  people  assured  us,  'Things  are 
getting  better — every  day,'  and  the 
answer  to  the  bad  living  conditions 
still  to  be  found  is  that  building  is  go- 
ing ahead  literally  day  and  night. 
Under  the  *  Rebuilding  of  Moscow' 
scheme,  it  is  planned  eventually  to 
double  the  room-space  of  everyone. 

Russia  is  not  yet  the  Promised 
Land;  she  is  still  the  Promising  Land 
— but  there  is  every  reason  to  believe 
that  she  will  fulfil  her  promises  in  the 
matter  of  decent  living  conditions  for 
all;  she  is,  indeed,  fulfilling  them  as 
fast  as  she  can.  Food  is  plentiful  and 
no  longer  rationed.  The  aim  is  not  to 
raise  wages,  but  to  lower  the  cost  of 
living,  which  has  fallen  within  the  last 
year. 

II 

It  is  no  just  or  true  or  pertinent 
criticism  to  say  of  Russia  that  she  is 
not  yet  Utopia;  the  marvel  is  that 
under  the  circumstances  she  has 
achieved  so  much.  What  is  a  pertinent 
criticism,  and  a  bitter  disappointment, 
is  that  she  should  yet  be  so  far  from 
having  achieved  a  classless  society. 
Equality  she  does  not  claim  to  have 
achieved — but  is  that  any  reason,  for 
example,  why,  within  a  short  walk  of  a 
commissar's  charming  palatial  sum- 
mer home — the  family  has  also  an 
apartment  in  Moscow — the  workers 
of  a  State  (not  collective)  farm  should 
live  four  to  a  squalid  room?  One 
dreadful  room  we  inspected  contained 
too  narrow  iron  bedsteads  and  a  chair. 


[62] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


and  housed  a  man  and  a  woman  and 
two  young  children.  The  commissar 
and  his  wife  are  also  four  in  a  family, 
but  they  have  a  whole  house  with 
large  rooms  and  servants  and  every 
comfort  .  .  . 

Again — much  is  made  of  the  fact 
that  the  tourist  boats  which  run  from 
London  to  Leningrad  are  virtually  one 
class,  the  second  and  third  class  pas- 
sengers having  the  free  run  of  the 
decks  and  lounges;  it  is  a  very  differ- 
ent story  with  the  steamers  of  the 
Caspian  Sea,  which  my  friend  and  I 
crossed  fourth  class,  because,  after 
waiting  all  day  in  a  queue  for  tickets, 
nothing  else  was  available.  (A  large 
number  of  'delegates,'  we  were  told, 
had  caused  a  run  on  the  first.)  Fourth 
class  admits  you  to  the  boat  and  no 
more;  you  lie  on  the  deck,  in  the  bows, 
completely  without  shelter.  For  two 
nights  and  a  day  we  lay  on  the  deck  by 
the  anchor  chains,  not  an  inch  of 
deck-space  visible,  so  closely  were  we 
packed  .  .  .  The  covered  first  class 
deck  was  empty  at  the  time  when  the 
first  class  passengers  lay  snug  in  their 
cabins.  You  would  have  thought  that 
those  of  us  compelled  to  lie  on  the 
deck  might  at  least  have  been  allowed 
to  do  so  under  cover. 

You  would  have  thought  that  in  a 
Socialist  country  delegates,  commis- 
sars, and  Red  Army  officers  would 
take  their  chance  of  getting  'soft' 
places  on  trains  and  steamers,  queue- 
ing  up  like  anyone  else,  instead  of  be- 
ing privileged.  But  over  and  over 
again,  traveling  not  as  tourists  but 
like  Russian  citizens,  we  failed  to  get 
soft  places  on  the  trains  because  they 
were  all  taken,  we  were  told,  by  com- 
missars and  Red  Army  officers.  Once 
when  I  had  secured  a  soft  place,  it 
was  'commandeered*  at  the  last  min- 


ute, and  I  was  unable  to  travel  that 
night. 

That  a  new  bourgeoisie  of  better- 
paid  workers  (one  engineer  I  know  in 
Moscow  gets  2,000  rubles  a  month, 
and  has  a  charming  four-room 
apartment  for  himself  and  his  wife! 
Another  engineer  friend  of  mine  gets 
only  200  rubles  a  month,  and  he  and 
his  wife  share  one  squalid  room  in  an 
apartment  which  houses  three  other 
couples,  their  communal  servant  sleep- 
ing in  the  kitchen  on  the  floor)  and  of  a 
privileged  class — professional  work- 
ers, writers,  artists,  etc. — is  growing 
up,  I  am  afraid  I  am  convinced  .  .  . 
unless  something  is  done  to  check  it. 

Granted  that  the  more  valuable 
worker  is  entitled  to  better  pay,  the 
disparity  in  wages  and  privileges  is 
still,  in  my  opinion,  too  great  to  be 
consistent  with  the  true  Socialist  ideal 
of  each  according  to  his  needs;  the 
skilled  engineer  and  the  great  artist, 
for  example,  are  more  valuable  to  the 
community  than  the  unskilled  laborer 
and  the  scavenger,  and  therefore  en- 
titled to  higher  remuneration,  but 
that  is  no  reason  why  they  and  their 
families  should  be  given  comfortable 
apartments  whilst  the  unskilled  la- 
borer and  his  family  are  crowded 
into  one  room;  the  latter,  as  a  fellow 
human  being,  needs  the  same  living 
conditions  as  the  more  gifted,  and 
therefore  more  valuable  -worker;  to 
make  privileges  of  decent  living  condi- 
tions is  to  violate  the  whole  Marxist 
principle  of  each  according  to  his 
needs. 

Taking  all  these  things  into  con- 
sideration, not  excluding  its  militarism 
and  its  foreign  policy,  it  is  impossible 
not  to  see  Russia  today  as  a  gigantic 
question-mark  and  anxiously  ask 
concerning  it — quo  vadis? 


193^ 


INSIDE  RUSSIA 


\^Z\ 


II.  Makaroonovna 

By  Lev  Kassil 
Translated  from  Izvestia,  Moscow  Official  Government  Daily 


WlIAT  kind  of  a  life  I  lead?  I'll 
tell  you:  I  don't  function  in  any- 
official  capacity.  I  myself  am  a  house- 
wife; I  am  registered  as  pertaining  to 
my  husband.  But  my  fame  has  gone 
far  and  wide,  okh,  very  far  and  wide. 

I  was  notorious.  And  what  I  had  to 
stand  because  of  the  neighbors'  envy 
.  .  .  !  From  that  same  envy  they 
nicknamed  me  Makaroonovna,  that  is 
to  say,  because  I  was  hoarding  maca- 
roons and  all  kinds  of  I  don't  know 
what  vermicelli.  .  .  Truth  to  tell,  I 
was  a  great  hoarder  in  my  day.  The 
question  of  provisioning  was  com- 
pletely solved  as  far  as  /  was  con- 
cerned. Wherever  anything  was  given 
out,  the  merchandise  just  this  minute 
arrived,  people  still  taking  stock  of  it, 
— and  there  I  was,  the  first  one  at  the 
door,  having  started  a  queue  in  good 
time.  I  used  to  run  around  the  whole 
day  from  morning  to  night,  collecting 
provisions.  My  house  became  a  regu- 
lar provisioning  camp. 

In  money  I  have  no  trust.  Money — 
what  is  it?  Nothing  but  a  rustle:  no 
solidity  to  it.  I  first  had  trouble  with  it 
in  '17:  hoarded  up  2,542  rubles  worth 
of  Nikolaievki  and  Kerenki  [money 
printed  respectively  under  Nicholas 

II  and  Kerenski]  and  to  no  purpose! 
Good-for-nothing  money!  But  take 
goods — the  value  is  constant,  and  you 
are  fed  and  clothed  and  at  the  same 
time  have  made  a  solid  investment. 
That's  something  that  won't  fall 
through;  it's  good  business.  So  I 
hoarded  provisions.  And  was  I  clever 


in  this  business?  You  have  no  idea! 
Of  tea  alone  I  had  four-and-a-half 
kilos,  two  boxes  of  biscuits,  five  bags 
of  flour,  and  I  don't  know  how  much 
sugar — altogether  about  fifty  kilos. 
Then,  besides,  macaroons,  dried  mush- 
rooms, all  sorts  of  conserves.  I  still 
have  twenty  cans  of  American  evap- 
orated milk  from  '20.  Then  all  kinds 
of  cereals,  rice,  barley  and  such  .  .  . 

Well,  if  I  say  so  myself,  it  was  such 
a  spectacle  of  beauty  that  the  few 
chosen  friends  who  were  allowed  to 
behold  it  said  outright:  'You,  Anto- 
nina  Makarovna,  have  here  a  regular 
museum  on  the  provisioning  question. 
I  have  never  seen  the  like  of  such 
beauty;  it  makes  one's  mouth  water 
and  effects  a  gnawing  in  one's  vitals.' 

Understand,  I  am  no  speculator. 
No  such  thing.  I  am  registered  as  per- 
taining to  my  husband,  and  he,  please 
understand,  is  a  technician  in  the 
watch  industry.  I  did  not  hoard  my 
reserves  for  any  speculative  purpose. 
Simply  for  the  tranquillity  of  my  soul. 
In  case  there's  a  famine.  .  .  .  You 
can't  believe  everything  the  news- 
papers say  about  how  things  are 
getting  better  and  better.  After  all, 
newspapers  are  like  money — nothing 
but  a  rustle.  You  can't  stuff  yourself 
on  them.  And  here  my  sister  comes 
from  the  provinces  for  a  visit  and  tells 
me:  'Okh,  sister,  better  hoard  food 
for  the  long  years  to  come  or  you'll 
weep  bitter  tears  of  hunger;  and  food 
products  are  a  good  investment.'  So  I 
hoarded. 


[64] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


There  was  a  chance  to  buy  some 
copra;  an  invalid  was  selling  it.  I 
myself  don't  rightly  know  what  it  is; 
somebody  said  that  you  can  extract 
nourishing  oils  out  of  it.  So  I  took 
twelve  kilos,  just  in  case. 

And  believe  it  or  not,  we  ourselves 
never  laid  a  finger  on  all  that  splendor. 
I  never  let  any  one  of  my  folks  near  it. 
Because  if  you  start  taking,  you  can 
count  the  products  as  lost.  Of  course, 
sometimes  on  holidays  guests  would 
come  around;  then  I'd  ruin  myself  a 
little,  serve  something  from  my  hidden 
stores.  You  should  see  everyone's 
amazement:  'However  did  you,'  they 
would  say,  'Antonina  Makarovna, 
save  all  this  splendor?  This  flour 
alone — just  look  at  it!  Simply  azure. 
As  for  rice — one  grain  is  better  than 
the  other.  Pearls  and  not  rice,  that's 
what  it  is.  Absolutely,*  they'd  say, 
'pearls.' 

II 

And  then  this  business  began. 
First  they  abolished  the  bread  ration- 
cards.  Well,  I  think,  that's  nothing. 
Flour  is  not  an  important  item  with 
me.  The  main  thing  is  sugar.  All  my 
hopes  were  pinned  on  sugar.  Of 
course,  the  flour  situation  was  heart- 
breaking. It  got  to  be  so  cheap  that  I 
lost  fifteen  rubles  on  every  pood.  And 
then,  you  understand,  they  take  to 
abolishing  all  the  other  food-cards. 
That  proved  to  be  the  ruin  of  me. 
After  that  everything  went  to  the 
dogs.  All  the  prices  fell.  The  sugar, 
from  which  I  expected  great  things, 
and  caramels — everything  went.  Why, 
I  lost  seventy  kopeks  on  every  blessed 
kilo  of  refined  sugar.  As  for  selling  it — 
who  would  buy.?  'Your  sugar,'  they 
say,  'is  stale,  while  in  the  stores  they 
sell  it  fresh.'  Finally  I  became  com- 


pletely distracted,  as  if  the  floor  had 
been  knocked  out  from  under  me,  and 
my  fame  disappeared  as  if  it  had  never 
existed.  Wherever  you  go,  they  offer 
you  cookies  and  biscuits  and  tea  fully 
equipped  with  sugar.  And  I  have 
nothing  left  to  boast  about.  Total 
ruination! 

'Well,'  I  think,  'no  use  in  hoarding 
any  more.'  So  I  invited  guests.  My 
nephew,  a  student,  came  with  a  friend, 
my  son-in-law  brought  his  colleagues. 
I  served  them  all  I  had,  sparing  noth- 
ing. But  I  had  nothing  but  aggrava- 
tion in  return.  They  started  on  the 
pudding;  all  of  a  sudden  something 
crunches  between  the  teeth.  Natu- 
rally, some  time  has  passed  since  I 
first  began  hoarding  the  rice:  a  bug  or 
two  had  crept  in,  or  maybe  a  mouse 
left  some  traces.  What  can  you  expect  ? 
You  can't  put  it  all  through  a  sieve. 

My  nephew  is  like  all  the  young 
men  of  today :  no  respect.  He  chews  a 
little,  makes  a  face,  spits  it  out  and 
says:  'Excuse  me,  auntie,  but  I'm  not 
accustomed  to  eating  victuals  with 
bugs  and  the  leavings  of  mice  in  them. 
They  serve  us  better  stuff  in  the 
commons.' 

Then  he  asks:  'What  kind  of  a 
peculiar  evaporated  milk  have  you 
here.?  My  gracious,  don't  tell  me  it's 
from  '20?  Well,'  says  he,  'auntie,  I  can 
see  your  brains  are  in  the  same 
evaporated  state  as  the  milk.  For  whose 
wedding  were  you  saving  it.?  Don't 
you  know  that  it  can  be  obtained  any- 
where nowadays  ?  * 

Here  my  son-in-law  chimes  in: 
'Likewise  the  flour  in  the  pie  smells 
of  naphthaline.  No  reason  for  you, 
mamma,'  says  he,  'to  inaugurate  all 
this  economy.  Should  have  bought  new 
flour  and  baked  a  whacking  fine  pie.' 

I  serve  jam — good  jam  from  '28 — and 


i93(> 


INSIDE  RUSSIA 


\(^S\ 


it  turns  out  to  be  all  candied.  'You 
should  have  bought  some  in  Gastro- 
nom,'  they  tell  me.  All  the  aggravation 
I  had  that  evening  .  .  . 

For  what,  please  clarify,  did  I 
hoard  the  stuff?  Denied  myself  things  ? 
Invested  all  that  money?  What's 
money — it  was  my  whole  soul  I  put 
into  it! 

Meanwhile  the  nephew  says:  'Too 
bad,  auntie,  that  you've  never  read 
Jack  London.' 

'What  good  is  your  Jack  London  to 
me?' 

'Jack  London,'  says  he,  'wrote  a 
story  about  how  one  starving  man  was 
rescued  by  a  ship  and  began  saving  up 
provisions  the  minute  he  was  aboard. 
Mind  you,  he  was  well  fed;  but  he 
couldn't  help  wanting  to  hoard.  He 
even  stuffed  biscuits  into  the  holes  of 
his  mattress.  And  he  was  in  his  right 
senses,  only  he  feared  all  the  time  that 
something  would  happen  and  he'd  be 
reduced  to  starvation  again.  It  was  a 
mania  .  .  .' 

'Enough,'  say  I,  'you  should  be 
ashamed  to  reproach  your  own  old 
aunt  with  Jack  London.' 

And  the  other  day  I  see  my  grand- 
daughter— just  learned  to  talk — pull- 
ing some  papers  out  of  a  drawer.  I 
looked — goodness  gracious,  it's  my 
old  food  cards  that  she's  got  a  hold  of. 
To  tell  the  truth,  I  am  still  keeping 
them.  I  still  have  some  herring  owing 


on  three  coupons  and  soap  on  the 
fourth  .  .  .  You  never  can  tell. 

'  Is  it  sensible,'  say  I,  '  to  play  with 
such  things?  These  are  cards.' 

'No  pictures — why?'  she  asks, 
'cards  always  have  pretty  uncles  and 
aunts  painted  on  them  .  .  .' 

'No,  no.  That's  another  kind  of 
cards,'  I  say.  'These  are  different:  we 
used  to  get  bread  on  these.' 

'Because  you  had  no  plates?'  she 
says.  'Yes?' 

'No,  it  has  nothing  to  do  with 
plates  .  .  .  We  used  to  get  the  bread 
out  of  the  shops.  You  know  what  shops 
are?' 

'I  know,  that's  where  there  are 
candies  in  the  windows.' 

'Well,  candies  you  get  by  another 
coupon,'  I  say. 

'Grannie,'  she  says,  'couldn't  you 
give  me  a  candy  on  this  one?' 

I  can't  understand  the  child:  must 
be  mentally  retarded.  Why,  last  year 
the  children  had  hardly  learned  to 
talk  when  they  would  already  run, 
crying:  'Auntie,  they  are  giving  butter 
out  in  the  cooperative.'  Otherwise 
how  can  one  live?  Some  children  are 
now  growing  up  without  ever  seeing  a 
bread-card,  not  even  knowing  what 
the  word  means. 

But  what  do  you  think  of  my  mis- 
fortune? Now  I  don't  even  know  what 
to  invest  in.  There's  no  place  for  a  truly 
thrifty  individual.  Total  ruination! 


[68] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


against  wearing  uniforms,  holding 
processions  and  distributing  litera- 
ture, confiscation  of  presses  found  to 
have  printed  opposition  newspapers, 
limitations  on  free  speech,  political 
meetings,  etc.  Recently  a  bill  has  been 
passed  prohibiting  the  formation  of 
private  armies — this  is  directed  princi- 
pally against  National  Socialist  squad- 
rons. There  is  also  talk  of  introducing 
advance  censorship  of  newspapers  and 


magazines.  Critics  point  out  that 
these  economic  and  political  meas- 
ures have  not  materially  reduced  un- 
employment or  political  unrest.  The 
Government,  however,  believes  that 
the  policy  it  follows  is  the  only  one  that 
can  lead  the  Netherlands  out  of  the 
depths  of  the  crisis,  and  it  is  sup- 
ported in  this  conception  by  the  major 
parties,  including  those  not  repre- 
sented in  it. 


II.  Days  in  Switzerland 
By  Otto  Zarek 

Translated  from  the  Pester  Lloydy  Budapest  German-language  Daily 


i\NYONE  who  keeps  telling  a  bril- 
liant and  beautiful  woman  how  beau- 
tiful she  is  insults  her  with  his  flattery. 
This  is  the  fate  of  Switzerland,  and 
the  Swiss  are  sensitive  to  it.  By  this 
time  they  are  well  aware  that  their 
mountains  are  incomparable,  their 
lakes  of  crystal  blue,  their  hillside 
meadows  fragrant  with  flowers.  The 
ecstasy  of  the  hotel  visitor  arouses  a 
certain  amount  of  contempt,  often 
even  sneers  and  hatred.  The  Swiss 
people  have  an  existence  of  their  own, 
as  it  were — an  existence  apart  from 
Switzerland.  They  are  peasants  of 
exemplary  economy,  technicians  of 
world  rank,  scientists,  painters,  even 
poets — and  last  but  not  least — poli- 
ticians: above  all,  in  their  own  opin- 
ion, politicians.  They  follow  this  pro- 
fession traditionally,  with  great  joy, 
with  civic  pride,  with  sober  shrewd- 
ness and  thoroughgoing  patriotism. 
To  discover  the  Swiss — and  it  is  a  real 
discovery,  for  the  Chinese  Wall  of 
their  mental  isolation  must  be  broken 
down — one  must  leave  hotels  far  be- 
hind, penetrate  into  their  homes  and 


settle  down  as  a  guest  at  their  fire- 
side. One  must  be  very  modest;  one 
must  keep  silent  and  listen;  one  must 
not  pretend  to  know  anything  better, 
for  one  finds  out  very  quickly  that 
that  is  simply  not  the  case.  The  best 
thing  to  do  is  to  smoke  one's  pipe. 
The  longer  they  see  you  quietly  smok- 
ing, the  fonder  they  grow  of  you. 

But  then  suddenly  worlds  open. 
The  fog  recedes,  and  true  feelings  re- 
veal their  primeval  power.  There  is 
friendship  in  Switzerland — indeed,  a 
strange  country!  No  longer  is  one  a 
guest  but  rather  a  member  of  the 
family,  like  'the  stranger  within  the 
gates'  of  the  Old  Testament.  Much 
that  seemed  impossible  'before  now 
becomes  permissible.  There  are  apples 
to  be  picked  from  the  trees  and  eaten 
before  breakfast.  The  neighboring 
canton  may  be  criticized  as  if  one 
were  a  native.  Political  opponents 
may  be  characterized  as  foreigners  be- 
cause their  families  came  to  Switzer- 
land in  the  14th  century.  One  may 
help  to  lug  branches  and  stumps  to 
the   highest   mountain    to   light   the 


1936 


REFUGES  FOR  REFUGEES 


[69] 


mountain  fire — and  that  is  a  great 
honor. 

The  Swiss  at  home — that  is  a  chap- 
ter by  itself.  Outside  Davos,  the  noisy 
sanatorium  town,  full  of  sick  people,  I 
found  in  the  tiny  villages  of  the  high 
valleys  farmhouses  with  huge  libraries 
built  into  the  wood-paneled  walls. 
When  the  crop  is  in,  the  Davos  peas- 
ant of  old  Wallis  stock  reads  Schopen- 
hauer, Hamsun  and  Thomas  Mann. 
His  critical  judgment  is  very  sure.  It 
is  significant  that  the  great  art  critics 
of  the  world,  Jakob  Burckhardt  and 
Heinrich  Wolfflin,  are  Swiss. 


II 


It  is  the  'inner  Switzerland'  that 
really  presents  the  true  spirit  of  Swiss 
life,  free  of  all  dross.  Who  of  the  thou- 
sands traveling  on  the  Express  from 
Zurich  to  Berne  leave  the  train  at 
Aarau,  the  capital  of  Aargau  canton? 
Here  the  country  is  level,  though  still 
surrounded  by  mountains.  No  wild 
mountain  torrents  foam  in  the  val- 
leys; instead  industries  have  settled 
here,  and  bright  new  buildings  have 
replaced  rhododendrons  and  gentian 
fields.  Aarau  is  an  old  town,  a  cultural 
center.  Among  the  countless  people 
who  have  left  its  school  to  set  their 
mark  on  the  world  was  a  precocious, 
dreamy  boy,  always  ready  for  a  school- 
boy prank,  a  boy  who  had  often 
amazed  his  teachers  by  his  stupendous 
ability  in  the  field  of  mathematics.  He 
was  not  particularly  outstanding  in 
school,  excepting  one  time  when,  at 
fifteen,  he  climbed  the  Sikoretta 
Mountain  with  two  friends,  without 
permission  and  without  a  guide,  and 
almost  fell  into  a  crevasse.  At  that 
time  he  was  reported  to  the  high  and 
mighty    rector    and    severely    repri- 


manded. Chuckling  with  delight,  the 
older  gentlemen  tell  stories  about  this 
schoolmate  of  theirs,  for  his  name  is 
Albert  Einstein. 

A  local  railroad  goes  up  the  Wynen 
valley  to  Menziken,  the  birthplace  of 
those  who  helped  to  make  the  canton 
rich.  I  visit  the  schoolhouse  *Auf  der 
Burg'  which  takes  its  name  from  the 
old  castle  it  has  replaced.  It  is  a  sunny, 
brand-new  building  with  all  the  mod- 
ern pedagogical  equipment.  Its  school- 
master is  the  genuine  'unknown 
Swiss '  whom  the  tourists  never  get  to 
see.  Early  in  the  morning  he  works  in 
the  garden ;  after  dinner  he  plays  with 
his  child;  then  he  reads  till  evening. 
In  the  evening  he  conducts  the  men's 
choir  of  Beromiinster,  a  neighboring 
town.  Late  at  night  the  intellectuals  of 
the  valley  gather  around  his  jovial 
board.  Here  Jakob  Wassermann  lived 
for  a  long  time;  in  this  very  room  he 
worked  on  Kerkhovens  'Third  Exist- 
ence; in  this  very  cozy  corner  he  read 
the  latest  pages  of  his  novel  to  the 
schoolmaster  of  Burg,  one  of  the  most 
ardent  admirers  of  modern  art. 

The  intellectual  center  of  Zurich 
is  at  present  outside  the  city  in  the 
friendly  Kiisnacht;  here  Thomas  Mann 
has  made  his  home.  This  beautiful 
Kiisnacht,  blooming  with  flowers,  is 
now  the  Mecca  of  liberal  thought. 
From  the  bank  of  the  lake  it  stretches 
up  along  the  wooded  hillside;  it 
spreads  along  the  meadows  with  its 
compact  houses,  not  one  of  which  is 
extravagant  but  all  of  which  are  well- 
groomed,  modern  and  comfortable. 
High  above  the  others  stands  Thomas 
Mann's  house.  It  is  only  rented,  but 
Frau  Katja,  his  faithful  companion, 
has  imparted  the  warm  South  German 
atmosphere  of  coziness  to  all  the  un- 
familiar rooms.  The  author's  study  is 


[7o] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


his  pride;  he  says  that  it  is  even  better 
than  the  study  in  his  Munich  home. 
From  it  one  has  the  loveliest  view  of 
the  deep  blue  lake  surrounded  by  the 
white-crested  chain  of  the  Alps.  In  the 
living  room,  which  is  like  a  reception 
hall,  there  stands,  a  remnant  of  the 
beloved  home,  a  big  cupboard  from 
the  author's  library,  and  two  gigantic 
wood-carved  candelabra,  dating  from 
Liibeck's  Renaissance  period,  which 
have  been  with  the  author  of  Budden- 
brooks  ever  since  his  childhood. 

The  house  is  a  shelter  for  his  six 
children,  who  occasionally  come  to- 
gether from  many  lands.  The  young- 
sters live  there;  they  are  master  musi- 
cians and  will  soon  give  concerts.  Golo, 
the  young  philosopher,  is  lecturing  in 
St.  Cloud;  he  is,  however,  a  frequent 
visitor  in  Kiisnacht  where  he  is  com- 
pleting his  study  of  Hegel  or  discussing 
timely  philosophical  issues  in  Swiss  or 
French  papers.  Erica  is  on  the  road 
with  her  group.  Sometimes  Klaus  ap- 
pears, the  young  novelist,  who  has 


already  established  a  reputation  for 
himself  and  has  been  quite  successful. 

At  the  table  there  is  a  feeling  of 
comfort,  so  characteristically  German. 
The  peculiar  humor  of  Thomas  Mann, 
so  worldly-wise  and  good-natured,  and 
yet  when  a  serious  occasion  demands 
it,  evincing  both  vitality  and  penetra- 
tion, seasons  all  discussion  on  the 
topics  of  the  day,  and  makes  it  palat- 
able. When  the  meal  is  ended,  and 
cofFee  and,  true  to  Northern  custom, 
the  bitter-sweet  Kummel  or  brandy  are 
served  in  the  living  room,  the  conver- 
sation becomes  freer.  We  discuss  the 
writer's  work,  that  ripens  toward  its 
completion  in  hospitable  Switzerland, 
which  is  doing  its  best  to  become  his 
second  home. 

Little  Switzerland,  with  its  few 
million  inhabitants,  this  nation  of 
peasants  and  bookreaders,  represents 
a  large  percentage  of  true  culture,  of 
European  intellect.  To  the  stranger 
she  offers  her  beauty;  to  the  friend  she 
offers  her  spirit. 


Haile  Selassie's  Peace  Plan 

The  Council  of  the  League  of  Nations  received  today  the  peace  plan 
submitted  by  the  Negus.  His  Majesty  has  deviated  slightly  from  the 
precedent  established  by  Messrs.  Laval  and  Hoare,  but  he  likewise  in- 
dicates his  sincere  desire  to  end  a  conflict  which  has  been  condemned  by 
the  League  of  Nations  and  by  all  civilized  peoples. 

The  south  of  Italy,  that  is  to  say,  Calabria,  as  yet  uncivilized  (who 
has  not  heard  of  the  Calabrian  outlaws.^),  and  Sicily  are  to  be  com- 
pletely and  entirely  ceded  to  Ethiopia.  The  regions  of  Abruzzi  and  Sar- 
dinia will  form  what  Messrs.  Laval  and  Hoare  once  called  '  the  zone  of 
economic  expansion,'  that  is,  a  zone  reserved  for  Ethiopians  only. 
Lastly,  Lombardy  and  Piedmont  will  be  placed  under  the  control  of  the 
League  of  Nations.  Far  from  wishing  to  make  an  assault  upon  the  moral 
integrity  of  Italy  as  a  nation,  the  Negus  will  leave  Mussolini  the  Ro- 
magna,  the  immediate  vicinity  of  Vesuvius,  the  city  of  Rome  proper, 
and  the  whole  Holy  City  of  the  Vatican. 

The  Council  of  the  League  of  Nations  will  decide  upon  this  plan  in 
the  near  future.  Peace  is  on  its  way. 

— Jules  Rivet,  in  the  Canard  EnchainSy  Paris 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


Hitler.   By   Rudolf  Olden.   Amsterdam: 
^erido  Verlag.  i^jd. 

(R.  H.  S.  Grossman  in  the  Spectator,  London) 

npHE  English  tourist  who  crosses  the 
German  frontier  moves  at  once  into  an 
entirely  strange  world.  But  he  does  not 
know  it.  The  railways,  the  hotels  and  the 
museums — the  only  parts  of  Germany 
which  he  really  sees — are  just  as  they 
were  in  the  days  of  the  Republic.  But 
under  this  superstructure  of  international 
respectability  lives  a  nation  whose  econ- 
omy, morality  and  religion  have  been 
completely  transformed.  So  complete  is 
this  transformation  that  anyone  who  is 
initiated  into  it  soon  begins  to  believe 
that  England  is  an  unreal  fantasy.  Im- 
perceptibly he  accommodates  himself  to 
the  new  standards:  imperceptibly  he  ac- 
cepts the  life  of  Nazi  Germany  as  the 
normal  life  of  the  modern  State.  When  he 
returns  to  England,  the  reverse  process 
occurs.  Again  he  feels  himself  in  a  dream 
world,  a  world  of  law  and  order  where 
you  can  speak  without  fear  of  spies, 
where  truth  is  attainable  and  where  de- 
cent people  do  not  always  go  in  fear  of 
their  lives.  Gradually  he  accommodates 
himself  to  the  change,  and  Nazi  Germany 
in  its  turn  becomes  a  nightmare,  some- 
thing which  you  read  about  in  the  penny 
papers  but  which  cannot  really  exist. 

Anyone  who  has  lived  in  both  England 
and  Germany  will  recognize  this  feeling  of 
hallucination  which  overcomes  the  trav- 
eler as  he  moves  from  one  country  to  the 
other.  He  cannot  simultaneously  believe 
both  worlds  to  be  real.  In  reading  Olden's 
new  book  I  had  a  similar  sensation.  For 
the  first  fifty  pages  I  felt:  'This  cannot  be 
true:  it  is  grotesquely  one-sided,  a  ma- 
licious parody  of  the  facts.'  As  I  read  on,  I 
began  to  settle  down  again  in  Nazi  Ger- 
many. The  feeling  of  nightmare  passed: 
this  was  the  sober  truth,  the  German 


truth  which  no  one  who  has  not  experi- 
enced a  little  of  it  can  possibly  believe. 
This  farrago  of  sadism,  idealism  and  cun- 
ning is  the  biography  of  the  Founder  of 
the  Third  Reich.  It  is  interesting  to  ob- 
serve how  Olden  has  achieved  this  effect. 
He  has  added  very  few  facts  to  the  data 
already  gathered  by  Conrad  Heiden  in  his 
History  of  National  Socialism  and  by 
Arthur  Rosenberg  in  his  History  of  the 
German  Republic.  Apart  from  some  sordid 
details  about  Hitler's  family,  and  some 
recollections  of  his  Vienna  days  furnished 
by  a  fellow-vagrant,  there  is  little  new 
material  in  this  book.  As  history  it  is 
sketchy  and  disjointed:  no  solid  frame- 
work of  economic  or  political  causation  is 
attempted.  Instead,  Olden  has  immersed 
himself  in  the  turgid  waters  of  Mein 
Kampf.  His  biography  is  indeed  a  brilliant 
commentary  upon  Hitler's  own  auto- 
biography, with  parallel  passages  from 
Goebbels'  reminiscences. 

Olden's  commentary  makes  one  fact  in- 
contestably  clear — the  consistency  of  the 
Leader's  policy.  Mein  Kampf  was  pub- 
lished ten  years  ago.  Hitler  has  never 
swerved  from  the  principles  there  enunci- 
ated. In  it  he  laid  all  his  cards  upon  the 
table — his  objective,  the  destruction  of 
the  weak,  the  triumph  of  the  strong;  his 
methods  of  propaganda,  the  repetition  of 
simple  slogans  until  they  are  believed;  his 
tactics,  to  side  with  the  influential  people 
and  to  use  every  means  to  power  avail- 
able; his  panacea  for  social  evils,  the 
annihilation  of  the  Jews;  his  political  pro- 
gram, to  maintain  capitalism,  to  increase 
armaments  and  to  win  the  war  of  revenge. 
Everything  was  to  be  read  in  Mein  Kampf 
by  anyone  bold  enough  to  brave  its  style. 

From  the  day  of  the  Munich  Putsch^ 
when  the  Reichswehr  fired  on  the  S.A., 
Hitler  decided  to  keep  on  the  safe  side  of 
the  Law  and  of  the  Army.  His  revolution- 
ary supporters  said  to  themselves  that  the 


[72] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


Leader  was  a  clever  man  to  talk  in  that 
way.  But  he  meant  it,  as  those  revolu- 
tionaries found  to  their  cost  on  June  30th. 
Equally  clearly  he  maintained  his  inten- 
tion, at  whatever  cost,  of  exterminating 
the  Jews.  His  conservative  backers  thought 
it  excellent  election  chatter.  But  he  meant 
that  too.  He  has  been  completely  open  and 
outspoken;  but  friend  and  foe  alike  have 
heard  only  what  they  wished  to  hear.  Will 
he  have  the  same  miraculous  success  in 
foreign  affairs?  Here  too  Mein  Kampf  is 
unequivocal.  And  yet,  charmed  by  the 
magic  of  his  personality  and  their  own 
wishes,  the  foreign  Powers,  too,  seem  in- 
clined to  say:  'He  cannot  really  mean  it: 
after  all  he  must  be  a  normal,  intelligent 
man.'  Nothing  has  contributed  more  to 
his  success  than  this  belief  that,  when  it 
came  to  a  pinch.  Hitler  would  behave  in 
the  normal  way.  But  Hitler  is  not  a  nor- 
mal man. 

What  is  it  that  makes  him  the  prodigy 
that  he  is?  Olden  rightly  points  to  the  fact 
that  his  complete  philosophy  of  life,  apart 
from  the  finishing  touches  added  by  Alfred 
Rosenberg,  was  conditioned  by  his  va- 
grant years  in  pre-War  Vienna.  His  pan- 
Germanism,  anti-Semitism,  anti-Social- 
ism, anti-Liberalism  are  all  resultants  of 
that  dreary  period  when  he  slept  in  doss- 
houses  and  tinted  picture  postcards  for  a 
living.  There  has  been  no  development 
since  then,  only  adaptation  to  circum- 
stance. For  close  on  twenty-five  years  he 
has  had  no  intellectual  cares:  in  an  epoch 
of  doubt  and  uncertainty  his  adolescent 
fixations  have  suflFered  no  change.  Sec- 
ondly, his  conception  of  politics  is  pecul- 
iar. Denying  the  importance  of  econom- 
ics, despising  the  working-classes  as  fools 
for  whose  intelligence  no  lie  can  be  too 
stupid,  he  has  remained  unscathed  by  the 
worries  which  attack  the  normal  politician 
and  has  felt  no  impulse  to  attack  injustice 
or  inequality.  Profoundly  respectful  to 
the  army,  the  capitalist  and  the  Junker^ 
he  has  longed  only  to  abolish  the  system 
which  deliberately  gives  to  the  weak  and 
the  oppressed  weapons  with  which  they 


can  defend  themselves  against  the  strong. 
Rejecting  the  fundamental  principle  of 
democratic  civilization,  he  has  longed  to 
restore  the  pristine  glory  of  a  Germany 
where  the  strong  ruled  and  the  weak  were 
subject. 

These  are  qualities  which  belong  to 
many  of  us  singly.  Bestow  them  all  upon 
one  man  and  add  the  gift  of  illimitable 
rhetoric:  you  have  created  a  national 
portent.  Herr  Hitler  has  been  the  supreme 
dissolvent  of  political  parties.  By  substi- 
tuting the  Weltanschauung  for  the  prin- 
ciple as  the  bond  of  unity,  he  has  trans- 
formed the  party  into  the  amorphous 
mass.  As  Olden  says,  there  is  no  Left  or 
Right  under  National  Socialism.  For  Left 
and  Right  imply  differences  of  principle, 
whereas  National  Socialism  is  the  denial 
of  principle.  Stripped  of  the  political,  per- 
sonal and  religious  loyalties  of  common, 
democratic  humanity,  the  nation  becomes 
an  obedient  herd.  In  charge  of  the  herd 
are  a  few  discordant  herdsmen,  and  be- 
hind the  herdsmen  dimly  discerned  stand 
the  owners  of  the  cattle.  The  owners  are 
perhaps  a  little  uneasy.  They  have  paid 
the  herdsmen  well,  but  they  realize  that 
only  one  among  them  knows  the  word  of 
command  to  which  the  cattle  answer.  If  he 
should  fail  .  .  .  But  a  kindly  providence 
has  arranged  that  Herr  Hitler's  respect 
for  the  powers  that  be  is  beyond  question. 

So  Olden.  Such  ideas  will  seem  fantastic 
to  most  English  readers.  I  found  them 
fantastic  too,  as  I  put  Olden's  book  aside 
and  returned  to  the  routine  of  English  life. 
And  yet  the  suspicion  haunts  me  that  his 
fantasy  happens  to  be  the  sober  truth. 


Dachau — Eine    Chronik.    By     Walter 
Hornung.  Zurich:  Europa-Verlag.  /pjj. 

(Oscar  Maria  Graf  in  the  Neue  JVeltbubne,  Prague) 

A    BOOK    has    been    published    that 
bears  the  simple  title:  Dachau — A 
Chronicle.    The    author,    previously    un- 
known, seems  to  have  begun  writing  only 
because  of  the  experience  he  describes. 


1936 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[73I 


The  title  of  the  book  is  well  chosen.  It 
is  purely  a  record;  although  not  a  very- 
pretty  one,  it  is  deeply  stirring  instead. 
Its  impressiveness  is  accentuated  by  its 
wonderfully  restrained  and  unadorned 
style.  There  are  scenes  in  this  book  which 
even  the  most  imaginative  writer  could 
not  have  written.  Only  one  who  has  actu- 
ally experienced  the  reality  could  have 
so  set  them  down. 

The  writer,  a  former  convict  who  was 
at  the  very  beginning  taken  to  the  Dachau 
concentration  camp,  and  who  had  to  re- 
main there  until  Christmas,  1933,  tells  of 
the  gradual  growth  of  the  camp,  of  the 
indescribable  brutality  of  the  storm-troop 
guards,  of  the  inhuman  slavery  of  the 
prisoners  and  of  the  truly  heroic  grandeur 
of  German  workers,  who,  after  a  bitter 
defeat,  stand  together  in  suflFering  and 
degradation. 

The  record  goes  beyond  this:  it  tells  of 
the  political  events  of  the  year  1933.  It 
tells  of  the  events  that  took  place  around 
the  notorious  June  30,  1934,  after  the 
author  had  been  released.  The  book,  there- 
fore, becomes  a  contemporary  document 
of  great  importance,  giving  much  new  in- 
formation. It  is  a  lasting  memorial  to  all 
those  unknown,  silenced  fighters,  de- 
stroyed or  still  under  threat  of  destruc- 
tion by  German  Fascism. 

In  a  short  preface  the  author  insists 
that  he  is  giving  a  thoroughgoing  and 
truthful  picture  of  the  largest  concentra- 
tion camp  in  Hitler  Germany,  the  organi- 
zation of  which  became  a  model  for  all 
camps.  He  continues:  'The  horrors  of  my 
experiences  have  at  times  rather  handi- 
capped the  description,  for  it  is  painful  to 
rise  against  the  land  of  one's  birth,  as  it  is 
painful  to  accuse  one's  own  mother  .  .  .' 

There  was  no  need  for  him  to  put  it  in 
words.  One  believes  him  after  the  first 
few  sentences,  for  this  book  is  true  from 
beginning  to  end.  Nor  is  it  merely  the 
ring  of  truth  that  makes  the  book  so 
deeply  impressive.  The  overwhelming  fact 
is  that  unexpectedly  and  unwittingly  we 
become  the  witnesses  of  a  profound  human 


catharsis.  Not  only  the  leading  character, 
Firner,  with  whom  the  author  identifies 
himself,  but  all  the  Socialist  and  Com- 
munist workers  who  languish  and  suffer 
in  this  living  hell  of  Dachau  rise  above 
their  torments  to  truly  heroic  stature. 
Even  death  finds  them  unbowed.  Those 
that  fall  under  the  shots  and  kicks  of  the 
sadistic  storm-troopers,  showing  their  for- 
titude to  the  last,  are  forever  enshrined  in 
our  indignant  hearts.  And  all  those  who 
survive  the  horrors  are  hardened  to  the 
struggle  for  the  future  Germany  of  free- 
dom. 

No  other  book  I  have  recently  read 
made  me  feel  so  definitely  that  these 
workers  will  win.  It  should  be  smuggled 
into  Germany  by  thousands  of  copies.  It  is 
a  revolutionary  deed !  It  stirs  and  lifts  you 
up  at  the  same  time.  It  jolts  the  faint- 
hearted sceptic  out  of  his  lethargy  and 
turns  him  into  a  fighter.  Who  can  doubt 
that  these  are  the  Germans  of  tomorrow  ? 

After  a  period  in  the  dungeon,  the  for- 
mer company-leader  Zeuner,  a  Communist 
worker,  is  asked  by  the  storm-troop  com- 
mander if  he  still  is  a  Communist.  '  Com- 
mander,' he  answers,  *I  have  been  in  the 
dungeon  seven  months.  What  can  you 
expect  from  me  ?  I  am  still  convinced  that 
a  rebuilding  of  Germany  is  possible  only 
in  a  Communist  society!' 

The  author  continues  simply:  'The 
Commander  answered  Zeuner:  "You  are 
a  man  of  character,"  and  presented  him 
with  a  pipe.' 

Only  a  person  who  has  gone  through 
hell  can  report  so  simply.  I  don't  want  to 
say  too  much,  but  I  believe  that  this 
'Chronicle  of  Dachau'  will  remain.  It 
will  be  read  long  after  the  new  Germany 
has  come  into  being. 

Gabriele  d'Annunzig.  By  Gerald  Griffin. 
London:  John  Long.  1936. 

(Cyril  Connolly  in  the  Sunday  Times,  London) 

pjERE  at  last  is  an  English  life  of  one  of 

the  most  fascinating  living  enigmas, 

D'Annunzio.  To  understand  him  is  to  un- 


[74] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


derstand  the  side  of  Fascism  that  is  most 
alien  to  us,  the  cult  of  glory  (I  can  think  of 
no  worse  punishment  for  politicians  than 
having  to  read  one  of  D'Annunzio's  war- 
speeches)  . 

D'Annunzio  has  a  threefold  importance: 
as  a  novelist  he  dates  so  definitely  that  he 
is  the  last  embodiment  of  the  decadence  of 
the  nineties — the  decades  of  Huysmans's 
Satanism  and  Wilde's  Salomes;  as  a  poet 
he  is  the  last  grand  character  in  the  Byron 
tradition:  romantic,  cynical,  scandalous 
and  subversive.  His  life  has  been  a  series 
of  great  love  affairs,  debts,  extravagances 
and  beaux  gestes. 

His  poetry  is  highly  inflammable  and 
characterized  by  rhetoric  and  affecta- 
tion in  the  manner  of  Heredia.  Yet  there 
is  probably  no  living  writer  with  such 
command  of  language.  He  is  the  Italian 
Swinburne,  and  yet  able  to  write  at 
times  with  a  Dantesque  simplicity.  But 
like  all  verbal  jugglers  he  suffers  from  his 
best  work's  being  approached  with  the 
suspicion  that  is  so  rightly  accorded  to  his 
worst. 

Lastly,  he  is  important  as  a  man  of 
action.  Mr.  Griffin  points  out  that  though 
he  is  open  to  criticism  on  almost  all  other 
counts,  as  a  man  of  courage  he  is  a 
phenomenon,  and  physical  bravery  still 
remains  one  of  the  most  admired  and  ad- 
mirable of  human  qualities. 

Politically  he  is  the  precursor,  almost 
the  founder,  of  Fascism,  and  he  could  have 
been  its  leader,  too,  had  he  so  desired.  We 
see  Fascism  starting  through  his  speeches 
and  fantastically  daring  air-raids,  as  a 
small  defeatist  movement  of  heroes  and 
patriots — noble  in  adversity  yet  gradu- 
ally becoming  aggressive  with  success,  and 
frankly  predatory  with  the  annexation  of 
Fiume:  an  episode  in  which  the  poet,  un- 
able to  govern,  and  unwilling  to  abdicate, 
appears  at  his  most  adolescent  worst. 

For  it  is  clear  that  from  his  first  appear- 
ance as  an  incredibly  gifted  and  dazzling 
boy  he  never  really  grew  up.  He  pleaded 
the  poet's  exemption  from  taking  any  but 
a  kind  of  Jolly  Roger  place  in  society,  and 


lived  entirely  for  the  Elizabethan  splen- 
dors of  life:  women,  horses,  hounds,  duels, 
feasts  and  castles,  irrespective  of  the  ob- 
ligations entailed  in  obtaining  them.  There 
is  a  story  of  a  beautiful  masked  woman  on 
a  spirited  horse  who  galloped  up  on  moon- 
light nights  to  visit  him  in  his  Florentine 
villa  and  who  turned  out  to  be  the  poet 
himself  doing  a  little  publicity.  Yet  it  is  a 
serious  fact  to  remember  that  the  Eliza- 
bethans of  today  are  the  Fascists  of  to- 
morrow, and  from  the  ranks  of  romantic 
and  fearless  adventurers  are  drawn  the 
Roehms,  the  storm-troopers,  the  arditiy 
the  black-and-tans. 

But  what  a  life!  At  seventeen  a  'mar- 
velous boy'  with  a  face  like  a  medieval 
angel  and  the  literary  world  at  his  feet. 
Then  a  social  success,  a  Byronian  lady- 
killer;  then  a  great  popular  author,  the 
lover  of  Duse,  internationally  famous  and 
also  a  lion  in  the  small  exclusive  pre- War 
society  of  Paris,  London  and  Rome.  Then 
a  vital  single  force  in  persuading  Italy  to 
join  the  Allies,  and,  in  the  war  that  fol- 
lowed, his  country's  greatest  hero!  After 
that  a  few  months  of  absolute  power,  as 
poet- king  of  his  tiny  city  state,  and  finally 
honored  retirement  with  a  lovely  lake 
property  and  a  pet  cruiser. 

Mr.  Griflin  has  written  an  extremely 
outspoken  and  interesting  book  about 
him.  Seldom  are  the  living  so  stripped  for 
examination!  The  book  suflFers  from  its 
arrangement  according  to  different  phases 
of  the  poet's  activity,  which  occasions  a 
certain  amount  of  overlapping  and  repeti- 
tion, and  from  the  author's  lapses  into 
journalese.  But  it  is  a  vigorous  and  topical 
piece  of  writing. 

Mr.  Griffin  has  fully  grasped  that  his 
subject  is  more  and  less  than  a  man  and 
enabled  the  reader  to  realize  this.  D'An- 
nunzio, with  his  rhetoric,  his  violence,  his 
Nietzschean  opportunism  and  his  strange 
mystical  belief  in  acts  of  personal  bravery, 
above  all  with  his  fantastic  patriotism,  is 
the  embodiment  of  the  warlike  side  of 
Fascism,  and  as  such  is,  unfortunately, 
more  interesting  now  than  ever. 


193^ 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[751 


Deutschland  und  Frankreich.  By  An- 
dre Germain.  Berlin:  Deutscher  Verlag 
fiir  Politik  und  Wirtschajt.  igjS- 

(From  the  Berliner  Tageblatty  Berlin) 

npHIS  little  book  with  the  Swastika  and 
the  Tricolor  on  the  binding  was  written 
in  German  by  the  Frenchman  Andre  Ger- 
main. Thus  it  is  addressed  directly  to  us 
Germans,  and  it  is  precisely  for  this  reason 
that  it  ought  to  bear  a  sort  of  druggist's 
label:  Use  with  Care. 

Germain's  sincerity  in  promoting  an 
understanding  between  the  two  neighbor- 
ing nations  has  in  the  twenty  post- War 
years  been  proved  too  often  to  be  doubted. 
And  today  less  than  ever,  for  at  a  very 
early  period  Germain  tried  to  arrive  at  an 
understanding  of  National  Socialism. 
This  is  shown  by  his  book,  Hitler  ou  Mos- 
coUy  which  appeared  in  1931.  Germain  is 
today  a  convinced  advocate  and  admirer 
of  the  Third  Reich. 

But  the  method  which  Mr.  Germain 
uses  in  this  book  seems  dubious  to  us. 
The  representatives  of  France,  those  of 
yesterday  and  those  of  today,  fare  badly. 
For  example,  the  author  not  only  rejects 
Poincare's  policy,  which  led  to  the  occupa- 
tion of  the  Ruhr,  but  Poincare  himself  is 
analyzed  and  is  shown  to  us  Germans  as 
'basically  stupid,  insignificant  and  easily 
influenced.'  Other  Frenchmen,  among 
them  Briand,  are  treated  similarly. 

Mr.  Germain's  language  toward  the 
France  of  today  is  so  intemperately  sharp 
that  one  feels  it  would  be  more  appropri- 
ate in  a  French  party  paper.  Even  Mr. 
Germain  is  of  the  opinion  that  the  basis 
for  understanding  is  sincerity  and  mutual 
esteem.  This  would  rule  out  any  interfer- 
ence in  the  internal  affairs  of  the  other 
country.  Certainly  we  follow  with  the 
greatest  interest  the  development  of  our 
neighbor  to  the  west — but  that  is  not  yet 
tantamount  to  complete  understanding, 
which  is  possible  only  on  the  basis  of 
realities.  Mr.  Germain  apparently  wishes 
to  emphasize  the  basic  world-view.  He 
shows  us  a  France  so  incurably  corrupted 


by  parliamentarism,  freemasonry,  crooked 
capitalists  and  friends  of  the  Soviet  that, 
as  he  assures  us,  there  is  bound  to  be 
revolution  sooner  or  later.  He  would  like 
to  see  the  Rightist  organizations  win  when 
the  crisis  comes.  Let  us  wait  and  see! 

Le  Sang  Noir.  By  Louis  Guilloux.  Paris: 
Nouvelle  Revue  Frangaise.  igjS- 
(Andr6  Malraux  in  Marianne,  Paris) 

T  DO  NOT  believe  in  criticism  by  au- 
thors. They  have  no  business  to  speak 
of  more  than  a  very  few  books;  and  if  they 
do  even  this,  they  do  it  out  of  love  or 
spite,  to  defend  their  values,  or  to  expound 
in  a  more  or  less  specialized  review  some 
ingenious  idea  born  of  their  reading.  The 
professional  critic,  being  a  member  of  a 
definite  profession,  approaches  a  book  as 
one  of  the  many  which  it  is  his  task  to 
discuss;  not  so  a  novelist.  He  ought  to 
understand  the  true  nature  of  his  task: 
which  is  to  make  other  people  love  what 
he  himself  loves.  As  I  did  once  before  for 
Lawrence  and  for  Faulkner  when  they 
were  almost  unknown  in  France,  so  I  do 
now  when  I  say  that  I  like  a  book  and  ex- 
plain why  I  like  it. 

It  is  a  book  that  has  its  faults.  Some  of 
them  are  those  of  Faulkner.  But  it  is  suffi- 
cient to  read  the  judgments  of  their  con- 
temporaries delivered  on  the  greatest 
writers  to  understand  the  unimportance  of 
such  objections,  even  if  well  founded,  in 
the  field  of  art.  Talent  is  not  a  result  of 
balance.  A  book  does  not  live  (does  not 
even  live  longer)  because  it  is  better  than 
another.  It  either  lives  or  it  dies:  art  does 
not  know  a  negative  domain. 

A  little  town  with  a  wan  sea  not  far 
from  it  and  everything  that  the  word 
*  province '  suggests  of  walls  silently  decay- 
ing in  the  mists;  the  local  intellectuals,  the 
vague  professors  or  amateurs  who  permit 
the  decomposition  of  what  little  human 
dignity  they  are  still  derisively  charged 
with  maintaining.  The  war  in  which  the 
whole  country  is  plunged  is  reflected  here 
only  by  the  most  servile  approbation,  by 


[76] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


the  gesture  of  the  professor  who  addresses 
to  his  pupils  a  little  moral  discourse,  show- 
ing them  his  dead  son's  sabre — and  that  of 
the  mayor  who  in  his  matinal  rounds  as  a 
milkman  announces  the  deaths  from  door 
to  door,  and  conceals  the  execution  of  a 
mutinied  soldier.  As  soon  as  night  falls, 
there  emerge  from  their  holes  the  vermin, 
those  who  have  escaped  even  the  idea  of 
that  patient  agony  which  has  penetrated 
beyond  the  twilight  to  the  farthest  ex- 
tremities of  Europe:  the  hunchback  with 
the  yellow  dog  and  all  her  train,  who  are 
beyond  even  consciousness  of  death. 

And  yet  it  is  death,  sudden  or  slow,  be  it 
the  sudden  death  that  overtakes  the 
soldiers  or  the  slow  agony  of  Merlin,  alias 
Cripure,  who,  absorbed  in  it  as  if  in  his 
past  revolt,  sprawls  on  the  cushions  of  a 
dusty,  bloody  carriage  that,  escorted  by 
two  motorcycle  policemen,  takes  him  to  a 
hospital — it  is  death  that  is  the  principal 
character  oi  Black  Blood.  It  is  death  which 
draws  its  disorderly  episodes  into  a  kind  of 
stifling  unity.  It  is  death  which  sooner  or 
later  confronts  every  one  of  its  characters. 
Death  permits  him  to  whisper  through- 
out the  book  that  groping  truth  of  the 
blind,  at  once  indignant  and  desperate: 
'men  are  not  as  great  as  their  sorrow, 
men  are  not  worthy  of  their  death.' 

The  book  seems  like  the  negative  print 
of  an  heroic  fresco.  It  is  an  appeal  to  hu- 
manity worthy  of  its  death.  A  certain 
complacence  about  the  inevitable  defeat 
adds  to  the  confusion:  the  pity  here  is  not 
without  an  admixture  of  hatred  even  to- 
ward the  least  impure  of  the  characters; 
by  describing  them  Guilloux  wreaks  re- 
venge on  his  characters  for  being  what 
they  are.  Yet  it  seems  to  me  impossible  to 
understand  Black  Blood  if  one  does  not  see 
it  primarily  as  an  appeal.  A  fifteenth  cen- 
tury poem  describes  the  macabre  dance 
around  the  averted  figures  of  three  im- 
mobile divinities.  Love,  Fortune  and 
Death.  Centuries  after  all  three  suddenly 
turn  and  the  haggard  dancers  discover 
with  terror  that  their  gods  are  blind. 
Black  Blood  is  a  dance  of  the  dead  who 


want  to  force  their  gods  to  turn  to  them 
and  open  their  closed  eyes  so  that  they 
may  at  last  display  human  faces — the 
only  one  of  their  manifold  aspects  that 
could  set  the  dead  free. 

For  this  book  evinces  the  eternal  grudge 
against  reality  of  a  poet  whom  the  very 
nature  of  his  talent  compels  to  express 
himself  not  through  lyricism  but  through 
this  same  reality.  Flaubert  (one  sometimes 
recalls  his  universe  in  speaking  of  Black 
Blood)  felt  that  rancor  keenly;  he  hated  in 
so  many  of  his  characters  their  indiffer- 
ence or  disdain  of  art,  which  he  himself 
considered  a  divine  state.  It  is  not  the  lack 
of  art  which  is  evinced  by  the  shadows  of 
this  book  in  every  one  of  their  gestures;  it 
is  the  lack  of  dignity  born  of  the  conscious- 
ness of  sorrow;  and  that  is  why  the  lower 
these  men  sink  the  more  socially-minded 
they  become:  for  the  greatest  destroyer  of 
men  in  men  is  the  social  ritual. 

In  this  unwearying  struggle  of  con- 
formism  and  sorrow,  in  these  discourses 
and  preparations  for  the  festivities  during 
which  the  deputy's  wife  is  to  be  decorated, 
in  this  entire  atmosphere  of  parrots  in  a 
cemetery,  we  see  the  constantly  recurring 
encounter  of  the  grotesque  and  the  tragic 
— saved  from  the  artistic  dangers  that  al- 
ways beset  such  an  encounter  by  the  au- 
thor's rare  feeling  for  what  is  right.  The 
admirable  scenes  between  Cripure  and 
Maia,  the  scene  where  Cripure  is  so  ab- 
sorbed in  his  sadness  that  he  does  not  see 
the  dogs  wrecking  his  masterpiece — 
scenes  like  these  show  us  again  how  badly 
put  are  the  problems  of  realism,  to  what 
extent  the  will  to  express  in- western  Eu- 
rope has  taken  the  place  of  actual  descrip- 
tion. The  characters  are  described  by  the 
facts,  but  through  so  well  defined  a  pas- 
sion that  a  discussion  of  this  book  from  a 
realistic  point  of  view  becomes  as  unrea- 
sonable as  a  demand  that  Madrid  should 
resemble  Goya's  Caprices.  With  the  ex- 
ception of  one  character  who  appears  in 
the  book  but  does  nothing,  all  the  beings 
with  whom  Guilloux  is  dealing,  those  to- 
ward whom  he  is  hostile,  as  well  as  those 


193^ 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[77] 


who  are  close  to  his  heart,  give  the  impres- 
sion of  being  seen  in  a  kind  of  phosphores- 
cent light,  which  they  themselves  emanate. 
Each  one  lives  by  his  own  folly  and  the 
sum  of  all  these  follies  is  the  obsession  of 
the  author,  that  perpetual  encounter  of  a 
man  with  his  sufferings  of  which  I  have 
spoken  before.  Hence,  a  premeditated  de- 
liberate illusion  strong  enough  to  impose 
its  reality  upon  us  in  spite  of  an  occasional 
excessive  retardation  of  movement;  this 
constantly  produces  the  impression  that 
here  is  a  man  speaking  the  truth,  that 
this  man  could  not  do  otherwise  than 
write  the  book  he  has  written.  At  present, 
this  man  is  doubtless  marching  along  the 
well-scoured  streets  of  a  small  town  full  of 
failures,  finding  in  each  the  traces  of  the 
color  that  he  had  once  himself  imparted  to 
all  of  them,  knowing  hatred  and  his  ob- 
scure hope  that  they  can  still  be  saved 
somehow. 

Of  how  many  books  could  one  say  that 
they  were  indispensable  to  the  man  who 
wrote  them  ?  The  greatest  art  of  all  is  to 
take  the  chaos  which  is  the  world  and  to 
transform  it  into  consciousness,  to  let 
men  control  their  destiny:  such  writers  are 
Tolstoi  or  Stendhal;  but  the  next  best 
kind  is  the  ability  to  take  our  own  chaos 
and  to  stamp  it  with  our  own  mark,  to 
create  men  of  shadows  and  to  save  what- 
ever can  still  be  saved  of  the  most  miser- 
able lives  by  enveloping  them  in  elements 
of  greatness  which  they  themselves  do  not 
even  guess  they  possess. 

Art  in  the  U.  S.  S.  R.  London:  The 
Studio,  igss- 

(Herbert  Read  in  the  Listener^  London) 

'TPHIS  book  is  likely  to  be  more  embar- 
rassing to  the  friends  of  Soviet  Russia 
than  to  its  enemies.  It  consists  of  a  series 
of  articles  by  Russian  writers  whose 
authority  cannot  be  questioned — the  pres- 
ident of  the  All-Union  Society  for  Cultural 
Relations  with  Foreign  Countries,  the 
secretary  of  the  Society  of  Soviet  Archi- 
tects,  the   director  of  the   Museum   of 


Modern  Western  Art,  the  director  of  the 
Institute  of  Handicraft  Industry;  and  the 
character  of  the  art  illustrated  in  the 
many  excellent  plates  in  color  and  black- 
and-white  is  amply  confirmed  by  the  pro- 
nouncements of  these  officials.  Tendencies 
which  for  some  time  have  been  apparent 
in  the  examples  of  painting  and  sculpture 
which  have  been  seen  in  this  country  are 
now  revealed  as  predominant  in  all  the 
arts  and,  if  not  enforced,  at  least  en- 
couraged to  the  exclusion  of  other  tenden- 
cies. 

These  tendencies  are  in  no  normal  sense 
revolutionary;  they  are,  in  fact,  definitely 
reactionary.  President  Arosev,  in  his  in- 
troduction to  the  volume,  calls  them  'the 
critical  assimilation  of  the  art  of  past  cen- 
turies '  and  '  the  method  of  socialist  real- 
ism.' Though  they  are  equally  evident  in 
all  the  arts,  the  development  of  the  first 
tendency  is  most  obvious  in  architecture; 
that  of  the  second  in  painting  and  sculp- 
ture. 

Immediately  after  the  Revolution,  the 
Soviets  adopted  for  their  immense  recon- 
structive plans  the  so-called  international 
or  functionalist  style  of  architecture,  as- 
sociated with  the  name  of  Gropius  in 
Germany  and  of  Le  Corbusier  in  France. 
For  a  time  all  went  well,  and  some  fine 
buildings,  few  of  which  are  illustrated, 
were  constructed.  But,  says  Professor 
Arkin  in  this  volume,  'the  methods  of 
"functional  architecture"  could  satisfy 
the  requirements  of  Soviet  society  only 
during  the  first  period  of  construction 
when  it  was  necessary  to  meet  the  most 
vital  and  urgent  needs  in  regard  to  new 
buildings  and  residences.  At  that  time  it 
was  permissible  to  rest  content  with  the 
simplest,  the  most  economical  architec- 
tural solutions,  preferring  no  particularly 
high  claims  in  regard  to  the  artistic,  plas- 
tic quality  of  architecture.' 

Then,  toward  the  end  of  the  first  Five- 
year-Plan  period,  came  a  radical  change  in 
the  situation.  The  principles  of  'function- 
alism,'  we  are  told,  were  subjected  to  a 
thorough  criticism,  and  it  was  discovered 


[78] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


that  the  new  architecture  'entirely  ig- 
nored '  such  questions  as '  the  artistic  effect 
and  the  artistic  content*  of  architecture. 
It  was  agreed,  therefore,  that  Soviet  archi- 
tecture 'should  not  only  create  technically 
most  advanced  and  economical  structures 
but  that  it  should  also  fill  these  structures 
with  great  artistic  content  concordant 
with  the  great  historic  epoch  in  which  we 
are  living.'  But  such  a  content,  appar- 
ently, could  not  be  created  by  the  epoch  in 
question,  so  it  was  decided  '  to  make  criti- 
cal use  of  the  best  that  has  been  created  by 
world  architecture  in  the  past.*  The  'or- 
ders '  were  restored  to  the  prestige  they  had 
enjoyed  under  a  capitalist  regime;  Corin- 
thian capitals.  Renaissance  coffered  ceil- 
ings, Egyptian  lamps — all  the  eclectic 
bric-h-brac  of  the  nineteenth  century — 
were  lavished  on  that  triumph  of  Soviet 
architecture,  the  Moscow  Underground 
Railway. 

There  is  only  space  for  two  observations 
of  this  metamorphosis:  it  is  based  on  a 
complete  misunderstanding  of '  functional ' 
architecture,  which,  far  from  being  *a 
negation  of  architecture  as  an  art,*  is  a 
reaffirmation  of  the  only  principles  by 
virtue  of  which  architecture  ever  became 
an  art;  secondly,  the  notion  of  filling  archi- 
tecture with  a  content  is  the  pathetic  fal- 
lacy which  has  been  so  often  and  so  com- 
pletely exposed  during  the  last  hundred 
years.  Architecture  is  its  own  content;  its 
form  is  an  expression  of  harmony  in  spatial 
relationships,  and  to  add  any  other  '  artis- 
tic content*  is  merely  to  gild  the  lily. 

Soviet  painting  is  described  by  A.  Bas- 
sekhes,  and  again  the  two  general  tenden- 
cies are  affirmed.  Soviet  artists,  we  are 
told,  'now  recognize  the  priceless  value 
of  the  art  legacy  possessed  by  mankind* 
and  tend  'least  of  all  toward  the  uncritical 
breaking  with  the  past.'  But  the  past  is  the 
somewhat  immediate  past  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  for  their  trend  is  'toward 
the  depiction  of  definite  subjects,  towards 
realism.*  The  illustrations  show  paintings 
indistinguishable  from  the  bourgeois  can- 
vases which  fill  the  official  academies  of 


every  capitalist  country  in  Europe;  and 
the  same  is  true  of  the  sculpture. 

Russia  has  no  strong  tradition  in  the 
plastic  arts,  and  since  a  tradition  in  art 
cannot  be  created  in  a  day,  even  a  day  of 
revolution,  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  ex- 
pect the  emergence  of  any  number  of 
great  original  painters  and  sculptors  in 
that  country.  But  it  is  not  the  quality  of 
the  art  that  is  in  question;  it  is  its  kind. 
There  is  every  evidence  in  these  pages,  if 
nowhere  else,  that  what  Mr.  Bassekhes 
calls  'the  banner  of  realism'  is  a  deliber- 
ately enforced  doctrine  in  the  artistic  life 
of  the  Soviet.  If  we  seek  for  an  explana- 
tion, we  shall  find  it  not  so  much  in  the 
natural  desire  to  portray  the  new  life  and 
achievements  of  the  Soviets  (that  can  be 
done  more  efficiently  by  photography  and 
the  cinema)  but  in  the  fallacy  that  art 
must  be  popular.  When  a  nation  deliber- 
ately attempts  to  make  its  art  popular,  it 
only  succeeds  in  making  it  vulgar.  The 
great  artist  is  inevitably  egregious,  ec- 
centric, difficult  to  understand;  it  is  his 
function  in  the  dialectical  process  of  his- 
tory, for  there  can  be  no  cultural  develop- 
ment without  a  leavening  of  the  masses  by 
a  ferment  which  is  strange  to  them. 

Art  is  something  more  than  information, 
passive  enjoyment,  reflection  of  reality;  it 
is  interpretation,  exploration,  transforma- 
tion of  reality.  We  can  say  without  any 
bias,  bourgeois  or  intellectual,  that  never, 
in  the  whole  history  of  art,  has  '  realism ' 
been  the  predominant  characteristic  of 
great  art;  the  only  periods  in  which  it  has 
emerged  as  a  style  are  the  most  decadent 
periods  of  Egyptian,  Greeks  and  Roman 
art  and  during  the  nineteenth  century  in 
Europe. 

There  is,  of  course,  a  sound  psychologi- 
cal reason  for  this  rule.  The  world  of  ap- 
pearances is  known  to  be  transient  and 
impermanent;  but  art  is  order  and  har- 
mony. Art  and  'reality,*  in  the  Marxian 
phraseology,  are  dialectical  opposites. 
The  artist  therefore  seeks  for  stable 
forms  beneath  the  fluctuating  phenomena 
of  nature,  and  the  only  question  is  the 


m^ 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[79] 


degree  of  stability  or  abstraction  to 
which  he  shall  reduce  these  forms.  That 
degree  depends  on  historical  circumstances 
and  may  vary  from  the  complete  abstrac- 
tion of  'pure  form'  to  a  formal  enhance- 
ment of  natural  features.  But  never,  if  art 
is  worthy  of  the  name,  is  it  a  mere  tran- 
script of  reality,  *a  realistic  portrayal  of 
life  and  nature.' 

There  is  one  more  significant  aspect  of 
the  present  situation  which  is  worth  notic- 
ing. Soviet  Russia  is  not  alone  in  raising 
'the  banner  of  realism.'  At  the  moment 
there  is  being  held  in  Dresden  an  exhibi- 
tion under  the  title  Schreckenskammer  der 
Kunsi,  or  '  Chamber  of  Horrors  of  Art,'  in 
which  examples  of  modern  art  purchased 
by  German  museums  and  galleries  before 
1933  are  held  up  to  ridicule.  The  exhibition 
has  been  visited  by  Herr  Hitler  and  Gen- 
eral Goring  and  has  been  a  great  success. 
As  an  adjunct  to  the  exhibition  there  is  a 
room  devoted  to  paintings  acquired  since 
1933 — 'the  expression  of  a  new  epoch.' 
These  pictures  are  identical  in  type  with 
the  pictures  now  being  produced  in  Soviet 
Russia.  We  have  the  paradox,  therefore,  of 
two  nations  diametrically  opposed  in  all 
their  social  and  political  ideology  but 
united  on  this  question  of  art.  The  reason 
for  such  a  paradox  is  surely  not  far  to 
seek:  for  both  countries,  in  their  imme- 
diate policies  if  not  in  their  ultimate  ideals, 
have  exalted  force  above  reason,  dogma 
above  toleration,  discipline  above  discrimi- 
nation. Art,  in  such  an  atmosphere,  can 
only  abdicate. 

Recollections  of  a  Picture  Dealer. 
By  Ambrose  Vollard.  Translated  from  the 
original  French  manuscript  by  Violet  M. 
Macdonald.  London:  Constable.  1936. 

(From  the  Times  Literary  Supplement,  London) 

"\^I/'HEN  an  outsider  wins  the  Derby  it 
will  certainly  have  had  a  much  greater 
number  of  backers  than  all  the  modern 
French  painters  who  eventually  won  at 
very  much  longer  odds  than  any  possible 
horse.  It  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that 


some  skill  was  needed  to  find  the  winner, 
but  one  turns  in  vain  to  Mr.  Vollard's 
memoirs  if  one  hopes  to  learn  his  secret 
and  the  precise  nature  of  his  acumen.  The 
most  obvious  explanation  is  that  he  had 
an  altogether  exceptional  sensibility,  but 
when  he  began  to  make  his  purchases, 
there  appear  to  have  been  so  many  ob- 
stacles to  the  appreciation  of  painters 
like  Renoir  or  Cezanne,  that  even  the 
most  highly  trained  sensibility  might  have 
gone  astray.  Only  a  few  of  the  most  emi- 
nent painters  had  an  unprejudiced  vision, 
and  even  they  could  not  always  be 
trusted.  Manet  and  Renoir,  as  Mr.  Vol- 
lard tells  us,  once  painted  pictures  of 
Monet's  family  at  the  same  time,  and  at 
the  end  of  the  sitting  Manet  drew  Monet 
aside.  'You're  on  very  good  terms  with 
Renoir,'  he  said,  'and  take  an  interest  in 
his  career — do  advise  him  to  give  up 
painting!  You  can  see  for  yourself  that 
it's  not  at  all  his  job.'  After  this  one  may 
be  excused  for  wondering  how  and  why 
Mr.  Vollard  made  so  many  coups. 

As  one  might  expect,  even  Mr.  Vollard 
had  some  prejudices:  it  took  him  some 
time  to  like  the  pointillists,  and,  he  very 
frankly  says,  he  failed  to  back  Modigliani 
before  the  odds  had  shortened.  He  tells 
us  very  little  about  how  he  escaped  the 
almost  universal  prejudice  against  the  im- 
pressionists and  the  earlier  post-impres- 
sionists. He  began  as  an  assistant  in  a  gal- 
lery which  sold  tedious  paintings  and  even 
pictures  of  cattle.  After  selling  an  occa- 
sional impressionist  there,  under  the  dis- 
approving eyes  of  his  employer,  'Life  in 
these  surroundings,'  he  says,  'was  begin- 
ning to  be  more  than  irksome,'  and  we 
next  find  him  on  his  own  and  dealing  in 
'Forains,  Guys,  Rops,  Steinlens,  every- 
thing, in  fact,  that  passed  at  that  time  for 
advanced  art.'  One  may  perhaps  suspect 
that  Mr.  Vollard  was  himself  '  advanced ' 
by  nature,  that  he  was  temperamentally 
inclined  to  belong  to  a  minority  and  to  be- 
lieve that  almost  everyone  is  likely  to  be 
wrong.  It  is  an  unusual  frame  of  mind  in  a 
merchant  and  in  a  man  whose  business  it 


[8ol 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


is  to  supply  a  demand,  but  what  he  calls 
'the  golden  age  for  collectors'  happened 
to  be  a  time  when  almost  everyone  was 
wrong. 

But  Mr.  Vollard's  memoirs  are  not  for 
the  most  part  about  himself.  After  a  brief 
account  of  his  early  years  and  some  enter- 
taining chapters  on  the  eccentricities  of 
collectors,  he  proceeds  to  the  most  impor- 
tant part  of  the  book,  his  reminiscences  of 
artists  and  reports  of  their  conversation. 
He  gives  at  some  length  what  he  learnt 
from  the  painter,  Mr.  Charles  Toche,  of 
Manet's  visit  to  Venice,  a  period  in  his 
life  about  which,  as  it  appears,  not  much 
has  hitherto  been  known.  Manet's  Vene- 
tian pictures  look  as  if  they  had  been 
quickly  and  easily  painted,  and  they  sug- 
gest, as  Mr.  VoUard  remarks,  'brush- 
strokes put  down  definitely  once  for  all.' 
In  fact  they  almost  resemble,  though 
quite  superficially,  the  watercolors  of 
Sargent.  But  Mr.  Toche  saw  Manet 
painting: — 

'I  discovered  how  he  labored  ...  to 
obtain  what  he  wanted.  The  Pieux  du 
Grand  Canal  itself  was  begun  I  know  not 
how  many  times.  The  gondola  and  gon- 
dolier held  him  up  an  incredible  time. 
"It's  the  devil,"  he  said,  "to  suggest  that 
a  hat  is  stuck  firmly  on  a  head,  or  that  a 
boat  is  built  of  planks  cut  and  fitted  ac- 
cording to  geometrical  laws."* 

And  he  wrote  down  Manet's  description 
of  how  he  would  paint  a  complicated 
scene  of  a  regatta  on  the  lagoon  of  Mestre, 
'an  incomparable  lesson'  as  Mr.  Toche 
described  it,  in  the  construction  of  a  pic- 
ture. The  description  ends  with  the  im- 
pressive words,  'The  picture  must  be 
light  and  direct.  No  tricks;  and  you  will 
pray  the  God  of  good  and  honest  painters 
to  come  to  your  aid.' 

Manet  was  evidently  one  of  those  many 
painters  who  admire  the  works  of  others 
for  what  they  can  get  from  them.  Inevi- 
tably he  thought  more  of  the  Spanish 
school  than  of  the  Italians:  'These  Italians 
bore  one  after  a  time  with  their  allegories 
and  their  Gerusalemme  Liberata  and  Or- 


lando FuriosOy  and  all  that  noisy  rubbish. 
A  painter  can  say  all  he  wants  to  with 
fruits  or  flowers,  or  even  clouds.' 

It  is  an  imposing  prejudice,  and  very 
characteristic  of  almost  every  French 
painter  as  Mr.  VoUard  likes  to  represent 
them,  models  of  sobriety  whose  middle- 
class  virtues  and  common  sense  are 
paraded  even  in  their  art. 

But  it  is  only  the  good  painters  who 
possess  these  virtues,  and  their  presence 
or  absence  makes  it  easy  to  perceive  Mr. 
Vollard's  preferences  in  a  book  which 
otherwise  is  commendably  and  deliber- 
ately free  from  the  judgments  and  in- 
tricacies of  art  criticism.  Once  again,  as  in 
his  earlier  books,  Rodin's  exuberant  ro- 
manticism is  put  forward  as  a  contrast  to 
the  modesty  of  the  true  artist.  He  reports 
a  meeting  of  Rodin's  admirers  in  his 
studio.  The  master  is  made  to  dwell  on  the 
titles  of  his  works,  to  which  Mr.  Vollard's 
favorite  painters  are  quite  indiflferent. 

'I  can't  find  what  I  want  today  .  .  . 
or  rather,  too  many  titles  occur  to  me  at 
once.  "Hope  of  the  Morning,"  "Starry 
Night,"  "A  Day  Will  Come,"  "Reverie 
..."  I  must  allow  time  for  my  thoughts 
to  clear.  It  was  in  a  nightmare  that  I  hit 
on  my  best  title:  "The  Kiss."' 

His  vanity  appears  to  have  been  over- 
whelming. 'Positively,'  he  said,  *I  have 
only  to  go  and  smoke  my  pipe  before  a 
block  of  marble  that  one  of  my  pointers  is 
at  work  on,  and  it  is  as  though  I  myself 
held  the  chisel.'  Mr.  Vollard  described  to 
Renoir  how  he  had  seen  Rodin  surrounded 
by  pupils  enlarging  the  master's  work 
while  he  stroked  his  beard.  ',That  reminds 
me,'  Renoir  answered,  'of  an  engraving  in 
a  Lives  of  the  Artists  of  Antiquity ^  showing 
stonemasons  busy  in  a  workshop,  while  on 
a  couch  reclined  a  man  crowned  with 
roses.  He  was  the  sculptor.'  It  must  be 
admitted  that  Mr.  Vollard's  reports  of 
Rodin's  conversation  diflPer  greatly  from 
other  reports  of  his  often  excellent  criti- 
cism by  more  sympathetic  listeners. 

On  Cezanne,  Renoir  and  Degas  Mr. 
Vollard  has  not  much  to  tell  that  has  not 


193^ 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[8i: 


already  appeared  in  his  brief  Lives  of  these 
painters;  but  there  are  many  reminis- 
cences of  other  artists,  and  here  again  the 
bad  painters  are  treated  with  very  little 
mercy.  Meissonier  is  shown  painting  from 
a  model  landscape  with  figures  arranged 
by  one  of  his  pupils  and  covered  with  a 
white  powder  to  represent  snow: — 

'  When  I  painted  my  Retreat  from  Russia 
instead  of  boracic  acid  I  used  caster  sugar. 
What  an  effect  of  snow  I  obtained !  But 
it  attracted  the  bees  from  a  neighboring 
hive.  So  I  replaced  the  sugar  by  flour.  And 
then  the  mice  came  and  ravaged  my  battle- 
field, and  I  had  to  finish  my  picture  from 
imagination.  It  almost  looked  as  though 
I  should  have  to  wait  for  the  snow  to  fall 
if  I  wanted  to  paint  a  winter  landscape.' 

But  when  Degas  painted  horses  from 
wooden  models  and  landscapes  with 
scarcely  a  glance  at  nature,  this  is  made  to 
appear  by  the  most  minute  adjustments 
in  the  tone  of  the  conversation  as  the  rea- 
sonable economy  of  an  artist  intent  only 
on  the  essentials  of  his  art. 

There  is  some  account  of  Maillol,  Whis- 
tler, Odilon  Redon,  a  little  about  Gauguin 
and  Monet,  and  some  pleasing  descrip- 
tions of  the  'Douanier'  Rousseau.  Mr. 
VoUard,  it  is  interesting  to  learn,  'often 
wondered  if  that  simple,  not  to  say  slightly 
bewildered,  air  that  struck  one  in  pere 


Rousseau  was  not  a  mask  behind  which  he 
concealed  himself,  and  whether  at  bottom 
he  was  not  a  sly  dog.'  He  also  describes 
Rousseau's  trial,  when  his  simplicity  led 
him  to  be  suspected  of  forgery,  and  his  ad- 
vocate showed  the  magistrates  one  of  his 
pictures.  'Can  you  still  doubt,'  he  asked, 
'that  my  client  is  an  "innocent?"'  and  he 
was  acquitted.  Of  later  painters,  such  as 
Matisse,  Picasso  and  Rouault,  he  has 
some  slight  and  amusing  anecdotes. 

In  everything  that  he  writes,  in  his  de- 
scriptions of  Paris  at  the  beginning  of  the 
War,  of  sitting  to  several  painters,  of  his 
work  as  a  publisher,  of  his  difiiculties  in 
buying  a  country  house,  of  the  pigeons  in 
Clemenceau's  garden  and  of  the  intricacies 
of  bureaucracy,  Mr.  Vollard  has  an  agree- 
able air  of  mock  simplicity,  a  malicious 
and  individual  wit,  and  his  memoirs  as  a 
whole  make  an  excellent  sketch  of  a  fas- 
cinating period  in  the  history  of  art.  The 
English  translation,  which  appears  to  be 
adequate  though  sometimes  carelessly 
written,  has  appeared  before  any  French 
edition  of  the  book,  and  it  is  illustrated 
with  a  number  of  remarkable  pictures,  in- 
cluding a  most  curious  work  painted  by 
Cezanne  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  and  a 
number  of  engravings  by  various  modern 
artists  made  to  illustrate  books  published 
by  Mr.  Vollard. 


LETTERS  AND  THE  ARTS 


The  Chinese  Art 
Exhibition 

i\T  the  turn  of  the  century  polite 
drawing  rooms  everywhere  from  Mayfair 
to  Fifth  Avenue  were  cluttered  with 
Chinese  furniture,  vases,  ol>jefs  d'art.  It 
was  a  vogue  that  might  have  been  traced 
back  to  Edmond  de  Goncourt  and  the 
passion  he  had  for  the  art  of  the  Far  East. 
But  it  was  also  true  that  Peiping  had 
recently  been  seized  and  pillaged.  With 
the  alarming  cry  that  all  Christendom 
was  in  danger,  the  associated  powers  had 
succeeded  in  occupying  the  Forbidden 
City,  and  the  world  was  once  more  saved. 
It  was  a  gesture  nicely  timed.  For  not 
only  was  China  preserved  for  the  several 
trading  nations;  so  also  were  vast  quan- 
tities of  its  artistic  riches.  At  the  same 
time  that  order  was  being  reestablished 
in  Peiping,  its  shops  and  palaces  were 
being  plundered  of  things  which,  a  short 
time  later,  found  their  way  into  the  art 
marts  of  the  West. 

And  from  the  art  marts  into  the  draw- 
ing rooms  of  polite  society.  But  drawing 
rooms,  like  everything  else,  follow  the 
turn  of  events.  As  cheap  imitations  began 
to  flood  the  market  the  vogue  for  things 
Chinese  ripened  and  petered  out.  A  por- 
celain Buddha  or  a  red  lacquered  table 
were  not,  in  fact,  quite  proper  any  longer; 
and  by  the  outbreak  of  the  War  were  to 
be  seen  nowhere  outside  of  the  museums. 
But  the  irony  of  the  business  is  that  when 
their  places  had  been  filled  by  other  ob- 
jects, their  memory  became  cloyed  by 
a  slightly  bad,7?«  ^^  siec/e  taste. 

This  is  not  to  suggest,  obviously,  that 
there  was  anything  inherently  in  bad 
taste  about  the  art  of  China.  The  truth  of 
the  matter  is  that  it  was  a  poor  bedfellow: 
all  efforts  to  domesticate  it  failed.  It  was 
not  primitive,  in  which  case  it  could  not 
affect  its  environment.  Nor  was  it  ex- 


clusively decorative,  in  which  case  it 
might  conceivably  condition  the  quality 
of  its  environment.  On  the  contrary  it 
was  definite,  positive  and  complete.  So 
much  did  it  command  individual  atten- 
tion, in  fact,  that  even  among  the  hetero- 
geneous hodge-podge  of  the  late  Victorian 
drawing  room — where  practically  any- 
thing and  everything  else  was  in  order — 
it  struck  a  jarring,  discordant  note. 

But  it  is  not  my  intention  here  to  plead 
the  case  for  Chinese  art.  On  the  contrary 
it  is  a  question  now,  some  forty  years 
later,  of  going  back  to  that  late  Victorian 
memory,  isolating  it  from  the  hideousness 
of  its  Occidental  associations,  then  reval- 
uating  and  restoring  it  to  its  true  quality. 
In  this  frame  of  mind  there  will  be  no 
wholesale  pillage,  nor,  for  that  matter, 
frivolity  of  vogue:  a  contrite  and  reformed 
world  will  see  to  that.  Instead  an  English- 
man by  the  name  of  Sir  Percival  David,  a 
scholar  and  not  a  soldier,  will  persuade 
the  Chinese  Government  to  lend  many  of 
their  finest  national  treasures  for  an  exhi- 
bition to  be  held  in  London.  Soon  he 
himself  will  journey  to  China,  supervise 
the  consignments  and  see  that  they  are 
carefully  packed  and  safely  loaded  on  a 
British  warship  for  the  voyage  westward. 
Later  he  will  scour  the  collections  of 
Europe  and  America  for  masterpieces  and 
examples  of  Chinese  art. 

The  result  is  the  International  Exhibi- 
tion of  Chinese  Art,  which -opened  the 
first  of  this  year  at  Burlington  House  in 
London.  Such  an  exhibition  seemed 
inevitable.  In  the  first  place  the  misap- 
prehensions concerning  Chinese  art,  al- 
luded to  above,  had  become  so  general 
that  it  was  imperative  to  present  a  tab- 
leau of  this  art  in  all  its  phases  as  a  con- 
sistent and  logical  development  over  a 
span  of  forty  centuries.  But  it  was  also 
necessary  to  do  this,  not  relatively  to 
Western  art  (which  heretofore  had  been 


LETTERS  AND  THE  ARTS 


[83] 


the  great  pitfall),  but  in  terms  alone  of 
Chinese  art.  Or,  as  Eric  Newton  says  in 
his  impressions  of  the  show  in  the  Man- 
chester Guardian:  'We  in  Europe  are 
accustomed  to  the  clash  of  rival  theories — 
classic  versus  romantic,  classic  versus 
baroque,  realistic  versus  impressionistic, 
representational  versus  abstract.  These 
petty  wrangles  would  doubtless  mean  less 
than  nothing  to  the  Chinese  artist  who 
from  time  immemorial  has  based  his 
whole  endeavor  on  the  expression  of  that 
"rhythmic  vitality"  which  is  the  first  of 
Hsieh  Ho's  (six)  canons  and  who  has 
refined  and  perfected  his  technical  skill 
for  the  attainment  of  that  end  alone.' 

Again,  it  was  necessary  to  correlate  all 
the  arts  and  crafts  of  China  within  the 
matrix  of  one  national  tradition.  I  say 
arts  and  crafts,  since  with  the  Chinese 
there  has  never  been  a  distinct  profes- 
sional dichotomy  between  the  two  prov- 
inces as  there  has  been  in  the  West. 
Bronzes,  pottery,  sculpture,  porcelain, 
metal  work,  painting,  lacquer,  enamel, 
calligraphy — each  and  all  are  manifesta- 
tions of  the  same  impulse,  namely,  to 
achieve  through  concentration  and  man- 
ual skill  the  illusion  of  spontaneous 
expression.  One  may,  of  course,  object 
that  such  an  intention  fails  to  take  into 
consideration  the  purely  functional  pur- 
poses of,  say,  a  piece  of  pottery  or  a  screen. 
The  answer  is  that  the  Chinese  artist  is 
simply  embroidering  the  forms  that  have 
been  given  him,  and  doing  so  within  the 
definitely  prescribed  limits  of  a  vocabu- 
lary. Just  as  a  Western  artist,  in  seeking 
to  achieve  a  more  beautiful  lettering, 
would  never  go  beyond  recognition  of  the 
alphabet,  so  the  Chinese  artist  never  does 
more  than  rearrange  an  already  created 
world. 

ALL  seem  agreed  that  Mr.  Leigh  Ashton, 
of  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum,  has 
proven  himself  a  great  authority  on 
Chinese  art  in  his  handling  of  the  present 
exhibition.  Realizing  that  the  transition 
from  the  streets  of  London  into  the  realms 


of  'Tang,'  'Sung,'  or  'Ming'  in  order  to 
be  fair  must  not  be  overly  abrupt,  he  has 
seen  to  it  that  the  visitor's  mood  is  first 
appropriately  conditioned.  As  the  critic 
of  the  'Times  writes:  'Certain  special  ef- 
fects of  display  must  be  noted.  The  first  is 
that  of  the  colossal  marble  Standing  Figure 
of  Maitreya  Buddha^  about  twenty-two 
feet  high,  which  comes  into  view  of  the 
visitor,  from  the  head  downwards,  as  he 
ascends  the  stairs.  With  its  subtle  smile 
and  outstretched  handless  arms,  it  not 
only  extends  the  welcome  of  China  but 
suggests  the  right  mood  for  the  exhibi- 
tion.' As  for  the  disposition  of  the  exhibi- 
tion, he  says  further:  'The  arrangement  is 
by  periods,  or  dynasties,  in  chronological 
order,  all  the  productions  of  each  period — 
bronzes,  jades,  paintings,  sculptures,  ce- 
ramics and  textiles — being  grouped  to- 
gether, so  that  the  distinctive  flavor  of 
each  dynasty  is  brought  out.' 

Amid  the  general  enthusiasm  which 
has  greeted  the  show  it  may  be  worth 
while  to  point  out  several  aspects  in 
which  it  appears  to  excel.  In  examples  of 
Chinese  painting,  for  instance,  it  seems  to 
be  especially  strong.  Again  hear  Mr. 
Newton:  'Here  are  hundreds  of  paintings, 
each  repaying  the  closest  scrutiny,  each 
expressing  a  new  mood  and  finding  a  new 
means  of  expression.  Pale  birds  drawn 
feather  by  feather,  rocky  landscapes 
"slashed  in"  in  half-inch-thick  lines, 
mountain  scenes  emerging  from  mist  with 
an  infinity  of  detail,  bridges,  lakes,  boats 
and  little  houses.  One  of  the  most  famous 
of  the  scroll  paintings  is  the  forty-foot- 
long  painting  of  the  Myriad  Miles  of  the 
Yangtze  by  Hsia  Kuei,  in  which  every 
mood  of  the  great  river  is  described  in 
vivid  calligraphy.  .  .  .  But  perhaps  the 
most  amazing  tour  de  force ^  both  in  sub- 
tlety of  composition  and  technical  mas- 
tery, is  Ma  Fen's  The  Hundred  Geese.  The 
use  of  graded  depths  of  the  ink  to  suggest 
distance,  the  freedom  of  the  brushstrokes, 
the  sinuous  lines  of  flying  birds  wheeling 
and  turning  and  swooping,  each  one  a 
miracle  of  observation  and  each  fitting 


[84] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


into  the  main  phrase  of  the  composition 
as  notes  fit  into  a  melody — all  this  has  to 
be  seen  to  be  believed.' 

The  collection  of  bronzes,  beginning 
with  examples  from  the  remote  Shang  and 
Chou  dynasties  (i8th  to  yth  centuries 
B.C.),  seems  likewise  very  noteworthy. 
As  Simon  Harcourt-Smith  reports  in  the 
Sunday  Observer:  'The  most  eminent 
bronzes  at  Burlington  House  date  from 
before  the  end  of  the  period  known  as  the 
Spring  and  Autumn  Annals  (c.  500  B.C.), 
before  the  ceremonial  and  archaistic  sig- 
nificance had  grown  paramount.  Within 
the  frame  of  a  convention  already  antique 
the  bronze-smiths  of  that  remote  age 
contrived  an  infinity  of  subtle  variations 
in  form  and  ornament;  inlay  of  all  kinds 
was  pressed  into  service  .  .  .  Over  a 
butcher's  chopping  table  from  Shou  Hsien 
in  Anhui  Province,  which  once  steamed 
with  offal,  sinologists  now  incline  in  knots 
of  ecstasy;  out  of  a  kuei  that  mutton  broth 
once  bubbled  in  there  comes  an  echo  of 
the  strange  elegance  which  walked  hand 
in  glove  with  gangsterism  in  that  violent 
age  of  Chinese  history.' 

Perhaps  as  much  could  be  said  for  the 
jades,  over  which  those  qualified  to  judge 
have  been  lavish  in  their  praise.  And  so  on 
continuing,  in  fact,  until  the  whole  vast 
display  might  be  covered.  For  nothing, 
apparently,  has  been  omitted  to  make 
this  show  the  most  comprehensive  of  its 
kind  ever  held,  at  least  in  the  Western 
hemisphere. 

— Paul  Schofield 

The  Salon  d'Automne 

IHERE  was  a  time  when  the  Salon  d'Au- 
tomne, in  contradistinction  to  the  Salon 
de  Printemps,  was  animated  by  a  great 
ideal,  a  great  purpose,  a  great  mission. 
Under  Frantz  Jourdain,  who  inaugurated 
it  thirty-five  years  ago,  this  vast  annual 
array  in  the  Grand  Palais  in  Paris  was 
intended  to  air  the  talents  of  ' les  jeunes,' 
and  through  them  the  merits  of  the  '  new 
painting.'  But  now  a  third  of  a  century 


has  passed;  the  new  painting  has  become 
catalogued,  accepted,  even  classic;  and 
'lesjeunes'  are  all  old  men. 

Still  the  Salon  d'Automne  persists,  and 
this  year  it  was  the  bright  idea  of  M. 
Barat-Levraux,  the  present  director,  to 
arrange  the  paintings  by  generations,  that 
is,  by  the  age  of  their  respective  authors. 
It  seems,  however,  that  this  ingenious 
plan  miscarried — possibly  owing  to  ob- 
jections by  '  les  anciens.'  At  any  event  a 
compromise  was  effected,  whereby  the 
old  hats  have  all  been  grouped  in  one 
wing  of  the  gallery  and  the  young  bloods 
in  the  opposite.  This  arrangement  is 
what  the  critic  of  Z^  Temps  called  'tout  de 
logique^  which  should  be  enough  to  con- 
vince any  Frenchman  in  the  street. 

As  for  the  work  itself,  it  appears  to  bear 
out  the  proposition  that  post-impression- 
ism is  a  period  gloriously  finished.  In  the 
old  wing  color,  composition  and  form, 
considered  as  ends  in  themselves,  predom- 
inate. In  the  young  wing,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  seems  that  'les  gosses'  have  set 
about  painting  (of  all  things!)  the  French 
scene.  Nothing  stuffy,  nothing  ancient, 
here.  Indeed,  such  right-up-to-the-minute 
freshness  as  a  canvas  entitled  Pilote, 
which  depicts  the  arrival  of  an  aviator  at 
an  airport;  or  such  a  contemporary  anec- 
dote as  the  Translation  du  Corps  de  Sa 
MajestS  Alexandre  de  Tougoslavie,  by  one 
Camille  Liausu.  All  painted,  of  course, 
with  plenty  of  sentimental  detail;  never 
garish,  but  right  and  true  and  correct 
enough  to  preclude  all  ambiguity. 

It  seems  that  a  portrait  of  Frantz 
Jourdain  by  Albert  BesnaFd  greets  the 
visitor  as  he  enters  the  Grand  Palais. 
And  grouped  around  the  old  director,  like 
guards  of  honor,  hang  canvases  by  Ce- 
zanne, Gauguin,  Renoir  and  Redon.  They 
are  there,  no  doubt,  to  pay  him  homage. 
Also,  they  are  there  to  return  a  favor 
which  he  once  conferred  on  them.  But  I 
don't  see  how  they  can  possibly  be  there 
to  recommend  what  lies  within — a  cross 
section  of  contemporary  French  painting. 

— P.  S. 


AS  OTHERS  SEE  US 


An  Englishman  Looks  at  the 
Constitution 


I 


T  IS  perhaps  a  fitting  reflection  on 
the  state  of  American  politics  that  the 
European  press  greeted  the  Supreme 
Court's  decision  on  the  A.  A.  A.  with 
far  more  concern  than  most  of  our 
own  papers  displayed.  Men  of  all 
shades  of  opinion  in  all  countries  wrote 
in  all  languages  that  the  decision 
clearly  revealed  the  urgent  necessity 
of  amending  the  Federal  Constitution. 
Of  the  many  comments  that  were 
made,  one  of  the  most  thoughtful  was 
by  the  brilliant  political  economist  of 
the  University  of  London,  Mr.  Harold 
J.  Laski.  Writing  in  the  Liberal  Man- 
chester Guardian,  Mr.  Laski  said: — 

The  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  in 
the  recent  Agricultural  Processing  Tax 
case  may  well  be  regarded  a  generation 
from  now  as  its  most  momentous  decision 
since  the  Dred  Scott  case,  which,  eighty 
years  ago,  precipitated  the  American 
Civil  War.  It  is  not  merely  that  by  a  sur- 
prisingly narrow  construction  of  the  Con- 
stitution it  has  destroyed  the  most  popular 
and  the  most  successful  part  of  the  Roose- 
velt experiment.  It  is  not  merely,  either, 
that,  following  upon  the  'New  Deal's' 
overthrow  in  the  Schechter  case  last  June, 
the  decision  has  now  laid  its  foundations 
in  ruins. 

It  is  even  more  important  than  these 
things,  first,  that  it  virtually  withholds 
from  the  President  and  Congress  the 
right,  in  the  twentieth  century,  to  in- 
tervene in  the  regulation  of  commerce 
and  agriculture;  and  secondly,  that  it  does 
so  by  a  technique  of  constitutional  inter- 
pretation which,  behind  the  fagade  of  law, 
makes  'reasonableness'  in  legislation  a 
matter  settled  not  by  the  views  of  the 
President  and  the  elected  Legislature  but 


by  the  private  social  philosophy  of  a 
majority  of  the  Supreme  Court. 

The  decision  is  a  staggering  one  less  be- 
cause of  the  particular  legislation  it  de- 
stroys than  because,  as  Mr.  Justice  Stone 
pointed  out  in  his  remarkable  dissenting 
opinion,  of  the  grounds  upon  which  that 
legislation  is  destroyed.  The  Schechter 
case  laid  it  down  that  there  shall  be  no 
Federal  regulation  of  industrial  condi- 
tions; this  was  held  to  be  an  invasion  of 
the  sovereignty  of  the  States.  The  new 
decision  adds  thereto  the  fiat  that  the  tax- 
ing power  of  Congress  shall  not  be  used  to 
promote  the  general  welfare  of  the  Ameri- 
can people  in  any  instance  where  the 
subject  matter  involved  is  vested  in  the 
States  by  the  Constitution.  Everyone 
knows  that  the  States  were  powerless  to 
deal  effectively  with  the  issues  raised  by 
the  collapse  of  farm  prices;  the  Supreme 
Court's  answer  is  that  if  the  States  cannot 
deal  with  it,  no  one  else  can.  Some  fifty 
million  farmers  and  their  dependents  are 
to  suffer  because  the  founders  of  the 
American  Constitution  could  not  foresee 
the  kind  of  world  in  which  we  are  now 
living. 

And  it  is  impossible,  given  the  canons  of 
construction  accepted  by  the  Court,  to  set 
limits  to  the  implications  of  the  decision. 
In  principle,  at  least,  it  seems  to  strike 
into  impotence  all  Federal  aid  to  educa- 
tion, to  the  unemployed,  to  vocational 
rehabilitation.  It  seems  to  attack  the 
immense  effort  of  the  Reconstruction 
Finance  Corporation,  the  Tennessee  Val- 
ley experiment,  the  attempt  to  control  the 
public  utilities  and  the  marketing  of 
securities.  Though  it  is  a  commonplace 
that  none  of  these  things  can,  under 
modern  conditions,  be  undertaken  ade- 
quately by  the  States,  the  Supreme  Court 
says  that  rather  than  that  they  shall  be 
undertaken  by  the  Federal  Government 
they  shall  not  be  undertaken  at  all.  It  is 
not  going  beyond  the  mark  to  say  that, 


[86] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


short  of  constitutional  amendment,  the 
Supreme  Court  has  announced  that  the 
Constitution  denies  to  the  only  authority 
which  can  effectively  regulate  the  right  to 
regulate  effectively. 

On  what  grounds?  On  the  ground, 
above  all,  that  under  the  division  of 
powers  of  1787  the  authority  taken  by 
Congress  is  an  'unreasonable'  invasion  of 
functions  confided  to  the  States.  That 
word  must  be  read  in  the  context  of  an- 
other recent  decision  that  a  Federal 
statute  ordering  railroad  companies  to  set 
up  retiring  pension  schemes  for  their  em- 
ployees was  an  'unreasonable'  violation  of 
liberty  of  contract;  was,  therefore,  a  denial 
of  due  process  of  law.  The  Court's  con- 
ception of  'reasonableness,'  in  a  word,  is 
built  upon  a  social  philosophy  which 
Congress  does  not  accept,  which  does  not 
even  commend  itself  to  a  significant 
minority  (Brandeis,  Cardozo  and  Stone) 
of  its  own  members. 

It  is  a  quarter  of  a  century  since  Mr. 
Justice  Holmes,  the  most  distinguished 
member  of  the  Court  since  Marshall,  re- 
minded his  brethren,  over  a  similar  issue, 
that  'the  Fourteenth  Amendment  does 
not  enact  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  "Social 
Statics." '  It  is  well  over  a  century  since 
Marshall  himself  urged  the  Court  to 
realize  that  'it  is  a  Constitution  we  are 
expounding.'  The  success  of  the  doctrine 
of  judicial  review  depends  wholly  upon 
the  willingness  of  the  judges  not  to  insist 
upon  the  substitution  of  their  private  view 
of  what  is  wise  social  legislation  for  the 
view  taken  by  the  Federal  or  State  Legis- 
latures, granted  only  that  there  is  no 
obvious  violation  of  the  plain  letter  of  the 
Constitution.  It  depends,  also,  upon  the 
willingness  of  the  judges  so  to  form  its 
spirit  as  continuously  to  adapt  its  working 
to  the  needs  of  new  times. 

The  decisions  of  the  Court  upon  the 
Roosevelt  experiment  show,  decisively, 
that  it  is  willing  to  do  neither  of  these 
things.  It  stands  by  a  conception  of  prop- 
erty rights  (as  in  the  railroad  pension  case) 
which  was  not  only  obsolete  forty  years 


ago  in  this  country  but  which  the  habits 
of  the  Court  from  191 6  to  1933  had  led 
one  to  hope  was  obsolete  in  the  United 
States  also.  It  stands  by  a  conception  of 
the  division  of  functions  between  State 
and  Federal  government  which  leaves  to 
the  former  obligations  it  cannot,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  undertake,  while  it  de- 
prives the  latter  of  the  right  to  afford  the 
American  people  the  aid  expected  from  it. 
Its  conception  of  property  confers  right 
without  the  duty  of  fulfilling  the  modern 
conception  of  the  duty  inherent  in  right; 
its  conception  of  Federalism  strikes  into 
impotence  the  elementary  powers  re- 
quired by  any  Government  in  a  modern 
society. 

THE  English  student  of  the  American 
situation  can  best,  perhaps,  appreciate 
the  meaning  of  the  Supreme  Court's 
attitude  if  one  says  that,  broadly  speak- 
ing, it  would  have  meant  that  the  House 
of  Lords  would  have  declared  unconstitu- 
tional pretty  well  the  whole  body  of  our 
social  legislation  since  1906  on  the  ground 
that  they  were  matters  which  either  fell  to 
be  dealt  with  by  the  local  authorities  or 
were  so  detrimental  to  the  rights  of  prop- 
erty as  to  be  beyond  the  powers  of  any 
Government.  An  Englishman  would  say 
that  such  an  attitude  is  a  plain  violation  of 
common  sense.  Yet  it  is,  in  effect,  the 
stand  the  Supreme  Court  has  taken. 

Over  twenty  years  ago,  in  the  Home 
Rule  debates,  Mr.  Asquith  (as  he  then 
was)  was  pressed  to  accept  a  Unionist 
amendment  which  sought  to  give  to  the 
judicial  committee  of  the  Privy  Council 
powers  over  Irish  legislation  similar  to 
those  enjoyed  by  the  American  Supreme 
Court  over  the  legislation  of  Congress  and 
the  State  Legislatures.  He  bluntly  refused 
on  the  ground  that  this  would  entrust  a 
judicial  body  with  a  political  discretion  it 
could  not  hope  to  exercise  without  involv- 
ing itself  in  passionate  controversy  certain 
to  impair  the  respect  in  which  a  judiciary 
should  be  held;  and  he  pointed  to  Ameri- 
can experience  as  the  justification  of  his 


193^ 


AS  OTHERS  SEE  US 


[87] 


refusal.  Few  observers  will  watch  the 
present  developments  in  the  United 
States  without  a  profound  conviction  that 
Mr.  Asquith  was  right. 

The  issues  the  Supreme  Court  has 
raised  will  not  be  settled  in  a  day  or  a 
year.  What  has  now  come  into  view  is  the 
need  for  the  ample  revision  of  the  founda- 
tions of  the  Constitution.  It  will  not  be 
easy  to  secure  this  revision.  Behind  the 
attitude  of  the  Supreme  Court  are  ranged 
State  authorities  traditionally  jealous  of 
their  historic  rights,  business  men  who 
look  with  anger  and  dismay  at  the  de- 
velopment of  liberal  legislation,  an  amend- 
ing process  as  difficult  as  any  in  the  Con- 
stitutions of  modern  States.  And  behind 
these  issues  as  formal  problems  of  law 
there  is  a  deeper  conflict.  It  is  the  question 
of  the  objectives  to  which  the  American 
Commonwealth  should  be  devoted.  A  po- 
litical democracy  seeks,  as  the  President 
has  insisted,  to  use  its  power  for  the  pro- 
motion of  the  interests  of  the  common 
man.  There  stands  in  the  way  of  that 
purpose  a  body  of  vested  interests  which 
live  by  an  obsolete  social  philosophy  in 
which  the  rights  of  property  are  placed 
before  the  claims  of  the  common  welfare. 
It  is  that  obsolete  social  philosophy  the 
Supreme  Court  seems  determined  to  pro- 
tect. In  doing  so  it  brings  into  view  those 
fundamental  questions  of  the  State  the 
discussion  of  which,  as  Burke  said,  always 
takes  a  nation  much  farther  than  it  is 
consciously  willing  to  go.  There  will  be 
grave  and  dramatic  developments  in  the 
United  States  of  the  next  decade. 

An  American  Vignette 

1  lERRE  GIRARD,  writing  in  the 
Journal  de  Geneve,  contributes  a  series 
of  his  impressions  of  America.  Here  is 
a  description  of  a  mood  he  experienced 
while  walking  along  Riverside  Drive 
in  New  York  City: — 


For  an  hour  and  a  half  I  have  been  walk- 
ing along  this  northern  Riviera  with  its 
cliffs  of  brick  and  granite.  These  fortunate 
river  dwellers  are  the  only  ones  in  all  New 
York  who  can  see  the  sky,  the  forests,  the 
sea.  Their  houses  rise  on  the  border  of  the 
Island  of  Manhattan,  on  the  top  of  a  steep 
hill  that  overlooks  the  Hudson.  The  win- 
try wind  makes  the  waters  livid  and  stirs 
the  New  Jersey  woods.  In  spite  of  the 
busses  belching  blue  smoke  into  the  chill 
air,  there  is  a  silence  full  of  strangeness. 
It  is  the  characteristic  American  silence. 
It  fills  your  ears  just  like  American 
noise. 

Here  on  this  boulevard  where  my 
solitary  steps  are  echoed  by  the  fagades 
of  the  buildings,  while  the  wind  wrinkles 
the  water,  I  get  a  strange  feeling  of  not 
belonging  anywhere.  I  feel  lost  in  time 
as  well  as  in  space.  Nature  here  is  so 
powerful,  so  ready  to  destroy  man's  works 
with  one  blow.  One  is  seized  here,  as  one 
never  is  in  Europe,  not  even  in  the  Alps, 
by  a  sort  of  planetary  emotion.  This  prom- 
ontory, the  waves,  the  red  sun,  are  they  a 
vision  of  the  world  before  or  after  man's 
coming?  Everything  here  is  full  of  violence 
and  of  virtue — the  granite,  the  air,  the 
ocean.  The  skyscrapers  are  not  heavier 
upon  this  soil  than  the  light  wigwams  of 
long  ago.  Suddenly  I  understand  the 
secret  of  America.  In  the  heart  of  this 
Manhattan,  so  swift  and  torrential,  in  the 
crowds  compressed  by  streets  too  narrow 
for  them,  lurk  the  savages,  flow  the 
salubrious  currents.  In  New  York  there 
are  no  trees,  no  flowers,  no  streams,  and 
yet  in  it  reigns  the  perpetual  enchantment 
of  the  prairie.  Europe,  where  for  so  long 
we  have  been  treading  on  graves,  where 
the  cities  are  the  vestiges  of  yesterday, 
where  the  decay  of  the  ruins  spreads  to  the 
structures  built  upon  them — this  Europe 
does  not  know  the  rumbling  and  stirring 
of  the  unknown  forces  that  one  feels  in 
America. 


OUR  OWN  BOOKSHELF 


Can  We  Be  Neutral? 

Neutrality:  its  History,  Economics  and 
Law.  Vol.  I:  The  Origins.  By  Philip  C. 
Jessup  and  Francis  Dedk.  New  Tork:  Colum- 
bia University  Press.  1935.  294  pages.  $3.75. 

Freedom  of  the  Seas.  By  Earl  Willis  Cre- 
crajt.  With  an  introduction  by  Edwin  M. 
Borchard.  New  Tork:  D.  Appleton-Century 
Company.  1935. 304.  pages.  $3.00. 

The  United  States  in  World  Affairs  in 
1934-1935.  By  Whitney  H.  Shephardson  in 
collaboration  with  William  0.  Scroggs.  New 
Tork:  Harper  and  Brothers.  1935. 357  pages. 
$3.00. 

American  Neutrality,  1914-1917.  By  Charles 
Seymour.  New  Haven:  Tale  University  Press. 
1935- 187  pages.  $2.00. 

War  Memoirs  of  Robert  Lansing.  Indian- 
apolis: The  Bobbs-Merrill  Company.  1935. 
383  pages.  $3.50. 

Woodrow  Wilson:  Life  and  Letters.  Vol. 
V:  Neutrality,  1914-1915.  By  Ray  Stan- 
nard  Baker.  Garden  City:  Doubleday,  Doran 
and  Company.  1931.  409  pages.  $4.00. 

Can  We  Be  Neutral?  jS;'  Allen  W.  Dulles  and 
Hamilton  Fish  Armstrong.  New  Tork: 
Harper  and  Brothers.  1936. 191  pages.  $1.50. 

npHE  flood  of  books  recently  pouring  from 
■■■  the  presses — of  which  these  under  review 
are  merely  a  sample — indicates  that  Americans 
are  becoming  seriously  concerned  over  what  is 
to  be  our  role  when  the  next  world  war  breaks 
out.  There  is  no  question  that  by  and  large 
Americans  are  opposed  to  participation,  and 
that  relatively  few  are  clearly  conscious  of  the 
fact  that  war  is  an  integral  part  of  the  capi- 
talist system.  It  may  be  said,  therefore,  that 
the  current  discussion  is  honest  enough:  that 
those  who  favor  the  passage  of  neutrality  legis- 
lation, whether  by  strengthening  the  arm  of 
Congress  or  that  of  the  President,  do  so  in  the 
interests  of  the  maintenance  of  peace.  Only 
among  the  spokesmen  for  finance-capitalism  is 
there  any  understanding  that  the  United 
States  may  become  involved  in  war,  notably 
in  the  Far  East,  not  because  of  the  violation  of 
our  neutrality  rights  but  to  strengthen  our  fi- 
nancial and  commercial  position  as  an  im- 
perialist power. 


The  books  examined  here  will  help  throw 
considerable  light  upon  the  backgrounds  of  the 
present  debate.  Neutrality:  The  Origins  is  the 
first  of  a  projected  four- volume  series  on  the 
history,  economics  and  law  of  the  whole  prob- 
lem of  neutral  rights  and  duties.  Judged  by  the 
first  volume,  the  complete  work  will  constitute 
an  invaluable  contribution  toward  the  under- 
standing of  the  economics  and  law  of  modern 
war. 

Very  properly,  Professors  Jessup  and  Dedk 
commence  the  story  with  the  rise  of  merchant 
capitalism:  for  hostility  between  states  began 
to  appear  when  the  conflicting  interests  of 
commercial  rivals  clashed  in  the  extending 
market.  The  story,  here,  is  carried  down  to  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century;  subsequent 
volumes  will  round  out  the  narrative.  It  is  in- 
teresting to  note  that  as  early  as  the  era  of 
merchant  capitalism,  the  pattern  of  rivalry, 
war  and  the  anomalous  position  of  the  neutral 
emerges.  The  historical  record  clearly  indicates 
that  neutrals  have  always  sought  to  push  out 
the  horizons  of  their  normal  trade  during  peri- 
ods of  war;  hence  the  elaborate  and  heated  dis- 
cussions about  their  rights,  centering  in  the 
two  questions  of  what  constitutes  a  legal  block- 
ade and  what  is  contraband  of  war. 

Freedom  of  the  SeaSy  within  much  more  mod- 
est limits,  of  course,  is  designed  to  answer  the 
same  question  as  that  raised  by  the  Columbia 
professors:  what  is  the  basis  of  current  inter- 
national policy,  historically  considered?  Pro- 
fessor Crecraft,  however,  is  regarding  the  prob- 
lem entirely  from  the  American  viewpoint;  his 
major  emphasis  is  on  the  events  of  the  past 
three  decades;  and  he  gives  next  to  no  consid- 
eration to  the  underlying  economic  factors. 
Nevertheless,  the  reader  will  £nd  here  excel- 
lent summaries  of  the  diplomatic  questions 
currently  being  discussed:  of  blockades,  con- 
traband, the  r61es  of  the  submarine  and  the 
airplane,  consultation,  sanctions,  naval  parity, 
and  the  like.  Professor  Crecraft  gives  no  inkling 
of  his  own  position  concerning  present  Ameri- 
can policy,  unless  the  typical  and  justified 
American  distrust  of  European  professions  of 
peace,  which  runs  through  the  whole  book, 
may  be  interpreted  as  a  plea  for  American  iso- 
lation. 

The    work    of   Messrs.    Shephardson    and 


OUR  OWN  BOOKSHELF 


[89] 


Scroggs  is  a  useful  compendium.  The  fourth  of 
a  series,  it  is  in  effect  a  running  history  of  con- 
temporary American  foreign  relations  derived 
for  the  most  part  from  newspaper  sources  and 
such  public  documents  as  have  been  made 
available.  The  material  is  succinctly  and  in- 
telligently presented,  and  the  book  is  well 
worth  including  in  the  library  of  all  those  who 
pretend  to  follow  international  affairs  closely. 
The  current  volume  contains,  among  others, 
chapters  on  American-Japanese  relations,  the 
naval  discussions,  the  United  States  and  the 
League,  and  the  general  question  of  American 
neutrality  as  it  has  been  affected  by  the  find- 
ings of  the  Nye  Committee  and  the  outbreak 
of  the  Ethiopian  War. 

The  next  three  volumes  are  of  the  first  sig- 
nificance in  that  they  indicate  the  position  of 
the  Executive  in  a  critical  situation;  that  is  to 
say,  in  the  preliminaries  leading  up  to  Ameri- 
can participation  in  the  World  War.  Professor 
Seymour,  in  his  volume  of  essays,  shows  that 
the  disclosures  of  the  Nye  Committee  investi- 
gation have  left  him  unmoved.  To  Professor 
Seymour  economic  pressure  is  proved  only  if  it 
is  direct  and  overt:  that  is  to  say,  only  the  im- 
mediate physical  contact  between  the  bankers 
and  President  Wilson,  if  it  could  be  established, 
would  convince  him  that  our  entry  had  other 
than  reasons  of  honor  behind  it.  This  position 
leads  him  to  interesting  and  contradictory 
conclusions:  neutrality  legislation  is  futile,  for 
it  never  can  be  foretold  exactly  what  the  rea- 
sons for  future  wars  will  be;  on  the  other  hand, 
the  price  of  peace  may  be  too  high  in  economic 
terms. 

Professor  Seymour's  program  is  to  leave  the 
Executive's  hands  untied  and  to  engage  in 
cooperative  activities  with  other  States  to  pre- 
vent the  recurrence  of  war.  He  speaks  hopefully 
of  eliminating  *  the  basic  causes  of  war,  which 
can  be  attacked  especially  in  the  economic 
field;'  and  in  the  next  breath  concedes  that 
there  are  certain  instances  in  which  capitalist 
nations  must  fight.  His  whole  attitude  is  more 
than  the  traditional  conservative  one;  it  is,  of 
course,  ingenuous.  Thus  Senator  Vandenberg 
has  a  much  clearer  understanding  of  historical 
causation  than  the  professor.  Senator  Van- 
denberg, in  commenting  on  the  Nye  Commit- 
tee testimony,  said: — 

*In  my  view  we  see  a  clear  demonstration 
that  the  commercial  factor  is  an  inevitable  and 
irresistible  impulse  in  these  war  equations. 
That  can  be  said  objectively.  It  does  not  at- 


tach to  any  particular  individuals  ...  it  at- 
tached to  our  entire  existence  in  our  attitudes 
heretofore.' 

Professor  Seymour  seeks  to  defend  Wilson 
against  those  persons  who  would  charge  him 
with  having  yielded  to  'sinister  forces'  (mean- 
ing Wall  Street) ;  as  though  anybody  has  seri- 
ously argued  that.  But  there  were,  neverthe- 
less, pressures  constantly  being  applied  on  the 
President  from  among  those  who  constituted 
his  closest  and  most  trusted  advisers;  such 
persons,  notably,  were  Lansing,  House,  and 
McAdoo,  not  to  speak  of  Page.  These  were 
Anglophiles  and  sought  our  involvement  on 
the  side  of  the  Allies;  day  in  and  day  out,  the 
President  was  the  center  of  their  attack.  T^he 
War  Memoirs  of  Robert  Lansing,  in  this  sense, 
constitutes  an  amazing  document:  it  is  difficult 
to  see  how,  as  Counselor  to  the  State  Depart- 
ment and  later  as  Secretary  of  State,  he  was 
other  than  recreant  to  his  trust,  which  was  the 
maintenance  of  American  neutrality.  Lansing 
was  regarded  by  his  chiefs  as  a  faithful  servant; 
therefore  his  prejudices  could  not  but  have 
poisoned  the  minds  of  those  who  were  depend- 
ent upon  him  for  presumably  honest  counsel. 
The  same  was  true  of  all  those  others  who  were 
in  the  immediate  confidence  of  the  President. 
Mr.  Baker's  excellent  fifth  volume — unques- 
tionably the  best  thus  far  in  what  was  threat- 
ening to  be  an  uninspired  and  pedestrian 
biography — indicates  this  clearly:  here  was  the 
President,  not  too  well  informed  himself  as  to 
the  historical  reasons  for  the  World  War,  but 
instinctively  suspicious  of  the  British  and 
originally  committed  to  neutrality,  compelled 
to  retreat  step  by  step  as  a  result  of  the  pres- 
sures being  exerted  by  his  inner  circle  of  ad- 
visers. When,  in  October,  191 5,  Wilson  yielded 
to  the  demands  of  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
McAdoo  and  lifted  the  ban  against  Allied 
long-term  flotations  in  this  country,  the  die 
was  cast;  Mr.  Baker  clearly  understands  this 
when  he  says  that  thenceforth  our  foreign 
policy  'was  reduced  to  futility.' 

These  volumes  raise  important  questions  as 
regards  the  forms  neutrality  legislation  is  to 
take.  Can  the  Executive,  even  granting  his 
honest  intentions,  be  subjected  to  this  type  of 
ordeal  and  reasonably  be  expected  to  be 
guided  by  the  objective  facts?  Obviously,  a 
harassed  President,  particularly  during  a  war, 
is  incapable  of  keeping  his  hands  on  every 
situation;  he  must  depend  on  better  informed, 
better  technically  equipped  persons  than  him- 


[9o] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


March 


self.  And  when  such  advisers  may  turn  out  to 
be  men  like  Lansing,  House,  McAdoo,  and 
Page  it  must  be  apparent  that  the  dangers  to 
peace  will  be  numerous.  Add  to  the  picture  the 
temperament  of  an  Executive  like  Wilson — 
his  capacity  for  self-delusion,  his  stubbornness, 
his  ambitions — and  it  must  be  plain  that  not 
the  Executive  but  Congress  is  the  agency  for 
the  protection  of  American  neutral  rights. 

Yet  Messrs.  Dulles  and  Armstrong  would 
leave  the  Executive's  hands  completely  free. 
Theirs  is  a  strangely  confusing  book.  In  effect. 
Can  We  Be  Neutral?  underwrites  the  Roosevelt 
administration's  demand  for  discretionary 
powers  for  the  Executive.  Their  program  calls 
for  the  following:  i.  American  travel  in  the 
ships  of  belligerents  should  be  limited;  2.  an 
arms  embargo  is  to  be  imposed  when  the  Presi- 
dent sees  fit;  3.  long-term  capital  flotations  in 
the  American  money  market  by  belligerents 
are  to  be  banned,  but  not  normal  commercial 
credits  (obviously,  sooner  or  later  these  latter 
must  be  converted  into  long-term  obligations); 
4.  embargoes  on  manufactured  goods  and  raw 
materials  are  to  be  imposed,  but  at  the  dis- 
cretion of  the  President  (otherwise,  argue  the 
authors,  letting  the  cat  out  of  the  bag,  our 
great  commercial  rivals  might  receive  undue 
advantages;  also,  the  weapon  of  the  embargo 
would  be  dulled  completely  if  we  should  ever 
want  to  come  to  the  aid  of  democratic  nations 
in  peril,  meaning  China);  5.  trade  at  your  own 
risk  is  to  be  the  key  to  a  neutrality  policy.  The 
authors  dismiss  the  proposals  for  a  quota  sys- 
tem of  rationing  and  Mr.  Baruch's  cash-and- 
carry  plan  as  impracticable.  Like  Professor 
Seymour,  they  are  not  convinced  of  the  efficacy 
of  such  measures,  and  they  end  up  hopefully 
by  declaring  that  the  only  way  of  keeping  out 
of  war  is  by  getting  rid  of  war's  causes. 

This  constant  compromising  of  their  position 
indicates  plainly  that  Messrs.  Dulles  and 
Armstrong  do  not  find  war  altogether  repug- 
nant. In  view  of  the  testimony  of  Messrs. 
Morgan  and  Lamont  before  the  Nye  Com- 
mittee, this  should  no  longer  surprise  Ameri- 
cans. Thus,  we  are  to  limit  trade  but  not  really 
stop  it;  we  are  not  to  finance  long-term  issues, 
but  short-term  credits  are  all  right;  we  are  to 
order  our  business  men  to  trade  at  their  own 
risk,  but,  of  course,  we  are  to  defend  them 
when  foreign  interference  has  a  commercial 
and  not  a  military  purpose;  we  are  to  do  noth- 
ing intrinsically  that  will  hurt  American  busi- 
ness or  increase  unemployment;  and  never 


must  we  jeopardize  our  standing  as  a  world 
power.  Above  all,  we  must  continue  to  com- 
mand the  respect  of  other  nations. 

It  must  be  apparent  that  such  a  program  is 
worse  than  useless,  for  it  engenders  a  false 
confidence.  The  arms  traffic,  credits,  loans, 
travel  on  and  use  of  belligerent  merchant 
ships  and  the  inflation  of  commerce  beyond  a 
peace-time  basis  are  the  causes  that  pushed  us 
into  the  last  world  war;  they  will  involve  us  in 
the  next.  On  the  basis  of  our  earlier  experience 
it  must  be  plain  that  the  investing  of  final 
powers  in  the  hands  of  the  Executive,  to  be  ap- 
plied by  him  at  will,  is  a  dangerous  and  futile 
expedient. 

A  realistic  program  for  neutrality  would  call 
for  the  following:  1.  Supreme  power  in  the 
hands  of  Congress,  to  be  exercised  unremit- 
tingly as  soon  as  a  major  conflict  breaks  out. 
We  have  a  better  chance  of  avoiding  being 
sucked  in  with  Congress  at  the  controls,  for  the 
popular  demand  for  peace  is  more  likely  to 
obtain  a  hearing  from  Congress  than  from  an 
isolated  and  perhaps  highly  opinionated  Ex- 
ecutive. Also,  it  is  imperative,  at  the  present 
stage,  to  build  up  the  position  of  Congress,  for 
otherwise,  if  we  should  enter  into  a  major  war, 
there  is  not  the  slightest  question  that  a  move 
would  be  made  to  clamp  a  military-Fascist 
dictatorship  on  the  country.  2.  Neutrality 
legislation  to  be  supported  by  popular 
organization  for  peace,  with  a  militant  program 
centering  in  trade  union  action.  Only  the 
workers,  in  the  final  analysis,  can  prevent,  or 
at  least  delay,  our  being  dragged  in:  and  by 
demonstrations,  strikes,  the  joining  of  hands 
with  farmers,  and  a  people's  embargo,  stop  the 
manufacture  of  war  and  other  materials  and 
their  shipment  to  belligerents. 

In  any  case,  whether  American  entry  can  be 
prevented,  as  long  as  Fascism  is  held  in  check 
through  the  weakening  of  the  powers  of  the 
Executive,  there  will  still  remain  the  possi- 
bility of  capturing  the  Government  and  trans- 
forming the  economy.  War  is  an  integral  part 
of  the  capitalist  pattern:  and  War,  and  its 
twin  sister,  Fascism,  must  steadfastly  be 
fought.  The  maintenance  of  Congress's  posi- 
tion, constantly  supported  and  corrected  by  an 
aggressive  people's  movement,  oflFers  an  even 
chance  for  peace.  Otherwise,  as  the  books 
under  review  plainly  indicate,  we  are  doomed 
to  enter  the  next  world  war  before  the  first  gun 
is  fired. 

— Louis  M,  Hacker 


i93(> 


OUR  OWN  BOOKSHELF 


[91: 


China's  Millions.  By  Anna  Louise  Strong. 
New  York:  Knight  Publications^  Inc.  1^35. 

4,57  p^s^^-  $2-50. 

TN  THE  final  chapters  of  Miss  Strong's  book, 
■'■  she  brings  up  to  date  the  running  account  of 
what  she  saw  in  China  in  1927,  when  the  most 
spectacular  of  that  country's  revolutions  was 
already  dying  its  slow  death  at  Wuhan.  They 
form  an  account  of  the  history  of  those  dis- 
tricts where  the  Chinese  Soviets  have  persisted. 
Written  in  Moscow,  which  was  farther  from 
China  in  1935  than  in  1927,  this  part  of  the 
book  suffers  from  distance  and  not  from  de- 
tachment. Lack  of  any  authentic  information 
about  the  strength  and  even  the  present  loca- 
tion of  these  districts  makes  optimism  about 
their  chances  of  survival  as  much  a  matter  of 
faith  as  the  periodic  predictions  from  Nanking 
of  their  extinction. 

The  bulk  of  the  book  was  written  in  1927. 
Most  of  it  has  been  published  earlier  in  scat- 
tered form.  Except  for  a  portion  of  Vincent 
Sheehan's  'Personal  History,'  there  is  no  ac- 
count in  English  which  can  compare  with  this 
story  of  the  months  leading  up  to  the  final 
collapse  of  the  revolutionary  nationalism  which 
had  swept  northward  from  Canton  to  the 
Yangtze. 

Miss  Strong  is  frank  in  admitting  that  at 
first  she  did  not  see  the  fatal  division  of  in- 
terests between  the  peasants  and  workers,  or- 
ganized under  Bolshevist  influence,  and  the 
compradore  bankers  and  merchants  who  had 
financed  the  revolution  and  were  eventually  to 
compound  its  profits  in  the  bond  issues  of 
Nanking.  This  only  strengthens  the  conviction 
with  which  her  record  of  the  gradual  break  is 
told.  She  did  not  stay  in  Hankow,  and  her 
descriptions  of  Chengchow,  where  Chinese 
generals  led  by  Feng  Yu-hsiang  dickered  over 
terms  of  alliance,  or  of  Hunan,  where  the 
landlords  and  merchants  had  already  begun 
to  wipe  out  the  last  vestiges  of  peasant  control, 
are  among  the  most  convincing  chapters  in 
the  book. 

The  middle  section  remains  one  of  the 
classics  of  revolutionary  literature.  It  is  the 
Odyssey  of  Michael  Borodin,  professional  revo- 
lutionary who  took  to  China  the  lessons  of  his 
trade,  learned  in  Chicago,  Mexico,  Turkey  and 
Russia.  After  his  alliance  with  the  Kuomin- 
tang  had  broken  down,  he  set  off  in  a  motor 
caravan  with  Miss  Strong,  Percy  Chen,  son 
of  China's  Foreign  Minister,  and  a  few  of  his 


followers,  to  cross  the  hinterland  of  China 
through  Mongolia  and  back  to  Russia. 

All  other  routes  were  closed  to  him.  His  wife 
was  being  held  a  prisoner  by  Chang  Tso-lin. 
His  mission  had  collapsed  after  more  nearly 
achieving  unity  for  China  than  any  revolution- 
ary movement  since  191 1.  They  crossed  the 
mountains  of  Shensi  and  the  Gobi  Desert  be- 
fore they  found,  in  Outer  Mongolia,  the  first 
signs  of  the  revolutionary  spirit  which  was  their 
own  stock  in  trade.  The  story  of  this  trip  is  told 
by  Miss  Strong  without  any  attempt  to  recon- 
cile its  contradictory  meanings  of  failure  and 
a  kind  of  ultimate  triumph.  Borodin  in  a  curi- 
ously Russian  way  had  made  himself  a  part  of 
the  Chinese  Revolution,  and  his  flight  ex- 
pressed as  perhaps  no  other  incident  of  its  de- 
velopment both  the  despair  and  the  hope  that 
it  left  in  China.  Miss  Strong  has  described  it 
simply,  in  a  chronicle  that  is  good  reporting 
and  may  prove  to  be  good  history. 

— Joseph  Barnes 

What  Next  in  Europe  ?^  ^jy  Sir  Arthur  Wil- 
lert.  New  T'ork:  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.  igjS. 
J20  pages.  $3.00. 

AS  WARTIME  correspondent  of  the  London 
-^~*-  Times  in  Washington,  member  of  many 
British  delegations  to  many  post-War  confer- 
ences and  recent  head  of  the  Press  Department 
in  the  British  Foreign  Office,  Sir  Arthur  Wil- 
lert  speaks  with  authority  and  accuracy  on  the 
future  of  Europe.  To  make  assurance  doubly 
sure  he  has  just  completed  a  personal  tour  of 
the  Continent,  to  check  up  on  the  chief  trouble 
spots  in  person.  What  is  his  verdict  ? 

On  page  7  we  find  him  referring  to  Lord 
Grey  of  Falloden — a  misprint,  of  course, 
though  it  is  repeated  the  next  time  the  late 
Grey  of  Fallodon's  name  appears.  And  surely 
it  is  careless  proof-reading  that  transforms 
Herr  Himmler,  head  of  Hitler's  Gestapo,  into 
Himler  on  the  two  occasions  he  appears.  But 
when  Marshal  LudendorfF,  whose  humble 
birth  prevented  his  rising  to  the  supreme  posi- 
tion he  deserved  long  before  1914,  appears  as 
von  LudendorfF,  horrid  doubts  begin  to  assail 
the  reader.  These  are  not  allayed  by  Sir 
Arthur's  consistent  use  of  the  word  'Russia' 
to  designate  all  the  separate  national  Repub- 
lics that  go  to  make  up  the  U.  S.  S.  R. — it  is  only 
when  he  quotes  Hitler  that  Sir  Arthur  allows 
himself  to  slip  into  the  more  accurate  designa- 
tion of  Soviet  Union.  But  when  this  product  of 
Eton  and  Balliol  College,  Oxford,  refers  to  the 


[92] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


Nazis  as  the  Nazi,  one  loses  patience.  Does 
Sir  Arthur  suppose  that  the  singular  form  is 
Nazus? 

Yet  these  inaccuracies,  and  literally  dozens 
more  like  them,  might  be  ignored  if  Sir  Arthur 
had  grasped  the  major  implications  of  his 
theme.  But  no.  As  a  loyal  Briton  and  upholder 
of  the  League  he  rhapsodizes  over  the  la- 
mented Sir  Samuel  Hoare's  endorsement  of 
that  organization.  In  fact,  he  found  it  'both 
flattering  and  embarrassing*  merely  to  be  an 
Englishman — last  summer.  At  the  same  time, 
he  does  coyly  admit  that '  there  is  a  difference 
between  the  Collective  System  as  it  has  been 
envisaged  by  the  British  Government  and  as 
it  is  understood  by  Europeans.'  Perhaps  a 
select  group  of  The  Living  Age  readers, 
toughened  by  the  rugged  fare  that  they  have 
been  served,  lo,  these  ninety  years,  can  digest 
and  even  enjoy  this  poisonous  nonsense.  In 
any  case  Sir  Arthur  can  safely  receive,  even  at 
this  early  hour,  recognition  for  having  written 
the  year's  worst  book  on  world  affairs. 

— QuiNCY  Howe 

The  Russian  Financial  System.  By  W.  B. 
Reddaway.  New  Tbrk:  The  Macmillan  Com- 
pany. igjS'  ^06  pages.  $2.25. 

\/fR.  REDDAWAY  rendered  a  valuable 
service  to  the  people  who  are  interested 
in  Russian  economics,  or  the  experiment  of 
planned  economy,  in  explaining  the  various 
checks  and  re-checks  established  by  the  Rus- 
sian Soviet  Government  to  make  that  system 
work.  But  when  one  has  completed  reading  the 
book,  the  mental  reaction  is  that  the  real  name 
of  the  book  should  have  been  Thf  Lack  of  a 
Financial  System  in  Russia  from  the  point  of 
view  of  capitalistic  economics.  When  you  are 
through  with  the  book,  you  ask  yourself  this 
question:  'What  does  all  this  mental  account- 
ing matter  when  everything  really  belongs  to 
the  State?' 

My  deduction  is  that  when  Mr.  Reddaway 
went  to  Russia  to  study  the  problem,  he  had 
the  following  question  in  mind:  'If  competi- 
tive wages,  prices  and  profits  are  not  the 
mechanism  by  which  the  Communistic  system 
directs  resources  to  specific  industries  and 
finished  products  to  individual  consumers,  and 
if  these  ends  are  assumed  to  be  achieved  by 
direct  planning,  what  part  is  left  for  the  money 


and  the  banking  system  to  play?'  And  after 
Mr.  Reddaway  spent  some  time  and  wrote  a 
book  of  some  hundred  odd  pages  explaining 
the  various  mechanics  of  the  Communistic 
system,  his  answer  in  brief  is: — 

'That  the  financial  and  banking  system  be- 
comes the  State  Cost  Accounting  Department 
and  that  although,  from  the  State's  point  of 
view,  direct  action  takes  the  part  of  indirect 
control  through  prices,  money  must  play  its 
usual  function  as  a  money  of  account  and  aid  in 
the  distribution  of  resources  to  maximum  ad- 
vantage.' 

Mr.  Reddaway's  further  analysis  leads  him 
to  believe  that  the  only  function  that  the  finan- 
cial system  plays  in  Russia  is  as  a  control  sys- 
tem to  establish  a  rigid  economy  and  a  perfect 
Accounting  Department  between  the  correlat- 
ing branches  of  the  various  industries  con- 
trolled by  the  Soviet  Government. 

In  other  words,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
outside  world,  in  the  phraseology  used  in  the 
financial  systems  in  Europe,  and  America, 
there  is  no  yardstick  or  gauge  by  means  of 
which  to  approach  the  financial  system  of 
Russia.  In  fact,  there  is  no  necessity  for  a 
financial  system  under  an  economy  where 
everything  is  controlled  by  the  State. 

In  a  capitalistic  country  where  the  motive  of 
production  is  profit,  the  financial  system  is  the 
balance  wheel  of  expansion  and  contraction  of 
currency  by  means  of  increasing  or  decreasing 
the  discount  rates  to  control  the  flow  of  capital 
for  existing  industries  and  for  the  expansion  of 
new  industries.  In  a  planned  economy  where 
everything  is  owned  by  the  Government  and 
the  basis  of  production  is  the  required  con- 
sumption and  the  military  and  naval  expendi- 
tures for  the  security  of  the  State,  no  financial 
balance  wheel  is  required  to  control  the  flow  of 
capital  expansion. 

However,  Mr.  Reddaway  has  rendered  a 
service  in  discussing  in  full  detail  the  dual  price 
system  which  existed  in  Russia  until  the  mid- 
dle of  last  year  and  the  derationing  and  aboli- 
tion of  the  bread  cards  which  has  just  recently 
been  inaugurated.  Anyone  who  is  interested  in 
Russian  economics  and  watches  the  gradual 
perfection  of  the  controlled  economy  existing 
in  Russia  will  appreciate  this  valuable  informa- 
tion given  in  Mr.  Reddaway's  book. 

— Sol  Gross  bard 


WITH  THE  ORGANIZATIONS 


Continuing  this  month  our  brief 

survey  of  American  associations  for  the 
advancement  of  peace,  we  should  like  to 
mention  first  of  all  the  World  Alliance  for 
International  Friendship  through  the 
Churches  (70  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York 
City).  The  World  Alliance  was  founded  in 
Constanz,  Germany,  in  August,  19 14,  at 
the  very  moment  of  the  outbreak  of  the 
World  War.  Its  founders,  churchmen 
from  all  parts  of  the  world,  realized  that 
they  had  put  off  too  long  the  task  of  or- 
ganizing for  peace.  Nevertheless,  before 
leaving  Constanz,  they  passed  a  set  of 
resolutions  to  the  effect  that  the  Christian 
Churches  of  the  world  should  use  their  in- 
fluence to  bring  about  friendly  relations 
between  the  nations,  and  that  steps 
should  be  taken  to  form  councils  in  every 
country  to  enlist  Churches  in  this  work. 

The  first  meeting  of  the  World  Alliance 
after  the  War  was  in  the  fall  of  1919,  and 
the  Alliance  has  held  annual  meetings  ever 
since.  It  now  has  councils  in  thirty-three 
nations.  It  carries  on  its  work  through  an 
international  Committee  whose  members 
are  elected  by  the  National  Council.  Be- 
sides its  annual  world  meetings  the  Al- 
liance has  held  a  series  of  regional  confer- 
ences from  time  to  time.  It  publishes  a 
number  of  international  journals  and 
papers,  and  there  is  a  constant  inter- 
change of  news  and  plans  between  its  na- 
tional units.  It  also  has  a  strong  Youth 
Commission. 

In  short,  the  World  Alliance,  through 
organization,  through  education,  through 
information  and  through  the  propagation 
of  its  ideals  and  purposes  has  performed 
services  of  incalculable  value  in  further- 
ing throughout  the  world  the  cause  of 
peace. 

A  PEACE  organization  of  a  similar  sort 
is  the  Catholic  Association  of  Interna- 
tional Peace,  founded  in  1927  in  order  to 


help  American  public  opinion,  and  partic- 
ularly Catholics,  in  the  task  of  ascertain- 
ing more  fully  the  facts  of  international 
life.  It  issues  committee  reports  and  pam- 
phlets on  international  questions;  pro- 
motes international  discussion  clubs  in 
Catholic  colleges,  seminaries,  and  lay 
groups;  and  endeavors  to  further  'the 
Peace  of  Christ  in  the  Kingdom  of  Christ.' 

THE  FOREIGN  POLICY  Association 
has  started  a  new  series  of  pamphlets 
called  Foreign  Policy  Pamphlets.  These 
will  take  the  place  of  World  Affairs  Pam- 
phlets, whose  publication  has  now  been 
taken  over  by  the  World  Peace  Founda- 
tion. The  first  issue  of  Foreign  Policy 
Pamphlets,  recently  published,  is  The 
Population  Problem  and  World  Depression^ 
by  Louis  I.  Dublin,  President  of  the 
Population  Association  of  America.  In 
this  study  it  is  pointed  out  that  while 
birth  rates  decline  in  Great  Britain, 
France  and  the  United  States,  large  popu- 
lation increases  are  reported  annually  in 
Germany,  Italy,  Japan  and  the  Soviet 
Union.  According  to  Dr.  Dublin,  Italy's 
Ethiopian  adventure  clearly  illustrates  the 
extreme  to  which  a  particularly  acute 
population  problem  will  drive  an  ambi- 
tious nation. 

The  second  number  in  this  series  will  be 
a  comprehensive  survey  of  events  in  Eu- 
rope during  the  past  year  and  a  brief  dis- 
cussion of  what  may  be  expected  during 
the  coming  year,  by  Raymond  Leslie 
Buell,  President  of  the  Association. 

The  Foreign  Policy  Reports  series  has 
recently  contained  a  clear  analysis  of  the 
position  of  the  United  States  regarding 
neutrality,  The  New  American  Neutrality y 
and  an  historical  survey  of  Cuban  events 
since  the  fall  of  Machado,  in  two  issues,  by 
Charles  A.  Thomson:  The  Cuban  Revolu- 
tion: I.  Fall  of  Machado.  1.  Reform  and 
Reaction. 


[94l 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


THE  GUIDE  POST 

{Continued) 

TO  WASH  AWAY  the  bad  taste  left  by 
the  Pol  article,  we  offer  a  short  story  by  a 
celebrated  young  Italian  novelist  and 
poet,  Aldo  Palazzeschi.  Frederic  Leftvre, 
the  editor  of  the  Nouvelles  Litteraires,  has 
characterized  Palazzeschi  as  *a  writer 
whose  spirit  is  profoundly  Italian  and,  at 
the  same  time,  one  of  the  most  deserving 
of  a  hearing  beyond  the  borders  of  Italy.' 
This  story  about  a  woman  who  was  ab- 
normally fond  of  cats  is  typical  of  Palaz- 
zeschi, who  delights  in  tales  of  the  gro- 
tesque, the  fantastic,  the  monstrous,  [p.  2Z] 

MR.  L^ON  PIERRE-QUINT,  who  wrote 
one  of  the  best  books  on  Proust  that  we 
have  {Marcel  Proust:  His  Life  and  Work. 
New  York:  Knopf.  1927.),  decided  re- 
cently to  reread  the  author  whom  he  had 
once  so  warmly  admired.  The  world  has 
changed  since  the  day,  ten  years  ago  and 
more,  when  the  last  of  the  many  volumes 
of  A  la  Recherche  du  temps  perdu  appeared 
in  the  bookshops.  In  France  today  it  is 
the  habit  of  the  younger  generation,  and 
especially  of  the  radical  *  advance  guard,' 
to  belittle  Proust,  to  damn  him  with  the 
epithet  of  *  bourgeois,'  or  to  point  out  that 
a  reading  of  his  novel  is  of  no  assistance 
whatever  toward  the  understanding  of 
economics.  It  was  in  the  light  of  this 
criticism  that  Mr.  Pierre-Quint  set  about 
his  task  of  revaluation,  [p.  50] 

IT  HAS  often  been  charged  that  visitors 
to  Russia  are  not  allowed  to  see  anything 
which  the  Soviet  government  does  not 
wish  them  to  see,  and — on  the  other  side 
of  the  fence — that  those  who  come  home 
with  unfavorable  reports  are  merely  the 
paid  propagandists  of  Messrs.  Hitler  and 
Hearst.  It  is  therefore  a  privilege  to  be 


able  to  present  the  by  no  means  wholly 
laudatory  account  of  Ethel  Mannin,  who 
went  where  she  pleased  and  is  as  free  of 
the  charge  of  being  hostile  to  communism 
as  any  radical  novelist  and  journalist  and 
member  of  the  British  International 
Labor  Party  could  be.  [p.  60] 

BY  WAY  of  a  counterfoil  to  Miss  Man- 
nin's  charges  comes  Lev  Kassil's  story  of 
the  woman  who  hoarded,  and  got  caught 
'long'  when  the  ration  cards  were  abol- 
ished. Kassil  is  one  of  the  most  hopeful  of 
the  younger  novelists  in  the  U.  S.  S.  R. 
today.  He  is  the  author  of  Vodka  Vezdie 
Khodka  (Whiskey  Goes  Everywhere),  and 
Shvambrania  (recently  published  in  trans- 
lation by  the  Viking  Press),  [p.  6^] 

ALL  OF  Germany's  neighbor  nations 
harbor  refugees  from  Hitlerism  today,  but 
they  do  not  all  treat  their  guests  alike.  In 
the  once  very  liberal  Holland,  for  in- 
stance, as  a  correspondent  of  the  Neues 
Wiener  Tagblatt  points  out,  economic  and 
civil  liberties  are  being  more  and  more 
curtailed  as  the  influx  of  immigrants  deep- 
ens the  crisis  and  forces  the  Government 
to  take  action  to  combat  it.  [p.  66] 

ON  THE  OTHER  HAND  Switzerland,  a 
favorite  refuge  of  German  exiles,  remains 
true  to  her  liberal  democratic  traditions, 
and  for  that  reason  is  one  of  the  most 
hospitable  hosts  the  expatriated  German 
can  find  in  Europe.  Otto  Zarek,  a  German 
novelist  and  an  exile  himself,  describes  the 
life  of  some  of  his  compatriots  there, 
[p.  68] 

LE  SANG  NOIR,  by  Louis  Guilloux,  will 
be  published  in  this  country  by  Robert 
McBride.  The  English  edition  of  Rudolf 
Olden's  Hitler  will  be  published  by  Victor 
GoUancz,  London. 


THE    LIvfNG    AGE 


CONTENTS 

for  April,  1936 

Articles 

The  Land  Beyond  the  Rhine 

I.  Hitler's  Motor  Highways General  Serrigny  102 

n.  Hitler's  Secret  Police 108 

Carnages  and  Kings 

I.  Paranoia  and  War Roger  Money-Kyrle  1 1 1 

II,  The  Psychology  of  Constitutional  Monarchy Ernest  Jones  117 

Echoes  from  the  East 

I.  Young  China  Goes  to  School 121 

II.  Mongolia,  Land  of  Contrasts Eugene  Scbreider  126 

HI.  Japan  and  Siam Otto  Corbach  1 28 

IV.  Japan's  Island  Wall Willard  Price  130 

A  Tale  of  Two  Cities 

I.  Moscow  Buys Leo  Lania  142 

II.  Berlin  Revisited Friedrich  Sieburg  146 

The  Good  Horse  (A  Story) Antoon  Coolen  150 

Spaniards  on  Two  Continents 

I.  Four  Years  to  Rebuild  Spain Harold  Laski  159 

II.  The  Argentine  Recovers C.  Hillekamps  162 

Departments 

The  World  Over 95 

Persons  and  Personages 

Milan  Hodza,  Professor  and  Man  of  Action Hubert  Beuve-Mery  133 

Albert  Sarraut Odette  Pannetier  136 

Darius  Milhaud M.  D.  Calvocoressi  140 

Letters  and  the  Arts 164 

As  Others  See  Us 167 

Books  Abroad 171 

Our  Own  Bookshelf 1 83 

With  the  Organizations 1 87 

Thb  Living  Agk.  Published  monthly.  Publication  office,  10  Ferry  Street,  Concord,  N.  H.  Editorial  and  General  offices.  253  Broad- 
way, New  York  City.  50c  a  copy.  $6.00  a  year.  Canada.  $6.50.  Foreign,  $7.00.  Entered  as  second-class  matter  at  the  Post  Office  at 
Concord,  N.  H..  under  the  Act  of  Congress.  March  3,  1879.  Copyright,  1936,  by  The  Living  Age  Corporation.  New  York,  New  York. 

The  Living  Age  was  established  by  E.  Littell,  in  Boston,  Massachusette,  May,  1844.  It  was  first  known  as  Littell's  Living  Age,  suc- 
ceeding LiUell's  Museum  of  Foreign  Literature,  which  had  been  previously  published  in  Philadelphia  for  more  than  twenty  years.  In  a 
prepublication  announcement  of  Littell's  Living  Age,  in  1844,  Mr.  Littell  said : '  The  steamship  has  brought  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa 
mto  our  neighborhood;  and  will  greatly  multiply  our  connections,  as  Merchants,  Travelers,  and  Politicians,  with  all  parts  of  the  world: 
sc\that  much  more  than  ever,  it  now  becomes  every  intelligent  American  to  be  informed  of  the  condition  and  changes  of  foreign  countries.' 


Subscribers  are  requested  to  send  notices  of  changes  of  address  three  weeks  before  they  are  to  take  effect.  Failure  to  send  such  notices 
will  result  in  the  incorrect  forwarding  of  the  next  copy  and  delay  in  its  receipt.  Old  and  new  addresses  must  both  be  given. 


THE  GUIDE  POST 


With  all  the  excitement  caused  by 
Hitler's  occupation  of  the  Rhineland,  a 
great  deal  has  been  written  and  said  about 
Germany's  preparations  for  war.  But  so 
far  we  have  failed  to  see  in  this  country 
any  discussion  of  the  Reich's  new  automo- 
bile highways.  General  Serrigny's  article 
not  only  describes  them,  but  points  out 
their  military  significance,  and  outlines  a 
counter-program  for  France,  [p.  102] 

ONCE  AGAIN  the  'Special  Correspond- 
ent' of  the  Manchester  Guardian  delves 
into  the  closely  guarded  secrets  of  the 
Nazi  Government,  coming  out  this  time 
with  a  detailed  account  of  the  organization 
of  the  Gestapo,  or  Secret  Police.  How  this 
anonymous  newspaperman  succeeds  in 
getting  his  stories  only  he  himself  knows. 
But  the  reports  he  sends  back  to  his  paper 
constitute  one  of  the  most  valuable  sources 
of  information  about  Nazi  Germany  we 
have.  [p.  108] 

IS  MAN  a  'rational  egoist'  or  a  'homi- 
cidal maniac'?  An  English  psychologist, 
Mr.  Roger  Money-Kyrle,  thinks  that  he  is 
'an  aggressive  animal  with  a  slightly 
paranoiac  strain,'  and  that  it  is  to  this  fact 
that  his  wars  are  due.  Accordingly  the 
road  to  peace  leads,  not  through  social 
revolution,  but  through  the  nursery — as 
will  appear  in  the  article.  Paranoia  and 
fFar.ip.  Ill] 

BUT  if  there  is  a  psychological  explana- 
tion of  war,  there  is  also  a  psychological 
explanation  of  constitutional  monarchy. 
The  famous  London  psychoanalyst.  Dr. 
Ernest  Jones,  explains  in  terms  of  the 
(Edipus  Complex,  and  other  relics  of  the 
nursery,  the  extraordinary  stability  of  the 
British  form  of  government,  [p.  1 17] 

SO  MUCH  has  been  heard  about  the 
corruption  and  duplicity  of  the  Chinese 
Government  that  there  is  grave  danger  of 


losing  sight  of  the  good  it  does.  We  offer 
this  month  an  article  on  a  rural  education 
program  in  China  which  was  started  by  a 
single  individual,  Dr.  Yen,  but  has  now 
been  taken  under  the  Government's  wing. 
According  to  the  author,  the  experiment 
is  to  serve  as  a  model  for  all  China,  [p.  121] 

NEXT  we  have  a  sketch  by  a  Frenchman 
of  Outer  Mongolia,  and  its  capital,  Ulan 
Bator.  This  is  the  frontier  land,  the 
'march,'  where  Soviet  Russia  and  ancient 
China  meet  and  fuse.  The  result,  as  Mr. 
Eugene  Schreider  points  out,  is  a  curious 
mixture  of  Sovietism  and  theocracy, 
[p.  126] 

FROM  Mongolia  we  skip  to  Siam.  There 
it  is  not  Russia  but  Japan  which  is  slowly 
permeating  the  country  with  its  influence. 
Writing  in  the  Berliner  Tageblatt,  Otto 
Corbach  describes  the  process,  and  the 
Siamese  reaction  to  it.  [p.  128] 

OUR  group  on  the  Far  East  is  concluded 
by  an  article  on  the  chains  of  small  islands 
which  ring  around  Japan,  from  the  Sea  of 
Okhotsk  to  the  South  Seas.  The  southern- 
most of  these  groups  Japan  received  as 
mandates  from  the  League  of  Nations. 
Though  no  longer  a  member  of  the  League, 
she  continues  to  hold  the  islands,  and  the 
League  Mandates  Commission  has  shown 
some  concern  over  the  amount  of  money 
she  has  been  spending  oij  them.  Mr. 
Willard  Price  reports  that  the  improve- 
ments are  not  military  in  character.  At  the 
same  time  the  islands  form  an  ideal  pro- 
tective barrier  in  case  of  war.  [p.  130] 

WITH  the  turn  of  the  year  Soviet  Russia 
abolished  the  last  of  her  ration  cards, 
and  the  long  awaited  era  of  abundance 
was  forthwith  ushered  in.  Writing  in  the 
Neues  Tagebuchy  Leo  Lania,  a  German 
(Continued  on  page  188) 


■  -,  LiWty 


THE    LIVING    AGE 

Founded  by  E.  Littell 

In  1844 


Aprils  igj6  Volume  j^o,  Number  44^5 

The  World  Over 

The  last  three  weeks  of  February  and  the  first  week  of 
March  witnessed  four  events  all  of  which  indicated  the  same  underlying 
shift  in  the  world-wide  class  struggle.  First  and  foremost,  the  Spanish 
elections  showed  that  the  forces  of  the  Left,  especially  the  Labor  move- 
ment, had  not  only  achieved  unity  but  had  gained  the  support  of  the 
majority  of  the  Spanish  people.  The  Japanese  elections  told  the  same 
story.  Here  the  liberal  Minseito  Party  and  the  Social  Masses  Party, 
representing  organized  labor,  outvoted  the  conservative  Seiyukai  Party, 
which  has  supported  the  army's  high-handed  invasion  of  China.  The  at- 
tempted coup  d'etat  and  the  murder  of  several  statesmen  showed  the 
lengths  to  which  the  Japanese  militarists  will  go  in  opposing  the  desires 
of  the  people. 

In  France,  the  ratification  of  the  Soviet  Pact  by  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies  represented  the  first  tangible  victory  by  the  Popular  Front, 
which,  again,  has  the  support  of  the  majority  of  the  French  nation. 
Finally,  even  Hitler's  repudiation  of  the  Locarno  Treaty  suggests — 
especially  in  the  light  of  the  increasing  privations  of  the  German  people 
— that  domestic  discontent  required  a  bold  move  in  the  foreign  field. 

Of  course  none  of  these  events  means  that  world  revolution  is  at  the 
door.  The  Second  World  War  still  seems  to  have  the  call.  But  it  does 
seem  that  in  Spain,  Japan,  France  and  Germany  corresponding  elements 
in  the  population  have  shown  signs  of  life.  In  Spain  the  victory  of  the 
combined  forces  of  Socialism,  Communism  and  Syndicalism  took  the 
most  sensational  form,  for  the  army  fraternized  with  the  workers.  When 


[96]  THE  LIVING  AGE  April 

one  young  officer  in  Madrid  drew  his  sword  and  ordered  his  men  to 
charge  a  street  demonstration,  the  people  and  the  soldiers  joined  forces 
in  disarming  and  unhorsing  him.  It  seems  certain,  however,  that  the 
forces  of  reaction  will  strike  back  as  they  did  in  Japan  and  as  they  may, 
even  yet,  in  France.  

SENATOR  NYE'S  arms  investigation  in  the  United  States  and  the 
findings  of  the  Royal  Commission  on  the  Trade  in  Arms  in  England  have 
again  drawn  public  attention  to  the  profits  of  munitions  makers.  The 
British  government's  rearmament  program  has  already  yielded  profits  of 
a  million-and-a-half  pounds  to  Sir  John  D.  Siddeley,  Chairman  of  the 
Armstrong-Siddeley  Development  Company,  while  Mr.  T.  O.  M.  Sop- 
with  of  America  s  Cup  fame  made  300  million  pounds  from  an  aircraft 
merger.  During  the  past  year  alone,  purchasers  of  armament  and  aircraft 
shares  have  reaped  profits  as  high  as  900  per  cent  merely  in  anticipation 
of  future  government  orders,  and  British  tax  laws  do  not  *  crack  down '  on 
capital  gains  as  the  American  tax  laws  do.  When  the  actual  work  on  re- 
armament begins,  the  Secret  International  of  munitions  makers  will 
profit  still  more  handsomely.  Sir  Harry  McGowan,  Chairman  of  Imperial 
Chemicals  Industries,  told  the  British  arms  commission  that  his  com- 
pany and  its  twenty-one  foreign  affiliates  could  produce  war  material 
from  factories  now  making  peace-time  goods.  He  did  not  hesitate  to  give 
details : — 

Nitric  acid  was  produced  in  considerable  quantities,  and  that  was  a  basic 
material  for  practically  all  high  explosives.  By-products  from  the  hydrogenation 
of  coal  could  produce  certain  compounds  which  entered  into  the  manufacture  of 
high  explosives.  Nitro-cellulose  was  made  for  industrial  purposes;  it  could  readily 
change  over  to  nitro-cellulose  for  military  explosives,  and  so  on.  .  .  .  Chlorine, 
used  early  in  the  War  for  gas  attacks,  was  now  one  of  the  most  important  and 
useful  servants  of  the  community  in  the  form  of  bleaching  powder  or  other 
chloro-compounds.  It  also  provided  the  only  known  efficient  means  of  decontam- 
ination after  a  mustard-gas  attack,  and  was  therefore  a  defensive  weapon  of  the 
highest  value. 

HECTOR  C.  BYWATER,  naval  correspondent  of  the  Daily  Tele- 
graph, and  the  best  informed  writer  on  naval  warfare  in  the  world,  has 
written  two  articles  telling  what  the  British  people  might  expect  for  the 
money  their  Government  is  spending  on  defense.  He  draws  attention 
to  the  dependence  of  the  British  Isles  on  foreign  foodstuffs: — 

In  Great  Britain,  at  any  given  moment,  there  are  stocks  of  food  sufficient  for  six 
to  eight  weeks  only.  They  are  replenished  daily  by  cargoes  arriving  from  Canada, 
the  United  States,  South  America,  India,  Australia,  New  Zealand,  and  the  Far 
East. 

Excluding  Continental  sources  of  supply — which  represent  only  a  small  per- 


/pjd  THE  WORLD  OVER  [97] 

centage  of  our  total  imports — 6,000  miles  is  a  conservative  estimate  of  the  average 
voyage  of  the  ships  bringing  food  and  other  commodities  to  British  home  ports. 
They  follow  certain  routes,  any  deviation  from  which  would  prolong  the  average 
voyage  and  thus  upset  the  nicely  adjusted  schedule  of  arrivals  and  clearances  on 
which  the  feeding  of  our  population  and  the  smooth  working  of  our  gigantic 
industrial  machine  depend. 

Neither  air  power  nor  sea  power  can  alone  serve  Britain's  defense  needs. 
The  two  must — and  will — be  coordinated.  Mr.  Bywater  points  out  that 
every  American  and  Japanese  battleship  has  at  least  two  aircraft,  and 
every  cruiser  at  least  four,  whereas  less  than  half  the  corresponding  Brit- 
ish vessels  carry  any  airplanes  at  all,  and  in  most  cases  they  carry  only 
one.  The  British  fleet  also  does  not  carry  such  powerful  anti-aircraft 
guns  as  the  fleets  of  the  other  great  Powers.  In  view  of  these  deficiencies 
England  plans  to  concentrate  on  aircraft  construction  and  on  battleships 
of  the  latest  design.  By  strengthening  the  equipment  on  deck,  naval  de- 
signers can  make  vessels  relatively  secure  against  air  attack,  since  bombs 
dropped  from  above  carry  less  explosives  than  a  large  shell  and  travel 
much  less  rapidly.  Given  a  few  years  of  peace  and  preparation  the  British 
fleet  can  again  become  far  and  away  the  most  powerful  in  the  world. 

IN  SO  FAR  as  any  of  this  wasteful  expenditure  can  be  blamed  on  any 
single  clique,  the  international  bankers  deserve  greater  opprobrium  than 
the  international  munitions  makers.  Indeed,  the  connections  between 
foreign  policy  and  foreign  loans  go  far  toward  accounting  for  the  whole 
crazy  drift  of  world  affairs  in  recent  years.  Because  British  banks  and 
investors  hold  42  million  pounds  in  long-term  German  credits  and  held 
70  millions  in  short-term  credits  in  1931,  the  British  Foreign  Office  has 
treated  Hitler  far  more  tolerantly  than  it  has  Mussohni,  whose  govern- 
ment owes  only  1  million  pounds  to  England.  In  like  manner  the  240 
million  pounds  of  British  investments  in  China  He  outside  the  'sphere  of 
influence'  that  Japan  has  claimed  up  to  now;  also  the  Japanese  have 
raised  some  38  milHon  pounds  in  England  since  the  war,  bringing  the 
total  amount  of  Japanese  loans  held  in  London  to  some  80  million 
pounds. 

But  if  the  British  Foreign  Office  has  shown  every  consideration  for 
Germany  and  Japan,  it  may  presently  be  expected  to  treat  France  and 
the  Soviet  Union  n;ore  kindly.  For  many  of  the  same  British  bankers 
who  were  pouring  money  into  Germany  before  1931  have  now  arranged 
a  loan  of  40  million  pounds  to  France.  This  credit  will  enable  the  French, 
in  turn,  to  loan  money  to  the  Russians,  who  will  thereupon  turn  round' 
and  spend  the  money  purchasing  the  products  of  French  industry.  Yet 
when  the  Russians  approached  the  British  bankers  with  the  same  propo- 
sition they  were  turned  down.  Francis  Williams,  financial  editor  of  the 
Laborite  Daily  Herald,  draws  this  comparison  with  the  events  of  1931 : — 


[98]  THE  LIVING  AGE  April 

The  position  has  a  certain  similarity  to  that  which  existed  prior  to  the  1931 
crisis. 

At  that  time  opposition  in  the  City  to  substantial  Russian  credits  was  much 
stronger  even  than  it  is  today.  Instead  British  banks  gaily  lent  money  to  Ger- 
many which  Germany  in  turn  re-lent  to  Russia  at  a  higher  interest  rate. 

And  incidentally,  while  the  British  excuse  for  refusing  to  consider  Russian 
credits  at  that  time  was  that  Russia  could  not  be  regarded  as  a  sound  borrower,  it 
was  not  Russia  which  defaulted,  but  Germany. 

I  do  not,  of  course,  suggest  that  the  similarity  between  the  present  situation 
and  that  prior  to  1931  is  complete.  I  do  not  think,  for  example,  that  there  is  any 
danger  whatever  of  a  French  default  on  the  credit  just  arranged,  nor  is  Russia  in 
such  urgent  need  of  foreign  credits  now  as  she  was  at  that  time. 

Nevertheless,  British  industrialists  and  unemployed  workers  in  British  indus- 
tries which  would  benefit  substantially  from  the  increased  Russian  orders  which 
would  be  made  possible  by  reasonable  credits,  will,  I  imagine,  feel  that  if  we  are 
ready  to  lend  money  to  France  which  will  enable  France  to  lend  to  Russia,  we 
ought  to  consider  whether  there  would  not  be  much  more  sense  in  lending  to 
Russia  ourselves  and  ourselves  getting  the  benefit  of  the  orders  she  can  place. 

WITHOUT  GOING  SO  FAR  as  to  prophesy  actual  default  by  the 
French  one  can,  in  the  light  of  subsequent  events,  detect  a  certain 
amount  of  wishful  thinking  in  Mr.  Williams's  optimistic  view  of  the 
financial  integrity  of  France.  Hitler's  excursion  into  the  Rhineland — 
announced  as  we  go  to  press — can  hardly  add  to  the  prestige  or  power  of 
France;  and  that  is  not  all.  Premier  Sarraut,  who  has  the  support  of  the 
Popular  Front  of  Communists,  Socialists,  and  Radicals,  once  proclaimed 
Communism  as  the  enemy.  His  repression  of  that  movement  as  former 
Governor  General  of  Indo-China,  and  his  inclusion  of  a  textile  magnate, 
Nicolle,  and  a  reactionary  Clerical,  Thellier,  in  his  Cabinet,  make  him 
suspect  by  the  Left.  Yet  at  the  same  time  his  support  of  the  Franco- 
Soviet  Pact  has  earned  him  the  hostility  of  the  extreme  NationaHsts. 
Here,  for  instance,  is  the  way  Raymond  Recouly,  the  Mark  Sullivan  of 
France,  writes  of  the  Soviet  alliance  in  the  Conservative  weekly, 
Grin  go  ire: — 

Soviet  Russia  has  never  ceased  giving  proof  of  its  perfidy  both  where  it  saw 
profit  in  allying  itself  against  us  with  Germany  at  Rapallo,  insulting  and  vilifying 
the  League  of  Nations  as  long  as  it  did  not  belong  to  that  body,  and  then  praising 
the  League  as  soon  as  it  gained  admittance,  thanks  to  us,  all  the  while  never  ceas- 
ing, even  after  signing  an  agreement  with  us,  to  fight  us  with  all  its  forces,  all  its 
money,  making  propaganda  for  insurrection  and  civil  war  in  France  and  our 
Colonies,  subsidizing  our  domestic  politics,  setting  up  the  United  Front,  preparing 
to  play  a  part  of  the  first  importance  in  the  coming  elections,  although  they  are 
the  concern  of  Frenchmen  only  and  not  of  Muscovites.  That  is  the  country  to 
which  people  want  the  fate  of  France  to  be  attached! 

Mr.  Recouly's  prose  style — not  to  mention  the  content  of  his  thought 
— reflects  the  confused  atmosphere  of  which  Hitler  tried  to  take  full 
advantage. 


/pjd  THE  WORLD  OVER  [99] 

NOR  ARE  THE  DIFFICULTIES  of  France  confined  to  the  domestic 
scene.  Trouble  has  again  broken  out  in  Syria.  Fired  by  the  example  of 
the  Egyptian  Nationalists,  the  Syrians  and  Druses  have  launched  their 
third  insurrection  since  their  territory  became  a  French  mandate  after 
the  war.  From  1919  to  1921  the  Druses  revolted  against  their  new  rulers 
so  vigorously  that  they  won  a  limited  amount  of  autonomy,  and  in  1925- 
26  no  less  than  1,200  Druses  were  killed  in  the  bombardment  of  Damascus 
by  French  guns.  Today  rebellion  has  again  broken  out,  and  the  death  list 
of  natives  is  running  into  the  hundreds. 

The  current  disorders  originated  a  year  ago,  when  the  French  High 
Commissioner  dissolved  the  Syrian  parliament.  On  January  22,  1936, 
rioting  broke  out  in  Damascus,  and  demonstrations  of  students  and 
workers  followed  in  the  other  Syrian  cities.  Then  came  a  general  strike 
that  stopped  all  electrical  service  in  Damascus.  The  universities  closed 
their  doors  and  the  Syrian  parliament  protested  to  the  League  of  Na- 
tions and  to  the  French  government  in  Paris.  Sympathetic  strikes  broke 
out  in  the  neighboring  British  mandates  of  Palestine  and  Transjordania, 
and  fifty  members  of  the  Parliament  of  Irak  addressed  a  memorandum 
to  the  League  of  Nations  laying  the  full  blame  on  the  French  mandate 
authorities. 

What  is  behind  the  disturbances?  Primarily,  economic  depression; 
but  it  seems  that  the  Third  International  also  has  taken  a  hand.  Just  as 
the  British  Intelligence  Service  fomented  the  Druse  uprisings  after  the 
war  in  spite  of  the  Anglo-French  aUiance,  so  today  the  Franco-Soviet 
Pact  did  not  prevent  the  spokesmen  for  the  Syrian  Communists  from 
telling  the  Comintern  last  summer:  *We  have  completely  Arabized  the 
Communist  Party  by  working  with  the  nationalist  movement.  We  have 
solid  positions  in  every  layer  of  the  Arab  population  and  we  have  become 
the  promoters  of  the  Arab  nationalist  movement  in  Syria.  We  have 
established  the  united  front  against  French  imperialism.' 

Opponents  of  the  Franco-Soviet  Pact  vainly  drew  this  statement  to 
the  attention  of  the  French  public. 

OTTO  STRASSER,  whose  brother,  Gregor,  followed  Hitler  from  the 
earliest  days  of  the  Nazi  movement  only  to  fall  victim  to  the  June  30 
purge,  has  become  one  of  the  most  violent  and  best  informed  critics  of 
the  present  regime.  He  edits  from  Prague  a  weekly  paper  called  the 
Deutsche  Revolution^  and  his  contacts  in  the  Nazi  movement  give  him 
access  to  material  that  neither  the  Communist,  Socialist,  Jewish,  Catho- 
lic nor  Protestant  opposition  can  discover.  Strasser  accuses  Hitler  of 
sabotaging  the  German  revolution.  He  opposes  anti-Semitism  and  war 
preparations,  and,  if  his  descriptions  of  conditions  in  Germany  can  be 
believed,  they  would  account  for  Hitler's  move  into  the  Rhineland. 


[loo]  THE  LIVING  AGE  April 

For  according  to  Strasser's  sources  of  information  the  domestic  situa- 
tion grows  increasingly  desperate.  During  1935  the  price  of  gasoline  rose 
48  per  cent,  cattle,  37  per  cent,  tea,  20  per  cent,  and  cheese,  17  per  cent. 
Total  food  costs  rose  7.1  per  cent  during  the  year.  At  the  same  time 
earnings  have  fallen  approximately  10  per  cent  all  along  the  line,  both 
in  private  industry  and  in  government  and  municipal  jobs  such  as 
schools  and  hospitals.  Not  only  have  earnings  declined  since  Hitler  came 
into  power;  they  have  declined  from  an  abnormally  low  level;  for  by  the 
end  of  1932  German  wage  rates  had  dropped  23.9  per  cent  below  1929 
levels.  No  wonder  Adolf  Wagner,  Minister  of  the  Interior  for  Bavaria, 
recently  told  the  Nazi  authorities:  'Innumerable  German  workers  are 
suffering  hunger  in  order  that  the  Reich  may  continue.'  Finally,  Stras- 
ser's paper  asserts  that  the  Reichswehr  has  turned  against  the  Hitler 
system : — 

The  neutrality  of  the  Reichswehr  is  a  thing  of  the  past.  The  officers  have 
recognized  that  they  owe  a  responsibility  to  the  nation  in  the  present  state  of 
affairs,  a  responsibility  that  extends  beyond  the  purely  military  field.  They  are 
beginning  to  ask  themselves  how  long  they  can  tolerate  the  disastrous  effects  of 
this  system  on  the  state  and  the  nation. 


SIR  ARNOLD  WILSON,  Conservative  member  of  Parliament,  has 
visited  Italy  and  interviewed  Mussolini  for  the  London  Observer^  which 
has  constantly  opposed  sanctions  and  has  argued  the  justice  of  the  Ital- 
ian cause.  He  returns  with  a  sorrowful  message  to  his  fellow  country- 
men : — 

We  shall  not  recover  this  market;  repeated  strikes  and  threats  of  strikes,  and 
now  'sanctions,'  have  taught  Italians  a  lesson;  German  and  Austrian  goods  are 
replacing  British  goods  and  the  public  and  shopkeepers  alike  vow  that  the  change 
is  permanent.  The  labels  on  British  goods  are  being  removed;  stocks  will  not  be 
renewed.  They  do  not  feel  so  strongly  about  France. 

Mussolini  blamed  Great  Britain  for  prolonging  the  conflict  and  as- 
sured Sir  Arnold  that  he  harbored  no  designs  against  any  British  interest 
in  Africa.  He  then  asked  Sir  Arnold  these  embarrassing  questions: — 

'Have  your  activities  for  the  last  three  hundred  years  been  criminal  adven- 
tures in  your  eyes?  Are  not  we  Italians,  by  imitating  you,  paying  you  the  high- 
est compliment?  Was  Cecil  Rhodes  a  criminal?  Was  Gordon's  mission  to  the 
Sudan  a  delusion? 

'  Is  there  anything  immoral  in  enabling  a  great  race  to  expand  its  borders  and, 
in  so  doing,  to  free  millions  from  the  foulest  servitude  ever  imposed  by  man  on 
man?  To  the  inhabitants  of  the  non-Amharic  areas,  and  to  the  Italian  troops, 
this  is  a  war  of  liberation;  a  war  against  misery  and  slavery.' 

Then  came  these  reproachful  words: — 


b 


1936  THE  WORLD  OVER  [loi] 

'We  have  relied,  more  than  most  countries,  on  the  normal  avenues  of  in- 
ternational trade:  these,  once  choked,  cannot  quickly  be  opened.  Public  opinion 
has  been  aroused.  We  shall  not  soon  forget  the  language  used  by  your  statesmen. 
You  have  turned  a  colonial  war  into  what  may  yet  be  a  world-wide  disaster. 
Where  is  the  Stresa  front  now?  We  cannot  forget  the  blood  and  treasure  we 
poured  out  in  the  Great  War,  nor  put  away  from  us  the  remembrance  of  670,000 
dead.  Have  you  so  soon  forgotten?' 

Sir  Arnold  Wilson  and  a  handful  of  Tories  have  not  forgotten  the  im- 
portance of  teaming  up  with  Mussolini;  but  the  mass  of  the  British  peo- 
ple take,  for  better  or  worse,  a  different  view. 

THE  RECRUDESCENCE  of  Russian  nationalism  in  the  Soviet  Union 
and  the  Communists'  brief  relaxation  of  class  war  on  the  world  front 
reflect  the  Kremlin's  fears  of  a  new  world  war.  Up  to  now  foreign  Com- 
munists visiting  the  'fatherland  of  the  proletariat'  have  been  made 
members  of  the  Russian  Communist  Party  when  they  arrived  on  Soviet 
soil.  Not  only  is  this  practice  to  be  discontinued;  henceforth  all  such 
members  of  the  Russian  Party  must  surrender  their  cards.  Then,  shortly 
after  Bukharin,  editor  of  the  Moscow  Izvestia,  was  relieved  of  his  post 
because  he  recalled  how  Lenin  opposed  the  nationalism  of  the  Great 
Russians  under  the  Tsar,  Nikolaus  Basseches,  Moscow  correspondent 
of  the  Vienna  Neue  Freie  Presse,  reported: — 

'The  meeting  of  the  all-Russian  Central  Executive  Committee,  following  the 
lead  of  the  Russian  Federated  Republic,  furthered  the  historic  task  of  the  Great 
Russians  in  the  Revolution  and  in  building  the  Socialist  state,  and  declared  that 
it  was  false  and  contrary  to  the  teachings  of  Lenin  to  paint  the  history  of  Great 
Russia  exclusively  in  dark  colors.' 

At  the  same  time,  A.  T.  Cholerton,  Moscow  correspondent  of  the 
London  Daily  Telegraphy  drew  attention  to  the  Soviet  military  prepara- 
tions. He  estimated  at  six  millions  the  number  of  men  who  have  had  two 
years  of  military  training,  and  expressed  his  confidence  in  the  ability  of 
the  Soviet  armed  forces  to  defend  themselves  against  all  comers.  But  in 
spite  of  a  military  budget  twice  as  large  as  that  of  1935  he  did  not  believe 
that  the  Soviet  army  could  or  would  fight  outside  its  own  territories. 
Here  is  the  way  he  summed  up  the  future  as  the  men  in  the  Kremlin  see 
it:— 

Within  three  years  Red  Russia  expects  to  have  to  fight  Germany,  and,  still 
believing  that  England  and  France  will  also  be  fighting  Germany  in  the  same 
war,  she  expects  to  be  victorious. 

After  that  Moscow  foresees  an  epoch  of  disorder  in  Europe  something  like 
the  Thirty  Years  War,  a  breakdown  of  national  government  in  Central  Europe 
perhaps  extending  to  France,  reaction  against  revolution,  with  anybody  fighting 
anybody,  and  the  British  and  Soviet  systems  probably  alone  surviving  the  first 
round  or  two. 


A  French  general  writes  of  Germany's 
auto  highways;  an  Englishman  describes 
the  organization   of  her  secret   police. 


The  Land  beyond 
the  RHINE 


I.  Hitler's  Motor  Highways 

By  General  Serrigny 
Translated  from  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  Paris  Conservative  Bi-Monthly 


H/UROPE  seems  to  be  coming  out  of 
a  long  dream  and  to  be  realizing  at 
last  the  stage  which  science  has 
reached  since  191 8,  both  on  land  and 
in  the  air.  The  days  of  war  horses  have 
gone  the  way  of  those  carriages  our 
mothers  were  so  fond  of.  Today  war 
supplies,  the  mobilization  of  factories, 
and  the  speeding-up  of  air  armament, 
are  all  coming  rapidly  to  the  fore.  In 
Germany  concrete  is  coming  to  be 
king.  Our  neighbors  have  in  fact 
undertaken  a  vast  program,  of  whose 
import  the  public  officials  of  France 
seem  to  be  unaware.  While  we  are 
congratulating  ourselves,  and  with 
justice,  on  possessing  the  world's  most 
beautiful  tourist  system,  and  while  we 
are  striving  to  improve  the  details  of 
it,  the  Germans  are  forging  a  formi- 
dable instrument  of  war — a  system  of 
automobile  highways. 

Shall  we  wake  up  in  time  to  the 
menace  which  hangs  over  our  heads. 


and  shall  we  know  how  to  parry  it? 
Let  us  recall  our  memories  of  19 14.  At 
that  time  mobilization  was  based  on 
an  intensive  use  of  the  railways.  To- 
ward 1900  people  used  to  repeat  read- 
ily the  statement  that  the  power  of  the 
rail  is  unlimited.  Like  all  proverbs  this 
one  was  only  partly  true.  But  what- 
ever the  case,  it  was  generally  ex- 
pected that  when  the  time  came,  men, 
horses,  wagons  and  material  would  be 
transported  by  railroad  to  the  thresh- 
old of  the  mobilization  zone.  Only  the 
last  kilometers  would  be' covered  by 
road,  which  was  looked  upon  simply 
as  a  complement  of  the  railroad,  that 
supreme  factor  of  strategic  maneu- 
vers. 

The  mobilization  of  1914  was  ac- 
complished in  an  impeccable  fashion. 
It  proceeded  like  clock  work,  without 
a  single  hitch.  The  officers  of  the  fourth 
bureau  of  the  military  staff  of  the 
army,  who  had  prepared  it,  could  con- 


{ 


THE  LAND  BEYOND  THE  RHINE 


[103] 


^ 


gratulate  themselves  as  well  as  the 
railroad  companies,  for  the  result  ob- 
tained was  their  common  work.  After 
our  defeat  of  1870,  some  one  had  had 
the  happy  idea  of  creating  a  higher 
military  commission  for  the  railroads, 
over  which,  beginning  in  1886,  the 
Chief  of  the  General  Staff  presided, 
and  which  included  in  its  number  the 
directors  of  the  big  railroad  companies 
and  the  military  technicians.  Every 
year  this  commission  used  to  study  the 
changes  which  it  would  be  necessary 
to  make  in  the  system  to  adapt  it  to 
the  needs  of  the  current  plan  of  mobili- 
zation. They  used  to  work  together  to 
find  the  necessary  formulas  for  its 
realization,  and  finally  by  these  fre- 
quent contacts  to  create  a  unity  of 
mind  which  was  destined  to  assert  it- 
self in  the  critical  hours  of  the  war. 

Once  mobilization  was  completed 
the  role  of  the  railroad,  in  so  far  as  it 
was  an  instrument  of  war,  actually  in- 
creased. Our  generation  still  recalls  the 
emotions  with  which,  after  the  victory 
of  the  Marne,  it  followed  the  race  to 
the  sea,  that  contest  in  speed  in  which 
the  belligerents  engaged  in  order  to 
stretch  a  line  of  trenches  between 
Switzerland  and  the  Atlantic  Ocean. 
La  Manche  was  destined  to  be  domi- 
nated by  one  or  the  other  of  the  bel- 
ligerents according  to  the  point  on  the 
coast  where  they  could  hook  the  last 
link  of  their  chain.  Direct  communica- 
tions between  France  and  England 
constituted,  in  short,  the  stakes  of  the 
game.  This  game  our  railroads  once 
more  won,  and  under  particularly 
difficult  conditions.  The  Germans  had, 
in  fact,  the  advantage  of  being  able  to 
work  out  their  transportation  problem 
inside  a  circle,  while  we  were  obliged 
to  work  on  the  outside  of  it.  For  us  the 
distances  were  greater  and  the  routes 


unfamiliar.  Nevertheless  we  succeeded 
in  saving  Calais,  and  this  feat  alone 
gives  the  Nord  Railroad  a  legitimate 
claim  to  glory. 

The  War  continues,  the  years  pass; 
the  use  of  automobile  trucks  increases; 
but  the  railroads  remain  no  less  the 
principal  instrument  of  maneuvers. 
Light  arms  continue  to  be  easy  to 
load;  the  roads  are  narrow  and  short 
and  the  effectiveness  of  trucks  is 
limited.  Thus  when,  in  191 7,  General 
Petain  assumes  the  role  of  command- 
er-in-chief, his  first  act  is  to  order  me 
to  draw  up  instructions  to  the  major- 
general  enjoining  him  to  lay  out  be- 
hind the  front,  and  without  delay, 
two  successive  lines  of  railroads  which, 
in  conjunction  with  the  roads  that  ran 
at  right  angles  to  them,  would  permit 
the  maneuvering  of  large  masses  of 
men.  This  equipment  was  rapidly  con- 
structed. It  played  a  major  role  at  the 
time  of  the  191 8  offensives  in  assuring 
rapid  concentration  at  points  far  re- 
moved from  one  another.  Thanks  to  it 
the  front  was  broken  and  victory  as- 
sured. In  the  past  the  railroad  has 
merited  well  of  the  fatherland. 

But  such  a  statement  ought  not  to 
freeze  us  in  an  immutable  formula.  It 
is  our  duty  to  take  account  of  the 
progress  that  has  been  made,  and  we 
are  obliged  to  state  that  since  191 8 
there  has  been  a  great  change  both  in 
the  internal  structure  of  armies  and  in 
the  means  of  commercial  transporta- 
tion. The  army  of  19 14  was  founded 
on  horses.  As  soon  as  it  had  detrained, 
its  speed  was  reduced  to  a  few  kilo- 
meters an  hour.  Furthermore,  nothing 
could  have  been  simpler  than  its  em- 
barkation and  debarkation;  at  that 
time  material  was  relatively  light, 
only  a  few  large  pieces  of  artillery 
constituting  an  exception  to  the  rule. 


[104] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


Today  the  automobile  is  king.  The 
army  includes  a  large  number  of  ar- 
mored cars,  of  which  many  are  very 
large.  Loading  them  on  railroad  cars 
requires  many  hours  of  hard  work, 
while  these  mastodons  travel  on  the 
roads  at  speeds  higher  than  those  of 
the  mobilization  trains,  so  long  as  they 
do  not  encounter  any  obstructions.  As 
an  example,  and  to  fix  in  our  minds 
the  new  conditions  of  the  problem,  let 
us  say  simply  that  a  mechanized  divi- 
sion, with  all  its  elements,  men,  arms, 
ammunition  and  the  engines  of  all 
sorts  which  are  needed  for  fighting  and 
for  bringing  up  supplies,  requires  a 
stretch  of  1 80  kilometers  of  highway. 


Paralleling  this  mechanical  trans- 
formation of  the  army,  and  even  more 
rapidly  than  it  (for  the  army  has 
really  only  followed  the  movement, 
and  has  not  led  it),  in  all  countries  the 
transportation  of  persons  by  road  has 
been  developed,  as  has  that  of  mate- 
rial. It  is  useless  to  dwell  upon  this 
fact,  which  is  itself  the  evidence. 
Nowhere,  however,  has  this  move- 
ment been  so  marked  as  in  Germany 
since  the  day  when  that  power  decided 
to  rearm.  Three  years  ago  trucks  of 
more  than  eight  tons  capacity  did  not 
exist.  Today  you  can  see  trucks  of 
fifteen  tons  on  the  German  roads,  pro- 
vided with  trailers  with  six  wheels; 
and,  according  to  information  which  I 
believe  to  be  exact,  within  two  years 
(that  is  to  say,  when  the  construction 
of  the  system  of  automobile  highways, 
of  which  more  anon,  is  sufficiently 
well  advanced)  we  shall  see  trucks 
with  fifty  ton  trailers.  At  the  same 
time  one  should  note  that  the  manu- 
facturers are  receiving  orders  for  mo- 


tors of  300  or  even  400  horsepower  for 
trucks  to  anticipate  this  development. 
Finally  let  us  note  a  characteristic 
figure  of  the  strengthening  of  the  army 
of  industrial  vehicles  beyond  the 
Rhine;  the  sales  of  heavy  vehicles  in- 
creased from  1 5,000  to  40,000  between 
1 93 1  and  1934,  while  in  France  they 
dropped  considerably. 

For  what  reasons  have  our  neigh- 
bors thrown  themselves  into  the  con- 
struction of  such  powerful  equipment  ? 
Is  it  to  provide  their  factories  with 
work?  Evidently  not,  for  the  building 
of  vehicles  of  lighter  tonnage  would 
have  solved  the  problem  fully  as  well. 
Is  it  to  satisfy  their  love  for  the  co- 
lossal? In  part  perhaps,  for  Germany 
has  always  liked  to  astonish  the 
world.  Is  it  for  peace  or  for  war?  We 
shall  shortly  see. 

In  any  case  equipment  like  this  can- 
not make  use  of  ordinary  roads.  In 
France  the  Government  has  limited 
the  weight  and  capacity  of  vehicles 
because  automobilists  complained  about 
the  way  they  blocked  the  roads;  no 
one  has  asked  if  the  problem  was  not 
wrongly  put,  and  if  from  examination 
of  the  facts  one  ought  not  rather  to 
conclude  that  our  roads  are  too  nar- 
row. That  in  any  case  is  the  reasoning 
of  the  Germans.  Thus  to  enable  the 
enormous  vehicles  whose  construction 
he  envisaged  to  travel  freely.  Hitler 
has  not  hesitated  to  resolve  upon  the 
construction  of  a  system  of  automobile 
highways  requiring  the  expenditure  of 
20  billions  of  francs.  These  new  roads 
will  provide  two  lanes,  each  from 
seven  and  one-half  to  twelve  meters 
wide,  one  for  outgoing  traffic  and  one 
for  incoming.  They  are  separated  by  a 
space  four  meters  wide  and  planted  with 
hedges  to  stop  the  glare  of  headlights. 
Drivers  traveling  on  one  of  the  lanes 


193^ 


THE  LAND  BEYOND  THE  RHINE 


[105] 


are  never  dazzled  by  the  cars  on  the 
other.  These  highways  have  bridges 
where  the  thickness  of  the  concrete  is 
sometimes  as  much  as  sixty  centi- 
meters. They  have  no  raised  ap- 
proaches, no  grade  crossings;  they  do 
not  go  through  a  single  town.  Only  the 
former  imperial  routes  and  the  ap- 
proaches to  large  communities  join 
them,  and  these  by  means  of  ramps 
which  lead  the  vehicle  on  to  the  auto 
highway  parallel  to  the  direction  of 
the  traffic  and  without  disturbing  it  in 
the  slightest.  The  men  employed  on 
the  construction  of  the  automobile 
highways  numbered  38,600  on  the 
first  of  July,  1934,  and  had  increased 
to  71,234  by  November  of  the  same 
year.  At  present  they  are  estimated  at 
1 50,000. 

By  the  spring  of  1936,  600  kilo- 
meters will  be  open  to  traffic  and  1,160 
will  be  finished  before  the  end  of  the 
year.  For  the  following  years  they  are 
planning  to  continue  the  work  at  the 
rate  of  1,000  to  1,500  kilometers  a 
year.  The  complete  program  (7,200 
kilometers)  will  thus  be  completed  in 
five  or  six  years.  Is  it  solely  to  give  the 
unemployed  work?  Is  it  for  peace  or 
for  war  that  our  neighbors,  who  are  in 
open  financial  difficulties  but  also,  let 
us  not  forget,  openly  engaged  in  re- 
building their  army,  are  throwing 
themselves  into  such  a  gigantic  under- 
taking.'' The  plan  for  laying  down 
German  automobile  highways  is  going 
to  force  us  to  answer.  What  can  we 
say  for  certain  ? 

I .  That,  first  of  all,  there  is  a  large 
concrete  highway  parallel  to  the 
Franco-Belgian  border,  comparable  to 
those  railroads  which  we  built  behind  the 
lines  in  1917.  This  great  concrete  high- 
way (Diisseldorf — Mainz — Frankfurt — 
Speyer — Stuttgart — Munich)      extends 


four  antennae  toward  the  frontier:  Co- 
logne— ^Aix-la-Chapelle;  Mainz — Saar- 
briicken;  Speyer — Saarbriicken;  Speyer 
—Basel. 

2.  That  another  concrete  highway 
of  the  same  sort  (Stettin — Berlin — 
Frankfurt-an-der-Oder — Breslau — 
Gleiwitz)  runs  to  the  Polish  frontier, 
with  an  antenna  to  Danzig  and  East 
Prussia. 

3.  That  internal  communications 
between  these  highways,  useful  at  the 
start  for  mobilization  purposes,  are  de- 
signed to  permit  the  transportation  of 
necessary  forces  between  the  eastern 
and  western  frontiers,  as  the  opera- 
tions demand,  as  well  as  communica- 
tions with  the  Baltic.  They  include 
two  great  lines:  i.  Berlin — Hanover, 
with  three  branches  from  the  Baltic 
toward  Liibeck,  Essen  and  Frankfurt- 
am-Main.  2.  Breslau — Leipzig,  with 
two  branches,  the  one  to  Frankfurt- 
am-Main,  and  the  other  to  Nuremberg 
and  Munich.  Finally  they  are  planning 
to  construct  around  Berlin  a  belt  of  the 
same  sort  1 80  kilometers  long,  to  keep 
traffic  out  of  the  capital. 

Think  of  the  power  of  such  a  trans- 
portation system!  On  these  routes  of 
the  future,  and  indeed  of  the  present, 
trucks,  each  carrying  thirty  men  and 
traveling  two  abreast  at  a  constant 
speed  of  sixty  kilometers  an  hour  and 
spaced  fifteen  meters  apart,  would 
make  it  possible  to  transport  72,000 
men  an  hour,  assuming  that  half  of  the 
trucks  are  used  for  material.  No  more 
slow  embarkations  nor  tedious  stops  in 
railway  stations;  not  even  'bottle 
necks '  are  to  be  feared.  For  each  high- 
way is  large  enough  to  permit  three 
vehicles  to  travel  on  it  side  by  side,  and 
to  pass  without  difficulty  any  vehicle 
which  has  broken  down.  The  mecha- 
nized weapons  of  the   army  can  be 


[io6] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


shifted  from  the  right  wing  to  the  left, 
from  one  theatre  of  operations  to  an- 
other with  a  speed  unheard  of  before. 
The  speed  of  maneuvers  can  be  in- 
creased tenfold  without  increasing  in 
proportion  the  difficulties  of  supply;  on 
the  contrary,  the  Hitler  Government 
estimates  that  the  use  of  the  highways, 
thanks  to  the  perfection  of  their  plan, 
to  the  quality  of  their  pavement,  and 
to  the  uniformity  of  the  speed  that  one 
can  make  on  them,  should  in  time  of 
war  permit  a  saving  of  30  per  cent  on 
gasoline,  of  40  per  cent  on  tires,  and  of 
25  per  cent  on  repairs. 


Ill 


Alongside  the  reorganization  of  its 
army  the  Hitler  Government  has  now 
been  pursuing  for  three  years  a  reno- 
vation of  its  transports,  founded  at 
once  on  the  construction  of  rolling 
stock  of  vast  capacity,  and  on  laying 
down,  at  great  cost,  a  system  of  com- 
munications. For  this  reason,  in  case  of 
hostilities  the  railroad  will  probably  be 
reserved  for  supply  purposes,  and  to 
provide  what  commercial  transporta- 
tion is  necessary  to  maintain  the  na- 
tion and  keep  the  factories  running. 
As  for  the  old  system  of  routes,  it  will 
be  confined  to  an  auxiliary  role,  for- 
warding toward  the  auto  highways 
vehicles  loaded  at  the  mustering  places 
and  then  distributing  them  when  they 
leave  the  highways,  according  to  the 
demands  of  the  military  operations. 

These  new  ideas  have  scarcely  pene- 
trated in  France,  and  they  are  only  in 
a  germinal  state  here  now.  In  our  coun- 
try, so  permeated  with  general  ideas, 
we  have  apparently  for  some  time  been 
hesitating  (for  fear,  perhaps,  of  the 
conclusions  to  be  drawn  from  it)  to 
duplicate  the  developments  across  the 


border.  In  any  case,  our  policy  has  not 
been  influenced;  it  has  actually  been 
strengthened  in  the  opposite  direction 
of  that  of  the  lessons  from  beyond 
the  Rhine. 

In  our  budget  for  1936,  the  credits 
granted  for  highways  have  been  re- 
duced to  233  million  francs,  while 
those  for  railroads  have  been  increased 
to  1 45  million  francs.  Last  year  the 
Minister  of  War  placed  a  part  of  his 
appropriation  at  the  disposal  of  the 
Office  of  Public  Works  for  the  purpose 
of  improving  the  suburbs  of  Paris!  All 
our  activity  is  directed  toward  im- 
proving our  old  system  of  highways. 
They  are,  to  be  sure,  planning  to  con- 
struct sooner  or  later  a  large  commer- 
cial highway  from  Paris  to  Lyon  and  a 
road  from  Calais  to  Basel  of  the  same 
sort,  of  which  a  few  kilometers  should 
be  finished  this  year.  No  plan  for  au- 
tomobile highways  has  been  set  up  or 
even  envisaged. 

Furthermore  the  auto  highway  is  of 
no  interest  except  as  it  makes  possible 
the  use  of  adequate  vehicles.  A  larger 
highway  and  heavier  vehicles — such 
is  the  German  scheme.  Ours  consists, 
on  the  other  hand,  of  adapting  the  size 
of  our  trucks  to  the  present  capacity  of 
our  roads.  A  recent  decree  law  has  just 
reduced  their  width  from  two  and 
one-half  to  two  and  one-third  meters, 
while  Germany  was  taking  the  very 
opposite  measures.  At  the  same  time 
we  limited  our  trucks  to  fifteen  tons, 
so  that  their  useful  load  could  not  pass 
eight  tons.  This  was  a  very  injudicious 
measure,  even  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  coordination  of  rail  and  road 
which  is  recommended,  since  this  load 
is  less  than  that  of  our  freight  cars. 
Finally,  to  cover  the  railroad  deficit 
we  have  imposed  a  surtax  on  those 
who  use  the  roads,  whether  for  com- 


193^ 


THE  LAND  BEYOND  THE  RHINE 


'107] 


mercial  or  for  private  purposes.  The 
result  of  this  policy  may  be  seen  in  the 
following  figures. 

Our  production  of  trucks,  of  which 
our  national  defense  is  in  such  great 
need,  continued  to  decline,  going  in 
the  last  five  years  from  52,000  to 
18,000  vehicles,  while  in  all  the  other 
countries  it  has  been  increasing.  We 
find  ourselves,  then,  faced  with  two 
opposing  theories :  a  wholly  new  one — 
our  neighbors' — and  a  classical  and 
conservative  one — our  own,  founded 
on  the  idea  of  cooperation  between 
railroad  and  highway  systems  im- 
proved according  to  the  interests  of 
peace  times. 

But  how  can  we  reconcile  this  last 
with  the  new  organization  of  the 
army?  Have  we  given  thought  to 
the  time  which  will  be  consumed  in 
loading  and  unloading  the  new  motor- 
ized engines  of  war  ?  Have  we  visual- 
ized on  our  roads  a  modern  division 
passing  the  most  modest  of  convoys  ? 
Can  we  envisage  without  shuddering 
the  passing  of  two  columns  of  auto- 
mobile trucks,  even  small  ones?  How 
will  it  be  possible  to  move  certain 
kinds  of  artillery  whose  weight  some- 
times exceeds  26,000  tons  and  whose 
turning  requires  14  meters?  What 
blocking  of  traffic  would  the  least  nar- 
rowing of  the  route  cause  us,  as,  for 
instance,  when  passing  through  a 
village,  a  city,  or  a  grade  crossing? 
We  know,  alas,  how  numerous  these 
last  still  are  in  our  Eastern  region, 
despite  the  public  works  programs 
undertaken  to  do  away  with  them. 


IV 


A  change  of  method  is  necessary, 
then.  One  always  has  the  right  to  won- 
der just  how  it  can  be  reconciled  with 


keeping  the  budget  in  balance.  This  is 
a  point  with  which  the  Hitler  Govern- 
ment scarcely  concerns  itself,  but 
which  with  us  still  preserves,  and 
rightly,  all  its  value.  Now  whatever 
may  be  the  future  intentions  of  Ger- 
many, one  has  every  reason  to  fear 
that  she  will  employ  her  system  of 
roads  at  a  given  moment  for  offensive 
purposes.  Are  we  going  to  abet  this 
policy  by  linking  ours  to  it  on  the  pre- 
text of  assisting  commercial  relations 
between  the  two  countries?  Evidently 
not.  Since  we  are  determined  to  await 
the  enemy  behind  our  fortifications, 
our  auto  highways  ought  not  to  pass 
that  zone;  and  there  is  the  first  econ- 
omy we  can  make.  We  can  also  content 
ourselves  with  organizing  the  north 
and  northeast  fronts,  neglecting  that 
of  the  Alps,  which  does  not,  at  the 
moment,  present  more  than  a  second- 
ary interest.  But  it  is  necessary  for  our 
armies  to  be  capable  of  moving  rapidly 
in  all  directions  between  Calais  and 
Basel.  A  great  highway  behind  the 
fortified  zone,  doubled  with  an  auxili- 
ary highway  on  the  front  between  Le 
Havre,  Paris  and  Dijon,  with  three 
or  four  antennae  connecting  them, 
would  be  sufficient.  Besides,  they  could 
be  easily  adapted  to  commercial  pur- 
poses in  time  of  peace. 

The  total  expense  to  envisage  would 
be  of  the  order  of  five  or  six  billions. 
This  is  obviously  a  considerable  sum. 
It  would,  however,  increase  gradually, 
and  would  be  in  part  recovered  via 
the  unemployment  funds.  For  no  kind 
of  work  requires  so  much  hand  labor. 
About  75,000  unemployed  men  would 
find  work  on  it.  Finally  one  can  hope 
that  the  establishing  of  an  intimate 
contact  between  the  workers  on  the 
road  and  the  public  officials  analogous 
to  that  which  the  General  StaflF  created 


[io8] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


with  the  directors  of  the  railway 
companies,  and  which  had  such  fruit- 
ful results,  would  make  it  possible  to 
find  a  solution  for  this  distressing 
problem,  a  solution  which  does  not, 
at  first  sight,  emerge. 
But  such  a  question  exceeds  the 


limits  of  this  study,  which  has  no  other 
purpose  than  to  throw  light  on  the  new 
set-up  beyond  the  Rhine.  To  measure 
its  dangers,  to  face  it — that  is  the  role 
of  the  public  officials.  In  the  final 
analysis  the  question  rests  with  the 
Supreme  Council  of  National  Defense. 


II.  Hitler's  Secret  Police 
By  A  Special  Correspondent 

From  the  Manchester  GuarJian,  Manchester  Liberal  Daily 


Tk 


.HERE  is  a  widespread  belief  that 
the  terror  in  Germany  is  no  more  than 
incidental  to  the  National  Socialist 
dictatorship.  This  belief  is  entirely  er- 
roneous, for  the  terror  is  an  integral 
part  of  the  system.  The  terror  is  com- 
ing to  be  exercised  more  and  more  ex- 
clusively by  the  Secret  State  Pohce, 
commonly  known  as  the  'Gestapo' 
(an  abbreviation  of  Geheime  Staats- 
polizei)  or  the  *  Gestapa '  (an  abbrevia- 
tion of  Geheimes  Staatspolizeiamt) . 

According  to  a  law  newly  enacted, 
the  head  of  the  Gestapo  is  the  Prussian 
Premier,  General  Goring,  who  is  also 
Speaker  in  the  Reichstag  and  Minister 
of  Aviation.  The  General  decides  upon 
the  special  tasks  of  the  Gestapo  in 
consultation  with  the  Minister  of  the 
Interior,  Dr.  Frick.  The  actual  Chief 
of  Police  is  Himmler,  a  former  school- 
master, a  man  of  great  charm,  an  able 
organizer,  and  completely  ruthless. 
Even  a  year  ago  the  methods  of  the 
Gestapo  were  amateurish.  But  during 
the  past  year  the  organization  has  be- 
come more  proficient.  It  is  now  one  of 
the  most  efficient  instruments  of 
tyrannical  power  in  the  world. 

It  is  directed  by  a  Central  Board 
{Zentrahtelle)  in  Berlin.  This  board  is 
made  up  of  Himmler 's  own  office  and 


of  the  following  principal  departments 

{Hauptabteilungen) : — 

I.  Principal  department  for  the 
supervision  of  transport  and  com- 
munications on  land  and  water.  This 
includes  spying  on  employees  and 
workmen  on  the  railways,  tramways, 
and  so  on. 

1.  Principal  department  for  the 
supervision  of  the  illegal  activities  of 
Communists  and  Social  Democrats. 

3.  Principal  department  for  the 
supervision  and  control  of  all  persons' 
and  organizations  that  do  not  belong 
to  the  National  Socialist  party,  espe- 
cially of  persons  who  belong  to  the 
former  Center,  Nationalist,  People's, 
and  Democratic  parties. 

4.  Principal  department  for  the 
supervision  of  the  National  Socialist 
party,  of  all  affiliated  organizations, 
and  of  all  clubs  and  associations  that 
have  had  to  accept  the  Gleicbscbalt- 
ung  (absorption  by  National  Socialist 
bodies).  This  department  also  sees  to 
the  protection  of  leading  persons  in 
the  State  and  in  the  National  Social- 
ist party. 

5.  Principal  department  for  de- 
fense against  economic,  industrial 
and  military  espionage. 

These  departments  have  their  '  Fed- 
eral Boards '  {Landesstellen)  in  each  of 
the  Federal  States. 


193^ 


THE  LAND  BEYOND  THE  RHINE 


[109] 


The  following  sub-departments 
{Unterabteilungen)  are  independent  of 
the  Federal  Boards,  and  are  affiliated 
to  the  Central  Board: — 

1.  Sub-department  for  the  super- 
vision of  emigres. 

2.  Sub-department  for  the  super- 
vision of  aliens  and  '  Staatenlose.^ 

3.  Sub-department  for  the  control 
of  letters,  telegrams,  telephone  calls 
that  pass  between  Germany  and  the 
outside  world.  (Letters  and  telegrams 
are  liable  to  be  opened  and  telephone 
calls  to  be  overheard  in  Germany 
without  an  order  from  a  judge  or  a 
magistrate.) 

4.  Sub-department  for  the  super- 
vision of  political  suspects. 

5.  Sub-department  for  the  super- 
vision of  political  opponents  in  the 
Federal  police. 

This  last  department  exists  because 
the  dictatorship  is  not  sure  of  the  ordi- 
nary police,  who,  in  the  days  of  the 
Republic,  contained  numbers  of  Social 
Democrats  as  well  as  members  of  the 
Center  and  Nationalist  parties.  The 
special  task  of  the  department  is  to  be 
informed  by  means  of  spies  and  agents- 
provocateurs  about  any  disaffection 
that  may  exist  among  the  police  forces 
of  the  Federal  States. 


II 


Affurther  special  department  is  the 
Beobachtungsabteilung  (observation  de- 
partment), which,  attached  to  the 
Central  Board,  is  subdivided  into  the 
following  departments: — 

1.  General  department  for  public 
security. 

2.  Department  for  the  supervision 
of  the  S.A.  (Brownshirts). 

3.  Department  for  the  supervision 
of  the  big  factories  and  industrial 
centers. 


The  general  department  (No.  i)  has 
a  special  importance.  It  exercises  a 
close  vigilance  over  the  entire  popula- 
tion of  Germany  through  the  millions 
of  members  of  the  National  Socialist 
party.  It  is  the  duty  of  every  member 
to  report  any  signs  of  disaffection  to 
his  superiors.  This  duty  is  often 
ignored,  but  National  Socialists  who 
take  it  seriously  are  numerous  enough 
to  form  a  close  network  of  spies  all 
over  Germany. 

The  most  important  of  these  spies 
are  the  Blockwarte,  the  counterpart  of 
the  'house  commandants'  in  Russia. 
Each  one  is  held  responsible  for  what- 
ever happens  in  the  block  of  flats  or  in 
the  row  of  houses  entrusted  to  his 
supervision.  He  is  expected  to  know 
the  political  opinions  of  every  inmate. 
The  general  department  also  includes 
the  'Intelligence'  {Nachrichtenabteil- 
ung)  of  the  S.S.  (Blackshirts),  which 
exercise  a  special  supervision  over  the 
National  Socialist  party. 

In  touch  with  the  Gestapo  is  the 
Air  Defense  League  {Reichslujtschutz- 
bund),  to  which  everybody  in  urban 
Germany  has  to  belong.  It  exists  not 
only  for  defense  against  air-raids  but 
also  for  controlling  the  opinions  and 
activities  of  the  population.  The 
Lujtschutzblockwarte  supplement  the 
work  of  the  ordinary  Blockwarte,  and 
the  musters,  drills,  cellar  and  house  in- 
spections, and  so  on,  that  are  ostensi- 
bly carried  out  for  the  sake  of  disci- 
pline and  safety  in  case  of  air-raids 
provide  unlimited  opportunities  for 
spying  and  eavesdropping. 

The  department  for  the  supervision 
of  the  S.A.  (No.  2)  is  intended  to  de- 
tect the  disaffection  that  has  existed  in 
the  S.A.  ever  since  the  disillusionment 
of  the  first  year  of  the  dictatorship, 
and  more  especially  since  June  30, 


:iio] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


1934,  when  so  many  of  the  S.A.  lead- 
ers were  executed. 

The  department  for  the  supervision 
of  factories  (No.  3)  has  a  very  large 
staff  of  officials  and  agents.  These 
agents,  often  workmen  themselves, 
mix  with  employees  and  workmen. 
Many  of  them  are  members  of  the 
Shop  Councils  {Vertrauensrdte) ,  and 
often  talk  in  hostile  terms  of  the  dic- 
tatorship, thus  acting  as  decoys.  Many 
of  them  have  begun  *  illegal '  or '  under- 
ground' movements,  pretending  to  be 
Communists  or  Socialists,  and  they 
circulate  illegal  literature,  so  as  to 
detect  all  who  are  willing  to  join  such 
movements. 

This  department  is  also  concerned 
with  the  prevention  of  sabotage  as  well 
as  with  industrial  counter-espionage. 

A  special  force  attached  to  the 
Gestapo  is  the  Feldjdgerei,  a  kind  of 
gendarmery,  which  was  organized  by 
General  Goring.  Its  members  are 
chiefly  of  the  gangster  type.  It  is  used 
for  raids,  for  wholesale  arrests,  and  for 
actions  that  may  have  a  dangerous 
character. 

There  are  several  so-called  Special 
Commandos  {Kommandos  zur  beson- 
deren  Verwendung).  Some  of  them  con- 
sist of  only  a  few  men.  They  take  part 
in  all  kinds  of  political  actions  and 
exist  inside  various  other  organiza- 
tions, including  Government  depart- 
ments. Some  of  these  Commandos 
exist  even  outside  Germany.  One  of 
them  was  drafted  to  Wuppertal,  where 
it  conducted  part  of  the  inquiry  in 
preparation  for  the  Wuppertal  trial 
which  was  described  in  the  Manchester 
Guardian  on  February  5. 

The  Gestapo  keeps  a  large  number 


of  women  who  act  as  spies  and  propa- 
gandists. They  are  to  be  found  in 
cafes  and  night  clubs  as  well  as  at 
balls  and  banquets  attended  by  for- 
eign diplomats. 

A  vast  amount  of  political  informa- 
tion collected  by  the  Gestapo  accumu- 
lates in  Hitler's  private  office  {Privat- 
kanzlei),  which  is  directed  by  an  old 
associate  of  his  named  Bouhler. 

Affiliated  with  the  Zentralstelle  of 
the  Gestapo,  but  not  under  its  control, 
is  the  bureau  of  the  Chief  Party  Mag- 
istrate {Oberster  Parteirichter),  which 
is  directed  by  Major  Buch.  This 
bureau  can  strike  at  the  most  influen- 
tial persons.  Major  Buch  took  a  lead- 
ing part  in  the  executions  of  June  30, 
1934.  The  bureau  of  the  leader  of  the 
National  Socialist  party,  Hess,  also 
has  a  special  department  called  a 
Liaison  Staff  {Verbindungsstab)  for  the 
special  control  of  the  party  bureau- 
cracy and  of  the  delegations  which  the 
party  sends  to  foreign  countries  from 
time  to  time. 

The  Gestapo  also  has  agents  in 
London,  Paris,  Prague,  Vienna  and 
other  capitals.  These  agents  are  largely 
resident  members  of  the  National 
Socialist  party  (every  member  of  that 
party  is  a  potential  spy)  and  nonde- 
script persons,  many  of  them  women. 

A  good  deal  of  spying  done  by  Ger- 
man agents  outside  Germany  is  ama- 
teurish, but  some  of  it  has  become 
very  efficient.  The  Gestapo  keeps  a 
dossier  of  every  notable  person  in  Lon- 
don and  elsewhere  who  is  regarded  as 
hostile  to  the  National  Socialist  dicta- 
torship. The  information  in  the  dossier 
is  as  a  rule  surprisingly  accurate,  de- 
tailed, and  up-to-date. 


.1      Ui-JSH^' 


Carnages 
and  Kings 


Here   are   psychologists*    explanations 
of  wars  and  constitutional  monarchies. 


I.  Paranoia  and  War 
By  Roger  Money-Kyrle 

From  Life  and  Letters  Today,  English  Literary  Quarterly 


T« 


.HERE  is  a  certain  biological  in- 
compatability  between  aggressiveness 
and  gregariousness;  for  aggressive  ani- 
mals are  seldom  able  to  cooperate  in 
groups.  Yet  evolution  favors  both 
characters  and  has  succeeded  in  com- 
bining them  in  man.  Among  the  ex- 
tinct races  of  the  world,  some  may 
have  been  less  aggressive  and  others 
less  gregarious  (e.g.,  perhaps  Homo 
Neanderthalensis)  than  ourselves.  If 
so,  they  were  stamped  out  by  our  own 
ancestors'  unique  capacity  to  co- 
operate for  war. 

But  the  military  virtues,  which 
possessed  such  great  survival- value  in 
the  earlier  history  of  our  species,  seem 
largely  to  have  lost  their  function  and 
to  have  become  a  menace  rather  than 
an  instrument  of  progress.  An  ex- 
cessive increase  in  population  can  be 
checked  by  other  means  than  war, 
and  biological  improvement  can  be 
secured  more  efficiently  by  eugenic 
propagation  than  by  the  group-battles 
of  the  past.  Moreover  not  only  have 
our   lethal   weapons   become   incom- 


parably more  destructive  but  our  cul- 
ture has  become  more  complex  and 
therefore  vulnerable.  Thus,  if  we  con- 
tinue to  exercise  our  capacity  for 
group-aggressiveness,  our  civilization 
may  very  easily  collapse. 

If,  as  the  utilitarians  maintained, 
man  were  really  a  rational  egoist 
intelligently  pursuing  his  self-interest, 
an  era  of  peace  and  prosperity  would 
almost  certainly  emerge.  For  he  would 
recognize  that  neither  wars  nor  revo- 
lutions paid  (only  a  very  small  section 
of  the  population  rationally  expect  to 
benefit  by  them),  and  substitute  a 
spirit  of  compromise  for  the  unyielding 
group-enmities  that  have  become  dis- 
astrous for  those  who  win  as  well  as 
for  those  who  lose.  This  spirit — 
whether  due  to  enlightened  self-inter- 
est, or  humanitarian  sentiment,  or  a 
mixture  of  the  two — is,  in  fact,  the 
ideal  of  the  Liberal  movement  in  the 
widest  sense  of  the  word.  It  has  sought 
to  avoid  civil  or  international  up- 
heavals by  concessions  between  classes 
or  nations.  It  has  raised  the  standard 


:ii2] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


of  living  of  the  masses,  done  some- 
thing to  establish  ethnological  bound- 
aries between  nations,  and  inspired 
the  ideal  of  self-determination.  But 
although  Liberalism  was  fashionable 
for  a  while,  becoming  almost  every- 
where at  least  the  official  creed,  it  was 
never  whole-heartedly  accepted  by 
the  world  at  large.  Now  its  existence 
is  precarious  even  in  this  country, 
and  in  many  places  it  is  already  dead. 
Not  only  have  parties  to  impending 
conflicts  failed  to  make  concessions  to 
prevent  them;  the  concessions  that 
have  been  made  have  not  decreased 
the  danger  as  much  as  might  have 
been  expected.  Thus  sickened  by  the 
negative  results  of  what  seems  to  them 
a  futile  and  dangerous  sentimentality, 
political  parties  are  everywhere  com- 
peting for  dictatorship  and  nations 
for  a  preponderance  in  arms.  Wars 
and  revolutions  remain  a  standing 
menace  and  periodically  recur,  in 
spite  of  abundant  proof  that  neither 
of  them  pays.  The  utilitarians,  there- 
fore, were  wrong.  Man,  collectively 
considered,  is  not  a  rational  egoist 
intelligently  pursuing  his  self-interest; 
he  is  much  more  like  the  homicidal 
maniac  who  uses  his  intelligence  to 
justify  (or  rationalize)  a  periodic  lust 
for  blood. 

This  conclusion,  to  which  the  im- 
partial sociologist  must  come,  is  con- 
firmed by  psychoanalytical  research. 
The  modern  pathologist  has  discov- 
ered elements  in  our  species  that  pre- 
clude him  from  describing  us  as 
rational  or  indeed  as  wholly  sane.  The 
isolated  individual  may  seem  reason- 
able enough,  but  his  latent  madness  is 
periodically  manifest  in  his  behavior 
as  a  member  of  a  group;  for  the  human 
group  is  liable  to  the  eruption  of  char- 
acters exactly  paralleled  by  the  symp- 


toms of  the  paranoiac.  The  typical 
paranoiac  suffers  from  delusions  of 
persecution  and  may  become  homi- 
cidal if  he  is  not  restrained.  He  imag- 
ines he  has  been  injured  or  threatened 
where  no  injuries  or  threats  exist;  he 
imagines  false  causes  for  the  injuries 
he  has  actually  sustained,  imputing  to 
the  deliberate  malevolence  of  others 
what  is  due  to  accident  or  to  his  own 
neglect.  He  therefore  feels  quite  jus- 
tified in  hating  his  supposed  ene- 
mies in  return,  in  conspiring  against 
them  and  in  taking  the  offensive 
measures  he  believes  necessary  to  his 
self-defense.  He  behaves,  in  fact,  ex- 
actly like  an  aggressive  and  uncom- 
promising nation,  ever  jealous  of  its 
prestige  and  ready  to  declare  war  on 
the  slightest  provocation,  or  a  political 
party,  over-sensitive  to  the  real  or 
imagined  grievances  of  its  members 
and  always  dreaming  of  a  revolution 
to  secure  its  ends. 

The  basic  mechanism  of  paranoia 
is  'projection:*  the  malevolence,  which 
the  sufferer  sees  in  others,  is  really  in 
himself,  but  he  disowns  it  and  imputes 
it  to  someone  else  instead.  In  the  same 
way,  even  the  best  of  us  sometimes 
impute  to  others  the  emotions  we 
repress.  The  old  view  that  we  are  all 
born  normal  (with,  at  most,  the  germs 
of  future  troubles)  and  that  some  of 
us  become  insane  has  been  reversed. 
To  the  modern  psychologist,  we  are 
all  born  mad  and  some  of  us  grow 
sane.  Thus  *  protoparanoia,'  like  the 
original  forms  of  other  insanities,  is 
normal  in  the  child.  In  the  early 
period,  he  can  tolerate  no  disappoint- 
ment; frustration  tends  to  make  him 
as  savage  as  a  hungry  wolf.  But  his 
hate  is  incompatible  with  his  need  for 
love,  so  that  he  disowns  and  'projects* 
it,  and  develops  a  phobia  of  some  ani- 


193^ 


CARNAGES  AND  KINGS 


113I 


mal  instead.  Few,  if  any  children, 
entirely  escape  phobias  of  this  kind. 
At  some  period  or  other  in  their  lives, 
which  may  be  long  or  short,  they  are 
terrified  of  being  left  alone;  they  feel, 
however  much  their  reason  may  re- 
assure them,  the  presence  of  the  tiger 
under  the  bed.  The  existence  of  a 
paranoiac  phobia  of  some  sort  is 
guaranteed  by  their  necessity  to  pro- 
ject their  own  aggressiveness. 

In  the  process  of  outgrowing  his 
phobia  the  child  tends  to  identify  him- 
self with  the  animal  he  is  afraid  of.  He 
tries  to  master  his  anxiety  by  develop- 
ing a  fresh  aggressiveness  to  deal  with 
the  aggressiveness  he  has  projected.  I 
remember  a  child  of  two  who  refused 
absolutely  to  go  near  a  certain  tree- 
stump  on  the  ground  that  it  was,  or  at 
least  contained,  a  Hon.  But  in  a  few 
days  he  began  to  pretend  that  he  was 
himself  a  lion  and,  after  a  little  prac- 
tice in  this  new  role,  acquired  suffi- 
cient courage  to  growl  at  the  lion  in 
the  tree  stump  and  finally  to  attack  it 
outright.  The  adult  paranoiac  never 
outgrows,  or  regresses  to,  this  mental 
level.  He  first  disowns  and  projects  the 
lion  (i.e.,  the  homicidal  tendencies) 
within  himself  and  then  feels  justified 
in  reabsorbing  it  in  order  to  deal  with 
an  imagined  danger  in  the  external 
world. 

II 

The  savage  preserves  the  insanities 
of  childhood  in  simple  and  easily 
recognizable  forms.  He  is  perpetually 
haunted  by  devils  in  animal  or  human 
shape  and  he  pretends  to  be  a  devil  in 
order  to  chase  them  from  his  camp. 
The  mechanism  is  the  same,  and  the 
psychological  anthropologist  has  no 
difficulty  in  recognizing  in  the  devils 
the  personification  of  the  savage's  own 


repressed  desires;  they  are  lecherous 
and  cannibalistic  and  form  a  reposi- 
tory for  all  that  might  otherwise  dis- 
rupt the  group.  Moreover,  the  savage 
is  often  suspicious  and  hostile  towards 
strangers,  whom  he  tends  to  identify 
with  devils,  and  this  attitude,  rather 
than  economic  necessity,  would  ap- 
pear to  be  responsible  for  his  tribal 
feuds. 

The  paranoiac  relics  in  the  civilized 
individual  are  less  easy  to  detect;  but 
the  difference  between  us  and  the 
savage  is  not  so  flattering  as  we  sup- 
pose. Our  thought  appears  more  ra- 
tional, but  this  is  sometimes  only  be- 
cause we  have  taken  more  trouble  to 
cover  up  our  tracks;  we  rationalize 
our  actions,  inventing  motives  we 
approve  whenever  they  are  really 
determined  by  motives  we  disown. 
We  have  discarded  the  theory  that 
justice  should  be  retributive.  But 
most  of  us  secretly  rejoice  in  the  pun- 
ishment of  criminals — especially  those 
who  commit  robbery  with  violence,  or 
who  are  cruel  to  children  or  dogs — 
and  would  be  rather  disappointed  if 
they  were  painlessly  reformed  in- 
stead; for  the  criminal  is  a  convenient 
object  on  to  whom  to  project  our  own 
sadism,  which  we  then  feel  justified  in 
readopting  as  our  attitude  towards 
him.  We  have  ceased  to  believe  in  and 
to  hate  the  devil  or  to  burn  his  sup- 
posed allies,  but  most  of  us  have  our 
pet  aversion  and  are  at  least  less  tol- 
erant and  sympathetic  towards  others 
than  we  should  be  if  we  never  pro- 
jected upon  them  the  defects  that  in 
ourselves  we  most  dislike. 

The  civilized  individual,  so  long  as 
he  remains  an  individual,  would  never- 
theless pass  muster  as  kindly  and 
comparatively  sane.  But  he  carries 
within  him  all  the  brutaUty  of  the 


jh] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


jungle,  which  he  must  continually 
repress.  Many  people — among  them 
often  those  whose  external  behavior 
is  most  mild — are  dimly  conscious  of 
the  struggle,  of  the  unrelaxed  effort  to 
keep  themselves  in  hand.  To  these  a 
threat  of  war  may  come  as  a  positive 
relief.  At  least  they  have  an  outlet  for 
their  unconscious  hate.  They  project 
upon  the  enemy  their  repressed  ag- 
gression and  in  a  typically  paranoiac 
manner  attribute  to  him  every  evil 
that  is  normally  latent  in  themselves. 
Then  they  can  feel  justified  in  admit- 
ting their  own  aggressiveness  as  neces- 
sary to  self-defense.  Soon  others  con- 
tract the  same  disease,  for  of  all 
emotions  suspicion  and  hatred  are 
perhaps  the  most  contagious;  there  is 
little  check  upon  the  delusion  when  it 
is  widely  held.  Thus  a  war- fever  may 
spread  like  wildiire  through  a  whole 
nation  and  deprive  it  of  all  capacity 
to  judge  the  issues  on  their  merits. 

During  the  early  stages  of  a  war, 
the  whole  people  seem  possessed  by 
an  extraordinary  elation.  It  is  not  only 
that  they  have  an  outlet  for  their 
archaic  aggressiveness;  there  is  also  a 
freer  outlet  for  their  love.  Within  the 
group,  all  discord  seems  to  disappear; 
it  has  been  diverted  to  the  enemy  and 
has  made  room  for  a  spirit  of  com- 
radeship and  mutual  loyalty  which  is 
sometimes  almost  ecstatic.  War  brings 
out  what  civilized  people  regard  as 
good  as  well  as  what  is  bad.  But  the 
individual's  sense  of  loyalty  to  the 
group  usurps  the  functions  of  his  con- 
science and  justifies  acts  that  he  would 
condemn  as  criminal  if  he  were  alone. 

Thus  man  is  an  aggressive  animal 
with  a  slightly  paranoiac  strain;  and 
since  even  his  loyalties  are  partly 
founded  upon  a  common  hate,  human 
society  tends  to  spUt  into  mutually 


antagonistic  groups.  The  antagonism 
starts  on  pure  suspicion  or,  if  there  is 
a  real  cause,  its  importance  is  enor- 
mously exaggerated.  But  suspicion 
soon  breeds  offensive  actions  to  wipe 
off  imaginary  insults,  or  because  of  a 
supposed  necessity  for  self-defense. 
What  was  originally  a  delusional 
cause  of  conflict  tends  to  become  real. 

We  are  all  familiar  with  those  verti- 
cal and  horizontal  cleavages  in  society 
that  give  rise  to  antagonisms  between 
nations  or  classes  and  end  in  war  or 
revolution.  But  even  where  the  group 
enmities  have  a  less  tragic  outcome 
they  can  be  extremely  inimical  to 
progress.  So  long  as  the  attitude  of 
paranoiac  suspicion,  with  which  na- 
tions or  classes  regard  each  other, 
continues  to  cloud  debate,  no  question 
can  be  considered  solely  on  its  merits. 
With  the  technical  knowledge  now  at 
our  disposal  we  ought  to  attain  a 
standard  of  prosperity  far  in  excess  of 
the  dreams  of  earlier  utopists;  but  the 
gap  between  the  potential  and  the 
actual  remains  immense.  The  eco- 
nomic problem  of  distribution  may  be 
difficult.  It  may  not  be  easy  to  devise 
a  currency  system  by  which  incomes 
will  be  always  sufficient  to  purchase 
everything  that  can  and  should  be 
made,  nor  to  adjust  markets  between 
nations  to  their  mutual  benefit.  But 
if  such  questions  could  be  freed  from 
national  or  party  bias  faf  more  prog- 
ress would  certainly  be  made. 

Moreover,  we  owe  to  the  paranoiac 
strain  in  our  nature  a  certain  emo- 
tional stupidity  which  makes  us  over- 
look the  natural  and  often  avoidable 
cause  of  our  misfortunes.  To  the 
primitive  man,  the  lightning  is  the 
thunderbolt  of  Jove  and  the  earth- 
quake the  uneasy  stirrings  of  some 
Titan;  no  calamity  occurs  but  by  the 


1936 


CARNAGES  AND  KINGS 


:ii5] 


I 


act  of  some  will,  either  human  or 
Satanic.  Since,  therefore,  he  attributes 
the  drought  to  the  anger  of  the  rain 
spirit,  instead  of  damming  up  his 
rivers  he  sacrifices  a  taboo  breaker  or 
an  incarnation  of  his  god.  His  so- 
called  cultured  descendant  may  know- 
that  the  winds,  the  sea,  and  the  earth 
behave  in  accordance  with  the  equa- 
tions of  physics;  but  he  still  nearly 
always  attributes  his  social  misfor- 
tunes to  the  malevolence  of  others.  In 
this  he  is,  of  course,  often  to  some 
extent  correct.  But  the  paranoiac 
strain  within  him  biases  his  judg- 
ment. He  therefore  tends  to  neglect 
such  material  factors  as  the  currency 
system  and  concentrates  his  spleen  on 
a  human  enemy,  who  in  all  prob- 
ability is  suffering,  with  the  same 
stupidity,  from  the  same  trouble  as 
himself. 

Ill 

To  be  fair  to  man  we  must  admit 
that  his  vices  are  to  some  extent  a 
by-product  of  his  virtues.  If  the  child 
had  no  need  of  love  he  would  not  dis- 
own his  hate  towards  his  family, 
which  thwarts  as  well  as  cares  for  him, 
and  project  it  upon  fictitious  lions  and 
wolves.  If  the  savage  had  no  need  for 
companionship  with  the  larger  family 
of  his  tribe,  he  would  murder  his  fel- 
lows upon  the  least  provocation  in- 
stead of  projecting  his  aggressiveness 
upon  devils  and  strangers.  And  if  all 
adult  Europeans  were  wholly  mis- 
anthropic, they  would  never  cooperate 
for  war. 

Man's  paranoiac  disposition  may 
evjen  be  explained  on  Darwinian  lines. 
In  order  to  survive  the  struggle  for 
existence,  it  was  necessary  for  him  to 
be  both  gregarious  and  aggressive. 
Without  his  paranoiac  capacity  for 


projection,  these  incompatible  char- 
acteristics could  hardly  have  been 
combined  so  well.  Thus  what  to  a 
logician  must  be  judged  as  a  rational 
defect  was  in  no  small  measure  re- 
sponsible for  the  preeminence  of  man 
among  the  animals  and  perhaps  also 
for  that  of  the  white  races  among  men. 
But  evolution  failed  to  bless  the 
human  group  with  a  superb  capacity 
to  fight  without  at  the  same  time 
cursing  it  with  an  inner  necessity  to 
do  so  even  when  there  is  nothing  to  be 
gained.  Other  species  have  owed  their 
rise  to  characters  that,  under  changed 
conditions,  have  brought  about  their 
fall.  Natural  selection  operates  with 
conditions  as  they  are;  it  has  no  pre- 
vision and  cannot  be  blamed  if  its 
past  favors  now  impede  our  further 
rise. 

Having  diagnosed,  if  only  super- 
ficially, some  of  the  psychological 
impediments  to  the  emergence  of  the 
Golden  Age,  it  is  natural  to  consider 
whether  there  are  any  therapeutic 
measures  to  recommend.  Is  the  bur- 
den of  our  repressed  aggressiveness 
too  great  for  us  permanently  to  bear, 
and  are  we  doomed  from  time  to  time 
to  lose  our  individuality  in  paranoiac 
groups  in  order  to  find  an  explosive 
outlet  for  our  hate  in  war?  Or  can  the 
aggressiveness  be  diverted  into  more 
useful  channels?  Can  it  be  prevented, 
or  cured? 

To  Freud,  if  I  interpret  him  cor- 
rectly, human  aggressiveness  is  in- 
evitable; if  its  external  manifestations 
are  repressed  it  only  turns  inwards 
and  gives  rise  to  the  suicidal  impulses 
of  depression.  But  the  external  mani- 
festations are  not  necessarily  homi- 
cidal. Savages  hate  devils  as  well  as 
strangers,  and  if  the  revival  of  a 
medieval  credulity  were  possible,  man- 


116] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


kind  might  yet  be  united  in  a  common 
detestation  of  the  Powers  of  Darkness. 
Even  in  our  present  irreligious  age, 
animistic  conceptions  still  influence 
our  feelings  and,  where  they  do  not 
impede  our  thoughts  as  well,  may 
form  the  basis  of  useful  sublimations; 
thus  scientists  and  engineers  find  in 
their  contest  with  nature  a  Prome- 
thean outlet  for  their  repressed  ag- 
gressiveness. Possibly,  as  Professor 
Flugel  has  suggested,  this  outlet  will 
become  more  general  with  the  growth 
of  education,  until  mankind  is  united 
in  a  common  eflf"ort  to  master  this 
diabolic  world,  which  seems  so  ruth- 
lessly indiflPerent  to  the  sorrows  it 
inflicts.  But  if  aggressiveness  is  in- 
destructible, it  is  likely  to  be  long 
before  humanity  finds  in  the  mere 
inanimate  a  sufficient  object  for  its 
hate. 

Some  of  Freud's  disciples  are  more 
optimistic.  To  them  aggression  is  not 
so  much  an  autonomous  impulse  as  a 
reaction  to  frustration,  so  that  it 
could  be,  at  least  theoretically,  re- 
duced. At  first  sight  this  view  is 
encouraging  to  those  who  believe  that 
strife  can  be  prevented  by  domestic 
or  international  concessions.  Never- 
theless the  results  of  a  merely  benevo- 
lent legislation  or  diplomacy  are 
disappointing.  Hardly  is  the  tension 
eased  at  one  point  than  it  reappears 
elsewhere.  At  best  the  danger  is  post- 
poned rather  than  abolished.  Simi- 
larly in  the  individual  paranoiac  if 
one  set  of  suspicions  is  allayed  by 
mere  reassurance,  another  set  soon 
develops  in  its  place. 

The  psychoanalytic  explanation  of 
the  partial  failure  of  liberal  conces- 
sions is  that  they  only  remove  the 
conscious  causes  of  group-aggressive- 
ness,   leaving    the   unconscious   ones 


untouched.  The  conscious  causes,  such 
as,  in  the  domestic  sphere,  inequalities 
of  wealth  and,  in  the  international 
sphere,  the  existence  of  alienated 
populations,  derive  a  great  part  of 
their  psychological  importance  from 
unconscious  associations  with  infantile 
frustrations  that  have  been  forgotten. 
So  long,  therefore,  as  the  aggressive- 
ness resulting  from  these  remains,  it 
will  augment  the  irritation  evoked  by 
any  conscious  cause  and  tend  to  find 
new  rationalized  outlets  whenever  the 
old  ones  are  removed.  Thus  groups 
are  apt  to  behave  like  cantankerous 
children  who  are  never  satisfied  with 
what  they  ask  for,  because  these 
things  are  only  symbols  of  the  objects 
of  an  unconscious  wish. 

If  the  aggressiveness  of  nations  is 
partly  determined  by  the  frustrations 
of  the  nursery,  it  would  seem  worth 
while  for  pacifists  to  devote  some  of 
their  eflforts  to  decreasing  educational 
restraints.  But  the  traumatic  frustra- 
tions of  infancy  cannot  be  avoided 
altogether.  The  fury  of  the  baby  in  his 
tantrums  is  alternately  projected  and 
introjected,  growing  stronger  at  each 
rotation  of  the  vicious  circle,  until  he 
has  peopled  his  world  with,  or  become 
possessed  of,  devils  which  may  plague 
him  all  his  life — even  though  they  are 
unconscious.  If  so,  he  will  be  free  from 
depression  only  when  he  can  project 
them  upon  an  external  enemy,  and 
he  will  therefore  be  likely  to  become 
an  active  member  of  some  paranoiac 
group.  The  probability  of  character- 
ological  accidents  of  this  kind  could 
probably  be  reduced  by  greater  tol- 
erance to  children,  but  only  to  a 
limited  extent. 

Though  early  traumatic  experiences 
cannot  be  prevented  altogether,  much 
could  be  done  to  remedy  their  more 


193^ 


CARNAGES  AND  KINGS 


117] 


serious  effects.  To  do  this  on  a  scale 
large  enough  to  guarantee  the  sanity 
of  nations  would  involve  providing 
some  sort  of  psychoanalytic  help  for 
all  children  who  were  in  need  of  it.  To 
suggest  that  psychoanalysts  should 
be  provided  for  every  child  who  was 
neurotic  may  seem  fantastic — for  per- 
haps all  children  at  least  pass  through 
a  neurotic  phase;  but  in  the  middle 
ages  it  would  have  seemed  fantastic 
to  suggest  that  teachers  should  be 
provided  for  every  child  who  could 
not  read.  At  present  psychoanalysts 
are  rare;  but  their  science  is  barely 
forty  years  old.  In  another  half- 
century  educational  committees  may 
have  begun  to  appoint  them  to  deal 
with    the    mental    hygiene    of   their 


schools.  At  first  only  those  children 
who  display  some  obvious  intellectual 
inhibition  or  emotional  defect  will  be 
treated.  But  once  the  scope  has  ex- 
tended so  far,  it  will  almost  certainly 
grow  wider  until  every  child  is  helped 
to  understand  and  to  outgrow  those 
early  fears  on  which  the  irrational 
hatreds  of  the  world  are  ultimately 
based.  Before  this  happens,  our  civi- 
lization may  perish,  destroyed  by  the 
warring  groups,  and  what  enlighten- 
ment the  present  age  has  won  may  be 
stamped  out  by  the  superstitions  that 
thrive  in  a  barbaric  culture.  But  if  it 
manages  somehow  to  survive  a  few 
more  centuries,  it  may  have  learnt  to 
protect  itself,  for  all  time,  against  the 
danger  of  collapse. 


II.  The  Psychology  of  Constitutional  Monarchy 
By  Ernest  Jones 

From  the  New  Statesman  and  Nation,  London  Independent  Weekly  of  the  Left 


w« 


HAT  renders  the  problem  of 
government  so  very  difficult  is  man's 
constantly  double  attitude  towards  it, 
the  fact  that  his  attitude  is  always  a 
mixture  of  two  contradictory  sets  of 
wishes.  On  the  one  hand,  he  has  very 
deep  motives  for  wishing  to  be  ruled. 
Feeling  unequal  to  the  task  of  con- 
trolling either  his  own  or  his  neighbor's 
impulses,  and  longing  to  shift  the 
responsibility  for  so  doing,  he  demands 
some  authority  who  shall  shoulder 
the  main  part  of  this  burden.  On  the 
other  hand,  as  soon  as  the  restrictions 
of  authority  are  felt  to  be  oppressive, 
he  is  impelled  to  protest  and  clamor 
for  freedom.  In  an  ordered  society 
these  two  sets  of  impulses  have  to  be 
coordinated,  though  in  a  constantly 
fluctuating  rather  than  in  any  static 


form.  At  times  either  set  may  become 
predominant.  When  a  people's  sense 
of  helplessness,  of  inferiority  arising 
from  guiltiness,  becomes  unbearable, 
there  arises  a  passionate  clamor  for 
a  'strong'  dictatorial  government, 
whether  of  the  autocratic  or  socialistic 
variety;  while  when  a  thwarting  of 
personal  initiative  is  felt  to  be  intol- 
erable, there  is  a  call  for  revolution 
which  may  attain  a  murderous  in- 
tensity. 

Modern  psychology  well  recognizes 
that  these  shifting  attitudes  in  the 
outer  world  mirror  the  constant  con- 
flict and  instability  in  man's  inner 
nature,  the  to  and  fro  surges  between 
the  expressing  and  the  restraining 
of  his  fundamental  impulses.  It  is 
noteworthy  that  each  side  of  the  con- 


:ii8] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


flict  may  be  depicted  in  either  ignoble 
or  laudatory  terms.  We  may  speak  of 
the  divine  call  to  freedom,  one  of  the 
noblest  impulses  in  man's  nature,  as 
well  as  of  his  tendency  to  unrestrained 
and  brutal  license.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  controlling  tendencies  may  as- 
sume the  form  of  sheer  persecution 
and  hateful  thwarting  of  life  as  well 
as  the  confident  self-control  that 
ranks  as  one  of  the  highest  of  our 
civic  virtues  or  the  acceptance  of 
God's  will  so  characteristic  of  the 
greatest  saints. 

It  is  also  well  recognized  that  this 
dichotomy  of  man's  nature  expresses 
itself  most  vividly  in  the  child's  rela- 
tion to  his  parents — the  famous  CEdi- 
pus  complex.  In  the  deeper  layers  of 
the  mind  the  attitudes  persist  in  their 
old  child-parent  terms,  though  in 
consciousness  they  may  have  been 
superseded  by  more  complex  ones, 
such  as  Herbert  Spencer's  Man  Versus 
the  State.  No  psychoanalyst  would  hes- 
itate, on  coming  across  the  person  of 
a  ruler  in  a  dream,  to  translate  'ruler' 
as  'father,'  and  he  would  be  at  once 
interested  in  the  way  in  which  the 
subject's  conscious  attitude  towards 
the  ruler  was  being  influenced  by  his 
underlying  attitude  towards  his  father. 
Mostly  one  should  replace  the  last 
words  by  'the  underlying  fantastic 
attitude  towards  his  father,'  remem- 
bering that  in  the  child's  imagination 
his  father  is  either  far  more  benevolent 
or  far  more  cruel  than  most  fathers  are 
— and  always  more  magically  powerful 
and  wonderful  than  any  father  is.  It  is 
the  persistence  in  the  unconscious  of 
this  element  of  magic  belief  that  ac- 
counts for  the  recurrent  irrationalities 
in  people's  attitude  towards  a  Gov- 
ernment, e.g.,  that  blames  it  for  all 
misfortune  and  imputes  to  its  wicked- 


ness  the  non-appearance  of  an   im- 
mediate Utopia. 

Growing  up  signifies  that  the  early 
sense  of  dependence  on  the  parent 
(let  me  say  'father,'  tout  court),  both 
real  and  imaginary,  is  replaced  by  a 
proper  independence  and  self-reliance 
without  any  need  for  violent  repudia- 
tion or  destruction;  also  that  the 
insoluble  conflict  between  affection 
and  parricide  is  replaced  by  an  atti- 
tude of  friendhness  combined  with  a 
preparedness  to  oppose  if  need  be. 
And  any  satisfactory  solution  of  the 
general  problem  of  government  must 
include,  among  other  things,  a  corre- 
sponding advance  in  the  relations  be- 
tween governing  and  governed.  I  hope 
now  to  be  able  to  show  that,  whatever 
its  deficiencies  may  be,  the  success  of 
the  constitutional  monarchy  experi- 
ment is  essentially  due  to  the  respects 
in  which  this  advance  has  been 
achieved. 

II 

The  experiment,  or  idea,  starts  with 
the  assumption  that,  just  as  princesses 
cannot  be  abolished  from  fairy-tales 
without  starting  a  riot  in  the  nursery, 
so  is  it  impossible  to  abolish  the  idea 
of  kingship  in  one  form  or  another 
from  the  hearts  of  men.  If  people  are 
emotionally  starved  in  this  way,  they 
invent  sugar  kings,  railroad  kings  or 
magic  'bosses.'  The  idea 'then  boldly 
proposes:  let  us  reserve  a  king  par- 
ticularly to  satisfy  the  beneficent 
elements  of  the  mythology  in  man's 
ineradicable  unconscious  that  will 
enable  us  to  deal  with  the  more  trou- 
blesome elements.  This  is  how  it  is 
worked  out. 

The  essential  purpose  of  the  device 
is  to  prevent  the  murderous  poten- 
tialities in   the  son-father   (i.e.   gov- 


193^ 


CARNAGES  AND  KINGS 


119] 


erned-governing)  relation  from  ever 
coming  to  too  grim  and  fierce  an 
expression.  To  effect  this  the  idea  of 
the  ruler  is  'decomposed,'  as  mythol- 
ogists  call  it,  into  two  persons — one 
untouchable,  irremovable  and  sacro- 
sanct, above  even  criticism,  let  alone 
attack;  the  other  vulnerable  in  such 
a  degree  that  sooner  or  later  he  will 
surely  be  destroyed,  i.e.,  expelled 
from  his  position  of  power.  The  first 
of  these,  the  King,  is  the  symbolic 
ruler,  one  not  directly  responsible 
to  the  people;  the  second,  the  Prime 
Minister,  is  the  functional  ruler, 
exquisitely  responsible.  With  these 
precautions  a  safe  outlet  is  available 
for  the  parricidal  tendencies;  they 
may  come  into  action  in  a  form  that 
excludes  physical  violence,  and  so 
long  as  they  respect  the  taboo.  Charles 
II  would  appear  to  have  foreseen  the 
coming  arrangement  when  he  wittily 
warded  off  the  criticism  of  his  epitaph- 
writing  courtier  with  the  words: 
T  faith,  that's  true,  since  my  words 
are  my  own,  but  my  deeds  are  my 
Ministers'.' 

In  return  for  the  concession  made 
by  the  populace  in  mollifying  their 
parricidal  tendencies  the  Government 
also,  by  being  always  ready  to  accept 
the  verdict  of  an  election,  renounces 
the  application  of  physical  force. 
Under  a  constitutional  monarchy  no 
Minister  labels  a  cannon,  as  Louis 
XIV  did,  ultima  ratio  regum.  The  im- 
portant point  of  this  consideration  is 
that  the  institution  of  limited  mon- 
archy, so  far  from  being  simply  a 
method  of  dealing  with  potentially 
troublesome  monarchs,  is  really  an 
index  of  a  highly  civilized  relation 
subsisting  between  rulers  and  ruled. 
It  could  not  survive,  or  even  exist, 
except  in  a  state  that  has  attained 


the  highest  level  of  civilization,  where 
reasoned  persuasion  and  amicable 
consent  have  displaced  force  as  a 
method  of  argument. 

When  Thiers  shallowly  thought  to 
define  a  constitutional  monarch  com- 
pletely with  the  words  le  roi  regne 
mais  ne  gouverne  pasy  he  was  making  a 
very  considerable  mistake.  In  a  very 
deep  sense  such  a  King  truly  repre- 
sents the  sovereign  people.  I  am  not 
here  referring  to  any  personal  influence 
of  a  particular  monarch,  such  as  Mr. 
Gladstone  had  in  mind  when  he  said 
that  knowing  Queen  Victoria's  opinion 
told  him  the  opinion  of  the  English 
people. 

But  what  of  the  members  of  Parlia- 
ment, the  accredited  spokesmen  of  the 
people.''  They  are  temporarily  so,  and 
they  may  err.  But  when  the  significant 
words,  le  roi  le  veult,  have  been  pro- 
nounced, it  means  in  most  cases  that 
a  permanent  representative  of  the 
people  agrees  that  their  sovereign 
voice  has  been  at  least  not  grossly 
misinterpreted.  The  king  is  carefully 
shielded  from  all  personal  responsibil- 
ity and  yet  he  represents  the  final 
responsibility — and  at  critical  mo- 
ments may  have  to  bear  it. 


Ill 


The  mysterious  identification  of 
King  and  people  goes  very  far  indeed 
and  reaches  deep  into  the  unconscious 
mythology  that  lies  behind  all  these 
complex  relationships.  A  ruler,  just  as 
a  hero,  can  strike  the  imagination  of 
the  world  in  one  of  two  ways.  Either 
he  presents  some  feature,  or  performs 
some  deed,  so  far  beyond  the  range 
of  average  people  as  to  appear  to  be 
a  creature  belonging  to  another  world. 
We  do  not  know  if  the  Spanish  were 


;i2o] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


really  impressed  on  being  told  that 
their  Queen  could  not  accept  a  gift  of 
silk  stockings  because  she  had  no 
legs;  but  it  is  easy  to  think  of  less 
absurd  examples,  from  the  deeds  of 
the  Borgias  to  the  impertinences  of 
Le  Roi  Soleil.  Einstein  has  furnished 
us  with  a  current  example  of  another 
kind.  In  the  face  of  such  phenomena 
one  gapes  with  wonder  or  with  horror, 
but  one  gapes;  one  does  not  under- 
stand. Or,  on  the  contrary,  he  may  cap- 
ture the  imagination  by  presenting  to 
us,  as  it  were  on  a  screen,  a  magnified 
and  idealized  picture  of  the  most 
homely  and  familiar  attributes. 

It  is  here  that  the  child's  glorified 
fantasies  of  himself  and  his  family 
find  ample  satisfaction.  When  the 
sophisticated  pass  cynical  comments 
on  the  remarkable  interest  the  ma- 
jority of  people  take  in  the  minute 
doings  of  royalty,  and  still  more  in  the 
cardinal  events  of  their  births,  loves 
and  deaths,  they  are  often  merely 
denying  and  repudiating  a  hidden  part 
of  their  own  nature  rather  than  giving 
evidence  of  having  understood  and 
transcended  it.  With  the  others  there 
is  no  trace  of  envy,  since  the  illustrious 
personages  are  in  their  imagination 
their  actual  selves,  their  brother  or 
sister,  father  or  mother.  In  the  august 
stateliness  and  ceremonial  pomp  their 
secret  day-dreams  are  at  last  gratified, 
and  for  a  moment  they  are  released 
from  the  inevitable  sordidness  and 
harassing  exigencies  of  mundane  ex- 
istence. When  to  this  is  added  the  in- 
numerable 'homely  touches*  of  roy- 
alty, the  proof  that  they  are  of  the 
same  flesh  as  their  subjects,  together 
with  signs  of  personal  interest  and 
sympathy  with  their  lot,  loyalty  is  in- 


fused with  aflfection.  And  a  constitu- 
tional monarch,  so  guarded  from  ad- 
verse criticism,  has  to  have  a  pretty 
bad  character  before  he  arouses  any. 
An  autocratic  monarch  may  be  selfish 
and  cruel,  but  kindliness  and  friendli- 
ness are  the  natural  appurtenances  of 
a  constitutional  monarch. 

The  psychological  solution  of  an 
antinomy  which  the  experiment  of 
constitutional  monarchy  presents  is 
also  illustrated  in  the  mode  of  acces- 
sion of  a  new  monarch.  Is  this  ruler  of 
his  people,  at  the  same  time  their 
highest  representative,  chosen  by  the 
people  to  fulfil  his  exalted  office,  or 
does  he  reign  by  virtue  of  some  innate 
and  transcendent  excellence  resident 
in  him  from  birth?  Do  the  people 
express  freedom  in  choice  or  do  they 
submit  to  something  imposed  on 
them  ?  The  Divine  Right  of  Kings  was 
definitely  ended  in  this  country  three 
centuries  ago,  but  what  of  the  right 
of  birth? 

Here  again  a  subtle  compromise 
has  been  found.  By  virtue  of  an  Act  of 
Parliament,  i.e.,  an  agreement  between 
people  and  monarch,  the  Privy  Coun- 
cil, with  the  aid  of  various  unspecified 
'prominent  Gentlemen  of  Quality,* 
take  it  on  themselves  to  announce  that 
a  son  has  succeeded  to  his  father,  and 
their  decision  is  universally  acclaimed. 
It  is  as  near  the  truth  as  the  people's 
supposed  free  choice  of  their  func- 
tional ruler,  the  Prime  Minister.  In 
neither  case  do  they  actively  select  a 
particular  individual;  what  happens 
is  that  in  certain  definite  circumstances 
they  allow  him  to  become  their  ruler. 
Their  freedom  lies  in  their  reserving 
the  right  to  reject  him  whenever  he  no 
longer  plays  the  part  allotted  to  him. 


p. 


^&L 


^orary  ^ 


Here  are  four  articles  on  the  Orient. 
The  first  describes  an  experiment  in 
adult  education  in  rural  China;  the 
second  concerns  Outer  Mongolia;  the 
third  tells  of  Japanese  influence  in 
Siam;  and  the  fourth  sheds  some  light 
on    Japan's    Pacific   island   mandates. 


ECHOES  from 
the  EAST 


An  Oriental 
Forum 


I.  Young  China  Goes  to  School 
By  A  Special  Correspondent 

From  the  Manchester  Guardian,  Manchester  Liberal  Daily 


Oi 


'NE  of  the  most  remarkable  social 
experiments  to  be  found  perhaps  any- 
where outside  Soviet  Russia  is  being 
carried  on  in  a  group  of  mud-walled, 
sun-baked  villages  in  the  heart  of 
North  China.  This  is  the  Ting  Hsien 
'mass  education'  project,  where  since 
1926  Dr.  Y.  C.  James  Yen  and  a  group 
of  Chinese  scholars  have  been  quietly 
working  out  a  technique  for  the  re- 
generation of  the  340,ocx),ooo  peasants 
who  live  in  China's  rural  areas. 

Though  overlooked  by  most  histo- 
rians, China's  mass  education  move- 
ment represents  one  of  the  few  con- 
structive results  to  emerge  from  the 


Great  War.  When  laborers  were  needed 
to  do  work  behind  the  lines  in  France, 
the  Allies  recruited  about  200,000  men 
from  North  China.  Most  of  these  were 
illiterate  peasants  and  coolies  from  the 
provinces  of  Shantung  and  Hopei. 
Volunteers  were  required  for  welfare 
work  with  the  'Chinese  Labor  Corps,' 
as  it  was  officially  known,  and  one  of 
the  first  to  respond  to  the  call  was  Dr. 
Yen,  then  a  young  student  fresh  from 
Yale  and  Princeton. 

Most  of  the  laborers  were  desper- 
ately homesick,  but  could  neither 
write  letters  nor  read  them;  eager  to 
know  what  was  going  on  in  the  war- 


[122] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


torn  world  around  them,  they  were 
unable  to  understand  the  newspapers. 
Dr.  Yen  set  out  to  remedy  this  situa- 
tion and  devised  a  crude  method  of 
teaching  Chinese  characters  which 
proved  remarkably  successful.  Known 
as  the  'thousand-character'  system,  it 
enabled  thousands  of  coolies  to  read 
and  write  after  a  few  months  of  study. 
Dr.  Yen  was  so  impressed  with  the 
possibilities  of  the  idea  that  he  re- 
solved to  dedicate  the  rest  of  his  life  to 
the  education  of  the  millions  of  illiter- 
ate people  in  China  who  had  had  no 
opportunity  for  schooling. 

On  his  return  to  China  after  the  war 
Dr.  Yen  stuck  to  his  resolve  with  a 
tenacity  which  has  marked  him  out  as 
one  of  the  great  personalities  of  mod- 
ern China.  Beginning  with  a  large- 
scale  mass  education  experiment  in 
Changsha,  the  capital  of  Hunan  prov- 
ince, a  nation-wide  movement  to  wipe 
out  illiteracy  was  launched  under  his 
leadership  in  1922.  By  1929  approxi- 
mately 5,000,000  students,  ranging  in 
age  from  10  to  60,  were  receiving  in- 
struction in  mass  education  schools. 
Official  recognition  was  given  to  the 
movement  when,  following  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Nationalist  Govern- 
ment at  Nanking  in  1928,  a  mandate 
was  issued  directing  that  between  20 
and  30  per  cent  of  the  education 
budget  of  each  province  should  be  ex- 
pended on  this  type  of  work. 

But  mere  ability  to  read  and  write. 
Yen  saw,  was  not  enough.  Something 
much  more  fundamental  in  the  way  of 
education  was  required.  The  problem 
of  citizenship  training  must  be  tackled. 
Millions  had  now  been  taught  to  read 
— what  sort  of  reading  should  be  put 
into  their  hands?  What  was  to  be  the 
content  of  the  new  learning  conveyed 
to  these  mentally  liberated  millions. 


and  how  could  it  be  related  to  the 
everyday  problems  of  the  Chinese 
farmer?  He  saw  the  need  for  intensive 
study  and  practical  experiment  to  dis- 
cover the  answer  to  these  vital  ques- 
tions. It  was  to  supply  this  need  that 
the  Ting  Hsien  mass  education  experi- 
ment was  begun. 

II 

Most  people  think  of  China  as  being 
composed  of  a  certain,  or  more  prob- 
ably in  these  days  an  uncertain,  num- 
ber of  provinces.  But  the  province  is 
largely  an  artificial  division;  the  fun- 
damental unit  is  the  '  hsien ^^  or  county, 
of  which  there  are  nearly  2,000  in  the 
whole  country,  and  Dr.  Yen  argued 
that  if  you  could  create  a  satisfactory 
pattern  of  life  in  one  selected  hsien  it 
might  be  duplicated  through  mass  ed- 
ucation in  the  remaining  1,999.  More 
than  300,000,000  Chinese  live  in  dis- 
tricts very  much  like  'Tranquil  County,* 
as  Ting  Hsien  may  be  freely  translated 
into  English.  Situated  some  130  miles 
down  the  Peking-Hankow  railway,  it 
has  a  total  area  of  480  square  miles 
and  a  population  of  397,000  split  up 
among  472  typical  farming  villages. 

Most  of  the  inhabitants  of  Ting 
Hsien  are  peasants  who  farm  the  sur- 
rounding lands  and  live  together  in 
villages  amidst  an  atmosphere  of  dirt, 
poverty,  and  ignorance.  Their  homes 
are  floorless  huts  made  of  clay  bricks, 
roofed  with  straw  or  in  rare  cases  with 
tiles.  The  average  family  of  five  or  six 
wrests  a  bare  livelihood  from  about 
three  acres  of  overworked  soil.  The 
average  annual  income  per  head  in 
Ting  Hsien,  which  is  a  moderately 
prosperous  district,  totals  about  two 
pounds  sterling. 

Dr.  Yen's  reconstruction  program 
aims  primarily  at  the  elimination  of 


193^ 


ECHOES  FROM  THE  EAST 


^n\ 


what  he  feels  to  be  the  four  funda- 
mental weaknesses  of  Chinese  life — 
ignorance,  poverty,  disease,  and  civic 
disintegration.  A  determined  attack 
upon  these  evils  is  being  made  along 
four  main  lines:  cultural,  economic, 
hygienic,  and  political.  In  this  attack 
effort  is  concentrated  chiefly  upon  the 
rural  youth — the  young  men  and 
young  women  between  the  ages  of 
fourteen  and  twenty-five,  who  con- 
stitute what  Dr.  Yen  calls  the  'stra- 
tegic section  of  the  population.'  It  is 
estimated  that  there  are  some  70,000,- 
000  young  folk  in  China  who  have 
passed  the  school  age  without  ever 
having  had  an  opportunity  for  school- 
ing. These  are  the  citizens  of  the  im- 
mediate future,  and  it  is  at  them  that 
the  mass  education  movement  now  is 
chiefly  aiming. 

From  Ting  Hsien's  400  odd  'peo- 
ple's schools'  between  20,000  and  45,- 
000  young  men  and  young  women 
have  graduated  with  an  elementary 
education.  These  graduates  have  or- 
ganized themselves  into  'alumni  as- 
sociations' with  the  twofold  object  of 
continuing  to  learn  through  advanced 
courses  in  village  leadership  and  of 
combining  for  community  service. 
Alumni  associations  form  the  spear- 
head of  the  whole  reconstruction  ef- 
fort. They  organize  dramatic  and  de- 
bating clubs,  operate  wireless  sets  for 
the  benefit  of  their  village,  chalk  up 
news  items  on  the  village  '  news-wall,' 
which  takes  the  place  of  a  daily  news- 
paper, and  mediate  in  lawsuits  arising 
among  their  neighbors.  Other  alumni 
association  activities  include  tree- 
planting,  road-repairing,  agricultural 
exhibits,  and  anti-narcotic  and  anti- 
gambling  movements. 

While  the  main  emphasis  is  placed 
upon  the  education  of  adolescents,  im- 


portant experiments  are  being  carried 
out  among  children  of  primary  school 
age  with  a  view  to  working  out  a  suit- 
able curriculum  based  on  rural  needs. 
The  village  primary  schools  are  or- 
ganized by  squads  in  such  a  way  that 
one  teacher  is  able  to  handle  as  many 
as  200  children,  devolving  a  large 
measure  of  responsibility  for  teaching 
and  discipline  on  the  squad  leaders. 
Nothing  amazes  the  visitor  to  Ting 
Hsien  more  than  the  earnest  efficiency 
with  which  boys  and  girls  not  yet  in 
their  teens  put  smaller  beginners 
through  their  paces. 

A  corollary  of  the  widespread  il- 
literacy in  China  is  the  absence  of  a 
people's  literature.  China's  literary 
treasures  are  written  in  a  classical 
language  which  is  entirely  incompre- 
hensible to  the  masses.  Hence  if  the 
people  are  to  read  Chinese  literature, 
it  must  first  be  rewritten  in  an  idiom 
they  can  understand.  To  this  end  well- 
known  scholars  have  gone  out  to  live 
and  work  in  the  rural  districts  of  Ting 
Hsien.  Through  their  efforts  about 
four  hundred  volumes  of  popular 
literature  have  been  published  as  part 
of  a  thousand-volume  People  s  Li- 
brary. Cheaply  but  attractively  printed, 
these  booklets  cost  only  a  few  coppers 
apiece. 

Ill 

Even  the  poorest  Chinese  village  in- 
variably has  its  open-air  theatre. 
Under  the  direction  of  Dr.  Hsiung  Fu- 
hsi,  a  graduate  of  Columbia  Univer- 
sity, old  plays  are  being  reconstructed 
with  a  modern  '  twist '  and  at  the  same 
time  a  new  type  of  people's  drama  is 
being  created.  Among  the  plays  so  far 
produced  two  have  proved  to  be  spe- 
cially well  adapted  to  rural  audiences. 
One  deals  with  the  dual  problems  of 


[1^4] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


usury  and  litigation,  which  are  often 
closely  related  in  the  village  life  of 
China;  the  other,  entitled  Strong  Son 
of  the  Plough,  demonstrates  that  vil- 
lage people  are  burdened  through 
superstitious  fear  with  sufferings  which 
self-reliance  and  courage  might  remove. 

Broadcasting  is  also  being  attempted 
at  Ting  Hsien,  but  here  many  difficul- 
ties are  being  experienced  owing  to  the 
low  level  of  popular  education.  Next 
to  news  of  Japanese  military  activities 
market  reports  have  proved  the  most 
popular  item.  The  possibility  has  been 
demonstrated  of  manufacturing  lo- 
cally a  four-tube  receiver  with  loud- 
speaker at  a  cost  of  a  little  more  than 
two  pounds  sterhng.  It  is  believed  that 
with  Government  assistance  a  wireless 
broadcasting  system  reaching  all  parts 
of  the  country  could  now  be  estab- 
lished. 

Ways  and  means  of  helping  to  im- 
prove the  standard  of  living  of  the 
Chinese  farmer  are  the  main  concern 
of  a  special  economic  division.  A 
Farmers'  Institute  trains  farmer-lead- 
ers to  carry  out  simple  projects  for  the 
economic  reconstruction  of  their  vil- 
lages. Those  who  complete  the  one 
year's  course  become  'demonstration 
farmers.'  The  results  of  successful  ex- 
periments are  reproduced  by  them 
under  the  eyes  of  the  peasants.  Where 
a  farmer  might  remain  unimjx-essed 
by  a  superior  breed  of  pig  raised  on 
some  remote  experimental  station  it 
becomes  entirely  another  matter  when 
neighbor  Wang  gets  an  extra  ten 
pounds  of  pork  from  an  animal  bred 
just  on  the  other  side  of  the  fence. 

Rural  industries  are  also  studied. 
Among  the  68,000  famihes  in  Ting 
Hsien  approximately  40,000  persons 
are  engaged  in  cotton  spinning  and 
nearly  30,000  in  cloth  weaving.  An  ex- 


perimental workshop  has  been  estab- 
lished and  through  this  are  being  in- 
troduced techniques  and  equipment 
calculated  to  lower  production  costs 
and  increase  output.  The  aim  is  to 
develop  a  system  whereby  these  local 
industries  can  be  carried  on  economi- 
cally and  efficiently  without  divorcing 
the  workers  from  agriculture. 

To  enable  the  peasant  to  get  a  fair 
return  for  his  labor  about  300  village 
Self-Help  Societies  have  been  formed 
as  a  temporary  measure.  The  two 
main  functions  of  these  societies  are 
the  borrowing  of  money  on  behalf  of 
the  farmer  and  the  warehousing  of  his 
produce.  Two  leading  Chinese  banks, 
the  Bank  of  China  and  the  Kincheng 
Bank,  are  cooperating  in  this  project. 
A  more  permanent  economic  develop- 
ment is  the  organization  of  what  are 
called  'integrated  cooperative  socie- 
ties,' designed  to  serve  the  village  in 
its  major  economic  activities.  An 
integrated  cooperative  society  extends 
credit  to  its  members  for  purchasing, 
production,  and  marketing,  and  pro- 
vides the  structure  by  means  of  which 
these  operations  may  be  conducted  on 
a  cooperative  basis. 


IV 


One  person  out  of  every  three  in 
Ting  Hsien  dies  without  receiving  any 
kind  of  medical  care.  Of  the  472  vil- 
lages, 252  can  boast  of  little  more  than 
a  self-made  physician  of  the  old  type 
who  prescribes  drugs  which  he  himself 
sells.  In  an  effort  to  remedy  this  situa- 
tion a  public  health  experiment  is  be- 
ing made  with  the  object  of  evolving  a 
practicable  system  of  medical  relief. 
The  health  system  now  being  de- 
veloped is  carefully  adjusted  to  the  re- 
sources of  the  district. 


^93^ 


ECHOES  FROM  THE  EAST 


[125] 


It  is  recognized  that  the  average 
Chinese  village  with  a  population  of 
about  700  and  not  more  than  about 
£10  available  annually  for  medical 
purposes  could  not  possibly  support 
any  known  type  of  paid  medical  help. 
To  meet  this  need  a  'health  worker' 
who  has  completed  a  ten-day  course  of 
first-aid  training — after  having  been 
recommended  by  the  village  elder  for 
the  position — is  appointed  in  each  vil- 
lage. Equipped  with  a  standard  first- 
aid  outfit  containing  twelve  simple 
drugs,  he  or  she  is  expected,  in  addi- 
tion to  dispensing  these  remedies,  to 
vaccinate  against  smallpox  and  to  re- 
cord births  and  deaths. 

Within  a  mile  or  two  of  each  of  the 
472  villages  there  has  been  established 
a  sub-district  health  station,  where  a 
qualified  physician — usually  a  gradu- 
ate of  a  modern-style  provincial  medi- 
cal school — is  on  duty  with  a  trained 
dresser  or  nurse.  Here  a  daily  clinic  is 
conducted  and  the  physician  in  charge 
also  supervises  the  village  health 
workers.  Coordinating  all  these  activi- 
ties is  the  main  health  center,  equipped 
with  a  fifty-bed  hospital  and  a  labora- 
tory, where  the  training  of  doctors, 
midwives,  and  health  workers  is  un- 
dertaken. The  scale  of  the  hospital 
equipment  is  deliberately  reduced  to 
what  an  average  Chinese  county  might 
be  expected  to  afford.  There  is  no 
X-ray  apparatus,  and  the  furniture, 
including  the  operating  table,  is  lo- 
cally made.  Wherever  possible  mate- 
rials produced  in  Ting  Hsien — such  as 
cotton  cloth  for  bedding  and  bandages 
— are  employed  in  order  to  keep  down 
overhead  costs. 

By  the  end  of  1935  a  total  of  nearly 
£100,000 — almost  the  whole  of  which 
came  from  American  sources — had 
been  spent  at  Ting  Hsien  over  a  period 


of  six  years.  What  is  the  good  of  it  all  ^. 
What  are  the  chances  of  the  experi- 
ment's becoming  self-supporting  ei- 
ther within  the  district  itself  or  within 
China  as  a  whole?  How  many  of  the 
2,000  odd  hsiens  in  China  are  likely  to 
be  able  to  find  the  financial  resources 
required  for  duplicating  the  Ting 
Hsien  technique?  Can  the  Ting  Hsien 
experiment  ever  amount  to  more  than 
a  drop  in  the  ocean  ? 

For  Dr.  Yen  the  justification  of  the 
whole  venture,  apart  from  such  prac- 
tical results  as  have  already  been 
achieved,  lies  in  the  stream  of  visitors 
— totaling  5,000  in  1934 — who  journey 
to  Ting  Hsien  from  all  parts  of  China 
and  sometimes  from  abroad  in  order 
to  study  the  work.  High  officials,  edu- 
cators, social  workers,  and  mission- 
aries, too,  journey  to  see  it.  Scarcely  a 
day  goes  by  without  a  request  coming 
in  for  a  trained  Ting  Hsien  worker  to 
be  sent  out  to  the  provinces.  Many 
provincial  governments  now  are  send- 
ing as  research  fellows  university 
graduates  who  spend  a  year  or  more  at 
Ting  Hsien  and  then  return  to  apply 
the  results  of  their  learning. 

Dr.  Yen  admits  that  no  ordinary 
hsien  government  could  stand  any- 
thing like  the  overhead  expense  which 
the  Ting  Hsien  experiment  repre- 
sents. 

'But  then,'  he  points  out,  *no  hsien 
government  would  need  to  spend 
more  than  a  fraction  of  what  we  are 
spending.  What  we  are  trying  to  do 
here  is  not  so  much  to  produce  a  model 
hsien  as  to  try  to  develop  a  technique 
which  can  eventually  be  applied  to  the 
whole  of  China.  Otherwise  Ting  Hsien 
would  be  useless.  Experiment  is  al- 
ways costly.  To  find  the  cheapest  and 
best  technique  is  often  expensive,  but 
in  the  end  it  saves  money  all  round.' 


:i26] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


II.  Mongolia,  Land  of  Contrasts 
By  Eugene  Schreider 

Translated  from  the  Lumiere,  Paris  Radical  Weekly 


Tk 


.HE  high  wind  raises  clouds  of  dust 
that  hide  the  sun,  a  reddish  disk, 
without  warmth,  shrouded  in  shadow. 
Surprised  by  the  tempest,  the  Mon- 
golian caravan  seeks  a  refuge  on  the 
summit  of  the  hill,  towering  solitary 
in  the  middle  of  the  plain.  Where  it  is 
higher  there  is  less  danger.  The  horses, 
admirably  trained,  lie  down  and  re- 
main motionless.  The  men,  accus- 
tomed to  the  whims  of  the  malicious 
gods,  hide  behind  the  animals  and 
wait  patiently. 

Below,  the  dunes,  animated  by  the 
breath  of  the  desert,  begin  to  shift: 
soon  the  landscape  will  be  completely 
transformed.  On  top  of  the  hill  the 
men,  huddling  together  in  their  ample 
black  robes,  feel  the  ground  crumbling. 
Later,  when  they  dare  to  open  their 
eyes,  they  will  stare  with  astonish- 
ment at  a  marvelous  spectacle:  a 
fortress  with  monumental  doors,  and 
massive  towers,  and  inside  of  it  re- 
mains of  pottery,  flint  axes,  human 
skulls.  .  .  . 

Beneath  the  skies,  again  grown 
limpid,  there  is  no  trace  of  the  hill,  but 
the  sandy  soil  yielding  before  the  vio- 
lence of  the  hurricane  will  have 
brought  into  the  open  the  remnants 
of  a  dead  civilization — a  strange  meta- 
morphosis which,  however,  is  no  sur- 
prise for  the  few  explorers  who  venture 
into  the  land.  Several  such  ruins  are  to 
be  found  in  Mongolia,  where  the  sand- 
storms, anticipating  the  archeologists, 
sometimes  bring  to  light  the  historical 
treasures  of  the  country. 


This  episode,  which  under  other 
circumstances  would  not  have  mat- 
tered to  anybody  beside  the  scientists 
interested  in  oriental  antiquities,  has 
recently  furnished  the  pretext  for  a 
campaign  which  foreshadows  some 
very  grave  events.  The  old  fortress 
discovered  a  few  weeks  ago  by  some 
fur  merchants  lost  in  the  desert  con- 
jures up  the  old-time  power  of  the 
Tunguses,  an  ancient  warrior-tribe 
whose  principal  towns  had  once  been 
situated  where  one  now  finds  only  the 
nomad  shepherds.  Like  many  other 
empires,  this  one  of  the  first  inhabit- 
ants of  Mongolia  has  vanished  with- 
out leaving  behind  it  any  traces  but 
some  awe-inspiring  ruins.  It  is  not 
likely  that  the  present  inhabitants  of 
the  country  are  the  immediate  de- 
scendants of  this  warrior-nation.  At 
any  rate,  the  military  spirit  left  them  a 
long  time  ago,  and  travelers  assert 
that  these  natives  of  the  arid  steppes 
are  the  most  peaceable  of  men.  Has  it 
not  even  been  held  that  they  alone 
practice  true  Buddhism  as  a  rule  of 
their  everyday  life? 

Nevertheless,  the  spirit  of  the 
Tungus  warriors  unceasingly  hov- 
ers over  the  Mongolians,  consecrated 
to  great  battles.  It  is  a  curious  fact 
that  there  actually  are  some  poor 
devils  who  feel  the  hearts  of  these 
almost  legendary  warrior-ancestors 
beating  in  their  bosoms,  and  who 
wish  to  follow  in  their  footsteps.  To 
tell  the  truth,  their  fathers  never 
dreamed  of  such  a  brilliant  future. 


^93^ 


ECHOES  FROM  THE  EAST 


>27] 


For  centuries  they  peacefully  culti- 
vated the  soil  or  tended  their  flocks, 
chanting  sad  dirges.  Millions  of  Mon- 
golians have  lived  in  this  manner,  but 
it  seems  that  national  traditions,  un- 
known until  yesterday,  require  other 
things.  Let  the  modern  Tunguses 
leave  their  felt  tents,  let  them  mount 
their  horses  and  learn  how  to  re- 
conquer the  vast  plains  of  the  North ! 
Thus  minds  are  being  mobilized  in 
preparation  for  the  next  move  of  the 
Japanese  army  toward  Central  Asia. 
Already  the  ambanes  and  the  khou- 
toukhtaSy  secular  kinglings  and  prince- 
bishops  taking  refuge  at  Khalgan,  are 
beginning  to  stir:  a  crusade  against 
the  rebellious  North  that  has  driven 
them  away  from  their  old  dwellings 
coincides  perfectly  with  their  own 
aims.  Inner  Mongolia  has  just  pro- 
claimed its  independence.  The  time 
has  come  to  set  Outer  Mongolia  free. 


II 


And  what  is  happening  in  the  North 
beyond  the  Gobi  Desert?  Among  the 
Khalkhas,  the  purest  representatives  of 
the  Mongolian  race,  unknown  to  the 
western  nations,  a  radical  revolution 
is  being  silently  reahzed, — a  revolu- 
tion against  the  small  native  poten- 
tates, who  were  forced  to  seek  shelter 
in  the  south  under  the  protection  of 
the  Japanese  administration. 

If  you  will  open  even  the  most 
recent  ethnological  manual,  you  will 
read  in  it  that  Khalkhas  live  in  misery 
and  filth,  and  that  their  capital,  Urga, 
is  full  of  beggars  who  fight  over  scraps 
of  food  and  die  of  hunger  under  the 
impassive  looks  of  the  passers-by. 
Certainly  not  everything  is  changed  in 
this  country  that  is  almost  wholly 
desert.  In  the  distant  corners  of  the 


steppes  shepherds  still  lead  a  primitive 
life. 

But  the  capital  offers  a  novel  spec- 
tacle. Even  the  name  of  Urga  has 
been  destroyed:  the  present  political 
center  of  the  Mongolian  Republic  is 
now  called  Ulan  Bator.  In  this  city 
modern  buildings  are  being  erected 
side  by  side  with  traditional  pise 
dwellings.  In  the  streets,  where  once 
you  had  to  make  your  way  around 
filthy  beggars,  the  oxen  and  the 
camels  now  wait  patiently  for  auto- 
mobiles driven  by  skillful  chauffeurs 
who  have  to  resort  to  acrobatics  to 
pass  through  the  seething  mob.  The 
latest  streamlined  models  are  the  most 
popular. 

In  the  shops  they  sell  wares  which 
arouse  the  distrust  of  the  old  men,  but 
which  nevertheless  find  many  buyers. 
Alongside  of  old  rifles  and  bricks  one 
finds  phonographs  and  chocolate  bars. 
The  presence  of  many  other  common- 
place objects  of  that  kind  bears  wit- 
ness to  the  great  cataclysm  that  has 
taken  place.  This  change  affects  not 
only  the  tastes  of  consumers;  their 
whole  manner  of  life  is  revolutionized. 

In  order  to  be  convinced  of  it,  one 
has  only  to  visit  the  stadium  (Ulan 
Bator  already  has  one).  Athletes  of 
both  sexes  train  there,  following  the 
generally  accepted  rules.  A  few  years 
ago  nobody  would  have  believed  that 
Mongolian  girls  could  be  presented 
without  fear  to  an  enormous  and  en- 
thusiastic audience.  At  the  present 
time  they  willingly  engage  in  the 
perilous  sport  of  parachute-jumping, 
which  Russian  instructors  have  intro- 
duced them  to.  The  men  fly  the  air- 
planes. What  a  contrast  with  the  old- 
time  Mongolia,  which,  like  China  (to 
which  it  was  once  bound),  remained 
immobile  for  several  centuries !  Watch- 


:i28] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


ing  the  exploits  of  their  emancipated 
daughters,  the  mothers  whisper  tim- 
idly among  themselves,  but  they  do 
not  protest.  It  would  be  no  use  even  if 
they  did.  What  could  these  old  women 
do,  when  even  the  lamas,  the  guardi- 
ans of  the  faith,  are  as  pleased  as 
children  at  being  able  to  turn  their 
traditional  prayer  mills  with  ma- 
chines imported  by  an  enterprising 
merchant? 

As  for  the  government,  it  is  in 
principle  responsible  to  the  'Grand 
Urultai,'  a  sort  of  parHament  of 
Soviet  complexion.  But  there  are  no 


Communist  organizations  in  the  Mon- 
golian Republic.  In  Ulan  Bator  and 
other  Mongolian  cities  there  are  cer- 
tain revolutionary  organizations  which, 
while  they  imitate  Russian  models, 
cannot  be  more  definitely  character- 
ized. In  practice  they  exercise  the 
prerogatives  of  authority,  but  avoid 
conflict  with  certain  traditional  pow- 
ers: for  example,  the  lama  clergy. 
Does  this  surprise  you?  It  is,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  the  most  eccentric  aspect  of 
this  strange  regime,  which  is  so 
singular  a  mixture  of  Sovietism  and 
theocracy ! 


III.  Japan  and  Siam 

By  Otto  Co  reach 
Translated  from  the  Berliner  tageblatt,  Berlin  Coordinated  Daily 


/1.FTER  losing  territory  to  the  Brit- 
ish and  especially  to  French  Indo- 
China,  Siam  had  become  small  enough 
for  the  two  European  colonial  powers 
to  grant  her,  for  the  moment,  an  idyl- 
lic and  independent  existence.  In  re- 
nouncing for  the  present  the  partition- 
ing of  the  remaining  parts  of  Siam, 
they  had  the  advantage  of  remaining 
at  a  respectful  distance  from  each 
other.  They  could  hardly  have  fore- 
seen that  Japanese  imperialism  would 
so  soon  be  able  to  push  into  the  gap. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  Japanese  policy 
has  been  making  stupendous  progress 
in  recent  years  in  penetrating  into 
Siam  noiselessly  and  peacefully.  The 
harmless  buffer  state  suddenly  threat- 
ens to  become  the  scene  of  action  on 
which  the  Empire  of  the  Rising  Sun 
may  occupy  undisturbed  the  most  im- 
portant strategic  positions  in  the 
struggle  for  hegemony  in  Asia. 
The  leading  Siamese  circles  quickly 


yielded  to  Japanese  blandishments. 
They  felt  too  much  hemmed  in  by  the 
close  proximity  of  the  French  and 
British  not  to  regard  a  veiled  Japanese 
protectorate  as  the  lesser  evil  when 
compared  to  mere  toleration  by  the 
European  colonial  powers.  To  France 
Siam  lost  great  parts  of  her  northern 
provinces.  England  took  her  share 
from  the  southern  ones.  And  besides 
this,  Siam  had  to  grant  generous  con- 
cessions within  the  possessions  remain- 
ing to  her.  Thus  her  railroad  system, 
her  mines  and  her  forests  came  under 
British  control,  while  the  gold  mines 
in  South  Siam  got  into  the  hands  of 
the  French. 

In  addition,  it  was  easy  for  other 
foreign  interests  to  gain  a  foothold  in 
the  weakened  organism.  The  Belgians 
and  the  Danes  were  permitted  to 
create  and  exploit  various  industrial 
developments.  About  500,000  Chinese 
poured  in  and  grabbed  off  almost  all 


193^ 


ECHOES  FROM  THE  EAST 


:i29] 


trade  for  themselves.  No  wonder, 
therefore,  that  the  native  population 
of  about  13  million  became  almost 
totally  dependent  upon  foreign  eco- 
nomic interests. 

Japan  especially  crept  into  the 
confidence  of  the  Siamese  by  ena- 
bling them,  through  supplying  goods 
cheaply,  to  enjoy  the  advantages  of  all 
sorts  of  things  which  their  limited 
purchasing  power  had  formerly  put 
beyond  their  reach.  Last  year  this  re- 
sulted in  exports  from  Japan  to  Siam 
amounting  to  about  40  million  yen, 
while  Japan  only  imported  to  the 
value  of  800,000  yen  from  Siam.  But 
on  the  other  hand  Japan  is  now  begin- 
ning to  turn  Siam  into  a  cotton-produc- 
ing country  of  first  rank,  from  which 
the  Japanese  textile  industry  will  buy 
an  unlimited  quantity  of  cotton. 
American  experts  have  stated  that 
cotton-growing  conditions  in  Siam  are 
as  favorable  as  in  Texas.  As  Siam  is 
very  sparsely  populated,  at  least  one- 
third  of  the  arable  land  is  available  for 
cotton-growing.  Within  the  next  six 
years  Siam  is  expected  to  be  in  a  posi- 
tion, under  Japanese  supervision,  to 
export  cotton  to  the  value  of  about 
200  milHon  yen,  mainly  at  the  expense 
of  American  exports  to  the  Far  East. 
Japan,  as  the  main  customer,  would 
therefore  be  able  to  improve  her  trade 
balance  with  the  United  States,  which 
has  been  mostly  negative,  on  account 
of  the  decrease  in  the  consumption  of 
raw  silk. 

The  chance  to  turn  Siam  into  a 
source  of  one  of  the  most  important 
raw  materials  will  enable  Japan  at 
the  same  time  to  arm  at  a  great  rate 
this  friendly  country,  so  important  for 
strategic  purposes.  In  September  the 
Chief  of  Staff  of  the  Siamese  army 
spent  some  time  in  Japan.  Some  time 


earlier  a  military  mission  of  fifteen 
Siamese  officers  had  been  there  and 
had  placed  an  order  for  two  battle- 
ships. In  addition,  a  group  of  sixteen 
Siamese  politicians,  as  well  as  a  group 
of  naval  officers,  has  paid  a  friendly 
visit  to  Japan  in  the  course  of  the  last 
few  months. 

II 

The  pro-Japanese  attitude  of  the 
Bangkok  population  was  more  drasti- 
cally than  tactfully  revealed  last  year, 
when  French,  English  and  Japanese 
warships  arrived  in  the  port  of  the 
capital  to  compete  for  the  favor  of  the 
Country  of  the  White  Elephant.  A 
Japanese  practice  squadron  had  earlier 
announced  its  visit,  whereupon  Brit- 
ish and  French  fleets  hastened  to 
anticipate  the  Japanese.  The  French 
squadron  appeared  first:  ten  Siamese 
army  planes  took  the  air  to  greet  the 
guests.  Then  the  English  ships  arrived. 
This  time  20  airplanes  droned  their 
welcome.  Curiosity  grew  as  to  the 
reception  the  Japanese  ships  were 
likely  to  get.  When  they  appeared, 
more  than  100  airplanes  flew  out  to 
meet  them,  circled  above  them,  and 
expressed  the  general  delight  of  the 
country  over  the  arrival  of  the  guests 
of  honor. 

Phra  Mitrakam  Raksa,  Siamese 
ambassador  in  Tokyo,  recently  re- 
ceived a  representative  of  the  greatest 
English  newspaper  in  the  Far  East, 
the  North  China  Daily  News,  pub- 
lished in  Shanghai. 

'Why,'  asked  the  interviewer,  'does 
Siam  value  Japanese  friendship  so 
highly,  when  Japan  had  restricted  the 
import  of  Siamese  rice  so  sharply?* 

'We  have  convinced  ourselves,'  said 
the  ambassador,  'that  Japan  was 
forced  to  restrict  the  import  of  rice  by 


[i3o] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


her  agricultural  crisis.  But  Japan  is 
doing  whatever  she  can  to  compensate 
us  for  this  in  the  future,  and  the  pros- 
pects look  excellent.  Until  now  Siam 
has  exported  only  small  quantities  of 
raw  cotton,  lumber  and  minerals;  at 
present  the  greatest  efforts  are  being 
made  to  open  her  natural  resources, 
which  have  so  far  hardly  been  ex- 
ploited— especially  in  the  field  of  cot- 
ton-growing. Siam  is  an  independent 
country  and  will  not  let  herself  be  in- 
fluenced by  countries  at  whose  ex- 


pense Japan  is  expanding  her  trade 
in  Siam.  As  long  as  Japan  is  able  to 
supply  us  with  better  and  cheaper 
products,  we  shall  buy  from  her.' 

The  self-possessed  manner  of  this 
Siamese  diplomat  toward  the  repre- 
sentative of  a  publication  which  is 
authoritative  for  British  public  opin- 
ion in  the  Far  East  is  certainly 
significant  in  showing  how  cocky  even 
the  small  nations  of  Asia,  under  the 
protectorate  of  Japan,  feel  toward 
western  colonial  powers. 


IV.  Japan's  Island  Wall 
By  WiLLARD  Price 

From  the  Spectator y  London  Conservative  Weekly 


1  OLITE  but  frank  suspicion  marks 
the  often  repeated  request  of  the 
League  of  Nations  Mandates  Com- 
mission that  Japan  should  explain 
more  fully  what  she  is  doing  in  the 
South  Seas.  She  holds  Micronesia  as  a 
mandate  from  the  League.  According 
to  the  terms  of  that  mandate,  she  may 
not  fortify  the  islands.  And  yet  the 
Commission,  in  the  words  of  a  recent 
report,  has  'noted  particularly  the 
disproportion  apparently  existing  be- 
tween the  sums  spent  on  equipment  of 
the  ports  of  certain  islands  in  the 
Japanese  mandate  and  the  volume  of 
commercial  activity.' 

There  is  reason  for  concern  over  the 
rumors  of  fortifications  and  naval 
bases.  For  these  islands  of  the  Japa- 
nese mandate  are  the  most  important 
from  a  strategic  standpoint  in  the  en- 
tire South  Seas.  The  geographical 
facts  of  the  case  are  not  sufficiently 
realized.  The  old  Great  Wall  of  China 
is  obsolete.  Not  only  China,  but  all 
Asia,  has  a  new  Great  Wall.  It  starts 


with  the  frozen  Kurile  Islands,  ex- 
tends through  the  main  islands  of 
Japan,  through  the  Bonins,  then 
broadens  to  take  in  the  1,400  South 
Sea  islands  held  by  Japan  under  man- 
date from  the  League  of  Nations.  This 
brings  the  Great  Wall  to  the  equator. 
The  entire  Asiatic  continent  lies  be- 
hind this  rampart.  Because  of  the 
existence  of  it,  America  sends  ships 
across  the  Pacific  to  Asia  only  by 
grace  of  Japan.  The  route  of  ships 
passing  north  from  Singapore  along 
the  China  coast  is  paralleled  by  Japa- 
nese battlements.  The  northern  half  of 
the  Great  Wall  is  forfified.  Is  the 
southern  half?  The  doubt  is  more  than 
ordinarily  pertinent  at  present  in  view 
of  Japan's  demand  for  naval  parity, 
her  abrogation  of  the  Washington 
Treaty,  her  resignation  from  the 
League  and  her  policies  in  Asia. 

In  order  to  get  some  light  on  the 
subject  I  have  recently  spent  four 
months  visiting  the  islands  of  the 
mandate.  I  come  away  with  a  clear 


^93^ 


ECHOES  FROM  THE  EAST 


131. 


conclusion  of  yes  and  no.  No,  there  is 
no  ground  for  suspicion  as  to  fortifica- 
tions. Yes,  there  is  every  reason  for  the 
most  grave  concern  as  to  the  signifi- 
cance of  these  islands  in  the  future  of 
Asia.  This  amazing  labyrinth,  made  up 
of  the  Mariana,  Caroline  and  Mar- 
shall groups,  numbers  1,400  islands 
worthy  of  the  name  and  a  total  of 
2,550  islands,  islets  and  reefs.  It  is 
2,700  miles  wide  and  1,300  miles  deep. 
It  is  spread  over  a  sea  larger  than  the 
Mediterranean  and  Caribbean  to- 
gether. It  hugs  the  Philippines  on  the 
west,  the  equator  on  the  south,  and 
the  1 80th  meridian,  or  International 
Date  Line,  on  the  east.  Its  airplanes 
could  fly  in  ten  hours  to  either  Hong- 
kong or  Singapore,  in  six  to  Australia, 
in  three  to  the  Dutch  East  Indies,  and 
in  two  to  the  Philippines. 

The  few  foreign  visitors  to  the  is- 
lands, because  of  the  difficulty  they 
experience  in  gaining  access  to  this 
region,  naturally  look  for  a  violation 
of  the  mandate  ruling  on  fortifica- 
tions. Not  one,  so  far  as  I  know,  has 
reported  the  existence  of  fortifica- 
tions. I  saw  none,  nor  could  any  na- 
tives, even  those  most  acidly  critical 
of  the  Japanese  regime,  tell  me  of  any. 
Japanese,  to  impress  the  natives,  have 
been  known  to  hint  to  them  that  forti- 
fications exist — but  the  natives  them- 
selves have  not  seen  them. 

The  Mandates  Commission,  noting 
that  1,500,000  yen  was  being  spent  on 
Saipan  harbor,  scented  the  construc- 
tion of  a  naval  base.  They  have  re- 
peatedly asked  that  a  full  explanation 
of  the  matter  be  made  in  Japan's  next 
report.  But  each  report  (and  that 
issued  in  the  autumn  of  1935  is  no  ex- 
ception) ofl^ers  only  a  generalized 
statement,  which  strengthens  the  im- 
pression that  Japan  is  willing  that  not 


only  the  natives  but  the  foreign 
Powers  should  consider  the  islands  as 
being  not  totally  unprepared  against 
attack. 

The  simple  fact  is  that  Saipan  har- 
bor is  the  one  important  harbor  that 
would  be  completely  useless  as  a  naval 
base.  It  is  obvious  to  anyone  who  will 
sit  swinging  his  legs  over  the  edge  of 
the  new  pier  that  the  development  is 
purely  commercial.  He  can  look  across 
the  lagoon,  over  the  low  reef,  and 
across  the  sea  for  miles.  Likewise  a 
battleship  miles  away  could  look  into 
and  shoot  into  the  lagoon.  It  is  en- 
tirely exposed.  If  Japanese  strategists 
were  designing  a  trap  in  which  to  com- 
mit naval  hara-kiri,  they  could  devise 
nothing  better  than  Saipan  harbor. 

Commercially  it  will  be  invaluable. 
Our  ship,  for  lack  of  such  a  harbor, 
anchored  two  miles  from  shore.  A 
heavy  swell  was  running  and  the  trip 
to  shore  in  a  small  launch  through 
half-submerged  reefs  was  precarious. 
Unloading  and  loading  were  delayed 
because  of  the  roughness  of  the  sea. 
Sometimes  a  ship  must  lie  here  for  ten 
days  before  it  can  safely  receive  its 
cargo  of  sugar. 

Therefore  a  channel  90  metres  wide 
and  1,600  metres  long  is  being  blasted 
through  the  reef,  the  lagoon  is  being 
dredged  to  greater  depth,  and  a  pier 
has  been  constructed  so  that  a  ship  of 
4,000  tons  may  lie  alongside.  Sugar 
may  then  be  loaded  direct  from  car  to 
hold. 

The  total  cost  of  this  operation, 
1,500,000  yen,  seems  modest  in  view 
of  the  fact  that  Saipan's  annual  export 
of  sugar  exceeds  10,000,000  yen. 

But  there  are  other  harbors  which 
have  not  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
Commission  because  little  or  no  money 
is  being  spent  upon  them.  Money  is 


:i32] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


not  being  spent  because  they  are  al- 
ready perfect,  either  as  commercial 
ports  or  as  sites  for  naval  bases.  While 
some  of  the  islands  are  useless,  others 
are  perfect  hiding  places  for  warships, 
submarines  and  aircraft.  Truk,  for 
example,  was  born  to  be  a  naval  base. 
It  is  not  fortified,  and  does  not  need  to 
be,  for  its  myriad  of  high  rocky  islands 
in  a  forty-mile-wide  lagoon,  protected 
by  a  reef  pierced  by  only  a  few  pas- 
sages which  could  easily  be  mined,  con- 
stitute a  perfect  weapon  turned  out  of 
nature's  own  armament  factory. 

At  an  exposed  angle  of  the  Wall 
stands  Palau.  Its  position  is  most 
strategic.  The  Philippines  are  only  five 
hundred  miles  away  as  the  plane  flies. 
The  building  of  an  airport  on  Palau  to 
serve  the  Tokyo-Palau  mail-line  has 
started  wild  imaginings  in  the  minds 
of  some  Filipinos. 

Palau  harbor  is  as  valuable  a  poten- 
tial naval  base  as  Saipan  harbor  is  fu- 
tile. Removed  from  the  merchant-ship 
harbor,  which  is  so  small  that  it  will 
accommodate  only  two  vessels  com- 
fortably, is  a  deep  basin  adequate  for  a 
fleet  of  at  least  fifty  ships  of  good  size. 
Its  existence  is  not  generally  known 
but  is,  I  presume,  no  secret.     Offi- 


cials took  me  over  it  by  launch 
and  through  the  broad,  five-mile- 
long  channel  which  connects  it  with 
the  sea.  Occasional  Japanese  warships 
anchor  in  the  harbor.  Merchant  ships 
are  barred.  There  is  no  sign  of  refuel- 
ing bases  or  fortifications.  Of  course 
such  would  probably  come  into  exist- 
ence with  surprising  alacrity  in  case  of 
need. 

The  harbor  is  flanked  by  the  hilly 
island  of  Arakabesan  on  which  is 
located  the  new  airport.  Palau  is  the 
westernmost  and  southernmost  im- 
portant island,  but  lesser  islands  con- 
tinue the  Great  Wall  to  the  equator, 
almost  to  the  shores  of  New  Guinea. 
At  the  equator  the  Japanese  and 
Australian  mandates  meet.  Australia 
itself  is  only  a  few  days'  sail  beyond. 

Because  of  their  key  position,  the 
islands  are  an  invaluable  protection  to 
Japan  as  she  works  out  her  des- 
tiny upon  the  Asiatic  mainland.  The 
breadth,  length  and  strength  of  Asia's 
new  Great  Wall  somehow  make  the 
'open  door'  seem  small  and  narrow 
in  proportion.  Japan's  invitation  to 
western  Powers  to  keep  out  of  China 
is  immeasurably  strengthened  by  this 
barrier. 


.  .  .  And  No  Birds  Sing 

On  behalf  of  our  song-birds  I  implore  everyone  to  do  his  or  her 
share.  These  birds  will  soon  be  breeding;  are  their  nests  to  be  torn  to 
pieces  and  their  young  killed  simply  because  we  are  indifferent  to  their 
fate?  An  English  wood  without  an  English  squirrel  is  bad  enough, 
but  an  England  without  her  song-birds  would  be  dreadful. 

— L.  W.  Swanson  in  the  Listener^  London 


\  Public  Library  -, 

Persons  and  Per'sfeaa^es 

Milan  Hodza:  Professor  and  Man  of  Action 
By  Hubert  Beuve-Mery 

Translated  from  the  TempSy  Paris  Semi-Official  Daily 

/\LWAYS  kindly  disposed  toward  professors,  the  Czechoslovak 
Republic  now  sees  one  at  the  head  of  its  government.  It  is  true  that 
Mr.  Hodza's  capacities  as  a  journalist,  an  organizer,  and  a  politician 
surpass  those  of  a  professor.  This  taste  for  action  and  for  organization, 
which  seems  to  be  the  dominant  trait  of  the  Czechoslovakian  President 
of  the  Council,  has  been  developed  under  a  triple  influence:  Protestant, 
Slovak,  and  Hungarian.  Son  of  an  Evangelical  pastor,  young  Milan 
belonged  to  the  Protestant  Slovakian  bourgeoisie — a  class  which  repre- 
sented the  intellectual  elements  of  the  country  and  exerted  some  poHtical 
influence.  Being  a  Slovak,  he  loved  his  small  country  passionately,  and 
as  a  good  Slovak,  combined  an  innate  eloquence  with  a  fiery  spirit 
which  the  passing  years  have  not  completely  extinguished.  In  a  Magyar 
school  he  learned  good  manners,  social  resourcefulness,  and  generosity. 

Mr.  Hodza  showed  his  talent  for  organization  as  early  as  1897.  He 
was  no  more  than  nineteen  years  old  when  he  succeeded  in  uniting  the 
Slovak,  Rumanian  and  Serbian  students  of  the  University  of  Budapest 
in  a  close  association — an  early  prelude  to  the  Little  Entente.  The  out- 
come of  this  venture  was  not  long  in  coming:  he  was  soon  invited  to 
pursue  his  studies  elsewhere;  and  accordingly  he  went  to  Vienna.  Upon 
getting  his  doctorate  he  returned  to  Budapest,  where  in  1900  he  founded 
a  magazine  called  Slovensky  Dentk.  Soon  compelled  to  suspend  this 
publication,  he  launched  in  1903  the  Slovensky  Tydentk^  a  weekly  which 
rapidly  became  the  intellectual  and  political  sustenance  of  the  Slovak 
masses.  In  1905  he  was  elected  to  the  Budapest  Parliament  by  the 
Slovaks  of  the  Bak,  a  region  which  today  belongs  to  Yugoslavia. 

The  young  deputy  felt  that  he  possessed  the  spirit  of  a  leader,  and  he 
did  not  try  to  hide  his  ambitions.  But  he  was  too  profoundly  Slovak  at 
heart  to  associate  himself  with  the  powers  of  the  day.  The  question  of 
destroying  Austria-Hungary  did  not  arise  until  much  later,  when  the  old 
empire  had  dug  its  own  grave.  For  the  time  being  his  plans  were  much 
more  modest.  It  was  a  question  above  all  of  securing  autonomy  for  the 
non-Magyar  population.  The  plan  of  action  was  based  on  two  cardinal 
points:  to  struggle  against  the  Austro-Hungarian  dualism,  which  left 
the  field  free  for  oppression  and  to  obtain  the  right  of  suffrage  for  the 
minorities. 


[134]  THE  LIVING  AGE  April 

Mr.  Hodza  carried  on  this  double  struggle  ceaselessly,  with  all  the 
vigor  of  his  temperament,  but  also  with  all  the  mastery  which  his  rapidly 
growing  experience  was  developing  in  him.  Was  he  an  extremist  or 
a  moderate?  A  radical  or  an  opportunist?  Mr.  Hodza  was  neither  one  nor 
the  other;  or,  to  be  more  exact,  he  was,  and  doubtless  still  is,  both.  Never, 
perhaps,  had  a  citizen  of  the  Dual  Monarchy  dared  to  speak  about  the 
Emperor  as  he  did.  In  1905,  some  time  after  his  election,  he  wrote:  'The 
paternal  heart  of  Your  Majesty  rejoices  to  see  us  supplying  you  faith- 
fully with  money  and  soldiers;  its  tranquillity  is  not  at  all  disturbed  by 
our  sufferings.  .  .  .  We  are  sure  that  Your  Majesty's  heart  is  nothing 
but  a  base  calculating  machine,  only  fit  to  determine  the  order  in  which 
you  can  juggle  the  nationalities'.  .  .  . 

WHEN  the  Dual  Monarchy  was  overthrown  and  the  Czechoslovakian 
Republic  proclaimed,  Mr.  Hodza,  following  his  political  instinct,  con- 
tinued to  alternate  open  attacks  with  subtle  alliances.  The  first  repre- 
sentative of  the  Czechoslovakian  Republic  in  the  Budapest  government, 
he  showed  by  his  independent  attitude  that  he  had  his  own  policy  and 
that  it  did  not  behoove  him  to  be  treated  as  a  mere  functionary — not 
even  as  one  of  the  highest  degree.  Elected  a  deputy  to  the  new  Parlia- 
ment, he  founded  the  Agrarian  Party  of  Slovakia,  where  he  at  the  same 
time  organized  the  trade  unions  and  agricultural  cooperatives.  At  the 
end  of  two  years,  assured  of  his  comparative  independence,  and  not 
having  any  reason  to  fear  that  his  personality  would  be  overshadowed  by 
the  vast  party  machine,  he  allied  himself  with  the  Czechoslovakian 
Agrarians.  Later  he  was  to  lead  a  bourgeois  bloc  in  an  attack  upon  the 
Socialists, — an  attack  that  he  continued  until  the  reprisals  of  the  Left  in 
their  turn  checked  him  and  forced  him  for  some  time  to  adopt  a  humbler 
attitude. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  although  accused  of  demagogy  and  of  Agrarian 
Socialism,  Mr.  Hodza  had  often  seemed  a  reactionary  to  the  Czechoslo- 
vakian Socialists.  He  was  one  of  the  most  effective  opponents  of  the 
separation  of  Church  and  State.  Against  those  in  favor  of  centrahzation 
he  asserted  the  necessity  for  decentralization,  which  the  history  of  cen- 
turies imposed.  Finally  the  fact  that  he  was  a  partisan  of  the  League  of 
Nations  did  not  make  him  fight  any  less  vigorously  against  pacifism, 
which  seemed  to  him  at  once  empty  and  weakening,  and  likely  to  make 
the  future  of  his  country  a  dark  one. 

If,  to  make  sure,  one  asks  him  about  his  true  political  beliefs,  Mr. 
Hodza  answers  willingly:  *I  am  a  conservative,  but  in  the  larger  sense  of 
the  word.  That  is,  I  want  to  create  before  I  conserve.' 

What  does  he  mean  by  'create'  ?  Perhaps  a  vast  central  party  where 
Agrarian  predominance  will  be  expressed  even  more  decisively  than  it  is 


/pjd  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [135] 

today.  Perhaps,  also,  a  new  form  of  democracy,  which  will  deserve  the 
name  of  economic  democracy.  In  spite  of  oneself,  one  thinks  of  certain  of 
Mr.  Benes's  declarations  .  .  .  The  Socialists  and  Agrarians  might  have 
been  in  violent  opposition  in  the  past;  today  they  agree  on  more  than  one 
point.  Their  reconciliation  is  more  than  just  a  tactical  move  or  a  simple 
reflex  of  a  lucid  and  generous  patriotism. 

As  Minister  of  Agriculture,  Mr.  Hodza  succeeded  in  organizing  and 
directing  a  cereal  monopoly  by  appealing  to  a  federation  of  producers 
and  consumers  and  by  demanding  no  more  than  a  strictly  limited  guaran- 
tee from  the  State.  The  experience  up  to  now  has  not  been  unfavorable. 
Mr.  Hodza  now  dreams  of  extending  the  organization  to  the  other 
branches  of  agricultural  production.  He  is  exerting  pressure  on  the 
industrialists  to  induce  them  to  enter  upon  a  similar  road.  He  is  trans- 
forming the  agricultural  chambers;  he  intends  to  reorganize  the  National 
Economic  Council;  he  is  attempting  to  simpHfy  and  organize  the  ad- 
ministrative machine  so  as  to  achieve  the  greatest  clarity  and  efficiency 
possible.  In  terms  of  such  an  evolution  one  foresees  a  Republic  which 
some  would  call  conservative  and  bourgeois,  others  SociaHst  and  perhaps 
also  Corporative,  although  that  word  has  never  passed  the  lips  of  the 
President  of  the  Council. 

But  Czechoslovakia  has  more  than  economic  problems  to  solve. 
It  is  also  necessary  to  integrate  the  Slovaks  into  a  national  community, 
and  Mr.  Hodza  is  perhaps  the  only  one  who  could  achieve  this  task.  It  is 
also  necessary  to  make  more  than  three  million  Germans  feel  happy  and 
free  in  their  Czechoslovakian  homeland — a  delicate  problem  which  in 
1926  the  future  President  of  the  Council  had  believed  in  great  measure 
solved,  but  which  the  changes  in  Hitler  Germany  have  since  revived.  In 
resuming  this  interrupted  work,  in  performing  the  projected  economic 
reorganization,  in  helping  the  realization  of  the  idea,  which  is  so  close  to 
his  heart,  of  an  association  between  the  agricultural  and  industrial  States 
of  Europe — in  doing  these  things  Mr.  Hodza  can  count  upon  the  confi- 
dence of  the  immense  majority  of  his  countrymen.  Naturally  there  is  no 
lack  of  obstacles.  He  will  have  to  contend  with  the  resistance,  the  rou- 
tine, and  the  jealousies  of  his  own  party,  with  the  incomprehension  and 
the  suspicion  of  a  good  number  of  the  Socialists.  He  will  also  have  to 
resist  the  temptation  to  expand  indefinitely  the  field  of  action  of  his  own 
party  at  the  expense  of  the  other  political  organizations.  But  the  gravest 
danger  threatening  him  is  perhaps  the  very  greatness  of  the  hopes  placed 
in  him, — hopes  which  it  is  perhaps  not  in  the  power  of  any  man  to  realize 
completely. 

One  must  hope  for  the  good  of  Czechoslovakia  and  the  success  of 
democratic  ideas  that  the  parties  of  the  Left  and  of  the  Right  will  have  in 
this  difficult  hour  as  clear  a  comprehension  of  their  duties  as  that  which 


[136]  THE  LIVING  AGE  April 

Messrs.  Hodza  and  Benes  have.  If  it  is  so,  make  no  mistake:  this  lettered 
bourgeois,  who  knows  how  to  speak  to  the  simple  folk,  whose  warm 
greetings  quickly  correct  the  first  impression  of  austerity  he  gives,  who 
speaks  slowly,  with  his  eyes  half  closed,  as  though  he  were  pursuing  some 
inner  thought  behind  his  glasses — this  man  is  not  only  the  chief  of  an 
honorable  Protestant  family.  Nor  is  he  only  a  party  member  whom  a 
political  movement  has  unexpectedly  carried  to  the  top.  Tomorrow  he 
may  very  well  be  one  of  the  new  men  of  the  new  Europe. 


Albert  Sarraut 

By  Odette  Pannetier 
Translated  from  Candide^  Paris  Conservative  Weekly 

JTlE  MAKES  one  think  of  a  Buddhist  monk  in  an  educational  film,  or 
a  provincial  notary  who  has  come  incognito  to  Paris  to  perform  a  mar- 
riage. He  has  the  flat  nose  and  the  slanting  eyes  of  the  one,  and  of  the 
other,  the  pompous  air,  the  solemn  bearing,  and  the  passionate  attach- 
ment to  a  bowler  hat  and  a  cane  with  a  silver  knob. 

He  speaks  slowly,  weighing  and  reweighing  his  words,  savoring 
them  as  he  utters  them.  He  has  not  yet  exhausted  the  pride  he  experi- 
ences at  feeling  himself  so  discreet,  so  sensible,  so  intelligent. 

His  great  power  lies  in  having  a  brother  whom  no  one  ever  sees. 
You  have  to  nave  a  radical  convention,  rife  with  threats  and  hidden 
traps,  before  you  finally  see  him  appear,  tall,  slender,  round-shouldered, 
witn  cheeks  that  are  too  hollow,  cheekbones  that  are  too  pink,  a  mus- 
tache like  a  lightning-rod.  Clemenceau  used  to  say: — 

'Albert  Sarraut?  Oh,  yes,  that's  the  one  with  the  intelligent  brother.* 

It  is  true  that  Maurice  Sarraut  is  intelligent.  Intelligent  like  all  those 
who  advise  much  and  never  act.  Albert  Sarraut  is  not  particularly  stupid 
either.  And  he  is  brave  enough,  too.  He  has  proved  this  by  fighting  sev- 
eral duels.  That  was  a  long  time  ago.  He  has  doubtless  become  more  dis- 
creet since  then.  But  in  the  trade  of  the  musketeer  one  does  not  wait 
until  sixty  to  retire. 

By  a  strange  phenomenon  this  man,  so  brave  in  life,  is  in  politics 
submissive  and  vacillating.  His  brother,  who  guesses  all  his  sentiments 
with  an  almost  feminine  intuition,  has  become  ror  this  weakling  in  search 
of  support  a  sort  of  tender,  intellectual  Nanny.  Whatever  Maurice  ad- 
vises him  to  do,  Albert  does.  One  has  the  power  and  the  other  exercises  it. 

The  two  of  them  are  great  feudal  lords.  Radical  and  anti-clerical, 
whose  domain  comprises  the  entire  countryside  of  Carcassonne  and 
Toulouse.  They  rule  their  lands  amiably  but  firmly. 


193^ 


PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES 


>37] 


From  time  to  time  they  notice  among  their  Vassals'  and  'serfs'  a 
child,  an  adolescent,  who  deserves  to  *be  somebody.'  They  ravish  him 
away  from  the  disconsolate  mother,  from  the  resigned,  but  proud,  father. 
They  make  a  Radical  out  of  him.  Whereupon  the  youngster  betrays  their 
hopes,  and  they  feel  lost,  like  a  mother  hen  whose  brood  has  run  away 
to  who  knows  what  hazardous  destiny. 

WHILE  Maurice  reasons  and  treats  politics  like  a  game  of  chess,  Albert 
tends  to  make  everything  concrete  in  phrases  which  are  destined,  ac- 
cording to  him,  to  survive  for  posterity.  Everybody  knows  the  most 
famous  one,  which  dates  from  the  time  of  the  Poincare  ministry,  when 
Mr.  Albert  Sarraut  was  Minister  of  the  Interior: — 

'Communism — that's  the  enemy.' 

That  was  the  time  when  he  dreamed  all  night  of  plots,  bombs,  at- 
tacks on  Paris  led  by  a  Cachin  or  a  Berthon,  with  their  knives  clenched 
in  their  teeth. 

From  time  to  time  some  needy  rascal,  knowing  about  the  innocent 
hobby  of  the  Minister  of  the  Interior,  would  come  to  see  him,  and  on 
being  announced  would  assume  a  reticent  air,  heavy  with  mystery: — 

'I  know  where  "they"  meet.  .  .  .' 

From  behind  gold-rimmed  glasses  the  somber  eyes  of  a  mandarin 
gleamed  with  a  million  sparks. 

'Where?  .  .  .  Come,  talk  .  .  .  I'll  reward  you  .  .  .' 

The  drawer  of  the  desk  would  slide  open,  and  the  enchanted  visitor 
would  perceive  a  magic  heap  of  crumpled  banknotes,  ready  to  be  given, 
and  good  to  take. 

Can  Mr.  Sarraut  have  signed  a  secret  peace  treaty  with  the  Com- 
munists? The  Humanite  has  taken  his  return  to  power  very  nicely. 
Nothing  remains  of  the  violent  hatred  of  old.  Doubtless  it  has  ceased  to 
be  a  good  electoral  plank.  For  either  side. 

But  has  Mr.  Sarraut  also  renounced  the  yellow  peril?  Have  those 
two  perils,  the  red  and  the  yellow,  disappeared,  gone,  taken  flight  like 
nightmares  at  dawn?  From  his  long  and  useful  stays  in  Asia,  Albert 
Sarraut  had  brought  back  a  haunting  memory  of  the  furtive,  hidden 
hatred  of  the  yellow-skinned  man,  obsequiously  stirred  up  against  the 
whites.  If  one  went  to  see  him  during  Poincare's  regime  at  the  soft  hour 
of  twilight,  at  the  hour  when  the  ministers  take  their  sober  recreation, 
one  would  find  him  bent  over  a  map  of  Asia  like  a  clairvoyant  over  her 
cards. 

He  would  smile  sadly,  sigh  a  little,  take  off  his  glasses,  put  them  on 
again,  turn  aside  to  spit,  and  predict  with  a  monotonous  voice  the  end 
of  European  civilization. 

Mr.  Sarraut  has  renounced  these  preoccupations,  which  people  create 


[138]  THE  LIVING  AGE  April 

for  themselves  in  a  period  of  prosperity  in  order  to  mollify  fate  by  not  be- 
ing wholly  happy. 

Now  he  has  again  taken  up  his  residence  in  the  Place  Beauvau.  He 
has  recovered  his  office  with  a  small  unconfessed  joy,  and  the  logs  that 
smolder  in  the  fireplace,  and  even  the  doorman,  who  had  once  crushed 
his  fingers  in  the  door  of  his  carriage  as  he  closed  it. 

Again  the  canvases  and  the  frames  will  be  heaped  everywhere  in  the 
Minister's  room:  against  the  walls  and  the  armchairs,  and  in  the  little 
retreat  where  a  Minister  anxious  to  be  clean  even  in  the  physical  sense 
has  the  right  to  wash  his  hands. 

For  painting  is  Mr.  Sarraut's  great  passion.  There  is  not  an  exhibi- 
tion to  which  he  does  not  hurry.  He  will  not  leave  Breughel  except  for 
Chagall,  and  only  Derain  can  console  him  for  the  sad  spectacle  of  a 
Renoir  returning  to  America  after  having  been  sent  over  solely  for  the 
purpose  of  an  exhibition.  He  loves  painting  with  the  lugubrious  hunger 
of  the  poor  devils  standing  with  empty  stomachs  before  a  butcher's 
shop.  This  cold,  formal,  meticulous  and  bored  man  when  you  speak  to 
him  about  painting  displays  the  lyricism  of  a  schoolboy  let  out  on  his 
spring  vacation.  And  how  touching  and  beautiful  it  is  to  hear  him  say 
almost  piously: — 

*I,  who  am  a  connoisseur  of  painting  .  .  .* 

Let  his  ministers  betray  him:  Modigliani  will  console  him.  Let  Mr. 
Marcel  Regnier  object  that  there  are  only  a  few  demonetized  pennies 
in  the  treasury:  he  will  find  himself  an  obscure  little  painter  of  St. 
Denis  with  canvases  which,  it  seems,  would  give  a  king  courage  on  the 
eve  of  a  revolution. 

NOW  that  he  is  the  head  of  the  Government  he  has  become  a  sort  of 
Grand  Cham.  He  behaves  like  a  man  used  to  the  bodyguards,  to  the 
reporters,  to  the  magnesium  lights,  and  to  the  crowd  which  shouts  things 
which  luckily  one  does  not  understand.  He  smiles  a  Httle;  he  does  'Bon- 
jour^  bonjour'  with  his  hand;  he  does  not  see  anybody;  he  marches  on  in 
his  glory.  People  to  right  and  to  left  are  like  two  yielding  g^ay  walls  in 
which  one  has  neither  the  time  nor  the  wish  to  recognize  a  friendly  face 
or  an  afl^ectionate  look.  He  passes  and  is  gone.  The  State  claims  him,  for 
he  is  the  State. 

During  the  intermissions  in  his  power,  he  has  contracted  a  great  love 
for  the  Cote  d'Azur.  One  year  he  was  seen  at  Juan-les-Pins — ^when  that 
place  was  not  yet  a  perpetually  turbulent  and  vulgar  country  fair.  He 
was  noticed  because  nobody  could  help  noticing  him.  Coming  from  the 
north,  from  Toulouse,  he  was  not  familiar  with  the  latest  fashions.  So 
one  day  the  astonished  public  saw  a  man  rushing  into  the  casino,  dressed 
in  black,  with  a  bowler  hat  on  his  head,  carrying  a  cane  with  a  silver  knob 


/pjd  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [139] 

as  a  beadle  would  carry  a  halberd.  The  tritons  and  naiads  who  were  sun- 
ning their  skin  and  hair  almost  died  with  laughter.  Mr.  Sarraut  became 
purple  in  the  face.  They  saw  him  disappear  by  a  hidden  staircase  and 
then  reappear  on  the  beach  where  all  alone  at  that  hour  he  ran  and 
stumbled,  a  baffled  fugitive,  silhouetted  black  against  the  yellow  sand. 
The  next  year  he  took  his  revenge;  as  they  say,  *I  remember  it  as  if 
it  were  yesterday.'  It  was  the  sacred  hour  at  the  Miramar.  Arrived  a 
sea-wolf  whose  jersey  shirt  left  his  arms  bare,  and  whose  shorts  revealed 
his  shaggy  legs.  Around  his  neck  was  the  red  handkerchief  of  the  locomo- 
tive driver.  It  was  Mr.  Albert  Sarraut. 

LET  US  go  back  to  the  serious  things:  for  example,  the  fate  of  France. 
Mr.  Sarraut  did  not  want  to  form  his  ministry.  Three  days  before  posing 
for  the  cameras  of  the  whole  world,  he  declared  to  his  most  intimate 
friends : — ■ 

'I  don't  know  if  Lebrun  will  call  me,  but  I  know  one  thing:  under  no 
circumstances  will  I  form  a  ministry.' 

And  then  people  intervened.  Maurice,  the  brother-governess,  Mr. 
Mandel,  the  little  friends  who  wanted  to  get  portfolios,  Mr.  Jacques 
Stern,  who  had  adopted  Mr.  Sarraut's  doormat  as  a  place  to  sleep,  Mr. 
Camille  Chautemps,  who  wanted  to  extend  his  railroad  ventures,  and 
perhaps  even  Mr.  Lebrun,  who  is  quite  capable  of  having  a  personal 
opinion  if  the  circumstances  demand  it. 

Thus  solicited  Mr.  Sarraut  passed  his  hand  across  his  brow  several 
times  with  the  gesture  of  a  man  with  a  headache  whom  five  young 
ladies  are  begging  to  dance  a  polka  with  them.  Then  he  said: — 

'Yes.' 

But  by  that  time  all  the  press  agencies  had  already  spread  the  news. 
The  next  thing  to  do  was  to  form  the  ministry  in  question.  Mr.  Sarraut 
had  exhausted  all  his  strength  in  that  'Yes,'  which  had  so  relieved  Mr. 
Lebrun. 

Whereupon  Mr.  Mandel  very  obligingly  put  himself  at  Mr.  Sar- 
raut's disposal.  He  called  upon  Messrs.  Jean  Zay  and  Guernut  and  Gen- 
eral Maurin;  he  relegated  Mr.  Paul-Boncour  to  a  soft  job  of  which, 
however,  nothing  was  left  but  the  shell.  Without  realizing  it  he  played 
the  role  of  Puck  in  A  Midsummer  Night's  Dream. 

Mr.  Sarraut,  upon  learning  that  his  ministry  was  formed,  was  very 
happy  indeed. 

'Have  all  the  portfolios  been  distributed?  All  of  them?  Really?' 
he  asked  Mr.  Mandel. 

For  he  is  a  very  conscientious  man. 

Mr.  Mandel  reassured  him.  Whereupon  Mr.  Sarraut  went  on  his  way. 
That  very  day  a  new  exhibition  was  opening! 


[i4o]  THE  LIVING  AGE  April 


Darius  Milhaud 
By  M.  D.  Calvocoressi 

From  the  Listener,  Weekly  Oi^an  of  the  British  Broadcasting  Corporation 

IVllLHAUD  has  always  been  regarded  as  the  stormy  petrel  of  con- 
temporary French  music.  He  owes  this  reputation  partly  to  the  disturb- 
ances created  by  certain  of  his  works:  the  Etudes  for  piano  and  orchestra 
in  Paris  in  1921 ;  the  final  scenes  of  Cbristophe  Colomb  nine  years  later  in 
Berlin.  But  he  owes  it  also  to  his  loudly  proclaimed  anti-Wagnerism,  his 
anti-impressionism,  his  interest  in  ragtime  and  jazz,  his  love  for  the 
grotesque,  the  farcical  and  the  outre ^  the  part  he  played  as  an  exponent  of 
polytonality  and  as  leader  of  the  short-lived  group  known  as  Les  Six. 
In  actual  fact,  he  is  a  remarkably  alert,  impulsive,  industrious  and  versa- 
tile composer,  who  knows  exactly  what  he  wants,  however  bewildering  a 
diversity  of  means  he  may  have  tried  in  order  to  achieve  his  aim. 

He  was  born  in  Provence,  and  is  of  Jewish  parentage.  In  him  the  sur- 
face quickness  and  exuberance  of  the  southern  French  works  in  associa- 
tion with  the  deep  sensitiveness,  the  thoroughness,  the  enquiring  mind, 
that  are  characteristic  of  the  Jewish  race  at  its  best.  His  career  began  in 
one  stormy  period  and  continued,  after  the  War,  in  another  even  storm- 
ier. When  in  19 10,  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  he  started  his  professional 
studies  at  the  Paris  Conservatoire^  Debussy  was  asserting  his  influence  in 
spite  of  violent  opposition,  and  Schonberg  and  Stravinsky  were  looming 
on  the  horizon.  All  three  made  their  impression  upon  him.  So  did  Alberic 
Magnard,  a  composer  whose  music,  informed  by  austere  ideaHsm,  is  not 
generally  appreciated  in  France  and  remains  practically  unknown  else- 
where. 

But  more  than  any  music,  the  writings  of  Francis  Jammes  and  of 
Paul  Claudel  contributed  to  the  forming  of  his  outlook.  Jammes'  poems 
(of  which  he  set  many  to  music  between  1910  and  191 8)  confirmed  his 
instinctive  dislike  for  *  the  languid  misty  atmosphere  of  musical  impres- 
sionism,' and  revealed  to  him  the  poetry  of  everyday  life,  the  charm  of 
humble  persons  and  familiar  objects. 

He  started  on  his  creed  unostentatiously  enough,  with  a  violin  con- 
certo, a  string  quartet,  a  piano  suite,  an  orchestral  suite  and  settings  of 
poems  by  Claudel  to  which  Jammes  had  called  his  attention.  In  1910  he 
began  setting  Jammes'  play  La  Brebis  egaree,  which  he  finished  in  191 5. 
It  is  a  simple  and  a  genuinely  expressive  work.  Then  he  met  Claudel,  and 
out  of  their  collaboration  came  a  long  series  of  works  for  the  stage — the 
satiric  drama,  Protee^  Orestie  (Claudel's  French  translation  of  the 
iEschylus  trilogy),  the  ballet  L Homme  et  son  Desir  and  Cbristophe  Co- 


ipj6  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  :^^   [^i] 

loml^.  Poet  and  composer  were  in  thorough  agreement  on  all  points;  in 
their  fondness  for  mingling  the  trite  and  the  singular,  the  subtle  and  the 
coarse,  reahsm  and  fantasy.  Above  all  things,  they  both  felt  that '  music 
should  never  be  such  as  to  create  an  atmosphere  in  which  everything 
happens  as  in  a  dream.' 

Dream  in  any  form,  and  even  introspection,  is  no  part  of  Milhaud's 
scheme.  He  is  far  too  interested  in  things  as  he  finds  them.  Anything  af- 
fords him  a  pretext  for  music-making.  He  has  set  Psalms  to  music,  and 
poems  of  Coventry  Patmore  and  Francis  Thompson.  He  has  also  set 
technical  descriptions  of  agricultural  machines,  and  parts  of  a  seeds- 
man's catalogue.  He  is  interested  in  all  the  noises  that  human  voices  or 
instruments  can  make.  In  LHomme  et  son  Desir  he  plays  with  no  less 
than  eighteen  percussion  instruments.  Elsewhere  he  devises  sequences  of 
tone  clusters,  in  which  all  the  notes  of  one  diatonic  scale,  plus  maybe 
several  from  another,  are  included  and  duplicated  in  several  octaves. 

His  output  is  enormous.  It  includes  operas,  ballets,  eight  string  quar- 
tets, six  symphonies,  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  songs,  cantatas  and 
choral  music,  a  viola  concerto,  a  vioHn  concerto,  a  variety  of  works  for 
piano  and  orchestra,  and  half-a-dozen  pieces  for  various  other  combina- 
tions. No  doubt  he  has  composed  too  much,  relying  on  the  prodigality  of 
his  own  genius  rather  than  upon  his  sense  of  criticism.  Composition  to 
him  is  a  natural  activity,  and  music  simply  a  means  of  expression.  He 
himself  has  declared  that  *  the  vitality  of  a  work  can  depend  only  on  the 
vitality  of  its  melody:  poly  tonality  and  atonahty  are  of  value  only  as 
materials  in  the  service  of  the  composer's  sensitiveness  and  imagination.' 
Mr.  Edwin  Evans,  however,  has  pointed  out  that  he  is  also  interested  in 
*  the  chess-problem  aspect  of  music,  which  provides  an  attractive  field 
for  the  intellectual  ingenuity  that  the  Jews  bring  from  the  East.' 

But  something  of  the  fundamental  simplicity  which  he  learned  from 
Jammes  remains  even  in  his  most  ambitious  ventures.  In  the  Poemes 
juifs  he  has  achieved  a  soul-stirring  eloquence  with  the  simplest  means. 

In  his  Jewish  music  he  never  aims  at  archaism.  He  is  as  little  con- 
cerned with  reconstitution  (genuine  or  illusory)  of  the  old  types  as  with 
adapting  traditional  tunes  to  modern  music.  But  the  settings  of  songs 
and  hymns,  the  Poemes,  the  Melodies populaires  hebra'iques,  and  the  little 
known  but  very  fine  and  simple  Prieres  journalieres  des  juifs  du  Comtat 
Venaisson,  express  the  fervor  and  impassioned  spirituality  of  his  race. 

His  artistic  creed  is  that  in  music  nothing  really  matters  except 
melody.  He  is  not  endowed  with  a  particularly  great  capacity  for  creat- 
ing ample  sustained  melodies.  But  in  most  of  his  songs,  and  especially  in 
the  Jewish  sets,  he  achieves  genuine  lyricism.  It  is  in  that  domain  and  in 
chamber  music  that  we  may  be  sure  of  finding  his  work  at  its  pithiest  and 
best. 


A  Tale  of 
Two  Cities 


These  two  sketches,  both  by  Germans, 
point  the  contrast  between  the  capi- 
tals of  Nazi  Germany  and  Red  Russia. 


The  Old 
AND  THE  New 


I.  Moscow  Buys 
By  Leo  Lania 

Translated  from  the  Neues  Tage-bucb,  Paris  German  £migr6  Weekly 


riNEAPPLES!  From  Formosa!' 
My  friend,  a  well-known  dramatist,  is 
enthusiastically  waving  the  can  which 
he  has  just  purchased  at  the  Gas- 
tronom. 

'What  do  you  say  to  all  these 
things  we  can  get  here  now?  You  can 
buy  everything  in  the  Moscow  stores 
now — ^just  look — pineapple  from  For- 
mosa!' Triumphantly  a  young  ar- 
chitect places  the  can  under  my  nose. 

On  the  table  there  were  big  plates  of 
sausages,  cheese,  ham  and  salads; 
there  was  pie  and  many  kinds  of  cakes 
of  alarming  dimensions;  candies,  sand- 
wiches— when  I  saw  the  enormous 
portions  set  before  me,  my  appetite 
vanished.  Finally  hot  frankfurters 
were  served,  Moscow's  latest  spe- 
cialty, held  in  particular  esteem: 
400,coo  pairs  a  day  are  consumed  in 
the  city,  someone  reported. 


The  general  enthusiasm  for  eco- 
nomic statistics  seems  to  keep  pace 
with  the  increase  in  production;  no 
more  than  two  years  ago,  drinking  bad 
tea  and  eating  poor  bread,  one  got 
drunk  on  the  figures  of  coal  and  iron 
production,  on  the  dimensions  of  the 
new  dams.  A  year  ago  it  was  the  open- 
ing of  the  subway  that  made  one  for- 
get all  one's  difficulties.  Today  the 
report  of  Mikoyan,  the  People's  Com- 
missar for  the  Food  Industry,  is  the 
greatest  sensation,  and  the  figures  on 
the  consumption  of  butter,  meat, 
coffee  and  canned  goods,  running  into 
the  millions,  are  discussed  with  de- 
light. Every  conversation  ends  in  the 
reports  of  eyewitnesses  of  this  new 
store  or  that,  of  the  dainties  that  can 
be  purchased  there. 

That  evening,  in  the  lobby  of  my 
hotel,  I  got  into  a  conversation  with 


A  TALE  OF  TWO  CITIES 


M3] 


an  engineer  who  had  just  arrived  from 
the  country,  and  soon  I  was,  as  they 
say,  'in  on  things.' 

'What  do  you  say?'  he  began.  'Do 
you  know  that  you  can  now  buy  in 
Moscow — * 

'I  know — pineapples  from  For- 
mosa!' 

Moscow,  the  whole  of  Soviet  Rus- 
sia, is  making  a  rush  for  the  luxuries 
which  have  suddenly  come  within 
reach  after  long  years  of  need  and 
privation.  The  foreigner  who  smiles  at 
the  sometimes  naive  enthusiasm  of  the 
Russians  in  these  matters  forgets  two 
things;  the  tremendous  sacrifices  they 
had  to  make  before  they  could  enjoy 
the  present  rewards;  and  the  extraor- 
dinary political  significance  of  this 
imposing  turn  for  the  better.  For  the 
first  time  the  individual  is  experienc- 
ing the  concrete  results  of  Soviet- 
planned  economy  in  everyday  things, 
in  his  private  life.  The  worst  is  over. 
Things  are  on  the  upgrade.  The 
consciousness  of  this  blots  out  all 
worries. 

Three  years  ago,  on  my  last  visit, 
every  conversation  moved  around  one 
theme:  the  coming  war.  Today  there 
is  more  talk  of  war  in  every  city  of 
Europe  than  in  the  towns  and  villages 
of  the  Soviet  Union.  This  does  not 
mean  that  they  underestimate  the 
possibility,  the  dangers,  of  war — the 
Party  and  the  Government  take  care 
of  that.  But  in  all  strata  of  the  popula- 
tion the  feeling  of  security  outweighs 
the  fear  of  war.  'They  won't  do  us  any 
harm.  And  if  we  have  five  more  years 
of  peace,  a  war  will  not  even  be  able 
to  threaten  our  economic  progress 
seriously ! ' 

In  this  connection  Kaganovitch  is 
pointed  to  time  and  again.  A  year  ago 
he  took  over  the  transport  depart- 


ment, which  had  seriously  lagged  in  its 
development;  within  a  few  months, 
with  fantastic  energy,  he  reorganized 
the  railways.  Today  it  may  be  said 
that  a  radical  improvement  of  this 
vital  part  of  Russian  economy,  so 
important  in  case  of  war,  has  begun. 
For  example,  in  the  sugar  refineries,  as 
late  as  1932,  workers  stood  idle  16.8 
per  cent  of  the  time,  for  the  transpor- 
tation facilities  were  inadequate  to 
keep  coal,  lime,  and  beets  coming  in. 
In  1933  the  percentage  rose  to  18.  In 
1934  idle  time  amounted  to  2.5  per 
cent,  and  since  the  fall  of  1935  not  a 
single  sugar  refinery  has  had  an  hour's 
idle  time  which  could  be  traced  to 
transportation  difficulties.  Similar  re- 
ports come  from  all  branches  of 
industry. 

The  streets  of  Moscow  are  changing 
from  day  to  day.  The  opening  of  new 
stores,  cafes,  restaurants,  changes  the 
character  of  the  streets  even  more 
than  the  modern  ten-story  hotels  and 
Government  buildings.  Show-windows 
full  of  food  and  goods  have  brightened 
the  gray  monotony  of  the  Moscow 
streets;  the  bright  stores,  open  until 
midnight,  and  thronged  with  cus- 
tomers, do  more  toward  increasing  the 
joy  of  life  and  the  feeling  of  hopeful- 
ness than  the  ablest  statements  and 
newspaper  articles. 

As  far  as  the  quality  of  the  goods  is 
concerned,  only  a  beginning  has  been 
made.  The  food  compares  favorably 
with  that  of  foreign  countries.  There 
are  dozens  of  different  kinds  of  pastry, 
cheese  and  sausages.  Every  grocery 
store  on  Gorki  Street,  the  former 
Tverskaya,  carries  as  many  delica- 
tessen goods  as  the  biggest  stores  in 
European  capitals.  But  the  quality  of 
clothing,  shoes,  and  underwear  is 
considerably    inferior.    And,    despite 


>44] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


new  buildings  everywhere,  the  hous- 
ing question  in  Moscow  is  almost  as 
critical  as  ever.  Even  with  plenty  of 
good  food,  people  still  dress  poorly, 
and  the  living  conditions  are  out- 
rageous. Because  of  the  tremendous 
overcrowding  of  the  city,  Moscow  is 
the  worst  offender  in  this  respect.  The 
Government's  decisions  that  in  future 
no  more  factories  are  to  be  erected  in 
the  proximity  of  Moscow  and  that  the 
city  shall  not  exceed  the  five-million 
limit,  coupled  with  the  creation  of  big 
administrative  and  cultural  centers  in 
the  provincial  towns,  will  doubtless 
soon  stop  further  influx  into  Moscow. 
But  even  so  it  will  still  be  years  before 
each  Moscow  citizen  will  have  a  room 
to  himself.  According  to  the  schedule, 
the  whole  rebuilding  and  reorganiza- 
tion of  the  city  will  be  completed  in 
1945.  The  estimate  is  based  on  what 
one  would  formerly  have  called  *  Amer- 
ican' but  must  now  call  'Soviet  Rus- 
sian' methods. 


Until  the  beginning  of  this  year  it 
was  not  possible  to  answer  questions 
about  the  living  standard  of  Soviet 
Russians  unequivocally.  The  wages 
and  prices  did  not  mean  much  because 
the  hundred  rubles  of  one  worker  had 
to  be  valued  differently  from  those  of 
another.  Payments  in  kind  always  had 
to  be  taken  into  consideration  in 
addition  to  wages  (lunch,  the  ration  of 
food  and  goods  which  the  worker  could 
purchase  in  his  cooperative).  In  con- 
trast to  these,  the  wages  themselves, 
which  he  used  for  purchasing  his 
further  needs  at  incomparably  higher 
prices  in  the  open  market,  played  only 
a  supplementary  and  relatively  un- 
important role. 

Since  the  first  of  January  there  have 


been  no  rations,  and  consequently 
there  are  no  longer  two  different  sec- 
tors of  the  Russian  economy.  The 
hundred  rubles  of  every  worker,  peas- 
ant and  employee  represent  the  same 
purchasing  power.  There  are  still 
certain  differentiations.  One  worker 
may  work  in  a  factory  where  the  club 
serves  a  cheap  lunch  because  the  plant 
pays  a  grant  for  each  man;  another 
worker  may  not  have  the  same  privi- 
lege in  his  shop.  In  addition  there  are 
the  bonuses  which  almost  every  worker 
receives  for  special  accomplishments. 
Others  work  in  their  spare  time — 
engineers,  architects,  technicians,  for 
instance — and  draw,  besides  their 
steady  wages,  extra  and  often  very 
high  bonuses  for  plans  and  projects. 

Even  the  wages  themselves  are  not 
yet  uniformly  regulated.  The  transi- 
tion came  too  suddenly.  It  will  take  a 
few  months  before  wages  and  prices 
are  adjusted  to  one  another.  The 
tendency  of  prices  to  fall  is  clearly 
visible,  while  wages  remain  stable,  and 
in  some  industries  are  actually  in- 
creasing. (I  myself  noticed  from  week 
to  week  the  falling  prices  in  the  Mos- 
cow stores  and  restaurants.)  The  in- 
come of  writers,  journalists,  artists, 
actors,  skilled  engineers  and  techni- 
cians, and  of  the  workers  who  exceed 
the  normal  output  (Stakhanoflites) 
is  particularly  high,  even  compared 
with  the  still  high  prices.  It  has  thus 
happened  that  some  workers  have 
been  able,  on  account  of  the  quickly 
expanding  Stakhanoffite  movement, 
to  increase  their  output  so  much  that 
they  earn  about  a  thousand  rubles  a 
month  in  addition  to  their  250  or  300 
ruble  wage-scale. 

So  far  the  Government  has  been 
unwilling  to  stop  the  full  momentum 
of  the  Stakhanoffite  movement,  the 


193^ 


A  TALE  OF  TWO  CITIES 


[145I 


impetus  for  a  better  and  larger  output, 
by  increasing  the  production  stand- 
ards and  cutting  wages.  But  here  is  a 
problem  which  will  remain  critical  for 
the  Russian  economy  as  long  as  pro- 
duction remains  insufficient  to  meet 
the  tremendously  increasing  demand 
which  results  from  the  increased 
purchasing  power  of  the  population. 
One  thing,  however,  is  certain:  the 
living  standard  of  all  strata  of  society 
is  going  up  steadily  and  quickly. 

The  stabilization  of  the  ruble  on  the 
basis  of  five  rubles  to  the  dollar  has 
not  made  any  difference  to  the  native. 
For  the  foreigner,  however,  Moscow 
has  become  the  most  expensive  city 
in  the  world.  If  he  enrers  the  Soviet 
Union  as  an  Intourist  traveler,  having 
paid  for  his  trip  in  foreign  exchange, 
he  gets  the  advantage  of  the  old  rate 
of  exchange.  But  foreigners  who  live 
permanently  in  the  Soviet  Union  (the 
personnel  of  the  embassies,  newspaper 
correspondents,  business  representa- 
tives), and  who  depend  on  remittances 
from  their  home  lands,  are  in  a  difficult 
situation.  The  Torgsin  stores,  where 
foreigners  could  buy  with  foreign 
exchange  at  world-market  prices,  have 
been  dissolved,  and  so  they  have  to 
pay,  like  the  Russians,  fifteen  rubles 
for  a  dinner  and  three  to  five  rubles  for 
twenty-five  cigarettes. 

Here,  too,  the  state  of  transition  is 
reflected.  The  ruble  will  only  gradually 
reach  the  purchasing  power  which 
accords  with  its  inner  value.  But 
though  this  change  may  be  unpleasant 
for  individuals  or  for  this  or  that 
stratum  of  the  population,  neverthe- 
less the  Government  has  only  followed 
its  program  consistently  in  stabilizing 
the  ruble  to  reach  a  uniform  wage  and 
price  system. 

The  economic  progress,  the  contin- 


ued increase  of  production;  the  con- 
quest of  the  machine  by  workers  who 
were  unskilled  a  few  years  ago — a 
quicker  and  more  thoroughgoing  con- 
quest than  even  the  most  kindly 
disposed  observers  had  thought  possi- 
ble; the  satisfaction  in  the  agricultural 
sections  at  the  end  of  collectiviza- 
tion— one  must  admit  that  Soviet- 
planned  economy  has  gained  a  decisive 
victory  and  that  the  new  system  is 
beginning  to  put  its  successes  to  the 
test.  A  new  stage  of  evolution  emerges, 
new  perspectives  and  new  problems 
come  to  the  fore. 

Ill 

In  his  statement,  mentioned  above, 
Mikoyan  said,  among  other  things: 
'Before  the  War  ten  kinds  of  cheese 
were  produced  in  Russian  dairies;  at 
the  moment  we  are  making  twenty- 
nine  kinds.  Next  year  we  want  to 
produce  sixty  or  seventy  different 
kinds  of  cheese.  Why  should  we  have 
fewer  varieties  than  France.?  We  must 
not  stay  behind  her.  As  yet  not  every- 
body enjoys  cheese,  but  one  has  to 
develop  the  taste  for  it.*  He  continues: 
'Life  is  changing  not  only  in  the  city 
but  also  in  the  villages.  Our  villages 
are  different  from  what  they  used  to 
be.  They  have  stopped  producing 
fabrics  in  the  household,  stopped 
wearing  bast  shoes  and  living  on  dry 
bread  and  kvass.  Today  the  women 
from  the  villages  wear  city  dresses; 
they  buy  perfume  and  fragrant  soap; 
our  villagers  want  to  consume  pre- 
served fruits,  meat,  fish  and  vege- 
tables. It  is  amazing  how  quickly  the 
villagers  have  learned  all  this.  But  we 
shall  see  to  it  that  they  learn  even 
more  about  it.  We  want  our  workers, 
collective  farmers  and  employees  to 
develop  their  taste  so  that  they  can 


:i46] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


change  from  simple  products  to  better 
and  more  nourishing  ones.  It  is  for 
this  purpose  that  we  have  to  use  all 
sorts  of  propaganda,  and  the  best 
forms  of  advertising.'  (In  fact,  a  great 
number  of  Moscow  printing  houses  are 
at  present  working  to  the  limits  of 
their  capacity  manufacturing  book- 
lets, leaflets,  etc.) 

The  creation  of  new  needs,  the 
development  and  improvement  of 
taste  in  food  and  clothing — in  short, 
the  raising  of  the  cultural  standards  of 
a  nation  of  one-hundred-and-sixty 
millions  who  until  recently  lived  under 
almost  medieval  conditions — this  revo- 
lution of  taste,  intellect  and  emotion 
which  is  rapidly  following  on  the  heels 
of  industrialization  now  also  pen- 
etrates into  social  and  private  life.  It 
is  a  revolution  far  more  incisive  than 
that  which  found  expression  fifteen 
years  ago  in  the  laws  about  marriage, 
divorce,  education,  artistic  creation. 
It  is  the  transformation  of  peasants 
into  workers,  of  workers  into  techni- 
cians, of  illiterates  into  tractor  drivers, 


and  of  harem  women  from  Bokhara 
into  managers  of  collectives.  This 
change  in  the  conditions  of  life,  in 
volume  and  tempo,  a  change  unique  in 
world  history,  has,  in  its  first  stage, 
been  external.  In  the  ensuing  years  it 
will  have  to  lead  to  differentiation  of 
the  masses,  to  individualization  within 
the  framework  of  SociaHst  society.  At 
the  beginning  of  this  process  stands 
the  propaganda  for  i6o  varieties  of 
cheese.  What  will  be  the  further 
development,  once  the  most  urgent 
needs  are  satisfied?  Two  years  ago, 
when  it  seemed  doubtful  whether  the 
new  tractors  and  the  complicated 
machines  would  ever  work,  whether 
distribution  under  a  planned  economy 
would  ever  function,  this  question 
seemed  a  futile  speculation.  Today  it 
demands  a  concrete  answer. 

One  works,  one  learns  with  reeling 
head,  one  still  has  little  or  no  time; 
but  the  period  of  renunciation  is  over. 
One  buys,  eats  one's  fill,  dances,  one 
discovers  private  life.  A  new  epoch 
has  dawned  in  the  Soviet  Union. 


II.  Berlin  Revisited 
By  Friedrich  Sieburg 

Translated  from  the  Frankfurter  Ztitung^  Frankfurt  Gwrdinated  Daily 


I 


OFTEN  arrive  in  Berlin  by  the 
night  train  from  western  Europe,  past 
the  stations  of  the  Stadtbahn^  from 
Charlottenburg  to  the  Friedricbstrasse. 
The  city  rises  slowly  from  deserted 
suburban  streets,  bare  greenswards, 
dismal  summer  shanties,  and  brand- 
new  small-home  developments.  It  be- 
comes a  canyon  which  forces  into  its 
own  course  the  stream  of  life  imping- 
ing from  without,  subjecting  it  and 
mastering  it  unsmilingly.  A  bit  of  park. 


the  Tiergarien,  provides  one  more 
chance  to  catch  one's  breath.  A  soft, 
purple  haze  hangs  between  the  trees; 
intent  riders  are  working  out  their 
horses;  there  is  a  glimpse  of  a  water 
course;  then  the  houses  close  in  almost 
threateningly  around  the  railway. 

Ready  to  get  off,  I  stand  at  the 
window  of  my  compartment,  looking 
at  the  advertisements  on  the  naked 
house  walls,  into  the  open  windows  of 
the  backyard  tenements,  where  people 


/pjd 


A  TALE  OF  TWO  CITIES 


MJ] 


are  dressing,  and  housewives  are  put- 
ting the  feather  beds  on  the  balconies. 
The  cross-streets  slowly  glide  past  my 
view;  they  resemble  each  other  to  a 
hair;  their  asphalt  is  covered  with  a 
fine  moisture,  into  which  the  first  cars 
have  drawn  long  shiny  trails.  Every- 
where there  stand  milk  wagons — why 
are  there  so  many  more  of  them  in 
Berlin  than  in  other  large  cities? 
When  it  is  spring  time,  the  foreboding 
of  buds  lies  like  a  soft  green  radiance 
upon  the  trees  in  the  streets. 

My  heart  beats,  half  for  joy,  half 
for  self-consciousness.  I  am  glad  to 
recognize  the  city  again,  but  at  the 
same  time  my  heart  is  oppressed  by  an 
emotion  that  has  not  weakened  in  all 
the  years  of  departures  and  reunions — 
indeed,  that  may  thereby  have  gained 
in  clarity  and  force.  No  sooner  do  I  see 
Berlin  before  me  than  I  feel  myself 
abruptly  thrust  into  all  the  doubts, 
apprehensions,  and  problems  that  are 
at  the  heart  of  the  German  being.  To 
be  a  German  is  a  great  destiny  and  a 
hard  one,  from  which  no  one  can  es- 
cape who  really  loves  his  country. 
How  great  and  how  hard  is  felt  most 
strongly  in  Berlin,  in  this  city  which, 
as  it  were,  offers  the  keenest  and  most 
acute  embodiment  of  German  evolu- 
tion. The  Germany  that  has  already 
taken  shape  lies  elsewhere;  the  future 
— as  hope,  as  will,  and  as  danger — 
lies  here. 

No  one  could  imagine  that  the  city 
is  a  cross-section  through  Germany,  or 
even  a  mirror  focusing  the  wealth  of 
the  German  peoples  and  regions. 
Berlin  is  at  once  less  and  more,  for, 
failing  to  give  a  cross-section  through 
our  country,  it  gives  one  through  our 
destiny.  Like  a  flash  they  become 
visible,  even  comprehensible — the 
suffering  and  conflict  of  our  times,  the 


predilection  to  struggle  against  chaos, 
to  recognize  the  intrinsic  value  of  the 
Movement,  the  close  juxtaposition  of 
endless  problems  with  the  briefest  of 
programs — in  a  word,  the  entire  state 
of  the  German  mind,  so  hard  to  grasp. 

Once  upon  a  time  the  city — in  a 
cruel  phrase — was  called  non-being 
Hfted  into  being;  should  it  not  rather 
be  called  formlessness  raised  into 
form  ?  The  form  of  a  nation  that  up  to 
now  seemed  to  defy  all  form  becomes 
palpable  like  a  presentiment.  As  yet 
nearly  all  is  rough  stone,  exposed  to 
the  charged  air.  But  one  can  see  where 
the  chisel  has  been  set  and  where  the 
hard  chips  are  springing  off. 

The  mood  which  beats  against  me 
every  time  in  Berlin  is  a  mixture  of 
danger  and  hopefulness.  Optimism  in 
its  most  naive  form  lives  in  intimate 
connection  with  age-old  fatalism  and 
dark  foreboding.  If  at  every  reunion 
the  darkness  prevails  in  my  heart,  it  is 
because  of  the  circumstances  of  my 
life  in  Berlin.  My  loyalty  to  Berlin  is 
and  remains  entangled  with  fear  be- 
cause my  strongest  impressions  of  the 
city  are  of  the  dark  years  after  the 
War,  and  because  unwittingly  I  still 
see  it  at  the  brink  of  the  same  chasm. 
At  that  time  Germany,  tired  unto 
death,  fell  back  into  her  own  shadow. 
The  urge  to  live  was  still  there,  but  it 
had  withdrawn  into  the  individual, 
and  there  was  nothing  left  for  the 
whole.  That  was  fateful  for  this  city, 
which  is  not  made  for  looseness  and 
relaxation — be  they  good  or  bad — and 
which  can  truly  live  only  in  a  conscious 
tension  of  all  its  energies.  Berlin  dis- 
integrated, the  plaster  crumbled,  the 
paint  peeled,  through  the  shabby, 
torn  garment  one  saw — nothingness! 

And  yet,  for  those  who  did  not  want 
to  go  under,  it  was  the  great  hour  of 


:i48] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


meditation.  This  sad  city  seemed  to 
speak  for  all  Germany,  seemed  to  pro- 
claim warningly  that  there  was  no 
peace  for  the  German  except  at  the 
price  of  disintegration  and  decay. 
Against  the  hopeless  background  of 
these  streets,  swept  by  the  icy  winds 
of  winter,  against  the  dismal  decay  of 
the  fagades,  against  the  life  that  si- 
lently hid  away  in  damp  and  shady 
corners,  I  read  a  lesson  which  has  never 
left  me — the  lesson  that  the  German 
walks  ever  but  a  hair's  breadth  from 
the  abyss  and  must  never,  never 
stand  still  lest  he  fall. 


II 


With  my  own  feet  I  have  con- 
quered every  stone  of  the  streets  of 
Berlin.  We  walked  then,  endless  miles, 
for  carfare  was  high  and  generally 
there  was  trouble  with  whatever  form 
of  transportation  one  would  have 
used.  It  is  a  long  way  from  Gross- 
Reinickendorf  to  Belle- Alliance  Square, 
from  Pankow  to  Charlottenburg,  es- 
pecially at  night.  One  deserted,  dead 
city  seemed  to  adjoin  the  other;  steps 
sounded  against  the  dead  walls  of  the 
houses;  every  now  and  then  one  came 
on  a  barbed-wire  entanglement — a 
pale  boy's  face  beneath  a  steel  helmet 
looking  across  it:  some  young  volun- 
teer of  the  Reinhart  Regiment,  or  the 
Cavalry  Guard  Rifle  Division.  Even 
when  free  passage  was  obtained,  one 
had  to  climb  over  a  maze  of  wire  rolls, 
lumber,  and  sand  sacks,  to  find  a  new 
street  opening,  endless,  empty,  closed 
off  in  the  distance  by  another  obstacle. 

Once  my  father  visited  me — it  was 
March,  1920.  I  gave  him  my  bed  and 
slept  on  the  sofa  in  the  other  room. 
The  next  morning,  when  we  awoke, 
there  was  a  general  strike — there  are 


children  now  in  Germany  who  do  not 
even  know  the  word.  There  was  no 
subway,  no  trolley,  no  cab — nothing. 
We  lived  somewhere  on  Berliner- 
sfrasse,  not  far  from  the  Charlottenburg 
Castle.  My  father  had  some  business 
with  the  Ministry  of  Transportation 
on  the  Vosstrasse^  I  believe.  We  walked 
to  the  Knie^  then  through  the  T'/Vr- 
garten,  where  some  troops  were  camp- 
ing under  the  trees.  We  walked  and 
walked — my  father  was  seventy- two 
then — and  we  talked  a  great  deal. 
Now  and  then  he  stopped  to  catch  his 
breath,  and  I  was  so  happy  when  he 
leaned  on  me  a  little.  The  crocus  had 
broken  through  the  earth,  the  thrush 
sang  and  the  old  man  spoke  of  the  time 
when  he  was  young;  at  last  he  came  to 
his  experiences  in  the  Franco-Prussian 
War,  and  we  fell  back  into  step.  At 
the  Brandenburg  Gate  our  progress 
stopped.  The  place  was  teeming  with 
young  warriors  in  steel  helmets,  and 
with  staring  bystanders.  Up  above, 
beside  the  chariot  on  the  Gate,  a 
machine  gun  was  being  mounted. 
My  father  saw  it  and  smiled,  I  do  not 
know  why;  but  that  quiet,  fresh  smile 
under  the  white  mustache  I  shall  not 
forget. 

That  is  long  past  now,  and  I  do  not 
know  whether  I  may  insert  memories 
of  so  personal  a  nature  into  my  ex- 
planation of  my  loyalty  to  Berlin. 
Perhaps  I  may,  for  this-  walk  from 
west  to  east  was  an  act  of  self-assertion 
to  which  Berlin  challenges  one  time 
and  again.  Not  to  give  up,  to  resist,  to 
survive!  More  than  that!  To  remain 
tense,  not  to  stop,  onward,  onward! 
Even  today,  whenever  I  see  Berlin 
again,  this  call  awakens  within  me. 
But  I  shall  not  conceal  that  it  possesses 
an  almost  irreconcilable  seriousness, 
which  falls  like  a  shadow  across  my 


1936 


A  TALE  OF  TWO  CITIES 


[149] 


path.  Are  we  really  destined  never  to 
rest  ?  Shall  we  always  fall  a  little  short 
of  the  goal,  even  on  the  threshold  of 
our  home,  even  at  our  own  hearth  ? 


Ill 


If  there  is  an  answer  at  all  to  this 
tortured  question,  it  will  most  likely 
come  from  Berlin.  Here  restlessness 
becomes  stone,  structure — and  still 
remains  restlessness.  Here  motion 
becomes  the  masonry  foundation — and 
still  motion  continues.  Here  yearning 
becomes  fulfilment — and  still  the  heart 
of  man  does  not  stop  consuming  itself 
in  yearning.  Have  we  lost  forever  the 
sense  of  duration,  and  gained  in  return 
so  much  time  that  all  that  lasts  seems 
like  death?  Loyalty  to  Berlin  means 
the  tireless  sowing  of  seeds  on  ground 
grown  dry  through  need  and  disinte- 
gration, yet  still  far  from  solid.  Stone 
from  quicksand — that  is  Berlin. 

Here  no  knight  rides  forth  twixt 
death  and  devil.  Here  no  Melancholia 
lets  fall  her  compass.  Here  no  Saint 
Jerome  sits  in  his  cell,  lost  in  thought, 
yet  clairvoyant.  Here  run  no  wells 
where  the  wanderer  may  slumber, 
while  the  hermit  humbly  pastures  his 
horses.  Here  no  moon  rises  across  the 
meadowed  valley — silently,  lest  the 
little  sleeping  brother  be  disturbed. 
No,  no  rest  is  offered  the  heart,  no 
support  but  that  tirelessly  presented 
by  one's  own  will,  to  serve  as  a  basis 
for  further  sorties  into  the  infinite. 
Is  it  a  sign  of  eternal  youth  ?  At  any 
rate  this  city  is  too  young  to  have  been 
formed  around  an  already  proven 
historical  nucleus.  Now  it  gains  its 


shape  from  the  masses,  and  thus  de- 
rives its  life  from  the  new,  the  coming 
shapers  of  the  world.  The  forces  turn 
about,  but  the  center  around  which 
they  revolve  turns  with  them. 

It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  Berlin 
points  to  the  future  and  is  thus  the 
most  alive  of  all  the  cities.  One  must 
recognize  that  the  future,  with  its 
conscious  and  fundamental  renounc- 
ing of  luxuries  which  still  lighten 
today  the  life  of  many  people  and 
nations,  with  its  war-like  nakedness, 
and  its  readiness  to  sacrifice,  can  be 
thought  of  as  truly  human  and  bear- 
able only  here.  Everywhere,  in  all  the 
cities  of  the  world,  which  seem  to  live 
like  flowers,  one  feels  the  irresistible 
flight  of  all  things.  One  is  determined 
or  condemned  to  lose.  Only  in  Berlin 
can  he  who  still  wants  to  hope  feel  that 
the  future  may  not  consist  of  nothing 
but  losses. 

That  is  why  loyalty  to  Berlin  for 
him  who  lives  and  works  outside  is  not 
merely  burdened  with  care  and  fore- 
boding, but  also  winged  by  that  confi- 
dence which  time  and  again  tears  the 
German  away  from  the  rim  of  the 
abyss.  If  nonetheless  a  gentle  pain,  the 
barest  hint  of  pain,  prevails,  I  shall  no 
longer  investigate  it  too  thoroughly. 
I  shall  resign  myself  to  the  fact  that  a 
feeling  gnaws  at  my  vitals,  as  though 
I  had  forgotten  something  without 
discovering  what  it  was  really  about. 
A  fragrance  reaches  me,  but  I  do  not 
succeed  in  recognizing  whence  it 
comes.  A  melody  stirs,  but  I  can  no 
longer  assemble  it.  A  goal  is  in  my 
mind,  but  I  cannot  think  of  its  name. 
And  thus  I  go  my  way. 


With  this  bucolic  story,  a  promising 
young  Flemish  writer  is  introduced  to 
American    readers   for   the   first   time. 


The  Good 
HORSE 


By  Antoon  Coolen 
Translated  by  Ruth  Norden 


E 


IMERD  was  a  doughty  fellow,  tall 
and  squarely  built.  The  cut  of  his 
mouth  was  a  little  crude  and  hard.  His 
arms  were  like  oar-shafts.  When  he 
really  hauled  off,  everything  went 
down  before  him.  Hanna,  his  wife,  was 
a  bit  smaller,  but  she  too  was  made  of 
a  good  clod  of  earth,  and  took  right 
hold  of  the  farm  work.  Weekdays  it 
was  she  who  milked  the  cows, — in  the 
clearing  near  the  house  during  the 
summer,  in  the  stable  during  the  win- 
ter,— and  when  the  milk  shot  into  the 
tub,  she  sang  a  song  in  time  to  it.  Sun- 
days it  was  Eimerd's  turn  to  squat  on 
the  milking  stool  under  the  cows.  The 
cattle  were  milked  three  times  a  day, 
as  was  the  custom  in  the  land. 

Hanna  took  care  of  the  hogs  and 
stood  at  the  stove.  She  did  all  the 
housework;  she  baked  the  bread  in  the 
bake-house;  her  butter  always  turned 
out  well;  and  when  the  rye  was  ripe, 
she  paced  the  field  behind  Eimerd, 
binding  the  shocks — she  was  a  good 
hand  at  it — and  setting  them  up.  If 
Eimerd    was    the    swiftest    mower. 


Hanna  was  the  swiftest  binder.  She 
never  fell  behind  him.  Together  the 
two  got  the  work  done;  if  they  could 
not  get  along  by  themselves,  the  hired 
man  came  for  a  day. 

All  was  well  between  the  two.  Yes. 
But  there  was  no  child,  though  they 
had  been  married  four  years.  None 
came,  and  they  wanted  one  so  badly. 
One  day  Hanna  sat  down  and  cried. 

'What  are  you  crying  for?*  Eimerd 
asked. 

He  got  no  answer,  but,  after  all, 
you  could  guess  why  she  was  crying. 

Eimerd  went  into  the  fields,  walked 
without  looking  up,  pondered  the  mat- 
ter. Spring  had  settled  quietly  over  the 
land;  the  young  year  sang  in  the  sun 
and  in  the  wind.  Evening  came  and 
the  new  day,  the  Annunciation  of 
Mary,  the  holiday.  And  around  noon- 
time, as  they  rose  from  their  meal, 
Hanna  said  to  her  husband: — 

'Eimerd,'  she  said,  'you  milk  the 
cows  and  take  care  of  the  cattle  and 
the  hogs  and  the  goat  and  the  horse. 
I'm  going  to  go  to  Ommel.' 


THE  GOOD  HORSE 


:i5i] 


'Good,'  said  Eimerd. 

Good,  he  thought,  and  was  quietly 
happy.  The  woman  dressed  and  left. 
She  stepped  across  the  threshold.  She 
was  smaller  than  Eimerd,  but  she 
seemed  tall  as  she  strode  through  the 
door.  The  path  soon  came  to  an  end 
and  she  followed  the  road,  with  its 
wagon  ruts.  Spring  was  blue  over  the 
fields,  the  early  green  was  deepening, 
and  the  rye  shot  up  merrily.  She  went 
through  the  fields  and,  walking  quickly, 
left  behind  her  the  much  trodden  path 
and  the  fencing.  All  around  the  foliage 
of  the  trees  grew  denser.  Yonder  lay 
the  village. 

She  took  the  narrow  path  along  the 
hurrying  brook,  with  its  turbid  mur- 
muring water.  She  passed  puddles  in 
the  clay  where  the  sun  drew  a  silvery 
glitter  from  the  milky  water,  while  the 
soft  wind  rippled  the  surface.  Onward, 
ever  onward-  Carefully,  on  a  buckling 
plank  across  the  water-course,  then  for 
a  while  on  the  ridge  between  two  ruts, 
and  finally  at  one  bound  across  the  dry 
ditch  on  to  the  high  road  to  Ommel. 

The  sun  on  this  last  March  day 
shone  warmly.  This  was  the  way  things 
stood  with  Hanna:  she  had  put  the 
question  and  listened  inwardly;  she 
had  hope;  but  no  answer  came.  She 
strolled  along  on  the  dusty  road  by  the 
green  field,  by  the  woods,  which  were 
of  a  still  deeper  green,  onward  to  the 
place  of  mercy.  The  sun  shone  on  her 
black  coat,  and  on  the  delicate  cleanli- 
ness of  her  smooth  damask  bonnet, 
with  its  bright  birds  and  bunches  of 
grapes.  Thus  she  strode  along.  And  be- 
side the  black  of  her  coat  there  swung 
to  and  fro  from  her  work-reddened 
hand  the  rosary  whose  beads  she 
was  counting — ten  'greetings  unto 
thee'  and  again  ten  'with  thy  joyful 
secrets:'  that  of  the  message  of  the 


angel  Gabriel  and  of  Mary's  visit  to 
her  cousin  Elizabeth.  Thus  she  strode 
along.  And  she  prayed  for  the  interces- 
sion of  the  Most  Pure  Mother,  of  the 
Immaculate  Mother.  To  her,  the  Mir- 
ror of  Justice,  the  Rose  of  the  Spirit, 
the  Morning  Star — to  her  she  prayed. 

Then  she  sat  among  the  people  in 
the  sunny  little  church  during  the 
benediction,  and  her  heart  grew  still 
under  the  mysterious,  sweet  compul- 
sion of  the  Magnificat:  'My  soul  doth 
magnify  the  Lord  and  my  spirit  hath 
rejoiced  in  God  my  Savior.  For  he 
hath  regarded  the  lowly  state  of  his 
handmaiden.'  A  virgin  who  had  come 
over  the  mountains  had  sung  this  song 
in  times  far  gone,  and  in  an  ancient 
country  far  away.  Now,  not  under- 
stood, but  deeply  conceived,  it  sounded 
in  a  soft,  open  heart,  beating  in  folded 
hands. 

Hanna  turned  homeward  through 
the  twilight  of  the  quiet  day.  The 
moon  shone  red  through  the  blackness 
of  the  clouds,  bright  like  a  solitary 
window.  Hanna  entered  the  house  at 
even-tide;  there  her  man  was  waiting. 
He  returned  her  'Good  evening,'  and 
they  sat  down  quietly  beside  each 
other  at  the  hearth.  Eimerd  had  filled 
his  pipe  and  smoked  it  down.  In  a  few 
words  Hanna  had  told  of  her  going. 

Outside  was  the  early  night;  the 
trees  were  motionless,  and  the  rye 
stood  upright.  The  moon  cast  the 
shadow  of  the  window  cross  on  the 
floor  beside  the  open  bed-niche,  where 
husband  and  wife  lay  together,  deep  in 
slumber. 

II 

Somehow  it  happened,  days  after- 
ward, heaven  knows  how — there  may 
have  been  a  hair  in  the  soup,  or  money 
misplaced,  or  the  cattle  neglected,  or 


[152] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


whatever  else  there  is  of  bad  things  in 
this  world.  Who  knows  how  it  came 
about?  There  was  strife.  Eimerd  grew 
bitterly  angry  at  the  woman,  and 
Eimerd  was  one  of  those  who  forget 
themselves  completely  when  they 
grow  angry.  It  rose  up  under  his  hair, 
beat  down  into  his  stomach,  and 
swelled  in  his  veins.  Nearly  blind  he 
grew  with  the  fury  that  rose  up  in  him, 
and  all  that  was  good  in  him  seemed 
swept  away.  How  he  went  at  his  wife 
with  evil  words  and  hard  as  she  stood 
before  him!  A  chair  was  overturned, 
and  the  clock  which  was  just  striking 
could  not  be  heard  for  all  the  scolding 
and  noise.  Eimerd  saw  it — how  there 
was  a  pale  flash  through  the  shy  gaze 
of  the  woman.  Her  retort  enraged  him. 
With  a  crash  he  pounded  his  fist  on 
the  table  until  it  bent.  His  brain 
reeled,  and  with  a  fearful  curse  he 
screamed  at  his  wife: — 

'You  damned  bitch!  Hold  your  filthy 
tongue!* 

Suddenly  it  was  quiet — a  silence  in 
which  the  ticking  of  the  clock  could  be 
heard,  the  slow  ticking.  The  evil  word, 
the  *hold-your-tongue'  were  like  a 
blow  in  the  soul  of  the  woman.  The 
coarseness  of  the  man  had  shattered 
something — it  lay  in  fragments — and 
she  was  silent.  The  quarrel  was  over. 
Eimerd  went  outside  and  Hanna  re- 
mained in  the  house. 

The  quarrel  was  over,  but  the  air 
was  thick  and  evil  between  the  walls. 
The  room  was  full  of  tightness,  and 
when  they  sat  at  their  evening  repast 
it  was  still  as  death.  A  cow  bellowed 
until  the  dark  stable  reverberated;  the 
evening  wind  brushed  past  the  win- 
dow; the  horse  in  the  stable  rubbed  his 
chain  back  and  forth — all  this  made 
the  stillness  deeper  and  more  anxious. 
There  they  sat — two  people  under  the 


kerosene  lamp  at  the  brightly  scrubbed 
table,  silently  eating  the  bread  from 
slow  hands,  and  silently  sipping  the 
hot  coffee  from  the  flowered  cups. 
The  evening  stretched  out.  Eimerd 
smoked  his  pipe.  Into  the  constraint  of 
the  quiet  room  blue  clouds  of  tobacco 
smoke  rose  all  around  the  yellow  light 
of  the  lamp.  Perhaps  this  quieted  the 
man's  mind,  for  at  last  Eimerd  again 
said  a  word;  but  there  was  no  answer. 
This  enraged  him  anew.  The  woman 
sat  there  sunk  into  herself  and  brushed 
her  hand  across  her  face.  That  was  all. 
He  got  nothing  out  of  her,  no  matter 
how  much  he  nagged  and  belittled. 

*God  damn  it,  can't  you  talk  any 
more  ?  * 

She  only  looked  at  him.  She  lifted 
her  eyebrows,  and  from  now  on  the 
corners  of  her  mouth  remained  low- 
ered. It  was  clear  she  no  longer  desired 
to  speak.  Her  tongue  had  become 
paralyzed.  That  is  what  the  evil  tem- 
per of  the  man  had  done. 

Silently  they  went  to  bed.  In  soli- 
tude Eimerd  lay  on  the  bed,  behind 
the  young  woman's  back.  The  bright- 
ening moon  came  in,  high,  cold  and 
strange.  Hanna  brooded  and  swal- 
lowed at  her  grief;  deep  inside  her  the 
idea  had  taken  hold  that  never  in  her 
life  would  she  be  able  to  say  another 
word  to  her  husband;  it  tortured  her 
and  did  her  good  at  the  same  time. 
She  had  been  deeply  hurt;  now  she 
took  revenge,  now  she  defended  her- 
self— what  else  could  she  do?  She  en- 
joyed gnawing  and  worrying  it  and 
thinking  out  how  her  husband  would 
feel  it  and  how  he  would  rue  his 
brutish  excess. 

The  great  silence  began.  Possibly 
next  morning,  and  all  day,  Hanna  felt 
the  desire  to  give  up  the  quarrel  and 
to  meet  her  husband  with  a  word.  But 


1936 


THE  GOOD  HORSE 


[153] 


it  was  as  though  her  throat  were 
tightened,  and  her  tongue  lay  thick 
and  paralyzed  in  her  mouth.  She  could 
do  nothing  against  it. 

Truly,  never  could  she  speak  and 
never  could  she  give  in.  Bitter  lines 
grew  around  her  mouth,  and  her  gaze 
grew  wide  open  and  rigid.  That  gave 
her  face  an  expression  of  pain  and  suf- 
fering and  deep  astonishment.  The 
morning,  the  livelong  day  passed  in 
silence,  and  Eimerd — he  forced  him- 
self to  resist  with  the  same  silence. 
That  was  painful  and  strange.  If  a 
word  came  up,  it  came  from  Eimerd; 
it  was  evil,  unwilling,  and  full  of 
anger,  because  it  was  for  nought  and 
because  he  did  not  succeed  in  remain- 
ing silent  as  completely  as  his  wife. 
The  whole  farm  was  transformed.  The 
stable,  the  house,  even  the  land  looked 
as  though  they  were  under  another 
sky.  There  was  an  evil  air  in  the  house, 
and  from  the  clay  floor  there  came, 
quietly  and  distinctly,  a  rumbling 
when  the  horse  stamped  in  the  stable. 
Thus  passed  the  second  day,  and  the 
third,  and  the  whole  week. 


Ill 


On  Sunday,  after  ten  o'clock  mass, 
as  Eimerd  stood  at  the  bar  of  Mieke's 
'Lion,'  he  told  Tijmen  Goossens,  the 
sixty-year-old  village  tax  collector, 
what  had  happened.  He  pulled  him 
aside  from  the  end  of  the  bar,  out  of 
the  noisy  throng  in  the  inn,  where  they 
had  been  standing  among  the  farmers, 
under  heavy  clouds  of  tobacco  smoke. 

'Tijmen,'  he  said,  *I  have  been 
quarreling  with  my  wife  lately.  She 
hasn't  spoken  a  word  since.  What  do 
you  think  of  it?  She  doesn't  open  her 
mouth  any  more.' 

Tijmen  Goossens  withdrew  the  thin 


mouthpiece  of  his  long  clay  pipe,  and 
used  it  to  rub  the  shiny  rim  of  his  great 
blue-red  ear.  He  shook  his  head  and 
said  nothing. 

'Tijmen,'  Eimerd  said,  'it's  no 
laughing  matter.  I'm  telling  you  in 
confidence  I  can't  get  a  word  out  of 
her.  She  keeps  silent!' 

Tijmen  replaced  the  pipe  between  his 
pale,  narrow  lips,  and  let  out  a  few  lit- 
tle clouds.  'A  woman  who  holds  her 
tongue — that  is  a  real  marvel,  Eimerd. 
Take  care  that  it  lasts.  I  wish  I  could 
bring  mine  to  do  it.' 

That  was  the  opinion  of  Tijmen 
Goossens. 

Eimerd  came  home  and  again  felt 
the  anxious  silence  about  him.  They 
ate  their  lunch  like  two  stricken  dumb, 
and  Eimerd,  hardly  done  with  the  last 
mouthful,  rose  and  went  out  into  the 
fields.  That  Sunday  there  came  to  him 
many  strange  and  peculiar  thoughts. 
Late  in  the  afternoon  he  came  home. 
His  wife  sat  in  the  twilight,  while  out- 
side the  spring  evening  came  on  slowly. 
Eimerd  went  into  the  stable,  lit  the 
lantern,  squatted  in  the  sparse  light  on 
the  milking  stool  under  the  cows,  and 
drew  the  stream  of  milk  from  the  taut 
udders.  When  he  had  milked  the  cows 
he  went  to  the  horse's  stall  to  take 
care  of  the  horse — the  good  brown 
gelding  with  the  black  mane.  The 
horse  stood  still,  as  he  always  did  when 
the  day  darkened.  He  turned  around 
toward  Eimerd,  turned  his  head  side- 
ways from  the  delicately  curved  neck. 
Eimerd  patted  his  neck  for  a  long 
while — the  horse  liked  it.  Then  Eimerd 
lightly  patted  the  smooth  hind- 
quarters, lifted  the  lantern  to  the 
hook,  filled  the  feed  box  with  oats,  and 
broke  pieces  of  black  bread  into  it.  He 
spoke  under  his  breath  to  the  animal, 
which  looked  at  him  with  large  shiny 


js4 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


black  eyes,  mirroring  light  and  dark- 
ness. The  horse  stuck  his  soft  blunt 
nose  against  the  sleeves  of  Eimerd's 
smock,  and  blew  a  warm  breath 
through  expanded  nostrils.  Then  he 
lifted  his  head  and  immersed  it  into 
the  darkness  of  the  feed  box,  snorting 
loudly  and  violently  a  few  times — the 
oats  tasted  so  good.  Eimerd  laughed 
deep  inside  himself. 

Eimerd  had  thought  up  something. 
He  had  lain  silently  behind  his  wife  all 
the  night  and  had  gone  to  his  work 
early  in  the  morning.  When  he  came  to 
eat  at  noon  he  brought  the  horse  with 
him  into  the  house. 

Good  God,  here  was  something, 
truly  strong  medicine!  The  great 
brown  gelding  strode  in,  stooping  un- 
der the  door  jamb,  and  then  throwing 
his  head  up  high  to  the  ceiling  beams. 
He  strode  in  so  that  the  clay  floor  re- 
sounded under  the  fourfold  hoof-beat. 
The  shining  rump  swayed  rhythmi- 
cally, and  the  long  mane  flowed  from 
the  neck.  The  horse  gazed  in  astonish- 
ment from  beneath  the  hair  that  fell 
onto  his  forehead.  His  gleaming  body 
was  free  of  all  harness.  Between  the 
small,  stiffly  erect  ears  there  was  a 
bright  white  spot  on  his  forehead,  reg- 
ularly shaped  like  a  window  pane — a 
star,  half  concealed  under  the  tousled 
mane.  Thus  he  entered,  the  brown, 
over-sized,  with  heavy  tread  and 
massive  rump.  He  stood  still.  He  filled 
the  entire  entrance.  He  seemed  to  cave 
out  the  ceiling.  He  looked  into  the 
embers  of  the  fire,  and  toward  the 
woman,  and  at  the  dish,  full  of  steam- 
ing turnip-soup  and  meat,  which  stood 
in  the  middle  of  the  table. 

In  her  astonishment  Hanna  came 
very  close  to  opening  her  mouth.  But 
she  saw  her  husband  standing  there. 
So  she  bethought  herself  quickly  and 


took  hold  of  herself — even  now  she 
could  do  it.  She  drew  up  the  chairs  and 
sat  down  at  the  round  table  where  she 
always  sat.  Eimerd  took  a  loaf  of  dry 
black  bread  from  the  box  on  the  wall 
beside  the  hearth,  and  with  his  pocket 
knife  cut  it  into  bits  which  he  put  on 
the  table  beside  him. 

Then  he  drew  up  his  chair  and  sat 
down.  He  clicked  his  tongue  in  a 
manner  familiar  to  the  animal,  and  it 
approached.  The  farmer  and  his  wife 
crossed  themselves  and  silently  said 
their  prayer.  Between  the  two  the 
horse's  head  intruded.  Man  and  wife 
reached  for  the  fork  and  helped  them- 
selves. Still  chewing,  Eimerd  laid 
down  his  fork  and  oflFered  the  horse  a 
piece  of  bread.  The  horse  turned  his 
head  toward  Eimerd  and  scattered 
the  crumbs  on  the  scrubbed  table 
top  with  his  breath.  He  lifted  his  soft, 
dry,  black  lips,  sniffed  at  the  bread, 
bared  his  broad  yellow  teeth,  ex- 
tended the  rosy,  warm,  moist,  thick 
tongue,  took  the  bread  and  hastily 
chewed  it  with  the  grind-work  of  his 
flat  teeth.  He  demanded  more  and  re- 
ceived another  piece  of  bread.  He 
nodded  thanks  with  his  good  head. 
The  strong  jaws,  curving  in  the  rear, 
did  their  work,  and  he  nibbled  and 
smacked  with  pleasure.  His  eyes 
looked  right  and  left,  at  the  farmer 
and  his  wife,  looked  at  them  quietly 
and  friendlily  from  their  deep  black- 
ness. Openness  and  depth,  content- 
ment, goodness  and  intelligence,  they 
all  spoke  from  the  velvety  sheen  of 
those  eyes.  In  his  nostrils  and  on  his 
black  lips  little  bold  hairs  were  ar- 
ranged, visible  only  at  close  range. 

The  brown  feasted  with  the  humans 
as  though  he  had  been  used  to  it  all 
his  Hfe.  His  beautiful  rump  and  the 
floor  about  him   were  spotted  with 


193^ 


THE  GOOD  HORSE 


:i55] 


sunshine.  The  copper  disk  of  the  lazy- 
pendulum  in  the  case  of  the  grand- 
father's clock  lit  up  with  every  swing. 
Softly  and  gently  the  horse  swished 
his  flanks  with  his  tail,  lifted  his  hind- 
quarters and  passed  the  edge  of  a  hoof 
along  his  yellow-brown,  delicately 
veined  belly,  the  skin  of  which  twitched 
quickly  every  now  and  then,  then  put 
the  hoof  down  on  the  hard  clay  floor 
with  a  thump. 

Hanna  sat  silently  at  her  food,  oc- 
casionally threw  a  timid  glance  at  the 
horse's  head  high  above  the  table  be- 
tween herself  and  her  husband,  and 
looked  at  the  horse,  who  bore  his  life 
with  such  serenity  and  strength  in  his 
mighty  body  and  in  his  shod  hooves. 
Hanna  saw  how  he  ate  from  her  hus- 
band's hand.  Perhaps  she  was  a  little 
angry  at  first.  But  now  she  quietly  re- 
joiced. After  all,  it  was  Eimerd  who  had 
been  fooled.  He  had  probably  expected 
to  elicit  a  word  from  her  when  he 
brought  the  horse  into  the  house.  After 
the  meal  they  crossed  themselves 
again.  Eimerd  gathered  the  last  crumbs 
of  bread,  placed  them  in  his  hand  and 
held  them  to  the  lips  of  the  horse. 
Then  he  wiped  off  the  sticky  saliva  on 
the  leg  of  his  trousers  and  ordered  the 
horse  to  turn  about  in  the  room,  which 
was  done  with  much  stamping  and 
scraping.  His  wife  stayed.  She  saw  the 
high  rear  of  the  horse  swaying  off.  The 
tail  waved  her  a  good-day. 

The  next  day  the  same  thing  hap- 
pened, and  again  on  the  days  following 
- — for  two  weeks,  a  month  and  even 
more. 

Eimerd  had  said  to  his  wife: — 

'The  brown  will  eat  with  us  in  the 
house  until  you  begin  to  talk  again.' 

Even  to  this  statement  he  got  no 
answer.  Alas,  the  woman  may  have 
been  long  past  her  anger,  but,  strangely 


enough,  it  had  become  her  fixed  pur- 
pose not  to  break  the  silence  she  had 
vowed.  It  no  longer  had  anything  to 
do  with  the  quarrel.  She  had  locked 
herself  in  and  built  a  fence  around  her- 
self— a  high  fence  she  herself  could  not 
surmount.  Of  an  evening  on  a  quiet 
day  she  sometimes  felt  the  desire  to 
say  something.  But  only  when  she  was 
quite  alone,  when  her  husband  was 
nowhere  to  be  seen,  did  she  softly 
whisper  a  few  words  under  her  breath, 
glad  to  have  them  all  to  herself.  She 
spoke  to  the  chickens  too,  when  she 
scattered  feed,  and  to  the  hogs,  when 
she  poured  the  mash  into  the  trough, 
or  to  the  cows,  when  she  poured  out 
the  dishwater  outside.  Sometimes, 
turning  toward  the  fire  in  the  hearth, 
she  muttered  softly  to  herself.  She  ad- 
dressed the  bread  as  she  shaped  it 
from  the  well-prepared  dough.  She  sat 
before  the  door  and  watched  the  sway- 
ing tree  tops. 

IV 

Summer  was  approaching  mightily, 
opening  one's  heart  with  an  abun- 
dance of  sunshine.  In  the  shadows  be- 
fore the  gate  on  the  carefully  swept 
clay  ground  she  saw  little  feet  and  the 
play  of  tiny  hands.  They  seemed  to 
embrace  her  heart  and  reach  for  her 
mouth.  But  when  her  husband  came, 
his  step  cut  off  her  voice  and  abruptly 
constricted  her  throat.  No  will  was 
strong  enough  to  lure  a  word  from  her 
mouth.  No  longer  was  anything  left  of 
her  resentment.  Perhaps  it  was  some 
quirk  that  forced  her  to  silence,  an  in- 
ability to  pursue  any  other  course. 
Constantly  she  thought:  'I  cannot,  I 
cannot  do  it.'  And  indeed  she  could 
not.  At  first  she  had  been  resentful;  in 
the  first  days  the  unshed  tears  had 
troubled  her  heart.  Now  her  sorrow 


:i56] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


was  old.  Perhaps  nothing  but  surprise 
had  remained. 

At  dinner,  when  she  raised  her  eyes 
from  her  hands,  she  saw  only  the 
horse.  He  ate  from  the  feed  box, 
which  stood  on  a  chair.  Leisurely  he 
raised  his  head,  chewed  zealously, 
bent  down,  and  gently  shook  his  fine 
mane.  It  had  come  to  the  point  where 
he  no  longer  had  to  be  called.  When 
Eimerd  had  unbuckled  yoke  and  cinch 
before  the  barn,  had  hung  the  harness 
on  the  barn  door,  and  had  taken  the 
bit  from  his  mouth,  the  horse  auto- 
matically went  into  the  house  and  to 
his  place.  He  was  well  content  to  so- 
journ with  the  farmer  and  his  wife,  to 
ogle  their  hands  and  to  eat  his  bread 
and  oats.  He  was  silent  like  the 
humans,  but  he  was  used  to  it  and 
contented.  If  only  there  had  been  no 
flies!  They  settled  in  little  swarms  in 
the  corners  of  his  eyes.  He  winked  and 
chased  them  oflF.  They  flew  up  and  set- 
tled again.  They  settled  all  over  his 
body,  no  matter  how  often  the  twitch- 
ing of  his  skin,  the  swish  of  his  tail, 
and  the  stamp  of  his  hooves  drove 
them  away.  They  flew  off  and  settled 
again.  They  seemed  to  sting  for  the 
fun  of  it;  ever  again  they  thirsted  for 
the  good  horse-blood.  Hanna  cut  leafy 
branches  from  the  hedge  and  often 
brushed  them  along  the  horse's  body 
to  fend  off  the  vermin  a  little.  Eimerd 
looked  up,  but  he  said  nothing. 

The  rye  was  ripening  in  the  field; 
the  lark  filled  the  sky  with  its  song; 
the  cornflowers  and  the  red  poppies 
shone  from  the  borders  of  the  blond 
grain.  A  woman  strides  through  the 
house,  strides  across  the  floor  of  the 
barn.  She  enters  from  the  cool  green  of 
the  orchard,  sunshine  resting  upon  her 
and  shadow.  Outside  beneath  the  little 
trees,  between  the  bright  trunks,  stand 


the  red-brown,  spotted  cows  and 
graze.  Hanna  stops  for  a  moment  on 
the  threshold  and  leans  against  the 
squat  door  frame.  Before  her  in  a  semi- 
circle she  sees  the  white  jostle  of  the 
chickens,  and,  amid  them,  the  proud 
gait  of  the  rooster.  The  grunting  of  the 
hogs  sounds  through  the  rails  of  the 
sty.  The  goat  is  grazing  on  the  fallow 
field,  lifting  her  head  now  and  then 
and  bleating.  As  far  as  the  eye  can 
see,  the  good  rye  stands  ripe.  The 
summer — Hanna  can  see  and  hear  it. 
Something  has  happened  to  her.  Yes, 
to  be  sure,  it  is  nothing  special — only 
fear  and  joy  and  a  hope.  Inside  of  her 
a  new  bit  of  life  lives  that  the  earth 
may  grow.  The  will  of  the  earth  is 
wrought  in  Hanna,  the  humble  hand- 
maiden. For  many  days  now  she  has 
known  it  and  kept  it  to  herself. 


One  evening,  as  the  house  grew 
dark,  Eimerd  came  in.  Hanna  Ht  the 
kerosene  lamp;  the  light  fell  on  the 
brightly  scrubbed  table,  and  the  dark- 
ness drew  its  cloak  about  the  woman 
and  the  man.  She  sat  before  him,  her 
hands  quiet  on  the  table  top.  Her 
heart  overflowed,  and  she  broke  the 
silence.  She  told  her  husband;  she  put 
it  in  words.  Perhaps  it  had  not  re- 
mained hidden  from  him.  Now  she 
said  it.  For  a  moment -she  trembled 
with  the  incomprehensible  joy  of  be- 
ing able  to  say  it.  The  farmer  listened. 
He  was  silent,  and  he  was  as  close  to 
her  as  she  to  him.  They  were  man  and 
wife.  The  evening  laid  its  hand  upon 
their  hearts  and  upon  their  house. 

The  following  day  the  horse  re- 
mained in  the  stable,  and  it  remained 
there  all  the  days  that  came.  It 
stamped  its  hooves  on  the  floor  of  the 


^93^ 


THE  GOOD  HORSE 


:i57] 


stable  in  surprise  and  resentment;  it 
did  not  grasp  the  change.  With  sparse 
words  the  farmer  and  his  wife  spoke 
over  their  lunch  and  evening  meal — 
they  were  worried,  they  were  glad. 
They  counted  the  months  and  wrote 
the  approximate  date  on  the  calendar, 
far  ahead  in  the  year.  The  horse  re- 
mained in  his  stable.  Now  all  was  well 
between  them.  It  was  agreed — the 
horse  remained  in  the  stable,  and  no 
longer  entered  the  house. 

From  now  on  they  were  really  no 
longer  alone.  Wherever  their  thoughts 
might  stray,  always  there  was  that  Ht- 
tle  something  for  which  they  waited. 
When  they  spoke,  they  spoke  about 
it,  even  though  with  few  words.  All 
their  pondering  moved  around  this 
thing  that  was  to  come.  And  Hanna, 
when  she  bent  over,  felt  it  in  her  body, 
bore  it  already  in  her  hands,  marked 
by  motherhood.  When  she  stood  lost 
in  herself,  she  saw  it  with  her  own 
eyes.  This  year,  when  the  rye  was 
mown,  Eimerd  hired  a  woman  to  do 
the  binding.  She  ate  with  them  in  the 
house  for  a  few  days.  When  the  shocks 
stood  a  deep  yellow  on  the  fields  be- 
neath the  blue  sky,  when  the  two  of 
them  again  sat  alone  at  the  table, 
Eimerd  and  Hanna  began  to  look  at 
each  other  strangely.  Perhaps  Hanna 
started  it — she  behaved  so  strangely 
and  peculiarly.  They  ate  their  bread, 
their  heads  turned  to  the  dishes,  but 
whenever  they  secretly  glanced  aside 
they  saw  that  something  was  missing. 

Outside  in  the  stable  the  horse 
stamped,  tugging  at  his  chain,  rubbing 
it  against  the  wood,  and  neighing 
softly.  So  it  went  day  after  day,  for 
many  days.  At  last  Hanna  said: — 

*I  don't  know.  .  .  .  When  you 
have  become  so  used  to  it  ...  I 
can't  get  over  the  brown  no  longer 


eating  with  us  and  no  longer  coming 
into  the  house.' 

Eimerd  was  a  thoughtful  man.  He 
said  nothing.  But  when  Hanna  said 
that,  there  must  have  been  a  good  rea- 
son. He  thought  it  over  carefully,  and 
found  that  she  was  right.  When 
Eimerd  left  the  stable  to  go  in  for  his 
meal,  he  saw  how  the  horse's  head 
turned  after  him  with  a  frown.  Eimerd 
did  his  work,  heaping  the  rye  into 
stacks.  Later,  he  hitched  the  horse  to 
the  plough  and  turned  over  the  stub- 
ble. He  called  his  'whoa'  and  'gid- 
dap,'  and  the  horse  quickly  drew  a 
moist  furrow  with  the  shiny  plough- 
share. 

At  the  evening  meal  the  farmer  and 
his  wife  looked  toward  the  wall  be- 
hind which  the  horse  stirred  discon- 
tentedly. Indeed,  Eimerd  had  had  to 
stand  before  the  door  with  arms  spread 
out  to  turn  away  the  brown  and  drive 
him  to  the  stable.  Then,  at  dinner, 
they  missed  the  familiar  presence  of 
the  good  animal,  his  glances,  his  shift- 
ing to  and  fro,  his  demands,  his  grati- 
tude. 

VI 

One  day  Eimerd  went  to  the  village, 
to  old  Luthers,  the  mason.  He  made 
arrangements.  Next  day  Luthers  was 
there.  He  went  into  the  stable,  meas- 
ured with  his  eyes,  and  came  back 
into  the  room.  He  placed  his  rule 
against  the  wall  nearest  the  stable  and 
drew  lines  with  his  broad,  flat  mason's 
pencil.  Then  he  began  to  hack  away 
with  hammer,  chisel  and  crowbar,  so 
that  the  rubble  beat  a  tattoo  in  the 
house  and  in  the  stable  on  the  other 
side.  He  opened  a  hole  three  feet 
square  and  plastered  the  rough  stone 
with  mortar  which  he  carefully  iin- 
ished  with  trowel  and  float.  Well,  that 


:i58] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


was  done!  Eimerd  laughed  and  Hanna 
laughed  with  him.  The  mason  ce- 
mented some  hooks  under  the  opening 
in  the  wall,  and  Eimerd  put  together 
a  feed  box  with  a  descending  top. 
Then,  when  Eimerd  and  Hanna  sat  at 
their  meals,  it  happened  quite  natu- 
rally that  the  horse  stuck  his  head 
from  the  darkness  of  the  stable 
through  the  hole  in  the  wall,  reaching 
down  for  his  fodder  as  if  that  were  the 
proper  way. 

From  now  on  he  was  with  them 
again.  He  whinnied  softly  and  greeted 
them  in  joy  and  friendliness.  Day 
after  day  he  was  their  companion  and 
was  in  their  life,  in  the  familiar  room. 
He  could  see  the  table  and  the  chairs 
standing  against  the  wall  and  under 
the  window,  and  the  broad  bed.  He 
could  see  the  farmer's  wife  go  about, 
and  he  pricked  up  his  ears  whenever  a 
word  fell. 

When  the  new  seed  had  been  sown, 
it  began  to  freeze — a  hoar  frost  at 
first,  and  then,  one  night,  a  little 
snow.  The  rigid  fields  lay  aged  and 
gray  beneath  the  fog.  The  chiming  of 
the  distant  church  had  sounded  away 
over  the  fields  and  the  nights  were 
black.  In  the  deep  darkness  it  began  to 
snow  thickly  one  night,  and  daylight 
with  its  red  ball  of  sun  came  up  on  a 
gleaming  white  world,  upon  which  lay 
a  hint  of  delicate  red  and  blue.  There 


was  no  horizon,  and  the  houses  and 
cottages  lay  shrouded.  Thick  clouds  of 
smoke  towered  over  the  low  chimneys. 

At  such  nights  the  stars  rustle,  the 
sky  stands  in  flower,  and  the  stillness 
resounds.  The  days  and  the  nights — 
they  descend  into  the  heart  of  eternity. 

Inside  the  house  Eimerd  kindled  a 
great  good  fire  of  peat.  In  the  bed- 
stead lay  the  woman.  In  the  cradle  of 
brown  braiding  lay  the  little  bundle.  It 
had  been  sought  in  prayers  from 
heaven;  it  had  been  sent  like  the  dew 
from  heaven — from  the  heaven  spread 
over  the  holy  night  sounding  with  the 
stillness.  A  man.  A  woman.  And  the 
child.  And  the  horse  in  the  stable.  He 
stretched  his  great  head  out  of  the 
darkness,  full  of  curiosity.  He  pricks 
up  his  ears  at  a  new  clear  sound;  with 
his  great  eyes  mirroring  the  hearth- 
flame,  he  looks  at  the  new  precious 
property  which  the  house  shelters.  He 
follows  with  his  eyes  as  Eimerd  lifts 
the  child,  wrapped  in  the  sheet,  from 
the  cradle  to  his  arm  before  his  broad 
chest,  and  lays  it  in  the  careful  hands 
of  the  mother.  She  stills  the  little  hun- 
ger, gives  all  her  warmth,  her  whole 
heart;  she  sees  nothing  but  the  thirsty 
child  at  her  breast.  The  walls  of  the 
house  move  closer  together.  All  the 
light  gathers  in  the  purity  of  her  look, 
which  shines  out  above  all  that  is  mor- 
tal. The  earth  can  hold  no  more. 


As  Everyone  Knows  ... 

Everyone  knows  that  the  liberal  Koscialkowski-Kwiatkowski  Cab- 
inet is  weak,  and  that  it  hangs  on  a  precarious  balance  of  liberal 
ministers  against  illiberal  colonels,  with  Soznkowski  and  Rydz-Smigly 
in  the  background. 

— From  the  New  Statesman  and  Nation,  London 


The  well-known  authority  on  political 
economy,  Mr.  Harold  Laski,  discusses 
the  men  and  the  issues  which  are 
likely  to  dominate  Spanish  politics  in 
the  next  four  years,  while  a  correspond- 
ent of  the  Journal  de  Geneve  describes 
the  current  situation  in  the  Argentine. 


Spaniards  on 
Two  Continents 


A  Latin 
Lectionary 


L  Four  Years  to  Rebuild  Spain 
By  Harold  Laski 

From  the  Tiaily  Herald,  London  Labor  Daily 


WllEREVER  men  still  care  for 
progressive  social  experiment,  or  the 
ideal  of  intellectual  toleration,  for  the 
kind  of  State  in  which  the  power  of 
wealth  is  to  be  subordinated  to  the 
interest  of  the  common  man,  the  vic- 
tory of  the  Left  in  the  Spanish  elec- 
tions will  be  welcome. 

It  is  not,  directly,  a  victory  for  So- 
cialism. It  is  the  victory — immedi- 
ately more  significant — of  a  union  of 
all  Left  forces,  from  the  Social-Radi- 
calism of  Azana  through  the  Socialism 


of  Fernando  de  los  Rios,  to  the  Marx- 
ian views  of  Caballero,  against  the 
clerical  Fascism  of  Gil  Robles,  the 
great  landowners,  the  industrial  mil- 
lionaires, and  the  Church. 

It  means — if  there  is  no  coup  d'etat 
from  the  Right,  and  if  the  Left  are 
wise  enough  to  maintain  their  present 
unity — four  years  in  which  to  consoli- 
date the  ideals  for  which  the  Revolu- 
tion of  1 93 1  was  made. 

The  Left  was  far  from  certain  of  a 
victory  at  all.  It  has  won,  primarily. 


:i6o] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


for  two  reasons.  First,  the  working 
classes  have  resented  profoundly  the 
bloody  repression  of  the  Asturias  re- 
bellion of  1934;  the  Left  victory  means 
the  pardon  of  some  thirty  thousand 
political  prisoners. 

Second,  nearly  three  years  of  Tory 
government  have  convinced  the  masses 
that  Gil  Robles  and  his  allies  are 
merely  the  monarchy  writ  larger  and 
more  brutal.  There  is  no  hope  for  them 
in  a  continuance  of  that  rule.  The 
masses  and  the  intellectuals  have 
joined  hands  in  the  service  of  a 
progressive  regime.  The  next  task  is  to 
consolidate  its  foundations. 

Do  not  let  us  underestimate  their 
difficulties.  They  will  need  to  master 
the  banks.  They  will  need  drastically 
to  reform  the  higher  ranks  of  the  army 
and  to  assure  its  loyalty.  They  will 
need  to  break  up  the  large  estates  in 
the  interest  of  the  poor  peasants. 

Not  less  than  any  of  these  things, 
they  will  need  widespread  educational 
reform.  Ten  years  of  profound  pro- 
gressive legislation  are  essential  if 
Liberal  Spain  is  to  be  given  its  letters 
of  credit. 

There  are  long  years  of  leeway  to  be 
made  up.  There  are  old  and  stubborn 
prejudices  to  be  overcome.  There  are 
wide  differences  within  the  Left  to  be 
bridged  so  that  an  unbreakable  unity 
of  purpose  confronts  its  enemies. 

The  Right  is  rich.  It  is  well-disci- 
plined. It  does  not  shrink  from  either 
illegality  or  repression.  It  will  take  ad- 
vantage of  every  weakness  in  its  op- 
ponents* armor.  I  hope  the  Left  will 
remember  that  the  consoHdation  of 
their  victory  does  not  concern  Spain 
alone.  The  elections  were  a  triumph 
for  the  anti-Fascist  forces  of  Europe. 
To  guarantee  that  it  endures  is  to  give 
new  hope  to  civilization  in  the  dark- 


est hour  it  has  known  for  many  years. 

The  Left  has  the  men  to  do  it. 
Senor  Azana,  their  leader,  is  the  out- 
standing figure  of  the  new  Spain.  We 
should  call  him  a  Left-wing  Liberal  in 
England.  His  great  asset  is  character. 
He  has  courage,  energy,  determina- 
tion. He  relies  not  upon  ingenious 
maneuver  but  on  driving  a  straight 
path  to  his  goal.  In  his  previous  tenure 
of  office  he  showed  an  awareness  of 
the  central  issues  that  was  impressive; 
he  dominated  Spain  in  those  years. 

Senor  Caballero  is  the  outstanding 
trade  union  leader.  In  the  last  ten 
years  he  has  moved  rapidly  to  the 
Left.  In  personality  there  is  some- 
thing akin  to  Ernest  Bevin  about  him. 
He  is  aggressive,  dominating,  in- 
sistent. He  never  stops  fighting.  There 
is,  too,  a  certain  relentlessness  about 
him  which  has  been  sharpened  by  the 
grim  experience  of  these  last  years. 
His  treatment  by  the  Robles  regime 
has  given  him  a  special  hold  upon 
trade  union  opinion.  Now  his  task  is  to 
build  its  emotions  into  a  coherent 
ideology. 

Intellectually,  Don  Fernando  de 
los  Rios  towers  above  his  colleagues. 
It  is  not  yet  certain  that  he  has  been 
reelected  to  the  Cortes,  as  his  op- 
ponents made  a  dead-set  against  him 
in  Granada.  This  gentle  professor  is 
one  of  the  noblest  intellectuals  in 
Europe.  There  is  something  of  the 
moral  beauty  of  Gilbert  Murray  in 
him,  but  with  a  deeper  fighting  qual- 
ity. He  was  a  great  Minister  of  Educa- 
tion in  the  last  Azana  Government, 
and  as  Foreign  Secretary  he  gave  new 
life  to  the  position  of  Spain  in  the 
League.  A  Left  Socialist,  he  is  hated 
especially  by  the  Right,  which  cannot 
forgive  him,  granted  his  distinguished 
forbears,  for  having  thrown  in  his  lot 


193^ 


SPANIARDS  ON  TWO  CONTINENTS 


[i6i: 


with  the  working  class;  and  the  cleri- 
cals hate  him  because  he  has  always 
fought  their  power  over  the  education 
of  Spain. 

I  think  he  will  have  as  much  in- 
fluence as  anyone  in  keeping  the  forces 
of  the  Left  together;  for  none  knows 
better  than  he  that  the  breakdown  of 
the  present  union  means  something 
like  Fascism  on  the  Hitler  model.  Don 
Fernando  is  one  of  the  little  group  of 
Spanish  intellectuals  who  have  kept 
alive  there  the  noblest  traditions  of 
European  free  thought. 

Prieto,  no  doubt,  will  return  at  once 
from  his  exile  in  Paris;  and  Senor 
Companys  will  go  from  behind  the 
prison  walls  to  preside  over  the 
autonomous  government  of  Catalonia. 

Both  of  them  are  men  of  sterling 
quality  who  have  learned  much  in 
these  last  years  of  what  it  means  in  a 
brief  period  to  transform  a  State 
which,  morally  and  intellectually,  still 
largely  lived  in  the  mental  climate  of 
the  seventeenth  century  into  a  twen- 
tieth century  society. 


II 


It  is,  I  think,  unlikely  that  any  of 
the  leaders  now  will  under-rate  the 
difficulties  of  their  task.  Their  knowl- 
edge of  the  reaction  will  have  taught 
them  that,  hard  as  is  the  ascent  to 
power,  its  maintenance  is  a  still  more 
difficult  business. 

They  have  to  control  followers  of 
fiercely  varying  shades  of  opinion — 
Bakunin  anarchists  in  Barcelona  and 
Saragossa,  ardent  Syndicalists  in  the 
Asturias,  passionate  devotees  of  Mos- 
cow in  many  of  the  big  cities,  peasants 
with  the  mentality  of  those  French 
agrarians  who  broke  the  yoke  of 
feudaHsm  in  1789. 


All  the  drive  and  energy  of  Azafia 
and  Caballero,  all  the  delicate  tact  of 
Don  Fernando  will  be  needed  to  move 
all  these  forces  on  a  united  front. 

The  chance  is  real.  For  the  victory 
has  meant  that  the  common  man,  in 
the  face  of  unprecedented  effort  from 
the  Right,  has  determined  that  the 
Left  be  given  the  chance  to  build  upon 
the  foundations  of  that  creative  pas- 
sion which  made  the  Revolution  five 
years  ago. 

It  is  an  immense  responsibility  for 
the  simple  reason  that  it  is  the  last 
chance  of  constitutionalism  in  Spain. 
It  has  to  be  pursued  without  revenge, 
for  that  would  drive  the  Right  to  des- 
peration. But  it  has  also  to  be  pursued 
without  weakness,  since  there  are 
forces  in  Spain,  especially  in  the  al- 
liance between  big  business  and  the 
Church,  ready  to  seize  upon  the  first 
signs  that  the  grip  of  the  new  regime 
falters. 

The  Right  is  likely  to  be  a  powerful 
opposition  in  the  Cortes,  that  can  be 
restrained  only  as  the  united  Left 
maintains  its  integrity  unimpaired.  If 
there  is  once  a  schism  within  its 
boundaries,  the  prospects  of  reaction 
will  become  bright  once  more. 

Every  Socialist,  I  think,  should 
therefore  seek  for  Spain  the  sense  that 
the  next  four  years  are  above  all  a 
breathing  space  within  which  to 
strengthen  the  progressive  forces,  to 
translate  their  purposes  into  the  minds 
and  hearts  of  the  people  unshakably. 

Spain,  in  the  long  run,  needs  Social- 
ism as  Europe  needs  Socialism.  But  in 
the  next  immediate  years  the  essential 
task  is  for  Spanish  Socialists  to  make 
their  principles  emerge  as  the  logical 
next  stage  on  a  road  travel  down 
which  must  be  more  devious  and  in- 
direct than  they  can  easily  like. 


[l62] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


They  must  remember,  as  they  col- 
laborate, for  how  much  they  stand 
trustees.  It  is  not  often  in  history  that 
the  makers  of  a  new  world  are  given 


the  opportunity  peacefully  to  build 
its  foundations.  Let  them  make  these 
secure  before  they  settle  the  design  of 
the  superstructure. 


II.  The  Argentine  Recovers 

By  C.  HiLLEKAMPS 

Translated  from  the  Journal  de  Genive,  Geneva  Liberal  Daily 


Ni 


lEWCOMERS  from  Europe  who 
would  like  to  get  an  idea  of  the  politi- 
cal situation  in  the  Argentine  by 
reading  the  papers  might  find  them- 
selves believing  that  the  country  is 
on  the  eve  of  a  revolution.  Political 
scandals  are  the  order  of  the  day;  the 
tranquillity  which  General  Justo's  sei- 
zure of  power,  two  years  ago,  seemed 
to  have  achieved  appears  now  to  be 
endangered;  the  opposition,  hardly 
alive  only  a  short  time  ago,  is  begin- 
ning to  lift  its  head;  everywhere  one 
hears  criticisms  and  complaints.  Mr. 
de  la  Torre,  one  of  the  most  redoubt- 
able democrats  of  the  opposition,  has 
just  brought  into  the  open  the  'meat 
scandal,'  in  which  the  Government  is 
imphcated  since  the  refrigerating  in- 
dustry has  not  paid  its  taxes  in  full.  The 
discussions  in  Parliament  on  this  sub- 
ject have  exasperated  passions  and 
even  brought  guns  into  play.  The  pro- 
vincial elections  of  Buenos  Aires  and 
Cordoba  have  been  accompanied  by 
violence  and  bloodshed. 

Since  the  death  of  the  ex-president, 
Irigoyen,  the  opposition  has  been  led 
by  Dr.  Aldear,  who  had  previously 
deserted  its  ranks.  It  is  reinforced  by 
the  Radicals  and  the  Socialists,  both 
of  them  especially  powerful  at  Buenos 
Aires.  Its  main  accusation  against 
the  Government  is  that  it  falsified  the 
elections.  At  Cordoba,  where  twenty- 


eight  radicals  went  armed  to  supervise 
the  ballot,  there  was  a  violent  clash 
with  the  police  in  which  one  radical 
and  seven  policemen  were  killed.  Both 
parties  claimed  to  have  been  attacked. 

The  political  thermometer  seems  to 
indicate  fever. 

Nevertheless,  the  revolution  has  not 
yet  come,  although  the  Government 
has  perhaps  become  a  minority  one. 
But  the  decisive  factor  in  the  Argen- 
tine, as  in  the  rest  of  South  America, 
remains  the  army.  Now  the  Argentine 
army  is  powerful  and  loyal.  Its  leaders 
believe  that  the  Radicals,  with  their 
deplorable  economic  theories,  must  be 
held  back  for  at  least  five  more  years. 
After  all,  the  army  did  not  evict  Iri- 
goyen's  Radicals  to  reinstall  those  of 
Aldear.  It  is  afraid  that  the  Radicals 
will  bring  back  the  financial  crisis  of 
1929-30.  (It  is  an  open  secret  that 
many  Radicals  of  note  were  politically 
ruined  at  that  time.) 

But  what  is  the  reason  for  this  grow- 
ing opposition  in  the  country.''  The 
accusations  directed  at  the  Justo 
government  are  not  easy  to  under- 
stand. It  cannot  be  denied  that  the 
Justo  regime,  which  succeeded  legally 
General  Uriburu's  revolution,  has 
saved  the  country  from  a  financial 
catastrophe.  The  Argentine  owes  its 
safety  above  all  to  the  energetic  meas- 
ures taken  by  the  Minister  of  Finance, 


193^ 


SPANIARDS  ON  TWO  CONTINENTS 


[163] 


Mr.  Pinedo,  nicknamed  'the  Salazar 
of  the  Argentine,'  an  ex-Socialist, 
whose  decrees  were  hard  but  necessary 
in  this  emergency. 

He  has  introduced  direct  taxation, 
hitherto  unknown,  and  increased  the 
land,  inheritance,  and  consumer's 
taxes.  At  the  end  of  1933  the  Govern- 
ment resorted  to  devaluation  and 
then  to  strict  currency  control.  Under 
these  circumstances  Mr.  Pinedo  proved 
his  great  abilities  in  financial  manipu- 
lations. The  State  buys  up  foreign 
currency  from  the  exporters.  It  fixes 
for  it  an  artificial  market  value  of  15 
pesos  a  pound.  This  currency  is  then 
resold  to  the  importers  at  a  price 
twelve  to  fifteen  per  cent  higher.  The 
whole  transaction  is  carried  out  by  the 
Central  Bank,  which  was  founded  in 
1935.  In  this  way  the  importers  receive 
only  the  currency  coming  from  coun- 
tries which  buy  the  Argentine  mer- 
chandise, and  so  the  exchange  balance 
is  assured.  The  importers  from  coun- 
^^'-  tries  which  do  not  use  this  means  of 
exchange  find  themselves  compelled 
to  buy  the  currency  on  the  world 
market,  where  prices  are  considerably 
higher. 

By  these  means  the  State  proposed 
to  fix  the  price  of  cereals.  It  owes  its 
success  principally  to  the  drought 
which  paralyzed  North  American  ex- 
ports and  put  a  premium  on  Argentine 
wheat.  Buenos  Aires  for  this  reason 
hardly  needed  to  help  the  operations 
along:  it  was  able  to  save  the  equaliza- 


tion fund  which  the  Government  pro- 
vided for  the  purpose,  and  used  it  in- 
stead for  the  construction  of  granaries 
which  are  very  useful  in  releasing  the 
farmers  from  too  great  a  dependence 
upon  cereal  production. 

Intelligent  measures  and  a  little 
luck  have  served  to  set  the  Argentine 
on  the  road  to  economic  recovery,  the 
symptoms  of  which  are  fairly  bursting 
on  our  sight.  After  the  drought  of 
1934,  this  year's  European  arma- 
ments— Italian  and  English  in  partic- 
ular— are  creating  a  market  for  Argen- 
tine leather,  wool,  and  cotton.  The 
development  of  exports  makes  it  pos- 
sible to  resume  the  payment  of  foreign 
debts.  Prices  of  the  principal  agricul- 
tural products  are  rising.  The  only  ex- 
ception is  the  price  of  meat,  the  rise 
of  which  is  of  paramount  importance 
(perhaps  because  they  hope  to  sell  it 
eventually  to  Italy). 

Only  corn  production  is  lagging, 
and  this  alone  would  not  justify  the 
existing  opposition  to  the  Govern- 
ment. But  political  discontent  need 
not  necessarily  have  economic  causes. 
Governments  in  Latin  America  wear 
out  faster  than  anywhere  else.  This  is 
the  trouble  with  General  Justo  in  the 
Argentine,  with  Mr.  Vargas  in  Brazil. 
But  Justo  will  remain  in  power: 
there  is  no  doubt  about  it.  He  has  an 
excellent  Minister  of  Finance,  a  no 
less  skillful  Minister  of  War,  and  a 
devoted  army.  These  things  are  what 
really  count  the  most. 


LETTERS  AND  THE  ARTS 


French  Literature  Today 

Writing  in  the  Listener,  the 
weekly  organ  of  the  British  Broadcast- 
ing Company,  Mr.  Denis  Saurat,  who 
is  Professor  of  French  Language  and 
Literature  at  the  University  of  Lon- 
don, describes  the  present  state  of 
literature  in  France: — 

Literature  seems  to  be  in  a  slack  period 
everywhere.  England  is  not  supposed  to 
be  my  province  here;  and  a  Frenchman 
has  to  be  polite.  Germany  is  obviously  off 
the  literary  values;  the  news  we  get  from 
Russia  is  not  reassuring.  Neither  Spain  nor 
Italy  surprises  us  frequendy  or  much. 
America  ? 

As  for  France — France  has  had  a  great 
literary  period  of  which  the  central  figure 
was  Proust.  Many  people,  after  adoring 
Proust  without  reading  him,  now  consider 
him  settled  and  are  quietly  forgetting  him 
or  occasionally  make  a  casual  and  con- 
temptuous reference  to  him.  But  Proust 
stands  now  safe,  with  Balzac,  and  the 
very  first  among  the  great  ones. 

In  his  time  were  a  few  more  great  ones; 
not  so  great,  but  true  Marshals  to  this 
Napoleon.  Their  work  seems  now  mostly 
to  be  over.  Paul  Valery  is  greater  than 
Mallarme.  Alain  is  far  superior  to,  say, 
Sainte-Beuve  (there  is  no  connection,  and 
I  am  not  distributing  prizes,  but  trying  to 
give  a  rough  idea  of  sizes).  Super vielle 
will  wear  as  well  as  Theophile  Gautier,  for 
instance;  and  so  on.  Gide  and  Claudel, 
for  neither  of  whom  do  I  feel  so  very 
much  reverence,  are  placed  by  many  in 
the  front  rank.  But  so  far  as  we  can  see 
that  generation  is  not  being  replaced 
by  anything  of  that  rank  at  all.  I  remem- 
ber the  excitement  of  the  year  1910,  when 
the  Nouvelle  Revue  Frangaise  was  being 
founded  and  the  air  was  teeming  with  fu- 


ture masterpieces.  The  young  men  of 
today  have  no  such  feelings. 

Several  things  have  happened  since 
about  1930.  First  we  became  more  or  less 
satiated  with  Proust  and  Valery  and  all 
they  stood  for.  Malraux,  Chamson,  Giono, 
the  later  Montherlant  (of  the  Celibataires) 
are  on  a  totally  different  tack.  But  we 
cannot  tell  yet  whether  they  will  make 
good.  Then  the  economic  crisis  changed 
the  literary  market:  literature  had  been  a 
commodity  that  paid;  it  became  a  com- 
modity that  does  not  pay.  The  political 
crisis  overshadowed  everything.  Proust 
and  Valery  had  no  politics.  Malraux  is 
an  ardent  communist;  Chamson  a  violent 
radical;  Montherlant  has  changed  his 
opinions,  I  gather;  Jean  Richard  Bloch  is 
far  to  the  Left;  our  own  gende  and  amiable 
Andre  Maurois  is  violently  insulted  both 
by  those  who  think  he  is  a  radical  and 
those  who  think  he  is  a  bourgeois;  and  so 
on.  Jules  Romains  is  freely  accused  of 
political  ambitions.  But  in  this  new  world 
after  1930,  Hider,  the  Common  Front,  the 
Bank  of  France  are  subjects  which  put 
at  a  disadvantage  all  literary  values.  The 
Briand- Austen  Chamberlain-Stresemann 
period  was  much  more  favorable.  And 
the  public  no  longer  buys  books. 

Paris  is  a  tangle  of  literary  intrigues  of 
which  the  aim  is,  naturally  enough,  the 
making  of  reputations  and  of  money. 
There  is  Httle  wrong  in  this,  as  literary 
men  have  always  been  after  the  legitimate 
rewards  of  their  trade.  But  the  reputation 
and  the  money  are  not  made  on  literary 
values,  as  they  were,  say,  in  the  time  of 
Lamartine  and  Hugo,  or,  in  a  totally  dif- 
ferent world,  in  the  time  of  Corneille 
or  in  that  of  Pope,  or  even  in  the  beginning 
of  this  century.  Roughly  speaking,  the 
credit  went  to  merit,  for  a  discerning 
public  chose,  on  the  whole,  what  was  best. 
Now  the  discerning  public  is  much  too 
limited  in  numbers.  The  sales  are  with  a 


LETTERS  AND  THE  ARTS 


i6s\ 


huge  mass  of  uneducated  readers  who  fol- 
low mass  movements;  and  the  mass  move- 
ments are  engineered  by  parties.  I  do  not 
think  that  the  number  of  the  real  con- 
noisseurs has  diminished;  on  the  contrary, 
I  believe  it  has  substantially  increased, 
in  France  as  in  England.  But  they  have 
been  swamped  by  multitudes  of  the  uned- 
ucated who  have  been  taught  to  read. 
Every  good  writer  is  tempted  to  become 
a  bad  writer  in  order  to  raise  his  sales  to 
50,000.  And  many  bad  writers  nat- 
urally flourish. 

France  is  disastrously  divided  into 
Right  and  Left.  Right  is  Catholic  and 
capitalist — conservative;  Left  is  radical, 
Socialist,  Communist  and  anti-religious. 
The  bourgeoisie  buys  books;  the  Left  does 
not  buy  books.  The  Right  rules  over  the 
really  best-selling  big  reviews,  the  Revue 
des  Deux  Mondes,  the  Revue  de  Paris  and 
over  most  of  the  literary  weeklies.  The 
critics,  in  order  to  earn  a  living,  have  to 
write  under  orders.  The  worst  is  that  these 
orders  do  not  even  need  to  be  given  them, 
as  the  critics  are  only  too  eager  to  an- 
ticipate them:  otherwise  they  are  turned 
out  of  their  places.  And  since,  besides, 
the  critics  are  mostly  novelists  who  have 
to  criticize  each  other's  novels  and  can  re- 
taliate on  each  other's  sales,  and  since 
the  publishers  finance  most  of  the  review- 
ing, what  is  to  be  done  ?  Literary  criticism 
has  practically  ceased  to  exist.  The 
Nouvelle  Revue  Frangaise,  which  has  a 
great  tradition  and  is  still  partly  upheld 
by  the  splendidly  independent  spirit  of 
such  people  as  Gide  and  Schlumberger,  is 
yet  a  battlefield  of  contrary  tendencies. 
It  puts  up  a  brave  fight  and  publishes 

I,    Catholic  as  well  as  Communist  writers; 

[I  but  thus  it  only  reflects  the  surrounding 
chaos,  and  what  else  can  it  do? 

I   would  like,  with  due  apologies,   to 

jj  mention  my  own  case — which  was  taken 
as  typical  by  the  Chicago  Tribune  on  just 

['  this  theme.  I  published  last  year  a  History 
of  Religions  in  French.  It  was  very  widely 
reviewed.  Not  one  per  cent  of  the  articles 
dealt  with  either  its  value  as  scholarship 


or  its  literary  value.  (It  was  more  a  literary 
than  a  scholarly  attempt.)  Like  well- 
drilled  troops,  all  the  newspapers  of 
the  Right  condemned  the  book  because 
it  was  not  a  Catholic  book;  and  all  the 
newspapers  of  the  Left  condemned  it 
because  it  was  not  an  anti-religious  book. 
A  better  illustration  of  the  state  of  things 
in  France  can  hardly  be  found.  Charitable 
readers  may  be  pleased  to  know  that  the 
French  public  took  no  notice  of  what  the 
critics  said  and  bought  the  book  well. 
So  my  censure  of  the  critics  cannot  be  at- 
tributed to  disgruntlement. 

For,  naturally  enough,  another  feature 
of  the  situation  is  that  the  cultured  public 
has  ceased  to  take  any  notice  of  what  the 
critics  say.  Probably  the  worst  fact  of  all 
is  that  the  critics  themselves  have  ceased 
to  believe  what  they  say.  The  literary 
values  have  been  swamped  in  political 
stunts  in  which  religion  itself  is  used  to 
cover  party  publicity. 

Of  course,  really,  all  that  is  of  no  im- 
portance. What  is  actually  the  matter  with 
literature,  in  France  as  everywhere  else, 
is  that  at  the  moment  there  are  no  great 
predominant  personalities;  no  geniuses, 
if  you  like  the  word.  Therefore  business 
reigns.  But  there  is  no  reason  to  despair 
of  the  future;  genius,  when  it  appears, 
mostly  comes  into  its  own,  as  Proust  and 
D.  H.  Lawrence  have  proved;  but  we  can- 
not have  geniuses  all  the  time.  Meanwhile 
we  can  always  comfort  our  minds  with 
the  masterpieces  of  the  past,  which,  in  any 
case,  we  never  study  sufficiently.  The 
present  excitement  in  France  over  Kierke- 
gaard, who  died  in  1855,  is  a  good  exam- 
ple; and  since  the  excitement  seems  likely 
to  extend  to  England,  as  proved  by  E.  L. 
Allen's  book  {Kierkegaard:  His  Life  and 
Thought.  By  E.  L.  Allen.  London:  Stan- 
ley Nott.  1936.),  and  also  to  change  the 
reader's  thoughts  from  an  unpleasant  to  a 
pleasant  subject,  I  shall  end  by  quoting 
a  passage  from  Jean  Wahl's  excellent 
article  in  the  Nouvelle  Revue  Frangaise 
of  April,  1932.  Kierkegaard  does  duty 
instead  of  a  great   French   writer  now 


:i66] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


missing.  And  Jean  Wahl  proves  that 
some  serious  critics,  after  all,  do  still 
exist  in  France: — 

'L'angoisse  est  liee  a  V esprit.  Moins  il  y 
a  d' esprit^  moins  il  y  a  d'angoisse.  L esprit 
cest  en  effet  la  force  ennemie  qui  vient 
troubler  le  repos  du  corps  et  Vinnocence 
de  Fame  et  leur  calme  union.  Uesprit 
eprouve  de  I'angoisse  devant  lui-meme.  II 
s'exprime  d'abord  comme  angoisse. 

'En  realite  I'angoisse  est  partout  chez 
Vhomme;  elle  est  dans  le  paganisme^  devant 
Vambiguite  des  oracles^  devant  celle  du 
destin;  et  d'une  fagon  generale^  la  beaute 
grecque  est  profondement^  inexplicablement 
soufrante.  On  dirait  quelle  est  angoissee 
devant  F absence  d' angoisse. 

'Plus  rhomme  est  eleve^  plus  il  est  an- 
goisse. Au  Mont  des  Oliviers^  Dieu  dans 
Vangoisse  se  sent  delaisse  de  Dieu^  et  de- 
mande  h  Judas  dejaire  vite.  Et  Jesus  Christ 
sera  en  agonie  jusqu  a  la  Jin  du  monde. 

'Mais  de  meme  quil  y  a  une  angoisse 
devant  le  mal^  il  y  a  une  angoisse  devant  le 
bien,  et  nous  sommes  ici  dans  la  sphere  du 
demoniaque  diabolique.  Or^  il  y  a  un  tel 
demoniaque  dans  chaque  homme^  aussi 
surement  que  chaque  homme  est  pecheur. 
Ce  nest  plus  la  possibilite  de  la  necessite^ 
cest-a-dire  le  mal^  qui  est  angoisse^  cest 
le  bieny  la  possibilite  meme  de  la  libertS. 

'Se  plagant  dans  la  lignee  de  Boehme  et 
de  Blakcy  devangant  Rimbaud^  Dostoievski 
et  Nietzsche — Kierkegaard  ecrit:  "Le  do- 
maine  du  demoniaque  aurait  besoin  d'etre 
eclairci."' 

Shakespeare  under  Hitler 

r\  VIOLENT  controversy  over  Shake- 
speare has  arisen  in  Germany.  It  was 
started  by  a  certain  Hans  Rothe,  who  has 
been  trying  for  many  years  to  replace  the 
*  classic '  and  almost  sacred  Schlegel-Tieck 


translations  by  his  own,  which  attempt  to 
present  Shakespeare  in  a  modernized  ver- 
sion. The  Schlegel-Tieck  translations 
have  been  the  most  successful  among  the 
scores  of  Shakespeare  translations  of  the 
last  one  hundred  and  fifty  years.  Rothe 
claims  that  these  romantic  translations 
have  now  lost  their  popularity,  and  he 
has  been  trying  for  some  ten  years  to  put 
over  his  own  version  of  Shakespeare, 
which,  he  maintains,  is  better  adapted  to 
the  present-day  mind,  as  well  as  to  the 
modern  stage.  He  attempts  to  present  the 
genuine  Shakespeare,  freed  from  all  the 
dross  of  inferior  co-authors.  His  theory  on 
this  latter  point  is  based  largely  on  the  so- 
called  'sound-analysis'  of  Professor  Ed- 
uard  Sievers,  who  has  devised  a  method 
of  analyzing  the  sound  and  has  found  that 
each  writer's  diction  is  just  as  unique  as  a 
fingerprint,  thus  rendering  it  possible  to 
distinguish  the  styles  of  one  writer  from 
another.  Rothe  is  supported  by  the  Ger- 
man producers,  who  to  a  large  extent 
play  his  versions  (although  they  have  to 
pay  royalties  for  them,  while  the  old  ver- 
sions, of  course,  are  free  of  charge).  He  is 
strongly  opposed  by  philologists,  acad- 
emicians and  a  large  number  of  critics 
who  charge  that  his  German  is  slangy  and 
his  methods  semi-scientific. 

One  might  have  thought  that  on  so 
eminently  unpolitical  a  subject  as  this,  a 
little  honest  difference  of  opinion  could  be 
tolerated  even  in  the  Third  Reich.  But  ap- 
parently not.  Recently  Dr.  Goebbels, 
Minister  of  Propaganda  and  Public  En- 
lightenment, announced  that  he  was 
about  to  appoint  a  committee  of  experts 
to  decide  once  and  for  all  which  transla- 
tions should  be  sanctioned.  After  the  deci- 
sion has  been  rendered  it  will  presumably 
be  unlawfiil  to  use  the  translations  which 
lose  out. 


AS  OTHERS  SEE  US 


American  Neutrality  in  British 
Eyes 


T. 


HE  former  editor  of  the  London 
News  Chronicle,  Mr.  Aylmer  Vallance, 
visited  the  United  States  recently, 
speaking  to  audiences  of  various  sorts, 
and  observing  the  political  and  social 
scene.  Upon  his  return  to  England  he 
contributed  the  following  impressions 
to  the  New  Statesman  and  Nation: — 

The  European  student  of  affairs  who 
visits  the  United  States  in  this  'election 
year'  phase  of  President  Roosevelt's  ad- 
ministration may  be  pardoned  if  he  sails 
for  Europe  a  sadly  disillusioned  man.  That 
is,  supposing  him  to  be  a  Socialist,  or  one 
who  pins  his  faith  in  a  League  of  Nations' 
system  reinforced  by  American  adhesion. 
For  in  that  case,  between  gang-plank  and 
gang-plank,  he  will  have  sought  evidence 
that  America  desires  constructively  to 
establish  at  home  a  saner,  juster  economic 
order,  and  abroad  to  play  in  international 
politics  a  fuller,  more  responsible  role.  He 
will  have  sought,  but  not  found. 

Twice  in  the  past  twenty  years  the 
mass-emotion  of  the  least  logically-minded 
nation  on  earth  has  been  stirred  and  di- 
rected to  idealistic  ends  by  leaders  who 

[i(  were,  in  one  case,  an  inadequately  in- 
formed visionary  and,  in  the  other,  a 
partially  sincere  sentimentalist.  President 

\  Wilson  spellbound  the  American  people 
in  a  period  of  fine-phrased  emotionalism, 
and  led  them  to  think  temporarily  in 
terms  of  world  order  and  justice.  The  bill 

K*  for  idealism — shed  American  blood,  clam- 
orous veterans,  war  debts  unpaid — was 
"leavy.  Wilson  died,  defeated  and  un- 
lourned;  Kellogg  framed  Pacts;  kindly, 
5tupid  Stimson  courted  Sir  John  Simon's 
^acidulated  snubs  over  V affaire  japonaise. 
The  American  man-in-the-street  reculti- 
yated  indiflferentism;  he  'had  had  some'  in 


the  sphere  of  foreign  affairs;  the  domestic 
'ticker-boom'  of  the  late  twenties  was 
good  enough  for  him. 

And  then  came  crash  and  panic.  In  that 
chaos  of  closed  banks,  nation-wide  un- 
employment and  the  vast  disarray  of 
capitalism  'in  a  jam,'  Franklin  D.  Roose- 
velt imposed  himself  momentarily  on  the 
imagination  of  America  as  '  the  man  who 
knew  a  remedy.'  Manned  by  'experts,' 
brain-trust  at  the  helm,  the  ship  of  state 
was  set  on  a  course  whose  land-fall  was  to 
be  'controlled'  capitalism,  justice  for  the 
under-dog,  reasonable  prosperity  for  all. 
But  today — half  the  crew  marooned,  the 
compass  lost  overboard,  the  ship  swings 
idly,  becalmed.  Only  the  captain,  who 
never  really  believed  in  any  attainable 
harbor,  continues  to  smile  indomitably  on. 

What  has  happened  ?  Let  Russian  Ned, 
sometime  hand  on  a  Volga  barge,  now 
American  elector  on  'relief  work  pay-roll, 
who  conversed  with  the  writer  on  a  hurri- 
cane-wrecked strip  of  coral  beach  midway 
between  Miami  and  Key  West,  supply  in 
part  the  answer:  'One  buck  sixty  a  day. 
Dat's  lousy.  Can't  do  more  dan  youst 
keep  body  and  soul  togedder.  Now  if  dey 
wanted  to  give  us  peoples  a  break,  why 
not  give  us  youst  one  hundred  dollars? 
Den  I  start  hot-dog  wagon  near  Miami. 
Make  fortune — one  year,  two  year,  sure.' 

Significant,  this  comment,  not  merely 
of  the  traditionally  'solid  South's'  in- 
gratitude for  WPA  benefits  received;  it  is 
symptomatic  of  the  whole  American  na- 
tion's attitude  towards  fate  and  the  future. 
That  field-marshal's  baton  in  the  private 
soldier's  knapsack;  that  imperishable 
hope,  which  keeps  civil  peace  in  the  prole- 
tarian hovels  of  Pittsburgh  and  Baltimore; 
that  great  'if:'  if  only  'a  break'  be  vouch- 
safed by  luck,  Packard  cars,  Park  Avenue 
apartments,  all  the  carefree  enjoyments  of 
successful  materialism  are  within  a  man's 
grasp. 


168] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


It  is  a  *  loo  per  cent  American'  attitude 
of  mind  which  has  done  more  than  any- 
thing else  to  smash  Roosevelt's  electoral 
prospects  and  drive  America,  in  reverse 
gear,  towards  self-centered  isolationism. 
New  York  City — Europe's  westernmost 
metropolis — is  not  America;  Wall  Street's 
perfervid  animosity  against  the  New  Deal- 
ers would  of  itself  cut  little  electoral  ice; 
the  'Save  the  Constitution'  Liberty 
League — officered  by  hard-shell  corpora- 
tion lawyers  and  financed  by  the  du  Pont 
armament  interests — would  be  a  'flop,' 
were  it  not  that  the  philosophy  of  individ- 
ualism in  its  crudest,  early  Victorian  form 
still  hypnotizes  the  soul  of  America.  The 
dark  days  of  the  depression  have  been 
firmly  put  out  of  mind,  though  they  may 
still  linger  in  the  subconscious  as  a  sub- 
merged complex.  'Get  under'  is  once 
again  no  longer  a  terror,  because  '  get  on ' 
is,  to  all  seeming,  a  realizable  hope. 

The  Republican  Party — James  (Judas) 
Warburg,  Roosevelt's  former  confidant 
and  white-headed  boy,  now  the  Adminis- 
tration's ablest  and  most  devastating 
critic,  directing  the  political  Broadway 
rhapsody — has  been  quick  to  'cash  in'  on 
the  recovery.  Is  the  building  industry  re- 
viving, and  are  real  estate  values  on  the 
upturn  from  Boston  to  San  Diego?  Are 
Manhattan's  'Nite  Clubs'  {anglice  supper 
bars)  turning  customers  away?  Do  nickels 
and  dimes  flow  with  increasing  'velocity 
of  circulation'  into  the  eleven  hundred 
' fruit'  machines  on  which  Huey  Long  and 
his  successors  have  based  their  political 
tyranny  over  New  Orleans?  The  credit 
accrues,  so  the  predominant  voices  of  press 
and  broadcast  have  it,  to  the  G.O.P.'s  in- 
nate virtues,  those  forces  of  rugged  in- 
dividualism which  have  built  skyscraper 
towers,  hired  royal  suites  on  transatlantic 
liners,  persuaded  Chicago's  quiet,  decent 
wage-earners  that  the  meanest  racketeer- 
ing gangster  in  Cicero  is  a  hero  contra 
mundum. 

THE  cold,  uncomfortable  truth  is  that 
America  today  is  engrossed  by  calcula- 


tions appertaining  to  the  ambience  of 
Monroe  thought.  Recovery — and  it  is 
real,  if  yet  only  nascent — is  talked  and 
charted,  not  in  a  world  sense,  but  in  terms 
of  a  continent  (very  nearly  self-contained) 
which  stretches  from  Hudson's  Bay  to 
Terra  del  Fuego.  And  in  that  preoccupa- 
tion with  domestic  chances — Uncle  Sam's 
1936  economic  Sinn  Fein — interest  in  the 
European  imbroglio  is  faint,  remote  and 
academic. 

Could  it  be  otherwise?  Always  must 
one  reflect  that  in  the  judgment  of  the 
most  liberal-minded,  enlightened  Ameri- 
cans the  refusal  of  the  United  States  to  be- 
come a  member  of  the  League  was  an  act 
not  merely  of  prudence  but  of  high  think- 
ing. The  League  system,  viewed  across 
three  thousand  miles  of  storm-vexed  sea, 
appears  (even  to  the  cosmopolitan  eyes  of 
New  York)  to  be  an  integral  part  of  the 
Versailles  Treaty  mechanism — a  political 
device  whereby  the  'Haves,'  England  and 
France,  intend  to  buttress  against  the 
'Have  Nots'  the  advantages  gained  by 
arms  in  no  matter  how  many  centuries. 
In  that  arena  of  blood  and  sand  the  Ameri- 
can people  decline  today  to  play  any  per- 
sonal part;  they  do  not  want  even  to  throw 
their  hats  into  the  ring. 

There  are,  of  course,  the  phil-European 
cliques,  derivative  from  America's  queer 
racial  snobbery,  at  whose  weekly  dinners 
the  itinerant  Englishman  is  impressed  to 
speak,  and  whose  first  toast  is  'His  Maj- 
esty.' But  this  is  an  absurd,  unreal  veneer 
on  the  solid  wood  of  American  life.  The 
real  America  today  is  profoundly  suspi- 
cious of  European  statesmanship,  deeply 
resolved  not  to  be  embroiled  in  the  next 
war,  whose  outbreak  within  a  decade  is 
accepted  as  inevitable. 

For  one  brief  moment  only,  last  au- 
tumn, did  America  begin  to  wonder  if, 
after  all,  there  might  not  be  something  in 
the  'collective  system.'  Though  the  cynics 
whispered  'electioneering  for  the  Peace 
Ballot  vote,'  public  opinion  in  the  States 
was  undeniably  impressed  by  the  stand 
taken  at  Geneva  by  Britain  in  defense  of 


193^ 


AS  OTHERS  SEE  US 


[169] 


the  principles  of  tlie  Covenant,  and  partic- 
ularly by  Sir  Samuel  Hoare's  hint  that  the 
machinery  of  the  League  might  be  used, 
not  merely  to  stereotype  the  status  quo, 
but  to  remodel  'access'  to  colonial  posses- 
sions. For  some  weeks  America  was  in- 
clined to  modify  its  original  belief  that 
England  cared  less  for  the  integrity  of 
Ethiopia  than  for  the  preservation  at  all 
costs  of  the  All-Red  Route  to  India.  But 
the  mood  was  short-lived;  the  shock 
created  in  America  by  the  Hoare-Laval 
peace  plan  was  profound;  every  suspicion 
of  Franco-British  sincerity  was  revived  in 
accentuated  form.  America  once  more 
turned  away  in  revulsion  from  a  Europe 
whose  statesmen,  it  seemed,  could  never 
get  away  from  the  old,  fatal  game  of 
'power  politics.' 

It  is  idle  to  hope  that  this  final  disillu- 
sionment of  America  can  be  readily  dis- 
pelled. Unfortunate  in  the  possession  of 
an  Ambassador  who  has  got  himself  badly 
on  the  wrong  side  of  the  press,  England  is 
definitely  mal  vu  in  American  eyes  at  this 
critical  juncture  of  world  aflPairs.  The  oil 
embargo  is  regarded  with  suspicion  as  a 
device  whereby  the  United  States  could  be 
dragged  in  to  pull  the  League  chestnuts 
out  of  the  fire.  Public  opinion  is  visibly 
stiffening  against  any  'neutrality'  legisla- 
tion which  would  give  the  Executive  dis- 
cretionary power  to  weight  the  scales 
against  a  League-condemned  aggressor. 
Whatever  views  of  international  morality 
may  be  entertained  in  the  White  House, 
the  prevailing  mood  today  in  New  York 
bar,  Ohio  small  town  store,  Louisiana 
roadhouse — wherever  '  100  per  cent  Amer- 
ica' meets  to  talk — is: '  Count  Europe  out; 
ourselves  alone.' 

The   Impassioned  Preacher  of 
Royal  Oak 

An  AMERICAN  correspondent  of 
the  Corriere  della  Seruy  Milan  Fascist 
daily,  has  sent  back  to  his  paper  the 
following  enthusiastic  account  of  Father 


Coughlin,  the  'impassioned  preacher 
ofRoyalOak':— 

When  Father  Coughlin  speaks  over  the 
radio  all  America  listens.  The  banker 
in  Wall  Street  drops  his  talk  about  busi- 
ness and  listens.  The  farmer,  lost  in  the  far 
reaches  of  the  West,  interrupts  his  after- 
noon nap  and  listens.  The  young  men  in 
the  gymnasiums;  the  sick  in  the  hospitals; 
the  frequenters  of  elegant  circles;  and  the 
crowds  of  workers  from  the  small  subur- 
ban places — all  listen.  Blacks  and  whites, 
Catholics  and  Protestants,  millionaires 
and  unemployed  listen,  but  especially 
those  millions  of  individuals  who  belong  to 
the  petite  bourgeoisie  of  the  country,  which 
forms  the  backbone  of  present-day  Amer- 
ica and  to  which  the  preacher  of  Royal 
Oak  addresses  himself,  at  four  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon  every  Sunday,  as  to  his  most 
faithful  followers. 

Nine  years  ago,  when  Father  Coughlin 
began  to  deliver  his  first  sermons  over  the 
radio,  his  name  was  completely  unknown, 
the  sanctuary  of  the  Little  Flower  was  a 
tiny  country  church  attended  by  scarcely 
fifty  people,  and  the  words  of  his  sermons, 
broadcast  by  a  small  radio  station  in  De- 
troit, were  heard  by  no  more  than  a  few 
thousand  radio  fans.  Today  Father  Cough- 
lin is  the  most  popular  man  in  the  United 
States.  The  Sanctuary  has  become  the 
goal  of  enormous  pilgrimages;  the  radio 
network  used  for  the  broadcasts  includes 
thirty-five  stations  covering  the  whole 
nation;  and  the  army  of  listeners,  for  the 
most  part  organized  into  an  association 
which  has  taken  the  name  of  'National 
Union  for  Social  Justice,'  is  coming  to  be  a 
political  force  capable  of  disturbing  seri- 
ously, if  not  of  upsetting  completely,  the 
old  balance  of  the  traditional  parties. 

Indeed,  to  say  merely  that  Father 
Coughlin  is  the  most  widely  heard  speaker 
in  America  is  to  say  too  little,  because  the 
preacher  of  Royal  Oak,  until  a  few  years 
ago  the  modest  priest  of  a  still  more 
modest  country  parish,  has  now  become 
the  authoritative  head  of  a  vast  social, 


i7o] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


economic  and  moral  movement  which, 
translated  into  terms  of  political  action 
and  focused  on  the  definite  carrying  out 
of  its  program,  might  someday  undertake 
the  task  of  renovating  the  ruling  circles 
and  the  administrative  organizations  of 
the  United  States — a  renovation  which  is 
today  one  of  the  most  insistent  aspirations 
of  the  American  people. 

Bundled  up  in  an  ample  cloak  and  wear- 
ing a  gray  felt  hat  pulled  down  over  his 
eyes.  Father  Coughlin  continues  to  be  for 
all  the  parishioners  of  Royal  Oak  a  good 
country  priest  ready  to  hurry  wherever 
his  sacred  duty  calls  him.  But  in  his  voice 
there  vibrates  an  energy,  secure  and 
serene,  which  dominates  and  conquers.  It 
is  thanks  to  this  energy  that  he  has  been 
able  to  broaden  the  spiritual  confines  of 
his  parish  from  one  shore  of  the  United 
States  to  the  other,  and  that  his  flock  has 
been  transformed  into  a  disciplined  and 
faithful  army. 

'We  shall  continue  to  struggle  with  all 
our  powers,'  he  told  me,  'against  the 
aberrations  of  a  voracious  capitalism, 
against  the  menace  of  a  disintegrating  and 
oppressive  Communism,  and  for  the 
triumph  of  the  Christian  principles  of 
social  justice.* 

Then  he  turned  to  the  subject  of  the 
Italo-Abyssinian  conflict  and  the  League 
sanctions. 

'As  an  American,  and  in  the  interests  of 
the  American  people,  I  shall  not  weaken 
in  my  fight  against  the  political  force 
which  in  this  country  is  seeking  to  drag 
America  with  the  tow-lines  of  English 
banking  capitalism  or  Russian  Commu- 
nism against  the  Italy  of  Benito  Mussolini 
in  order  to  increase  the  sanctions,  which 
are  so  much  the  more  iniquitous  and 
ignoble  because  they  have  been  under- 
taken to  damage  a  great  and  civilized  na- 
tion. The  sanctions  will  not  overthrow 


Italy.  They  are  the  result  of  a  plot  which 
has  been  slowly  woven  with  the  active 
support  of  international  Masonry,  the  ex- 
ponents of  high  finance,  and  of  Commu- 
nism, all  allied  at  Geneva  to  defeat  Fascism. 
Now,  since  Masonry,  high  finance,  and 
Communism  are  also  our  enemies,  as 
Americans  and  Catholics  we  shall  not 
abandon  the  struggle  until  the  conspiracy 
has  been  completely  frustrated.* 

HOMMAGE  A  PhILADELPHIE 

llERE  is  another  fragment  from 
Pierre  Girard's  impressions  of  Amer- 
ica, which  have  been  appearing  in  the 
Journal  de  Geneve: — 

Shall  I  love  you  someday,  Philadelphia, 
Philadelphia,  where  in  the  restaurant-bars 
Angels  bring  luscious  roast-beef?  I  already 
love  the  murmuring  of  the  wind  as  it 
blows  around  the  churches,  and,  above 
all,  the  absence  of  mystery,  which  be- 
comes very  mystery  itself.  And  later, 
when  I  have  explained  America  to  my 
friends  for  long  stretches,  and  no  one 
thinks  of  asking  me  about  it  any  more,  I 
shall  discover  new  reasons  for  love,  and 
new  melodies  not  heard  before. 

The  tiny  street,  with  its  similar  houses, 
red  brick,  *  guillotine'  windows  framed 
with  white  stone — as  one  walks  along  its 
sidewalk,  with  its  uneven  flags,  it  ends  by 
winning  your  heart.  And  one  could  spend 
his  life  following  this  street,  which,  under  a 
thousand  names  and  a  thousand  numbers, 
comes  back  again  and  again  to  offer  itself, 
in  the  South  as  well  as  in  the  North.  The 
garage  and  the  church,  the  red  and  blue 
paint,  and  the  gothic  gray,  the  electric 
sign,  and  the  convocation  of  the  faithful, 
in  gold  on  black — why  should  not  all  this 
form  one -of  those  memories  which,  sud- 
denly, their  day  having  come,  sigh,  awake, 
and  sing.? 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


Mr.  Keynes  Solves  the  Riddle 
The  General  Theory  of  Employment, 
Interest    and    Money.    By    J.    M. 
Keynes.  London:  Macmillan  and  Com- 
pany. igj6. 
(G.  D.  H.  Cole  in  the  New  Statesman  and  Nation) 

UNEMPLOYMENT  is,  in  the  view  of 
most  people,  the  disease  that  is  threat- 
ening our  present  capitalist  societies  with 
destruction.  There  are,  indeed,  some  who 
protest  that  unemployment  is  not  an  evil, 
but  will  be  a  positive  good  as  soon  as  we 
consent  to  convert  it  into  leisure  and  to 
distribute  it  aright  among  the  whole  peo- 
ple. And  there  are  others  who  maintain 
that  unemployment  is  not  a  disease,  but 
only  a  symptom  of  something  far  more 
deeply  wrong  with  the  economic  systems 
under  which  we  live.  But  against  the  apos- 
tles of  leisure  commonsense  urges  that 
until  most  people  are  a  good  deal  richer 
than  today  most  of  them  will  prefer  more 
goods  to  more  leisure  if  they  are  given  the 
choice.  And  against  those  who  regard  un- 
employment as  no  more  than  a  symptom 
it  can  fairly  be  argued  that  the  distinction 
between  symptom  and  disease  is  not  so 
absolute  as  rhetoric  can  make  it  appear. 

At  all  events  most  statesmen  and  most 
economists  profess  to  be  in  search  of  a  cure 
for  unemployment  and  to  regard  this  quest 
as  at  any  rate  one  of  the  most  important 
economic  ends.  The  trouble  is  that  they 
differ  profoundly  about  the  methods  that 
are  calculated  to  secure  their  object.  Of 
late  years  quite  a  chorus  of  voices — from 
the  City,  from  the  business  world,  and 
from  the  academic  groves  of  Cambridge 
and  London — has  been  assuring  us  that 
the  abnormally  high  unemployment  of 
post- War  years  is  the  consequence  chiefly 
of  the  'rigidity'  of  wages — that  is,  of  the 
folly  of  workmen  under  Trade  Union  in- 
fluences in  valuing  their  labor  at  higher 
rates  than  the  market  will  bear.  Let  wages 


fall  till  they  coincide  with  the  'marginal 
productivity'  of  the  last  laborer,  and  all 
will  be  well.  So  we  have  been  told,  with  so 
much  punditory  self-assurance  that  it  has 
been  quite  difficult  for  the  plain  man,  con- 
fronted with  a  series  of  unintelligible 
equations,  not  to  begin  thinking  that  it 
may  perhaps  be  true. 

There  have  been,  of  course,  other  voices 
— Mr.  J.  A.  Hobson's,  for  example, — 
preaching  a  very  different  doctrine  and 
telling  us  that  '  linder-consumption '  is  at 
the  root  of  all  our  difficulties.  What  is 
wanted,  on  this  showing,  is  more  consum- 
ing power;  for  ultimately  the  entire  vol- 
ume of  economic  activity  is  necessarily 
limited  by  consumption.  Investment  is 
useless  unless  there  is  a  market  for  the 
consumers'  goods  which  it  can  be  applied 
to  making;  for  all  demand  is,  in  the  last 
resort,  a  demand  for  goods  and  services  to 
be  consumed.  But  these  voices,  in  respect- 
able circles,  have  been  drowned  by  the 
outraged  clamor  of  the  orthodox.  '  Under- 
consumption '  has  remained  a  disreputable 
heresy;  and  of  late,  though  Marx  himself 
can  be  quoted  on  its  side.  Communist 
Marxists,  such  as  Mr.  John  Strachey,  have 
denounced  it  with  hardly  less  gusto  than 
they  have  directed  against  the  more 
orthodox  view — presumably  because  when 
they  are  dealing  with  capitalist  or  other 
non-Marxist  economists  they  work  on  the 
principle  of 'the  horrider,  the  better.' 

But  now  there  comes,  from  one  who  is 
no  Socialist  and  is  indisputably  one  of  the 
world's  leading  economists  trained  in  the 
classical  tradition,  a  book  which  with  all 
the  armory  of  the  classical  method  pushes 
at  one  blow  off  their  pedestals  all  the  clas- 
sical deities  from  Ricardo  to  Wicksell,  and 
all  their  attendant  self-canonized  sprites 
from  Vienna  and  the  London  School,  and 
puts  in  their  vacant  places  not  indeed 
Marx,  but  Mr.  J.  A.  Hobson  and  the  late 
Silvio  Gesell.  For  Mr.  J.  M.  Keynes,  after 


[I72] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


many  uneasy  years  of  wandering  amid  the 
classical  abstractions — years  whose  stig- 
mata are  still  upon  him — has  discovered 
that  after  all,  in  the  matters  which  practi- 
cally matter  most,  Ricardo  and  Vienna 
and  LxDndon  and  Cambridge  have  all  this 
time  been  talking  nonsense,  whereas 
Gesell  and  Hobson  (and  Malthus  in  his 
most  maligned  moments)  have  had  hold 
of  the  right  end  of  the  stick. 

Mr.  Keynes  is  evidently  conscious  of  the 
supreme  challenge  which  his  new  book  of- 
fers to  the  entire  economic  practice  of 
capitalism,  and  to  the  relevance  and  con- 
clusiveness of  the  fundamental  economic 
theories  put  forward  by  most  of  his  aca- 
demic colleagues.  Otherwise,  he  would 
hardly  have  published  at  five  shillings  a 
book  of  nearly  four  hundred  pages  which 
most  trained  economists  will  find  stiff 
reading  and  most  other  people  at  some 
points  wholly  beyond  their  comprehen- 
sion. By  putting  the  book  forward  at  such 
a  price,  Mr.  Keynes  is  saying  in  effect: 
'This  is  no  ordinary  book.  It  is  a  book  that 
has  to  be  understood  because  it  really 
matters.  It  marks  an  epoch  in  economic 
thought.'  And,  in  claiming  this,  Mr. 
Keynes  is,  without  the  smallest  shadow  of 
doubt,  absolutely  right.  His  new  book  is 
the  most  important  theoretical  economic 
writing  since  Marx's  Capitaly  or,  if  only 
classical  economics  is  to  be  considered  as 
comparable,  since  Ricardo's  Principles. 

IN  THE  challenge  which  Mr.  Keynes  has 
thrown  down  to  his  orthodox  colleagues, 
there  are,  of  course,  many  elements  that 
are  not  new.  Indeed,  Mr.  Keynes's  most 
signal  service  is  that  he  has  brought  to- 
gether, coordinated  and  rationalized  many 
criticisms  of  orthodoxy  which  have  hith- 
erto been  ineffective  because  they  have 
been  disjointed  and  unrelated  to  any  clear 
body  of  fundamental  theory.  There  are 
many  points  at  which  Mr.  Keynes's  al- 
ternative construction  is  open  to  chal- 
lenge. But  it  does  give  the  critics  of  eco- 
nomic orthodoxy  solid  ground  on  which 
they  can  set  their  feet. 


There  is  no  space  here  for  more  than  the 
briefest  indication  of  Mr.  Keynes's  argu- 
ments. His  book  is  in  form  chiefly  an  at- 
tempt to  determine  the  underlying  condi- 
tions which  in  a  capitalistically  organized 
society  determine  the  actual  volume  of 
unemployment.  The  classical  economists, 
either  explicitly  or  more  often  by  implica- 
tion, have  been  accustomed  to  set  out 
from  the  assumption  of 'full  employment* 
as  normal,  and  to  prove  their  general 
theories  without  regard  to  the  possibility 
of  variations  in  total  employment,  treat- 
ing the  actual  occurrence  of  unemploy- 
ment as  a  deviation  from  the  normal,  due 
to  some  exceptional  factor  such  as  mone- 
tary mismanagement  or  the  rigidity  of 
wages.  Mr.  Keynes  himself,  in  his  earlier 
writings,  had  not  got  far  from  this  method, 
though  his  explanation  was  different,  for 
he  formerly  traced  unemployment  largely 
to  divergences  between  the  'natural'  and 
the  market  rates  of  interest.  But  he  has 
now  seen  that  for  the  economic  system  as 
it  is  'full  employment'  cannot  be  treated 
as  normal,  and  that  the  problem  is  to  de- 
vise an  economic  order  which  will  secure 
'equilibrium'  on  a  basis  of  'full  employ- 
ment' and  not  by  preventing  booms  at  the 
cost  of  making  semi-depression  perma- 
nent. 

Mr.  Keynes  now  sees  the  factor  which 
determines  the  total  volume  of  employ- 
ment under  capitalism  as  the  maintenance 
of  investment  at  an  adequate  level.  This 
seems,  at  first  sight,  to  put  him  sharply  in 
opposition  to  the  'under-consumption- 
ists;'  but  actually  it  makes  him  their  ally. 
For  the  will  to  invest  depends,  in  Mr. 
Keynes's  phrase,  on  the  'marginal  effi- 
ciency of  capital,'  which  may  be  roughly 
translated  as  the  marginal  expectation  of 
profit  from  investment  over  its  entire  life, 
as  far  as  this  is  actually  taken  into  ac- 
count by  the  investor.  This  expectation, 
however,  depends  absolutely  on  the  de- 
mand for  consumers'  goods;  and  accord- 
ingly the  maintenance  of  investment  at  a 
satisfactory  level  depends  on  the  main- 
tenance of  consumption. 


193^ 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[173] 


In  orthodox  theories,  consumption  and 
investment  stand  in  an  antithetical  rela- 
tion. But  Mr.  Keynes  is  able  to  show  the 
falsity  of  this  view,  except  on  the  assump- 
tion that  the  available  productive  re- 
sources are  being  fully  employed.  More 
consumption,  he  shows,  stimulates  more 
investment,  as  well  as  more  investment 
more  consumption,  up  to  the  point  at 
which  full  employment  has  been  secured. 
In  his  earlier  work,  Mr.  Keynes  stressed 
the  difference  between  'saving,'  which  is 
mere  abstinence  from  consumption,  and 
investment,  which  is  the  positive  use  of  the 
'saving'  in  the  creation  of  capital.  He 
now  restates  his  doctrine,  so  as  to  em- 
phasize that,  while  from  the  collective 
standpoint  'saving'  and  'investment' 
must  be  equal  (for  the  only  way  of  really 
saving  is  to  invest),  the  processes  of  in- 
dividual saving  and  individual  investment 
are  wholly  distinct.  Accordingly  the  at- 
tempts of  individuals  to  save  can,  from 
the  social  point  of  view,  be  rendered 
wholly  abortive  by  the  failure  of  entre- 
preneurs to  borrow  these  savings  and  ap- 
ply them  to  real  investment;  and  this 
failure,  wherever  it  occurs,  is  bound  to 
cause  unemployment. 

Mr.  Keynes  believes  that  failure  of  this 
sort  is  an  inherent  defect  of  the  present 
economic  system,  and  that  it  can  be  cured 
only  by  public  action,  taking  at  least  three 
related  forms.  He  wants  the  State  to  con- 
trol the  supply  of  money  so  as  to  secure  its 
adequacy  for  maintaining  full  employ- 
ment; and  this  involves  a  repudiation  of 
the  gold  standard,  or  of  any  fixed  inter- 
national monetary  standard,  and  also  a 
decisive  repudiation  of  all  those  econo- 
mists who  wish  to  stabilize  the  supply  of 
money.  Secondly,  he  wants  the  State  to 
control  the  rates  of  interest  (mainly  by  ad- 
justing the  supply  of  money)  in  order  to 
keep  these  rates  down  to  a  point  which 
will  make  investment  worth  while  up  to 
the  level  of  'full  employment.'  This  in- 
volves a  complete  repudiation  of  the 
orthodox  view  that  interest  rates  are  self- 
adjusting  to  a  'natural'  level.  Thirdly,  he 


wants  the  State  largely  to  take  over,  or  at 
any  rate  control,  the  amount  and  direction 
of  investment,  with  the  object  of  main- 
taining full  employment  on  the  basis  of  a 
balanced  economic  development. 

These  are  Mr.  Keynes's  most  funda- 
mental points  of  advocacy.  But  perhaps 
most  attention  of  all  will  be  popularly 
focused  on  his  views  about  wages.  For  he 
reduces  to  sheer  absurdity  the  prevalent 
view  that  lower  wages  are  a  cure  for  un- 
employment. He  begins  by  pointing  out 
that  this  view  rests  on  a  fundamental  con- 
fusion of  thought  between  money  wages 
and  real  wages.  It  assumes  that,  broadly, 
these  can  be  spoken  of  together,  and  that 
if  workmen  could  be  persuaded  to  accept 
lower  money  wages,  their  real  wages  would 
fall.  Actually,  he  points  out,  real  wages 
have  often  risen  when  money  wages  have 
been  reduced,  and  he  offers  reasons  why 
this  should  be  so.  The  reduction  in  money 
wages,  unless  it  is  expected  to  be  soon  re- 
versed, sets  up  an  expectation  of  falling 
costs  and  prices,  which  positively  dis- 
courages investment  by  reducing  the 
'marginal  efficiency  of  capital.'  Thus  in- 
stead of  increasing  employment,  it  re- 
duces it,  even  if  it  raises  the  real  wages  of 
those  who  remain  in  work.  Mr.  Keynes 
considers  that  the  tendency  of  Trade 
Unions  to  keep  up  money  wages  in  times 
of  depression  is  positively  good  for  the 
capitalist  system  and  makes  the  depres- 
sion less  severe  than  it  would  be  if  the 
workmen  yielded  to  the  blandishments  of 
Professor  Robbins  and  his  like. 

There  is  in  Mr.  Keynes's  challenge  an 
enormous  amount  more  than  it  has  been 
possible  even  to  mention  in  this  necessarily 
brief  summary  of  his  central  argument. 
But  enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  the 
book  is  one  which  must,  sooner  or  later, 
cause  every  orthodox  text-book  to  be 
fundamentally  rewritten.  It  is  true  that 
Mr.  Keynes's  conclusion  is  not  that  we 
should  destroy  the  system  of  'private 
enterprise,'  but  only  that  we  should  drasti- 
cally refashion  it.  Mr.  Keynes  rejects 
complete  Socialism,  and  looks  forward  to  a 


:i74] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


society  in  which  private  and  collective 
enterprise  will  live  together,  but  the 
rentier  class  will  have  practically  dis- 
appeared— for  the  maintenance  of  full 
employment  with  the  aid  of  investment 
kept  up  to  the  requisite  point  by  State 
action  will,  he  thinks,  reduce  the  rate  of 
interest  almost  to  vanishing  point. 

But  this  part  of  his  argument  is  but 
briefly  sketched  in  his  closing  chapter  and 
is  not  a  necessary  deduction  from  his 
analysis.  What  he  has  done,  triumphantly 
and  conclusively,  is  to  demonstrate  the 
falsity  even  from  a  capitalist  standpoint  of 
the  most  cherished  practical  'morals'  of 
the  orthodox  economists  and  to  construct 
an  alternative  theory  of  the  working  of 
capitalist  enterprise  so  clearly  nearer  to 
the  facts  that  it  will  be  impossible  for  it  to 
be  ignored  or  set  aside. 

[Mr.  Keynes's  General  Theory  of  Employ- 
ment, Interest  and  Money  has  been  pub- 
lished in  the  United  States  by  Harcourt^ 
Brace  and  Company  of  New  Tork.  The 
price  of  the  American  edition   is  $2.00] 

Law  and  the  League 

The  League  of  Nations  and  the  Rule 
OF  Law,  191 8-1935.  J57  Sir  Alfred  Zim- 
mem.  London:  Macmillan  and  Company. 
1936. 

(Gilbert  Murray  in  the  Manchester  Guardian y 
Manchester) 

PROFESSOR  ZIMMERN,  or,  as  we 

should  now  call  him,  Sir  Alfred,  writes 
with  knowledge  and  authority.  What  is 
more,  he  writes  with  wit,  vividness,  and 
charm.  He  has  succeeded  in  what  to  most 
people  would  seem  the  impossible  task  of 
writing  not  merely  a  valuable  but  a  posi- 
tively exciting  and  almost  thrilling  book 
about  the  League  of  Nations. 

Of  course  he  pays  a  price  for  these  ad- 
vantages. That  is  inevitable.  In  the  han- 
dling of  his  material  he  selects  and  rejects 
ruthlessly.  In  the  expression  of  his  con- 
clusions he  seldom  gives  much  considera- 
tion to  opposing  arguments;  he  has  a  taste 


for  paradox  and  for  'chastising  whom  he 
loves.'  One  remembers  the  brilliant  lec- 
tures he  used  to  give  at  Geneva,  criticizing 
day  by  day  the  proceedings  of  the  Assem- 
bly on  the  day  before,  and  how  a  member 
of  the  half-submissive  and  half-indignant 
audience  which  crowded  to  hear  him  once 
exclaimed  that  the  League  was  nursing  a 
serpent  in  its  bosom.  'Not  a  serpent,'  said 
his  companion,  'only  a  bee  or  a  wasp 
whose  stings  will  cure  its  rheumatism!' 
Some  of  the  harshest  criticisms  in  his  book 
are  directed  against  General  Smuts  and 
Lord  Cecil;  he  quotes  with  praise  a  highly 
sophistical  attack  on  Geneva  by  Signor 
Grandi,  and  he  applies  the  epithet  'he- 
roic' to  Mr.  MacDonald's  disarmament 
policy! 

His  analysis  of  the  Covenant  is  ex- 
tremely interesting.  He  finds  in  it  five 
strands,  one  of  them  new,  the  other  four 
derived  from  pre- War  diplomacy  but  im- 
proved out  of  all  recognition.  First,  a 
Concert  of  the  Powers,  not  confined  to  the 
Great  Powers,  at  which  any  nation  whose 
interest  is  concerned  must  be  present. 
Secondly,  a  'universalized  Monroe  Doc- 
trine,' guaranteeing  all  members  against 
external  aggression.  Thirdly,  a  vastly  im- 
proved Hague  Conference,  with  perma- 
nent organs  for  inquiry,  mediation,  ar- 
bitration, and  judicial  settlement  of 
disputes.  Fourthly,  an  extension  of  the 
idea  of  the  universal  postal  union  to  cover 
all  kinds  of  international  'public  utilities.' 
Only  the  fifth  is  definitely  a  product  of 
post- War  thinking:  'an  agency  for  the 
mobilization  of  the  hue  and  cry  against 
war  as  a  matter  of  universal  concern  and 
a  crime  against  the  world  community.' 

No  less  acute  is  Sir  Alfred's  division  of 
the  League's  history  into  four  phases — to 
which  the  reader  may  devoutly  hope  that 
a  fifth  will  succeed.  First,  an  embryonic 
condition  up  to  1920  in  which — as  psycho- 
analysts will  be  pleased  to  hear — irrepara- 
ble harm  was  done  affecting  the  poor 
thing's  whole  lifetime.  The  desertion  of  the 
United  States;  the  retreat  of  Great  Britain 
from    its    'hue-and-cry'    responsibilities 


193^ 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[175] 


under  articles  10  and  16;  earlier  still,  the 
dropping  from  the  Covenant  of  the  pro- 
posed clauses  for  the  'removal  of  economic 
barriers  and  the  establishment  of  an 
equality  of  trade  conditions,'  for  'equality 
of  races  and  religions,'  and  for  the  'pro- 
hibition of  the  private  traffic  in  arma- 
ments.' Perhaps  these  provisions  could 
not  have  been  carried  even  then,  when 
minds  were  really  on  the  move  and  nations 
ready  to  make  sacrifices  for  peace;  but  one 
looks  back  at  them  in  1936  as  a  drowning 
man  might  look  at  the  raft  that  he  once 
rejected  and  which  is  now  out  of  his  reach. 

Next  came  a  period  of  struggle  and  en- 
thusiasm, in  which  particularly  the  Secre- 
tariat found  its  strength  and  developed 
into  a  great  international  service  under  the 
guidance  of  such  men  as  Sir  Eric  Drum- 
mond  and  Sir  Arthur  Salter  for  the  League 
and  M.  Albert  Thomas  for  the  I.L.O. 
This  period  culminated  in  the  Protocol  of 
1924,  a  brave  attempt  to  make  the  League 
into  all  that  it  was  intended  to  be  and  all 
that  various  Governments,  especially  the 
British,  were  determined  it  should  not  be. 

Then  came  a  period  first  of  retreat  and 
then  of  cautious  and  successful  advance: 
the  rejection  of  the  Protocol  and  its  re- 
placement by  the  Locarno  treaties;  the 
decision  of  Sir  Austen  Chamberlain  as 
Foreign  Secretary  to  attend  the  Council 
regularly  and  to  make  the  League  not  a 
sort  of  idealist  extra  but  a  central  part  of 
the  work  of  the  Foreign  Office;  the  co- 
operation, achieved  just  once  and  never 
again,  of  England,  France  and  Germany 
under  Chamberlain,  Briand  and  Strese- 
mann;  the  entry  of  Germany  into  the 
League,  the  evacuation  of  the  Rhineland 
five  years  before  it  was  due,  the  gradual 
dropping  of  reparations,  and  the  dawning 
hope  of  a  European  union. 

Then  in  the  fourth  stage  came  two 
great  disasters,  the  death  of  Stresemann — 
the  one  man  who  could  convince  his 
countrymen  that  on  grounds  of  pure  Real- 
politiky  with  no  Liberal  or  idealist  non- 
sense, Germany's  interests  demanded  a 
policy  of  international  cooperation — and 


soon  afterwards  the  world-wide  economic 
blizzard. 

Two  Englishmen  struggled  hard  against 
the  flood  of  reaction  and  narrow  national- 
ism that  now  set  in:  William  Graham  and 
Arthur  Henderson;  but  the  tide  was  too 
strong.  Instead  of  cooperation  there  was 
xenophobia;  instead  of  a  growing  freedom 
of  trade  a  savage  effort  by  every  nation 
to  build  its  own  prosperity  on  the  ruin  of 
its  neighbor;  an  intensification  of  eco- 
nomic distress  which  led  to  the  triumph  of 
the  most  dangerous  elements  in  Japan, 
Germany  and  Italy  and  to  bitter  internal 
struggles  elsewhere;  to  war  after  war  which 
the  League  failed  to  stop;  and,  lastly,  to 
the  disaster  which  dominates  the  whole  of 
our  present  policies,  the  failure  of  the 
Disarmament  Conference  and  the  conse- 
quent rearmament  of  Germany.  Sir  Alfred 
treats  the  whole  question  of  armaments  as 
a  matter  of  minor  importance,  but  he  will 
find  few  students  of  the  subject  to  agree 
with  him. 

There  ends  the  fourth  period  in  an 
atmosphere  of  defeat,  reaction,  and  im- 
minent fear  of  war.  Is  that  to  be  really  the 
close  of  the  story?  Sir  Alfred  says  more 
than  once  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a 
'League  of  Nations'  policy.  Perhaps  the 
truth  is  that  there  is  such  a  thing,  but  it 
cannot  exist  in  a  world  of  economic  na- 
tionalism and  competitive  armaments. 

[Sir  Alfred  Zimmem's  The  League  of 
Nations  and  the  Rule  of  Law  is  to  be  pub- 
lished in  the  United  States  by  The  Mac- 
millan  Company  of  New  Tork.  'The  price 
of  the  American  edition  is  $4.5o\ 

Pre- War  Diplomacy 

Before  The  War:  Studies  in  Diplo- 
macy. By  G.  P.  Gooch.  Volume  I:  The 
Grouping  of  the  Powers.  London:  Long- 
mans and  Company.  1936. 

(J.  L.  Hammond  in  the  Manchester  Guardian, 
Manchester) 

'T^HERE  can  be  few  persons  in  Europe — 

there  are  certainly  none  in  England— 

who  have  so  thorough  a  knowledge  as  Dr. 


[176] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


Gooch  of  the  history  of  Europe  in  the 
anxious  years  that  led  up  to  the  Great 
War.  In  the  book  published  today  he  has 
chosen  a  most  interesting  method  of  mak- 
ing his  knowledge  at  once  useful  and  en- 
tertaining to  his  readers.  In  a  series  of 
vivid  sketches  he  has  taken  five  of  the  For- 
eign Ministers  who  were  concerned  in  the 
high  politics  of  the  time  and  discusses  the 
problems  they  had  to  face,  the  nature  and 
importance  of  their  contribution  and 
their  own  qualities  of  character  and  in- 
tellect. In  this  way  the  reader  can  decide 
for  himself  a  number  of  interesting  ques- 
tions: how  far,  for  example,  public  opinion 
was  a  force  in  the  days  of  secret  diplomacy, 
how  far  this  or  that  politician  succeeded 
either  in  his  larger  or  his  smaller  aims  and 
how  far  those  aims  promoted  or  damaged 
the  general  interests  of  Europe. 

Dr.  Gooch  uses  for  the  most  part  docu- 
ments that  reveal  the  inner  history  of 
events  rather  than  public  speeches,  and 
this,  of  course,  adds  to  the  dramatic  inter- 
est of  his  pages  as  well  as  to  their  value. 
His  method  has  a  further  advantage.  It 
enables  the  reader  to  look  at  diflferent  situ- 
ations in  turn  from  different  points  of 
view,  and  it  helps  him  to  realize  what  a 
strong  case  each  actor  believed  he  could 
make  for  his  own  policy.  The  men  studied 
in  this  volume  are  Lansdowne,  Delcasse, 
Billow,  Izwolsky,  Aehrenthal.  A  later 
volume  will  be  devoted  to  Grey,  Poincare, 
Bethmann-Hollweg,  Sazonoff,  and  Berch- 
told.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  two  volumes 
will  form  a  commentary  of  incomparable 
importance  on  the  history  of  the  great 
game  of  chess  that  ended  in  the  war. 

The  Poets  of  1935 

The   Year's   Poetry.    London:   Bodley 
Head.  1935. 

(Siegfried  Sassoon  in  the  Spectator,  London) 

QN  NEW  YEAR'S  DAY  I  went  to  see 

my  Aunt  Eudora.  In  spite  of  having 

been  born  on  the  day  of  the  outbreak  of 

the  Crimean  War,  she  was  looking  re- 


markably well,  and  it  soon  became  appar- 
ent that  she  was  as  vigorous  and  emphatic 
as  ever  in  the  expression  of  her  opinions. 
Aunt  Eudora  is,  among  other  things,  a 
sound  judge  of  poetry.  Always  a  believer 
in  keeping  abreast  of  the  times,  she  has 
watched  many  poetic  fashions  appear 
and  pass  away,  while  maintaining  her 
own  sturdily  independent  attitude  to- 
ward them — an  attitude  based  on  a  solid 
grounding  in  the  best  poetry  from 
Chaucer  onwards  and  sustained  by  the 
possession  of  what  she  calls  *  a  nose  like  a 
hound  for  anything  first-rate.' 

On  January  i,  1936,  however,  she 
wasn't  in  the  best  of  tempers.  In  her  hand 
was  a  small  book  bound  in  orange- 
vermilion  cloth,  and  what  it  contained 
had  evidently  distressed  her. 

T  can't  make  head  nor  tail  of  the  poetry 
of  the  year  1935!'  she  exclaimed,  almost 
angrily,  though  she  is  by  nature  a  good- 
natured  old  lady. 

'W'hatever  made  you  buy  it?'  I  asked. 

Her  tenaciously  retentive  memory  en- 
abled her  to  reply:  "Tt  is  unique  as  the 
anthology  which,  year  by  year,  can  give  a 
really  adequate  idea  of  the  poetry  that  is 
being  written  in  our  time."  That's  what 
one  of  those  Radical  weeklies  said  about 
the  book,  so  I  sent  for  it.' 

As  an  afterthought  she  added:  Tt  won't 
be  long  before  I'm  in  the  next  world 
and  I  want  to  have  something  new  to 
tell  dear  Mr.  William  Morris  when  I  get 
there!' 

Aunt  Eudora  had,  from  her  girlhood, 
been  faithful  to  pre-Raphaelitism,  which 
was,  she  maintained,  *a  Movement  and 
not  a  Fashion,  in  spite  of  all  those  mawk- 
ish artistic  females  who  went  about 
swathed  in  garments  of  dim  green  arras, 
spouting  Dante  Rossetti's  poems.  I  always 
stuck  up  for  Christina,'  she  said,  'and 
nobody  denies  now  that  she  was  the  best 
of  them.' 

Suppressing  a  strong  desire  to  keep  her 
talking  about  the  great  Victorians — she 
had  once  been  in  a  cab  accident  with 
Robert  Browning,  and  George  Meredith 


m^ 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


'Ml\ 


had  enphrased  her  as  'handmaid  to 
Creative  Spirit  on  tip-toe' — I  persuasively 
removed  'The  Years  Poetry  from  her  lace- 
mittened  old-ivory  hand,  passed  her  the 
filigreed  smelling-salt  bottle,  and  sug- 
gested that  we  should  investigate  the 
up-to-date  volume  in  cerebral  collabora- 
tion. 

'We'll  just  dodge  about  and  see  what 
we  can  make  of  it,'  I  remarked.  'The 
poets  are  arranged  in  order  of  age.  The 
first  dozen  or  so  are  either  safely  estab- 
lished or  past  praying  for,  so  we'll  leave 
them  alone.  But  before  we  start,  just 
repeat  a  few  lines  you're  fond  of,  so  that 
we  can  begin  by  reminding  ourselves  what 
poetry  used  to  be  like  before  1935.' 

'  'They  have  no  songy  the  sedges  dry^ 

And  still  they  sing. 
It  is  within  my  breast  they  singy 

As  I  pass  by. 
Within  my  breast  they  touch  a  stringy 

They  wake  a  sigh. 
There  is  but  sound  of  sedges  dry; 

In  me  they  sing. 

'That's  by  Mr.  Meredith,  and  it's  good 
enough  for  an  old  stick  like  me.'  She 
spoke  bluntly,  but  there  had  been  a  catch 
in  her  voice  while  she  quoted.  And  I 
wondered  to  myself — and  not  for  the  first 
time  either — whether  any  poetry  matters 
except  the  poetry  that  springs  direct 
from  the  heart. 

A  little  reluctantly,  perhaps,  I  opened 
the  book,  and  gave  her  the  opening 
stanza  of  In  the  Squarey  by  W.  H.  Auden. 

*0  for  doors  to  be  open  and  an  invite  with 

gilded  edges 
To  dine  with  Lord  Lobcock  and  Count 

Asthma  on  the  platinum  benches y 
With  the  somersaults  and  fireworksy  the 
roast  and  the  smacking  kisses  .  .  . 
Cried  the  six   cripples  to  the  silent 
statuCy 

The  six  beggared  cripples.' 

'Good  gracious,  darling,  how  perfectly 
extraordinary!    I    don't   like   it   at   all!' 


exclaimed  Aunt  Eudora,  resorting  to  her 
smelling-salts. 

'It  does  sound  a  bit  odd,'  I  admitted, 
adding,  'A  lot  of  people  think  highly  of 
Auden,  you  know.  The  younger  generation 
regard  him  as  a  very  live  wire  indeed.' 

'I'm  sure  they're  right.  He  certainly 
gave  me  a  shock.  Try  someone  else  now, 
dear.' 

'Well,  here's  one  called  Doctrinal  Point 
by  William  Empson: — 

'  The  god  approached  dissolves  into  the  air. 

Magnolias y for  instancCy  when  in  budy 
Are  right  in  doing  anything  they  can  think 

of; 

Free  by  predestination  in  the  bloody 
Saved  by  their  own  sapy  shed  for  themselves  y 
Their  texture  can  impose  their  architecture; 
Their  sapient  matter  is  already  informed.' 

•Stop!'  cried  Aunt  Eudora.  'What  sort 
of  poetry  is  that?' 

'It's  metaphysical.  And  the  more  you 
know  about  things,  the  more  you  know 
what  it  means.' 

'Metafiddlesticks!  I  never  heard  such 
flat  lines  in  my  life.' 

Seeing  that  I'd  failed  again,  I  embarked 
on  To  a  Chinese  Girly  by  Ronald  Bottrall. 

'Tour  grapnel   eyes    dredging    my    body 

through 
Haul  up  the  uncharted  silty  efface 
The  mudflats  of  impeding  residue. 

Thus  trenching  you  rive  up  my  yesterdays: 
Exposed  to  suny  your  eastern  suny  not  minCy 
Compromise  shrivels  in  Confucian  rays. 

Fitly  proportioned  pigments  will  combine 
In  deeper  valueSy  but  vague  ampersands 
Choke  the  lacunae  of  our  strict  design.' 

Again  she  checked  me  with  a  protesting 
hand.  (The  word  'ampersands'  had 
puzzled  her.) 

'  Really,  Aunt  Eudora,  you  must  let  me 
finish  the  poem.  One  shouldn't  judge  these 
things  by  fragments.' 

'No,  dear,  I'd  much  rather  hear  what 


:i78] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


4pril 


the  Chinese  girl  said  to  him.  In  my  day 
that  sort  of  stuff  was  called  pretentious 
verbiage.  It  may  be  clever.  If  so,  I'm 
stupid.  Try  reading  the  last  stanza  of  a 
poem,  please.' 

With  deepening  dismay,  I  obliged  her 
with  the  last  lines  of  an  Ode  by  R.  E. 
Warner: — 

'  Twining  of  serpents!  Halitosis  of  lions! 

be  backward  from  the  body. 

Be  speed  from  the  wind  and  lightness  in  the 

air, 
following  no  sandy  path  from  Italy  ^ 

but  moth-soft  J  palpitating^  where 

by  wind's  plume  silver  splashed 

the  untroubling  negro  water 

Shrives  with  the  light ^  0  whitely  blushes' 

'W^hat  is  the  subject  of  the  Ode?'  she 
enquired.  Her  eyes  were  closed,  and  she 
was  beginning  to  look  all  her  age. 

'Well,  it  seems  to  be  about  the  author 
returning  to  England  from  Egypt  .  .  .' 

No  doubt  it  was  extremely  unfair  to 
the  anthology,  but  I  simply  hadn't  the 
heart  to  read  Aunt  Eudora  any  more 
extracts.  It  was  obvious  that  she  would 
never  catch  up  with  the  poetry  of  1935. 
So  I  asked  her  to  recite  me  something  old- 
fashioned  again  before  I  said  good-bye. 
And,  oddly  enough,  she  repeated  some 
early  lines  by  Gerard  Manley  Hopkins, 
that  great  Victorian  whose  later  and 
much  more  elaborate  idiom  has  been  ap- 
plauded and  imitated  by  the  present 
*  younger  generation '  of  poets: — 

'/  have  desired  to  go 
Where  springs  notfail^ 
To  fields  where  flies  no  sharp  and  sided  hail 
And  a  few  lilies  blow. 

And  I  have  asked  to  be 
Where  storms  not  come^ 
Where  the  green  swell  is  in  the  havens  dumby 
And  out  of  the  swing  of  the  sea.' 

How  lovely  it  sounded!  And  how  I 
wished  that  the  young  poets  of  1935 
would  try  to  express  themselves  less 
artificially ! 


Words  from  a  Hat 

A  Survey  of  Surrealism.  By  David 
Gascoyne.  London:  Cobden-Sanderson. 
1935' 

(Edward  Shanks  in  the  Sunday  Times,  London) 

"^ORDAU,  thou  shouldst  be  living  at 
this  hour!  For  all  I  know  (I  must  in- 
terject) that  eminent  thinker  of  the  end  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  the  author  of 
Degeneration,  may,  indeed,  be  alive  at  this 
hour.  But  if  he  is,  he  is  taking  current 
manifestations  in  art  and  literature  in  a 
spirit  of  remarkable  docility.  It  must  be 
admitted,  however,  that  even  he  would 
find  it  a  little  hard  to  know  how  to  deal 
with  some  of  them.  He  discovered  echola- 
lia  in  Rossetti,  Swinburne  and  Morris,  and 
other  of  the  stigmata  of  degeneracy  in 
Wagner,  Ibsen,  Maeterlinck,  Huysmans, 
Verlaine  and  the  rest.  One  cannot  help 
wondering  what  he  would  have  said  about 
a  movement  the  historian  of  which 
writes: — 

*  Salvador  Dali,  a  Catalan,  brought  with 
him  into  surrealism  an  element  until  then 
almost  unknown  to  it.  His  most  important 
contribution  to  surrealist  experiment  is  his 
paranoiac  method  of  criticism  .  .  .' 

It  would  probably  make  his  position 
more  difficult  that  the  surrealists  are 
rather  inclined  to  refer  for  authority  to 
Dr.  Freud,  who  is  surely  in  general  estima- 
tion one  of  the  successors  of  his  own  be- 
loved Lombroso. 

Lacking  a  Nordau,  we  must  try  to  make 
our  own  appreciation  of  what  is,  at  any 
rate,  an  artistic  phenomenon  of  one  sort 
or  another.  The  dadaists  and  their  suc- 
cessors, the  surrealists,  may  be  asses,  but, 
if  they  are,  they  are  systematic  and  per- 
sistent asses,  with  some  force  of  character 
somewhere  among  them.  They  have  pub- 
lished a  number  of  books,  reviews,  and 
manifestoes,  and  they  have  moved  an  Eng- 
lish gentleman  of  apparent  intelligence  to 
write  a  study  of  their  endeavors.  The  fu- 
ture historian  of  the  intellectual  life  of  our 
times  will  not  be  able  to  avoid  mentioning 


193^ 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[179] 


them,  whatever  he  may  say  about  them. 
So  it  is  surely  worth  while  to  try  to  under- 
stand them  now.  For  assistance  in  this  di- 
rection we  may  be  grateful  to  Mr.  Gas- 
coyne. 

He  begins  his  history  of  the  movement 
with  dadaism.  The  word  ^ dada^  meaning 
'  hobby-horse,'  was  the  first  in  a  dictionary 
opened  at  random  by  Tristan  Tzara,  a 
young  Rumanian,  in  a  cafe  in  Zurich  in 
February,  1916. 

'The  dada  spirit,'  says  Mr.  Gascoyne, 
'was  something  shared  by  a  number  of 
extreme  individualists  of  various  nation- 
alities, all  of  whom  were  in  revolt  against 
the  whole  of  the  epoch  in  which  they  lived. 
There  is  hardly  a  better  expression  of  it 
than  these  words  of  Ribemont-Des- 
saignes:"What  is  beautiful?  What  is  ugly? 
What  is  great,  strong,  weak?  What  is 
Carpentier,  Renan,  Foch?  Don't  know. 
What  am  I?  Don't  know.  Don't  know, 
don't  know,  don't  know." 

Dada,  in  other,  but  not,  I  think,  more 
expressive  words,  is  intellectual  nihilism 
— a  quite  comprehensible  attitude.  No 
doubt  neither  the  teaching  nor  the  exam- 
ple of  the  exponents  of  this  attitude  was 
quite  pure.  But  they  had  a  good  time, 
while  keeping  reasonably  within  its  limits. 
Thus  'such  was  Marcel  Duchamp's  dis- 
gust for  "art"  that  he  invented  a  new 
form  of  expression,  which  he  called 
"Ready-Made."  A  Ready-Made  was  any 
manufactured  object  that  the  artist  liked 
to  choose.  For  example,  in  1917  he  sent  in 
to  the  New  York  Salon  des  Independants  a 
simple  marble  lavatory-bowl,  which  he 
entitled  Fountain^  signing  it  R.  Mutt. 
(Needless  to  say,  it  was  rejected.) ' 

Where  I  do  not  quite  follow  Mr.  Gas- 
coyne is  in  his  account  of  how  surrealism 
emerged  from  dadaism,  and  in  his  appre- 
ciation of  the  distinction  between  the  two. 
Beyond  question,  there  was  an  emergence, 
and  the  persons  concerned  must  feel  that 
there  is  a  distinction.  'Towards  the  mid- 
dle of  1 92 1,'  says  Mr.  Gascoyne, '  a  certain 
atmosphere  of  discontent  and  quarrel- 
someness was  beginning  to  make  itself 


felt.'  This  ended  in  Mr.  Tzara  handing 
Mr.  Andre  Breton  and  some  of  his  associ- 
ates over  to  the  police.  In  this  mighty 
cataclysm  surrealism  was  born. 

The  nearest  approach  to  sense  in  the 
various  definitions  here  quoted  is  in  that 
given  by  Mr.  Andre  Breton: — 

'This  word,  which  we  have  not  in- 
vented, and  which  we  could  so  easily  have 
left  in  the  vaguest  of  critical  vocabularies, 
is  employed  by  us  with  a  precise  meaning. 
We  have  agreed  to  refer  by  it  to  a  certain 
psychic  automatism,  which  more  or  less 
corresponds  to  the  dream-state,  a  state  of 
which  it  is  by  this  time  very  difficult  to 
fix  the  limits.' 

This  enables  us  to  understand  Mr, 
Gascoyne  when,  indignantly  denying  the 
assertion  that  surrealism  'has  no  roots  in 
English  tradition,'  he  adduces  the  names 
of  Shakespeare,  Marlowe,  Swift,  Young, 
Coleridge,  Blake,  Beddoes,  Lear  and  Car- 
roll. It  plainly  refers  to  the  element  of 
what  is  sometimes  called  '  magic '  in  some 
at  least  of  these  poets.  The  surrealists  be- 
lieve that  it  comes  from  the  subconscious, 
and  they  desire  deliberately  to  tap  this 
source  of  inspiration.  Perhaps  it  is  the  de- 
liberation which  defeats  them.  Certainly 
Mr.  Gascoyne's  twenty-seven  pages  of 
translations  disclose  nothing  comparable 
in  literary  power  to  Kubla  Khan  or  '^he 
Dong  with  the  Luminous  Nose — only  poems 
like  this: — 

The  quarrel  between  the  boiled  chicken  and 

the  ventriloquist 
had  for  us  the  meaning  of  a  cloud  of  dust 
which  passed  above  the  city 
like  the  blowing  of  a  trumpet 
It  blew  so  loudly  that  its  bowler-hat  was 

trembling 
and  its  beard  stood  up  on  end 
to  bite  off  its  nose. 

Nonsense  should  be  care-free,  and  the 
surrealists  seem  to  me  to  be  bowed  down 
with  care.  They  even  worry  about  the 
state  of  the  world.  Their  political  position, 
Mr.  Gascoyne  tells  us,  is  'unchanging 
...  in  opposing   bourgeois  society,   at- 


:i8o] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


tacking  religion,  patriotism  and  the  idea 
of  family,  and  in  declaring  their  belief  in 
the  principles  of  Communism,  and  their 
solidarity  with  the  proletariat  of  all  coun- 
tries.' Have  they  arrived  at  this  creed  by 
the  same  process  of  *  pure  psychic  autom- 
atism' by  which  they  write  their  poems? 
Or  should  Das  Kapital  be  given  an  hon- 
ored place  beside  '  the  Pobble  that  had  no 
toes  ? ' 

Frankly,  I  think  there  has  been  a  deca- 
dence since  the  fine  old  days  of  dada, 
whose  disciples  were  wont  to  produce 
poems  'by  extracting  words  at  random 
from  a  hat.'  Even  Mr.  Aragon  (who  since 
has,  I  regret  to  report,  seized  '  an  excellent 
opportunity  to  betray  his  former  friends') 
then  wrote  a  poem  'consisting  of  the  let- 
ters of  the  alphabet,'  and  Mr.  Breton,  an- 
other 'consisting  of  an  extract  from  the 
telephone  directory.'  Bliss  was  it  in  that 
dawn  to  be  alive;  and  to  be  quite  mad 
must  have  been,  as  anyone  can  see,  very 
heaven. 

But  shades  of  the  prison-house  have  be- 
gun to  close  about  most  of  those  brave 
spirits.  They  have  put  their  hats  and 
their  telephone  directories  away  (they 
may  even  have  sunk  so  low  as  to  use  them 
for  the  ordinary  bourgeois  purposes),  and 
are  now  trying  to  write  nonsense  in  a 
more  earnest  and,  I  fear,  a  duller  spirit. 
There  is  something  to  be  said  for  genuine 
intellectual,  or  artistic,  nihilism.  But 
surrealism,  I  suspect,  is  for  the  most  part 
a  weak  compromise  with  'it  all' — and,  for 
the  more  energetic  surrealists,  a  round- 
about way  back  to  something  resembling 
sense  as  the  rest  of  the  world  understands 
it. 

Emil  Ludwig's  Africa 

Der  Nil.  Volume  I.  Von  der  Quelle  bis 
Aegypten.  By  Emil  Ludwig.  Amsterdam: 
^uerido-Verlag.  1935. 

(Balder  Olden  in  the  Neues  Tage-Bucb,  Paris) 

gISMARCK— Wagner  — Goethe- 
Rembrandt — Napoleon — Wilhelm    II 
— Jesus    Christ — Hindenburg — Mussolini 


— Masaryk.  In  addition,  shorter  sketches 
of  Frederick  the  Great,  Stanley,  Rhodes, 
Lenin,  Wilson,  Rathenau,  Leonardo  da 
Vinci,  Shakespeare,  Rembrandt,  Voltaire, 
Byron,  Lassalle,  Schiller,  Briand,  Motta, 
Lloyd  George,  Venizelos,  Stalin,  and 
others.  .  .  . 

Even  this  enumeration  does  not  give  a 
complete  picture  of  the  biographical  and 
historical  work  of  Emil  Ludwig  at  the  age 
of  fifty-five.  He  has  been  a  lyric  poet,  a 
dramatist,  a  novelist  and  a  literary  his- 
torian as  well.  This  abundance  of  themes 
arouses  suspicion,  and  one  is  compelled  to 
believe  that  it  can  only  mean  too  much  of 
a  good  thing.  Naturally  no  individual  can 
have  read  all  the  original  sources  for  such 
varied  knowledge.  Ludwig  did  not  do  the 
research  himself;  he  had  others  do  it  for 
him  and  he  gave  shape  to  his  collaborators' 
findings.  He  was  able  to  do  so  because  he 
possesses  one  of  the  most  felicitous  and 
facile  journalistic  styles  of  our  epoch. 
Essentially  he  remained — in  the  disguise 
of  an  historian — what  he  always  was:  a 
journalist. 

This  output,  however,  is  always  stir- 
ring. Each  page  gives  me  a  feeling  of  in- 
sight acquired  after  struggle,  even  where 
I  am  antagonized  by  his  style  and  his 
point  of  view.  I  wonder  if  literary  criti- 
cism of  the  future  will  classify  Ludwig 
among  the  dilettantes  of  genius  who 
knew  how  to  mirror  their  time  with  a 
thousandfold  brilliance,  though  having 
little  influence  beyond  it.  Personally,  I  no 
longer  think  so.  Emil  Ludwig  has  just 
published  the  first  volume  of  an  entirely 
unexpected  'biography'  entitled  The  Nile. 
This  book  deals  with  geography  and 
economics,  biography  and  irrigation,  fauna 
and  industry,  psychology  and  politics,  all 
subjects  that  are  biological,  historical  and 
timely  at  the  same  time.  In  this  instance 
no  aphorism  can  distract  from  the  prob- 
lem, nor  can  any  well-formulated  report 
replace  true  insight.  At  first  I  glanced  over 
this  book  eagerly;  then  I  studied  it  care- 
fully, for  I  have  been  in  the  midst  of  colo- 
nial problems  and  am  familiar  with  the 


m^ 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


181] 


Nile  from  its  source  to  its  mouth.  I 
know  the  literature  on  the  subject  and 
have  listened  to  'Old  Africans'  in  all 
fields. 

The  book  is  genuine.  It  is  not  a  mere 
routine  description  of  a  trip  from  Lake 
Tana  and  Speke  Gulf  to  Wadi  Haifa — 
written  as  a  hasty  contribution  to  the 
timely  subject  of  Abyssinia.  A  real  man 
has  dug  deep  into  the  African  world  with 
all  his  being,  has  searched  for  the  'why'  of 
appearances  and  has  sought  and  found 
inter-relationships.  He  has  let  the  images 
of  Africa  affect  his  soul  like  that  of  a 
youth  who  travels  for  the  first  time. 
Strangely  enough  his  impressions  are 
fresher,  his  language  more  genuine,  his 
learning  less  obstrusive  here  than  in  his 
first  book  on  Africa.  The  Nile  is  perhaps 
his  best  book,  Africa  his  greatest  love. 

While  in  other  books  on  Africa  experts 
often  turn  into  poets,  in  this  book  the  poet 
Ludwig  changes  into  an  expert  who  hardly 
mentions  himself.  That  does  not  mean  at 
all  that  Ludwig's  book  is  dry.  On  the 
contrary,  it  is  a  glittering  picture-book. 
Short  chapters,  like  that  about  the  pyg- 
mies; the  elephants;  Samuel  Baker; 
Gordon;  the  mad  Hitler-like  Mahdi,  who 
in  the  twenty  years  of  his  reign  reduced 
8  million  Sudanese  to  2  millions;  the 
Assuan  dam — these  are  little  master- 
pieces of  the  epic.  An  unjust  Ludwig 
myth  must  be  destroyed.  He  edited  the 
book  hurriedly,  as  is  proved  by  the  punc- 
tuation, but  its  conception  and  writing 
were  done  with  profound  care.  It  is  the 
result  of  several  long  journeys  and  of 
serious  research  in  a  specialized  library. 
Herodotus  was  a  much  faster  reporter. 
He  took  only  ten  weeks  to  collect  the 
material  for  his  everlasting  work  on 
Egypt. 

Ludwig's  reason  for  concluding  the 
work  hastily  was  its  burning  timeliness. 
The  campaign  in  Abyssinia,  the  threaten- 
ing uprising  in  Egypt,  England's  sudden 
and  passionate  fidelity  to  the  League  of 
Nations,  the  peril  of  world  war — all  this  is 
embodied  in  the  facts  about  the  Nile  and 


the  Suez  Canal.  The  nucleus  of  the  book 
is  a  report  on  Abyssinia  and  its  latest 
history.  That  was  the  main  reason  why  it 
had  to  appear  quickly.  And  Ludwig  will  as 
hurriedly  have  to  publish  the  second 
volume,  with  its  burning  issues,  for  the 
world  needs  it. 

[The  Nile,  by  Emil  Ludwig^  is  to  be  pub- 
lished in  the  United  States  by  the  Viking 
Press  of  New  Tork.] 

Colette  Speaks 

Ce    que    Claudine    n'a    pas    dit.    By 
Colette.  Paris:  Ferenczi.  1936. 

(E.  Noulet  in  the  Nouvelle  Revue  Frangaise,  Paris) 

pOR  those  who  decry  her  faults,  Colette 
has  perpetrated  another  one  in  publish- 
ing What  Claudine  Has  Not  Said.  Here, 
indeed,  profiting  by  the  fact  that  she  is 
writing  her  own  biography,  'she  treads  on 
graves,'  to  use  the  phrase  of  those  who 
have  become  indignant  over  the  fact  that 
Gauthier-Villars  does  not  show  up  as  a 
sort  of  saint  in  the  book.  Is  it,  then,  for- 
bidden to  speak  the  truth  about  the  dead? 
Is  it  necessary  to  reduce  their  memories  to 
insipidity  ?  And  what  if  the  dead  had  been 
ill-omened  in  their  lives?  What  is  this 
superstition,  but  another  sign  of  our  child- 
ishness, which  has  neither  kindness  nor 
respect  for  its  source,  which  obliges  us  to 
extol  at  the  time  when  he  who  will  benefit 
by  this  praise,  whom  our  severity  did  not 
spare  when  he  was  still  conscious  of  it,  is 
no  longer  able  to  hear  it?  It  is  the  opposite 
attitude  that  is  the  only  logical  and  human 
one.  It  is  the  living  people,  still  vulnerable, 
who  demand  gentleness,  indulgence,  and 
goodness;  as  for  the  dead,  let  them  be 
severely  judged  for  what  they  have  left  un- 
done. 

As  far  as  the  dead  Willy  is  concerned,  is 
it  not  obvious  that  no  dismal  funeral  ora- 
tion would  have  awakened  such  an  in- 
tense interest  and  curiosity  in  him  as  has 
the  striking  portrait  his  authoress-wife 
has  deliberately  drawn?  And  I  do  not 
know  whether  Willy  himself  would  not 


:i82] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


prefer  his  personality  as  seen  by  Colette 
to  the  most  flattering  photographs. 

Moreover,  in  telling  us  what  she  owes 
respectively  to  her  first  husband,  to  her 
circle  and  to  herself,  Colette  gives  us  once 
and  for  all  the  key  to  her  personality,  the 
sources  and  history  of  her  books,  thus  pre- 
venting false  rehashing  and  misrepresenta- 
tion in  the  future.  For  if  it  is  agreed  that 
literary  history  is  more  preoccupied  with 
authors  than  with  values,  and  that  it  is 
nourished  more  by  indiscretions  than  by 
analyses,  I  prefer  the  arrogant  indiscretion 
of  the  living  to  the  most  daring  hypotheses 
of  pedantic  biographers. 

But  the  interest  of  the  book  is  greater 
than  that.  It  presents  us  with  the  most 
authentic  and  animated  document  on  the 
beginning  of  our  century  that  we  have  yet 
had.  Colette  has  had  spontaneous  insight 
into  the  world  of  the  theatre,  of  art,  of 


letters,  of  the  salon,  and  the  music  hall;  in 
describing  them  she  plays  a  role  that  no 
one  else  could  have  assumed:  that  of  a 
contemporary  chronicler.  With  her,  it  is 
not  a  question  of  historical  or  aesthetic  re- 
construction, but  of  an  amusing  and  inci- 
sive picture  of  everyday  humdrum  events. 
Of  course  you  will  miss  important  aspects 
of  the  period,  social  trends,  influences, 
philosophies,  the  grouping  of  intellectual 
spirits,  systems,  and  prophecies.  The  rea- 
son for  this  is  that  Colette  sees  the  history 
of  the  times  as  the  history  of  individual 
lives — a  hidden  flow  which  leaves  them 
exposed  to  touch  and  cognition.  And  al- 
though having  become  in  her  story  of  her 
apprenticeship  the  chronicler  of  the  1900's, 
she  still  remains,  with  all  her  limitations 
and  merits,  the  poet  of  our  animality. 
[Colette  s  books  are  published  in  the  United 
States  by  Farrar  &  Rineharty  New  Tork.\ 


OUR  OWN  BOOKSHELF 


How  Britain  Is  Governed.  By  Ramsay 
Muir.  Boston  and  New  Tork:  Houghton 
Mifflin  Company,  /pjj'.  xii  and  JJ5  pages. 
$2.50. 

The  Governments  of  the  British  Empire. 
By  Arthur  Berriedale  Keith.  New  Tork:  "The 
Macmillan  Company.  igjS-  xxvii  and  646 
pages.  $6.00. 

■p\ESPITE  their  manifest  differences  in 
*~-^  scope  and  scholarship,  the  two  works 
under  review  might  be  said  to  constitute  an 
unwitting  swan-song,  while  the  attitudes  of 
their  authors  perhaps  help  to  explain  how  the 
need  for  so  mournful  a  dirge  has  arisen.  On  the 
jacket  of  Ramsay  Muir's  book  the  publishers 
proclaim  that  it  is  a  new  edition  of  a  work  now 
standard, '  partially  rewritten  in  the  light  of  the 
events  of  the  last  two  years.'  The  contents, 
however,  show  singularly  little  awareness  of 
the  events  which  have  occurred  in  the  world 
since  the  writing  of  the  preface  to  the  third 
edition  in  October,  1932.  The  point  is  impor- 
tant because  the  author  not  only  describes  and 
criticizes  the  machinery  of  government,  but 
puts  forward  a  series  of  proposals  for  the  re- 
form thereof  which  he  believes  will  make  pos- 
sible the  salvation  of  Britain  within  the  frame- 
work of  democracy.  Now,  while  one  may  agree 
that  good  government  is  impossible  without 
efficient  machinery,  the  production  thereof 
surely  involves  a  consideration  of  social  pur- 
poses and  problems,  of  the  struggles  of  classes 
and  groups,  and  of  the  technological  conditions 
in  relation  to  which  it  has  to  operate. 

All  this  Muir,  not  heeding  the  tumult  and 
social  misery  of  these  latter  years,  completely 
ignores.  His  outlook  is  narrowly  political  and 
administrative.  He  ends  with  a  plea  for  a  long- 
term  viewpoint  and  a  union  of  men  of  good 
will  who,  agreeing  on  basic  issues,  can  over- 
come temporary  friction  and  exacerbated 
party  strife.  Yet  his  own  program  of  reform 
scarcely  offers  a  basis  for  cooperation  directed 
towards  intelligible  ends  conceived  in  the  light 
of  existing  realities.  Mr.  Muir's  churning  in  a 
vacuum,  which  Lloyd  George  apparently  finds 
'penetrating,  courageous,  and  illuminating,' 
is  at  least  valuable  as  an  explanation  of  the 
decline  of  the  Liberal  Party  whose  tenets  he 
proclaims. 


Very  different  is  the  second  volume  under 
consideration.  Professor  Keith  is  probably  the 
greatest  living  authority  on  the  constitutional 
law  and  government  of  the  Empire,  and  no 
serious  student  of  that  subject  can  safely  dis- 
pense with  this  magistral  survey  of  the  sub- 
ject. The  book  is  admirably  organized,  con- 
tains a  mass  of  detailed  information,  analyzes 
carefully  the  manifold  legal  problems  involved, 
and  provides  careful  statements  of  the  growth 
and  present  position  both  of  the  constitutional 
structure  of  the  Empire  as  a  whole  and  of  the 
governmental  arrangements  of  its  component 
parts.  With  its  scholarship  there  can  be  no 
quarrel,  and  one  can  have  nothing  but  praise 
for  Professor  Keith's  moderation  and  good 
sense  in  presenting  the  problems  of  law  over 
which  differences  of  opinion  have  arisen.  Nor 
can  one  deny  that  the  author  is  singularly 
successful  in  making  clear  the  social  and  racial 
situations  behind  certain  of  those  issues,  and 
that  his  critical  comments  on  policy  are  fre- 
quently shrewd. 

It  is  only  in  his  conclusions,  where  he  gives 
us  his  personal  judgment  on  the  current  situa- 
tion, that  the  author  lays  himself  open  to  seri- 
ous major  criticism.  Here  the  limitations  of  the 
legal  mind,  not  modified  adequately  by  the 
study  of  Sanscrit,  of  which  Keith  is  professor, 
reveal  themselves.  The  author  deplores  the 
growth  of  an  attitude  of  lack  of  respect  for  law, 
which  he  sees  illustrated  by  various  acts  of 
passive  or  active  resistance  to  government  in 
almost  all  the  Dominions,  as  well  as  in  Great 
Britain  itself.  Thus  he  views  the  General 
Strike  of  1926  as  *a  definite  attempt  to  destroy 
government  by  consent,' — surely  an  extreme 
view — while  he  equally  deplores  resistance  to 
wartime  conscription  in  Canada  and  Gandhi's 
policy  of  non-cooperation  in  India.  He  com- 
pliments '  the  good  sense  of  Governments  and 
people'  which  has  successfully  overcome  such 
attacks,  but  deplores  'the  failure  to  realize 
.  .  .  the  necessity  that  reforms  should  be 
effected  by  legal  means.' 

No  doubt  orderly  legal  reform  is  the  most  de- 
sirable method  of  social  change.  It  is  just  be- 
cause such  reform  does  not  take  place,  because 
existing  legal  arrangements  do  not  offer  ful- 
filment to  vital  needs  of  important  groups, 
that   resistance   to   government   occurs.   One 


:i84] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


April 


might,  indeed,  suggest  that  the  fundamental 
basis  of  agreement,  which  in  the  last  century 
made  possible  that  rule  of  law  for  which  Pro- 
fessor Keith  has  so  great  a  reverence,  has  for- 
ever disappeared  in  an  irreconcilable  conflict 
of  economic  interests.  In  any  case  it  is  futile  to 
demand  obedience  and  reverence  for  law  when 
such  behavior  means  intense  suffering  for  its 
victims. 

Professor  Keith  combines  with  his  legalism 
a  real  love  for  the  Empire  whose  institutions 
he  has  studied  so  long  and  earnestly.  Its  po- 
tential dissolution  and  the  decrease  of  rever- 
ence for  the  mother-country  are  to  him 
unmitigated  tragedy.  He  seems  to  feel  that  free- 
dom was  granted  with  the  understanding  that 
closer  cooperation  would  follow,  and  that  the 
Dominions  have  cruelly  ignored  their  pledge. 
Yet  it  is  possible  to  argue  that  Great  Britain 
has  been,  at  least  since  1926,  a  humble  sup- 
pliant: the  Dominions  had  to  be  granted  their 
freedom,  and  England  was  driven  to  accept 
whatever  sops  they  might  choose  to  throw  her. 
In  terms  of  economic  realities,  she  had  no 
leverage,  while  the  common  interests  of  the 
whole  Empire  were  trifling  in  comparison  with 
the  particular  problems  and  ambitions  of  Do- 
minions now  marked  by  the  more  significant 
stigmata  of  Nation-States.  In  an  uneasy  world 
the  destruction  of  any  surviving  unit  greater 
than  the  individual  nation  is  no  doubt  to  be 
regretted.  Nevertheless  there  is  much  to  be 
said  for  a  frank  legal  and  political  recognition 
of  National  Interest,  as  against  a  superficial 
and  unsubstantial  appearance  of  unity  that 
would  rapidly  dissolve  in  time  of  crisis. 

Not  less  revealing  is  Professor  Keith's  con- 
viction of  the  blessings  of  British  imperialism 
in  the  colonies  and  India.  Keith  feels  that, 
should  India  attain  its  demand  for  complete 
independence,  it  could  not  long  preserve  that 
status.  Hence  continued  British  rule  is  to  be 
desired.  All  this  is  singularly  unconvincing, 
even  granted  that  British  imperialism  has 
been  no  harsher  than  that  of  other  great  pow- 
ers. The  beneficence  of  trusteeship  by  any  one 
colonial  power  is  highly  dubious;  while,  what- 
ever the  possible  temporary  anarchy  of  India, 
should  British  forces  be  removed,  it  seems  un- 
likely that  a  new  conqueror  could  successfully 
establish  himself  there. 

Grateful  as  we  may  be  to  Professor  Keith 
for  providing  us  with  organized  material  on 
constitutional  law  and  practice  in  the  Em- 
pire, we  must  look  to  scholars  in  other  fields 


and  with  different  approaches  if  we  desire  keys 
to  the  problems  he  has  adumbrated. 

— ^Thomas  I.  Cook 


Unemployment:  An  International  Prob- 
lem. A  Report  by  a  Study  Group  of  Members 
oj  the  Royal  Institute  of  International  A^ airs. 
Oxford:  Oxford  University  Press.  1935. 
496  pages.  $10.00. 

"IIJE  are  so  close  to  the  depression  in  our 
' '^  own  country,  and  the  controversy  over 
the  remedial  measures  taken  to  alleviate  it  is 
so  hot,  that  we  tend  to  lose  the  world  picture 
of  the  same  phenomenon.  Or,  remembering  it, 
and  not  having  time  to  dig  up  all  the  facts 
about  other  countries,  we  are  easy  prey  to 
this  or  that  statement,  often  untrue,  about 
how  England  or  Sweden  or  some  other  nation 
solved  its  diflnculty.  This  report  by  a  study 
group  of  the  Royal  Institute  of  International 
Affairs  will  help  to  set  us  straight. 

But  while  it  is  first-rate  on  its  descriptive 
data,  it  sometimes  falls  down  on  interpreta- 
tion. Take,  for  example,  its  treatment  of  the 
U.  S.  S.  R.  Of  the  four  hundred  seventy-eight 
pages  in  the  book,  less  than  fifty  are  concerned 
with  the '  international  problem '  as  it  relates  to 
that  country.  If  this  is  justified  on  the  ground 
that  there  is  no  unemployment  on  one-sixth 
of  the  earth's  surface,  then  surely  the  reasons 
why  this  international  problem  is  no  problem 
there  are  important.  But  the  authors  admit 
that  this  fundamental  aspect  is  not  touched 
upon:  *.  .  .  a  discussion  of  unemployment 
might  be  held  to  involve  a  reconsideration 
of  the  foundations  of  society,  including  the 
basic  condition  of  production,  of  the  distribu- 
tion of  wealth  and  of  the  means  of  exchange. 
These  large  questions  must  be  left  to  general 
works  on  economics.  This  book  has  had  a 
much  more  modest  aim:  the  discussion  of  the 
extent  of  unemployment,  some  of  the  condi- 
tions under  which  the  dislocation  of  labor 
in  recent  years  has  taken  place  and  the  prac- 
tical measures  by  which  the  governments  and 
the  parties  immediately  concerned  are  attempt- 
ing to  grapple  with  the  problem.* 

It  is  not  the  province  of  a  reviewer  to  con- 
demn a  book  which  sets  out  to  do  one  thing  on 
the  ground  that  it  has  not  done  another.  But 
suppose  the  tie-up  is  so  close  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  do  the  one  adequately  without  a 
sound  treatment  of  the  other?  What  then? 
What   if  we   are   told    that   in   the   United 


i93(> 


OUR  OWN  BOOKSHELF 


[185] 


States  'the  breakdown  of  the  system  is  .  .  . 
largely  a  breakdown  of  confidence,  the  restora- 
tion of  which  is  still  in  the  balance'?  If  the 
large  question  of  the  cause  of  the  breakdown 
of  the  system  'must  be  left  to  general  works 
on  economics,'  why  in  the  meantime  must  we 
be  fed  this  type  of  inaccurate,  superficial  gen- 
eralization ? 

The  style  of  the  book  is  disappointing,  too. 
Though  it  says  well  what  is  universally  known, 
in  its  effort  to  be  truly  scientific  it  is  too  often 
over-cautious.  Thus,  in  a  footnote  on  page  23, 
we  learn  that  *A  report  on  the  "Criticism 
and  Improvement  of  Diets"  issued  by  an 
Advisory  Committee  of  the  Ministry  of  Health 
appeared  to  differ  from  the  British  Medical 
Association  report.'  The  two  reports  did  not 
'appear  to  differ.'  They  differed  very  much. 
Then  why  not  say  so?  This  would  be  carping 
criticism  if  the  fault  occurred  only  once  or 
twice,  but  it  does  not — it  is  indicative  of  the 
treatment  throughout. 

Nevertheless  the  book  is  full  of  useful  in- 
formation compiled  from  authoritative  sources. 
Where  it  is  concerned  with  statistical  facts 
covering  the  subjects  within  its  field  of  in- 
quiry, it  is  first-rate.  But  we  had  a  right  to 
expect  more  from  a  volume  issued  under 
such  auspices  and  costing  so  much. 

— Leo  Huberman 

Dictatorship  in  the  Modern  World.  Edited 
by  Guy  Stanton  Ford.  Minneapolis:  Univer- 
sity of  Minnesota  Press.  1935.  179  pages. 

$2.50. 

npHIS  little  book  has  been  highly  praised  by 
•*•  Professor  Charles  A.  Beard  as  a  contribu- 
tion to  our  understanding  of  the  theory  and 
practice  of  dictatorship.  It  is  made  up  of  seven 
articles  by  seven  prominent  American  author- 
ities. Professor  Max  Lerner  discusses  'The  Pat- 
tern of  Dictatorships  with  particular  reference 
to  its  Italian  and  German  forms;  European 
Dictatorships  is  the  subject  of  a  brief  historical 
analysis  by  Ralph  H.  Lutz,  Director  of  the 
Hoover  War  Library  of  Stanford  University. 
Then  comes  an  unusually  revealing  account  of 
Dictatorships  in  Spanish  America  by  J.  Fred 
Rippy,  of  Duke  University.  The  Mussolini 
Regime  is  a  caustic  expose  of  Fascism  by  Henry 
R.  Spencer,  who  has  written  extensively  on 
Italy;  the  Nazi  variant  comes  in  for  severe 
handling  by  Professor  Harold  C.  Deutsch,  in 
his  Origin  of  Dictatorship  in  Germany;  while 


the  proletarian  dictatorship  of  the  Soviet 
Union  is  made  the  subject  of  a  comparative 
analysis  by  Professor  Hans  Kohn  in  an  essay 
on  Communist  and  Fascist  Dictatorship.  After 
these  six  rather  disturbing  indications  of  cur- 
rent political  trends,  we  are  asked  to  consider 
The  Prospects  for  Democracy ,  as  they  appear  to 
Denis  W.  Brogan,  a  young  English  student 
who  is  now  engaged  on  studies  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  and  the  French  bourgeois  radical, 
Proudhon.  Most  of  the  authors  adopt  a  polit- 
ical and  social  approach  to  their  various 
subjects. 

The  Great  Crisis  and  its  Political  Con- 
sequences: Economics  and  Politics,  1928- 
1934.  By  E.  Varga.  New  York:  International 
Publishers.  igjS-  ^75  pages.  $1.50. 

'T^O  the  rapidly  growing  accumulation  of 
■^  books,  monographs,  reports  and  documents 
dealing  with  one  or  another  aspect  of  the 
present  world  crisis  may  now  be  added  the 
official  contribution  of  the  Third  (Communist) 
International.  E.  Varga,  as  Director  of  the 
Institute  of  World  Economy  and  Politics  in 
Moscow,  has,  in  this  compact  and  highly 
provocative  volume,  assembled  a  large  amount 
of  material  (drawn  chiefly  from  acceptable 
'bourgeois'  sources)  illustrating  the  decline  of 
capitalist  economy  since  1928,  from  the  point 
of  view  that  'a  clear  understanding  of  the 
peculiarities  of  the  great  economic  crisis  and 
of  the  special  nature  of  the  present  depression 
is  possible  only  on  the  basis  of  Marx's  theory 
of  crises  and  cycles.'  It  will  be  seen  that  im- 
partiality is  not  one  of  the  virtues  of  this  book. 

The  Iron  Garden.  By  Simon  Blumenfeld. 
New  York:  Doubleday,  Doran  ^  Company. 
1936.3 10  pages.  $2.00. 

/^UR  native  crop  of  novels  by,  about  and  for 
^^^  the  worker  (although  the  New  Masses 
insists  that  the  worker  can't  possibly  afford  to 
read  books  published  at  |2.oo)  makes  it  par- 
ticularly interesting  to  taste  of  the  fruit  of  the 
British  tree  in  this  kind. 

In  Love  On  The  Dole  and  The  Time  Is  Ripe 
we  found  out  a  good  deal  of  what  it  means  to 
live  on  the  ragged  edge  in  a  great  industrial 
city  in  Lancashire.  In  The  Iron  Garden — 
published  in  England  as  Jew  Boy — Mr.  Simon 
Blumenfeld  does  equivalent  honors  for  a  slice 
of  London's  East  End,  and  does  them  in  a 
highly  entertaining  and  informative  way. 


[1 86] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


Through  the  sweatshop,  the  Workers'  Circle, 
the  dance  hall,  the  street  market,  a  swift 
succession  of  vivid  scenes  and  episodes,  we 
follow  the  somewhat  dismal  fortunes  of  Alec 
and  his  friends.  We  realize,  with  them,  the 
corroding  effects  of  uncertain  and  poorly  paid 
employment,  and  we  sympathize  with  their 
pitiful  and  unattainable  hopes  of  earning  as 
much  as  four  pounds  a  week  for  two  to  live 
upon.  But  the  tale  is  briskly  and  skilfully 
written;  it  cannot  succeed  in  depressing  us 
while  it  speaks  so  clearly  of  a  dogged  and  spir- 
ited refusal  to  be  logical  and  cry,  'All  is  lost! 
We  have  nothing  left  to  hope  for!' 

If  the  conversation  is  sometimes  a  little 
wooden,  if  the  class  struggle  expresses  itself  too 
often  in  cliches  pasted  on  to  the  tale  with  a 
clumsy  brush,  we  recall  the  imperfections  of 
the  American  novel  of  this  type  as  it  was  a  few 
years  ago  and  the  artistic  strides  it  has  taken 
since  then.  The  Iron  Garden  is  something  more 
than  a  good  beginning. 

— ^Henry  Bennett 

Doctor  Morath.  By  Max  Ren(  Hesse. 
Boston:  Houghton  Mifflin  Company.  /pj6. 
414  pages.  $2.^0. 

AITHEN  Hesse's  Dr.  Morath  was  first 
' '^  published  in  Germany,  it  was  well 
received;  but  it  was  the  publication  of  the 
second  volume,  not  here  included,  which 
evoked  the  almost  unanimous  opinion  that 
here  was  one  of  the  finest  German  novels  of 
recent  years,  and  gave  rise  to  comparisons  with 
Lawrence,  Proust  and  Conrad.  As  a  result 
many  turned  back  to  read  the  first  volume  of 
the  book.  Perhaps  the  fact  that  this  was  in 
1934,  when  the  process  of  crushing  intellectual 
freedom  was  going  on  and  any  'liberal'  book 
was  threatened  by  the  black  list,  made  the 
songs  of  praise  stronger  than  they  would  have 
been  in  pre-Nazi  times.  Even  so,  the  novel  is 
well  worth  reading,  though  this  statement  is 
true  only  of  the  book  as  a  whole. 

This  reviewer  is  therefore  disappointed  to 
find  that  the  English  edition  so  far  presents 
only  the  first  part,  which  is  rather  fragmentary. 
It  tells  the  story  of  young  Dr.  Morath,  an 
idealistic  German  physician  who  is  thrust  into 
the  abyss  of  a  thoroughly  corrupt  and  disin- 
tegrated South  American  high  society,  where 
he  tries  to  make  a  place  for  himself.  The  book 


concludes  with  his  marriage  to  Haidee,  the 
fascinating  halfcast,  personification  of  black 
magic  and  all  evil,  with  whom  he  is  deeply 
infatuated.  The  colorful  tropical  atmosphere, 
the  intrigues  in  the  German  colony,  the  hospital 
panorama  (the  author  is  a  physician  himselO, 
all  these  make  a  brilliant  setting  for  a  story 
which  is  at  times  highly  dramatic.  It  is,  how- 
ever, in  the  forthcoming  volume  that  the 
narrative  thoroughly  unfolds  and  Morath, 
who  in  this  first  part  recedes  behind  the  milieu, 
finally  emerges  as  a  significant  character. 

—  Ruth  Norden 

Land  Without  Shade.  By  Hans  Helfritz. 
Translated  from  the  German  by  Kenneth 
Kirkness.  New  Tork:  McBride,  Andrews  and 
Company.  Jgj6.  286  pages.  Eighty-three 
photographs  by  the  author.  $3.50. 

'npHIS  is  an  admirable  book,  relating  two, 
■■•  really  three,  excursions  m  Southern  Arabia. 
On  the  first  the  author,  accompanied  by  a 
friend,  went  up  from  Sheshr  on  the  Indian 
Ocean  to  the  little  known  'skyscraper'  cities 
in  the  Hadramaut  Valley.  The  journey  was 
arduous  and,  in  spite  of  letters  of  recommenda- 
tion from  native  Arabians,  by  no  means  free 
from  danger.  On  the  second  the  author  went 
up  alone  from  Sheshr,  secured  a  Bedouin 
guide,  and,  joining  a  caravan,  crossed  the 
Ruba  al  Kahli  desert  into  virtually  forbidden 
districts  of  Yemen. 

There  are  few  descriptions  and,  with  the 
exception  of  a  thoughtful  study  of  the  Imam 
of  Yemen,  there  is  little  analysis  of  character. 
Yet  simple  as  it  is,  wholly  without  exhibition- 
ism, avoiding  judgments,  and  quite  unofficious 
in  sympathy,  the  narrative  is  deeply  impres- 
sive. Heat,  thirst,  disappointment,  insecurity, 
mentioned  without  complaint,  seem  to  preserve 
for  the  reader  the  mystery  of  the  land.  He  is 
simply  drawn  into  the  adventure,  one  he  will 
not  forget.  At  the  end  he  will  find  himself  hop- 
ing that  Herr  Helfritz  will  soon  write  again 
and  at  length  on  much  he  has  merely  hinted  at 
in  this  book,  such  as  the  relationship  between 
the  pure  architecture  and  the  music  of  South- 
ern Arabia,  and  the  similarity  of  this  culture 
with  that  of  the  Berbers  in  the  Moroccan  At- 
las. The  photographs  are  beautiful;  the  trans- 
lation is  excellent. 

— Leland  Hall 


J 


WITH  THE  ORGANIZATIONS 


Once  again  we  devote  this  depart- 
ment to  some  of  the  organizations  which 
are  carrying  on  active  work  for  the  cause 
of  peace.  Of  these,  one  of  the  best  known 
to  magazine  readers  undoubtedly  is  World 
Peace  ways  (103  Park  Avenue,  New  York, 
N.  Y,).  It  is  World  Peaceways  which  is 
responsible  for  the  striking  color  advertise- 
ments about  war  which  Americans  have 
been  seeing  in  their  magazines  since  the 
fall  of  1933.  For  World  Peaceways  was 
founded  by  a  group  of  men  and  women 
who  were  convinced  that  the  most  effec- 
tive way  to  mobilize  American  opinion  in 
the  cause  of  peace  was  to  employ  the  meth- 
ods of  American  advertising.  In  almost 
all  of  its  many  activities  the  organization 
has  laid  stress  on  the  importance  of  obtain- 
ing the  close  and  active  cooperation  of 
leading  commercial  and  industrial  con- 
cerns, publishers,  manufacturers,  and  dis- 
tributors. In  its  own  words,  the  program 
of  World  Peaceways  consists  of  'a  cam- 
paign to  sell  the  idea  of  peace  to  the  pub- 
lic' Recently  it  has  sponsored  a  series  of 
Thursday  evening  programs  under  the 
title  of  *To  Arms  for  Peace.'  In  these, 
as  in  its  advertisements,  it  employs  the 
currently  accepted  methods  of  big  busi- 
ness. Whether  its  work  will  have  a  perma- 
nent influence  on  the  course  of  history 
only  the  future  can  tell;  but  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  striking  and  effective 
advertisements  of  World  Peaceways  reach 
a  larger  number  of  persons  than  any  other 
peace  organization  in  the  country. 

THE  National  Council  for  Prevention  of 
War  (532  Seventeenth  Street,  N.  W., 
Washington,  D.  C.)  was  founded  fourteen 
years  ago  as  a  fact-finding,  peace-news- 
disseminating  clearing  house  for  seven- 
teen national  organizations.  It  now  serves 
over  thirty  affiliated  organizations  and 
multitudes  of  individuals  throughout  the 
United  States.  It  is  the  largest  unendowed 


peace  organization  in  the  country,  and 
the  second  largest  in  the  world.  Its  goal 
is  to  prevent  war — to  keep  America  out 
of  war,  to  keep  war  out  of  the  world.  Its 
three-point  platform  is:  Progressive  World 
Organization,  Worldwide  Reduction  of 
Armaments  by  International  Agreement, 
Worldwide  Education  for  Peace.  It  co- 
operates with  all  distinctively  peace 
groups,  local,  state  and  national,  but  does 
not  find  cooperation  possible  with  Com- 
munists and  other  groups  that  advocate 
change  by  force,  nor  with  those  who  sup- 
port peace  by  preparedness.  During  1935 
the  NCPW  distributed  1,316,688  pieces 
of  literature  of  all  sorts.  Its  staff  members 
delivered  2,187  speeches  in  thirty-nine 
states,  and  the  District  of  Columbia. 
Anti-war  facts  and  material  go  constantly 
to  all  of  the  forty-eight  states  and  U.  S. 
territories,  as  well  as  to  twenty-four  for- 
eign countries. 

THE  Fellowship  of  Reconciliation  (2929 
Broadway,  New  York,  N.  Y.),  founded  in 
England  shortly  after  the  outbreak  of  the 
World  War,  is  a  movement  of  Christian 
protest  against  war  and  of  faith  for  a  bet- 
ter way  than  violence  for  the  solution  of 
all  conflict.  Though  not  binding  them- 
selves to  any  exact  form  of  words,  its 
members  'refuse  to  participate  in  any 
war  or  to  sanction  military  preparations. 
They  work  to  abolish  war  and  to  work 
toward  a  good  will  between  nations  and 
classes,  and  they  strive  to  build  a  social 
order  which  will  allow  no  individual  or 
group  to  be  exploited  for  the  pleasure  or 
profit  of  another,  and  which  will  assure  to 
all  the  means  for  realizing  the  best  possi- 
bilities of  life.'  In  the  United  States  the 
Fellowship  maintains  four  offices,  holds 
regional  and  national  conferences,  and 
publishes  a  monthly  journal  called  Fellow- 
ships as  well  as  occasional  pamphlets  and 
other  literature. 


[i88] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


THE  GUIDE  POST 

{Continued) 

Left-wing  publicist,  tells  how  the  change 
has  affected  Moscow,  [p.  142] 

FRIEDRICH  SIEBURG  is  a  German 
who  was  a  Radical  before  the  War,  a 
Liberal  after  it,  and  a  Conservative  just 
before  Hitler  came  to  power.  For  many 
years  he  worked  on  the  Frankfurter  Zei- 
tungy  and  today  he  represents  that  paper 
in  Paris.  His  nostalgic  description  of  Ber- 
lin, with  its  undertone  of  resignation,  is 
typical  of  the  state  of  mind  of  intelligent 
Germans  who  have  tried  to  come  to 
terms  with  the  present  regime,  [p.  146] 

THE  STORY  which  we  translate  under 
the  title  of  The  Good  Horse  is  by  Antoon 
Coolen,  a  promising  young  writer  from 
North  Brabant,  in  Holland.  Coolen  has 
published  a  number  of  books  in  Flemish, 
and  some  in  German.  He  has  frequently 
been  compared  to  Knut  Hamsun,  Jean 
Giono,  and  Olav  Duun.  The  Good  Horse 
introduces  him  to  the  English-speaking 
public  for  the  first  time.  [p.  150] 


JUST  when  the  young  Spanish  Republic 
seemed  about  to  go  down  in  ignominious 
failure,  it  was  rescued  by  the  victory  of 
the  Left  in  the  recent  elections.  Now  it  has 
another  four  years  in  which  to  prove  it- 
self. In  the  Daily  Herald  article  which  we 
reproduce,  Mr.  Harold  Laski  discusses  the 
men  and  the  issues  which  are  likely  to 
dominate  the  political  scene  during  that 
period,  [p.  159] 

MEANWHILE  Spaniards  across  the  sea 
are  living  under  a  benevolent  dictatorship. 
Mr.  C.  Hillekamps,  a  correspondent  of  the 
Journal de  Geneve^  sums  up  the  situation  in 
the  Argentine,  [p.  162] 

IN    PERSONS    AND    PERSONAGES 

this  month  Miss  Odette  Pannetier  un- 
leashes the  malice  of  her  pen  against  Mr. 
Albert  Sarraut,  Mr.  Laval's  successor  in 
the  Premiership  of  France,  [p.  133].  The 
same  department  presents  a  biography  of 
Mr.  Milan  Hodza,  the  Premier  of  Czecho- 
slovakia [p.  136I,  and  a  piece  on  Darius 
Milhaud,  the  modern  French  composer, 
[p.  140] 


THE    LIVING    AGE 


!fNCE,  MA^^# 


CONTENTS 

.  for  May,  1936 


Articles 

Aux  Urnes,  Citoyens  ! 

I.  Who  Pays  the  Piper Francis  Delaisi  197 

II.  I  Decide  to  be  a  Deputy Charles  Odet  204 

Old  Truepenny  and  the  Times 

I.  The  Proletarian  Reader William  Nuttall  209 

II.  On  Writing  Letters  to  the  Times Logan  Pearsall  Smith  214 

The  Menacing  Twins  in  Asia 

I.  The  Yellow  Terror Edmond  Demaitre  218 

II.  The  Coming  War  in  the  East 222 

An  Epistle  to  the  Discontented Kleo  Pleyer  237 

Miss  Manning's  Fight  (A  Story) Norah  Hoult  241 

Britain's  Betting  Business 250 

Departments 

The  World  Over 189 

Persons  and  Personages 

Chancellor  Schuschnigg  of  Austria Verax  ti!;^ 

Charles  Maurras  and  the  Action  Fran^aise D.  W.  Brogan  231 

Mikhail  Nikolaievich  Tukhachevski Max  Werner  234 

As  Others  See  Us , 255 

Books  Abroad 259 

Our  Own  Bookshelf 270 

America  and  the  League 275 

With  the  Organizations 281 

Thk  Living  Age.  Published  monthly.  Publication  oflSce,  10  Ferry  Street,  Concord,  N.  H.  Editorial  and  General  offices,  253  Broad- 
way, New  York  City.  50c  a  copy.  $6.00  a  year.  Canada,  $6.50.  Foreign,  $7.00.  Entered  as  second-class  matter  at  the  Post  Office  at 
Concord.  N.  H.,  under  the  Act  of  Congress,  March  3,  1879.  Copyright,  1936,  by  The  Living  Age  Corporation,  New  York.  New  York, 

The  Living  Age  was  established  by  E.  Littell,  in  Boston,  Massachusetts,  May,  1844.  It  was  first  known  as  Littell's  Living  Age,  suc- 
ceeding LiUell's  Museum  of  Foreign  Literature,  which  had  been  previously  published  in  Philadelphia  for  more  than  twenty  years.  In  a 
g republication  announcement  of  Littell's  Living  Age,  in  1 844,  Mr.  Littell  said : '  The  steamship  has  brought  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa 
ito  our  neighborhood;  and  will  greatly  multiply  our  connections,  as  Merchants,  Travelers,  and  Politicians,  with  all  parts  of  the  world: 
so  that  much  more  than  ever,  it  now  becortus  every  intelligent  American  to  be  informed  of  the  condition  and  changes  of  foreign  countries.' 

Subscribers  are  requested  to  send  notices  of  changes  of  address  three  weeks  before  they  are  to  take  effect.  Failure  to  send  such  notices 
will  result  in  the  incorrect  forwarding  of  the  next  copy  and  delay  in  its  receipt.  Old  and  new  addresses  muat  both  be  given. 


THE  GUIDE  POST 


iHIS  ISSUE  of  The  Living  Age, 
which  is  scheduled  to  make  its  appear- 
ance on  the  very  day  on  which  France 
goes  to  the  polls  to  elect  a  new  Parlia- 
ment, has  as  its  leading  group  two 
articles  on  the  working  of  French  de- 
mocracy today.  Though  they  come 
respectively  from  a  Radical  and  a  con- 
servative source,  these  two  articles  both 
take  a  cynical  view  of  the  present  sit- 
uation. The  first,  by  Francis  Delaisi 
(whose  analysis  of  the  Bank  of  France 
we  published  last  September),  tells  how 
France's  'Two  Hundred,'  its  'economic 
oligarchy,'  manage  to  rule  both  through 
and  in  spite  of  the  democratic  machin- 
ery set  up  in  1870.  France,  says  Mr. 
Delaisi,  is  a  nation  with  two  govern- 
ments, a  political  government  responsi- 
ble to  the  people,  and  an  economic  gov- 
ernment responsible  to  no  one  but 
itself,  [p.  197] 

THE  other  article,  or  sketch,  is  by 
Charles  Odet,  and  comes  from  the  con- 
servative weekly  Candide.  It  describes 
the  adventures  of  an  imaginary  hero 
who  decides  to  run  for  Parliament. 
Though  they  are  disguised  as  humor, 
its  darts  strike  their  mark,  and  the  total 
effect  is  at  least  as  damaging  to  French 
parliamentary  democracy  as  is  Mr. 
Delaisi's  more  sober  study,  [p.  204] 

THERE  follow  two  English  essays  on 
literary  subjects  of  the  widest  possible 
divergence.  Mr.  William  Nuttall,  writ- 
ing of  literature  with  the  conscious 
prejudices  which  a  working-class  and 
Socialist  childhood  have  ingrained  on  a 
sensitive  mind,  asks  whether  all  the 
great  English  writers  of  the  past  were 
not  themselves  upperclass-conscious  in 
effect,  [p.  209] 

AND  Mr.  Logan  Pearsall  Smith,  an 
American  expatriate  who  was  educated 


at  Haverford  College,  Harvard,  and 
Oxford,  and  who  has  long  been  known 
for  his  wit,  his  social  satire,  and  his 
championship  of  a  polished  literary 
style,  writes  on  the  word  'sentimental.* 
[p.  214] 

WITH  each  passing  month,  the  rela- 
tions between  Japan  and  the  Soviet 
Union  become  more  menacing,  and  the 
threat  of  war  in  the  Far  East  more  real. 
1'be  Yellow  terror  describes  some  of  the 
secret  Fascist  societies  which  are 
ceaselessly  at  work  in  Japan  trying  to 
drive  the  moderates  from  power  and  to 
set  up  a  government  which  will  unleash 
the  dogs  of  Asiatic  war.  [p.  218] 

AND  when — and  if — this  war  comes, 
what  will  it  be  like?  Who  will  attack, 
and  where?  Where  will  the  major  battles 
occur?  With  which  side  will  the  ad- 
vantage lie?  These  are  the  questions 
which  the  Harbin  correspondent  of  the 
China  Weekly  Review  put  to  an  anony- 
mous military  expert,  eliciting  the  an- 
swers which  go  to  make  up  The  Coming 
War  in  the  East.  [p.  222] 

IT  HAS  COME  to  be  pretty  generally 
accepted  since  Hitler  sent  the  Reich- 
wehr  into  the  Rhineland  that  he  de- 
cided to  do  so  in  order  to  silence  with  a 
grandiose  gesture  the  growing  opposi- 
tion to  his  regime.  But  very  little  spe- 
cific information  about  that  opposition 
has  been  forthcoming.  We  therefore 
translate  from  Blut  und  Boden,  a 
German  magazine  now  suppressed,  an 
article  by  a  Nazi  in  which  a  number  of 
very  serious  charges  are  laid  against  the 
National  Socialist  Government.  This 
article  was  but  one  indication  among 
many  of  the  way  the  wind  was  blowing 
in  the  days  before  March  7.  [p.  237] 
{Continued  on  page  282) 


THE    LIVING    AGE 

Founded  by  E.  Littell 
In  1844 


May,  iQj6  Volume  350^  Number  4436 


The  World  Over 

What  appeared  to  be  vacillation  on  the  part  of  the  British 
dominated  the  European  crisis  during  the  weeks  that  followed  Hitler's 
remilitarization  of  the  Rhineland.  Because  British  public  opinion  is 
split  from  top  to  bottom,  the  policy  of  the  British  Cabinet  and  the  Brit- 
ish Foreign  Office  was  generally  interpreted  as  an  accurate  reflection  of 
that  widespread  indecision.  Actually,  however,  British  policy  has  de- 
liberately and  consistently  followed  a  pro-German  course,  and  there  is 
far  more  powerful  support  for  a  continuance  of  this  line  than  there  was 
for  a  pro-German  line  before  the  last  war.  Beginning  at  the  very  top, 
the  new  King  does  not  inherit  his  grandfather's  savage  anti-German  bias, 
nor  yet  his  father's  partiality  for  France,  the  result  of  "wartime  experience. 

Georges  Boris,  editor  of  the  Paris  Radical  weekly,  Lumiere,  has  listed 
eight  reasons  for  England's  refusal  to  support  France  in  the  Rhineland 
crisis;  i.  ignorance;  2.  anti-French  sentiment;  3.  pro-German  sentiment; 
4.  heavy  financial  interest  in  Germany;  5.  isolationism;  6.  pacifism;  7. 
consciousness  of  Britain's  military  weakness;  8.  belief  that  the  Third 
Reich  is  about  to  collapse  anyway. 

Most  of  these  reasons  can  be  dismissed  as  difficult  of  analysis  or 
measurement.  But  there  is  nothing  mysterious  or  unreal  about  the 
Anglo-German  Fellowship,  which  is  composed  of  important  financiers 
and  industrialists  who  believe  that  Hitler  has  an  'unanswerable  case.* 


[i90]  THE  LIVING  AGE  May 

Here  are  some  of  their  more  distinguished  members,  who  attended  a 
dinner  on  December  9,  1935,  to  launch  a  loan  for  Hitler  in  London: — 

Right  Honorable  Lord  Mount  Temple — Chairman  of  the  anti-Socialist  Union, 
and  son-in-law  of  Sir  Ernest  Cassel.  He  is  backed  by  certain  leaders  of  British 
monopolist  and  finance  capital,  among  them  being  Arthur  Guinness  (Guin- 
ness, Mahon  and  Company,  bankers),  and  E.  W.  D.  Tennant  (International 
Diatomite  Company  Limited,  Palestine  Potash  Limited,  three  other  direc- 
torships, and  Honorary  Secretary  of  the  Fellowship). 

Frank  Cyril  Tiarks — J_.  Henry  Schroder's,  the  Anglo-German  bankers,  the  Bank 
of  England  and  the  Anglo-Persian  Oil  Company. 

Andrew  Agnew — Shell-Mex  and  B.P.,  Limited,  Anglo-Persian  Oil  Company  and 
seventy-two  other  companies — mostly  foreign  oil. 

Lord  Barnby — Lloyd's  Bank,  Dawnay  Day  and  Company,  private  bankers,  two 
sugar  beet  companies,  and  leader  of  the  recent  F.B.I,  delegation  to  Man- 
churia. 

P.  J.  Calvocoressi — Ralli  Brothers  Limited. 

F.  D'Arcy  Cooper — Unilever  Limited,  Lever  Brothers  Limited,  MacFisheries 
Limited,  and  the  Niger  Company  Limited. 

Sir  Robert  Kindersley — Lazard  Brothers  Limited,  private  bankers,  and  the  Bank 
of  England. 

Sir  Harry  McGowan — Imperial  Chemical  Industries  Limited,  International 
Nickel  Company  of  Canada,  the  Midland  Bank,  the  British  Overseas  Bank. 

Lord  Charles  Montagu — Stockbroker,  director  of  Anglo-French  Banking  Cor- 
poration Limited. 

Sir  Josiah  Stamp — President  of  the  London  Midland  and  Scottish  Railway  and 
the  Abbey  Road  Building  Society,  director  of  the  Bank  of  England. 


IN  VIEW  of  this  impressive  array  it  is  not  difficult  to  account  for  the 
almost  unanimous  support  that  the  British  press  has  given  Hitler.  From 
the  Laborite  Daily  Herald  to  Lady  Houston's  Saturday  Review^  which 
usually  calls  Stanley  Baldwin  a  Communist,  the  overwhelming  majority 
of  newspapers  and  magazines  urged  sympathy  for  Hitler.  J.  L.  Garvin, 
whose  Observer  has  championed  Mussolini  for  the  past  six  months,  came 
out  almost  as  strongly  for  Hitler,  and  the  Conservative  Sunday  Times 
said:  'Hitler's  offers,  if  they  are  sound,  offer  the  best  chance — perhaps 
the  only  chance — for  establishing  peace  at  any  rate  in  Western  Europe 
for  a  generation,  the  best  hope  of  delivering  the  people  from  their  fear  of 
the  terror  that  flies  by  night,  and  a  whole  host  of  other  practical  and 
collateral  advantages.' 

According  to  the  Week,  a  multigraphed  news-letter  whose  pro- 
Soviet  sympathies  sometimes  lead  it  into  wishful  thinking,  the  British 
Foreign  Office,  working  through  the  proprietors  of  the  various  London 
papers,  censored  the  alarmist  stories  that  were  written  on  every  hand 
when  the  news  of  the  occupation  of  the  Rhineland  was  first  released.  In 
consequence,  while  Paris  and  every  other  diplomatic  center  interpreted 
Hitler's  move  as  the  most  serious  crisis  since  19 14,  the  London  papers  did 


/pjd  THE  WORLD  OVER  [191] 

not  express  as  much  nervousness  as  they  showed  last  October  when  the 
British  Navy  concentrated  in  the  Mediterranean.  Only  the  Communist 
organs,  which  reach  only  a  handful  of  the  total  population,  called  for 
action  against  Germany;  every  other  paper  either  praised  Hitler's  initia- 
tive or  expressed  mortal  terror  lest  he  unleash  the  dogs  of  war  at  once. 

ONE  OUTCOME  of  the  British  Government's  rearmament  program 
must  be  a  drive  toward  greater  economic  self-sufficiency  all  along  the 
line.  Francis  Williams,  financial  editor  of  the  Laborite  Daily  Herald^ 
points  out  that  Germany's  rearmament  started  the  country  on  the  road 
to  autarky  and  war  and  draws  this  parallel  for  Great  Britain: — 

Our  economic  system,  like  that  of  Germany,  will  tend  increasingly  to  have  that 
one  objective  of  military  preparedness,  to  become  more  and  more  the  economy 
of  a  beleaguered  citadel. 

Peace  and  true  prosperity  can  only  be  secured  by  the  greater  willingness  of 
nations  to  trade  with  one  another.  But  war  preparations  on  such  a  scale  must 
drive  us  inevitably  in  the  other  direction  economically — toward  a  greater  self- 
sufficiency  for  fear  that  the  development  of  international  trade  will  mean  de- 
pendence upon  potential  enemies. 

When  once  one  accepts,  as  this  Government  appears  to  have  done,  the  fatalis- 
tic belief  that  war  is  inevitable  and  begins  to  plan  logically  from  that  premise, 
we  embark  inevitably  upon  a  policy  which  increases  economic  conflict  interna- 
tionally, reduces  world  trade,  and  forces  nations  more  and  more  into  a  suspicious 
isolation.  And  all  these  bring  steadily  nearer  the  war  that  is  feared. 

No  sooner  had  this  analogy  appeared  in  print  than  an  editorial  in  the 
Statist  on  'The  Chemical  Industry  and  Defense'  confirmed  it  to  the 
hilt:  — 

From  the  manufacturing  side  of  the  defense  program,  it  is  therefore  quite 
understandable  that  there  will  be  an  increased  direct  demand  for  chemicals,  es- 
pecially as  the  recent  White  Paper  anticipates  the  building  up  of  reserve  supplies 
of  ammunition  and  similar  stores  as  distinct  from  the  manufacture  of  true  arma- 
ments and  mechanical  war  equipment.  But  inasmuch  as  many  of  the  chemical 
works  in  this  country  are  still  operating  below  capacity,  much  of  the  increased 
demand  for  chemicals  could  be  handled  without  difficulty.  In  other  words,  the 
industry  may  enjoy  a  period  of  pleasant  prosperity  without  undue  exertion, 
though  some  slight  production  pressure  may  be  experienced  in  those  sections 
which  provide  chemicals  for  the  manufacture  of  explosives  and  anti-gas  material. 
A  very  large  increase  in  the  production  of  chemicals  would,  however,  only  be 
necessary  if  war  was  imminent  or  broke  out,  and  it  is  in  this  direction  that  we 
must  look  for  a  greater  direct  bearing  of  the  new  defense  policy  upon  the  chem- 
ical industry. 

The  membership  of  Sir  Harry  McGowan,  chairman  of  the  board  of 
Imperial  Chemical  Industries,  in  the  Anglo-German  Fellowship  thus 
assumes  a  famiUar  significance,  since  it  is  Germany's  preparation  for  war 
that  gave  England  an  excuse  for  following  a  similar  policy. 


[192]  THE  LIVING  AGE  May 

WHILE  THE  TORY  DIE-HARDS  of  Great  Britain  urge  their  Gov- 
ernment to  support  Hitler,  the  militant  nationalists  of  France  attack 
Premier  Sarraut  for  having  finally  concluded  the  Franco-Soviet  treaty. 
On  January  28,  while  this  issue  was  still  being  debated,  the  nationalist 
weekly  Candide  prophesied  that  *  the  ratification  of  the  Franco-Russian 
pact  will  lead  automatically  to  the  remilitarization  of  the  Rhineland.' 
And  now  Pierre  Gaxotte  apostrophizes  the  entire  Popular  Front  of 
Communists,  Socialists,  and  Radicals  in  the  columns  of  Je  Suis  Partout: — 

For  five  months  you  tried  to  starve  Italy  and  defeat  its  armies  in  Ethiopia. 
You  called  Mussolini  a  tyrant,  torturer,  butcher,  assassin  of  Matteotti.  And  now 
you  are  supplicating  him  to  come  to  our  defense.  Don't  you  remember  that  you 
had  no  use  for  him  five  months  ago?  Didn't  you  know  that  in  weakening  Italy 
you  were  weakening  the  resistance  to  Germany?  No?  You  didn't?  Excuse  me.  I 
understand.  You  were  counting  on  Mr.  Tukhachevski's  parachutists. 

The  opponents  of  the  Popular  Front  labor  two  points.  First  they 
maintain  that  the  Franco-Soviet  pact  will  lead  to  a  German  attack  on 
France.  In  the  words  of  Mr.  Gaxotte  *it  led  Hitler  back  to  an  hypothesis 
that  he  himself  caressed  [sic] :  to  capture  Russian  soil  he  would  first  have 
to  annihilate  France,  and  to  get  to  Moscow  he  would  first  have  to  take 
Paris.' 

The  second  complaint  against  the  Popular  Front  is  that  it  will  plunge 
France  into  civil  war.  Pierre  Dominique,  writing  in  U Europe  Nouvelle, 
argues  that  a  mechanical  transfer  of  the  Spanish  technique  of  the  Popu- 
lar Front  to  France  can  lead  only  to  disaster,  and  he  prophesies  the  deser- 
tion of  many  Radicals  if  the  French  Popular  Front  establishes  a  Leftist 
Government  after  the  May  elections.  More  than  a  third  of  the  Radicals 
supported  Laval  to  the  bitter  end,  and  most  of  their  leaders,  as  well  as 
many  of  the  peasants  and  shopkeepers  who  make  up  the  rank  and  file, 
will  hesitate  to  follow  Socialists  and  Communists  toward  revolution. 


ALTHOUGH  MR.  DOMINIQUE  once  classed  himself  as  a  liberal,  his 
anti-Soviet  bias,  which  gives  rise  to  these  alarmist  prophecies,  puts  him 
in  a  more  conservative  position  today  than  that  of  Pertinax,  veteran 
contributor  to  the  Clerical  Echo  de  Paris.  To  Pertinax  Germany  will 
always  be  the  enemy,  and  he  is  only  too  eager  to  support  Stalin  if  in  that 
way  he  can  lay  Hitler  low.  In  arriving  at  this  conclusion,  however,  he 
insists  that  Stalin  has  turned  conservative  with  the  passing  years;  he 
traces  this  transformation  back  to  1925,  when  the  Soviet  Union  and 
Turkey  pledged  each  other  not  to  take  any  diplomatic  initiative  apart 
from  one  another.  This  marked  the  beginning  of  Russia's  reversion  to 
home  politics  and  the  abandonment  of  a  purely  revolutionary  foreign 
policy,  and  it  bore  fruit  in  October,  1934,  when  Kemal  proposed  to  con- 
centrate troops  in  Thrace  just  after  the  murder  of  King  Alexander  of 


1^36  THE  WORLD  OVER  [193] 

Yugoslavia.  This  gesture  informed  the  Little  Entente  nations  that  they 
could  count  on  the  Turkish-Russian  coalition  to  stand  by  in  case  of 
trouble,  and  as  a  result,  Pertinax  writes; — 

If  the  Little  Entente  tomorrow  had  to  decide  between  allegiance  to  France 
and  allegiance  to  Russia,  the  latter  would  surely  rank  foremost  in  its  mind.  The 
practical  result  is  that  either  France  must  reach  an  understanding  with  Russia  or 
give  up  all  her  political  authority  and  influence  in  central  and  eastern  Europe. 

Pertinax  also  reports  a  corresponding  decline  of  revolutionary  activ- 
ity in  France  on  the  part  of  the  Comintern : — 

If  the  highest  military  and  police  authorities  are  to  be  believed,  the  Moscow 
propaganda  in  France  has  subsided,  if  not  disappeared,  since  1932. 1  am  told  that 
in  1934  150  cases  of  incitement  to  disobedience  were  recorded  in  the  French 
army,  and  that  in  1935  that  figure  had  shrunk  to  less  than  10. 

The  whole  question,  however,  boils  down  to  whether  Russia  or 
Germany  represents  the  greater  immediate  threat  to  France,  and 
Pertinax  offers  this  answer: — 

I  personally  believe,  and  French  diplomats  as  a  body  believe,  that  the  German 
peril  comes  first.  Moreover,  the  Russian  threat  to  social  order  does  not  arise  from 
Moscow's  alleged  transfer  of  funds  and  the  sending  out  of  propagandists,  but 
from  the  example  set  by  a  revolutionary  regime  which  at  last  has  succeeded  in 
solving  some  of  its  problems,  in  creating  a  heavy  industry  and  a  well-disciplined 
army. 

That  threat  would  be  felt  all  the  same  and  probably  to  a  greater  degree  if 
hostility  instead  of  a  spirit  of  cooperation  on  the  international  plane  were  shown 
to  Moscow.  And  let  us  observe  that  Moscow  never  objects  to  any  repressive 
measure  enforced  against  Communists.  'Deal  with  them  as  you  like,'  is  the  cur- 
rent phrase.  Mustapha  Kemal  Pasha  has  fiercely  enforced  it. 

I  asked  a  deputy  of  the  Right  the  other  day  what  he  would  do  when  called 
upon  to  vote.  His  answer  summarizes  the  reaction  of  the  average  man:  'I  shall 
support  the  treaty  if  I  see  it  in  jeopardy;  otherwise  I  shall  manage  to  abstain  so 
as  to  spare  the  feelings  of  my  constituents.'  The  only  conceivable  alternative 
would  be  to  give  Adolf  Hitler  a  free  hand  on  the  Danube  and  in  the  east.  Mr. 
Laval  had  it  under  his  serious  consideration,  but  he  could  not  find  a  single  man 
of  responsibility  to  recommend  it.  A  formidable  Nemesis  would  be  too  likely  to 
issue  from  the  bargain. 

FRESH  FROM  A  TOUR  of  the  Saar  and  the  Rhineland  on  the  eve  of 
the  German  elections,  a  special  correspondent  of  the  London  Daily 
Telegraph  reported  considerable  excitement  throughout  the  area.  Here 
is  what  he  heard  two  Nazis,  one  in  uniform,  say  to  each  other  on  a  rail- 
way excursion  to  hear  Hitler  speak  at  Karlsruhe:  — 

'The  British,'  one  of  the  party  shouted,  'are  playing  the  French  game.  But 
they  have  played  cat-and-mouse  with  us  long  enough.  We  have  guns  now,  and 
we  are  strong.  If  Mr.  Eden  tries  to  tell  us  what  to  do,  he  will  get  his  nose  pulled.' 

'The  French,'  another  shouted,  'want  us  to  be  unarmed.  We  are  under  their 


[194]  THE  LIVING  AGE  May 

guns,  but  they  do  not  want  us  to  have  any.  We  don't  want  war,  but  if  Mr.  Eden 
and  Mr.  Flandin  try  to  interfere  in  our  affairs,  we  will  show  them  .  .  .  We  have 
an  Adolf  Hitler  now.' 

The  Reichswehr,  however,  does  not  share  this  enthusiasm.  It  was 
not  informed  of  the  move  into  the  Rhineland  until  after  the  Storm 
Troops  and  S.  S.  Guards  had  been  armed,  and  the  first  thing  the  regular 
troops  did  when  they  entered  Saarbriicken  was  to  disarm  the  party 
troops  of  the  Nazis.  Furthermore,  both  the  Reichswehr  leaders  and  Dr. 
Schacht  opposed  the  occupation,  since  they  feared  that  a  united  front  of 
League  powers  would  starve  Germany  into  submission.  And  their  fears 
had  sound  foundations.  A  boycott  of  German  goods  by  the  four  other 
Locarno  signatories  (England,  France,  Belgium,  Italy)  would  have  re- 
duced Germany's  purchasing  power  abroad  27  per  cent.  Even  if  Italy 
had  refused  to  participate,  the  assistance  of  the  Soviet  Union,  the  Little 
Entente,  and  the  Scandinavian  nations  would  have  cut  in  two  Germany's 
purchasing  power  abroad,  and  the  participation  of  the  entire  League 
would  have  cut  it  70  or  80  per  cent.  Since  Germany  has  no  gold  reserve, 
it  can  pay  for  its  imports  only  by  its  exports,  and  it  depends  on  foreign 
countries  for  such  essentials  as  copper,  tin,  lead,  petroleum,  fats,  manga- 
nese and  cotton.  But  Hitler  knew  his  politics  as  well  as  Schacht  and  the 
Reichswehr  knew  their  economics  and  mihtary  strategy.  Great  Britain's 
refusal  to  support  France  saved  the  Nazi  regime. 

RUMORS  that  Germany  and  Japan  have  come  to  some  kind  of 
understanding  find  confirmation  in  the  growing  importance  of  the  Chi- 
nese market  to  Germany.  During  1935  German  exports  to  China  ex- 
ceeded British  exports  for  the  first  time  in  history,  accounting  for  11.09 
per  cent  of  the  total  as  compared  with  England's  share  of  10.48  per  cent. 
During  the  same  year  the  share  of  the  United  States  fell  from  26.16  per 
cent  in  1934  to  18.93  P^^  cent,  while  Japan's  rose  from  12.68  per  cent  to 
13.95  per  cent.  In  other  words,  Germany  and  Japan  are  gaining  Chinese 
markets  at  the  expense  of  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States.  Whether 
or  not  the  Japanese  come  to  a  definite  agreement  with  Germany  they 
have  no  doubt  that  England  and  America  will  act  together — for  senti- 
mental reasons  if  for  no  other.  The  Osaka  Asahi  speculates  as  follows  on 
Anglo-American  relations  in  the  light  of  the  recent  naval  conference: — 

It  is  quite  easy  to  believe  that  Britain  and  the  United  States  concluded  a 
secret  understanding  prior  to  the  convocation  of  the  Washington  naval  confer- 
ence. In  a  recent  speech,  President  Roosevelt  castigated  countries  following 
policies  of  aggression  by  armed  force.  London  reports  spoke  of  the  likelihood 
that  he  had  in  mind  Japan,  Italy  and  Germany.  When  there  is  conflict  among 
Japan,  Britain,  and  the  United  States,  Britain  and  the  United  States  are  sure  to 
join  forces.  Blood  is  thicker  than  water.  We  shall  not  be  surprised  to  see  Britain 
and  the  United  States  cooperating  in  a  throughgoing  manner  against  Japan 


/pj<5  THE  WORLD  OVER  [195] 

when  there  comes  a  non-treaty  state  in  consequence  of  the  break-up  of  the 
London  naval  conference. 

WHILE  MEMBERS  of  the  Japanese  Intelligence  Service  virtually  rule 
Manchukuo  and  occasionally  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  Soviet  authorities 
when  they  extend  their  activities  to  Outer  Mongolia  and  the  Soviet 
Maritime  Provinces,  Russian  spies  are  also  active  on  Manchurian  soil. 
At  the  end  of  1935  the  Japanese  raided  and  closed  the  offices  oi  Novosti 
Vostok^  a  subsidized  Soviet  daily  published  in  Harbin,  and  arrested  its 
editor.  His  confession  revealed  that  a  Russian  priest  named  Philimonov 
had  been  acting  as  a  Soviet  spy  and  had  even  succeeded  in  reaching 
Ataman  A.  G.  Semionov,  former  commander  of  the  anti-Communist 
White  Russian  forces.  Philimonov's  report  to  the  Soviet  consul  in  Har- 
bin, with  whom  he  worked,  contained  this  important  revelation: — 

The  sympathies  of  White  Russians  are  wholly  on  the  Soviet  side.  Nowadays, 
it  is  extremely  easy  to  find  friends  of  the  U.  S.  S.  R.  In  case  of  an  armed  conflict 
between  Japan  and  the  U.  S.  S.  R.  all  sympathies  will  doubtless  be  on  the  Soviet 
side.  It  is  safe  to  say  that,  in  case  of  war  and  if  there  are  White  Russian  organiza- 
tions, they  will  not  be  reliable  when  used  against  the  Soviet  Union.  Undoubtedly 
the  Japanese  do  realize  it;  nevertheless  they  support  the  Military  Union,  recently 
organized  as  a  branch  of  the  Bureau  for  Administration  of  White  Russian  Af- 
fairs, the  aims  and  purposes  of  which  are  too  apparent. 

The  Harbin  correspondent  of  the  China  Weekly  Review  of  Shanghai 
also  reported  this  rumor: — 

It  is  alleged  that  Soviet  spies  and  stool-pigeons  are  sitting  tight  In  all  Bureaus 
for  Administration  of  White  Russian  Affairs.  One  of  these  alleged  spies,  I.  P. 
KaznofF,  was  on  the  staflF  of  the  Harbin  Bureau  and  used  to  report  to  the  Soviet 
Consulate  all  activities  of  that  body,  including  its  financial  affairs.  He  used  to 
deliver  all  his  reports  through  a  certain  Lisienkoff,  who  upon  the  arrest  of  Kaznoff 
got  away  and  now  is  said  to  be  in  China. 

The  same  correspondent  also  reports  that  the  Soviet  Trade  Mission  to 
Manchukuo  has  been  carrying  on  economic  espionage. 

THE  ANGLO-EGYPTIAN  CONVERSATIONS  which  began  in 
March  draw  further  attention  to  the  importance  that  British  imperial- 
ism attaches  to  northeastern  Africa.  The  Commander-in-Chief  of  the 
Mediterranean  fleet,  the  general  officer  commanding  the  largest  British 
overseas  force  outside  India,  and  the  recent  head  of  Great  Britain's 
air  defenses  represented  the  interests  of  the  Empire.  The  Egyptian  army, 
on  the  other  hand,  exists  only  to  maintain  internal  order,  and,  accord- 
ing to  no  less  an  authority  than  the  Cairo  correspondent  of  the  London 
'Times: — 

Since  191 8  British  policy,  as  every  senior  British  official  in  Egypt  will  admit, 
has  discouraged  modernization  of  the  army.  Fear  that  the  troops  might  become 


[196]  THE  LIVING  AGE 

politically-minded  and  'go  nationalist'  during  the  disturbances  that  followed  the 
close  of  the  War  prompted  this  attitude.  The  mutinies  in  the  Sudan  in  1924,  which 
were  fomented  by  Egyptian  officers  and  inspired  by  extremist  politicians  in  Egypt, 
confirmed  it.  The  Egyptian  forces  were  withdrawn  from  the  Sudan  under  Brit- 
ish compulsion.  Since  then  they  have  provided  guards  of  honor  and  backed  the 
police  in  emergencies. 

Today  permanent  British  garrisons  occupy  Alexandria  and  Cairo, 
although  in  1930  they  were  prepared  to  withdraw  all  troops  to  the  Canal 
Zone  or  other  strategic  districts  as  soon  as  quarters  could  be  provided. 
Remembering  the  refusal  of  the  National  Government  to  put  through 
the  draft  treaty  that  the  last  Labor  Government  drew  up  in  that  year, 
the  Egyptians  now  view  their  British  masters  suspiciously.  Young  stu- 
dents find  few  jobs  in  the  British-controlled  bureaucracy,  and  over 
30,000  of  them  in  Cairo  alone  have  joined  a  new  organization,  which, 
according  to  the  Times's  Cairo  correspondent,  is  not  one  of  the  old- 
fashioned  nationalist  parties  but  'owes  its  strength  to  even  higher 
patronage' — Italy,  one  presumes,  since  it  has  *a  sub-Fascist  program.' 
Whether  this  organization  can  rally  the  Egyptians  into  a  real  united 
front  against  Great  Britain  is,  of  course,  another  and  much  more 
doubtful  story. 

WHILE  THE  WORLD  PRESS  devotes  column  after  column  to  Egypt's 
obvious  importance  in  the  Ethiopian  dispute,  little  news  from  Arabia 
appears.  Yet  at  the  same  time  that  English  and  Egyptian  delegates 
were  conferrmg.  King  Ibn  Saud  visited  his  neighbor,  the  Emir  of  Ku- 
weit, accompanied  by  a  heavily  armed  camel  caravan  of  seven  hundred 
men.  Whereby  hangs  a  tale.  The  Standard  Oil  Company  controls  cer- 
tain oil  fields  in  Kuweit,  whose  Emir  has  lately  begun  to  claim  addi- 
tional territory  at  the  expense  of  Ibn  Saud.  Under  an  old  Anglo-Turkish 
treaty  the  British  claim  the  right  to  represent  their  ally,  Ibn  Saud,  in 
this  dispute,  but  he  insists  on  speaking  for  himself. 

And  he  has  three  aces  up  his  sleeve.  He  knows  that  the  British  want 
the  right  to  fly  over  Arabia  and  build  airports  there.  He  also  has  the 
opportunity  to  play  England  oflF  against  Italy,  as  Mussolini  has  sought 
his  aid.  Finally  Ibn  Saud's  recent  conquest  of  the  port  of  Aqabah  on  the 
Red  Sea  puts  him  in  a  position  to  offer  to  any  interested  Great  Power 
the  concession  to  build  a  canal  to  the  Mediterranean  in  competition  with 
the  Suez  Canal.  He  may  not  have  to  play  any  of  these  cards,  but  at  the 
moment  Ibn  Saud  is  a  triple-threat  man  and  should  be  able  to  turn  the 
crisis  in  the  Near  East  to  his  advantage. 


Aux  Urnes^ 
Citoyens! 


A  liberal  economist  shows  how  the  rich 
'Two  Hundred'  guide  the  destinies  of 
France,  and  a  conservative  journalist 
writes  a  lively  skit  on  French  politics. 


I.  Who  Pays  the  Piper 
By  Francis  Delaisi 

Translated  from  Vu^  Paris  Topical  Weekly 


jTRANCE  is  a  political  democracy- 
governed  by  an  economic  oligarchy. 
On  the  political  plane  ten  million 
equal  citizens  elect  their  representa- 
tives, and  these  representatives  select 
the  Ministers.  If  the  members  of 
Parliament  are  not  satisfied  with  the 
Government,  they  overthrow  it.  If  the 
citizens  are  not  satisfied  with  the  mem- 
bers of  Parliament,  they  can  choose 
new  ones  every  four  years.  This  is 
what  is  called  'popular  sovereignty,* 
and  so  far  no  one  has  found  a  better 
method  of  expressing  it. 

In  the  economic  sphere  things  are  a 
little  less  simple.  French  economy  is 
managed  by  five  or  six  million  busi- 
ness men,  of  whom  by  far  the  larger 
number  are  the  owners  of  small  con- 
cerns with  one  or  two  employees, 
artisans,  small  merchants  and  manu- 
facturers, all  bearing  the  risks  of  their 
concern  themselves,  and  very  jealous 


of  their  independence.  In  addition  to 
the  income  from  their  businesses,  al- 
most all  have  some  capital  invested  in 
securities,  as  have  also  the  majority 
of  their  employees  and  workers. 

There  is  no  country  in  the  world 
where  capital  is  more  widely  distrib- 
uted than  in  France.  It  is  estimated 
that  the  total  value  of  her  liquid  as- 
sets is  425  billion  francs.  Of  this  310 
billions  are  invested  in  rentes  and  other 
obligations  of  the  State  administered 
by  public  servants,  and  58  billions  are 
deposited  in  18  million  savings  ac- 
counts. The  rest,  about  140  billions, 
(stocks  and  bonds)  represents  the 
country's  economic  equipment:  rail- 
ways; banks;  tramways;  steamship 
companies;  water,  gas,  and  electric 
companies;  metallurgical  and  chemi- 
cal factories;  coal  mines;  iron  mines; 
and  so  forth. 

Of  this  capital  approximately  one 


:i98] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


third  belongs  to  the  rich;  the  other  two 
thirds  are  distributed  among  more 
than  44  million  small  holders,  who 
constitute  what  is  called  the  middle 
classes.  It  is  they  who,  along  with  the 
1 8  million  savings  bank  depositors, 
are  the  real  owners  of  the  immense 
public  and  private  industrial  equip- 
ment which  has  been  built  up  in  our 
country  over  the  last  century. 

But  although  they  own  this  prop- 
erty legally,  they  do  not  administer  it 
themselves.  The  management  is  en- 
trusted to  boards  of  directors.  In  prin- 
ciple, these  boards  are  elected  exactly 
like  political  bodies.  But  the  bond- 
holders do  not  have  the  right  to  vote; 
only  the  stockholders  may  attend  the 
annual  meetings.  In  practice,  the 
small  holders  never  go  to  them.  They 
generally  delegate  their  powers  in 
blank  to  their  banker,  who  sends  them 
on  to  the  board  of  directors,  which 
entrusts  them  to  its  officers.  These  can 
hardly  fail  to  approve  the  reports  and 
reelect  their  patrons. 

Thus  the  boards  of  directors  elect 
themselves,  and  in  this  way  two  hun- 
dred families,  who  own  the  capital  of  a 
number  of  large  concerns  (insurance 
companies  and  banks),  monopolize 
the  management  of  all  the  great  busi- 
nesses which  run  the  production, 
transportation  and  credit  of  the  coun- 
try. These  people  do  not  render  an 
account  of  their  management  to  any- 
one (except  to  the  examining  magis- 
trate when  things  turn  out  badly — 
and  everybody  knows  how  discreet 
the  financial  section  of  the  Bar  can 

Since  it  is  sufficient  to  own  ten  or 
twenty  shares  to  have  the  right  to 
manage  a  company  with  a  capital  of 
500  millions  and  more,  and  controlling 
liabilities  of  5  or  10  billions,  it  is  not 


on  the  dividends  from  their  securities 
that  the  Two  Hundred  live,  but  much 
more  often  on  the  commissions  and 
bonuses  received  for  transactions  which 
they  carry  out  on  behalf  of  the  com- 
panies they  administer.  In  this  way 
they  are  able  to  make  a  great  deal  of 
money,  even  from  concerns  which  are 
running  deficits  (as  is  the  case,  for  ex- 
ample, with  the  railroads).  As  for  the 
ordinary  share-holders,  if  they  are  not 
satisfied  they  have  no  other  recourse 
than  to  sell  their  securities  at  a  loss 
and  buy  others.  After  having  been 
robbed  in  one  company,  they  have  the 
choice  of  going  to  another  to  be 
stripped  to  the  skin.  But  the  manage- 
ment stays  put. 

Thus  the  middle  class  Frenchman, 
who  is  in  theory  as  much  the  master 
of  his  property  as  he  is  of  his  ideas, 
finds  himself  in  practice  subject  to 
two  distinct  governments:  i.  he  in- 
trusts his  general  interests  to  a  politi- 
cal government  whose  representatives 
he  elects  and  knows,  and  over  which 
he  exercises  a  certain  amount  of  con- 
trol at  election  times;  2.  he  intrusts 
his  private  interests,  or  at  least  his 
savings,  to  an  economic  government 
which  is  anonymous  and  not  respon- 
sible to  anyone. 

Now  these  two  powers,  the  public 
and  the  private,  cannot  completely 
ignore  one  another.  The  economic 
oligarchy  cannot  be  wholly  indifferent 
to  democratic  representatives  and 
their  selection  by  universal  suffrage. 
For  in  the  first  place  the  economic 
oligarchy  has  to  be  on  its  guard  against 
fiscal  measures  which  would  tend  to 
reduce  its  profits:  in  times  of  crisis  the 
political  democracy  has  an  annoying 
tendency  to  want  to  'soak  the  rich.' 
Furthermore,  the  economic  oligarchy 
must  defend  against  encroachment  by 


193^ 


AUX  URNES,  CITOYENS! 


:i99] 


the  Administration  those  private  mo- 
nopolies which  some  people  would  like 
to  transform  into  state  monopolies. 

For  a  long  time  the  economic 
oligarchy  has  applied  itself  chiefly  to 
this  negative  role  of  defense.  But 
largely  since  the  beginning  of  the 
crisis  it  has  been  obliged  to  ask  the 
state  for  numerous  favors:  for  tariffs 
which  would  relieve  it  of  foreign  com- 
petition; for  subsidies  which  would 
permit  it  to  meet  the  deficits  of  some 
of  its  enterprises;  for  government  or- 
ders to  counterbalance  the  general  de- 
cline in  private  business;  and,  finally, 
for  guarantees  of  the  interest  pay- 
ments on  proposed  bond  issues. 

All  this  involves  heavy  expenses,  to 
be  levied  on  consumers  or  taxpayers 
or  small  savings.  The  sums  are  ob- 
tained easily  enough  from  the  legisla- 
tive bodies  in  the  name  of  'national 
interest.'  But  it  may  turn  out  that  in 
the  long  run  the  voter-taxpayer-con- 
sumer-saver, finding  the  burden  too 
heavy,  will  kick  over  the  traces  and 
send  less  complacent  representatives 
to  Parliament.  For  this  reason  it  is 
necessary  for  the  economic  oligarchy 
to  maneuver  universal  suffrage  in 
order  to  obtain  'good*  elections.  Not 
having  numbers,  it  must  perforce  rely 
on  money. 

II 

I  should  like  to  sketch  here  the  tac- 
tics and  methods  used  by  the  economic 
powers  to  assure  their  preponderance 
over  the  political  powers.  Every  four 
years,  a  few  months  before  the  elec- 
tions, there  begins  in  all  the  banks, 
big  industries,  insurance  companies, 
etc.,  the  great  drive  for  campaign 
funds.  Each  firm  has  the  right  to  sub- 
sidize personally  any  candidate  it 
chooses  in  the  constituency  where  its 


workers  live.  But  the  great  insurance 
companies,  the  Comites  des  Forges, 
etc.,  also  see  to  it  that  a  central  fund 
is  raised,  and  endeavor  to  have  each 
subsidiary  contribute  in  proportion  to 
its  size.  The  contributions  are  charged 
against  surplus;  they  are  written 
down  as  'general  expenses.' 

In  the  past,  the  big  companies  used 
to  subsidize  only  conservative  candi- 
dates; but  the  suspicious  public  would 
then  vote  all  the  more  readily  for  men 
of  the  Left.  It  was,  therefore,  on  these 
latter  that  it  became  necessary  to 
work,  and  here  the  task  was  more  deli- 
cate. It  is  as  natural  and  permissible 
for  a  Right  candidate  to  solicit  the 
support  of  the  great  industries  whose 
interests  he  intends  to  defend  as  it  is 
difficult  for  his  adversaries  to  accept 
the  financial  support  of  the  capitalist 
powers  which  it  is  their  program  to 
combat.  Here  it  is  possible  to  work 
only  through  an  intermediary. 

It  was  at  this  point  that  Mr.  Billiet 
had  an  inspiration.  He  set  up  his  cele- 
brated Union  of  Economic  Interests, 
in  which  he  thoroughly  mixed  in  with 
the  great  subsidies  of  the  insurance 
companies  and  the  Comites  des  Forges, 
etc.,  the  more  modest  contributions  of 
merchants  and  industrialists  of  the 
middle  classes.  His  principle  was  to 
show  complete  indifference  with  re- 
gard to  political  programs.  Concerned 
solely  with  economic  interests,  he  was 
ready  to  subsidize  all  candidates, 
whether  from  the  Right  or  from  the 
Left,  whether  Conservative  or  Radi- 
cal or  even  Socialist,  provided  only 
that  the  applicant  undertook  engage- 
ments on  certain  precise  points  re- 
quired by  the  donors  of  the  funds.  It 
was  his  task  to  present  these  points  as 
democratic  measures.  Here  are  his 
principles:    opposition    to    the   State 


[200] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


monopolies  (for  are  they  not  contrary 
to  sound  economic  policies?);  tariffs 
(are  they  not  needed  to  keep  up  the 
workers'  wages?);  subsidies  for  the 
big  companies  in  the  red  (in  order  to 
avoid  unemployment);  large  orders 
for  war  materials  (national  defense 
first!).  Once  he  had  accepted  these 
points,  there  was  nothing  to  prevent  a 
candidate  from  proclaiming  in  his 
election  posters  and  his  meetings  the 
boldest  and  vaguest  arguments  of 
revolutionary  Socialism. 

Business  men  are  realists  by  nature. 
They  pay  less  attention  to  principles 
than  to  immediate  advantages,  and 
they  know  from  experience  tested 
many  times  over  that  a  revolutionary 
who  has  become  a  Minister  is  not 
necessarily  a  revolutionary  Minister. 

This  method  of  indifference  to  pro- 
grams has  given  the  very  best  results 
for  over  thirty  years.  Thus  when,  in 
1928,  Mr.  Ernest  Mercier  undertook 
to  raise  funds  to  finance  candidates 
who  were  friendly  to  the  ideas  of  the 
Redressement  Frangais,  the  bankers, 
without  daring  to  refuse,  displayed 
genuine  annoyance.  They  were  not 
prepared  to  associate  themselves  with 
a  party.  Recently,  many  of  them  have 
shown  great  coolness  toward  the  Fas- 
cist program  of  Colonel  de  La  Rocque. 

The  reaction  of  the  masses  to  the 
events  of  the  sixth  of  February, 
1935  [when  there  was  rioting  in  the 
streets  of  Paris],  and  the  formation  of 
the  Front  Populaire  on  the  fourteenth 
of  July,  made  it  clear  to  everybody 
that  it  would  be  better  to  corrupt  the 
democracy  than  to  make  a  direct  at- 
tack upon  it.  So  Mr.  Ernest  Mercier 
has  just  officially  dissolved  his  organi- 
zation, and  the  Two  Hundred  have 
returned  to  the  old  and  tested  prin- 
ciple of  indifference  to  party  programs. 


Nevertheless  the  republican  voter, 
who  does  not  see  any  of  this  cookery, 
is  surprised  when  he  realizes  that  the 
leaders  of  the  Left  and  the  leaders  of 
the  Right  govern,  in  effect,  alike,  and 
even  that  they  very  often  take  part  in 
the  same  Ministry.  In  traditional  demo- 
cratic circles  the  young  men  avenged 
their  deception  by  pressing  more  and 
more  to  the  Left,  going  from  Radical- 
ism to  Socialism  and  from  Socialism 
to  Communism.  If  these  impatient 
forces  were  united  in  a  single  group, 
they  could  carry  everything  before 
them.  That  is  why  it  is  necessary  to 
divide  them  by  multiplying  the  par- 
ties. 

Every  party  possesses  two  essential 
organs:  i.  an  executive  or  administra- 
tive committee,  elected  by  a  congress 
composed  exclusively  of  'militants,' 
and  which  meets  once  or  twice  a  year; 
1.  a  newspaper  which  is  addressed 
directly  to  the  individual  voter  and 
which  is  in  daily  contact  with  him. 
In  the  nature  of  things,  there  are  more 
newspapers  than  executive  commit- 
tees. The  economic  oligarchy,  then, 
has  contrived  to  multiply  the  so- 
called  'journals  of  opinion;*  in  this, 
the  rivalry  of  leaders  and  the  impa- 
tient ambitions  of  their  followers  have 
played  into  its  hands. 

A  number  of  small  sheets  spring  up; 
unable  to  subsist  on  the  returns  from 
their  sales,  they  are  obliged  to  have 
recourse  either  to  'anonymous  dona- 
tions' or  to  the  publicity  managers  of 
the  insurance  companies,  the  Com- 
ites  des  Forges,  or  the  'economic 
interests.'  Naturally  the  parties'  seri- 
ous militants  are  not  willing  to  do  this 
job  themselves.  They  therefore  gen- 
erally turn  to  a  'specialist'  who  has 
had  a  good  deal  of  experience  in  busi- 
ness circles.  He  accepts  with  alacrity 


i93(> 


AUX  URNES,  CITOYENS! 


[201] 


the  articles  by  leaders  of  the  group 
and  also  the  essays  by  militants  of  the 
second  rank  who  are  eager  to  bring 
themselves  to  the  attention  of  the 
public  or  to  carry  on  polemics  with 
their  rivals.  Doubtless  these  men  are 
sometimes  surprised  to  observe  the  ap- 
pearance, in  the  columns  of  that  same 
newspaper,  of  a  campaign  in  behalf 
of  such  and  such  capitalist  concerns 
or  monopolies,  in  rather  marked  con- 
tradiction to  the  principles  of  their 
party.  But  it  is  important  to  make 
sacrifices  to  maintain  a  newspaper 
without  which  the  group  could  no 
longer  be  distinguished  from  other 
similar  groups. 

This  is  the  explanation  of  the  role 
and  paradoxical  influence  of  these 
'Dubarrys'  in  the  journals  of  opinion. 
A  Minister,  even  of  the  Right,  never 
refuses  them  their  share  of  the  *  secret 
funds;'  the  publicity  agents  of  the  big 
banks  do  not  refuse  them  generous 

(subsidies  (on  condition  that  they  give 
only  a  tiny  part  of  them  to  the  party 
newspaper).  And  if  by  chance  these 
«'  over-zealous  collectors  stray  into  the 
offices  of  a  Stavisky,  so  much  the 
better.  They  will  produce  a  scandal 
which  will  discredit  all  the  parties  of 
the  Left. 

Ill 

The  increase  in  the  number  of 
ij  *  journals  of  opinion'  leads  to  a  multi- 
plication of  the  number  of  parties. 
There  are  nine  hundred  deputies  in 
the  Chamber,  that  is  to  say  nine  hun- 
dred would-be  Ministers.  But  no  one 
may  join  a  Cabinet  combination  un- 
less he  can  bring  with  him  the  assured 
support  (for  a  time)  of  a  certain  num- 
ber of  colleagues,  all  of  whom  will 
eventually  be  his  rivals.  The  struggle 
within  the  groups  is  keen,  and  it  re- 


quires much  time  and  patience  and 
efl^ort  to  become  eligible  for  a  port- 
folio. 

A  gifted  and  ambitious  man  natu- 
rally tries  to  form  a  group  with  him- 
self at  the  head.  He  then  submits 
to  a  bored  or  curious  public  a  pro- 
gram or  plan  in  support  of  which  he 
has  gathered  together  some  friends. 
But  it  becomes  necessary  to  find  him 
some  voters.  If  he  has  a  group,  it  is 
easy  for  him  to  form  a  newspaper.  If 
he  has  a  newspaper,  it  is  easy  for  him 
to  form  a  group. 

In  this  way  there  has  come  about 
that  vast  breaking-down  of  the  parties 
into  Radicals,  Radical-Socialists,  Re- 
publican-Socialists, Independent  So- 
cialists, Socialists,  Populists,  Com- 
munists— nay,  even  Stalinists  and 
Trotskiites!  The  number  of  parties  in 
the  Conservative  camp  is  equally 
great. 

In  answer  to  Lord  Robert  Cecil,  who 
had  asked  him:  'To  what  party  do 
you  belong.  Monsieur  le  Depute? '  Mr. 
Joseph  Barthelemy  once  said:  'I  am 
one  of  those  Republicans  of  the  Left 
who  sit  in  the  Center  and  vote  with 
the  Right.'  The  nuances  which  dis- 
tinguish these  parties  have  become  so 
delicate  that  the  public  no  longer  rec- 
ognizes them,  and  designates  them 
solely  by  the  names  of  their  leaders. 
In  fact,  they  are  no  longer  anything 
but  Ministers'  retinues. 

With  such  a  breaking-down  of  the 
parties  it  is  almost  impossible  to  form 
a  homogeneous  Ministry.  All  the 
retinues  of  the  same  political  color, 
being  by  definition  rivals,  can  asso- 
ciate only  with  the  groups  of  con- 
trary convictions.  For  this  reason 
there  can  only  be  'concentration' 
cabinets,  and  how  could  such  fragile 
'combinations'    as    these    resist    the 


[202] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


pressure  of  High  Finance?  Suppose 
that,  perchance,  a  Minister,  backed 
up  by  the  majority  of  the  country, 
decides  to  take  some  fiscal  measures 
which  disturb  the  economic  oligarchy. 
To  overthrow  him  it  will  suffice  to 
detach  from  his  majority  a  small 
group  of  a  score  or  so  of  members. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  follows  a 
policy  dictated  by  the  trusts  and  the 
banks,  but  disapproved  by  the  coun- 
try, he  will  proceed  as  follows:  first  he 
will  persuade  a  coalition  of  'retinues* 
of  divers  leanings  (say  A,  B,  C  and  D) 
to  put  him  in  the  minority.  Loyally, 
the  Premier  will  then  submit  his 
resignation,  and  the  President  will  ac- 
cept it,  at  the  same  time  entrusting 
him  with  the  formation  of  a  new 
Cabinet  by  calling  upon  the  leaders  of 
relay  teams  A^  and  B^  He  will  not 
have  much  trouble  finding  C^  and  D^, 
either.  And  he  will  pursue  the  same 
policy  until  the  unpopular  measure 
has  been  passed,  when  a  new  Pre- 
mier, backed  by  groups  A^,  B^,  C2,  D^, 
will  quietly  replace  him.  In  this  way 
there  is  organized  that  kind  of  Min- 
isterial quadrille  in  which  the  dancers 
change  partners  without  changing  the 
tune.  The  instability  of  the  Govern- 
ment, which  is  so  often  used  as  a 
criticism  of  Parliamentary  procedure, 
is  only  an  illusion.  Mr.  Clemenceau 
was  once  asked  why  he  had  over- 
thrown so  many  Ministries.  'At  bot- 
tom,* he  said,  'it  was  always  the  same 
one.* 

Furthermore,  if  some  popular  leader, 
supported  by  a  united  majority  and 
backed  by  public  opinion,  should  de- 
sire to  resist  the  orders  of  the  eco- 
nomic powers,  the  latter  have  a  very 
simple  means  of  checkmating  him. 
Every  time  that  a  Ministry  has  been 
overthrown,  the  President  of  the  Re- 


public, always  respectful  of  the  Con- 
stitution, calls  the  leader  of  the  new 
majority  and  invites  him  to  form  a 
new  Cabinet.  The  Premier-elect  re- 
plies, according  to  the  formula,  that 
he  will  consult  his  friends.  While  the 
journalists  see  him  busy  negotiating 
with  the  groups  and  sub-groups,  he 
discretely  calls  in  the  Director  of  the 
Treasury  and  asks  him:  'How  much 
money  have  you  got.''* 

'About  a  billion  francs,'  this  high 
official  customarily  replies,  when  things 
are  good.  'Of  course,*  he  adds,  'we 
have  to  redeem  two  billion  francs' 
worth  of  treasury  bonds  at  the  end  of 
the  month.  But  the  financial  houses 
will  undoubtedly  consent  to  make  the 
necessary  advances.* 

It  then  becomes  necessary  to  see 
the  bankers.  These  latter  generally 
display  much  good  will. 

'Of  course,*  they  say  to  the  new 
Premier,  'your  political  ideas  are  not 
ours.  But  we  are  too  good  Frenchmen 
and  too  good  citizens  not  to  bow  be- 
fore public  opinion.  We  are  therefore 
quite  ready  to  place  the  public's 
money  at  the  disposal  of  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  Republic.  Only,  one  good 
turn  deserves  another.  It  is  under- 
stood. Monsieur  le  Premier^  that  you 
will  touch  neither  the  tariffs,  which 
are  necessary  for  our  industries,  nor 
the  subsidies  granted  to  the  great 
railway  and  steamship  companies,  nor 
the  orders  for  war  materials,  nor  the 
private  monopoly  of  the  insurance 
companies,  nor  the  other  privileges 
which  your  predecessors  have  re- 
spected. 

'And  then  you  have  included  in 
your  program  certain  fiscal  measures 
like  coupon  books  and  taxpayers' 
identification  cards  which  have  made 
a  bad  impression  in  financial  circles. 


i93(> 


AUX  URNES,  CITOYENS! 


[203] 


At  this  time,  when  you  are  asking  us 
to  appeal  to  those  very  circles  for  fur- 
ther help,  it  would  not  be  wise  to  give 
them  the  impression  that  you  are  go- 
ing to  play  tricks  on  them.' 

'But  Parliament  has  already  voted 
those  measures!  The  coupon  books 
are  already  printed  and  the  identifi- 
cation cards  are  at  Saint-Sulpice  all 
ready  to  be  distributed!' 

'Well  then,  let  them  remain  in  their 
boxes  at  Saint-Sulpice  and  you  will 
have  all  the  billions  you  need.* 

It  sometimes  happens  that  the  Pre- 
mier-elect resists.  In  this  case  his 
Ministry  is  invariably  overthrown  at 
the  end  of  a  few  days.  There  are  those 
who,  in  disgust,  have  wanted  to  go 
straight  back  to  the  President  and 
renounce  the  task  of  forming  the 
Ministry.  But  then  of  course  all  their 
close  collaborators  cry  out.  They 
think  of  the  portfolios  of  Ministers 
and  Secretaries  of  State  that  they  have 
been  promised,  and  of  the  jobs  and 
honors  that  they  have  themselves 
promised  their  constituents.  'You 
can't  do  that!  Besides,  don't  worry, 
my  dear  Premier,  we  will  shield  you 
from  the  militants.'  And  the  great 
man  submits.  And  the  great  'inde- 
pendent' press  hails  his  advent  and 
recognizes  in  him,  as  it  has  in  his  pred- 
ecessors (and  as  it  eventually  will  in 
his  successors),  the  essential  qualities 
of  a  '  Government  Man. ' 


IV 


After  thirty  years  of  maneuvers  of 
this  sort,  the  economic  oligarchy  has 
ended  by  exercising  all  the  functions 
of  the  Democratic  Government.  Ac- 
cording to  the  terms  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, Parliament  has  three  basic  func- 
pj  tions:    i.  it    makes    the   laws;    2.  it 


adopts  the  budget;  3.  it  controls  and 
overthrows  the  Government  by  exer- 
cising its  right  of  interpolation. 

1.  Today  it  no  longer  makes  the 
laws.  For  two  years  all  measures  have 
been  taken  by  decrees  adopted  by  the 
Cabinet.  Parliament's  role  is  confined 
to  ratifying  them  after  they  have 
been  adopted  and  when  their  eflfects 
can  no  longer  be  avoided.  In  this  way 
the  legislative  power  has  abdicated  to 
the  executive — which  is  precisely  the 
negation  of  republican  Government 
(Herriot  dixit). 

2.  If  Parliament  still  votes  the 
budget,  it  no  longer  debates  it.  Last 
December  40  billions  in  taxes  were 
adopted  in  two  weeks.  The  most  revo- 
lutionary fiscal  measure  which  had 
been  attempted  in  the  last  forty  years, 
the  reduction  of  the  face- value  of  gov- 
ernment bond  coupons,  was  taken  by 
decree,  without  debate.  The  Chamber 
left  the  preliminary  examination  to 
the  Finance  Commission,  which  is  in- 
variably presided  over  by  the  austere 
Malvy,  who,  as  he  himself  told  the 
committee  which  investigated  the 
Stavisky  case,  puts  his  friendships 
above  his  party,  a  practice  which  has 
earned  him  general  approbation.  .  .  . 

Furthermore,  the  administration 
spends  what  it  wishes,  whatever  the 
available  credit  may  be.  All  it  has  to 
do  is  to  present  during  the  course  of  a 
year  a  blanket  request  for  several 
billion  francs,  and  this  is  always  ap- 
proved without  discussion. 

3.  As  for  the  right  of  interpolation, 
it  is  this  to  which  the  deputies  clung 
the  longest,  for  it  makes  it  possible  to 
overthrow  the  Government  and  thus 
open  the  scramble  for  portfolios.  In 
this  they  always  revel,  and  they  avail 
themselves  of  it  as  often  as  possible. 
But,  thanks  to  the  game  played  by 


[204] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


the  *  relay  teams,  *  it  has  practically  no 
effect  upon  the  policies  of  the  suc- 
ceeding Governments. 

Today,  under  the  hundredth  Min- 
istry of  the  Republic,  we  have  to 
record  that  the  Parliamentary  regime 
has  become  nothing  more  than  win- 
dow dressing. 

Whose  fault  is  it? 

There  are  some  who  would  gladly 
turn  the  people's  anger  against  the 
deputies.  That  is  unfair.  The  deputies 
are  no  better  and  no  worse  than  the 
vast  majority  of  their  constituents, 
and  the  'substitutes'  who  offer,  with 
so  much  sincerity,  to  change  every- 
thing, will  not  do  any  better  once 
they  have  been  drawn  into  the  works. 
Moreover,  there  is  a  shameful  hypoc- 
risy about  always  denouncing  the 
*  corrupt '  without  ever  speaking  of  the 
'corrupters.' 


Parliament's  present  impotence  is 
due  to  the  juxtaposition  of  two  pow- 
ers: a  political  government  which  op- 
erates in  broad  daylight  under  the 
control  of  public  opinion,  and  an  eco- 
nomic government  exercised  in  the 
dark  by  an  anonymous  and  irre- 
sponsible oligarchy.  Necessarily  the 
second  endeavors  to  corrupt  the  first, 
and  its  whole  game  consists  in  making 
the  apparent  government  bear  the 
responsibility  for  the  errors  and  short- 
comings of  the  secret  government.  It 
will  be  so  as  long  as  the  middle  class 
Frenchman  confides  the  management 
of  his  general  interests  to  a  demo- 
cratic regime  from  which  he  can  re- 
quire an  accounting  and  does  not  re- 
quire a  similar  accounting  from  the 
banks  and  the  trusts  to  which  he  con- 
fides the  management  of  his  private 
business. 


II.  I  Decide  to  be  a  Deputy 
By  Charles  Odet 

Translated  from  Candide,  Paris  Conservative  Weekly 


I 


AM  thirty  years  old  and  a  voter, 
therefore  eligible  for  office;  my  fath- 
er's past  is  irreproachable,  as  is  my 
mother's.  I  am  a  lawyer,  like  every- 
body else.  In  short  there  is  no  earthly 
reason  why  I  should  not  run  for  Par- 
liament. Every  candidacy  is  started 
by  the  candidate's  pals,  who  say: — 

*  Bravo !  Go  to  it,  old  boy !  With  your 
gift  of  gab,  you  are  sure  to  succeed. 
Parliament  needs  men  like  you.  The 
main  thing  is:  don't  hesitate!  Go  right 
ahead  and  show  them ! ' 

The  minute  you  have  decided  to 
run,  your  worries  begin.  First  of  all, 
you  must  find  a  constituency;  then 
you  must  choose  an  opinion.  I  im- 


mediately found  myself  faced  with 
this  last  problem.  A  colleague,  a  real 
expert  on  the  question,  as  he  won  in 
the  last  elections,  said  to  me: — 

'Why  don't  you  join  a  young  man's 
party.'*  Believe  me,  the  Radicals  are 
nothing  but  old  morons*  Be  a  "Neo"; 
that's  the  party  of  the  future.' 

Another  colleague,  who  is  no  less 
competent  to  speak,  as  he  was  black- 
balled in  the  last  elections,  told  me: — 

'This  is  a  critical  hour.  We  moder- 
ates must  close  our  ranks.  Your  duty 
is  to  join  the  Left  Radicals.' 

Whereupon  I  realized  that  if  I 
wanted  to  preserve  my  peace  of  mind 
and  conscience,  it  would  be  advisable 


193^ 


AUX  URNES,  CITOYENS! 


[205] 


not  to  go  on  until  I  had  held  further 
consultations.  Accordingly  I  spread 
the  news  everywhere  that  I  wanted  to 
run  for  office.  Everybody  was  eager  to 
help.  The  telephone  never  stopped 
ringing. 

'Alio!  Look  here,  old  man,  it  seems 
that  Paul  Reynaud  is  going  to  have 
difficulties  in  the  second  .  .  .' 

'  Do  you  know  what  I've  just  heard? 
And  from  a  reliable  source,  too. 
Bouisson  is  not  going  to  run  in  Mar- 
seilles. The  place  is  there  for  anybody 
who  wants  to  take  it.' 

I  made  a  tour  of  France  by  tele- 
phone. Which  one  of  the  possible  or 
impossible  constituencies  should  I 
choose?  The  last  to  come  to  my  atten- 
tion always  seemed  to  me  infinitely 
superior  to  the  others.  But  I  always 
seemed  to  find  myself  plunged  into  a 
family  quarrel.  Inevitably  I  was  ex- 
horted to  defeat  *a  vile  skunk  whose 
conduct  disgusts  all  decent  men,'  or 
*an  old  drunkard  completely  out  of 
his  wits.'  Which  constituency  to 
choose?  My  brain  began  to  resemble 
an  immense  atlas. 

My  little  friend  Yvonne,  who  tries 
to  keep  up  her  political  connections, 
introduced  me  to  an  ex-Minister.  He 
was  a  well-preserved  man,  with  clean 
finger  nails,  a  boiled  collar,  and  eye- 
glasses. He  was  very  nice  to  me. 

'You  wish  to  run  for  Parliament? 
Bravo!  I  have  just  the  constituency 
for  you:  the  second  district  of  Calais- 
sur-Lozere.  At  present  the  deputy 
there  is  Lebry-Lameche,  an  insuffer- 
able brute  who  voted  against  me  all 
the  time  I  was  in  office.  You  must  lick 
him.  You  will  register  in  my  party; 
but,  of  course,  without  mentioning  my 
name  to  anybody.  If  Lebry-Lameche 
should  ever  find  out,  it  would  be  a  ter- 
rible tragedy!  But  I  will  help  you  in 


the  district.  La  Petite  Alouette  illustrie, 
the  most  important  local  paper,  will 
stand  behind  you:  I  am  the  principal 
stockholder  in  it.  It  is  essential  for 
you  to  go  there  immediately  and  make 
contacts  with  the  local  committees. 
Do  not  lose  any  time,  but  polish  up 
on  cheeses,  livestock,  and  chestnut 
groves :  they  will  certainly  try  to  trip 
you  up  at  the  first  meeting  .  .  .' 


II 


I  pack  my  suitcase  and  cancel  all 
my  appointments.  I  consult  the  big 
Larousse,  and  learn  that  *my'  departe- 
ment  is  deficient  agriculturally,  but 
that  its  great  industry  is  raising  cat- 
tle, and  more  particularly  sheep.  I 
remember  that  I  wanted  to  visit 
Lozere  some  time  ago.  I  also  remember 
that  several  of  my  friends  have  told 
me  that  the  natives  of  Lozere  are  the 
most  agreeable,  sympathetic,  pleas- 
ant people  imaginable,  and  that  the 
climate  is  very  healthy.  I  will  spend 
all  my  vacations  in  my  constituency. 
Yvonne  will  join  me.  It  will  be  de- 
lightful. 

My  train  leaves  in  two  hours.  I  use 
the  time  to  drop  in  to  see  another 
Minister,  whom  I  have  met  three 
times  at  the  Duponts'.  His  district 
is  near  mine:  perhaps  he  can  help  me. 

He  certainly  can!  He  shrugs  his 
shoulders,  he  raises  his  voice  and 
gesticulates;  his  hair  bristles  in  lively 
defiance  of  the  best  pomade. 

*Calais-sur-Lozere?  That's  a  good 
one!  Who  is  the  idiot  who  suggested 
Calais-sur-Lozere  to  you?  My  poor 
friend,  Lebry-Lameche  will  be  re- 
elected like  that!  and  on  the  first  ballot. 
Think  of  it:  he  is  vice-president  of  the 
Chamber's  Agricultural  Commission. 
The  sheep,  the  chestnuts  and  the  cattle 


[2o6] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


have  no  more  loyal  defender  than 
Lebry-Lameche.  Why,  whoever  can 
have  suggested  the  perfectly  mad  idea 
of  running  against  Lebry-Lameche? 

Ah,   it    was    X ?    I    might    have 

known!  He  probably  also  told  you 
that  he'll  see  to  it  that  La  Petite  Alou- 
ette  illustree  supports  your  candidacy 
.  .  .  Ah,  he  did  tell  you  that?  Well, 
La  Petite  Alouette  illustree  doesn't  even 
belong  to  him  any  more.  He  has  sold 
all  his  shares  to  Gaston  Beausoleil. 
I  can  refer  you  to  Gaston,  because  he 
is  a  friend  of  mine.  But  you  haven't 
got  the  slightest  chance,  not  the 
slightest.  I'll  tell  you  where  you  should 
run :  Clamecy-sur-Moselle.  First  of  all 
it  is  a  city:  you  won't  be  bothered  by 
any  peasants  with  their  sick  cows. 
Workers,  true  Frenchmen,  loyal,  reli- 
able souls — that's  what  you'll  be  deal- 
ing with.  In  short,  it's  a  golden  con- 
stituency. The  outgoing  deputy,  Baron 
Puc,  is  not  slated  to  run  again.  I  know 
this  from  his  mistress,  who  is  a  friend 
of  my  daughter's.  But,  confound  it, 
you  must  get  there  as  soon  as  possible. 
By  the  way,  what  are  your  political 
convictions?  I  think  the  Left  Radical 
will  do  very  well  .  .  .' 

At  the  bottom  of  my  heart,  I  knew 
all  the  time  that  Lozere  was  not  the 
dipartement  for  me.  I  am  delighted  at 
the  thought  of  being  a  deputy  from 
the  East  instead.  What  a  noble  atti- 
tude I  could  adopt  in  case  of  war!  I 
would  be  brave.  I  would  spill  my  life's 
blood  for  France  and  give  my  con- 
stituents an  example  of  true  bravery. 
The  martial  strains  of  the  Marseillaise 
resound  in  my  heart  and  in  my  head. 


Ill 


Thus  I  go  to  see  my  future  district. 
I  take  Yvonne  with  me.  She  is  quite 


delighted  to  make  the  little  trip;  that 
is  to  say,  she  is  delighted  when  we 
leave  Paris.  From  Rheims  on  she  is 
less  happy  because  it  begins  to  rain. 
At  Clamecy-sur-Moselle  the  distant 
little  shower  turns  into  one  of  those 
obstinate,  surly  rains  which  seem  to 
settle  down  for  all  eternity  between 
Heaven  and  earth.  Yvonne  laughs  to 
give  me  courage.  So  do  I,  with  the 
same  intention.  It  does  not  matter 
that  Yvonne  is  thinking  about  her  hat 
and  I  about  a  cold  lurking  in  wait  for 
me. 

I  have  to  make  a  visit  to  an  In- 
fluential Citizen  with  whom  I  had 
made  an  appointment  by  telephone. 
Yvonne,  left  to  her  own  resources, 
wanders  from  pub  to  pub  on  the  touch- 
ing pretext  of  sounding  out  the  ground. 
Then  she  makes  a  tour  of  the  shops,  of 
course  always  with  the  same  purpose 
in  mind.  When  I  meet  her  two  hours 
later,  she  is  exhausted,  splattered  to 
the  eyebrows  with  mud,  snifl^ing 
with  a  cold,  slightly  drunk,  and  loaded 
with  rolls,  cigarettes,  local  news- 
papers, spools  and  tin  cans,  all  of  them 
bought  in  order  to  'make  people  talk.' 
She  feels  that  she  is  heroic  and  virtu- 
ous. She  says: — 

*Do  you  suppose  there  are  many 
women  who  would  sacrifice  their  hats 
and  shoes  for  you  as  I  have  .  .  .  ? 
But  do  you  know  what?  This  is  a 
nasty  place.  Don't  yoU  find  it  nasty?' 

Yvonne  and  I  had  never  been  in 
such  complete  agreement  before.  For 
the  Influential  Citizen  had  not  kept 
from  me  the  difficulties  I  was  bound  to 
encounter  here.  Baron  Puc  is  not  ex- 
pected to  run,  but  there  is  another 
candidate  who  has  been  awaiting  his 
chance  for  eight  years  now.  He  didn't 
get  many  votes  in  1928.  But  in  1932 
he  had  many  more.  While  Baron  Puc's 


193^ 


AUX  URNES,  CITOYENS! 


>o7] 


health  may  have  something  to  do  with 
his  retiring,  it  is  certainly  also  due  to 
the  fact  that  he  knows  that  he  is  going 
to  be  defeated.  And  besides  I  look  too 
young.  Here  they  prefer  a  candidate 
who  had  been  in  the  War.  Obviously 
they  cannot  reproach  me  with  having 
been  born  too  late  to  participate  in 
more  than  one — e.g.  the  coming — 
war,  but,  as  the  Influential  Citizen 
says,  *  try  and  talk  to  people  once  they 
get  an  idea  into  their  heads.'  Except 
for  this,  the  Influential  Citizen  places 
himself  entirely  at  my  disposal  in  the 
matter  of  getting  up  a  preliminary 
meeting. 

I  answer  Yvonne's  questions  vague- 
ly. She  insists  that,  inasmuch  as  there  is 
bound  to  be  a  Minister  from  the  East 
in  every  Government,  there  is  no  rea- 
son, everything  considered,  why  I 
should  not  be  that  Minister.  If  not  in 
this  session,  then  in  the  next. 

There  is  no  sign  of  a  taxi  in  *my' 
constituency,  nor  is  there  a  street  car. 
And  even  if  there  were  one,  where 
would  it  take  us?  We  wander  around. 
The  country  here  is  poor  and  thread- 
bare. Through  the  gray  rain  we  see 
quite  clearly  the  red  glare  of  the  blast 
furnaces.  There  are  no  strollers  to  be 
seen  in  the  dismal  streets. 

Our  homeward  journey  is  somewhat 
lugubrious.  In  the  dining-car,  the  veal 
stew  has  been  scratched  from  the  menu. 
Yvonne  does  not  talk  about  my  Minis- 
terial future  any  more,  and  I  am  sleepy. 
On  arriving  home,  I  call  up,  for  polite- 
ness sake,  the  ex-Minister  who  wanted 
to  see  me  succeed  Lebry-Lameche. 
He  is  cross  and  speaks  sharply  to 
me. 

'  My  dear  young  friend,  why  did  you 
drop  everything?  Now  it's  too  late. 
Denis  Remiton  has  gone  there.  He 
has  been  endorsed  by  the  party.  He 


has  even  launched  his  campaign  with 
a  highly  successful  meeting.  If  you  had 
only  listened  to  me  instead  of  going  off" 
on  a  spree,  God  knows  where  .  .  . ' 


IV 


If  I  am  going  to  be  a  candidate  for 
Clamecy-sur-Moselle,  politeness  de- 
mands that  I  go  to  see  the  Senator  of 
that  departement.  Of  course,  as  is  to  be 
expected,  he  lives  on  the  Left  Bank.  I 
ring  the  bell.  A  dear  sympathetic  old 
lady  in  curlers  opens  the  door.  I 
begin : — 

*I  am  here  because  I  wish  to  be  a 
candidate  for  .  .  .* 

She  lifts  her  arms  to  heaven. 

*You  too!  There  are  already  so 
many.  But  do  come  in;  you  are  stand- 
ing in  a  draught.  My  husband  is  not 
here  but  I'll  tell  you  all  you  need  to 
know.  So  you  wish  to  run  for  Parlia- 
ment? Very  well.  You  are  not  the  only 
one.  It's  quite  simple  .  .  .' 

Just  then  somebody  rings  the  bell 
and  I  hear  her  say: — 

'You  are  here  about  the  district? 
Would  you  mind  waiting  until  I  am 
through  with  this  other  gentleman?' 

She  is  charmingly  confused.  Really 
she  is  a  dear  old  thing,  like  something 
out  of  an  American  cartoon.  She 
says: — 

*I  hope  you'll  excuse  me,  but  the 
maid  is  out  just  now.' 

I  smile  suavely: — 

'Perhaps  I  can  do  something  for 
you  ?  Some  errands,  perhaps  ?  I  would 
be  so  happy  to  be  of  use.' 

That  melts  her.  She  probably  thinks 
that  the  youth  of  today  has  been 
gravely  maligned,  and  that  I  am  a 
most  obliging  young  man. 

'Really?  It  will  be  no  trouble?  It's 
ever  so  sweet  of  you !  Well  .  .  .  You 


[2o8] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


might  go  to  the  fish  market;  it's  right 
at  the  corner.  Tell  them  to  give  you  a 
sole  weighing  about  a  pound  or  a 
pound  and  a  half.  Then  if  you  would 
be  kind  enough  to  stop  at  the  green 
grocer's,  who  is  next  door  to  the  fish 
market,  and  get  a  pound  of  apples,  a 
head  of  lettuce,  and  two  artichokes 
.  .  .  Just  tell  them  it's  for  me.  But 
are  you  sure  this  is  no  trouble  for  you?' 
I  precipitate  myself  down  the  stairs, 
drunk  with  joy.  It  is  obvious  that 
among  all  the  possible  candidates  who 
want  to  run  in  Clamecy-sur-Moselle 
I  am  bound  to  make  the  strongest  ap- 
peal to  the  all-powerful  Senator. 


Hurray!  the  Influential  Citizen  of 
Clamecy-sur-Moselle  has  telephoned 
me  some  news  about  my  progress. 
Baron  Puc's  redoubtable  opponent  is 
very  ill.  The  influential  voter  has  told 
his  committee  about  me.  What  he  said 
has  made  a  favorable  impression.  He 
will  tell  me  more  anon  when  he  sees 
me,  as  he  is  coming  to  Paris  for  his 
cousin's  marriage.  I  am  to  meet  the 
Influential  Citizen  of  Clamecy-sur- 
Moselle  at  the  Restaurant  Opal,  just, 
opposite  the  Gare  de  I'Est.  He  has 
only  an  hour  to  spare  for  dinner. 

'  Will  this  be  too  much  of  a  bore  for 
you?'  I  ask  Yvonne,  hoping  against 
hope  that  she'll  say  *no.'  'You  can 
come,  you  know.' 

*I  can't  say  that  the  prospect  de- 
lights me  particularly.  I  haven't  seen 
you  for  several  days  on  account  of 
your  political  appointments,  and  I  did 
hope  to  have  you  to  myself  tonight. 
Well,  nothing  can  be  done  about  it. 
Let's  go  and  get  it  over  with.' 

At  the  restaurant  we  meet  not  only 


the  I.  C.  but  also  his  entire  family, 
which  is  a  large  one:  six  brats,  the  eld- 
est of  whom  is  sixteen.  The  prolific 
helpmeet  is  there  too.  A  symphony 
orchestra,  composed  of  young  ladies 
in  pink  taflPetas,  radiates  harmony 
and  forces  us  to  shout  our  confidences. 

The  Influential  Citizen  is  going  back 
to  Clamecy-sur-Moselle  that  same 
evening. 

'We'll  see  you  to  the  train,'  I  tell 
him.  I  gather  up  the  valises.  Yvonne 
follows.  I  am  particularly  nice  to  the 
children  in  the  hope  of  winning  the 
hearts  of  their  parents.  Yvonne  talks 
dresses  with  the  spouse.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  take  leave  of  the  family  before 
the  train  goes.  The  Influential  Citizen 
tells  me  fish  stories.  His  wife  wants 
to  make  quite  sure  about  the  summer 
fashions.  Yvonne  and  I  dare  not  even 
hold  hands  until  the  train  has  dwin- 
dled to  a  small,  ephemeral,  red  eye  at 
the  end  of  the  platform. 

'Well,  are  you  satisfied?'  asks 
Yvonne.  'And  what  did  the  old  fool 
have  to  tell  you?' 

'Not  much.  The  redoubtable  op- 
ponent seems  to  be  better.' 

By  the  next  mail  I  receive  an  an- 
nouncement of  the  demise  of  the  Sena- 
tor with  a  taste  for  artichokes  and 
sole;  a  letter  from  the  Influential  Citi- 
zen of  Clamecy-sur-Moselle  telling  me 
of  the  complete  recovery  of  the  Re- 
doubtable Opponent; 'and  finally  a 
folder  extolling  the  charms  of  Egypt. 

I  take  Yvonne  by  the  shoulders  as  I 
always  do  at  grave,  critical  moments. 

*I  will  not  run  this  time.  But  I  am 
starting  in  right  here  and  now  making 
serious  and  careful  preparations  for 
the  election  of  1940!* 

'Sometimes,'  says  Yvonne,  'your 
jokes  simply  slay  me!* 


Here  is  an  essay  by  an  English  work- 
ing man  raising  the  question  whether 
all  English  literature  is  not  'class  con- 
scious;' and  one  by  an  American  ex- 
patriate  on    the    word    'sentimental.' 


Old  Truepenny 
and  the  Times 


I.  The  Proletarian  Reader 
By  William  Nuttall 

From  the  London  Mercury ^  London  Literary  Monthly 


J.  HAVE  only  a  few  bookshelves,  for 
I  live  in  a  very  small  house,  but  tucked 
away  in  a  corner  of  one  of  them  are 
three  little  volumes  (a  novel)  to  which 
I  return  again  and  again,  having  found 
from  experience  that  nothing  else  I 
have  read  can  either  quicken  my  mind 
as  they  do,  or  so  stimulate  my  powers 
of  rumination.  Why  should  this  be  so? 
Facts  as  to  why  this  particular  novel 
should  not  appeal  to  me  are  about  as 
strong  as  they  very  well  could  be. 
First,  it  was  written  by  a  man  of  the 
generation  of  my  grandfather;  sec- 
ondly he  was  a  nobleman,  and  the 
characters  he  deals  with  live  in  a 
social  sphere  far  removed  from  my 


own;  thirdly  he  was  a  foreigner,  and  his 
characters  are  foreigners,  thus  giving 
them  an  additional  degree  of  aliena- 
tion to  that  due  to  their  class;  and 
lastly  it  is  a  translation  from  the  Rus- 
sian into  English.  In  short,  it  would  be 
difficult  to  imagine  a  thicker  barrier  to 
communication  between  an  author's 
mind  and  a  reader's  than  exists  in  this 
particular  case.  Yet  this  book  speaks 
to  me  in  clearer  tones,  touches  my 
heart  more  strongly,  stirs  my  memory 
more  deeply  than  does  any  other  I 
have  read.  There  is  no  book  to  which 
I  feel  to  stand  in  closer  sympathy  than 
to  Tolstoy's  War  and  Peace. 

As  everybody  who  has  read  it  knows, 


[2I0] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


War  and  Peace  is  centered  in  Napo- 
leon's catastrophic  invasion  of  Russia, 
the  burning  of  Moscow,  and  the  re- 
treat. Against  this  historic  background 
are  traced  the  fortunes  of  a  few  chief 
characters  and  a  host  of  minor  ones.  I 
should  find  it  very  difficult  indeed  to 
describe  the  peculiar  way  in  which  I 
stand  under  their  spell.  But  how  shall 
I  account  for  that  interest  in  view  of 
the  facts  enumerated  above  that  seem 
so  much  to  tell  against  it?  Or  how 
shall  I  answer  the  thoroughgoing 
English  literary  patriot  whom  I  can 
hear  protesting:  'But  have  we  no 
English  authors,  that  you  should  only 
be  able  to  discover  your  favorite  work 
in  foreign  parts?* 

The  broad  answer  is  that  I  can  read 
the  book  unhampered  by  my  class- 
consciousness,  which  has  always  stood 
most  troublesomely  in  the  way  of  my 
enjoyment  of  English  books.  As  the 
son  of  a  Lancashire  cotton-mill  hand 
I  inevitably  acquired  from  my  father 
something  of  his  bitter  and  cynical 
outlook  towards  all  men  and  women 
who  were  not  of  his  own  class.  And 
since  the  literature  that  has  come  down 
to  us  and  that  being  written  is  largely 
a  bourgeois,  in  some  cases  an  aristo- 
cratic product,  the  pages  of  social  and 
domestic  fiction  are  monopolized  by 
characters  of  the  type  and  station 
against  which  in  real  life  I  had  de- 
veloped from  listening  to  my  father  a 
most  unwholesome  antipathy.  When  I 
read,  therefore,  I  find  that  my  mind — 
a  most  refractory  entity  to  control — 
has  a  trick  of  transferring  this  an- 
tipathy to  the  fictitious  characters, 
and,  by  a  most  unjust  circumstance 
from  the  author's  point  of  view,  the 
more  clearly  the  character  is  drawn, 
the  stronger  is  my  impulse  to  throw 
down  the  book.  And  it  would  need  an 


illuminating  psychological  analysis  to 
account  for  the  perverse  fact  that 
when,  on  the  other  hand,  I  read  a  book 
translated  from  a  foreign  tongue,  de- 
picting human  beings  and  their  rela- 
tions with  one  another,  my  class- 
consciousness  is  not  aroused  at  all.  But 
so  it  is.  By  some  miraculous  grace  the 
specter  refrains  from  lifting  its  dis- 
mal head  above  the  horizon  of  my 
thoughts,  and  that  is  why  I  am  able  to 
take  the  first  step  indispensable  to  the 
enjoyment  of  reading  when  I  begin  on 
War  and  Peace. 

For  the  advantages  of  being  able  to 
read  a  novel  without  the  intrusion  of 
one's  class-consciousness  are  cardinal. 
If  it  is  a  great  one,  the  characters  be- 
come removed  from  the  accidental 
circumstances  of  their  social  setting 
and  it  is  their  relation  with  the  uni- 
verse as  a  whole,  with  time,  and  with 
human  destiny,  that  then  absorbs  the 
reader's  interest.  He  can  feel  their 
heart-beats  and  study  their  individual 
psychology.  And  the  proletarian  is 
handicapped  if  prejudice  limits  him  to 
works  either  depicting  characters,  or 
written  by  men,  of  his  own  class  only. 
While  he  knows  from  experience  that 
there  are  many  such  men  that  have  a 
knowledge  of  souls,  it  is  rare  to  dis- 
cover one  who  has  had  any  extensive 
ability  to  put  his  knowledge  on  record. 
Personally  I  do  not  know  of  one,  unless 
it  be  John  Bunyan;  but  who  would 
dream  of  measuring  Bunyan's  scope 
with  that  of  Shakespeare  or  of  Tol- 
stoy? And  what  cultural  progress 
would  a  proletarian  be  able  to  make  if 
his  class-consciousness  were  so  chronic 
as  totally  to  bar  him  from  enjoying  the 
works  of  the  only  types  of  men  who  in 
the  past  have  had  either  the  leisure  or 
the  talent  to  write  them?  He  would 
make  none.  In  my  own  case  I  feel  that 


193^ 


OLD  TRUEPENNY  AND  THE  TIMES 


[211] 


my  losses  in  relation  to  English  litera- 
ture have  been,  and  still  are,  suffi- 
ciently great.  They  would  have  been 
irreparable  if  my  class-consciousness 
had  driven  War  and  Peace  from  my 
ken. 

For  with  War  and  Peace  I  can  enjoy 
as  with  no  other  work  the  process  of 
'identification*  so  dear  to  a  reader's 
heart.  Reading  is  identification.  We 
only  understand  what  we  can  identify, 
and  when  in  addition  we  can  identify 
ourselves,  we  make  progress  in  self- 
knowledge.  My  class  prejudices  out  of 
the  way,  I  can  hardly  read  a  page  of 
War  and  Peace  without  recognizing 
my  whereabouts.  To  give  only  a  few 
examples  that  immediately  suggest 
themselves:  the  effect  of  contem- 
porary politicians  and  warriors  upon 
the  acute  and  sensitive  mind  of  Prince 
Andrew  is  a  particular  brand  of  pes- 
simism and  disillusionment  that  I 
recognize  at  once  as  my  own.  The 
picture  of  Count  Peter  Besoukhow's 
struggles  for  spiritual  regeneration,  his 
recurring  bewilderment  in  face  of  the 
implacable  realities  that  history  and 
human  destiny  fling  mercilessly  across 
his  path  just  when  he  thinks  the  turn 
has  come,  I  recognize  as  my  own,  too. 
One  needn't  be  a  millionaire  count  to 
realize  how  strikingly  and  nakedly 
true  a  picture  of  the  generous  human 
soul  in  its  universal  setting  Tolstoy 
has  there  depicted.  A  religiously- 
minded,  unemployed  plumber  could 
recognize  it.  Or  consider  Prince  Boris 
Droubetzkoi,  whose  simple  recipe  for 
'getting  on'  is  to  make  the  acquaint- 
ance only  of  the  'best  people'  and 
drop  them  as  soon  as  he  succeeds  in 
making  contact  with  better.  His 
tactics  should  be  familiar  to  every 
little  climber  in  every  little  town  over 
the  whole  face  of  the  earth. 


The  most  amusing  characters  in  the 
book  are  Colonel  Adolph  de  Berg  and 
his  spouse  Vera  Rostow.  As  newly- 
weds  they  invite  all  their  acquaint- 
ances to  a  housewarming  party.  They 
are  enraptured  because  the  party 
proves,  as  they  imagine,  a  great  suc- 
cess, since  it  works  itself  out  just  in 
the  way  they  have  noticed  everybody 
else's  parties  to  do.  To  Berg's  great 
delight,  as  confirming  his  own  great- 
ness as  he  wishes  it  to  appear  in  his 
wife's  eyes,  his  'boss,'  a  high  official, 
deigns  to  come,  along  with  other  social 
celebrities.  And  all  the  guests  find 
themselves  drawn  in  to  suppress  their 
smiles  and  play  up  to  the  pride  of  the 
newlyweds.  Berg  tactfully  sees  to  it, 
of  course,  that  nobody  disturbs  the 
arrangement  of  his  brand-new  furni- 
ture or  spoils  his  brand-new  carpet. 
These  and  other  innumerable  instances 
I  could  give  are  what  I  mean  by 
'identification.'  Bergs  are  to  be  found 
in  every  social  class  throughout  the 
world. 

II 

That  I  cannot,  on  the  contrary, 
carry  out  this  same  mental  process  of 
identifying  with  ease  the  human  notes 
in  one  social  class  with  those  of  an- 
other when  reading  English  hterature 
may  seem  incredible  to  some  readers. 
Of  classic  authors  the  ones  I  am  most 
familiar  with  are  Shakespeare,  Jane 
Austen,  Scott,  Thackeray,  Dickens, 
Emily  Bronte,  Charles  Lamb  and 
Cardinal  Newman;  of  moderns  I  have 
nibbled  all  over  the  literary  cheese. 
The  nearer  in  time  they  approach  my 
own  period,  the  severer  do  my  mental 
disturbances  become.  With  Shake- 
speare, however,  I  have  made  con- 
siderable headway;  I  no  longer  stop 
short  with  my  identifications  at  Call- 


[212] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


ban  and  Bottom  the  weaver,  for  I  can 
get  behind  the  masks  of  kings  and 
queens  and  thereby  recognize  some 
very  old  acquaintances.  Doubtless  the 
pleasant  sounds  that  come  from  Shake- 
speare's words  in  the  order  he  puts 
them  help  me  to  keep  at  bay  my 
father's  intrusive  Marxian  ghost.  It 
used  to  butt  in  terribly  when  I  picked 
up  Jane  Austen : 

Jane:  It  is  a  truth  universally 
acknowledged,  that 
a  single  man  in  pos- 
session of  a  LARGE 
FORTUNE  must  be 
in    want   of  a   wife 

{Enter  Ghost.) 
Hamlet:  Whither  wilt   thou  lead 
me?  Speak.  I'll  go  no 
further. 
Ghost:     Mark  me. 
Hamlet:  I  will. 

Ghost:     I  am  thy  father's  spirit 

Doomed    for    a    certain 

term  to  fast  in  fires 

Till  the  foul  crimes  done 

in  my  days  of  nature 

Are    burnt    and    purged 

away. 
Leave  them  books  alone. 
They're    folks    as    don't 

vote  Labor. 
I  telled  thee  to  wipe  'em 

from  thi  yed, 
And   my   commandment 
all  alone  shall  live: 
Bring   on    the   Workers' 
Revolution. 

I  persisted  with  Jane  out  of  sheer 
cussedness.  After  all,  her  subject  was 
not  politics  but  pride,  prejudice,  per- 
suasion, sense  and  sensibility.  But  in 
the  main  my  reading  powers  are 
crippled  when  confronted  with  pic- 


tures of  English  society  past  and 
present  through  the  domination  of  my 
mind  by  an  all-powerful  and  devastat- 
ing formula:  'What  have  this  tribe  of 
middle-class  lawyers,  parsons,  and 
scribes  to  tell  me  about  my  class  ?  How 
can  they  possibly  know  what  life 
looks  like  to  us  ?  *  Old  Truepenny  holds 
the  field.  My  father  was  a  weaver,  but 
he  was  not  Bottom;  he  was  illiterate, 
but  he  was  not  Cahban.  His  is  the 
ghost  of  a  deep  philosopher,  who 
lacked  only  the  power  of  self-expres- 
sion. I  revere  his  memory  in  spite  of 
the  heritage  of  conflict  that  his  power- 
ful spirit  leaves  within  my  soul. 

One  circumstance  there  is,  however, 
in  reading  English  literature,  where 
the  problem  presented  by  the  intru- 
sion of  my  class-consciousness  does 
not  arise,  at  all  events  not  in  quite  the 
same  way.  That  is  where  proletarian 
characters  themselves  are  used,  and  it 
is  no  longer  necessary  to  look  through 
the  mask  of  another  class  in  order  to 
identify  the  author's  intentions.  I 
then  find  myself  occupied  chiefly  with 
the  question  whether  he  has  succeeded 
in  depicting  the  proletariat  as  it  ac- 
tually sees  itself,  or  only  as  he  sees  it, 
or  his  typical  readers.  One  cannot,  of 
course,  read  everything,  but  rarely 
have  I  come  across  any  writer  who 
could  do  the  former.  The  truth  is  that, 
impressionism  apart,  it  requires  very 
powerful  faculties  of  imagination  in- 
deed for  a  man  to  portray  accurately 
and  with  any  degree  of  fullness  char- 
acters that  breathe  outside  his  own 
little  social  tradition.  Even  so  tre- 
mendous a  democrat  as  Dickens,  whose 
pages  abound  in  proletarian  types,  is 
successful  to  my  mind  only  on  two 
occasions,  with  Charlie  Hexam  and 
Bradley  Headstone,  both  in  Our 
Mutual  Friend y  and  even  with  them 


^9S^ 


OLD  TRUEPENNY  AND  THE  TIMES 


[213I 


he  bit  off  more  than  he  could  chew 
and  had  to  resort  to  melodrama  to 
keep  himself  on  the  lines.  To  under- 
stand the  acuteness  of  a  sensitive 
proletarian's  discernment  in  this  mat- 
ter and  appreciate  the  power  that 
resides  in  his  nostrils  to  scent  out  a 
bourgeois  flavor,  one  must  have  had  a 
lifetime's  experience  of  seeing  one's 
class  used  by  authors  and  playwrights 
either  as  stock  clowns  or  the  objects 
of  a  maudlin  or  villainous  patronage. 


Ill 


The  conclusion  naturally  arrived  at 
in  face  of  this  deficiency  is  that  no 
true  delineation  of  human  nature 
from  a  proletarian  model  is  to  be  ex- 
pected until  proletarians  acquire  the 
necessary  skill  and  fervor  to  take  the 
job  in  hand  and  do  it  themselves. 
Much  has  been  said  on  this  subject 
and  is  being  said.  The  late  Allan 
Monkhouse  on  his  solitary  literary 
watch-tower  in  the  north  was  never 
tired  of  repeating,  'There  is  a  good 
chance  now  for  the  working-man 
novelist.'  One  suspects,  indeed,  that  a 
terrific  amount  of  pen-  to  say  nothing 
of  head-scratching  and  heart-burning 
is  already  proceeding  underground; 
and  we  see  its  results  come  betimes  to 
the  surface  in  such  isolated  works  as 
/,  James  Whitaker^  and  Love  on  the 
Dole.  But  they  never  turn  out  to  be 
quite  the  thing  that  one  is  looking  for, 
a  thing  more  easily  conceived  than 
defined,  though  it  is  possible  to  picture 
the  kind  of  man  who  might  produce  it. 

Imagine  a  man  who  is  of  proletarian 
origin  yet  at  the  same  time  a  gifted 
scholar  with  broad  powers  of  invention 
and  creation.  To  do  that  is  not  dif- 
ficult. There  must  be  thousands  of 
them — men    who    have    taken    ad- 


vantage of  their  talents  and  made  their 
way  into  all  kinds  of  leading  positions 
in  the  social  structure.  Such  men  are 
easily  recognizable,  for  they  have 
common  traits:  having  climbed  so- 
cially they  are  either  found  to  have 
cut  the  ties  that  bound  them  to  their 
former  connections,  or  to  be  wonder- 
ing how  they  can  cut  them  without 
incurring  the  curse  of  God,  or  to  be 
connected  with  them  still  in  a  sur- 
reptitious, embarrassing  sort  of  way, 
which  hampers  their  movements  and 
ties  their  tongues. 

So  far  imagination  is  not  difficult. 
But  to  take  the  next  step  in  imagina- 
tion is  enormously  difficult.  You  are 
now  to  imagine  a  man  of  similar 
origins,  who,  having  acquired  his 
learning,  does  not  head  towards  a 
leading  position  but  doubles  back 
into  the  proletariat,  remains  there, 
and,  as  it  were,  deepens  within  it. 
This  is  not,  mark  you,  the  same  thing 
as  Zola  living  the  life  of  a  peasant  to 
write  of  the  peasants,  for  its  keynote  is 
not  objectivity  but  subjectivity.  It 
would  indicate  a  mental  revolution, 
a  complete  reversal  of  normal  social 
procedure,  in  the  man  who  did  it, 
signifying  his  possession  of  a  flair  for 
a  novel  kind  of  saintly  eccentricity 
and  a  complete  indifference  to  cutting 
against  the  grain  of  educational  tradi- 
tion. But  were  such  a  man  to  write, 
one  would  expect  the  work  to  bear  not 
only  an  authentic  proletarian  stamp, 
but  the  depth  and  scope  also,  the 
'  intellectual '  interest,  that  are  needed 
to  satisfy  a  reader  blessed  with  a 
curious  and  active  mind.  Odd  flashes 
come  from  D.  H.  Lawrence  which 
suggest  he  was  one  who  might  have 
done  the  trick  had  he  not  chosen  to 
arrange  his  martyrdom  in  other  fields. 

Trotski,  one  of  the  few  authorities 


[214] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


on  this  subject,  takes  in  his  book 
Literature  and  Revolution  a  different 
view  from  that.  He  believes  that  be- 
fore a  true  proletarian  literature  can 
spring  into  life,  something  historically- 
startling  must  happen — a  revolution 
of  the  proletariat  itself.  Only  then 
can  one  begin  even  to  talk  about  a 
proletarian  literature.  The  next  step 
is  if  one  can  find  leisure  between  con- 
solidating the  manufacture  of  nuts 
and  bolts  and  at  the  same  time  avoid 
the  snares  of  the  bourgeois  ideology, 
which  is  enshrined  within  them,  to 
learn  from  authors  of  the  historic  past 
their  methods  and  by  no  means  to 
presume  that  these  can  by  any  stretch 
of  imagination  be  dispensed  with.  So 
even  when  the  historic  act  of  a  revolu- 
tion of  the  proletariat  has  been  ac- 
complished, it  seems  that  bourgeois 
models  must  still  continue  to  dominate 
the  literary  scene. 

That  is  not  very  exciting  from  a 
reader's  point  of  view.  While  not  sug- 
gesting that  the  function  of  a  revolu- 


tion is  to  supply  the  people  with 
readable  books,  it  seems  a  dry  fate 
from  that  point  of  view  to  have  a  revo- 
lution and  then  be  where  you  were. 
And  if  one  can  profitably  study  bour- 
geois models  after  a  revolution,  the 
clear  inference  is  that  one  can  also 
study  them  profitably  before. 

This  brings  me  back  to  War  and 
Peace,  which  Old  Truepenny,  to  my 
enduring  delight,  lets  me  read  in  peace 
and  so  permits  me  to  meet  my  true 
friends  Count  Peter  Besoukhow  and 
Prince  Andrew  Bolkonski  on  the 
ground  of  our  common  human  emo- 
tions and  intellectual  doubts.  But  he 
continues  to  turn  up  faithfully  at  as- 
semblies of  the  English  muse  and, 
fixing  his  mild,  suffering  gaze  upon 
me,  troubles  me  with  his  reproach,  for 
the  tumbrils  do  not  yet  rattle  in  the 
streets.  To  say  the  truth,  I  have  little 
ear  for  them.  I,  too,  prefer  to  pause,  to 
hesitate,  and  to  say: — 

'Nymph,  in  thy  orisons  be  all  my 
sins  remembered.' 


II.  On  Writing  Letters  to  the  Times 
By  Logan  Pearsall  Smith 

From  the  New  Statesman  and  Nation,  London  Independent  Weekly  of  the  Left 


kJ  I/N'T  quos  curricula: — there  are 
those,  Horace  tells  us,  whose  joy  is  to 
gather  Olympic  dust  upon  their  racing 
cars;  others  to  be  decked  with  Delian 
bays  in  the  Capitol,  or  to  win  the  fame 
of  boxers,  or  to  be  pointed  out  in  the 
street  as  masters  of  the  lyre.  None  of 
these  are  my  ambitions;  what  I  like  is 
to  have  my  letters  printed  in  the 
'Times.  In  those  grave  columns  I  feel 
that  I  take  my  due  place  among  the 
statesmen,  the  peers  and  prelates  and 
weighty  thinkers  of  my  age. 


Among  the  thousands  who  beat  in 
vain  upon  that  gate  to  glory,  the  few 
to  whom  it  opens  find  themselves  con- 
fronted by  a  staircase  of  several  de- 
grees— by  a  ladder  with  at  least  six 
rungs  for  their  aspiring  feet  to  climb. 
Of  these  the  lowliest  is  fixed  in  the 
column  entitled  'Points  from  Letters;' 
the  next  is  the  epistles  printed  in  full, 
but  in  small-type,  in  the  same  dark 
corner,  and  after  that  in  large-type  let- 
ters there.  Then  there  are  the  small- 
type,  then  the  large-type,  letters  on 


I93(> 


OLD  TRUEPENNY  AND  THE  TIMES 


[215] 


the  great  central  editorial  page;  and 
then — dizziest  height  of  all — a  letter 
with  a  leading  article  about  it.  To  this 
height  I  cannot  vaunt  that  I  have  as 
yet  ascended;  but  I  believe  that  I  can 
boast,  without  contradiction,  of  hav- 
ing performed  there  a  stylistic  feat  of 
which  not  the  greatest  statesman  or 
most  honored  prelate — no,  not  even 
that  master  of  the  phrase,  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  himself — can 
brag;  a  feat  which  Shakespeare  ac- 
complished so  subtly  in  his  Sonnets, 
and  which  Proust  described  as  the 
greatest  triumph  of  the  art  of  writing 
— the  expression,  namely,  of  a  gross 
impropriety  in  such  elegance  of  dic- 
tion that  the  most  elegantly  minded 
readers  will  not  see  it;  or,  if  they  do, 
will  not  believe  their  eyes. 

But  the  writer  to  the  1'imes  must  be 
an  opportunist.  One  subject  is  venti- 
lated in  its  columns  for  a  week  or  two, 
and  then  suddenly,  inexorably,  the 
window  closes;  the  curtain  is  rung 
down,  and  no  letter,  however  elo- 
quently written,  will  find  admittance 
on  any  terms.  This  misadventure  has 
happened  to  me  on  two  occasions. 
Once  E.  F.  Benson  held  me  up  to 
ridicule;  but  just  when  I  had  posted  a 
letter  poking  fun  at  him,  the  subject 
of  sustenance  for  the  abdomen  had  re- 
placed that  of  nutriment  for  the  mind, 
and  a  letter  entitled  What  is  a  Pork 
Sausage?  was  printed  where  mine 
should  have  sparkled.  I  accused  my 
fellow-climber  on  this  staircase,  Enid 
Bagnold,  of  having  played  me  this 
knavish  trick;  she  alleged  that  she  was 
in  mid-Atlantic  at  the  time.  But  what 
are  alibis  to  deep  students  like  myself 
of  the  literature  of  crime?  We  laugh  at 
them;  for  we  know  that  the  more  per- 
fect the  alibi,  the  more  perfect  the 
proof  of  guilt. 


My  second  misadventure  had  also  a 
gastronomic  aspect.  The  subject  un- 
der discussion  was  Christian  Prayer.  I 
had  written  to  show  that  a  certain 
prayer  for  the  departed,  which  has 
sneaked  and  sniveled  its  way  into  the 
Revised  Prayer  Book  of  1928,  and  is 
now  intoned  at  every  Memorial  Serv- 
ice, was  not,  as  was  supposed,  an 
ancient  prayer  at  all,  but  a  modern 
fake.  A  clergyman  in  South  Kensing- 
ton asserted  that,  on  the  contrary,  the 
prayer  was  an  ancient  one,  having,  *  as 
a  matter  of  fact,'  been  written,  he 
said,  by  Lancelot  Andrewes.  The  at- 
tribution was  a  clever  one,  since  all  of 
us  can  say  anything  we  like  about  this 
famous  bishop  with  no  fear  of  contra- 
diction; can  even  proclaim  him  as  the 
greatest  master  of  English  prose;  since 
no  one  I  have  ever  heard  of  has  been 
able  to  read  more  than  a  page  of  his 
arid  and  controversial  volumes.  I  re- 
plied by  taunting  this  parson  with  his 
admitted  inability  to  give  a  reference, 
and  added  that  to  attribute  to  this  un- 
sentimental bishop  so  flagrant  a  piece 
of  Victorian  sentimentality  (which 
Newman  really  wrote)  was  about  as 
preposterous  as  to  say  that  Newman 
had  borrowed  from  Herrick  the  lines: — 

Jnd  with  the  morn  those  angel  faces 

smile 
Which  I  have  loved  long  since,  and  lost 

awhile; 

or  to  suggest  that  Tennyson  drew  his 
Tears,  idle  tears  from  sources  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  or  in  Marlowe.  But 
again  the  abdomen  had  replaced  the 
soul  in  the  Times  columns,  and  the 
flavor  of  ice-cream — whether  vanilla 
or  strawberry — ^left  no  place  for  prayer. 
All  the  same,  this  allegation  of 
anachronism  is  sometimes  a  ticklish 
business,  and  one  may  be  staggered  by 


i 


[2l6] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


finding  very  modern  elements  in  writ- 
ings of  authentic  age.  Of  course,  the 
mention  of  the  EngUsh  in  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  is  outside  this  discus- 
sion, being,  as  we  all  know,  an  in- 
stance of  Divine  Foreknowledge;  but 
Mussolini  would  have  been  wise  to 
ponder  more  profoundly  the  text, 
'Blessed  are  the  meek:  for  they  shall 
inherit  the  earth,'  in  which  that  men- 
tion indubitably  occurs. 

To  descend,  however,  from  the 
supernatural,  I  was  once  flabber- 
gasted to  find  addressed  to  the  evening 
star  in  the  eighteenth  century  the 
romantic  lines, 

Speak    silence    with    thy    glimmering 

eyes. 
And  wash  the  dusk  with  silver; 

and  walking  one  evening  in  Oxford 
with  Walter  Raleigh,  I  remarked  how 
odd  it  was  to  think  that  these  lines 
were  written  and  published  in  the  age 
of  Dr.  Johnson. 

'They  were  not,'  my  companion 
categorically  replied. 

*  Yes,  they  were,'  I  answered. 

'Are  you  aware,  sir,'  he  asked  me, 
*  that  I  am  professor  of  English  Litera- 
ture in  this  university?* 

'I've  heard  malicious  people  say 
so,'  I  admitted. 

'Well,  it's  the  truth,*  he  asserted, 
'and  as  such — as  the  occupant  of  that 
chair — I  now  inform  you  that  those 
lines  you  quoted  belong  to  the  age  of 
Tennyson.' 

That  I  thereupon  dragged  the  Pro- 
fessor to  the  Union  Library,  and 
showed  him  the  verses  in  an  eight- 
eenth century  book  of  which  he  had 
himself  edited  a  new  edition,  is  a 
favorite  vainglory  of  mine,  and  one  by 
whose  means  I  once  hoped  to  win  the 
prize  at  a  Chelsea  Boasting  Party;  and 


I  might  have  done  so,  if  it  had  not 
been  snatched  from  me  by  a  distin- 
guished lady-novelist,  who  remarked 
that  she  possessed  a  certificate  of  her 
virginity  signed  by  the  Pope,  which 
she  had  procured  in  order  to  nullify  a 
Catholic  marriage  at  the  cost  of  eighty 
pounds. 

II 

Shakespeare  is,  of  course,  famous  for 
his  anachronisms;  all  commentators 
note  the  thoughts  of  his  own  age  which 
he  attributes  to  the  characters  of 
former  ages;  but  the  way  he  pillaged 
the  future,  and  robbed  its  unborn 
writers  is  even  more  scandalous  and 
striking.  Lytton  Strachey  has  shown 
how  in  Othello  he  stole  from  Pope  the 
sun  of  his  couplets: — 

She  that  could  think  and  ne'er  disclose 

her  mind. 
See  suitors  following  and  not  look  be- 

hindy 
She  was  a  wight,  if  ever  such  wight 

were — 
To  suckle  fools  and  chronicle  small  beer. 

From  Keats  he  bagged  the  Keat- 
sian  invocation  of  Enobarbus  to  the 
moon : — 

0  sovereign  mistress  of  true  melancholy, 

and  even  more  extraordinary  is  the 
way  he  imitates  Mallarme  and  our 
modern  nonsense  poets  inr  the  Phoenix 
and  the  Turtle — that  conscious  and 
deliberate  construction  of  a  merely 
musical  pattern  of  words: — 

Let  the  priest  in  surplice  white 
'That  defunctive  music  can. 
Be  the  death-divining  swan, 
Lest  the  requiem  lack  his  right. 

Can  Valery  or  T.  S.  Eliot  beat  the 
beautiful  meaninglessness  of  this } 


i93(> 


OLD  TRUEPENNY  AND  THE  TIMES 


•^/\ 


The  Victorian  sentimentality  I  ob- 
jected to  in  that  questionable  prayer, 
about  the  lengthening  shades  and  the 
hushing  of  the  busy  world,  and  the 
time  when  the  fever  of  life  is  over — is 
not    this    mood,    elegant,    autumnal, 
elegiac,  to  be  found  in  Shakespeare's 
Sonnets: — 
\      No  longer  mourn  for  me  when  I  am 
dead — 
That  time  of  year  thou  mayst  in  me  be- 
hold? 

Are  not  these  glaring  thefts  from 
Gray's  Elegy  and  from  all  that  grave- 
yard poetry  of  Omar  Khayyam, 
Thomas  Hardy,  and  the  latest  succes 
de  larmeSy  the  Shropshire  Lad,  for 
which  our  literature  is  so  justly 
famous  ? 

The  word  'sentimental,'  as  I  have 
attempted  to  show  elsewhere,  was  a 
lovely  word  when  it  was  first  issued 
from  the  English  eighteenth  century 
mint,  a  'perfumed  term  of  the  time,' 
which  Sterne  adopted  for  the  title  of 
his  Sentimental  Journey  with  no  ironic 
meaning.  It  indicated  a  refined  and 
elevated  way  of  feeling,  a  sense  of  the 
briefness,  the  beauty  and  the  sadness 
of  life — the  Virgilian  lachrymae  rerum^ 
which  we  find  in  that  loveliest  line  of 
Latin  poetry: — 

Dulces  moriens  reminiscitur  Argos^ 


and  which  melts  the  heart  of  Dante's 
pilgrim  when  he  hears  the  squilla  di 
lontanoj  the  sound  of  bells  in  the  dis- 
tance that  seem  to  mourn  the  dying 
day. 

How  completely  today  is  this  mood 
out  of  fashion!  What  a  hissing  and 
astonishment  would  fill  the  squares  of 
Bloomsbury  should  a  Hogarth  poet 
try  to  squeeze  out  those 

Tears  from  the  depth  of  some  divine 
despair 

of  which  Tennyson  did  after  all — let 
Bloomsbury  be  damned,  but  I  will  say 
it — did  after  all  divinely  sing! 

The  French  have  been  more  happy 
in  preserving  the  amiable  meaning  of 
this  word  which  they  borrowed  from 
us,  and  which  we,  in  our  crude  English 
fashion,  have  so  degraded  and  dis- 
graced. Thus  Barres  could  ascribe  une 
sentimentalite  tresfine  to  a  sympathetic 
character,  and  the  poet  Albert  Samain 
sing  of  the  nightingale  as 

Uoiseau  sentimental^ 
L'oiseaUj  triste  et  divin,  que  les  ombres 
suscitent. 

We  cannot  call  our  English  night- 
ingales sentimental  birds.  I  think  it's  a 
pity.  I  think  I  shall  write  to  the  Times 
about  it. 


We  hear  a  good  deal  about  Fascism  and 
War  these  days,  but  the  phrase  evokes 
European  rather  than  Oriental  images. 
The  two  articles  of  this  group  link 
up,  as  cause  and  effect,  the  Fascism 
of  Japan  and  the  expected  Asiatic  war. 


The  Menacing 
Twins  in  Asia 


Specters  of 
Fascism  and  War 


I.  The  Yellow  Terror 

By  Edmond  Demaitre 
Translated  from  Marianne^  Paris  Conservative  Weekly 


Ai 


lLTHOUGH   the  Japanese   have  organized  very  much  like  the  regular 

shown  an  alarming  eagerness  to  imi-  political  parties,  but  they  all  agree 

tate  everything  that  comes  from  Eu-  on  one  point:  that  it  is  necessary  to 

rope,  one  still  does  not  see  any  black,  abolish  the  parliamentary  system  and 

blue,  brown  or  red  shirts  in  Tokyo,  set  up  a  dictatorship  in  order  that  the 

But  in  reality  there  is  perhaps  no  principles    of    nationalism    may    be 

other  country  in  the  world  where  there  rigorously  followed, 

are  so  many  Fascist  organizations  as  According    to    several    estimates, 

in   the   Empire   of  the   Rising   Sun.  which  do  not  seem  to  be  exaggerated. 

These  organizations  differ  from   the  there  are  approximately  one  hundred 

secret  and  ultra-patriotic  societies  in  and  thirty  Fascist  societies  in  Japan, 

that  they  carry  on  their  activities  in  and  the  total  number  of  their  followers 

public  and  refuse  to  employ  terror  as  exceeds  2  millions, 

a  weapon  of  political  action.  They  are  One  of  the  most  important  organi- 


THE  MENACING  TWINS  IN  ASIA 


[219] 


zations  is  the  Dai  Nippon  Kokusui 
Kai,  whose  chiefs  are  recruited  from 
the  chiefs  of  the  Seiyukai  party.  Its 
program  includes  three  points:  first, 
the  revival  of  Samuraiism;  second,  the 
restoration  of  all  the  Emperor's  pow- 
ers, together  with  the  worship  ac- 
corded to  his  person,  including  sacri- 
fice; third,  a  return  to  the  ancient 
Japanese  traditions.  Another  Fascist 
organization,  the  Ken  Koku  Kai, 
likewise  demands  the  dictatorship  of 
the  Emperor,  but  differs  essentially  in 
adding  to  that  a  demand  that  the 
followers  of  any  kind  of  Socialism  be 
outlawed. 

Among  the  most  important  Fas- 
cist associations  is  the  Kokuhonsa, 
directed  by  Baron  Hiranuma,  who  is 
looked  upon  as  the  future  dictator  of 
the  country.  In  his  supreme  council 
one  finds  General  Araki,  Admiral 
Osumi,  the  former  Minister  of  the 
Navy,  Admiral  Kato,  the  Navy  Chief 
of  Staff,  and  Dr.  Wali,  the  President 
of  the  Court  of  Cassation.  Unlike 
Hitler  or  Mussolini,  Baron  Hiranuma 
never  appears  in  public,  makes  no 
public  addresses,  and  professes  a  veri- 
table horror  of  the  crowd.  He  lives  in 
celibacy,  quite  an  extraordinary  thing 
in  Japan,  and  his  Spartan-like  life 
has  become  a  legend  in  Tokyo. 

The  Kokuhonsa  is  organized  after  a 
curious  hierarchic  system.  It  includes 
three  kinds  of  members:  the  chiefs, 
the  members  who  pay  dues,  and  the 
non-paying  members.  The  paying 
members  number  approximately  one 
hundred  thousand,  and  are  recruited 
mostly  from  the  ranks  of  university 
youths. 

The  Kochi  Sa  is  distinguished  by 
the  philosophical  character  of  its  doc- 
trine. Like  others  it  advocates  the 
abolition  of  the  parliamentary  system. 


but  at  the  same  time,  contradictory 
as  this  may  sound,  it  demands  free- 
dom of  thought,  equality  in  political, 
fraternity  in  economic,  and  unity  in 
moral  life. 

The  Nippon  Sujiha  Domei  advo- 
cates a  sort  of  Rousseau-like  Fascism. 
Its  directors — among  whom  we  find 
the  well-known  writer  Takamobu 
Murobuse — believe  that  it  is  parlia- 
mentarism that  prevents  humanity's 
return  to  nature.  Therefore  parliament 
should  be  abolished  and  everybody 
should  be  free  to  go  and  live  in  the 
woods.  While  waiting  for  the  first 
point  of  this  program  to  be  realized, 
the  leaders,  accompanied  by  a  few  of 
their  faithful  followers,  have  founded 
a  sort  of  communal  farm,  where  they 
live  and  preach  their  *  Rousseaufas- 
cistic'  truth. 

Another  singular  kind  of  Fascism 
is  that  preached  by  the  Dai  Nippon 
Sesauto,  which  considers  the  abolition 
of  the  metric  system  indispensable  to 
Japan's  future,  although  it  is  hard  to 
see  the  connection  between  the  metric 
and  the  parliamentary  systems.  Nev- 
ertheless the  party  has  several  thou- 
sand members. 

Lastly,  the  Dai  Nippon  Koku  Kai  is 
a  fascistic  association  of  retired  army 
and  navy  officers.  Its  leaders  are  Gen- 
erals Kikuchi  and  Saito  and  Admiral 
Ogasawara.  Their  program  is  almost 
identical  with  that  of  the  other  mili- 
tary associations  in  that  they  advo- 
cate the  dissolution  of  parliament  and 
the  regimentation  of  the  capitalist 
system. 

II 

The  military  clans  and  the  Fascist 
and  Hitlerian  organizations  are  not  the 
only  nor  the  most  redoubtable  oppo- 
nents of  the  parliamentary  regime  in 


[22o] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


Japan.  There  are  also  great  secret 
societies,  whose  acts  of  terrorism  are 
relentlessly  directed  against  the  lead- 
ers of  the  political  parties. 

During  my  visit  to  Japan,  I  had  an 
opportunity  to  be  present  at  the  trial 
of  Lieutenant  Inouye,  who  for  several 
years  was  the  head  of  the  Japanese 
espionage  system  in  China.  After 
having  come  back  to  Japan,  he 
joined  a  religious  sect  and  has  since 
then  carried  on  extensive  activities 
among  various  Pan-Asiatic  organiza- 
tions. 

Impassive  on  the  witness  stand, 
the  young  officer  answered  calmly 
the  questions  put  to  him  by  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Tribunal: — 

*We  wanted,'  he  declared,  *to 
bombard  the  capital  with  military 
airplanes,  which  we  proposed  to 
"borrow"  from  the  Kasumigaura 
airdrome.' 

The  judges  did  not  seem  surprised. 
The  President  contented  himself  with 
jotting  down  a  few  short  notes  on  a 
sheet  of  paper  and  continued  to  ask 
questions,  which  Lieutenant  Inouye 
always  answered  with  the  same  calm 
politeness.  The  interrogation  resem- 
bled a  conversation  between  two  well- 
bred  gentlemen,  each  one  of  whom  had 
a  lively  interest  in  the  other's  affairs. 

It  is  true  that  from  time  to  time  the 
President's  voice  betrayed  a  sort  of 
indignation,  and  this  was  particularly 
evident  when  the  young  officer  de- 
clared that  among  others  he  was 
scheduled  to  kill  Prince  Saionji,  the 
last  of  the  'Genros.'  (This  title,  which 
conferred  certain  special  privileges 
and  was  reserved  for  the  most  eminent 
persons,  being  an  initiation  into  a  sort 
of  assembly  of  elders,  was  abolished 
at  the  end  of  the  last  century.)  But 
when  the  accused  stated  a  moment 


later  that  after  two  days  of  delibera- 
tion the  conspirators  decided  to  erase 
from  the  lists  of  those  condemned  to 
death  the  name  of  so  respected  an 
elder,  the  President  made  a  gesture 
which  seemed  to  say,  'Very  good,  my 
son,  very  good:  that  shows  that  your 
heart  is  in  the  right  place.' 

I  observed  the  audience.  It  was 
composed  of  lawyers,  of  a  few  officers, 
politicians  and  journalists.  I  was 
struck  by  the  fact  that  while  con- 
demning the  conspirators'  plans,  they 
obviously  were  sympathetic  to  them. 
And  the  thirteen  accused  men  knew  it. 
The  atmosphere  was  favorable  to 
them,  and  this  increased  still  more 
the  calm  assurance  that  was  evident 
in  their  gestures  and  words. 

These  thirteen  officers,  who  pro- 
posed to  kill  on  the  same  day  Prince 
Saionji,  the  last  of  the  Genros,  the 
Lord  Keeper  of  the  Privy  Seal  Nobu- 
aki  Makino,  the  Grand  Chamberlain 
Kantaro  Suzuki,  the  Minister  of  the 
Imperial  Home  Baron  Iki,  and  the 
Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  Shidehara, 
all  belonged  to  the  same  secret  so- 
ciety, the  Brotherhood  of  Blood.  Its 
members  had  already  (in  May,  1932) 
assassinated  the  President  of  the 
Council,  Inukai,  and  tried  to  kill 
Baron  Wakatsuki,  whom  they  blamed 
for  having  signed  the  London  Naval 
Treaty.  It  was  this  same  society  that 
was  responsible  for  this  February's 
assassinations.  All  these  attempts 
were  not,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  directed 
by  the  opposition  party  (the  Seiyukai) 
against  the  party  in  power  (the 
Minseito),  but  rather  against  parlia- 
mentarism in  general,  which  the 
Brotherhood  of  Blood  reproaches  with 
having  sacrificed  the  navy  and  army 
budgets  to  purely  political  or  financial 
considerations. 


193^ 


THE  MENACING  TWINS  IN  ASIA 


[221] 


It  must  be  noted  that  neither  the 
members  nor  the  leaders  of  this  so- 
ciety do  what  they  do  in  order  to 
satisfy  their  personal  ambitions;  after 
having  destroyed  the  men  whose  pol- 
icy seems  fatal  to  them,  they  never 
dream  of  taking  their  place.  A  Japa- 
nese familiar  with  their  functions  and 
their  purposes  told  me  recently:  *We 
realize  very  well  that  those  who  are 
good  for  overthrowing  one  regime  and 
putting  another  in  its  place  are  not 
necessarily  capable  of  assuming  the 
task  of  governing  the  country.' 


Ill 


If  the  members  of  the  Ketzumei 
Domei  (the  Brotherhood  of  Blood) 
are  recruited  mostly  from  the  army, 
those  of  another  important  secret 
society,  the  Koku  Ryukai  (the  Black 
Dragon),  are  recruited  mostly  from  the 
civilians  and  the  University  youths. 
But  both  of  these  secret  societies  use 
the  same  means  and  pursue  the  same 
aims.  To  seize  power  by  violence;  to 
abolish  the  parliamentary  system; 
to  muzzle  the  press;  to  set  up  a 
dictatorship;  to  regiment  (or,  so  to 
speak,  'socialize')  the  functions  of 
commerce  and  industry;  to  build  a 
fleet  as  large  as  that  of  the  United 

|i  States  or  England;  to  pursue  a  rigor- 
ous armament  policy;  and  lastly  to 

[1  assure  Japanese  political  and  eco- 
nomic expansion  on  the  Asiatic  con- 
tinent— such  is  their  program. 

Neither  the  Brotherhood  of  Blood 
nor  the  Black  Dragon  are  to  be  com- 
pared to  the  Irish  secret  societies  or 
the  Spanish  juntas.  The  Japanese 
secret  societies,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
have  a  horror  of  publicity.  They 
have  neither  head  offices  nor  publica- 
tions;   they    never    organize    public 


demonstrations  nor  parade  through 
the  streets. 

If  I  am  to  believe  the  information 
given  to  me  in  Japan,  these  societies 
are  organized  like  cells.  Their  members 
do  not  know,  and  none  among  them 
knows,  who  is  the  head  of  the  organi- 
zation. In  order  to  be  admitted  into 
one  of  these  societies  one  must  submit 
to  an  extremely  severe  ceremony.  The 
orders  from  above  are  blindly  exe- 
cuted. Cowardice  or  treason  are  pun- 
ished by  death.  This  does  not  neces- 
sarily mean  that  the  chiefs  execute 
their  victims  with  their  own  hands. 
More  often  they  content  themselves 
with  condemning  them  to  commit 
suicide,  as  has  been  the  Japanese  cus- 
tom for  six  decades.  And  knowing 
Japanese  psychology  it  is  easy  to 
understand  that  these  orders  are  re- 
spected. If  the  police  wanted  to  inves- 
tigate the  causes  of  the  numerous 
suicides  that  have  lately  taken  place 
in  Tokyo,  they  should  first  of  all  take 
the  trouble  to  look  into  the  political 
affiliations  of  the  victims. 

It  is  not  only  treason  that  is  punish- 
able by  death.  Mistakes,  even  invol- 
untary, are  accorded  the  same  punish- 
ment. In  this  connection,  a  typical 
example  has  been  given  us  in  the 
Inouye  trial.  The  case  in  question 
is  that  of  Lieutenant  Nishida,  who, 
when  the  conspirators  were  planning 
an  air  raid  on  Tokyo,  had  been  charged 
with  finding  out  whether  the  police 
were  or  were  not  aware  of  this  project. 
After  a  detailed  investigation  Lieu- 
tenant Nishida  believed  that  he  could 
safely  tell  his  superiors  that  the  au- 
thorities had  not  yet  gotten  wind  of 
the  raid.  Doubtless  he  was  purposely 
misled,  because  a  few  hours  later  the 
thirteen  conspirators  were  arrested. 
Although  it  was  proved  that  Lieu- 


[222] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


tenant  Nishida  had  not  betrayed  any- 
thing and  was  not  guilty  of  any 
connection  with  the  police,  they  found 
him  dead  in  his  apartment  two  days 
after    his    comrades    were    arrested. 


Needless  to  say,  his  murderer  was 
never  found. 

For  the  hands  of  the  secret  societies 
in  Japan  are  as  long  as  the  hands  of 
Allah  .  .  . 


II.  The  Coming  War  in  the  East 
By  A  Harbin  Correspondent 

From  the  China  Weekly  Review,  Shanghai  English-Language  Weekly 


^jLLL  is  set  for  action  in  Manchuria. 
To  start  the  Soviet-Japanese  war  ap- 
pears to  be  the  easiest  of  all.  Suffice  it 
to  enlarge  one  of  the  frequently  oc- 
curring frontier  incidents  a  little  and 
both  armies  now  gathered  at  the  fron- 
tiers will  leap  on  each  other  in  a  deadly 
struggle.  That  the  situation  has  come 
to  such  a  head  appears  to  be  obvious 
from  the  antagonistic  and  uncom- 
promising attitude  of  each  side  in 
nearly  every  issue  affecting  Soviet- 
Japanese  relations. 

It  is  almost  unbelievable  that  both 
sides  will  prove  so  peace-loving  as  to 
effect  a  speedy  compromise  on  all  the 
knotty  problems  affecting  their  rela- 
tions. In  that  case,  after  what  has 
been  said  and  done,  both  sides  will 
prove  to  be  arch-bluffers.  In  the  mean- 
while, the  frontier  incidents  mount  in 
number  as  well  as  in  gravity. 

Thus  the  condition  of  war  already 
exists.  It  seems  to  be  the  simplest  mat- 
ter to  evolve  it  into  war,  for  which 
both  sides — Japan  and  the  U.  S.  S.  R. 
— appear  to  be  ready.  It  will  obviously 
be  one  of  the  bloodiest  and  the  most 
destructive  wars  the  world  has  ever 
seen,  far  surpassing  in  this  respect  the 
last  World  War.  In  view  of  this  ex- 
tremely serious  situation,  it  is  timely 
to  examine  the  strategic  peculiarities 
of  the  impending  war  as  told  to  the 


writer  by  a  military  expert  whose 
name  cannot  for  obvious  reasons  be 
disclosed. 

One  need  not  be  an  expert,  he  said, 
to  see  that  Manchuria  is  in  a  pecul- 
iarly advantageous  position  in  war 
against  the  U.  S.  S.  R.  Being  sur- 
rounded on  all  sides  by  mountain 
ranges  (the  Great  Khingan  Mountains 
in  the  west,  the  Ilkuri-Alin  and  the  Lit- 
tle Khingan  Mountains  in  the  north 
and  the  Tienboshan  Mountains  in  the 
east),  Manchuria  represents  a  vast 
fortress  situated  between  loosely  con- 
nected Soviet  territories  in  Trans- 
Baikal  and  the  Maritime  Provinces  of 
Siberia.  In  view  of  these  peculiar  top- 
ographic characteristics,  Manchuria  is 
in  a  specially  advantageous  situation 
for  both  offensive  and  defensive  opera- 
tions against  the  Red  Army.  The  three 
rivers — the  Argun,  the  Amur  and  the 
Ussuri — running  along  the  named 
mountain  ranges,  serve  as  natural 
ditches  which  will  have  been  taken 
and  crossed  by  the  invading  army 
before  it  reaches  the  footsteps  of  these 
mountains.  Judging  by  the  experience 
of  the  Great  War,  as  well  as  of  the 
present  Italo-Abyssinian  campaign,  it 
appears  to  be  certain  that,  if  these 
mountain  ranges  are  held  by  a  modern 
army,  in  the  present  case  by  the  Japa- 
nese Army,  they  will  be  made  almost 


193^ 


THE  MENACING  TWINS  IN  ASIA 


[223] 


impregnable.  Hence  the  Red  Army 
will  have  to  seek  a  decision  in  plains 
lying  before  these  mountains,  pre- 
sumably along  the  Outer  Mongolian 
as  well  as  the  eastern  frontiers. 

The  most  suitable  season  for  the 
Japanese  Army  to  begin  war  is  cer- 
tainly the  spring  or  the  summer,  for 
operations  of  191 8-1 922  in  Siberia 
proved  conclusively  that  the  Japanese 
troops  were  at  their  best  in  warm  sea- 
sons, whereas  the  Red  Army  would 
welcome  the  commencement  of  opera- 
tions in  the  winter,  as  the  Russian 
soldier  is  better  adapted  to  cold  than 
his  Japanese  adversary  is. 

However,  there  is  one  serious  dis- 
advantage for  the  Japanese  to  begin 
war  in  the  warm  season;  it  will  be 
difficult,  if  not  entirely  impossible,  to 
cross  the  Amur  River  with  a  view  to 
cutting  off  the  Amur  Railway  at  its 
most  vulnerable  places  near  the  river. 
On  the  other  side,  the  Japanese  air 
force,  on  which  the  high  command  will 
rely  from  the  first  hour  of  hostilities, 
would  be  at  its  best  in  the  warm  sea- 
son, whilst  the  Soviets,  judging  by 
their  spectacular  flights  in  the  Arctic, 
appear  to  have  developed  motors 
capable  of  hitchless  running  in  the 
coldest  part  of  the  season. 

For  the  Japanese  another  advan- 
tage of  beginning  war  operations  in 
the  warm  season  lies  in  the  possibility 
of  utilizing  their  navy  to  the  fullest 
extent,  which  can  be  done  only  in  the 
spring  or  the  summer.  In  that  case,  the 
huge  Soviet  coastal  line,  extending 
from  the  Bering  Strait  down  to  the 
Soviet-Korean  frontier,  would  be  open 
to  attacks.  The  Japanese  will  doubt- 
less take  full  advantage  of  this  su- 
periority, harassing  the  Soviet  side 
by  demonstrations  all  along  the 
coastal    line,    which    will,    however. 


have  no  effect  on  the  main  issue  then 
being  fought  out  on  Manchurian 
battlefields. 

It  is  obvious  that  both  sides  will 
pursue  one  aim:  to  crush  the  enemy 
in  the  shortest  possible  time,  for  which 
purpose  they  will  throw  all  available 
forces — air,  land  and  naval — in  the 
field.  Hence  the  first  weeks  of  the 
combat  will  defy  all  comparison,  both 
sides  clashing  in  a  series  of  continuous 
frontal  assaults  all  along  the  frontier 
line  extending  from  Suiyuan  Province 
in  China  up  to  the  Soviet-Korean 
border.  Both  sides  will  have  one  pur- 
pose underlying  all  their  activities — 
to  snatch  the  initiative  of  action  from 
the  enemy,  to  bend  him  to  their  own 
will,  and  by  a  series  of  continuous  on- 
slaughts to  crush  him  entirely  and 
completely.  This  will  necessitate  the 
bringing  of  all  available  reserves  and 
throwing  them  to  the  main  strategic 
points.  The  Manchurian  railways  and 
highways,  on  which  the  Japanese  have 
been  busy  since  1932,  will  have  proved 
invaluable  in  these  hours  of  trial. 


II 


Assuming  that  the  hostilities  have 
begun  in  the  warm  season,  it  is  only 
natural  to  expect  that  the  decisive 
battles  will  be  fought  out  in  the  west 
and  in  the  east.  In  the  west,  the  front 
will  extend  from  the  Kerulen  River  all 
along  the  Argun  River  valley,  the 
main  clashes  occurring  on  the  flanks, 
especially  in  the  Kerulen  River  valley. 
For  an  expert,  the  present  frontier 
clashes  in  this  district  have  therefore  a 
double  meaning — to  secure  a  strategic 
position  menacing  the  flank  and  the 
rear  of  the  enemy.  A  flanking  attack 
on  the  enemy  centered  along  the 
Chinese  Eastern  Railway  or  its  con- 


[224] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


tinuation  to  Chita  would  therefore 
work  wonders. 

In  the  east,  the  main  battle  is  likely 
to  be  fought  out  on  the  front  extending 
from  the  Possiet  Bay  to  Lake  Khanka 
with  no  less  severe  battles  along  the 
Ussuri  River.  On  the  outcome  of  this 
grand  battle  the  fate  of  Vladivostok 
will  depend — whether  it  will  remain 
cut  off  from  the  main  body  of  the  Red 
Army  or  not.  The  first  and  the  most 
sanguinary  air  battles  are  likely  to 
take  place  here,  because  the  Soviet 
air  bases  located  near  Vladivostok  and 
Nikolsk-Ussuriski,  by  virtue  of  their 
proximity  to  the  frontier,  constitute  a 
permanent  menace  to  Manchuria, 
Korea  and  Japan,  and  the  Japanese 
will  most  certainly  try  to  eliminate 
this  danger  once  and  for  all. 

The  operations  on  other  strategic 
directions,  e.g.  in  the  regions  of  Kal- 
gan,  Dolon  Nor,  Bor  Nor,  the  Amur 
and  the  Ussuri  Rivers,  will  have  more 
or  less  the  character  of  demonstrations 
facihtating  the  main  operations  along 
the  western  and  eastern  fronts.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  outcome  of  these 


operations  is  likely  to  depend  upon 
the  results  of  relatively  minor  opera- 
tions on  the  flanks  of  the  contending 
armies,  for  on  the  main  fronts  the 
operations  will  very  soon  take  the 
form  of  trench  warfare.  It  is  therefore 
correct  to  assume  that  no  less  impor- 
tance will  be  given  to  demonstrations 
and  side-maneuvers  aimed  at  outflank- 
ing the  enemy  and  menacing  his  com- 
munications. The  extended  character 
of  the  front,  occupying  an  enormous 
area  from  Suiyuan  Province  to  the 
Possiet  Bay  in  the  east,  affords  an 
excellent  opportunity  for  the  exercise 
of  military  talents  not  only  in  general 
headquarters,  charged  with  the  con- 
duct of  all  operations,  but  more  specifi- 
cally of  those  in  charge  of  independent 
demonstrations. 

Many  persons  ask:  Who  will  come 
out  victorous  in  this  war?  The  ques- 
tion is  obviously  out  of  the  scope  of 
pure  strategy;  but  the  true  answer  to 
it  should  be  sought  in  the  state  of  the 
rear  during  the  extended  warfare.  In 
this  respect,  both  sides  appear  to  be 
not  quite  as  safe  as  some  people  assume. 


Who  Loveth  Well  .  .  . 

The  Royal  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals  has 
asked  the  Emperor  of  Abyssinia  to  accept  the  Silver  Medal  for  Meri- 
torious Services.  This  is  the  Society's  highest  award.  It  is  to  be  in  recog- 
nition of  the  Emperor's  having  presented  land  on  which  an  'animals' 
hospital  has  been  built,  and  for  his  support  of  the  Animal  Protection 
Society  in  Abyssinia.  His  daughter  is  Vice-President  of  that  society. 
In  1933  Signor  MussoHni  was  awarded  this  medal  for  declaring  the 
island  of  Capri  a  bird  sanctuary. 

— From  the  Daily  Telegraphy  London 


Persons  and  Personages 

Chancellor  Schuschnigg  of  Austria 
By  Verax 

Translated  from  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  Paris  Conservative  Bi-Monthly 

lODAY,  fortunately,  it  is  more  difficult  to  gain  access  to  Vienna's 
Ballplatz  than  it  used  to  be.  A  detachment  of  specially  chosen 
guards,  proudly  bearing  the  name  of  'Infantry  of  the  Guard,'  and  gar- 
risoned in  the  wing  facing  the  Hofburg,  stands  on  sentry  duty  all  around 
the  palace.  Some  of  them  are  posted  under  the  high  portal,  which  was  so 
easily  passed  by  the  Putschists'  lorries  on  that  fateful  day  in  July,  1 934. 
These  handsome  fellows — they  are  all  chosen  for  their  stature  as  well  as 
for  their  military  quahties — also  mount  guard  over  the  staircase,  once 
scaled  by  Planetta  and  his  men,  up  to  the  room  where  the  ex-officer  fired 
point  blank  at  his  illustrious  victim. 

Today  this  same  room  is  the  office  of  Chancellor  Schuschnigg's  two 
private  secretaries.  But  its  appearance  has  hardly  changed  since  the  day 
of  Dollfuss's  murder.  The  chairs,  covered  with  old-fashioned  brocade, 
in  which  the  martyred  Chancellor  used  to  receive  some  of  his  French 
visitors,  are  still  there:  only  the  sofa  which  completed  the  set,  and  which 
the  dying  man  drenched  with  his  life's  blood,  has  been  taken  away  to 
be  put  in  the  annex  of  the  'Church  of  the  Two  Chancellors,'  where 
Dollfuss  and  Seipel  sleep  their  last  sleep  side  by  side.  A  lamp  burns  night 
and  day  before  a  statue  of  the  Mater  Dolorosa,  which  was  given  to 
Dollfuss  by  a  Tyrolean  sculptor  after  the  first  unsuccessful  attempt  on 
his  life.  When  one  enters  the  adjoining  cabinet,  now  occupied  by  the 
President  of  the  Council,  one  sees  the  death-mask  of  his  predecessor 
piously  set  in  a  place  of  honor. 

Kurt  Schuschnigg  has  also  changed  little.  This  man,  whom  the 
dying  Chancellor  named,  with  fever-parched  lips,  as  his  successor,  is  now 
only  thirty-nine  years  old.  He  is  a  tall,  blond  intellectual.  His  blue-gray 
eyes,  behind  their  tortoise-shell  glasses,  have  a  peculiar  caressing  sweet- 
ness when  he  smiles  his  frank,  youthful  smile.  They  can  grow  luminous 
when  he  talks  about  Racine  at  a  Congress  of  Pan-Europa  or  steel-gray 
and  hard  when  he  exhorts  the  crowds  of  the  Catholic  youths,  whom  he 
has  organized  into  military  groups. 

Kurt  von  Schuschnigg  comes  from  one  of  those  families  which  formed 
the  backbone  of  Old  Austria  and  contributed  some  of  its  best  elements  to 
the  New.  Fate  did  well  in  making  him  a  Tyrolean  (he  was  born  in  Riva, 


[226]  THE  LIVING  AGE  May 

December  14,  1897),  and  thus  giving  him  for  his  birthplace  a  region 
which  represented  the  *  yellow  and  black '  Imperial  tradition,  but  which 
historical  and  geographical  factors  had  made  a  veritable  cosmopolitan 
melting  pot.  When  he  was  nine  years  old  he  left  the  good  elementary 
school  m  Vienna  where  his  father  was  then  on  garrison  duty  and  entered 
the  Stella  Matuiina^  the  famous  Jesuit  school  at  Vorarlberg,  known  of  old 
as  a  traditional  nursery  of  the  Austrian  aristocracy  and  high  bourgeoisie. 

He  was  a  model  pupil  there,  particularly  amazing  his  schoolmates 
and  teachers  by  his  natural,  cultivated  eloquence,  a  quality  which 
still  distinguishes  him  today.  The  good  fathers,  remaining  faithful  to 
the  tradition  of  the  educational  value  of  the  theater,  discovered  in  him  a 
talent  for  acting — doubtless  another  unconscious  preparation  for  his 
poUtical  life.  His  schoolmates  recall  that  even  then  he  had  a  horror  of 
injustice  and  trickery.  Although  a  good  sport,  'he  would  never  prompt  in 
class:  he  took  his  work  too  seriously  for  that,*  one  of  them  told  me,  with 
an  amusing  Httle  twinge  of  malice. 

He  graduated  with  high  honors.  That  was  in  191 5.  The  son  of  Gen- 
eral von  Schuschnigg  was  not  content  to  fight  Livy's  and  Shakespeare's 
battles.  He  volunteered  in  the  fourth  artillery  regiment,  and  soon  won 
his  second  lieutenant's  stripes.  In  1917,  when  he  was  nineteen  years  old, 
he  distinguished  himself  in  action  as  an  artillery  observer — a  position  of 
great  responsibility,  as  anyone  familiar  with  military  science  knows. 
During  the  last  days  of  the  War,  both  he  and  his  father  were  taken 
prisoner,  and  were  not  released  until  the  following  year. 

KURT  VON  SCHUSCHNIGG'S  political  convictions  and  militant  ardor 
made  it  impossible  for  him  to  go  on  peacefully  practicing  his  lawyer's 
profession.  Politics  called  him,  and  so  the  young  Tyrolean  soon  came  to 
head  the  Catholic  youth  movement,  and  in  time  attracted  the  attention 
of  a  Viennese  in  the  Christian  Social  party,  Magister  Seipel. 

The  two  men  differed  in  many  respects.  One  was  a  son  of  the  common 
people,  a  plebeian  who,  despite  his  origins,  was  drawing  farther  and 
fartner  away  from  the  masses:  he  saw  them  only  as  an  abstract  entity 
to  whose  regeneration  he  had  pledged  his  efforts.  The  other,  a  descendant 
of  many  generals,  was  an  aristocrat  who  entered  into  the  political  and 
social  battle  with  an  inherited  instinct  to  command,  reinforced  by  per- 
sonal experience  under  fire.  Besides  this  there  was  a  considerable  dif- 
ference in  age — some  twenty  years.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  how  many 
points  the  two  had  in  common — even  physical  resemblance,  which  struck 
all  who  knew  them !  There  was  an  astonishing  similarity  in  the  construc- 
tion of  their  faces,  in  the  planes  of  their  brows,  in  their  vigorously  drawn 
eyebrows,  their  hooked  noses,  prominent  cheekbones,  obstinate  jaws, 
and  thin  lips. 


J 


/pj^  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [227] 

And  the  moral  resemblance  was  even  more  striking.  Both  of  them 
lived  only  for  two  causes,  which  were  blended  into  one  in  their  minds  and 
hearts:  Catholicism,  and  Austrian  national  consciousness.  Both  worked 
under  a  profoundly  religious  inspiration,  which  colored  all  their  activities 
— an  inspiration  which  the  one  acquired  in  the  Seminary,  the  other  in 
the  Stella  Matutina.  All  their  speeches  were  like  sermons;  even  now  the 
classical  formula  of  'three  points'  divides  Schuschnigg's  speeches  into 
'first,'  'secondly,'  and  'thirdly.'  Both  of  them  were  monarchists,  but 
convinced  that  restoration  was  impossible,  and  that  a  good  patriot  ought 
to  strive  to  attain  the  well-being  and  prosperity  of  his  country  under 
whatever  regime  was  for  the  moment  best  able  to  keep  order.  On  account 
of  the  affection  shown  him  by  its  aging  chief,  Schuschnigg,  who  was 
elected  a  deputy  at  twenty-nine,  was  soon  dubbed  the  'dauphin  of  the 
Christian  Socialist  Party.' 

In  the  ParHament  Kurt  von  Schuschnigg  proved  himself  so  com- 
petent a  jurist  that  he  was  given  the  post  of  permanent  reporter  on 
juridical  and  budgetary  questions.  His  report  on  the  constitutional 
reform  of  1929,  exceptionally  lucid  in  style  and  well-grounded  in  doctrine, 
brought  its  author  such  renown  that,  when  the  cabinet  was  re-formed 
under  Buresch,  in  January,  1932,  the  deputy  Schuschnigg  was  appointed 
Minister  of  Justice.  One  of  his  colleagues,  who  was  a  little  older  than  he, 
the  Minister  of  Agriculture  DoUfuss,  soon  became  his  best  friend.  Seipel 
regarded  the  two  men  as  the  leading  representatives  of  their  generation : 
he  used  all  his  influence  to  push  them  to  the  fore.  Both  of  these  'prelate's 
choir-boys,'  as  they  were  derisively  called  by  their  opponents  of  the 
Left,  were  stirred  by  the  same  love  for  country  and  Church.  Schuschnigg, 
alone  of  all  the  Ministers  of  that  cabinet,  remained  staunchly  at  Doll- 
fuss's  side  when  the  latter  became  the  President  of  the  Council,  through 
the  portentous  years  of  the  struggle  of  the  Christian  corporative  regime 
against  the  double  attack  of  international  Marxism  and  Nazi  Pan- 
Germanism. 

In  May,  1933,  the  Minister  of  Justice  added  to  his  portfolio  another 
one:  that  of  Public  Education.  Schuschnigg  had  always  understood  that 
the  real  stake  in  the  battle  being  waged  by  the  Austrian  patriots  was 
the  youth  of  Austria,  whose  respect  for  tradition  was  destroyed  in  the 
dark  post- War  years.  Conscious  of  the  decisive  role  the  younger  genera- 
tion was  bound  to  play  in  the  future,  he  was  able  to  organize  schoolboys 
and  students  into  the  rapidly  growing  Sturmscharen,  but  so  far  only 
under  religious  auspices.  As  Mmister  of  Education  he  commanded  a 
much  wider  jurisdiction.  His  main  purpose  was  to  restore  to  patriotism 
and  religion  the  prestige  which  they  had  lost  in  public  education. 
Particular  pressure  was  brought  to  bear  on  the  universities,  where  the 
continued  indulgence  of  the  professors  had  permitted  an  abnormal 


[228]  THE  LIVING  AGE  May 

development  of  pro-Germanic  sentiments — ^sentiments  dangerously 
exploited  by  the  wearers  of  the  Swastika.  *  Patriotic '  education — includ- 
ing pre-military  training — became  an  integral  part  of  school  and  univer- 
sity programs. 

THE  assassination  of  Dr.  Dollfuss,  in  July,  1934,  and  the  uprisings  of 
the  militant  Hitlerites  which  followed,  began  Schuschnigg's  career  as 
Chancellor  under  a  bloody  star — a  specially  painful  ordeal  for  that 
profoundly  Christian  idealist.  The  way  he  came  out  of  this  ordeal 
gained  him  prestige  both  at  home  and  abroad.  He  had  to  travel  a  good 
deal  (luckily  he  likes  traveling,  as  he  told  me  himself).  He  went  to  Italy, 
to  Hungary,  to  London,  Paris,  and  Prague.  Everywhere  he  went,  the 
reserve  which  was  naturally  maintained  toward  the  unknown  young 
man  who  had  taken  over  the  illustrious  Dollfuss's  post  gave  way  to  the 
warmest  sympathy  and  the  most  sincere  esteem.  Along  with  the  various 
political,  economic  and  cultural  treaties,  Schuschnigg  brought  back  from 
his  journey  a  series  of  decorations  to  add  to  those  won  in  the  War.  At 
official  gatherings  the  profusion  of  medals  and  ribbons  he  wears  on  his 
black  frock  coat  seems  oddly  at  variance  with  his  face,  which,  in  spite  of 
his  prematurely  gray  hair,  is  still  so  young. 

Chancellor  Schuschnigg  is  a  lover  of  art  in  all  its  forms,  but  partic- 
ularly (as  is  natural  in  a  typical  Austrian)  of  music.  He  acquired  a  taste 
for  sacred  music  in  school,  but,  besides  the  best  French  and  Italian 
composers,  he  also  loves  the  great  Austrian  classics,  and  particularly 
Beethoven.  He  has  a  special  section  in  his  library  reserved  for  the 
composer  of  the  Eroica.  On  some  of  his  rare  evenings  of  relaxation  he 
loves  to  listen  to  Fidelio^  that  forgotten  old  opera  whose  revival  is  one  of 
the  triumphant  events  of  the  day.  He  has  participated  in  a  very  special 
way  in  another  revival,  too:  that  of  Gluck's  ancient  masterpiece, 
Orpheus  and  Eurydice^  whose  Elysian  beauty  was  interpreted  by  Bruno 
Walter.  Is  it  surprising  to  learn  that  on  that  occasion  the  future  Chan- 
cellor played  the  'cello? 

When  I  asked  him  about  his  tastes  and  his  recreations-,  I  already 
knew  that,  as  a  former  officer,  he  rides  horseback  whenever  he  can  spare 
the  time  before  putting  in  his  unfailingly  punctual  appearance  at  one  of 
his  offices.  He  told  me  also  that  he  loved  swimming.  Smilingly  we  ran 
over  these  two  forms  of  sport,  which  are  so  closely  associated  with 
politics. 

The  musician,  the  art  lover,  and  the  sportsman  combined  in  the 
Minister  of  Education  to  call  forth  the  activities  in  which  he  engaged  at 
a  moment  when  it  was  necessary  for  the  State  to  step  in  and  take  over 
the  services  formerly  rendered  by  the  now  destitute  Maecenases — 
services  without  which  a  nation's  artistic  level  would  inevitably  decline. 


igs6  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [229] 

It  is  not  by  chance  that  Schuschnigg's  name  is  so  closely  connected  with 
the  Venice  Biennale,  with  the  success  of  the  Salzburg  festivals,  and  with 
the  cultural  pacts  in  whose  promulgation  his  Government  has  taken  the 
initiative,  and  one  of  which  has  recently  been  concluded  between  Vienna 
and  Paris. 

IN  ORDER  to  summarize  Chancellor  Schuschnigg's  position  on  the  prin- 
cipal problems  which  his  Government  faces  today,  it  would  be  easy  to 
refer  to  his  addresses,  which  he  has  built  up  into  a  sort  of  permanent 
manual.  I  thought  it  preferable  to  get  an  up-to-date  summary  of  his 
activities  from  his  own  lips,  and  this  he  consented  to  give  me  through 
the  medium  of  an  unofficial  statement.  This  is  in  substance  what  the 
Chancellor  said: — 

*A  complete  reconstruction  of  the  Government  was  necessary  to 
bring  a  new  Austria  into  being.  The  "DoUfuss  course  of  action"  means, 
on  the  one  hand,  adherence  to  the  general  line  of  Austrian  independence; 
on  the  other,  the  creation  of  the  corporative  regime.  At  the  time  of 
Dollfuss's  assassination,  the  foundations  of  the  latter  had  already  been 
legally  fixed  by  the  constitution  of  1934.  From  then  on  it  was  merely  a 
matter  of  carrying  out  the  project  according  to  given  directions.  There 
was  never  any  question  of  copying  the  forms  of  government  of  any  other 
countries.  On  the  contrary,  we  are  convinced  that  every  state  ought  to 
shape  its  government  in  accordance  with  its  own  peculiar  historical, 
social  and  economic  conditions. 

'The  corporative  Christian  Government  which  is  now  being  set  up  in 
Austria  is  not  at  all  opposed  to  the  principles  of  true  democracy.  But  it  is 
necessary  to  know  just  what  the  word  means.  If  it  means  the  right  of  the 
people  to  help  govern  themselves  within  the  limits  of  their  professional 
or  social  interests,  or  the  perfect  equality  of  all  before  the  law,  then  the 
new  Austrian  constitution  is  an  excellent  example  of  democracy.  Only  it 
aims  to  help  these  principles  take  a  more  adequate  modern  form.  The 
elevation  of  the  masses  into  a  ruling  class  led  Austria  into  a  situation 
which  became  unbearable  as  soon  as  it  was  necessary  to  carry  on  the 
struggle  for  independence. 

*It  cannot  be  denied  that,  without  any  compulsion  on  our  part,  the 
last  three  years  rallied  all  the  forces  of  Austrian  national  consciousness 
to  the  defense  of  Austrian  independence.  This  rally  has  been  accom- 
plished by  the  Patriotic  Front,  which  has  replaced  the  old  political 
parties.  But  let  me  explain  here  how  the  political  development  of  Austria 
differs  from  that  of  the  other  countries  in  which  there  has  been  a  devia- 
tion from  the  principles  of  ultra-parliamentary  democracy.  In  Austria 
there  is  no  law  decreeing  the  identity  of  the  Patriotic  Front  with  the 
Government.  The  functions  of  the  head  of  the  government  and  those  of 


[230]  THE  LIVING  AGE  May 

the  chief  of  the  political  organization  may  coincide,  as  they  did  in  the 
case  of  Dollfuss,  but  this  is  not  required  by  law.  I  believe  it  to  be  a 
typical  characteristic  of  a  corporative  Christian  State  (which,  as  I  have 
already  said,  has  many  genuine  democratic  traits)  that  the  two  functions 
can  be  entrusted  to  different  hands — as  long  as  the  will  of  the  Austrian 
people  is  taken  into  consideration.  Thus  we  have  a  guarantee  against 
dictatorship  or  despotism. 

*It  goes  without  saying  that  all  the  professional  organizations,  and 
particularly  those  of  the  workers  and  employers,  have  found  their 
place  in  the  ranks  of  the  Patriotic  Front.  The  rumors  constantly  spread 
by  anti-Austrian  propagandists  of  supposed  dissension  in  the  ranks  of 
the  Austrian  patriots  are  fortunately  false.  The  last  three  years  have 
given  us  sufficient  proof  of  this.  The  responsible  leaders  of  the  party  do 
not  pay  much  attention  to  these  rumors.  They  know  what  they  want, 
and  they  have  already  advanced  by  methodical  stages  far  along  the  road 
of  reconstruction. 

'The  New  Austria  is  not  a  powerful  factor  in  international  politics. 
We  understand  that  perfectly.  But  we  do  believe  that  even  the  reduced 
Austria  of  today  still  remains  an  important  and  perhaps  indispensable 
ally  of  whoever  desires  to  work  for  the  peace  of  Europe  and  therefore 
for  the  progress  of  humanity  and  the  happiness  of  all  nations. 

*We  certainly  believe  that  the  dismemberment  of  the  former  great 
Danubian  economic  area  was  a  fatal  mistake.  The  men  who  wrote  the 
treaty  of  St.  Germain  should  rather  have  sought  ways  and  means  of 
giving  the  peoples  of  Central  Europe  the  economic  complements  of 
which  they  are  in  such  great  need.  Today  no  one  can  any  longer  speak  of 
a  political,  military  or  national  menace  from  the  Danubian  region.  In 
view  of  this  it  should  be  all  the  easier  to  obtain  cooperation  without 
arousing  any  resentment.  I  am  firmly  convinced  that  the  time  is  favor- 
able to  these  ideas,  and  I  am  happy  that  they  are  finding  an  ever- 
widening  reception. 

*The  v^lue  of  cultural  contacts — and  I  am  far  from  forgetting  those 
with  France — is  obvious  to  anyone  who  remembers  the  many  intellectual 
ties  which  have  always  bound  Vienna  to  the  rest  of  the  world.  The  pact 
which  we  have  already  signed  with  our  neighbors  of  Hungary  and  Italy 
has  contributed  greatly  to  the  mutual  understanding  of  the  three  na- 
tions. 

'The  stronger  are  the  spiritual,  artistic,  literary — ^in  a  word,  cultural 
— ties  uniting  our  capitals,  the  more  certain  will  we  be  that  a  universal 
idea  uniting  all  men  will  eventually  triumph  over  the  antagonisms  now 
dividing  the  nations.  One  does  not  need  to  believe  in  the  old  dream, 
beautiful  as  it  was,  of  the  possibility  of  eliminating  all  conflicting 
interests,  and  establishing  eternal  peace,  to  recognize  that  the  world's 


7pj(5  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [231] 

intellectual  community  must  have  at  least  some  permanent  centers, 
some  super-natural  markets  of  exchange  for  spiritual  commodities;  and 
that  is  why,  without  forgetting  the  importance  of  its  Germanic  past 
and  its  Germanic  characteristics,  it  is  in  eternal  Austria  that  I  believe.' 

Charles  Maurras  and  the  Action  Francaise 
By  D.  W.  Brogan 

From  the  Spectator,  London  Conservative  Weekly 

IHE  smashing-in  of  President  Loubet's  hat  at  a  race  meeting  was 
one  of  the  turning-points  of  the  great  Dreyfus  crisis;  and  the  attack  on 
Mr.  Leon  Blum  may  be  the  turning-point  in  the  attack  on  parliamentary 
democracy,  which  has  raged  in  France  since  the  winter  of  1933-4.  It  is, 
at  any  rate,  symbolically  fitting  that  the  attack  should  have  resulted  in 
the  suppression  of  the  Action  Frangaise  and  the  conviction  of  Mr. 
Charles  Maurras  on  a  charge  of  incitement  to  murder. 

M.  Maurras  is  now  seventy,  and  for  thirty  years  has  been  one  of  the 
most  potent  forces  in  moulding  the  mind  of  France.  A  whole  generation 
has  been  marked  by  his  thought,  positively  or  negatively.  The  future 
doctor  of  the  neo-royalist  school  is  not,  he  has  told  us,  strictly  a  '  blanc 
du  midi^  one  of  those  meridional  royalists  by  birth  and  family  tradition 
who  have  never  wavered  in  their  devotion  to  the  House  of  France.  His 
family  were  staunchly  Catholic,  and  were  taken  in  for  a  time  by  the 
Second  Empire  and  even  by  Mr.  Thiers  and  the  Third  Republic.  But 
their  son,  educated  at  Catholic  schools,  escaping  the  irreligious  atmos- 
phere of  the  State  lycees^  lost  his  beHef  in  the  faith  of  his  fathers  very 
early,  and  for  a  time  remained  in  poHtics,  as  in  theology,  an  agnostic. 
His  first  efforts  at  influencing  the  mind  of  his  time  were  literary;  he  was 
a  poet  and  a  critic  of  the  'hole  romane^  whose  literary  importance  does 
not  seem  today  to  be  of  the  first  order.  It  was  a  commission  from  his 
paper,  the  venerable  and  impotent  royalist  Gazette  de  France^  that  re- 
vealed to  Mr.  Maurras  his  mission.  He  was  sent  to  report  the  Olympic 
Games  of  1896  at  Athens.  His  passion  for  classical  antiquity  was  given 
new  force,  and  his  pride  as  a  Frenchman  was  humiliated,  by  his  discovery 
of  how  far  France  had  fallen  in  the  outside  world  from  her  natural  estate 
as  la  grande  nation. 

These  bitter  reflections  were  made  even  less  palatable  by  the  great 
agitation  in  favor  of  risking  the  military  safety  of  France  (from  the 
point  of  view  of  Mr.  Maurras)  to  right  a  supposed  injustice  done  to  a 
Jewish  officer.  Mr.  Maurras  did  not  admit,  then  or  since,  that  any  in- 
justice had  been  done;  but  even  if  Dreyfus  were  innocent,  his  liberty 
was  too  dearly  bought  at  the  expense  of  endangering  France.  Justice 


[232]  THE  LIVING  AGE  May 

was  a  vague  and  uncertain  word;  France  was  a  reality  more  beneficent 
and  more  tangible  than  any  other  presented  to  Frenchmen  by  this  dark 
universe.  With  these  doctrines  firmly  held  and  constantly  asserted,  Mr. 
Maurras  threw  himself  into  the  struggle,  and  the  obscure  poet  and  critic 
was  soon  known  as  the  most  formidable  of  the  assailants  of  the  Drey- 
fusards. 

He  was  acclaimed  by  the  young  and  ardent,  by  Henry  Vaugeois,  by 
Jacques  Bainville;  then,  in  1904,  by  the  French  Cobbett,  Leon  Daudet. 
The  review,  L Action  Frangaise,  founded  by  Vaugeois,  soon  became  the 
main  vehicle  of  Maurrasian  doctrine,  and,  to  the  amusement  of  many 
and  the  anger  of  some,  the  central  political  doctrine  taught  was  that  the 
only  salvation  of  France  lay  in  a  return  to  the  monarchy — and  that  not 
to  any  milk-and-water  imitation  of  English  constitutional  monarchy. 
The  King  would  reign  and  govern.  France  needed  a  government  'with 
a  punch,'  and  she  could  only  get  it  from  the  *heir  of  the  forty  kings  who 
in  a  thousand  years  made  France.' 

TO  A  generation  looking  on  the  Bourbons  as  being  as  remote  as  the 
Merovingians,  thinking  of  the  Pretender  (as  did  Swann)  chiefly  as  a 
social  leader  with  whom  it  was  chic  to  have  relations,  the  new  doctrine 
seemed  fantastic.  So  it  seems  to  most  Frenchmen  to  this  day,  but  Mr. 
Maurras  made  many  converts — great  figures  like  Jules  Lemaitre  and 
then  Paul  Bourget  and,  more  significant,  hundreds  of  young  men.  The 
review  became  a  daily  in  1908,  and  as  the  menace  of  a  great  war  became 
clearer,  the  Action  Frangaise  was  one  of  the  great  forces  behind  the 
nationalist  revival.  In  that  revival  many  collaborated,  but  all  of  the 
leaders  recognized  the  primacy  of  Mr.  Maurras.  That  power  of  command 
was  based  mainly  on  the  pen.  Both  friends  and  enemies  have  borne 
testimony  to  the  astonishing  dialectic  powers  which  M.  Maurras  can 
develop  in  conversation;  but  a  steadily  increasing  deafness  makes  it  im- 
possible for  him  to  talk  to  more  than  one  person  at  a  time,  and  this  de- 
stroys any  oratorical  ambitions  that  may  be  present,  and  forces  greater 
and  greater  reliance  on  writing. 

The  Royalist  leader  is  not  a  conspicuous  public  figure.  Most  of  his 
waking  hours  are  spent  in  writing  or  in  reading  in  preparation  for  the 
daily  leading  article.  In  summer  he  spends  a  holiday  in  his  house,  Le 
Chemin  de  Paradis,  near  Martigues,  and  that  Etang  de  Berre  whose 
glories  he  has  celebrated.  His  flat  is  guarded  by  *  Camelots  du  roi,'  who 
do  their  spell  of  duty  with  a  zeal  that  is  touching.  It  is  no  more  remark- 
able than  Mr.  Maurras's.  He  early  lost  faith  in  all  absolutes;  but  one 
relative  good  is  so  supreme  in  his  classification  of  categories  that  it  is, 
for  all  practical  purposes,  as  much  an  absolute  as  any  talked  about  by 
dangerous  German  or  imbecile  French  philosophers.  Only  within  a  secure 


/pj^  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [233] 

France  can  a  Frenchman  live  and  only  within  the  French  tradition  can 
he  live  well.  Outside  that  tradition  are  the  'four  confederated  states,' 
Free-Masons,  Protestants,  Jews,  *  metequesj  the  rulers  of  modern  France 
who  put  some  other  good — of  their  race,  of  their  religion,  of  their 
*  ideals ' — before  that  of  France. 

Mr.  Maurras  is  not  a  Catholic,  but  there  is  a  sense  in  which  he  can 
claim  to  be  a  Roman  Catholic,  with  the  emphasis  on  the  adjective.  The 
great  merit  of  the  Church  is  that  it  has  disciplined  the  dangerous  He- 
braic ideas  of  the  Bible  that  from  Luther  through  Rousseau  and  Kant 
have  come  to  plague  modern  Europe  and  modern  France.  Mr.  Maurras, 
from  the  moment  he  became  a  political  force,  has  tried  to  keep  his  own 
religious  views  in  the  background,  though  an  old  Catholic  collaborator 
now  estranged  from  him  (Mr.  Louis  Dimier)  tells  us  that  Mr^  Maurras 
once  declared  that  'your  religion  has  defiled  the  world.'  But  when  the 
choice  is  between  Rome  and  Geneva  or  Jerusalem  there  can  be  no 
hesitation.  It  is  important  to  remember  that  the  Reformation  is  a  live 
issue  in  Provence  and  that,  by  ancestry,  Mr.  Maurras  is  as  decidedly  on 
one  side  of  the  fence  as  Mr.  Andre  Gide  is  on  the  other.  In  a  revealing 
anecdote,  Mr.  Maurras  tells  us  how  he  denounced  Calvinism  to  a  rising 
young  politician  who  was,  like  himself,  sympathetic  to  decentralization 
and  the  renascence  of  the  Midi — to  discover  that  Mr.  Doumergue  (for 
it  was  he)  was  himself  one  of  the  hated  sect: — 

Heretics  all^  wherever  you  be. 

In  Tarbes  or  Ntmes  or  over  the  Sea, 
You  never  shall  have  a  good  word  from  me, 

Caritas  non  conturbat  me. 

It  does  not,  indeed,  and  even  the  tolerant  French  have  found  some  of 
the  attacks  in  the  Action  Frangaise  intolerably  brutal. 

The  paper  reached  its  height  of  influence  during  and  after  the  War; 
it  helped  to  overthrow  Messrs.  Caillaux  and  Malvy,  then  to  overthrow 
Mr.  Briand  and  bring  about  the  invasion  of  the  Ruhr.  Its  quarrel  with 
the  Church  came  to  a  head  in  1926,  and  it  is  rumored  that  it  was  not  the 
infidel  Mr.  Maurras,  but  the  bellicosely  Catholic  Mr.  Daudet  who  re- 
fused to  climb  down.  The  condemnation  cost  the  movement  dear  in 
money  and  prestige,  but  the  Stavisky  affair  and  the  rise  of  Hitlerism 
brought  it  new  power.  *We  told  you  so!'  was  not  an  ineffective  cry  in 
face  of  the  corruption  of  the  administration  by  a  meteque  and  the  ap- 
parent demonstration  of  the  folly  of  the  policy  of  concessions  to  Ger- 
many preached  by  Briand — and  endorsed  by  Pope  Pius  XI.  In  the  riots 
that  culminated  on  the  sixth  of  February,  the  Camelots  du  roi  were,  if 
not  the  most  numerous,  the  most  skilful  assailants  of  the  police. 

But  that  success  was  damaging  to  the  Action,  for  many  of  its  normal 


[234]  THE  LIVING  AGE  May 

supporters  went  over  to  the  more  powerful  Croix  de  Feu.  The  recovery 
of  the  Left  from  its  panic,  the  financial  troubles  of  the  organization,  the 
rage  provoked  by  the  survival  of  such  politicians  as  Mr.  Chautemps  and 
the  sorrow  caused  by  the  death  of  Mr.  Bainville  have  had  a  not  unnat- 
ural conclusion.  It  is  not  the  first  time  that  Mr.  Maurras  has  faced  such 
charges,  and,  odious  as  the  assault  was,  there  is  some  sympathy  for  the 
old  man  eloquent.  Even  his  enemies  have  to  admit  his  disinterestedness, 
for  talents  like  his  have  a  high  price  in  France,  but  they  have  never  been 
put  on  the  market.  They  have,  instead,  been  devoted  to  a  cause  not 
merely  lost,  but  antipathetic.  For  Mr.  Maurras  is  by  temperament  not 
an  ally  of  authority,  but  2ifrondeur,  the  natural  author  oi  mazarinades, 
and  the  clash  between  his  principles  and  his  temperament  has  only 
been  averted  by  the  hopelessness  of  his  cause. 

Mikhail  Nikolaievich  Tukhachevski 

By  Max  Werner 
Translated  from  the  Neue  Weltbiibney  Prague  German  Emigre  Weekly 

lUKHACHEVSKI  is  the  most  talked  of  army  leader  in  Europe 
these  days.  The  negotiations  which  he  conducted  m  London  and  Paris 
were  intended  to  build  up  the  miUtary  foundations  of  the  newly  rising 
Entente.  They  were  the  most  important  negotiations  of  this  kind  since 
1918. 

The  deep  interest  this  leader  of  the  Red  Army  has  aroused  in  the 
west  is  readily  understood.  Tukhachevski  has  done  much  for  the  modern- 
ization of  the  Red  Army.  He  was  commandant  of  the  western  (White 
Russian)  mihtary  district  of  the  Soviet  Union,  and  he  is  without  doubt 
more  familiar  with  the  regions  along  the  western  Soviet  border  than  any 
other  person.  Even  his  enemies  respect  him.  General  von  Cochenhausen, 
a  great  military  theorist  of  the  Third  Reich,  has  written  a  book  about  the 
history  of  the  military  arts  'from  Prince  Eugene  to  Tukhachevski;'  and 
the  Russian  emigre  Colonel  Zaitzev  calls  him  the  most  eminent  expert 
the  Red  Army  has. 

Tukhachevski  is  an  expert  soldier  and  a  party  man  as  well.  Of  noble 
birth,  he  was  an  officer  of  the  guards  in  the  famous  Semyonov  Regiment 
of  the  Tsarist  Army,  and  distinguished  himself  by  his  reckless  bravery 
during  the  World  War.  When  Sievers'  army  was  shattered,  Tukhachevski 
was  taken  prisoner  by  the  Germans.  He  attempted  to  escape  several 
times  and  was  taken  to  the  fortress  of  Ingolstadt,  where  the  most  unruly 
prisoners  were  confined.  The  French  journalist  de  Fervacque,  who  was  a 
fellow  prisoner,  tells  of  the  young  lieutenant's  audacity  and  defiance. 
News  of  the  Russian  Revolution  spread  abroad.  A  rare  case — the  lieu- 


/pjd  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [23s] 

tenant  of  the  guards  sympathized  with  the  revolutionary  Left  while  he 
was  still  a  prisoner!  His  fifth  attempt  to  escape  succeeded.  In  revolu- 
tionary Petrograd  Tukhachevski  soon  found  his  place  in  the  head- 
quarters of  the  Red  Army — and  not  merely  as  an  expert:  he  became  a 
Communist. 

In  the  Civil  War  he  forged  his  way  rapidly  to  the  front  ranks.  The 
first  large  troop  concentration  of  the  Red  Army,  the  First  Army,  was 
placed  under  his  command,  and  his  troops  won  the  Soviet  Army's  first 
significant  victory.  This  was  near  Simbirsk,  in  the  summer  of  191 8. 
Later,  in  the  fall  of  1 919,  as  commander  of  the  Fifth  Army,  he  defeated 
Kolchak  in  Siberia. 

Tukhachevski  was  now  anxious  to  transform  the  Red  Army  into  a 
regular  army  as  quickly  as  possible.  His  capacity  for  work,  his  tenacity, 
and  his  ingenuity  strategically  were  astonishing.  He  sought  to  compre- 
hend empirically  the  strategic  measures  of  the  Civil  War;  he  studied  the 
special  movements  of  the  troops  over  vast  distances;  he  learned  to  stake 
everything  on  one  card — and  win  in  doing  it.  Then  the  twenty-seven- 
year-old  general  developed  a  political  doctrine  of  warfare,  the  theory  of 
socialist  'external  class  war.' 

Came  the  Russo-Polish  War.  Why  did  Tukhachevski's  offensive  fail? 
In  his  book,  Tbe  Campaign  on  the  Vistula^  he  attempted  to  give  an 
answer:  the  failure  was  due  to  the  economic  exhaustion  of  Soviet  Russia 
and  the  strategic  errors  the  commanding  officers  committed.  In  his 
work,  ne  Tear  IQ20,  Pilsudski  attacked  this  view.  He  stated  that 
Tukhachevski  'was  indisputably  no  ordinary  commander,'  but  a  man 
with  'an  exaggerated  tendency  to  think  in  abstract  terms.'  Maybe  so; 
objectively  Pilsudski  was  doubtless  right  on  one  point:  Tukhachevski 
came  to  grief  over  the  gigantic  distances  in  eastern  Europe,  for  he  was 
not  able  to  master  them. 

THE  defeat  before  Warsaw  taught  the  Red  Army  the  very  lesson 
which  the  defeat  near  Narva  taught  the  army  of  Peter  the  Great. 
Tukhachevski  did  not  forget  his  failure.  It  was  then  that  he  became  a 
believer  in  the  small,  highly  trained  army,  and  an  opponent  of  the 
militia.  'The  militia  system  is  Communist  defeatism,'  he  wrote  in  Janu- 
ary, 1 92 1.  He  became  a  passionate  propagandist  for  technical  progress. 
Mastery  of  space — that  meant  motorization  and  air  forces.  Tukhachev- 
ski has  been  the  moving  spirit  of  the  Red  Army's  technical  reforms. 
Round  about  1930-31  the  Red  Army  developed  from  the  level  of  an 
eastern  army  to  the  standards  of  the  armies  of  western  Europe.  Later 
even  these  standards  were  surpassed. 

Fifteen  years  ago  Tukhachevski  dreamed  of  a  small,  highly  trained 
army.  Today  he  has  a  large,  highly  trained  army  instead.  The  strategic 


[236]  THE  LIVING  AGE 

weakness  which  was  evident  then  can  never  return.  The  strategic  im- 
petus received  then  has  been  given  a  powerful  technical  foundation. 

It  was  a  shrewd  move  to  have  the  young  Marshal,  who  possessed  all 
the  social  graces,  conduct  the  negotiations  in  London  and  Paris.  He  is  the 
man  who  is  regarded  as  the  actual  reformer  of  the  Red  Army.  In  Paris, 
Tukhachevski  spoke  with  Marshal  Petain,  with  Chief  of  Staff  Gamelin, 
with  the  Chiefs  of  the  Air  and  Navy  Staffs,  as  well  as  with  all  three 
Ministers  of  National  Defense.  This  contact  between  the  general  staffs 
was  over-due.  The  old  Russian  Military  Convention  of  1891  did  indeed 
provide  for  simultaneous  declarations  of  war,  but  a  common  plan  of 
campaign  was  not  then  projected.  The  additions  during  the  years 
1911-13  did  not  change  the  picture  much.  Without  a  doubt  the  Franco- 
Soviet  Pact  is  purely  defensive;  nevertheless  trusted  methods  of  cooper- 
ation must  be  prepared  in  case  of  a  hostile  attack.  The  organization  of  a 
common  defense  for  France  and  the  Soviet  Union  would  be  a  great 
achievement  for  Europe.  Today  the  young  Marshal  emerges  as  the  mili- 
tary organizer  of  a  powerful  European  defensive  coalition. 


Peccavi 

When  the  House  of  Lords  yesterday  considered  the  special  orders 
made  under  the  Government  of  India  Act,  which  set  up  an  interim 
Constitution  for  the  provinces  of  Orissa  and  Sind  pending  the  beginning 
of  the  new  Indian  Constitution,  Lord  Zetland,  Secretary  for  India,  who 
submitted  the  orders  for  approval,  killed  the  story  that  Sir  Charles 
Napier  announced  the  conquest  of  Sind  in  a  message  of  one  word  to  the 
Governor  General:  'Peccavi'  ('I  have  sinned'). 

*  It  is  a  good  story,*  said  Lord  Zetland,  *  and  it  will  be  found  in  more 
than  one  history  of  repute.  It  is  always  against  one's  inclinations  to  spoil 
a  good  story,  but  I  am  bound  to  say  in  the  interests  of  historical  accu- 
racy that  my  investigation  into  the  matter  seems  to  show  that  no 
foundation  for  the  story  exists.  I  have  been  told  by  men  of  an  older 
generation  that  it  is  very  unlikely  that  Sir  Charles  Napier  had  even  as 
much  knowledge  of  Latin  as  to  enable  him  to  send  a  dispatch  of  even  one 
word  in  that  language'.  Lord  Zetland  added  that  the  story  probably 
had  its  origin  in  a  paragraph  in  Punch  in  1845.  ^^  ^^Y  ^^^^  ^^  ^^^ 
not  been  able  to  track  it  back  any  farther. 

— From  the  Manchester  Guardian,  Manchester 


^^^r 


The  leader  of  a  pre-Nazi  German  youth;;;^:^-^' 
movement,  disillusioned   with   Hitler, 
calls  on  his  followers  to  resume   the 
struggle  which  the  Nazis  have  betrayed. 


An  Epistle  to 
f/ie  Discontented 


By  Kleo  Pleyer 


Translated  from  B/ut  und  Boden,  Hanover  Organ  of  the 
Biindiscbe  Movement 


[I'he  following  article  is  a  document  of 
prime  interest  because  it  throws  a  ray  of 
light  on  the  unrest  and  dissatisfaction 
which  are  known  to  exist  in  Hitler  Ger- 
many but  which  are  so  seldom  revealed 
to  outsiders  in  any  form  except  that  of 
the  international  crises  the  Nazis  pre- 
cipitate to  quiet  them.  It  was  written  by 
Kleo  Pleyer y  the  founder  and  leader  of 
the  semi-socialistic  and  nationalistic 
youth  movement  which  was  known  as  the 
Biindische  Bewegung.  Despite  the  fact 
that  Pleyer  was  himself  a  Nazi,  the 
Biindische  Bewegung  was  dissolved  in 
^933'  ^^^  ^^^  organ  Blut  und  Boden 
continued  to  be  published,  and  for  a  long 
time  it  appeared  to  be  in  general  accord 
with  Nazi  policies.  Tet,  like  many  an- 
other early  follower  of  Hitler,  Pleyer 
seems  to  have  been  disillusioned  at  last. 
I'he  publication  in  Blut  und  Boden  of 
the  article  we  have  translated  resulted  in 
the  instant  suppression  of  that  maga- 


zine. Readers  who  follow  its  wordy 
course  closely  will  observe  that  it  raises, 
among  others,  the  following  serious 
charges  against  the  Nazi  regime:  that  it 
has  bogged  down;  that  it  harbors  and  be- 
friends reactionary  influences;  that  it  is 
pursuing  an  anti-Russian  policy,  though 
Germany  has  not  a  single  quarrel  with 
her  eastern  neighbor;  that  it  has  de- 
livered Germany  into  the  hands  of  count- 
less prefects;  that  it  has  substituted  the 
totalitarian  state  for  the  folk  community 
it  promised;  that,  despite  its  pledges,  it 
has  not  broken  the  power  of  capital;  and 
that  it  has  developed  the  State  at  the 
expense  of  the  people.  It  was  probably 
an  accumulation  of  resentments  such 
as  these  which  forced  Hitler  to  reoccupy 
the  Rhineland. — ^The  Editors.] 

PRESENT-DAY   National    Social- 
ism   is    evolution    become    static, 
movement  become  state.  It  is  the  fate 


[238] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


of  every  victorious  movement  that 
having  reached  its  goal  it  not  only 
fulfills  but  also  spends  itself.  He  to 
whom  the  movement  and  its  form  are 
ends  in  themselves  may  regret  this. 
Those,  however,  who,  like  us,  have 
helped  in  the  National  Socialist  move- 
ment as  an  instrument  of  German  re- 
surgence will  ever  be  bent  upon  carry- 
ing on  with  renewed  energy  that 
resurgence  of  the  German  people.  The 
Latin  nations,  parliamentary-impe- 
rialist France  and  Fascist  Italy,  may 
reach  their  highest  achievements  by 
holding  to  the  state  they  have  created. 
We  Germans,  however,  are  a  people  of 
movement.  By  holding  to  a  definite 
state  of  being  we  weaken  and  dissipate 
ourselves.  Only  in  the  onward  surging 
movement  do  we  release  our  innermost 
potentialities,  do  we  reach  the  heights 
of  effectiveness.  For  us  it  is  not  the 
war  of  position  but  the  war  of  motion 
which  is  the  suitable  method  of  war- 
fare. This  is  true  of  the  entire  German 
struggle  for  existence. 

Progress  does  not  exclude — on  the 
contrary,  it  requires — the  consolida- 
tion and  extension  of  what  has  already 
been  achieved.  Such  extension  and 
fortification  has  been  the  task  of  Na- 
tional Socialism  since  it  took  over 
power.  We  are  minded  to  lend  a  vigor- 
ous hand  in  these  tasks;  indeed,  we 
are  doing  so,  especially  where  the  real 
National  Socialist  will  is  already  be- 
ing objectively  realized.  This  is  the 
case  in  the  whole  field  of  popular  edu- 
cation in  so  far  as  it  is  modeled  on  the 
biindische  example  of  character-,  mili- 
tary-, and  labor-training.  This  is  the 
case  also  with  those  beginnings  in 
rural  settlements  for  which  our  move- 
ment has  furnished  a  model.  This  is 
the  case,  further,  with  the  Pan-Ger- 
man   work    along    the    borders    and 


abroad,  work  which  we  have  built  up 
in  the  past  decade  and  which  now 
needs  merely  to  be  carried  on.  This  is 
true,  finally,  of  the  cultural  life  of 
youth,  to  which  we  have  given  such 
strong  impetus  and  direction  through 
our  folk-song  and  folk-dance  move- 
ment, through  our  celebrations  of 
holidays,  and  through  the  manifold 
artistic  work  of  the  fVandervogel 
(Friends  of  Nature),  as  well  as  of  the 
later  biindische  youth  movement. 


II 


It  is,  however,  precisely  at  those 
points  at  which  we  are  today  lending 
a  hand  that  we  feel  most  directly  the 
resistance  oflFered  by  the  powers  of 
the  'Restoration'  against  our  efl^orts 
for  the  reshaping  of  German  life.  In 
the  Labor  Service  our  comrades  have 
encountered  antiquated  institutions 
of  the  age  of  Kaiser  Wilhelm.  The 
great  settlement  projects  are  opposed 
by  a  superannuated  system  of  large 
landownership,  which  is  as  secure  in 
Germany  today  as  it  was  in  France 
during  the  Restoration.  This  system  is 
prepared  to  cede,  if  need  be,  a  piece  of 
land  of  inferior  quality — which  sounds 
very  well  in  print,  but  is  of  no  signifi- 
cance for  a  practical  settlement  pro- 
gram, which  must  be  carried  out  on 
the  best  available  soil.  In  the  Pan- 
German  work  along  the'  borders  we 
are  confronted  by  a  reawakening  of 
German  separatist  thought,  a  hold- 
over from  the  older  generation;  and  in 
our  work  abroad  we  are  facing  a  new 
westernization,  which  has  sprung 
partly  from  youth  groups.  A  hundred 
years  hence  the  historian  will  in  all 
probability  be  unable  to  understand 
why  old-line  diplomacy,  supported  by 
a  section  of  the  country's  young  men. 


193^ 


AN  EPISTLE  TO  THE  DISCONTENTED 


[239] 


should  have  sought  to  create  the  most 
intimate  relations  with  the  west  and 
south,  from  which  Germany  has  suf- 
fered so  much  humiliation,  while 
having  no,  or  at  best  very  poor,  rela- 
tions with  the  new  Russia,  with  which 
we  have  not  a  single  point  of  fric- 
tion. The  anti-westerners — how  com- 
plete their  silence  is  today!  Shake 
them  out  of  their  slumber,  whoever 
sees  them! 

The  danger  of  westernization,  how- 
ever, confronts  us  not  only  in  the  field 
of  foreign  relations  but  also  at  home. 
The  Napoleonic  and  Fascist  examples 
lead  to  a  confusion  of  the  Latin  pre- 
fect with  the  Germanic  Fiihrer  prin- 
ciple. Germany's  countless  Fiihrers 
are  only  in  part  actual  leaders  bound 
to  their  followers  by  ties  of  comrade- 
ship. For  the  most  part  they  are  pre- 
fects, mere  superiors  and  command- 
ers. 

German  life,  however,  will  in  the 
long  run  tolerate  only  that  form  of 
biXndische  organization  which  is  pe- 
culiar to  itself  and  consists  in  cooper- 
ation between  the  forces  of  collec- 
tivism and  leadership.  The  denial  of 
the  collective  will  to  autonomy  can 
only  be  a  temporary  measure  which 
serves  the  uniform  adjustment  of  so- 
cial forces,  but  which  must  be  re- 
scinded when  this  adjustment  has 
been  achieved.  It  is  only  from  this 
angle  that  we  can  understand  the  new 
Prussian  community  code.  The  totali- 
tarian state  is  the  deadly  enemy  of 
German  life — in  so  far  as  it  means 
a  Romish-central,  Caesarean-Papist 
state  without  autonomy. 

It  is  a  natural  law  of  political  science 
that  the  state  extends  its  dominion 
along  the  line  of  least  resistance.  This 
is  true  in  the  field  of  foreign  as  well  as 
of  domestic  aflfairs.  The  greatest  re- 


sistance against  the  expansion  of  do- 
mestic German  sovereignty  is  oflFered 
by  industry  and  the  Church;  to  be 
more  exact,  by  exploiting  interna- 
tional private  capital  in  Germany  and 
by  the  German  section  of  the  Roman- 
Catholic  International.  Until  these 
two  powers  have  been  vanquished  in- 
wardly and  outwardly,  there  can  be 
no  permanent  folk  community  and  no 
sovereign  state. 

Despite  all  Socialistic  professions, 
the  power  of  private  capital  has  not 
been  broken.  It  bedecks  itself  with 
Swastika  flags,  and  contributes  to  the 
Winterhilfe,  under  the  slogan  of  'So- 
cialism of  Action,*  a  few  hundred 
marks,  of  which  people  have  previ- 
ously been  mulcted  a  thousand  times 
over.  It  attempts  to  prove  that  unem- 
ployment can  be  abolished  within  the 
capitalist  system,  a  contention  which 
will  soon  prove  to  be  an  illusion.  We  of 
the  bundische  movement  are  not  a 
militia.  We  are  not  the  guardians  of 
capitalist  economy.  We  are  the  advo- 
cates of  the  new  society,  in  which  all 
economy  will  be  organized  collec- 
tively and  will  actually  be  under  the 
sovereignty  of  the  people  and  the 
Reich. 

Ill 

It  is  not  the  first  time  that  a  ma- 
jority has  thought  that  German  life 
was  secure  and  that  it  was  being  led 
toward  a  bright  future,  when  actually 
Germany  was  being  threatened  at 
home  and  abroad  and  facing  grave 
struggles.  It  was  thus  in  1871,  and 
again  in  the  era  of  Kaiser  Wilhelm. 
We  want  to  be  awake  and  armed,  to 
carry  on  at  a  thousand  places  in  the 
country  the  guerilla  war  against  the 
dangers  of  paralysis,  enslavement,  and 
romanization !  We  do  not  want  to  fal 


[24o]  THE  LIVING  AGE 

into  the  fatal  error  of  believing  that  the  people;  we  are  the  impetus  and 
the  whole  life  of  the  people  must  the  restlessness.  The  fVandervogely 
merge  with  the  State.  The  State  is  the  World  War,  the  National  So- 
static.  The  people  are  a  fellowship  in  cialist  movement,  the  new  State  are 
an  historical  mission;  they  are  dy-  but  stages  and  fronts  along  which  the 
namic,  the  flow  of  life,  motion.  We  bundische  advance  of  this  century 
want  not  only  the  State  but  the  surges  toward  the  goal:  the  collective 
Reich.  It  is  the  Reich  that  includes  society,  the  unity  of  the  people  in 
State  and  people,  rest  and  motion,  their  own  fate,  the  first  true  German 
We  of  the  bundische  movement  are  Reich. 

Life  on  the  Dole 
Sir: — Forced  to  exist  on  4s.  weekly  for  food  in  one  room  without 
fires  or  cooking  facilities  here  is  a  typical  week's  expenditure.  I  drink 
water  only. 

4  Tins  Salmon is.    od. 

a  Wholemeal  loaves 7^ 

3  Tins  Sardines 9 

4  Punnets  Mustard  and  Cress 8 

i^  lb.  Margarine 7^ 

\  lb.  Cheese 3^ 

3s.  iiH 
Can  any  reader  kindly  suggest  a  better  choice?  I  am  63. 
30  Union  Street,  Maidstone.  A.  E.  Minton 

Sir: — May  I  reply  to  your  correspondent's  letter  on  existing  on 
4s.  a  week,  as  I  have  to  do  about  the  same.^  I  do  not  find  two  loaves  of 
bread  enough  in  my  case,  and  I  should  say  a  little  milk  in  the  cold  water 
to  drink.  The  carrots  would  be  nicer  boiled  instead  of  eating  them  raw; 
but  of  course  to  boil  the  water  would  cost  too  much. 

3  Wholemeal  loaves is.    od. 

\  lb.  Margarine i\ 

\  lb.  Dripping 3 

I  lb.  Cheese 7 

I  lb.  Onions l^' 

I  lb.  Carrots i^ 

I  lb.  Broken  biscuits 4 

1  lb.  Dates 6 

I  tin  Evaporated  milk 5 

10  Oranges 5 

3s.  1 1  Id. 
7  Lilford  Road,  London,  S.E.  5.  W.  Leach 

— From  the  New  Statesman  and  Nation^  London 


An  Irish  author  writes  a  short  story 
about  an  elderly  spinster  who  *  had  her 
own  ideas  of  things  and  kept  to  them.* 


Miss  Manning's 
FIGHT 


By  NORAH  HOULT 

From  Life  and  Letters  Today ^ 
London  Literary  Quarterly 


w« 


HEN  John  Manning  died,  and 
Miss  Manning  heard  that  by  her 
brother's  will  she  had  been  left  in 
possession  of  the  house  in  Richmond 
Road,  together  with  an  income  of  one 
hundred  and  twenty-five  pounds  a 
year,  she  was  very  pleased.  She  was 
tired  of  living  with  relatives  who 
watched  her  movements,  who  didn't 
seem  to  like  her  going  out  alone,  who 
didn't,  indeed,  like  her  going  out 
much  at  all.  Of  course  she  didn't  pay 
any  more  heed  to  their  whims  than 
was  absolutely  necessary.  People, 
Miss  Manning  knew,  didn't  easily  get 
the  better  of  her.  All  the  same  it  would 
be  a  pleasant  change  to  be  her  own 
mistress. 

Her  relatives  were  also  pleased. 
They  were  pleased  in  spite  of  the  cir- 
cumstance that,  human  nature  being 
human  nature,  it  was  only  natural  to 
feel  that  number  ten  Richmond  Road 
was  rather  a  generous  gift  for  an 
elderly    spinster    who    was    a    little 


queer;  there  was  an  unconscious  feel- 
ing that  people  who  were  a  little  queer 
shouldn't  expect  to  be  treated  too 
well  by  the  world.  After  all  they  gave  a 
lot  of  trouble  to  other  people  owing  to 
their  oddity. 

Miss  Manning  had  certainly  given  a 
lot  of  trouble  to  her  relatives,  par- 
ticularly to  Mrs.  Beckett,  her  married 
niece,  with  whom  she  had  lived  for  the 
last  twelve  years.  If  it  hadn't  been  for 
the  money  paid  them  regularly  by 
Uncle  John  Manning,  then  they  really 
couldn't  have  put  up  with  her  queer- 
ness. 

Even  so,  often  and  often  Mrs. 
Beckett  had  said  that  it  wasn't  worth 
it.  It  wasn't  as  if  you  could  keep  her 
out  of  the  way,  for  she  just  wouldn't 
be  kept  out  of  the  way.  It  was  terrible 
when  they  had  visitors  in  for  bridge, 
and  she  would  draw  them  on  to  one 
side,  and  complain  that  in  spite  of  all 
the  money  the  Becketts  were  being 
paid  for  her  upkeep  by  her  brother. 


[242] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


who  had  promised  their  father,  the 
late  Colonel  Manning  of  the  Royal 
Irish  Artillery,  that  he  would  never  let 
his  sister  Sara  come  to  want — well,  for 
all  that  money,  she  couldn't  get  a  de- 
cent cup  of  coffee  after  her  lunch,  and 
though  they  loved  her  to  keep  to  her 
bedroom,  yet  they  wouldn't  give  her  a 
fire.  And  so  on  and  so  forth.  Or  she 
would  come  out  with  strange  remarks 
that  made  everyone  feel  uncomfort- 
able. 

It  wasn't  so  bad  with  their  real 
friends,  people  who  understood  the 
situation,  but  when  someone  new 
came  to  the  house,  perhaps  an  eligible 
young  man  who  might  be  interested 
in  their  daughter,  Deidre,  then,  as 
Mrs.  Beckett  said,  it  was  a  real  mis- 
fortune to  have  not  a  skeleton  in  the 
cupboard,  but  a  skeleton  who  would 
insist  on  coming  out  all  over  the  place. 
It  was  true,  she  always  added,  that 
Aunt  Sara  was  too  plump  to  resemble 
a  skeleton:  her  bones  were  well  cov- 
ered. And  why  wouldn't  they  be  with 
all  she  ate.^ 

Things  came  to  a  head  when  Miss 
Manning  said  one  evening  to  young 
Mr.  Peters,  whose  father  was  a  very 
well-to-do  solicitor: — 

*  So  you're  the  Mr.  Peters  they  were 
talking  about  that  they've  great  hopes 
for  catching  for  Deidre.  Deidre's  dying 
to  be  married,  so  she  is,  and  I  wouldn't 
say  a  word  against  her,  except  that 
she's  flighty,  and  little  good  to  cook 
you  a  meal,  and  does  be  running  after 
all  the  young  men,  ringing  them  up 
and  asking  them  to  take  her  out,  in- 
stead of  sitting  and  waiting  and 
minding  herself.  But  maybe  she'll 
settle  down  when  once  she  has  one 
hooked.  All  I'd  tell  you  as  a  friend  is 
that  you'd  be  wise  to  take  a  good  look 
at  her  first,  for  marriage  is  a  serious 


step,  too  serious  for  me  to  have  ever 
risked.  But  then  my  father,  the  late 
Colonel  Manning  of  the  Royal  Irish, 
always  said  I  was  an  irresponsible 
little  rascal,  the  way  I  couldn't  keep 
my  mind  on  the  one  thing  for  more 
than  a  few  seconds  like  other  people 
can  who  haven't  got  a  mind  that  does 
be  running  about  the  way  it  is  with 
me.' 

Deidre  had  got  hysterical  and 
yelled  the  place  down  when  some  of 
the  speech  came  to  her  ears,  and  Mrs. 
Beckett  had  put  on  her  hat,  and  gone 
out  to  Mr.  Beckett  in  Richmond 
Road,  and  said  very  firmly: — 

'Uncle  John,  you'll  just  have  to 
make  some  other  arrangement  for 
Aunt  Sara.  She's  ruining  the  lives  of 
the  three  of  us  with  her  spite  and  wil- 
fulness and  obstinacy.  Money  or  no 
money,  she's  not  worth  it.  She'd  be 
better  in  a  home  where'll  she'll  be 
looked  after,  and  where'll  they'll  be 
better  able  for  her  tricks.' 

Uncle  John  said:  *I  wouldn't  like  to 
see  her  put  away.' 

She  had  thought  when  he  said  it 
how  ill  he  looked.  For  a  few  moments 
he  had  meditated,  hardly  listening  to 
her  further  recital  of  grievances. 
Then  he'd  said,  'I'd  take  the  poor 
thing  here,  for  there's  no  real  harm  in 
her,  but  I  haven't  long,  and  I  want  to 
make  my  soul  in  peace.* 

She  remembered  thinking  that  a 
queer  thing  to  say,  as  if  he  were  going 
to  die.  Of  course  he  knew  all  the  time. 

In  the  end  he  had  offered  to  pay 
another  fifty  pounds  a  year  until  he 
could  think  out  some  other  arrange- 
ment. 

'Though  what  you'll  do  I  don't 
know.  Uncle,*  Mrs.  Beckett  had  said, 
'for  Aunt  Sara's  got  the  better  of 
every  relative  or  friend  that's  ever 


193^ 


MISS  MANNING'S  FIGHT 


[243] 


taken  her  in  and  tried  to  be  kind  to 
her.' 

Three  months,  and  Uncle  John  had 
died.  In  his  will  was  the  new  arrange- 
ment. His  house  to  Miss  Manning, 
and  just  enough  for  her  to  live  on  very 
quietly. 

'It  will  have  to  be  very  quietly. 
Aunt  Sara,  for  the  dear  knows  you'll 
have  to  have  a  maid,  a  superior  maid 
companion.' 

Aunt  Sara  said  with  firmness:  *I 
shall  engage  her  myself.  Naturally 
I  shall  need  someone.  My  father 
wouldn't  have  liked  to  think  of  me 
waiting  on  myself.' 

All  that  Mrs.  Beckett  contrived 
was  to  be  present  at  the  interviews 
with  the  girls  from  the  Agency.  She 
tried  to  urge  the  claims  of  a  sensible 
looking  middle-aged  woman,  but  Miss 
Manning  said  she  resembled  a  horse. 
In  the  end  they  compromised  over  a 
girl  from  the  country  named  Delia. 
Of  course  she  was  far  too  young,  but 
at  least  she  was  neat  and  seemed  re- 
spectful, and  had  good  references.  So 
with  a  private  hint  or  two,  and  a 
prayer  that  she  might  have  some  peace 
now,  Mrs.  Beckett  let  it  go. 


II 


At  first  Miss  Manning  had  rarely 
been  happier  in  her  life  than  she  now 
found  herself:  a  house  of  her  own  and 
a  maid  to  order  about.  Of  course  the 
neighborhood  had  gone  down  sadly 
since  she  had  lived  there  with  her 
father  and  mother.  They  had  nearly 
all  been  Protestants  in  Richmond 
Road  in  those  days,  but  now  the  old 
families  had  died  out,  or  gone  to  Eng- 
land, and  who  could  blame  them  with 
this  iniquitous  De  Valera  ruining  the 
country?  Not  that  De  Valera  would 


make  Miss  Manning  leave  the  coun- 
try: no,  she  thought,  with  a  deter- 
mined shake  of  her  head.  But  it  was 
sad  to  see  that  some  of  the  houses 
took  in  lodgers  or  let  flats.  It  wasn't  at 
all  the  same,  as  she  told  the  neighbors 
whom  she  invited  to  take  a  cup  of  tea 
with  her. 

But  the  neighbors  had  few  man- 
ners, for  they  didn't  ask  her  back 
again.  That  was  the  first  rift  in  the 
lute.  In  fact  they  seemed  to  avoid  her. 
There  was  a  doctor  and  his  wife  next 
door,  and  the  wife  seemed  a  nice  little 
thing,  but  after  the  first  time  Mrs. 
Clancy  said  she  was  too  busy  just 
now  to  come  again. 

On  the  other  side  was  a  wealthy 
bookmaker  and  his  sister.  Miss  Man- 
ning made  no  attempt  to  know  them, 
for  she  was  sure  the  late  Colonel 
would  not  have  approved  of  his 
daughter  associating  with  bookmak- 
ers. 

Farther  down  there  was  Mrs.  Fitz- 
gerald, a  widow,  who  kept  two  maids. 
But  though  they  had  a  few  words 
when  they  met  in  the  road,  Mrs. 
Fitzgerald  wasn't  actually  friendly. 
She  did  drop  in  one  afternoon,  but  she 
refused  to  have  any  refreshment  at  all. 

Mrs.  Fitzgerald  had,  indeed,  said  to 
Dr.  Clancy's  little  wife  when  they 
compared  notes  at  the  grocer's  one 
morning: — 

'My  dear,  I  couldn't  bring  myself 
to  touch  anything.  Why,  it  might  be 
poisoned.  The  poor  thing's  so  odd,  and 
says  such  odd  things.  And  her  brother 
such  a  nice  man,  too.' 

Meanwhile  Miss  Manning  won- 
dered if  Mrs.  Clancy  and  the  others 
were  insufficiently  impressed  by  her 
status  and  connections.  She  had  a 
great  notion  one  day;  it  was  on  a 
Tuesday  when  Delia  was  in  the  garden 


I 


[244] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


hanging  out  some  washing  to  dry. 
Miss  Manning  pushed  open  the  back 
room  window,  and  called  out  to  her: — 

'Delia,  come  in  at  once.  The  roast 
chicken  in  the  oven's  burning.  I  can 
smell  it  all  over  the  house.' 

She  slammed  the  window  down  and 
was  in  the  kitchen  when  Delia  en- 
tered. 

'What's  that  you  were  saying, 
Ma'am,  about  roast  chicken  ? ' 

'That  it  was  burning.* 

'  But,  sure,  there's  no  roast  chicken 
or  anything  like  it  in  the  oven.  It's 
only  the  cold  meat  we're  having  this 
day,  and  not  too  much  of  that  either.' 

'Never  mind,  Delia.  Our  means 
may  be  straitened  but  it  is  the  duty 
of  those  who  have  self-respect  to  keep 
up  appearances.  You  can  go  now,  but 
remember  to  come  whenever  I  call 
you,  and  whatever  I  say.* 

After  that,  whenever  she  saw  from 
her  bedroom  window  Mrs.  Clancy  or 
Mrs.  Fitzgerald  in  the  back  in  the 
morning,  she'd  shout  for  Delia  in 
front  of  an  open  window  and  tell  her 
to  mind  the  roast  chicken.  'That'll 
give  them  an  idea  of  the  way  I  live,* 
she  thought  with  delighted  pride. 

But  Delia  wouldn't  play  properly. 
She'd  come  in  slowly  or  descend  the 
stairs,  give  her  a  long  look,  and  then 
away  with  her  again. 

'You  might  open  the  oven  door  and 
then  give  it  a  good  slam,  Delia.' 

'  Why  would  I  when  there's  nothing 
at  all  there?* 

'Don't  give  me  back  answers,  girl. 
Do  what  you're  bid  and  you'll  never 
be  chid,  as  my  dear  mother  used  to 
say.' 

And  she'd  stand  till  Delia  did  it, 
too. 

When  it  got  near  Christmas  time, 
she  remembered  about  turkey,  and 


now  it  was  roast  turkey  that  was  al- 
ways in  danger  of  being  burnt.  'That'll 
show  them  that  there's  some  that 
needn't  wait  till  Christmas,'  she 
would  tell  herself,  wandering  happily 
from  room  to  room. 


Ill 


But  in  the  New  Year,  in  spite  of  all 
the  resolutions  to  improve  that  Miss 
Manning  told  her  she  ought  to  be 
making,  Delia's  behavior  went  from 
bad  to  worse.  Often  she  wouldn't 
answer  the  bell.  Then  Miss  Manning 
had  to  go  to  the  top  of  the  basement 
stairs,  and  call  out:  a  thing  that  would 
never  have  been  allowed  in  the  house 
under  her  late  father's  regime.  Of 
course  from  Delia's  point  of  view. 
Miss  Manning  rang  the  bell  very  often 
and  for  nothing  at  all  such  as: — 

'Delia,  you  couldn't  have  dusted 
the  clock  at  all  this  morning.  And 
after  me  telling  you  that  this  clock 
was  a  presentation  to  my  dear  father; 
so  that  as  a  consequence  it  pains  me  to 
the  core  of  my  heart  to  see  it  covered 
with  ashes  from  the  hearth  from  the 
time  you  cleaned  out  the  grate.  My 
dear  mother  used  to  write  "slut" 
with  her  finger  when  she  saw  anything 
as  thick  laid  with  dust  as  that  is.  I'm 
just  telling  you  .  .  .' 

Or  even  worse.  'Delia,  there's  the 
barrel  organ  down  the- street.  Take 
this  penny  out  to  him  and  ask  him  to 
do  Miss  Manning  of  number  ten  the 
favor  of  playing  "Love's  Sweet  Song" 
once  again.  It's  a  tune  I'm  partial  to.' 

Or,  'Delia,  there's  a  child  crying 
out  in  the  road.  Go  out  and  ask  him  or 
her  if  he's  lost,  and  what  his  name  is. 
If  he's  hungry,  give  him  a  piece  of 
bread  and  butter,  with  not  too  much 
butter  on  it  .  .  .' 


1936 


MISS  MANNING'S  FIGHT 


[245] 


Having  to  make  a  show  of  herself 
to  a  dirty  grinning  Italian,  or  to  pre- 
tend to  speak  to  some  slobbering  kid 
with  Mrs.  Clancy  or  Miss  Evans,  the 
bookie's  sister,  wondering  what  she 
was  doing  was  bad  enough.  But  worse 
came.  In  the  spring,  not  unnaturally, 
Delia  got  herself  a  young  man.  Her 
own  excitement  over  this  event  was 
nothing  compared  to  Miss  Manning's 
interest,  for  it  was  impossible  to  keep 
a  thing  from  her  peering  and  poking. 
Delia  had  two  evenings  off  a  week, 
but  she  was  supposed  to  be  in  by  ten. 
Sometimes  she  overstepped  this  bound- 
ary, and  then  there  was  a  lecture: — 

'  Delia,  listen  now  to  what  I'm  going 
to  tell  you.  Many  and  many  a  poor 
girl  has  come  to  rue  and  regret  the 
day  when  she  first  set  eyes  on  a  mem- 
ber of  the  opposite  sex,  and  let  herself 
become  a  victim  of  his  wiles  and 
blandishments.  Good  name,  reputa- 
tion, everything  she  should  hold  most 
dear  gone  as  it  were  in  a  puff  of  smoke. 
Once  gone,  Delia,  there's  no  getting  it 
back.  Now  don't  be  impatient,  Delia, 
and  fiddle  with  your  hands,  for  I  was 
watching  you  last  night  standing 
with  your  young  man — and  I  don't 
think  much  of  his  looks,  I  must  say,  I 
should  have  thought  you'd  have  done 
better  for  yourself — but  you  were 
there  standing  and  hstening  to  him, 
and  then  kissing  for  ten  minutes  and 
the  clock  tick,  tick,  tick  till  it  said 
twenty-five  past  ten.  I'm  telling  you, 
Delia,  for  my  dear  mother  held  her- 
self responsible  for  the  welfare  of  all 
under  her  roof,  and  in  those  days 
there  was  a  cook  and  two  housemaids 
to  watch  over  as  a  mother  watches 
over  her  children,  or  a  hen  over  her 
chickens,  and  that's  the  way  I'm 
watching  over  you,  Delia  .  .  .' 

And  so  on,  and  so  on.  Now  Delia,  as 


it  should  be  apparent,  was  a  very  pa- 
tient girl.  She  was  far  more  patient 
than  most  girls  of  her  years,  for  she 
had  taken  a  sort  of  liking  for  Miss 
Manning  and  even  sometimes  de- 
fended her  to  her  friends,  who  won- 
dered how  she  could  possibly  stay 
with  her.  But  this  watchfulness  was 
more  than  flesh  and  blood  could  stand. 
She  went  back  and  reported  to  the 
agency;  she  easily  secured  another 
place,  and  then  she  broke  the  news  to 
Miss  Manning.  It  was  received  with 
magnificent  composure. 

'Go,  you  ingrate,  or  ungrateful 
girl.  Roast  chicken  for  dinner  most 
days,'  for  to  Miss  Manning  the  line 
between  the  real  and  the  imaginary 
was  not  very  distinct.  'The  best  of 
everything  and  nothing  begrudged. 
You  will  live  to  repent  this  day  in 
sackcloth  and  ashes.  I  say  no  more.' 

Miss  Manning  was  indeed  some- 
what surprised  that  Delia  had  stood 
the  course  so  well.  She  couldn't  imag- 
ine the  average  maid  at  Mrs.  Beckett's 
doing  so,  and  if  it  were  not  that  she 
was  getting  a  little  tired  of  her  face 
and  the  monotony  of  life,  she  would 
have  been  upset. 

IV 

Being  a  girl  with  a  sense  of  responsi- 
bility, Delia  wrote  to  Mrs.  Beckett, 
and  Mrs.  Beckett  arrived  with  promp- 
titude. Delia  let  her  in,  and  since  Miss 
Manning  was  up  in  her  bedroom 
changing  the  ornaments  from  one  old- 
fashioned  winter  hat  to  an  even  more 
old-fashioned  spring  one,  she  and 
Delia  held  some  conversation  before 
seeing  Miss  Manning. 

The  mistress  of  the  house,  on  being 
informed,  swept  in  to  her  niece  in  a 
gracious  mood.  'How  do  you  do.^* 
Such  nice  weather  for  the  season,  is  it 


[246] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


not?*  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  rain- 
ing, but  Miss  Manning  had  been  too 
interested  in  hats  that  morning  to 
look  outside  her  bedroom. 

'  I  understand  Delia's  leaving.  Now 
what  are  you  going  to  do?* 

'Oh,  I  shall  do  well  enough.  That 
girl's  behavior  was  getting  ultra- 
modern. I  have  no  complaint,  but  she 
was  becoming  what  is  now  known  as 
ultra-modern.* 

'There's  no  good  discussing  that. 
It's  a  marvel  to  me  she  stopped  so 
long.  Well,  I  suppose  I  shall  have  to 
try  and  find  someone  else.  Someone 
older,  who  for  the  sake  of  a  home  will 
put  up  with  things  .  .  .* 

*  I  beg  you  will  take  no  steps  what- 
soever. It  eats  up  too  much  of  my 
small  income.  Delia  eats  a  lot.  She  has 
an  egg  or  else  a  rasher  every  morning, 
besides  meat,  roast  chicken  and  so 
forth.  I  don't  know  what  the  maids 
are  coming  to.* 

'You  have  to  feed  a  maid,  you 
know.  Aunt,  and  Delia  was  very  rea- 
sonable.* 

'Maybe,  but  I  have  finished  with 
the  servant  class.  I  can  mind  myself 
well  enough.  Now  let  us  change  the 
subject.  How  is  poor  Deidre?  Has  she 
yet  received  a  proposal  of  marriage?' 

*  Talk  sensibly.  Aunt  Sara.  How  can 
you  manage  for  yourself?  You  that 
would  never  do  a  hand's  turn,  that 
would  hardly  even  make  a  cup  of  tea 
for  yourself?* 

"rhat*s  true.  Because  there  was  no 
necessity.  Now  I'm  going  to  move 
with  the  times.  Say  no  more:  my 
mind's  completely  arranged.' 

And  though,  for  a  full  half  hour  Mrs. 
Beckett  did  her  best.  Miss  Manning 
would  not  be  persuaded.  So  she  de- 
cided to  leave  her  to  it,  thinking  it's 
nearly   summer   time,   and   she   can 


manage  soon  without  much  fire,  but 
she'll  have  her  lesson.  It  won't  hurt 
her  to  find  out  what  work  really 
is. 

But  Miss  Manning  was  nothing  if 
not  ingenious  in  avoiding  the  finding 
out  of  what  work  was. 

At  the  back  of  her  head  she  had  al- 
ways thought  that  most  housework 
was  unnecessary,  and  could  be  elimi- 
nated. Chiefly  it  could  be  eliminated 
by  ignoring  it.  One  needn't  sweep  or 
dust;  the  bed  could  be  made  by  draw- 
ing up  the  disarranged  clothes  (though 
as  a  matter  of  fact  Miss  Manning 
usually  spent  several  hours  over  its 
making,  returning  at  intervals  to  pro- 
ceed slowly  from  sheet  to  blanket,  and 
from  blanket  to  blanket),  and  as  for 
the  fire  it  could  be  kept  going  almost 
continually. 

Work  that  could  not  really  be 
evaded  was  'washing  up.*  However 
careful  one  was,  still  the  pile  grew: 
frying  pans  and  saucepans  became 
burnt,  greasy  and  generally  unpleas- 
ing.  She  used  every  available  utensil  in 
the  effort  to  avoid  touching  the  un- 
pleasant accumulation,  but  in  the  end 
she  exhausted  the  resources  of  the 
house.  And  still  one  had  to  eat. 

But  Miss  Manning  was  not  a  sol- 
dier's daughter  for  nothing.  In  this 
predicament  she  remembered  Messrs. 
Boolcourth's,  which  dispensed  sauce- 
pans and  crockery  on  very  moderate 
terms.  She  reminded  herself  that  she 
was  saving  Deha's  keep.  So  twice  a 
week  Miss  Manning  got  in  the  tram 
and  went  up  to  the  city,  to  Grafton 
Street,  emerging  from  Boolcourth's 
with  an  unwieldy  array  of  parcels,  but 
flushed  and  happy.  The  shop  assist- 
ants came  to  know  her  and  decided 
she  had  a  curious  taste  in  collecting 
hobbies,  for  no  breakages  or  burns 


193^ 


MISS  MANNING'S  FIGHT 


[247I 


could  account  for  all  the  purchases 
Miss  Manning  made. 

There  was  never  such  a  collection  of 
soiled  crockery  and  burnt  and  milk- 
bespattered  saucepans  as  found  their 
way  into  a  big  straw  clothes  basket  in 
the  expectation  that  one  day  some 
member  of  the  charing  class  could  be 
called  in  to  wash  up. 

Another  ingenious  plan  which  Miss 
Manning  found  useful  to  circumvent 
the  inroads  of  wear  and  tear,  the  dis- 
order of  dirt  and  dust,  was  to  move 
from  one  room  to  another.  One  week 
she  camped  in  the  kitchen,  next  she 
retired  from  the  scene  of  confusion — 
old  newspapers,  odds  and  scraps  from 
her  sewing  and  cutting  out,  soiled 
milk  bottles,  handkerchiefs,  stained 
table  cloth,  brown  paper  bags,  empty 
tins,  all  the  things  which  Miss  Man- 
ning could  not  bring  herself  to  throw 
away — and  started  life  afresh  and 
comparatively  unencumbered  in  the 
drawing  room.  From  here  she  moved 
to  the  room  used  by  her  late  brother 
as  a  study,  from  there  to  the  front 
spare  bedroom,  through  whose  win- 
dows she  could  command  a  great  view 
of  the  street.  She  was  sipping  bread 
and  milk  and  sugar  happily  in  the 
large  old-fashioned  bathroom,  now 
furnished  with  a  cane  chair  and  one 
of  those  small  tables  with  which  hap- 
pily the  house  in  Richmond  Road  was 
well  equipped,  when  Mrs.  Beckett  ar- 
rived on  the  scene. 


Mrs.  Beckett's  conscience  would 
hardly  have  allowed  her  to  stop  so 
long  away  had  it  not  been  that  she  and 
her  family  had  taken  their  summer 
holiday  early,  spending  it  as  far  away 
as  Bournemouth  in  the  South  of  Eng- 


land; from  this  pleasant  resort  she  had 
sent  her  aunt  a  colored  postcard  once 
every  week,  on  which  she  had  scrib- 
bled pleasant  and  encouraging  mes- 
sages. Miss  Manning  had  torn  these 
postcards  up  into  the  smallest  possible 
pieces,  and  then  disposed  them  in  the 
dust-bin  with  some  rite  of  formality. 

It  would  be  better  to  draw  a  veil 
over  the  pain  Mrs.  Beckett  experi- 
enced as,  passing  from  room  to  room, 
she  viewed  the  scenes  of  disorder  and 
destruction.  No  battle  field  strewn 
with  corpses  and  the  signs  of  fearful 
carnage  could  have  caused  her  more 
agony.  The  last  straw  was  the  dis- 
covery of  the  clothes  basket,  whose 
contents  had  now  overspread  their 
boundaries  and  lay  sprawled  in  all 
their  naked  shame  round  and  about. 

When  Mrs.  Beckett  returned  to  the 
bathroom,  she  said,  trying  to  keep  her 
voice  steady: — 

'You  might  at  least  have  washed 
up.  Aunt  Sara.' 

'It  will  all  be  seen  to,  but  I've  been 
very  busy.' 

'Busy!  But  you've  done  nothing. 
Nothing!!!'  Mrs.  Beckett  wrung  her 
hands  when  she  uttered  the  last  word. 

Miss  Manning  considered  it  as  well 
to  keep  silent.  She  knew  herself  that 
her  time  had  been  well  and  truly  oc- 
cupied. There  was  her  morning  walk 
in  the  park;  there  were  her  twice 
weekly  trips  to  Grafton  Street,  where 
she  would  also  take  a  cup  of  coffee  or 
tea.  In  fine  weather  there  were  the 
hours  spent  on  her  front  porch,  bowing 
with  affability  to  Mrs.  Clancy  or  any 
other  person  who  passed,  and  whose 
face  looked  pleasing  to  her.  Or  sitting 
in  her  back  garden  where  scraps  of 
conversation  often  came  to  her  ears, 
to  be  fitted  into  stranger  stories  than 
would  have  been  believed  by  the  mat- 


[248] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


ter-of-fact  speakers.  There  was  the 
collection  of  interesting  and  odd  cut- 
tings from  the  Irish  Times  to  be  kept 
up  to  date,  pasted  into  a  book,  and 
commented  upon.  There  were  her 
Saturday  and  Wednesday  conversa- 
tions with  the  organ  grinder,  who 
would  commiserate  with  her  upon  the 
passing  of  the  good  old  days  when  the 
gentry  used  to  think  nothing  of  giving 
him  sixpences  and  shillings.  There  was 
the  task  of  counting  the  hairs  of  her 
head,  which  proceeded  very  slowly, 
owing  to  the  difficulty  of  remembering 
where  she  had  left  off.  Also  she  read 
occasionally,  but  not  often,  for  her 
own  imagination  was  too  distracting 
for  her  to  possess  much  patience  for 
the  figments  of  other  people. 

'Someone  will  have  to  clean  up,' 
said  Mrs.  Beckett,  voicing  the  obvious 
drearily.  Then  in  a  stronger  voice, 
*And  someone  will  have  to  stay  with 
you.* 

This  time  she  won  the  battle.  Per- 
haps it  could  hardly  be  called  a  battle, 
for  in  that  case  the  odds  would  have 
been  against  her  winning.  Indeed 
Miss  Manning  herself  saw  that  some- 
thing should  be  done.  She  was  almost 
in  the  position  of  having  nowhere  to 
lay  her  head.  Also  she  was  conscious 
that  in  due  time  the  cold  weather 
would  arrive.  Fires  would  have  to  be 
lit;  she  did  not  see  herself  toiling  with 
the  old-fashioned  kitchen  range. 


VI 


While  a  pale,  resigned-looking,  mid- 
dle-aged woman,  installed  after  long 
search  by  Mrs.  Beckett,  labored  from 
morning  to  evening  to  bring  order  out 
of  chaos.  Miss  Manning  decided  she 
had  better  commit  herself  to  the  safe 
and   aloof  harbor  of  her  bed.   Like 


Tennyson's  Lotus  Eaters,  she  lay  re- 
clined, listening  to  the  music  of  *a 
doleful  song  steaming  up,  a  lamenta- 
tion and  an  ancient  tale  of  wrong* 
manifested  in  the  thud  thud  of  broom 
and  the  clash  of  crockery  from  down- 
stairs. 

But  in  this  world  Lotus  Eaters  are 
accorded  but  scant  patience.  When 
the  handmaiden,  Mrs.  Cox,  had  com- 
pleted her  Herculean  labor,  when  the 
daily  round  started  afresh,  she  made 
complaint  to  Mrs.  Beckett  that  Miss 
Manning  would  not  get  up. 

'But  she  keeps  ringing  and  ringing 
and  ringing  her  bell.  And  what  with 
carrying  up  her  meals,  and  answering 
her,  and  bringing  the  trays  down- 
stairs again,  I'm  worn  out.  If  she  was 
sick  it  would  be  another  matter,  but 
glory  be  to  God  I  wish  I  could  feel 
half  as  well  and  half  as  strong  as  her- 
self.' 

Expostulated  with.  Miss  Manning 
agreed  that  she  would  rise  and  survey 
the  downstairs  world.  But,  for  all 
that,  it  was  not  long  before  Mrs.  Cox 
came  to  Mrs.  Beckett  a  second  time, 
on  this  occasion  handing  in  her  no- 
tice. 

'You  prepared  me  for  her  being  a 
trifle  queer  like,  and  for  me  to  take 
no  notice,  but  just  go  on  with  my 
work.  And  so  I  would  for  I  do  be  sorry 
for  people  that  are  soft  in  their  heads 
having  had  other  experience  of  that 
same  as  you  know. 

'But  a  lady  that  stays  in  bed  all 
day  to  descend  at  odd  whiles  to  tell 
me  that  I'm  not  doing  my  work,  or  in- 
sisting on  having  a  fire  lit  in  the  draw- 
ing-room at  ten  o'clock  at  night,  or 
urging  me  to  take  something  called 
Harlene  for  my  hair.  .  .  .  "You  are  in 
bad  need  of  a  tonic,  and  you  should 
do  something  for  your  feet,  corns,  or 


1936 


MISS  MANNING'S  FIGHT 


[249] 


whatever  it  is  that  makes  you  tread  so 
heavy,"  says  she  to  me  standing  there 
quiet  like,  and  other  pieces  of  im- 
pertinence that  Fd  not  like  to  be  re- 
peating, but  more  than  self-respecting 
flesh  and  blood  can  stand.  She's  one 
that  you  never  know  what  she'll  be 
doing  or  where  she'll  be,  and  I'd  have 
heart  failure  maybe  and  drop  down 
dead  if  I  stayed  longer  than  this  day 
week.' 

Mrs.  Beckett  sighed.  It  was  obvious 
that  Something  Must  Be  Done.  She 
went  down  on  her  knees  almost  to 
Mrs.  Cox  to  stay  a  few  days  longer; 
she  interviewed  various  people;  she 
wrote  various  letters.  Then  with  quak- 
ing heart  she  came  to  Miss  Manning 
and  suggested  to  her  that  since  her 
health  wasn't  good,  wouldn't  she  be 
better  in  a  nice  sort  of  convalescent 
home  where  she  would  be  waited  on 
hand  and  foot,  where  she'd  be  given 
the  best  of  everything,  where  there'd 
be  plenty  of  congenial  company  for 
her.?  In  ecstatic  terms  she  told  of  such 
a  place,  outside  Dublin,  sea  and 
mountain  air,  the  grandest  surround- 
ings ... 

Miss  Manning  listened.  She  said, 
'What  will  happen  to  my  house.?' 

*We  think  if  it  were  sold  it  would 
bring  in  about  fifteen  hundred  pounds. 
Say  another  five  hundred  nearly  for 
the  furniture.  That  would  be  nearly 
two  thousand  to  buy  a  small  annuity 
— to  make  you  more  comfortable.' 

Miss  Manning  plunged  into  deep 


thought  while  Mrs.  Beckett  almost 
held  her  breath.  She  investigated  her 
spirit,  and  found  that  it  was  in  un- 
conquerable order.  She  was  well  able, 
as  the  Irish  expression  has  it.  She  was 
well  able  for  further  worlds  to  con- 
quer. She  said,  'Well,  I  was  always 
one  for  a  change.  So  I'll  go  and  see 
this  place  you  speak  of  so  highly.' 

Miss  Manning  came  and  saw  and 
conquered.  She  knew  that  she  would 
conquer  as  soon  as  she  saw  the  matron, 
a  quiet,  gently-spoken  woman  with 
the  worried  preoccupied  expression  of 
those  who  have  to  do  rather  more  and 
rather  different  work  than  they  were 
intended  for  by  nature.  Miss  Manning 
said  to  her  graciously: — 

'  I  shall  be  able  to  help  you  to  look 
after  the  other  patients,  since  I  have 
natural  gifts  for  organization.' 

'That  will  be  very  nice,'  said  the 
matron,  for  she  knew  that  those  who 
were — well,  not  quite,  had  to  be  hu- 
mored, that  is  to  say  if  they  were  pay- 
ing patients. 

But  the  stern  set  of  Miss  Manning's 
erect  back  as  she  sat  in  the  car  on  her 
homeward  journey  caused  her  to 
think  with  misgiving:  'I  doubt  but 
that  that  one  will  be  a  difficult  hand- 
ful.' 

In  which  premonition  she  was  cor- 
rect. For  of  herself  what  Miss  Man- 
ning said  was  true,  'I've  always  been 
well  able  for  anybody  and  everybody, 
and  why  wouldn't  I  have  my  own 
ideas  of  things  and  keep  to  them  ? ' 


The  Economist  analyzes  one  of  England's 
largest   and   busiest   industries    today. 


Britain's 
Betting  Business 


From  the  Economist 
London  Financial  Weekly 


OINCE  Mr.  R.  J.  Russell  M.P. 
secured  a  place,  in  February's  House 
of  Commons  ballot  for  Private  Mem- 
bers* Bills,  for  a  measure  dealing  with 
off-the-course  betting  and  football 
pools,  widespread  public  attention  has 
been  drawn  to  the  commercial  organ- 
ization and  social  implications  of  one 
of  the  oldest  and  most  widespread  of 
British  'industries.'  A  representative 
deputation  laid  its  views  before  the 
Home  Secretary  early  in  the  month, 
and  a  fortnight  later  it  was  announced 
that  the  Football  League  had  decided 
completely  to  revise  its  fixtures  and  to 
postpone  the  announcement  of  each 
Saturday's  program  until  approxi- 
mately thirty-six  hours  before  club 
matches  were  due  to  start,  in  order  to 
curb  the  activities  of  the  'Pool' 
promoters.  The  reasons  for  this  deci- 
sion and  the  precise  means  by  which 
it  will  be  enforced  are  not  clear  as  we 
write.  What  is  clear,  however,  is  that 
the  betting  question,  which  is  never 
out  of  the  news  for  long,  has  come 
once  again  into  the  limelight — and  in 


a  form  that  reveals  amazingly  wide- 
spread ramifications.  What  are  the 
dimensions  of  this  great  new  industry? 

From  the  middle  to  the  end  of  the 
nineteenth  century  betting  was  con- 
cerned almost  entirely  with  horse 
racing.  The  growth  of  the  street  book- 
maker and  the  popularization  of 
betting  among  the  working  classes  are 
the  outstanding  features  of  this  period. 
By  the  beginning  of  the  present 
century  betting  on  football  began  to 
make  its  appearance;  but  it  is  only 
since  the  War,  with  the  introduction 
of  greyhound  racing  and  of  the 
*  totalizator,'  or  pari-mutuel  principle 
of  betting,  that  gambling  by  the 
masses  has  reached  its  present  volume. 
Today  betting  on  horse  racing  prob- 
ably still  represents  the  greater  pro- 
portion of  the  total  turnover,  though 
its  proportionate  importance  has  lately 
been  declining. 

Thirteen  years  ago  representatives 
of  bookmakers'  organizations  esti- 
mated the  volume  of  '  course '  betting 
on  horse  racing  at  approximately  £25 


BRITAIN'S  BETTING  BUSINESS 


[25: 


millions  per  annum,  and  'office  credit' 
betting  at  starting  prices  was  then 
estimated  at  £64  millions  per  annum. 
That  these  figures  were  under-esti- 
mates  was  shown  by  the  finding  of 
the  Royal  Commission  of  1932  that 
between  November,  1927,  and  Octo- 
ber, 1928,  when  the  betting  tax  (aban- 
doned in  1929)  was  in  force,  duty  was 
paid  on  a  turnover  of  £45  millions  of 
'course'  betting.  Actually,  in  1927-28 
and  1928-29,  tax  was  paid  on  an 
annual  turnover  of  about  £90  millions, 
fairly  equally  divided  between  *  course ' 
and  'office'  betting;  but  it  is  believed 
that  as  much  as  50  per  cent  of  the  total 
turnover  succeeded  in  evading  tax.  A 
House  of  Commons  Select  Committee 
in  1923  estimated  the  bookmakers' 
legal  turnover  at  not  less  than  £200 
millions,  and  the  Racecourse  Betting 
Control  Board  in  1929  put  the  total  at 
£230  millions;  and  these  figures  were 
probably  not  very  wide  of  the  mark. 
It  is  unlikely  that  legal  betting  on 
horse  racing  has  subsequently  in- 
creased, but  'ready  money'  betting, 
in  amounts  of  a  few  pence  to  half-a- 
crown,  has  grown  in  popularity.  On  a 
conservative  basis  the  total  current 
turnover  of  betting  on  horse  racing 
may  be  put  at  £250  to  £300  millions 
a  year. 

The  volume  of  betting  on  grey- 
hound racing  is  more  difficult  to 
compute.  It  was  stated  before  the 
Royal  Commission  in  1932  that  the 
gross  annual  turnover  of  the  totaliza- 
tors on  the  fifty  tracks  affiliated  to  the 
National  Greyhound  Racing  Associa- 
tion was  approximately  £8  millions. 
The  total  number  of  tracks  in  opera- 
tion is  now  probably  between  250  and 
300.  There  is  no  central  control 
of  totalizators  on  greyhound  racing 
courses,  and  no  particulars  of  their 


turnover  have  yet  been  made  public. 
It  is  believed  that  the  proportion  of 
betting  handled  by  the  totalizator 
is  higher  than  in  the  case  of  horse 
racing,  and  that  the  existence  of 
totalizator  facilities  on  greyhound 
tracks  has  attracted  many  customers 
who  formerly  did  not  bet  at  all. 
Totalizator  betting  on  the  National 
Greyhound  Racing  Association's  50 
tracks  in  1932  probably  represented 
about  half  the  total  betting  on  these 
tracks.  Subsequently,  racing  on  li- 
censed tracks  has  been  restricted  to 
104  days  in  the  year.  All  things 
considered,  we  may  very  tentatively 
put  the  total  turnover  on  greyhound 
racing,  including  the  turnover  of 
bookmakers,  at  not  less  than  £50 
millions  per  annum. 

Much  the  most  striking  develop- 
ment in  recent  years  has  been  the 
growth  of  football  betting.  In  1934  an 
Act  was  passed  making  illegal  the 
conduct  through  a  newspaper  of  any 
competition  in  which  prizes  were 
offered  for  'forecasts'  of  future  events 
or  past  events  whose  outcome  had 
not  been  disclosed,  or,  generally,  for 
any  judgment  not  requiring  a  substan- 
tial exercise  of  skill.  This  Act  con- 
firmed the  decision  reached  in  the 
Sheffield  Telegraph  case  of  1928,  when 
newspaper  football  competitions  were 
declared  illegal  under  the  Ready 
Money  Football  Betting  Act  of  1920. 
The  promoters  of  football  '  pools '  and 
the  bookmakers  have  proceeded  to 
occupy  the  ground  thus  compulsorily 
evacuated. 

II 

The  '  national '  pool  promoters  have 
their  headquarters  mainly  in  Liver- 
pool and  Edinburgh.  In  some  cases 
they  employ  a  weekend  clerical  staff 


I 


[252] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


of  1,500  to  2,000  in  large  and  expen- 
sive offices,  for  coupon-checking  pur- 
poses. The  rise  in  'pool'  betting  has 
been  meteoric;  'dividends'  of  thou- 
sands of  pounds  for  a  penny,  pro- 
claimed by  all  the  resources  of  modern 
publicity,  including  wireless  programs 
from  the  Continent,  have  had  an 
irresistible  appeal  to  many  persons 
who  have  never  seen  a  bookmaker  in 
their  lives.  Although  the  pools,  legally, 
are  credit  betting  agencies,  and  allow 
no  money  to  be  posted  until  matches 
have  been  played,  their  operations  are 
indistinguishable,  in  practice,  from 
ready  money  betting.  Most  promoters 
insist  on  remittance  of  stakes,  'win  or 
lose,'  give  very  low  credit  limits,  and 
take  no  bets  until  the  previous  week's 
engagements  have  been  settled. 

In  1934  the  Football  Pools  Pro- 
moters' Association  declared  officially 
that  their  yearly  turnover  was  £8 
millions.  Today,  the  largest  firms 
regularly  distribute  from  £12,000  to 
(occasionally)  £25,000  per  week  from 
their  'Penny  Pools'  alone.  In  Septem- 
ber, October  and  November  last  year, 
according  to  figures  collected  by 
the  National  Anti-Gambling  League, 
nearly  70  million  packages  of  corre- 
spondence were  collected  from  pool 
promoters'  premises,  by  special  ar- 
rangement with  the  Post  Office,  in 
seven  cities  outside  London — some  95 
per  cent  of  the  whole  coming  from 
Liverpool  and  Edinburgh.  Many  of 
these  packages,  no  doubt,  contained 
advertising  material,  but  many  in- 
cluded coupons  for  distribution  by 
agents  on  commission. 

It  would  appear  that  about  5.50 
million  people  were  betting  each  week 
in  pools  organized  from  these  seven 
cities.  An  average  number  of  pool  bets 
of  8  millions  per  week  for  the  thirty- 


six  weeks  of  the  football  season,  rising, 
say,  to  10  or  12  millions  at  peak  pe- 
riods, would  probably  not  be  too  high 
an  estimate  for  the  whole  country.  As 
the  average  stake  per  coupon  appears 
to  be  about  two  shillings,  the  present 
turnover  on  football  betting  cannot 
fall  far  short  of  £800,000  per  week,  or 
£30  millions  per  year,  at  the  present 
rate.  As  the  corresponding  figure  for 
1933-34  was  reliably  estimated  in  the 
House  of  Commons  at  £250,000  per 
week,  the  rapidity  of  the  growth  of  the 
practice  in  the  last  two  years  may  be 
readily  appreciated. 

This  impression  is  borne  out  by  the 
returns  of  sales  of  postal  orders  of  low 
denominations,  i.e.  from  6d.  to  2s.  6d. 
These  have  increased  from  34,500,000 
in  1925-26  to  85,500,000  in  1933-34. 
Six-penny  postal  orders  alone  have 
increased  from  3.7  millions  in  1924-25 
to  22.3  millions  in  1 933-34,  and  shilling 
postal  orders  from  8.2  milHons  to  24.4 
millions.  These  figures,  of  course, 
include  newspaper  competition  entries 
of  various  sorts,  as  well  as  'normal' 
public  purchases.  Since  November 
I  last,  the  Post  Office  has  made  up 
postal  orders  in  books  of  twelve,  which 
can  be  bought  for  a  reduced  poundage 
and  are  available  for  six  instead  of 
three  months. 

There  are  many  minor  branches  of 
the  gambling  'industry.'  Subscriptions 
to  the  Irish  Hospitals  Sweepstake 
totaled  about  £10  millions  per  year  at 
their  peak  period.  Of  these,  about 
IS.  4d.  in  each  los.  ultimately  found 
its  way  to  the  Irish  hospitals.  Entries 
for  newspaper  competitions  were  esti- 
mated by  the  Secretary  to  the  Post 
Office  at  £3,000,000.  Amounts  'in- 
vested' in  automatic  gambling  ma- 
chines in  clubs,  cafes  and  amusement 
parks   have   been   put   at   about   £4 


193^ 


BRITAIN'S  BETTING  BUSINESS 


{"^Si^ 


weekly  per  unit,  or  £15  millions  per 
year.  These  minor  forms  of  gambling, 
however,  are  probably  declining  in 
importance  owing  to  the  attentions  of 
the  poHce.  If  their  estimated  totals  be 
added  to  those  for  horse  racing,  grey- 
hound racing  and  football,  the  total 
annual  betting  turnover  would  seem 
to   be   not  less   than   £350   to   £400 

^  millions,  and  possibly  more  than  £500 
millions.  The  'velocity  of  circulation' 
of  funds  'invested'  in  the  industry, 
however,  is  very  great. 


Ill 


So  much  for  total  turnover  of  one 
of  Britain's  largest  industries.  We  may 
now  proceed  to  ask  what  return  the 
industry  offers  to  those  who  conduct 
its  operations?  The  available  evidence 
is  fairly  comprehensive  and  highly 
instructive. 

The  Chairman  of  a  Select  Committee 
in  1923  estimated  that  the  office  credit 
bookmaker's  commission  amounted  to 
%  to  I  per  cent  on  the  amount  staked; 
while  the  course  bookmaker  worked  on 
a  margin  of  2  per  cent,  and  street 
bookmakers  paid  out  5  to  7  per  cent 
in  commission  to  agents.  The  Race- 
course Betting  Control  Board  takes 
nominally  10  per  cent,  effectively 
between  1 1  per  cent  and  12  per  cent  of 
the  amounts  invested  in  the  totaliza- 
tor. Comparison  of  the  odds  returned 
by  the  totalizator  and  the  starting 
prices  of  bookmakers  shows  that  the 
bookmakers'  gross  margin  cannot  be 
much  less  than  this.  Most  of  the  foot- 
ball pool  promoters  employ  their  peak 
staffs  only  at  weekends  for  wages  of 
15s.  or  £1  per  day.  Their  share  of  the 
pool  varies  from  5  per  cent  to  20  per 
cent,  plus  'minimum  expenses.'  The 
accountants'    certificates    which    are 


published  in  some  cases  refer  only  to 
the  division  of  proceeds,  after  com- 
mission and  expenses  have  been  de- 
ducted. One  pool  promoter,  prose- 
cuted in  Edinburgh  in  1930,  was 
found  to  be  taking  a  total  commission 
of  77  per  cent;  another,  prosecuted  in 
January,  1934,  took  out  31  per  cent. 
The  Football  Pool  Promoters'  Asso- 
ciation claims  to  limit  the  profit  of  its 
members  to  5  per  cent  of  the  total 
income,  but  it  is  not  clear  how  much 
of  the  total  activity  is  within  its 
control.  In  January,  1935,  it  named 
only  six  firms  as  its  members,  all 
having  addresses  in  or  around  Liver- 
pool, while  it  now  appears  to  control 
about  a  dozen.  Even  if  the  clear  profit 
of  the  promoter  is  limited  to  5  per  cent, 
the  deduction  of '  expenses '  (including 
commission  and  advertising)  may 
limit  the  divisible  pool  to  less  than  50 
per  cent  of  the  total  subscribed. 

We  may,  therefore,  for  purposes  of 
computation,  put  a.)  the  expenses 
and  profits  of  bookmakers  at  approxi- 
mately 10  per  cent  to  12  per  cent  of 
the  amounts  staked  on  horse  and  grey- 
hound racing  (though  the  margin  may 
have  been  reduced  in  recent  years); 
b.)  the  total  'rake-off'  of  football  pool 
promoters  (including  'minimum  ex- 
penses') at  not  less  than  30  per  cent  of 
the  amounts  staked;  and  c.)  the  rate 
of  profit  to  the  promoters  of  the  minor 
forms  of  gambling  at  a  much  higher 
figure — certainly  not  less  than  50  per 
cent.  On  these  bases,  we  may  conclude 
that  the  total  remuneration  and 
expenses  of  the  betting  and  gambling 
industry  are  unlikely  to  be  lower  than 
£40  to  £45  millions  per  annum,  or 
£50  millions,  including  all  other  forms 
of  gambling. 

The  dimensions  of  the  industry's 
'labor  force'  are  a  matter  for  broad 


[254] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


conjecture.  In  1923  the  Assistant 
Commissioner  of  Police  put  the  num- 
ber of  bookmakers,  including  prin- 
cipals only,  in  the  Metropolitan  area 
at  1,750.  A  similar  estimate  by  the 
Chief  Constable  was  698  for  the 
Liverpool  area.  The  Secretary  of 
the  National  Sporting  League  put  the 
total  number  at  16,000.  In  1928  there 
were  14,000  licensed  bookmakers  and 
many  others  who  remained  unregis- 
tered. The  total  today  is  probably  not 
much  below  20,000.  In  1923  the  total 
of  clerks,  outlookers,  runners  and 
agents  appears  to  have  averaged,  in 
London,  some  2.3  to  each  principal. 
If  this  proportion  applies  in  the 
country  as  a  whole,  there  may  there- 
fore be  as  many  as  66,000  persons 
directly  dependent  upon  bookmaking 
at  the  present  time.  The  numbers 
connected  with  street  betting  are 
larger,  but  much  of  this  business  is 
done  through  agents  working  on  a 
commission  basis  in  shops  and  fac- 
tories. 

The  pool  promoters  are  accustomed 
to  engage  large  numbers  of  workers  to 
deal  with  incoming  correspondence 
every  weekend.  Some  of  the  larger 
Liverpool  and  Edinburgh  firms  take 
on  as  many  as  500  to  800  assistants 
every  Saturday  night.  In  many  cases 
the  permanent  staff  is  from  one-third 
to  a  half  of  the  peak  staff.  Altogether 
it  might  not  be  an  exaggeration  to 
assess  this  demand  at  the  equivalent 
o( full  employment  for  5,000  persons 
in  the  course  of  a  year.  No  estimate 
whatever  can  be  made  of  the  numbers 
or  remuneration  of  the  cloud  of  wit- 


nesses— touts,  tipsters,  racmg  jour- 
nalists, publishers  of  sporting  news- 
papers and,  most  incredible  of  all,  the 
competition  press  and  its  attendant 
'professional  solutionists' — who  regu- 
larly exercise  their  prophetic  talents, 
for  a  suitable  return,  on  behalf  of 
mortals  who  wrestle  with  the  law  of 
averages.  Nor  can  we  assess  the 
'derived  demand'  of  the  industry  for 
the  materials  and  services  of  other 
trades.  One  Liverpool  pool  promoter 
is  credited  with  the  consumption  of 
twelve  tons  of  paper  per  week.  Some 
printing  firms  specialize  in  betting 
tickets,  coupons  and  advertising  mate- 
rial. Horse  racing  is  an  important 
customer  of  the  railways,  and  all 
forms  of  betting  contribute  hand- 
somely to  the  Post  Office  revenue. 

Into  the  social  and  moral  aspects  of 
the  betting  question  we  do  not  pro- 
pose, here,  to  enter.  It  is  clear,  how- 
ever, that  an  industry  of  the  size  and 
scope  we  have  indicated  holds  a 
formidable  vested  interest  in  the  com- 
mercial exploitation  of  one  of  the  less 
progressive  of  human  instincts.  Resist- 
ance to  any  attempt  significantly  to 
control  its  operations  may  be  propor- 
tionately strong.  In  view,  however,  of 
the  tendency  for  betting  to  increase 
with  the  growth  of  its  organized 
facilities,  the  Government  may  well 
consider  whether  the  time  has  not 
come  to  enforce  a  stricter  supervision 
and  to  ensure  that  commercialized 
exploitation  of  human  folly — or  of 
'the  small  man's'  reaction  against  a 
drab  environment — shall  not  yield 
unduly  large  'professional'  profits. 


AS  OTHERS  SEE  US 


An  Englishman  Finds  Fault 

I  Writing  in  the  Manchester  Guard- 
ian^ English  Liberal  daily,  Mr.  Ronald 
Davison  surveys  our  American  schemes 
for  attaining  'social  security,'  and,  on 
the  basis  of  English  experience  along 
the  same  lines,  points  to  faults  and 
suggests  improvements: 

Last  summer  President  Roosevelt  wrung 
from  the  seventy-fourth  Congress  a  meas- 
ure which  is  likely  to  have  a  more  lasting 
effect  upon  American  institutions  than  all 
the  rest  of  the  New  Deal.  The  Social  Se- 
curity Act  is  probably  the  most  compre- 
hensive piece  of  social  legislation  that  the 
world  has  ever  seen.  In  effect  the  Act  falls 
into  three  categories: — 

1.  It  sets  up  a  centralized  Federal  con- 
tributory old-age  pension  insurance  for 
over  20,000,000  wage-earners. 

2.  It  creates  a  financial  inducement  to 
the  forty-eight  states  to  set  up  their  own 
unemployment  insurance  schemes,  fi- 
nanced by  compulsory  levies  upon  em- 
ployers. 

3.  It  offers  six  new  kinds  of  Federal 
grants-in-aid  to  states,  which  set  up  ade- 
quate services  for  public  health,  for  the 
aged  poor,  and  for  mothers  and  children. 

At  the  moment  the  real  trouble  lies  with 
the  two  vast  schemes  of  social  insurance 
guaranteeing  contractual  payments  for 
old-age  pensions  and  for  unemployment 
benefits.  Here  the  United  States  is  on  new 
ground,  which  is  unfamiliar  in  the  highest 
degree.  For  many  years  she  has  observed 
our  British  social  insurances  and  those  of 
Germany  with  mingled  envy  and  doubt. 
Now  at  last  she  is  taking  the  plunge. 

To  British  eyes  the  proposed  Federal 
pensions  seem  to  be  ambitious.  In  return 
for  6  per  cent  tax  on  wages  (only  2  per 
cent  in  the  first  year,  1937)  a  weekly  an- 
nuity varying  from  los.  to  £4  5s.  is  to  be 


payable  from  age  sixty-five  to  death. 
Within  these  limits  pensions  are  to  be 
calculated  (like  contributions)  as  an  exact 
percentage  of  the  claimant's  average 
wages.  Workers  and  employers  are  to 
begin  contributing  in  January,  1937,  but 
no  benefits  are  payable  until  1942. 

This  delay  is  a  serious  political  handi- 
cap, and,  on  British  precedents,  a  needless 
one,  seeing  that  in  1926  our  Conservative 
Government  paid  old-age  and  widows' 
benefits  on  the  day  after  contributions 
first  became  due.  Admittedly  that  meant 
non-contributory  pensions  to  the  earliest 
claimants,  and  our  Exchequer  is  still 
paying  off  the  debt;  but  President  Roose- 
velt could  well  have  done  the  same. 

One  good  feature  is  that  the  American 
pensions  will  be  conditional  on  retirement 
from  regular  wage-earning.  A  less  good  fea- 
ture is  that  in  basing  pensions  on  the  per- 
centage of  average  wages  the  Act  sets  the 
Social  Security  Board  a  fearsome  task 
either  of  current  record-keeping  or  of  ar- 
chaeological research  after  1942  into  the 
employment  histories  of  claimants. 

It  is,  of  course,  possible  that  under  the 
American  Constitution  that  lethal  an- 
achronism, the  Supreme  Court,  may  frus- 
trate the  whole  of  this  courageous  effort  to 
place  a  vital  piece  of  social  machinery  on  a 
Federal  and  nationwide  basis.  Time  alone 
can  show. 

There  is  to  be  no  national  unemploy- 
ment insurance  system  in  the  United 
States.  Under  the  Social  Security  Act 
each  state  is  urged  to  set  up  its  own  plan, 
but  not  compelled  to  do  so.  It  is  unlikely 
that  all  the  states  will  move  in  the  matter; 
but  the  penalty  of  inaction  will  be  that 
employers  in  an  inactive  state  will  have  to 
pay  an  excise  tax  on  their  pay-rolls  to  the 
Federal  Treasury  amounting  to  about  the 
same  figure  as  the  state  insurance  con- 
tribution, yet  the  state  will  get  nothing  in 
return.  This  Federal  excise  tax  is  now 


[256] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


being  collected,  and  in  due  course  the 
active  and  virtuous  states  will  be  entitled 
to  a  refund  of  90  per  cent  of  it,  together 
with  a  grant  in  aid  of  their  administrative 
expenses. 

Wisconsin  already  had  a  company  re- 
serves scheme  of  its  own — that  is,  a  sep- 
arate insurance  account  for  each  employer 
— and  ten  other  states  have  so  far  re- 
sponded with  new  Acts.  The  Social  Se- 
curity Board's  present  task  is  to  persuade 
the  states  to  conform  either  to  the  Wis- 
consin pattern,  with  no  pooling  of  risks 
between  employers,  or  to  the  pooled  in- 
surance plan  on  European  lines. 

Model  bills,  with  various  optional 
clauses,  are  being  issued  from  Washington 
for  their  guidance.  In  these  bills  the  mini- 
mum 'coverage'  is  to  be  'all  employers 
of  eight  or  more  persons  for  twenty  weeks 
in  a  year,*  agriculture,  domestic  service, 
and  non-profit  institutions  being  excepted. 
Even  in  the  pooled  plan  there  is  to  be 
a  rather  mystical  'merit  rating,'  under 
which  employers  with  a  small  labor  turn- 
over will  pay  a  lesser  tax  than  those  with  a 
large  turnover.  The  American  mind  is, 
indeed,  beset  by  the  idea  that  'merit  rat- 
ing' or  the  Wisconsin  plan  will  persuade 
employers  to  stabilize  their  employment 
and  will,  in  any  case,  make  the  punish- 
ment fit  the  crime. 

In  our  British  scheme  that  idea  has  been 
tried  and  abandoned.  W^hether  it  will 
work  in  the  United  States  is  exceedingly 
doubtful,  having  regard  to  the  unavoid- 
able fluctuations  and  excessive  seasonality 
of  many  businesses — for  instance,  the 
building  trades.  The  test  will  only  come 
some  time  after  January,  1938,  when 
benefits  begin  to  be  payable. 

The  doctrine  in  the  States  today  is  that 
the  rate  of  a  man's  wages  should  deter- 
mine his  benefits;  there  are  to  be  no  de- 
pendants' allowances,  but  he  should  have 
50  per  cent  of  his  full-time  wages  for  at 
least  twelve  weeks  of  unemployment, 
with  a  minimum  benefit  of  £1  and  a  maxi- 
mum of  £3  per  week.  And  the  United 
States   thinks   that,   on   the   whole,   the 


European  system  of  requiring  employee 
contributions  is  a  mistake.  The  separate 
states  are,  however,  going  diflPerent  ways 
about  this,  and  some  schemes  will  require 
I  per  cent  of  weekly  earnings  from  work- 


RECIPROCITY  of  benefit  between  states 
is  not  yet  cpntemplated;  it  is  too  baffling 
a  problem.  To  the  English  mind  this  at 
once  suggests  forebodings.  How  can 
forty-eight  diflferent  systems  of  insurance 
be  applied  within  a  single  country  to  a 
comparatively  mobile  labor  force?  In- 
evitably there  must  be  much  movement 
across  state  frontiers  among  workers  in 
businesses  employing  eight  or  more  per- 
sons. However,  such  is  the  respect  for 
state  rights  and  resignation  to  the  con- 
sequences that  only  one  major  inter-state 
industry  has  so  far  revolted.  Already  the 
railway  companies  and  brotherhoods  are 
promoting  a  new  bill  for  a  special  Federal 
system  of  insurance  for  themselves  and 
for  other  carriers  by  road,  water,  and  air. 
The  Social  Security  Board  are  to  adminis- 
ter this  separate  transportation  scheme. 

Two  other  major  difficulties  confronting 
the  board  may  be  briefly  mentioned.  One 
is  that  the  employment  exchange  service 
is  not  under  their  control.  It  is  a  separate 
Federal  State  organism,  supervised  and 
given  grants-in-aid  by  the  Department  of 
Labor,  and  it  is  acutely  anxious  that  its 
proper  business  of  placement  should  not 
be  submerged  by  the  onrush  of  insurance 
functions.  The  Government  are,  however, 
doing  their  best  to  cope  with  this  threat- 
ened dualism. 

The  second  problem  is:  How  will  the 
diflPerent  authorities  ascertain  what  has 
been  the  average  full-time  rate  of  wages 
of  claimants  who  have  worked  for,  say, 
ten  or  even  twenty  diflPerent  firms  during 
the  preceding  two  or  five  years?  All  his 
jobs  will  have  to  be  taken  into  account 
in  determining  the  rate  and  duration  of  a 
man's  benefit. 

So  far  the  idea  has  been  to  wait  till  the 
claims  come  in  and  then  to  make  the 


^93^ 


AS  OTHERS  SEE  US 


[257] 


necessary  researches  into  each  claimant's 
past  record.  Meanwhile  employers  are 
bidden  to  keep  precise  accounts  of  wages 
and  hours.  The  alternative  of  requiring 
every  employer  of  eight  persons  or  more 
to  send  in  to  the  State  Insurance  Commis- 
sion monthly  lists  of  wages  and  hours  is 
theoretically  sound,  but  it  does  not  look 
attractive  to  those  who  will  have  to  en- 
force it  upon  a  community  of  wild  and 
untamed  employers. 

The  fact  is  that  there  is  too  much  theory 
and  wishful  thinking  in  all  these  varieties 
of  the  American  plan.  If  ever  there  was  a 
country  that  could  only  hope  to  adminis- 
ter unemployment  insurance  on  the  sim- 
plest possible  lines,  that  country  is  the 
United  States  today.  Above  all,  they 
might  have  been  content  with  a  uniform 
and  flat  rate  of  benefits.  Indeed,  many 
Americans  have  always  admitted  as  much. 
True,  they  would  probably  have  had  to 
add  dependants'  allowances,  but  these  are 
far  easier  to  administer  than  the  wage- 
percentage  system.  In  any  case,  it  is  well 
to  remember  that  for  years  to  come  the 
United  States  will  have  some  millions  of 
unemployed,  most  of  whom  will  be  in 
need  of  assistance,  outside  any  State  in- 
surance schemes  which  may  now  be  set  up. 

Heil  Lincoln! 

A  GERMAN  AUTHOR,  Heinrich 
Krieger,  publishes  an  article  about 
'race  problems  in  the  United  States' 
in  Die  Tat,  German  National  Socialist 
monthly.  He  makes  an  attempt  to 
apply  Nazi  racial  ideology  to  the 
United  States,  one  of  the  few  coun- 
tries, he  claims,  to  have  developed 
anything  approaching  the  concept  of 
race  law.  He  regards  the  dominant 
race  in  the  United  States  as  'Ger- 
manic,' living  in  troublesome  symbio- 
sis with  colored  races,  which  consti- 
tute one-ninth  of  the  population. 
Krieger  states  that  Lincoln  was  'far 
removed  from  the  sentimental  idea  of 


equality  with  which  his  name  has  time 
and  again  been  falsely  coupled,'  and 
'often  and  vigorously  supported  the 
expulsion  of  the  Negroes  from  the 
United  States.'  He  then  pleads  for  the 
adoption  of  a  realistic  race  law: — 

Not  until  the  Germanic  racial  con- 
sciousness of  the  true  American  has  freed 
itself  of  the  crushing  burden  of  ideology 
will  the  way  to  racial  salvation  be  cleared. 
He  will  then  solve  the  racial  division  in  his 
life  and  in  his  law  by  means  of  a  new  racial 
concept.  In  particular  he  will  be  able  to 
tackle  the  task  of  building  up  an  honest 
race  law,  logically  coherent  and  guided  by 
large  viewpoints.  At  present  the  task  ap- 
pears to  be  far  from  solution.  Visitors  to 
the  United  States  whose  instincts  have 
not  been  adulterated  are  stirred  and 
deeply  revolted  by  the  form  which  racial 
co-existence  has  taken,  especially  in  the 
great  cities  of  the  East.  .  .  . 

Considering  the  legal  premises,  we 
arrive  at  the  following  three  chief  aims 
for  the  future: 

First  and  most  important:  the  ideology 
of  racial  equality  must  be  relinquished. 
In  particular  there  must  never  be,  not 
even  in  theory,  legal  equality  between 
Nordics  and  Negroes. 

Second:  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth 
Amendments  to  the  Constitution  must  be 
repealed.  This  would  lead  to  the  dis- 
franchisement of  the  Negroes  and  do 
away  with  all  enforcement  legislation. 
The  several  states  would  again  be  free  to 
formulate  racial  legislation  according  to 
their  own  needs,  which  would  be  of 
particular  value  to  the  Southern  States 
with  their  large  Negro  population. 

Third:  Lincoln's  plans  for  expulsion 
should  be  taken  up  again  and  gradually 
realized. 

The  promising  manner  in  which  Ger- 
many is  attempting  broadly  and  finally  to 
liquidate  centuries  of  racial  mixture  un- 
doubtedly will  in  due  time  attract  notice 
in  America.  But  if  America  continues  to 
drift  along  her  present  racial  course,  she 


[258] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


must  inevitably,  despite  all  existing  legal 
defenses,  some  day  be  forced  to  abandon 
calling  herself  a  Germanic  nation  .  .  . 
It  is  understandable  that  the  underminers 
of  the  American  Nation's  Germanic  char- 
acter are  fanatically  at  work  inculcating 
into  Americans  the  paralyzing  ideology  of 
racial  equality.  The  Jews,  with  an  ex- 
emplary instinct  for  their  own  welfare, 
here,  too,  are  in  the  van.  With  the  help  of 
great  financial  and  propaganda  resources 
they  distort  and  abuse  in  their  well- 
known  ways  the  great  ideals  of  democracy 
in  order  to  kill  the  racial  strength  of  the 
prevailing  race  at  the  root. 

It  is  not  'white'  and  'colored'  that 
actually  oppose  each  other  in  the  United 
States  today;  it  is  the  Germanic  race,  left 
entirely  to  its  own  resources,  which  is 
meeting  all  other  races.  These  latter  are 
either  indifferent  to  the  fate  of  America,  or 
they  are  merely  concerned  with  drawing  to 
themselves  as  much  power  as  possible, 
wresting  it  from  the  original  Germanic 
population  which  showed  them  the  way 
into  the  wilderness  that  was  to  become 
America. 

As  racial  comrades  we  Germans  hope 
and  wish  that  Germanic  America  will  in- 
creasingly find  its  way  back  to  the  princi- 
ples of  its  great  statesmen,  Washington, 
Jefferson  and  Lincoln,  who  were  worlds 
removed  from  the  liberalistic  idea  of  racial 
equality.  Moreover,  we  hope  that  there 
may  arise  in  America  the  new  political 
leaders  who  are  needed  for  the  solution  of 
its  task,  now  grown  to  world  historical 
importance. 

In  Single  Combat 

A  STAFF-WRITER  of  the  Journal 
de  Geneve  allows  himself  to  grow  both 
fanciful  and  philosophical  on  the  sub- 
ject of  American  motoring  fatalities: — 

Before  the  war,  when  two  gentlemen 
had  tread  upon  one  another's  toes  and  had 
called  one  another  imbeciles,  they  would 
don  frock  coats  at  daybreak,  comb  their 


hair  with  great  care,  turn  up  their  collars, 
stand  twenty-five  paces  from  one  another, 
and  in  the  presence  of  four  witnesses,  a 
doctor,  a  referee,  and  some  frightened 
sparrows  would  each  pull  the  trigger  of 
their  pistols. 

Today  the  Americans  do  better.  They 
undoubtedly  despise  these  out-dated 
games  of  bullet-holes,  for,  if  one  is  to  be- 
lieve the  Petit  Bleu,  they  have  discovered 
a  new  way  of  reviving  a  style  which  was 
feeling  its  age. 

At  Denver,  in  Colorado,  two  citizens 
who  had  found  it  impossible  to  agree  on 
some  point,  I  don't  know  what,  chose 
automobiles  as  their  weapons. 

On  a  good  straight  road  they  drove 
their  cars  to  two  points  several  hundred 
meters  removed  from  one  another.  Then, 
at  a  signal,  they  charged,  dashing  at  full 
speed  toward  one  another,  their  hands 
glued  to  the  steering  wheels,  their  feet  on 
the  accelerators,  hood  against  hood. 
Boom  1 

At  the  dreadful  crash  the  two  twisted 
autos  tumbled  into  a  heap  of  scrap  iron. 
The  spectators  expected  to  have  to  mop 
up  the  champions  with  blotting  paper. 
But  not  at  all:  they  picked  themselves  up, 
a  little  stunned,  but  unhurt.  So  that  two 
fireballs  had  been  exchanged  without  re- 
sult. Except  that  a  policeman  who 
thought  they  had  violated  the  traffic  laws 
issued  summonses  to  the  two  automo- 
bilists. 

We  wish  that  this  little  story  were  true, 
if  only  to  draw  the  moral  of  it.  The  auto- 
mobile is  the  cause  of  tens  of  thousands  of 
deaths  in  the  United  State§  every  year — 
deaths  of  honest  folk  who  were  going 
peaceably  to  their  little  businesses,  and 
who  were  cut  down  by  individuals  in  a 
greater  hurry  to  get  to  theirs.  But  when 
two  idiots  deliberately  decide  to  smash 
one  another  to  pulp,  they  are  not  allowed 
to  do  so.  Men  are  masters  of  their  steering 
wheels,  but  not  of  their  destinies,  and  if 
they  hold  the  levers,  it  is  the  levers  which 
control  them. 

A  part  de  cela,  Madame  la  Marquise.  .  .  . 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


History  of  England 

England,   i 870-1914.  By  R.  C.  Ensor. 
Oxford:  Oxford  University  Press.  1936. 

(Harold  Laski  in  the  New  Statesman  and  Nation, 
London) 

npHIS  is  the  second  volume  in  the  Ox- 
ford  History  of  England,  and  it  is  a 
work  of  quite  outstanding  merit.  Solid, 
written  in  an  interesting  and  at  times 
distinguished  style,  based  on  an  astonish- 
ingly thorough  survey  of  the  materials,  it 
is  the  annalistic  type  of  history  at  its  best. 
There  is  little  that  Mr.  Ensor  omits,  and 
there  are  certain  phases  of  the  develop- 
ment he  records,  upon  which  his  account 
is  better  than  in  any  other  similar  volume. 
On  army  reform,  on  constitutional  change, 
on  local  government,  he  gives  a  masterly 
summary  of  the  complicated  issues.  As  a 
narrator,  moreover,  Mr.  Ensor  holds  the 
reader's  attention  throughout.  It  will  be 
long  before  this  volume  can,  so  far  as  its 
type  is  concerned,  surrender  the  primacy 
it  at  once  establishes. 

It  is  important  to  realize  just  what  the 
type  is.  Mr.  Ensor  is  profoundly  inter- 
ested in  men — his  brief  character-sketches 
are  admirable — he  is  interested  in  insti- 
tutions, and  he  summarizes  a  complex 
economic  development  with  real  skill. 
What  he  does  not  seek  to  establish  is  a 
canon  for  the  period — a  philosophic 
criterion  by  which  its  general  character 
may  be  estimated.  He  is  not,  indeed, 
afraid  to  make  judgments.  Broadly,  he 
writes  from  the  angle  of  a  Liberal  of  the 
Left,  and  from  that  angle  his  analysis  of 
the  controversial  issues  with  which  he 
has  to  deal  are  always  fair  and  solidly 
founded.  But  he  has  not  brought  on  to 
any  single  plane  the  vast  narrative  he  has 
constructed.  It  is  now  clear,  for  instance, 
that  the  movement  towards  a  coalition 
government    sponsored    by    Mr.    Lloyd 


George  during  the  Home  Rule  con- 
troversy pointed  to  much  deeper  things 
than  appeared  obvious  at  the  time.  So, 
also,  the  support  of  the  South  African 
War  by  the  leaders  of  the  Fabian  Society 
has  its  bearing  upon  the  inability  of  the 
Labor  Party  today  squarely  to  meet  the 
issue  of  imperialism.  The  failure  of  Mr. 
Gladstone  to  interest  himself  in  local  gov- 
ernment reform  was  unfortunate;  but  it 
was  not,  I  think,  half  so  serious  as  Mr. 
Asquith's  inability  to  see  the  significance 
of  the  industrial  upheavals  of  1911-12. 

Mr.  Ensor  comments  with  skill  on  such 
social  theories  as  those  of  T.  H.  Green 
and  the  Fabians.  But  he  has  nothing  to 
say  of  F.  W.  Maitland,  not  only,  perhaps, 
the  greatest  English  historian  since  Gib- 
bon but  also  the  most  significant  politi- 
cal theorist  of  his  generation.  It  is  a  pity, 
too,  that  his  analysis  of  colonial  and  for- 
eign policy  takes  no  account  of  what  men 
like  Mr.  J.  A.  Hobson  and  Mr.  H.  N. 
Brailsford  were  writing  in  these  years; 
the  prophetic  character  of  their  analysis 
assumes  now  an  importance  far  greater 
than  the  attention  it  received  at  the 
time. 

This  absence  of  a  central  clue  is  the 
more  regrettable  because  so  much  of  the 
material  collected  by  Mr.  Ensor  in  his 
economic  chapters  points  towards  con- 
clusions one  would  have  liked  to  see 
judged  in  its  light.  The  nepotism  of  Brit- 
ish industrial  leadership,  the  absence  of 
outstanding  British  inventions  in  this 
period,  the  connection  of  this  with  the 
inadequate  standards  of  technical  educa- 
tion in  the  period,  upon  all  of  these,  in 
their  inter-relationships,  there  are  possi- 
bilities which  Mr.  Ensor  hardly  develops. 

So,  also,  it  would  have  been  interesting 
if  he  had  shown  the  significance  of  the 
growing  literature  of  scepticism  after  1900 
in  the  contest  of  the  international  malaise 
and  its  repercussions.  One  would  have 


[26o] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


liked  to  know  how  far  Mr.  Ensor  sees  in 
the  constitutional  crises  he  has  to  record 
the  faint  precursors  of  that  deeper  issue 
which  is  bound  to  occur  unless  political 
parties  can  discover,  as  they  discovered 
between  1832  and  1914,  a  unified  ap- 
proach to  social  questions.  Mr.  Ensor, 
in  a  word,  gives  us  a  narrative  from  which 
the  essential  background  is  lacking.  He  is 
clear  and  revealing  so  far  as  he  goes;  but 
he  seems  to  shrink  from  the  task  of  ex- 
plaining what  he  has  to  narrate. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  difficult  not  to 
be  enthusiastic  over  the  admirable  justice 
Mr.  Ensor  has  rendered  to  the  personal 
interplay  of  the  political  drama  in  these 
years.  On  Gladstone  and  Disraeli,  on 
Salisbury  and  Balfour,  on  Asquith  and 
Chamberlain  and  Lansdowne,  he  writes 
with  a  precision  of  insight  which  is  re- 
markable. It  is  good  to  have  justice  done 
to  Sir  Robert  Morant;  and  it  is  comfort- 
ing that  Mr.  Ensor  can  write  of  royal 
personages  without  that  distressing  gen- 
uflexion which  is  now  so  fashionable.  It 
shows  how  fully  Mr.  Ensor  has  read  his 
sources  that  he  can  remind  us  (of  what 
most  people  have  now  forgotten)  of  the 
asperity  with  which  Lord  Hugh  Cecil 
criticized  the  late  King  over  his  relation  to 
the  Parliament  Act. 

On  the  constitutional  side,  generally, 
Mr.  Ensor  writes  with  a  balanced  judg- 
ment about  which  there  can  be  no  praise 
too  high.  What  one  wishes  here  is  that  he 
would  have  told  us  his  view  of  that  com- 
plete lack  of  restraint  shown  by  the 
Unionist  leaders  over  the  Budget  of  1909 
and  the  Home  Rule  Bill.  Does  he  think  it 
exaggeration  to  say  that  Toryism  in  these 
years  was  prepared  to  violate  the  unstated 
premises  of  our  parliamentary  system  to 
defeat  those  proposals?  If  he  does,  what  is 
the  inference  he  draws  therefrom  ?  All  the 
way  through  his  book,  indeed,  one  feels 
inclined  to  ask  Mr.  Ensor  what  judgment 
he  makes  upon  the  situation  he  so  care- 
fully describes. 

Perhaps  he  would  reply  that  judgment 
is  not  his  business.  But  the  historian  is 


compelled  to  select;  and  the  very  fact  of 
selection  implies  a  judgment  of  itself.  Mr. 
Ensor  would  not,  I  think,  claim  that  his 
history  was  devoid  of  color  and  personal- 
ity. I  wish  only  that  he  had  told  us  what 
were  the  reasons  which  led  him  to  the 
particular  color  and  personality  he  has 
woven  into  the  narrative.  His  work  is  at 
every  point  solid;  I  feel  it  could  have  been 
far  more  illuminating  if  that  solidity  was 
flanked  by  a  coherent  philosophy.  But 
this  does  not  mean  that  his  book  is  not 
fascinating.  It  deserves  the  widest  possible 
audience  for  the  high  qualities  it  reveals  on 
every  page. 

The  Two  Nations 

Food,  Health  and  Income.  By  Sir  John 
Orr.  London:  Macmillan  and  Company. 
1936. 

(From  the  Spectator,  London) 

TT  is  more  than  two  generations  since 
Sydi/wsLS  written,  but  the  Two  Nations 
still  confront  each  other.  Both,  indeed, 
are  better  off,  but  the  inequalities  in  their 
income,  social  status  and  physical  en- 
vironment remain.  For  a  democratic  so- 
ciety which  has  established  legal  and 
political  equality  there  can  be  no  more 
proper  progress  than  toward  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  social  inequalities  which  have 
still  to  be  removed.  But  the  path  of  prog- 
ress is  often  illusory  and  always  hard,  and 
nothing  makes  it  harder  than  a  lack  of  ob- 
jective standards  by  which  to  direct  it. 
They  can  be  discovered  only  by  scientific 
investigation,  and  in  recent  years  no  in- 
crease in  knowledge  has  been  more  useful 
to  society  than  that  contributed  by  Sir 
John  Orr  and  others  in  their  researches 
into  nutrition.  The  report,  Food,  Health 
and  Income y  by  Sir  John  Orr  confirms  that 
promise.  It  is  the  record  of  an  investiga- 
tion carried  out  by  the  Rowett  Research 
Institute,  in  cooperation  with  the  Agri- 
cultural Marketing  Boards  and  the  Mar- 
ket Supply  Committee,  into  'the  amount 
of  food  required  to  maintain  the  health  of 


193^ 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[261- 


the  community,  the  extent  of  malnutrition 
due  to  under-consumption,  and  the  extent 
to  which  under-consumption  is  due  to 
poverty.'  It  is  admitted  that,  at  present, 
there  are  not  sufficient  data  available  for 
a  final  answer  to  be  given;  yet  already 
conclusions  have  been  reached  which  no 
statesman  or  student  can  ignore.  They  are 
a  criticism  of  our  society  and  they  offer  an 
objective  at  which  it  should  aim. 

The  value  and  significance  of  the  in- 
vestigation are  increased  by  the  standard 
of  comparison  it  adopts.  For  Sir  John  Orr 
has  asked:  'To  what  extent  is  the  country 
properly  nourished,  judged  by  a  physio- 
logically ideal  standard,  that  is,  a  state  of 
well-being  such  that  no  improvement  can 
be  effected  by  a  change  in  diet?'  That 
such  a  question  should  be  worth  putting  is 
in  itself  evidence  of  the  possibilities  now 
open  to  us;  it  is  a  sign  of  how  far  we  have 
advanced  and  of  how  much  we  are  still 
behind.  For  the  answer  is  not  surprising. 
Dividing  the  population  into  six  groups, 
with  incomes  varying  from  los.  to  over 
45s.  per  head  per  week,  with  an  average 
expenditure  on  food  varying  from  4s.  to 
14s.,  the  investigation  showed  that  only 
the  highest  income  group  completely  satis- 
fied all  the  conditions  of  the  ideal  stand- 
ard, while  the  lowest  group  satisfied  none 
of  them. 

It  must  be  noticed  that  the  income 
groups  do  not  correspond  exactly  with 
class  divisions,  since  the  incomes  per  head 
are  calculated  by  dividing  total  family  in- 
come by  the  number  of  members  to  be 
supported.  But  the  significance  of  the 
lowest,  under-nourished  group  cannot  be 
ignored,  for  it  includes  4>^  million  people. 
Worse  than  that,  50  per  cent  of  them  are 
children,  and  25  per  cent  of  all  the  children 
in  the  country  are  among  them.  To  bring 
every  group  up  to  the  level  of  diet  ade- 
quate to  full  health  would  require  in- 
creases in  consumption  of  milk,  eggs,  but- 
ter, fruit  and  vegetables,  varying  from  12 
per  cent  to  25  per  cent  of  the  total  now 
consumed.  The  table,  which  represents  the 
increases  in  consumption  needed  to  raise 


the  diet  of  each  group  to  that  of  the  group 
immediately  above  it,  is  really  a  program 
of  the  stages  by  which  we  can  advance  to- 
wards a  society  in  which  every  member 
has  the  nourishment  necessary  for  full 
health.  Given  modern  improvements  in 
the  technique  of  food  production,  there  is 
no  reason  why  that  standard  should  not 
be  the  goal  of  social  policy;  it  is  a  wiser 
objective  than  any  which  can  be  achieved 
by  modern  methods  of  planning  based  on 
raising  prices  and  restricting  production. 

But  the  investigation  has  also  corre- 
lated variations  in  income  with  the  physi- 
cal effects  of  malnutrition,  and  though 
exact  and  complete  results  are  not  possi- 
ble, the  conclusions  show  strikingly  that 
the  members  of  our  society  suffer  from 
physical  as  well  as  economic  inequalities. 
Thus,  observations  made  over  a  period  at 
different  schools  show  surprising  varia- 
tions in  height  and  health  corresponding 
with  differences  of  wealth.  A  boy  of  thir- 
teen at  Christ's  Hospital  School  is  2.4 
inches  taller  than  a  boy  of  the  same  age  at 
a  Council  school.  At  seventeen  he  is  3.8 
inches  taller  than  an  'employed  male'  of 
the  same  class  as  a  Council  schoolboy,  and 
observations  taken  at  another  public 
school  reveal  the  difference  as  no  less  than 
5  inches.  Further,  the  variations  in  height 
correspond  to  variations  in  the  incidence 
of  preventable  ill  health,  and  especially  of 
rickets,  bad  teeth,  anaemia  and  tuber- 
culosis. Each  of  these  physical  deficiencies 
is  most  easily  remediable  by  increasing  the 
consumption  of  milk. 

Sir  John  Orr  is  careful  to  point  out  that, 
for  instance,  variations  in  height  are  to 
some  extent  hereditary.  If  that  were  the 
whole  truth,  it  would  seem  that  the  in- 
equalities of  the  two  nations  had  become 
immutable.  But  experiments  in  various 
schools  have  shown  that  the  actual  differ- 
ences in  height  can  be  considerably  less- 
ened by  an  increase  in  nourishment  which 
allows  children  to  reach  their  full  stature, 
even  though  limited  by  heredity.  The  ef- 
fects of  variation  in  diet  are  verified  else- 
where. The  Masai  and  Kikuyu  tribes  live 


[262] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


under  the  same  climatic  and  housing  con- 
ditions, but  have  very  different  diets.  The 
Kikuyu  are  tall  and  relatively  free  of  dis- 
ease. The  Masai  are  short  and  suffer  from 
rickets,  bad  teeth,  and  pulmonary  and 
intestinal  diseases.  With  us,  the  Kikuyu 
and  the  Masai  live  side  by  side. 

These  conclusions  go  far  to  make  non- 
sense of  our  democratic  claim  to  equality. 
They  show  how  serious  are  the  physio- 
logical handicaps  which  aggravate  eco- 
nomic inequality.  But  equally  they  show 
how  these  handicaps  can  be  destroyed. 
'The  new  knowledge  of  nutrition,  which 
shows  that  there  can  be  an  enormous  im- 
provement in  the  wealth  and  physique  of 
the  nation,  coming  at  the  same  time  as  the 
greatly  increased  powers  of  producing 
food,  has  created  an  entirely  new  situation 
which  demands  economic  statesmanship.' 
Indeed,  the  new  knowledge  is  a  basis  for  a 
new  social  and  political  program;  it  would 
intensify  the  tragedy  of  our  time  if,  amid 
wars  and  rumors  of  wars,  statesmen  could 
not  use  its  immense  contribution  to  the 
stock  of  human  wisdom. 


Belgian  Finances 

La  Devaluation  du  Franc  Belge:  une 
Operation  Delicate  Parfaitement 
R£ussiE.  By  Professor  Fernand  Baud- 
huin.  Bruxelles-Paris.  igjS- 

(From  the  Economist,  London) 

pROFESSOR  Baudhuin's  book  is  ex- 
tremely welcome.  It  is  at  once  vigorous, 
comprehensive  and  readable.  As  adviser  to 
several  Governments  and  especially  Fi- 
nance Ministers  in  Belgium,  the  author 
had  an  exceedingly  good  opportunity  to 
watch  the  sad  sequence  of  events  which 
preceded  the  devaluation  of  the  belga.  It  is 
a  deplorable  tale  of  self-inflicted  distress. 
For  months  politicians  clamored  noisily 
about  the  evils  and  wickedness  of  devalua- 
tion, and  thereby  increased  the  unreason- 
ing fears  of  the  population  and  the  chances 
that  a  devaluation  would,  in  fact,  lead  to 
a  panic.  Yet  the  deflationists  were  unwill- 


ing to  face  the  issue  squarely  and  make 
deflation  effective.  So  the  disparity  be- 
tween costs  and  prices  increased  and  de- 
pressed business  activity  in  both  domestic 
and  exporting  industries. 

Professor  Baudhuin  was  not  an  advo- 
cate of  devaluation  in  the  early  part  of  the 
crisis.  Belgium  had  stabilized  at  a  very 
low  gold  parity,  and  the  world  price  level 
did  not  fall  below  her  cost  level  for  a  con- 
siderable time. 

In  1934,  however,  the  position  became 
critical.  Successive  Governments,  formed 
with  the  central  aim  of  'defending  the 
belga,'  and  headed  by  M.  Jaspar,  M.  de 
Broqueville  and  finally  M.  Theunis,  were 
unable  (and  unwilling)  to  adopt  a  con- 
structive policy.  Professor  Baudhuin  now 
saw  the  necessity  of  devaluation,  but  his 
warnings  fell  on  deaf  ears.  The  beginning 
of  the  breakdown  of  the  banking  structure 
and  continuous  losses  of  gold  did  not  con- 
vince the  politicians  of  the  imminence  of 
the  final  crash.  M.  Theunis  believed  in  the 
possibility  of  the  maintenance  of  the  gold 
parity,  even  after  a  far-reaching  restric- 
tion of  foreign  exchange  dealings  had  been 
instituted.  Considering  the  atmosphere  in 
Belgium  at  this  juncture,  the  courage  of 
Professor  Baudhuin  in  publicly  demand- 
ing devaluation  was  most  highly  com- 
mendable. He  had  already  strongly  urged 
that  the  effects  of  devaluation  should  not 
be  painted  in  alarmist  colors.  Finally,  af- 
ter almost  interminable  wrangling  and 
face-saving,  the  van  Zeeland  Ministry 
took  the  inevitable  step. 

The  greater  part  of  Professor  Baud- 
huin's book  consists  of  an  analysis  of  the 
effects  of  devaluation.  Nobody  can  now 
seriously  question  his  view  that  it  was,  in 
fact,  completely  successful.  He  produces 
statistical  material  fully  suflicient  to  prove 
his  contention.  Prices,  especially  retail 
prices,  have  not  risen  seriously — the  cost 
of  living  is  even  now  only  8  per  cent  up. 
Production  and  railroad  traffic  soon  in- 
creased well  above  the  level  of  1934;  the 
budget  revenue  improved  immediately 
and  markedly;  and  the  rate  of  interest  has 


193^ 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


\i(^Z\ 


been  forced  down,  despite  the  intensifica- 
tion of  the  international  political  tension. 
The  flight  of  capital  not  only  ceased  but 
was  suddenly  reversed.  The  profits  de- 
rived from  the  revaluation  of  the  gold  re- 
serve were  used  to  establish  an  exchange 
equalization  account  and  a  fund  to  con- 
trol the  gilt-edged  market.  Finally,  the 
banking  structure  was  thoroughly  re- 
organized, at  a  time  when  there  was  an 
automatic  increase  both  in  its  liquidity 
and  the  soundness  of  its  assets  as  a  result 
of  devaluation. 

Professor  Baudhuin  makes  short  shrift 
with  those  who  impute  the  revival  to  the 
Brussels  World  Fair  and  at  the  same  time 
prevaricatingly  insist  that  no  revival 
whatever  has  taken  place.  He  may  be 
somewhat  optimistic  about  the  possible 
efi^ects  on  Belgium  of  a  general  devalua- 
tion by  the  gold  countries,  but  he  is  right 
in  insisting  that  such  a  policy  would  not 
only  restore  internal  equilibrium  in  those 
countries,  but  that  the  improvement  in 
their  economies  would  eventually  offset 
any  initial  depressing  effects  abroad. 

Professor  Baudhuin  and  Mr.  van  Zee- 
land  have  both  deserved  well  of  their 
country.  And  in  this  book  Professor 
Baudhuin  has  presented  us  with  a  highly 
interesting  record  and  a  complete  vindica- 
tion of  the  policy  adopted  last  March. 

The  Merchants  of  Death 
Les  Profits  de  guerre  a  travers  les 
siECLES.  By  Richard  Lewinsohn.  Paris: 
Payot.  1936. 

(Ldon  Limon  in  Europe,  Paris) 

\A/^ITH  1936  the  capitalist  world  enters 
the  seventh  year  of  economic  depres- 
sion, and  the  kind  of  prosperity  which  is 
peculiar  to  every  pre-war  period  is  already 
in  evidence:  the  arms  race.  Since  1931, 
when  the  world's  total  exports  of  arms 
were  estimated  at  200  million  dollars, 
international  tension  has  been  increasing, 
and  Mussolini's  venture  in  Ethiopia  has 
contributed  not  a  little  to  heighten  it. 
But  has  the  armament  industry   the 


same  interest  in  war  which  it  had  in  the 
past?  This  question,  which  Richard 
Lewinsohn  poses,  is  not  as  paradoxical  as 
it  may  at  first  seem.  In  his  study,  which 
is  a  real  contribution  to  the  history  of 
the  birth  and  development  of  modern 
capitalism,  Lewinsohn  shows  that  the 
distribution  of  the  profits  of  war  has  gone 
through  various  phases.  As  military  tech- 
nique develops  with  the  means  of  produc- 
tion, as  the  State  is  centralized  and  bu- 
reaucratized  and  the  'nation'  is  born,  the 
political  and  economic  independence  of 
the  top  army  men  decreases  in  proportion. 
The  'nationalization'  of  war  industries  is 
the  very  opposite  of  the  method  of  sporad- 
ic confiscation  pursued  by  a  Caesar  or 
a  Churchill-Marlborough.  Soon  it  is  the 
business  man  who  is  pointing  the  way  for 
the  general,  and  the  heads  of  the  armed 
forces  become  the  employees  of  colonial 
companies.  Then  the  State  itself  moves 
toward  commerce  and  Industry.  Banks 
like  the  Bank  of  England  are  founded, 
whose  object  is  to  obtain  war  and  arma- 
ment loans  for  the  State.  It  Is  then  the 
bankers  who  pile  up  the  largest  part  of 
the  profits  of  war:  the  Laffittes,  the 
Ouvrards,  the  Rothschilds,  and  the 
Morgans. 

But  the  war  budgets  demand  larger  and 
larger  sums,  and  no  banker  or  banking 
syndicate  would  be  able  to  raise  the  needed 
funds.  So  the  State  eventually  becomes 
its  own  banker  and  reduces  the  printing 
of  treasury  notes  to  a  system.  From  this 
time  on  the  great  war  profiteers  are  no 
longer  either  the  men  who  traffic  in  arms 
or  those  who  finance  armaments,  but 
rather  those  who  manufacture  them:  the 
Krupps,  the  Schneiders,  the  Skodas,  and 
the  ZaharoflFs.  In  almost  every  industrial 
country  of  Europe  the  arms  factories  are 
the  largest  enterprises,  and  more  often 
than  not  it  is  they  which  set  the  pace  for 
the  others.  They  are  the  prototypes  of 
finance  capitalism,  combining,  as  they  do, 
industrial  and  banking  capital. 

Along  with  these  cannon  merchants, 
properly  so  called,  one  must  not  forget  to 


[264] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


lump  the  purveyors  of  raw  materials 
needed  in  the  manufacture  of  arms  and 
munitions,  as  well  as  those  who  furnish 
all  the  other  kinds  of  war  materials: 
the  manufacturers  of  canned  goods,  of 
cloth  for  uniforms,  the  oil  companies,  etc. 
— not  forgetting  the  war  speculators, 
notably  those  who  speculate  in  govern- 
ment issues,  and  who  are  very  often  to  be 
found  at  the  very  hearts  of  the  govern- 
ments themselves. 

From  1 9 14  to  191 8  the  profits  of  war 
declared  by  all  these  merchants  of  death 
in  the  belligerent  and  neutral  nations  may 
be  estimated,  according  to  Lewinsohn,  at 
150  billion  gold  francs! 

But  the  last  war  brought  out  new  forms 
of  capitalist  organization  which  are  also 
the  germs  of  the  breakdown  of  its  private 
profit  foundations.  War  is  an  undertaking 
which  now  involves  the  entire  nation,  and 
the  nation  demands  a  similar  'nationaliza- 
tion' of  war  industries.  What  is  more,  the 
outcome  of  the  recourse  to  war  proved 
fatal  to  the  majority  of  pre-War  indus- 
tries. And  to  this  one  must  also  add  the 
political  risks,  of  which  the  Russian 
Revolution  is  always  a  living  example. 
Today  the  very  form  of  government  is  in 
danger. 

For  all  these  reasons  one  may  wonder 
whether  the  armament  industry  still 
wants  war  as  much  as  ever,  at  least  so 
near  home.  Rather,  it  desires  an  armed 
peace,  and  permanent  tension.  The  threat 
of  war — that  is  what  best  suits  the  arma- 
ments business.  Manufacturers  of  arms 
make  better  profits  out  of  cannons  and 
airplanes  which  are  used  in  manoeuvers  and 
are  thrown  on  the  scrap  heap  before  they 
have  a  chance  to  be  used  in  war  itself. 
They  profit  equally  from  every  improve- 
ment of  military  technique  which  brings 
about  new  arms  orders.  If  they  are  no 
longer,  perhaps,  great  profiteers  of  the 
war  of  the  future,  they  are  at  least  the 
profiteers  of  *  peace-in-danger,'  and  for 
that  they  stick  at  nothing  to  maintain 
that  'era  of  fear'  which  Guehenno  has 
denounced. 


In  the  conclusion  of  his  work,  the 
wealth  of  whose  documentation  does  not 
in  any  way  diminish  the  pleasure  of  read- 
ing it,  Richard  Lewinsohn  drops  the 
historian's  role  and  becomes  the  ardent 
pacifist  who  denounces  the  evils  of  the 
enterprises  of  collective  death.  Their 
nationalization  is  certainly  in  order, 
along  with  the  nationalization  of  the  great 
banks  with  which  they  are  tied  up. 

The  Futility  of  Revolution 

Farewell  to  Revolution.  By  Everett 
Dean  Martin.  With  a  preface  by  Lord 
Lothian.  London:  Routledge.  igjS. 

(From  the  'Times  Literary  Supplement,  London) 

npHIS  is  a  valuable  but  difficult  book.  It 
treats  of  a  double  theme.  It  submits 
that  revolution  has  ended  by  producing 
the  exact  opposite  of  everything  it  sought 
to  achieve — a  doctrine  which  accounts 
for  the  book's  title.  It  submits  further 
that  the  causes  of  revolution  are  to  be 
sought  not  in  its  avowed  purposes  nor  in 
those  deeper  motives  which  the  Marxians 
profess  to  detect  but  in  the  nature  of 
crowd  psychology.  The  two  propositions 
are  interlocked,  and  Mr.  Martin  in  fact 
uses  each  to  demonstrate  the  other;  but 
historical  analysis  and  psychological  in- 
duction do  not  run  easily  in  double  har- 
ness, particularly  when  their  driver  is 
himself  neither  historian  nor  psychologist 
but  a  social  philosopher. 

Mr.  Martin  finds  three  cycles  of  revolu- 
tion in  European  history.  The  first,  which 
began  with  the  Gracchi,  though  it  had  a 
Greek  prelude,  aimed  at  .equality  and 
ended  in  Caesarism.  The  second,  which 
opened  with  the  Cluniac  movement  and 
closed  with  the  end  of  the  Thirty  Years 
W^ar,  sought  Christian  brotherhood  and 
achieved  the  disruption  of  the  Church. 
The  third  made  political  liberty  its  ideal 
and  has  culminated  in  the  dictatorships  of 
our  own  day. 

Contemplating  this  contrast  between 
intention  and  performance,  Mr.  Martin 
finds  it  a  little  hard  to  avoid  a  pessimistic 


/pjd 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[265] 


estimate  of  human  nature,  but  takes  com- 
fort in  the  thought  that  however  much 
they  may  pretend  to  be  mass  movements, 
revolutions  are  really  due  to  small  and 
desperate  minorities,  all  that  the  masses 
contribute  being  examples  of  crowd 
psychosis.  Its  nature  is  akin  to  paranoia 
in  an  individual.  The  symptoms  are  ob- 
session by  an  idea,  with  its  corollaries  of 
egomania  on  the  part  of  those  it  obsesses 
and  a  homicidal  impulse  directed  against 
the  obstacles  to  its  realization. 

Such  being  the  origins  of  revolution,  the 
belief  that  it  is  an  instrument  of  social 
progress  must  be  ill  founded.  True,  revo- 
lutionaries try  to  associate  themselves 
with  'advanced  thought;'  but  the  con- 
nection is  not  organic.  A  new  idea  may 
disturb  a  government  and  cause  it  to 
make  its  weakness  public  by  interfering 
with  freedom  of  thought.  Revolution,  at- 
tacking the  government,  professes  to 
champion  the  doctrines  which  that  gov- 
ernment seeks  to  suppress;  but  in  truth  a 
successful  revolution  occurs  'when  people 
abandon  the  attempt  to  solve  their  prob- 
lems and  resort  to  infantile  temper  tan- 
trums.' 

Because  it  is  a  tantrum,  a  revolution 
utterly  misses  its  alleged  objective.  Thus 
at  the  present  moment  people  suffering 
from  the  world's  economic  distress  are 
obsessed  by  the  idea  of  a  planned  econ- 
omy, and  for  its  sake  are  prepared  to  ac- 
cept a  dictatorship  which  will  deprive 
them  of  those  very  rights  as  citizens 
thanks  to  which  they  are  able  to  ventilate 
their  grievances. 

Against  this  intellectual  background 
Mr.  Martin  sets  his  historical  survey.  Be- 
ginning with  Rome,  he  scores  a  neat  point 
by  observing  that  the  average  Roman 
business  man,  lawyer  or  army  officer  of  the 
late  Republic  would  have  talked  like  the 
typical  middle-class  Englishman  of  to- 
day:— 

'He  would  have  deplored  the  "modern- 
ism" of  the  younger  generation,  .  .  . 
would  have  assured  you  that  he  was  an 
optimist,  but  would  have  thought  that 


certain  politicians  were  leading  the  pro- 
letariat into  dangerous  Radicalism.  .  . 
He  would  have  been  worried  about  the 
number  of  unemployed  in  Rome,  and 
have  said  Rome  was  being  filled  with  dan- 
gerous foreigners  who  ought  to  be  sent 
back  where  they  came  from.' 

A  fair  hit:  but  Mr.  Martin  invites  the 
retort  that  his  own  critical  standpoint  is 
that  of  the  middle-class  American  of  yes- 
terday, convinced  that  the  abolition  of 
slavery  is  the  beginning  of  all  real  prog- 
ress and  that  strength  in  the  central 
Government  is  to  be  deplored  as  checking 
rugged  individualism.  Equally  of  the  pe- 
riod is  his  criticism  of  the  triumph  of 
Christianity  that  it  exalted  meekness 
when  the  times  needed  the  more  robust 
virtues  of  the  early  Republic. 

GREATER  insight  is  shown,  however,  in 
the  discussion  of  the  medieval  period.  It 
had  to  deal,  Mr.  Martin  suggests,  with 
three  irreconcilable  elements — the  violent, 
barbarian  tradition,  the  organizing  genius 
of  Rome  as  transmitted  by  the  Church, 
and  the  millennial  aspirations  of  early 
Christianity.  In  the  thirteenth  century 
some  sort  of  harmony  was  achieved  but 
not  preserved.  The  root  of  the  trouble  was 
that  the  barbarian  invaders  were  Chris- 
tianized before  they  were  civilized.  Hence 
to  this  day  the  civilization  of  the  West  is 
not  merely  borrowed  but  is  only  skin- 
deep,  so  that  'culture  still  seems  to  most 
of  us  to  be  a  genteel  luxury.'  Because 
there  was  no  real  synthesis  of  its  constitu- 
ent ideas,  the  medieval  mind  was  likely  to 
be  swept  off  its  balance,  and  because  its 
whole  cast  was  religious,  the  disturbance, 
as  Peter  the  Hermit  showed,  could  best 
be  created  through  a  religious  appeal: — 

'This  beginning  of  evangelistic  preach- 
ing is  historically  important.  With  it  be- 
gan that  technique  of  emotional,  often 
ignorant,  appeal  to  the  masses  which 
tended  to  reduce  religious  preaching  to 
mere  exhortation  and  propaganda  and  de- 
prive the  religious  instruction  of  the  peo- 
ple of  much  of  its  intellectual  content. 


[266] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


The  method  of  mass  appeal,  later  resorted 
to  by  Franciscans  and  Dominicans,  led  to 
Luther's  severe  denunciation  of  the 
preaching  of  the  friars.  Yet  it  was  em- 
ployed by  the  "poor  preachers,"  followers 
of  John  Wyclif  in  England,  who  became 
the  predecessors  of  the  Wesleys,  Cotton 
Mathers  and  various  other  revivalists, 
demagogues,  and  such-like,  who  have 
done  much  to  make  public  sentiment  what 
it  is  today.' 

Nor  is  emotionalism  the  only  character- 
istic of  crowd  psychosis  which  Mr.  Mar- 
tin traces  back  to  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
Hildebrandine  movement  to  correct  cleri- 
cal abuses  had  led  the  common  man  to 
believe  that  he  was  probably  the  moral 
superior  of  his  social  betters  and  was  thus 
responsible  for  the  class-consciousness, 
which  was  at  the  root  of  the  peasants' 
revolt  in  England  and  of  heretical  radical- 
ism on  the  Continent,  and  which  ulti- 
mately defeated  Innocent  Ill's  attempt 
to  establish  the  Papacy  as  a  sort  of  inter- 
national dictatorship  regulating  the  exist- 
ing social  order.  It  met  the  papal  aspira- 
tions with  a  demand  for  a  brotherhood  of 
souls  based  on  primitive  Christian  com- 
munism. This  demand  eventually  dis- 
rupted the  Church  and  left  behind  it  not  a 
purified  ecclesiastical  order  but  the  mod- 
ern system  of  nation-states. 

Against  the  tyranny  of  such  States, 
revolution  sought  to  assert  the  inalienable 
rights  of  man.  The  movement  opened 
with  the  Long  Parliament,  or  possibly 
with  the  reaction  to  the  putsch  known  as 
the  Gunpowder  Plot.  In  its  origin,  Mr. 
Martin  thinks,  this  movement  was  re- 
ligious rather  than  political  or  economic, 
and  he  notes  that  the  average  Puritan, 
though  bigoted,  was  'free  from  the  vices 
and  corruptions  of  ordinary  humanity.' 
Nevertheless,  Puritanism  followed  the 
ordinary  revolutionary  course,  largely  be- 
cause its  times  were  harsh  and  cruel,  and 
even  set  a  new  precedent  by  working  the 
crowd's  homicidal  impulse  up  to  a  climax 
in  the  execution  of  the  King. 

Anti-monarchical    sentiment    traveled 


with  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  to  America  and 
played  a  part  in  the  movement  which 
founded  the  United  States.  Mr.  Martin 
asks  how  far  this  movement  can  be  called 
a  revolution,  and  finds  that  revolutionary 
ideas  acted  on  the  legitimate  dissatisfaction 
of  colonists,  who  felt  themselves  exploited 
by  companies  having  their  headquarters 
in  England,  and  who  were  therefore  in- 
clined to  suspect  new  taxation  imposed 
by  London.  In  all  the  Colonies  men 
who  had  been  servants  in  England  found 
themselves  independent  farmers,  and 
were  in  a  mood  to  challenge  the  system 
which  had  made  them  what  they  once  had 
been.  Their  fervor  helped  both  to  provoke 
and  to  win  the  war,  but  'had  the  achieve- 
ment of  national  independence  not  been 
preceded  by  the  movement  for  social 
revolution  within  the  colonies,  public  af- 
fairs in  America  might  have  been  con- 
ducted on  a  higher  level  of  intelligence 
than  that  which  has  prevailed  during  the 
greater  part  of  its  history  as  a  nation  .  .  . 
The  public  as  a  whole,  the  undifferentiated 
mass,  took  to  itself  credit  for  American 
nationality  and  identified  its  collective 
egotism  with  the  virtue  of  patriotism.* 

The  comment  prepares  the  reader  for 
Mr.  Martin's  chapter  on  the  French 
Revolution,  which  he  treats  as  the  classi- 
cal instance  of  crowd  psychosis,  with  its 
obsession  of  Liberty,  Equality  and  Fra- 
ternity, its  egomania  expressed  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  sovereign  people,  and  its 
homicidal  impulses  given  free  play  by  the 
guillotine.  As  to  the  futility  of  the  Revo- 
lution, how  could  it  be  better  illustrated 
than  by  the  contrast  between  the  Rights 
of  Man  and  the  despotism  of  Napoleon? 

What  the  Revolution  had  shown,  how- 
ever, was  its  capacity  for  '  breaking  down 
established  habit  patterns  and  releasing 
the  criminal  tendencies  in  human  nature 
and  the  criminal  elements  in  the  com- 
munity.' This  aspect  of  revolutionary 
technique  became  prominent  after  1848 
had  seen  the  exhaustion  of  the  old  hu- 
manitarian aspirations  and  the  transfer  of 
hatred  from  the  priest  and  the  landlord  to 


193^ 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[267] 


the  shareholder.  It  is,  nevertheless,  re- 
markable that  the  French  Revolution 
should  have  fostered  Communism,  and 
Mr.  Martin  is  able  to  throw  an  interesting 
trans-atlantic  light  on  the  process: — 

'Many  Americans  before  the  Civil  War 
were  hardly  more  sparing  than  Karl  Marx 
in  their  denunciation  of  capitalist  indus- 
trialism. Many  thousands  of  people  had 
emigrated  to  those  shores  to  escape  that 
very  system.  There  was  therefore  a  strong 
agrarian  hostility  to  the  development  and 
spread  of  New  England  industrialism  in 
this  continent  .  .  .  Horace  Greeley  him- 
self was  sufficiently  influenced  by  Fourier 
to  employ  Karl  Marx  as  regular  foreign 
contributor  to  the  New  York  Tribune.  It 
was  not  until  later  that  criticism  of  the 
capitalist  system  in  the  United  States 
ceased  to  be  respectable.' 

In  Europe,  on  the  other  hand,  such 
criticism  was  revolutionary  from  the 
first,  with  the  result  that  the  old  idealism 
was  degraded  into  a  conspiracy  against 
the  social  order.  As  such,  Its  hopes  lay 
with  the  development  of  a  satisfactory 
conspiratorial  technique.  For  lack  of  it  the 
Paris  Commune  failed.  By  the  use  of  it 
Bolshevism  succeeded.  It  only  remained 
for  Mussolini  and  Hitler  to  make  a  sig- 
nificant improvement  on  Lenin's  tech- 
nique. Instead  of  trading  on  the  under- 
dog's sense  of  inferiority  they  appealed  to 
his  pride  by  invoking  his  national  spirit. 

The  wheel  has  now  come  full  circle,  and 
the  very  movement  which  started  as  a 
protest  against  despotism  three  hundred 
years  ago  has  been  converted  into  an  en- 
gine for  its  establishment. 

Japan  Must  Fight  Britain 

Japan  Must  Fight  Britain.  By  Toto 
Ishimaru.  London:  Hurst  and  Blacken. 
1936. 

(Kurt  von  Stutterheim  in  the  Berliner  Tageblatt, 
Berlin) 

TUST  at  this  very  moment,  when  Eng- 
land Is  staring,  as  if  hypnotized,  at  the 
'German   peril,'    there   comes   an    alarm 


signal  from  the  Far  East.  It  comes  from 
the  gun  of  Toto  Ishimaru,  Lieutenant- 
Commander  in  the  Imperial  Japanese 
Fleet.  Ishimaru  has  written  a  book  which 
has  been  translated  into  English,  and  in 
which  he  examines  Anglo-Japanese  rela- 
tions. The  conclusions  drawn  from  this 
examination  are  embodied  in  the  title 
Japan  Must  Fight  Britain. 

Ishimaru  bases  this  postulate  on  the 
fact  that  England  has  too  much  and 
Japan  too  little.  And  this  Japanese  defi- 
ciency Is  so  enormous  that  Japan's  only 
choice  lies  between  war  and  suffocation — 
unless  England  gives  way  territorially  and 
commercially  by  opening  the  Empire  to 
Japanese  trade  and  immigration.  But 
since  Ishimaru  has  no  confidence  in  Eng- 
land's voluntary  renunciation,  only  war 
can  bring  a  decision,  just  as  in  1914  the 
issue  between  England  and  Germany  had 
to  be  decided  by  arms.  Before  the  War  it 
was  Germany,  today  it  is  Japan,  which  Is 
England's  most  dangerous  competitor, 
and  whose  goods  are  forcing  those  of  the 
English  out  of  the  Asiatic  and  African 
market.  With  the  growth  of  her  industry 
Japan  has  proved  that  she  is  able  to  win 
battles  in  time  of  peace  as  well  as  in  time 
of  war. 

Ishimaru  divides  the  inevitable  war 
with  England  into  two  parts:  a  diplomatic 
and  a  military  one.  The  decision  in  the 
latter  struggle  is  to  take  place  in  Singa- 
pore. If  Japan  can  take  Singapore  or  put 
it  out  of  action  before  a  strong  English 
squadron  can  get  there,  England's  pros- 
pects for  victory  are  nil.  Thus  the  most 
essential  thing  for  Japan  to  do  is  to  have 
the  outbreak  of  the  war  occur  at  a  time 
when  the  British  fleet  is  still  far  away.  If 
she  succeeds,  and  Singapore  falls,  Japan's 
submarines,  airplanes  and  cruisers  can 
catch  the  British  fleet  in  the  Indian  Ocean 
or  between  the  Malay  Islands.  This  will 
mean  that  Japan  will  have  an  open  route 
to  Australia  and  the  Dutch-East  Indies. 
If,  however,  the  coup  against  Singapore 
fails,  Japan's  situation  will  be  serious. 
Ishimaru   takes  this  risk  fully  into  ac- 


[268] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


count;  for  in  his  opinion  Japan  can  choose 
only  between  war  and  starvation. 

Ishimaru  believes  that  the  diplomatic 
danger  is  far  greater  than  the  military; 
for  in  the  diplomatic  field  England  is  an 
unexcelled  master.  Although  she  lost  the 
War  against  Germany  in  a  military  sense, 
she  won  it  politically.  Ishimaru  has  no 
doubt  that,  following  her  tradition,  Eng- 
land will  use  all  her  diplomatic  abilities  to 
get  others  to  fight  for  her.  To  thwart  this 
manoeuver  he  demands  immediate  recon- 
ciliation with  Soviet  Russia  and  the 
United  States,  as  well  as  a  rapprochement 
with  France  designed  to  force  England  to 
keep  important  military  forces  in  the 
Mediterranean. 

But  what  will  happen  if  Moscow  does 
not  remain  neutral,  and  Singapore  does 
not  fall?  Then,  says  Ishimaru,  Japan  may 
lose  this  war,  but  only  this  one.  For  the 
unbroken  strength  of  the  Japanese  people 
will  rise  again  even  after  defeat,  and  by 
means  of  new  wars  will  find  a  place  in  the 
sun.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  England  loses 
the  war,  it  will  mean  the  end  of  the  British 
Empire.  For  this  reason  there  is  much 
more  at  stake  for  England  than  there  is  for 
Japan;  and  thus  Ishimaru's  advice  to 
England  is  to  give  in  in  time,  rather  than 
risk  war. 

Obviously  Ishimaru  takes  into  con- 
sideration many  unknown  factors,  such  as 
the  attitude  of  the  Soviet  Union  and  the 
United  States,  while  he  regards  China  as 
merely  the  passive  object  of  other  nations' 
policies.  But  worse  than  this,  he  flirts 
with  a  great  illusion.  For  in  the  eyes  of 
this  Japanese  England  is  already  declin- 
ing, while  young  Japan  is  still  inexorably 
rising.  It  is  strange  that  Ishimaru,  who  so 
frequently  draws  a  parallel  between  Eng- 
land and  Germany  and  England  and 
Japan,  makes  the  same  mistake  Imperial 
Germany  made  in  underestimating  the 
English  people.  Is  he  blind  to  the  fact  that 
the  English  rise  up  like  wild  animals  when 
they  see  their  vital  interests  threatened — 
interests  for  the  protection  of  which  they 
are  right  now  spending  300  million  pounds  ? 


Ishimaru  can  easily  see  today  how  false  is 
his  belief  that  New  York  has  replaced 
London  as  the  money  market  of  the  world. 

We  do  not  know  who  is  behind  Ishi- 
maru, nor  whether  the  Tokyo  authorities 
share  his  opinion  that  war  with  England  is 
inevitable  and  that  an  unexpected  attack 
on  Singapore  will  be  decisive.  If  Ishi- 
maru's opinion  is  to  be  regarded  as  the 
official  one,  England  actually  is  in  grave 
danger,  for  her  rearmament  is  not  yet 
completed  and  Mussolini  is  threatening 
the  British  Mediterranean  Fleet.  Perhaps 
this  was  the  secret  behind  Baldwin's 
'sealed  lips.'  But  to  draw  the  conclusion 
that  England's  hour  has  struck  is,  to  say 
the  least,  rash. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  to  the  author's 
credit  that  he  proves  how  black  are  the 
clouds  that  are  gathering  in  the  Far 
Eastern  sky,  and  how  deep  the  military 
and  economic  contrasts  between  the 
former  allies  have  become.  He  has  done 
this  in  a  manner  which  for  bluntness  is  un- 
equaled.  If  an  Anglo-Japanese  war  breaks 
out,  Japan  Must  Fight  Britain  will  be  the 
warning  signal. 

[The  American  edition  of  Ishimaru* s  book 
has  been  published  by  the  Telegraph  Press 
of  Harrisburg,  Pa.,  at  $3.00.] 

The  Russian  Soul 
Symphonie  Path^tique.  By  Klaus  Mann. 
Amsterdam:  ^uerido-Verlag.  IQJS- 
(Otto  Zarek  in  the  Pester  Lloyd,  Budapest) 

A  RE  the  Hves  of  artists  interesting? 
The  life  of  the  composer  Peter 
Tchaikovsky  is,  to  a  surprising  degree.  At 
a  time  when  the  literati,  following  the 
fashion,  are  on  the  trail  of  every  fairly 
well-known  figure  and  often,  in  order  to 
obtain  a"  juicy  novel-plot,  build  up 
artificial  scenery  around  a  simple,  unim- 
portant, vegetative  existence,  the  aloof 
personality  of  the  Russian — all-too-Rus- 
sian— musician  Tchaikovsky  promises  a 
hero  whom  a  sensitive  author  cannot 
approach  without  being  captivated.  Tchai- 


1936 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[269] 


kovsky's  familiar  music  proves  to  be  the 
true  mirror  of  his  earthly  existence.  In  him 
as  in  his  six  symphonies  the  spirit  of  Rus- 
sia and  that  of  the  West  are  at  war.  The 
melancholia  of  the  East  is  constantly 
oppressed  by  an  unhappy  love  for  the 
great  forms  of  Western  culture;  oppressed, 
but  seldom  conquered.  The  Russian, 
drifting  in  soft  melancholy,  and  never 
rising  to  determined  structure,  loves  the 
serenity,  the  formal  beauty,  the  heavenly 
clarity  of  Mozart,  and  bows  down  before 
them.  But  whenever  he  does  rise,  he  is 
overcome  by  the  lethargy  of  the  '  Russian 
soul,'  and  he  collapses  in  the  knowledge 
that  the  high  art  has  again  slipped  through 
his  fingers. 

Nothing  would  be  more  false  than  to 
overestimate  the  music  of  Tchaikovsky, 
to  make  a  hero  of  its  creator.  Klaus  Mann 
in  his  Tchaikovsky  novel  is  out  to  make 
the  reader  experience  the  tragic  struggle 
of  the  master.  With  fine  skill  he  places 
the  already  mature  and  famous  man  in  the 
center  of  a  fast  moving  action.  He  shows 
the  unhappy  doubter,  inwardly  isolated, 
being  led  on  great  tours  through  Europe, 
helpless,  yearning  for  his  home  like  a 
child,  even  when  he  is  being  acclaimed. 
A  vigorously  alive  and  colorful  world,  the 
musical  Europe  of  the  eighties,  is  recreated 
anew  in  this  novel,  as  seen  with  the  eyes  of 
the  epic  writer.  There  is  the  precious  scene 
in  the  salon  in  Leipzig  where  Tchaikovsky 
encounters  Edvard  Grieg  and  Brahms; 
there  is  the  first  meeting  with  the  greatest 
of  conductors,  Artur  Nikisch,  who  all  his 
life  was  Tchaikovsky's  prophet;  there  is 
the  whole  musical  world  of  Paris  and 
London ! 


But  this  novel  about  a  musician  does 
not  rise  to  the  level  of  a  novel  about  a  man 
until  the  author  places  this  outer  world  in 
opposition  to  the  inner  world  of  a  great, 
celebrated,  struggling,  suffering,  bitterly 
lonely  human  being.  As  so  often  in  the  case 
of  envied  celebrities,  Tchaikovsky,  too, 
was  doomed  to  loneliness  by  destiny.  In 
vain  he  seeks  quiet  in  the  dens  of  the 
Place  Pigalle  and  in  the  company  of  fallen 
creatures.  He  wastes  precious  time  pathet- 
ically seeking  the  favors  of  good-looking 
boys.  It  is  that  time  which  he  should  have 
used  to  make  himself  one  of  the  'Great- 
est.' Thus  Tchaikovsky's  own  life  becomes 
a  symphonie  pathetique. 

Whoever  knows  the  Klaus  Mann's  begin- 
nings must  be  honestly  surprised  to  see 
him  at  twenty-seven  a  finished,  mature, 
indeed,  a  genuine  poet.  Himself  highly 
talented,  he  had  to  struggle  against  the 
example  of  his  great  father.  Now  suddenly 
the  oppressive  shadows  seem  to  have 
receded;  he  has  become  freed,  himself. 
The  style  of  the  book  has  great  strength 
and  color,  a  peculiar  personal  charm  of  its 
own.  The  action,  the  leading  from  a 
glamorous  upper  world  into  a  dark, 
consciously  toned  down  'underworld,' 
shot  through  with  spiritual  experience,  is 
full  of  stirring  drama.  All  the  characters 
of  this  novel,  which  is  rich  in  characters, 
this  entire  gallery  of  great  names  is 
presented  with  plastic  power.  Klaus  Mann 
always  remains  the  narrator  in  the  best 
sense  of  the  word:  keeping  aloof  and  yet 
observing  acutely,  he  is  sensitive  even 
when  he  uncovers  the  wounds  of  an  erring 
soul.  He  has  succeeded  in  writing  a  rich, 
mature,  stimulating  and  poetic  book. 


OUR  OWN  BOOKSHELF 


War  and  Diplomacy  in  the  Japanese  Em- 
pire. By  Tatsuji  Takeucbi.  Introduction  by 
^incy  fVright.  Garden  City:  Boubleday^ 
Doran  and  Company.  1935. 505  pages.  $4.50. 

"p^ROM  the  promulgation  of  the  written  Con- 
stitution of  1889  to  the  ratification  of  the 
London  Naval  Treaty  in  1930,  Japanese  con- 
stitutional government,  and,  with  it,  parlia- 
mentary control  of  the  executive,  developed. 
The  development  took  place  in  spite  of  fre- 
quent efforts  of  the  military  to  thwart  it.  The 
tradition  of  civilian  government  was  strength- 
ening; the  Diet  was  becoming  an  increasing 
participant  in  the  formulation  of  policy;  public 
opinion  was  on  the  verge  of  emerging  as  a 
factor  in  itself;  and  the  eminent  constitutional 
lawyer.  Dr.  Minobe,  was  able  to  assert  that  the 
Emperor  was  an  organ  of  the  State.  Yet  by 
1930  these  processes  had  not  advanced  very 
far  when  measured  in  terms  of  American  or 
English  democracies.  Japan  was  still  ruled  by 
an  exceedingly  small  group  of  families,  func- 
tioning either  through  the  Imperial  Court,  the 
army,  the  navy,  the  Privy  Council,  or  the 
political  parties.  Through  their  elected  repre- 
sentatives in  the  Diet,  the  public  participated 
to  an  exceedingly  limited  extent  in  the  formu- 
lation of  domestic  policies,  and  not  at  all  in  the 
foreign  sphere.  A  powerful,  and  at  times  in- 
dependent and  liberal,  press  had  developed, 
but  too  often  it  was  curtailed  by  censorship  or 
submitted  to  pressure  groups. 

After  the  ratification  of  the  London  Naval 
Treaty,  in  1930,  the  trend  was  reversed.  Before 
the  determined  opposition  of  effective  army 
and  navy  groups  the  slow,  steady  progress  in 
parliamentary  and  civilian  government  gave 
way  to  a  gradual  return  to  the  old  feudal 
system.  But  as  it  was  the  1930's,  the  recession 
was  not  towards  feudalism  as  such  but  toward 
its  modern  counterpart,  military  fascism.  In 
this  backward  march  we  have  seen,  as  mile- 
stones along  the  way,  the  occupation  of  Man- 
churia and  the  setting  up  of  the  puppet  state 
of  Manchukuo;  the  abortive  attack  on  Shang- 
hai; the  occupation  of  Jehol;  the  North  China 
'autonomy'  movement;  the  isolation  of  Japan 
from  international  collective  machinery;  and 
assassinations  and  gangsterism  at  home. 

The  issue  is  not  yet  determined.  The  parlia- 


mentary-civilian group  still  apparently  holds 
the  Government:  the  Emperor  and  court 
circles  are  with  them.  But,  in  terms  of  national 
budget,  newspaper  censorship,  propaganda, 
and  the  control  of  the  Foreign  Office,  the 
power  of  the  military  increases.  Nevertheless 
the  issue  remains  in  the  balance  between  these 
two  great  conservative  factions  of  Japanese 
society. 

It  is  exactly  on  this  central  issue  in  modern 
Japan  that  Professor  Takeuchi's  book  throws 
floods  of  light.  He  has  made  available  in 
English  for  the  first  time  a  detailed  analysis  of 
the  conduct  of  Japan's  foreign  relations 
(wherein  this  issue  is  dramatically  reflected) 
from  1890  through  the  critical  years  1930-32. 
Eighteen  chapters  are  devoted  to  describing 
the  inner  Tokyo  machinations  with  respect  to 
important  episodes  in  the  country's  foreign 
policy,  episodes  such  as  the  revision  of  unequal 
treaties,  the  Anglo-Japanese  Alliance,  the 
Russo-Japanese  War,  the  annexation  of  Korea, 
the  Siberian  Expedition,  the  Washington 
Conference,  the  murder  of  Chang  Tso-lin,  the 
London  Naval  Treaty,  and  the  Manchurian 
crisis.  The  eight  opening  chapters  analyze 
Japan's  constitutional  organization  with  spe- 
cial reference  to  external  relations,  and  the 
final  three  chapters  take  up  in  review  the  con- 
duct of  foreign  relations  as  practiced  between 
1889  and  1932. 

The  book  is  excellent  for  what  it  contains 
and  also  for  what  it  wisely  excludes.  Professor 
Takeuchi  concentrates  almost  exclusively  on 
the  political  and  diplomatic  negotiations  be- 
tween the  Cabinet,  the  military  branches,  the 
Genro,  the  Privy  Council,  the  Emperor,  the 
court,  and  the  upper  and  lower  houses  of  Par- 
liament with  reference  to  episodes  in  the 
country's  foreign  relations.  Anyone  at  all 
acquainted  with  Japan's  social  and  economic 
problems  will  find  these  reflected  in  the  com- 
plicated negotiations  the  book  describes.  It  is 
as  though  the  forces  determining  Japanese 
policy  were  viewed  as  a  pyramid  with  the  great 
underlying  social  and  economic  factors  at  the 
base,  the  various  institutional  organizations 
of  Japanese  society  at  the  center,  and  the  polit- 
ical expression  at  the  top.  Professor  Takeuchi 
describes  this  top  segment,  where  the  under- 
lying forces  below  are  given  political  expres- 


OUR  OWN  BOOKSHELF 


[271] 


sion  and  form.  The  author  does  not  attempt  to 
expose  the  underlying  factors  themselves. 
Thus  he  does  thoroughly  a  job  which  can  be 
done  in  a  single  volume  and  by  a  student  of 
law  and  international  relations.  He  does  not 
tread  where  the  path,  for  him,  would  be  un- 
certain. 

Particular  mention  should  be  made  of  the 
author's  courage  in  allowing  this  exceedingly 
valuable  book  to  appear  at  this  time.  Tatsuji 
Takeuchi  is  professor  of  international  relations 
at  Kwansei  Gakuin  University,  a  young  man 
beginning  an  academic  career  in  Japan.  His 
book,  though  objective,  is  certain  to  meet  with 
displeasure  in  military-Fascist  circles,  and 
these,  we  know,  can  and  do  interrupt  liberal 
academic  careers.  Notwithstanding  this  dan- 
ger, there  is  no  indication  that  the  author  has 
withheld  any  evidence  for  fear  of  the  con- 
sequences of  publishing  it. 

— Frederick  V.  Field 

Survey  of  International  Affairs,  1934. 
By  Arnold  J.  Toynbee  et  al.  London:  Oxford 
University  Press,  ipj^.  743  pages.  $10.00. 

"VT^EAR  after  year,  since  the  publication  of  the 
first  Survey  in  1925  (covering  the  period 
1920-1923),  scholars  and  informed  readers 
eagerly  await  the  appearance  of  the  latest 
contribution  to  this  series  to  summarize,  clar- 
ify, and  interpret  the  international  history 
of  the  recent  past.  Brought  out  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Royal  Institute  of  International 
Affairs  and  the  editorship  of  Professor  Toyn- 
bee, the  volumes  have  all  been  distinguished 
for  solidity  of  scholarship  combined  with  bril- 
liance of  writing. 

Part  One  of  the  Survey  for  1934  is  devoted 
to  a  sketch  of  economic  developments  through- 
out the  world.  There  are  excellent  sections  on 
the  continuing  financial  and  economic  diffi- 
culties of  the  United  States,  the  weakening  of 
the  European  gold  bloc,  the  German  debt  situ- 
ation, and  the  evidences  of  recovery  in  the 
ABC  powers  of  Latin-America  and  the  British 
overseas  dominions.  Of  especial  interest  is  the 
conclusion  reached  at  the  end  of  this  portion 
of  the  work,  that  'the  principal  advantage  of 
currency  depreciation  .  .  .  was  not  the  stim- 
ulus to  exports  and  the  check  to  imports,  but 
the  capacity  to  pursue,  within  the  national 
borders,  liberal  monetary  and  economic  poli- 
cies unshackled  by  care  for  threatened  gold 
reserves.  ...  On  the  other  hand,  the  princi- 


pal disadvantage  of  the  situation  for  the  coun- 
tries still  on  gold  was  not  the  direct  injury  to 
their  foreign  trade  but  the  need  for  still  tighter 
internal  deflation  to  bring  their  own  price- 
systems  into  harmony  with  external  prices  as 
expressed  in  gold.  For  in  no  mstance  .  .  .  was 
the  fall  of  the  national  currency  against  gold 
accompanied  by  even  an  approximately  equal 
rise  of  prices  expressed  in  the  national  cur- 
rency.' 

The  second  part  of  the  Survey  is  concerned 
with  Middle  Eastern  affairs  from  1931  until 
the  close  of  1934.  Main  stress  is  laid  upon  the 
minorities  question  in  Iraq  and  the  kingdom's 
final  'emancipation'  from  its  mandatory 
regime.  Other  sections  deal  with  Pan-Islam, 
the  admission  of  Turkey  and  Afghanistan  to 
membership  in  the  League  of  Nations,  the 
settlement  of  half-a-dozen  troublesome  Arabian 
frontier  disputes,  the  economic  development  of 
Palestine,  Great  Britain's  relations  with  her 
Near  Eastern  mandates,  and  the  interesting 
controversy  between  London  and  Teheran  over 
the  concession  to  the  Anglo-Persian  Oil  Com- 
pany. The  settlement  reached  by  the  dis- 
putants in  this  last  connection  is  characterized 
as  being  'neither  inequitable  nor  oppressive 
to  either  of  the  two  principals.' 

Europe  is  the  subject  of  the  third  and  longest 
portion  of  the  Survey.  In  the  first  footnote  to 
the  Introduction  (itself  a  lengthy  and  ex- 
cellent summary  of  the  general  trends  of 
European  diplomacy  in  1934)  to  this  part, 
occur  these  remarkable  lines — lines  deserving 
of  long  thought  and  reflection:  'If  we  think 
of  the  years  1918-34  in  terms  of  the  years 
1815-48,  which  were  the  "post-war  period" 
after  the  General  War  of  1792-18 15,  we  shall 
find  in  Monsieur  Poincare  our  closest  latter- 
day  counterpart  of  Metternich.  .  .  .  The  re- 
spective results  of  the  two  statesmen's  endeav- 
ors are  proportionate  to  the  difference  in  the 
degree  of  their  genius.  The  tour  de  force  of 
imposing  fixity  upon  a  political  flux,  which  a 
Metternich  managed  to  keep  up  for  thirty- 
three  years,  was  only  kept  up  for  some  fifteen 
years  by  a  Poincare.' 

After  this  Introduction  follow  descriptions 
of  recent  Soviet  and  Baltic  foreign  policies, 
of  the  strained  relations  between  Nazi  Ger- 
many and  the  Austria  of  Dollfuss  and  Starhem- 
berg,  of  Italy's  diplomatic  maneuverings  in 
respect  of  Austria  and  Hungary,  of  the  Balkan 
Pact,  and  of  the  final  settlement  of  the  Saar 
problem.  In  the  opinion  of  the  author  of  the 


[272] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


section  on  the  Saar,  the  solving  of  this  ques- 
tion made  it  'manifest  that,  if  once  the  terri- 
torial conflict  between  the  two  principal 
Powers  of  Continental  Europe  were  removed 
from  the  arena,  the  whole  international  situa- 
tion in  Europe  was  likely  to  improve  almost 
beyond  the  range  of  imagination.' 

Part  Four  of  the  Survey  deals  with  the  Far 
East.  Following  sections  on  the  internal  de- 
velopments in  China  and  Japan,  come  dis- 
cussions of  Sino-Japanese,  Soviet-Japanese, 
and  Western-Japanese  relations,  and  an  inter- 
esting final  section  on  events  in  'Manchuria,' 
Mongolia,  Sinkiang,  and  Tibet.  The  volume 
closes  with  a  useful  chronology  of  events  for 
1934  and  five  good  maps. 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  do  justice,  in  so  brief 
a  review,  to  the  labor  and  care  that  went  into 
the  making  of  the  Survey  for  1934.  Suffice  it 
to  say,  in  conclusion,  that  they  who  may  read 
and  ponder  it  will  close  this  volume  wiser  and 
better  men. 

Walter  Consuelo  Langsam 

Inside  Europe.  By  John  Gunlber.  New  York: 
Harper  and  Brothers.  1936.  470  pages.  $3.50. 

TN  THIS  country  we  are  now  fast  at  work 
establishing  traditions;  but  few  traditions 
are  so  remarkable  as  that  of  the  American 
newspaperman  reporting  Europe.  Where  Lin- 
coln Steffens  left  off,  Vincent  Shean  and 
Dorothy  Thompson  began,  and  now  the 
Fischers,  Knickerbockers,  and  Mowrers  are 
done  one  better  by  John  Gunther  of  the 
Chicago  Daily  News,  who  summarizes  his 
knowledge  of  twenty  countries  in  a  full-bodied 
volume. 

The  outstanding  quality  of  this  political 
Baedeker,  beyond  its  comprehensiveness,  is  its 
aerial  method  of  travel.  Mr.  Gunther  is  an  ex- 
pert at  the  quick  glance  and  aperfu:  'The  for- 
eign policy  of  Spain  is  very  simple:  it  is  to  stay 
behind  the  Pyrenees;'  'The  chief  crop  of 
provincial  Austria  is — scenery.'  He  is  a  retailer 
of  lightly  revealing  footnotes  on  the  august: 
Hitler  likes  best  to  stay  in  his  Alpine  chalet, 
from  which  he  can  look  out  upon  his  native 
Austria;  the  Franco-Soviet  rapprochement 
was  thickened  by  Herriot's  trip  to  Moscow  and 
his  huge  participation  in  its  caviar;  Stalin  is 
partial  to  an  American  brand  of  tobacco,  but 
tries  to  keep  it  under  cover.  He  is  a  reporter 
of  those  whispered  caf6-table  jokes  which  re- 
veal, more  than  anything  else,  the  reactions  of 
people  against  dictators;  and  this  makes  his 


narrative  sometimes  more  subterranean  than 
aerial. 

Yet  these  showers  of  anecdotes  do  not  con- 
vict Inside  Europe  of  frivolity.  They  are  in- 
troduced to  support  a  serious  thesis:  Mr. 
Gunther  believes  that  the  strict  economic  in- 
terpretation of  history  has  been  overdone,  and 
that  in  political  destiny  the  force  of  personali- 
ties with  all  their  accidents  of  heredity  and  en- 
vironment is  overwhelmingly  felt.  Fascist  dic- 
tators are  the  products  of  social  chaos,  other 
writers  have  told  us  that;  Mr.  Gunther  em- 
phasizes that  they  have  a  psychopathology  of 
their  own,  and  he  hauls  Dr.  Stekel  of  Vienna 
in  to  flank  the  personal  histories  and  support 
some  shrewd  analysis. 

Leaving  immediate  personalities,  the  book 
concerns  itself  ably  with  the  history  of  the 
shifts  in  British,  French,  and  Soviet  foreign 
policy  from  the  War  through  1935;  the  seven 
chapters  on  Germany  inside  and  out  are  sup- 
plemented by  sections  on  the  Little  and  Bal- 
kan Ententes  and  the  ominous  shifting  of  their 
grouping  toward  the  Fascist  orbit.  While  the 
author  remains  the  impartial  recorder  through- 
out, it  is  clear  that  he  is  profoundly  impressed 
by  recent  developments  in  the  U.S.S.R.:  the 
contrast  between  Moscow,  despite  all  its 
crudity,  and  the  central  capitals  he  feels  to  be 
one  between  order  and  hysteria,  youth  and 
decay. 

— William  Harlan  Hale 

Togo  and  the  Rise  of  Japanese  Sea  Power. 
By  Edwin  A.  Folk.  New  York:  Longmans  y 
Green  and  Company.  igjS.  joS  pages.  $4.00. 

T^HIS  carefully  documented  biography  of 
■*•  one  of  Japan's  leaders  in  its  overnight 
emergence  from  medieval  isolation  to  a  domi- 
nant position  in  the  politics  of  the  western 
Pacific  sets  out  to  be  the  portrait  of  a  great  ad- 
miral by  a  naval  man  who  is  himself  steeped  in 
the  glamor  and  the  traditions  of  sea  warfare. 
Each  minor  engagement  in  a  long  life  of  fight- 
ing English,  Chinese  and  Russian  ships  is 
described  with  meticulous  detail.  The  tech- 
nique of  'the  Nelson  touch,'  about  which  the 
young  Togo  is  said  to  have  dreamt  when  the 
ship  taking  him,  as  a  student  cadet,  to  London 
passed  Cape  Trafalgar,  is  on  every  page.  The 
range  of  16  inch  guns  and  the  technique  of 
mine-sweeping  are  described  with  the  special, 
theological  fervor  of  professional  navalists. 

But  the  book  does  not  stop  at  this.  The 
paradox  of  a  Satsuma  boy,  brought  up  with 


1936 


OUR  OWN  BOOKSHELF 


[273] 


sabers  and  bows  and  arrows,  becoming  one  of 
the  master  naval  strategists  of  the  twentieth 
century  has  forced  the  biographer  back  of  the 
simple  profile  of  an  admiral  to  the  depths  and 
shadows  of  the  Japanese  world  for  which  he 
fought.  There  is  no  new  material  here,  and  the 
political  and  military  history  of  the  fall  of  the 
Shogunate  is  emphasized  to  the  exclusion  of 
almost  all  the  social  and  economic  forces 
which  were  disrupting  the  close-girt  seacoast 
of  the  Island  Empire.  But  it  is  an  accurate  and 
readable  running  story  of  the  miracle  of  a 
modern  nation's  birth. 

In  describing  the  exploits  of  one  of  the 
grimmest  of  all  naval  commanders,  the  author 
has  not  allowed  his  respect  for  the  naval  talent 
of  his  subject  to  blur  the  outlines  of  his  per- 
sonality. The  very  paucity  of  material  about 
Togo's  personal  life  sharpens  the  picture  of 
him  as  an  austere  professional,  driven  by  a 
blend  of  new  nationalist  fanaticism  and  older 
Japanese  traditional  virtues.  And  the  author 
leaves  in  no  obscurity  the  western  origin  of 
much  of  Togo's  brutality  and  savagery,  as 
well  as  of  his  steel-armored  battleships  and  his 
navigation  science. 

In  1894,  when  no  war  had  been  declared  be- 
tween China  and  Japan,  Togo  met  a  British 
tramp  steamer,  the  Kowsbing^  on  its  way  to 
Korea,  It  carried  1,100  Chinese  troops,  but 
was  under  the  command  of  a  British  officer. 
When  the  troops  objected  to  being  convoyed 
by  the  Japanese  man-of-war,  and  threatened 
to  delay  Togo,  he  opened  fire,  and  in  five 
minutes  the  Kowshing  plunged  out  of  sight. 
After  rescuing  the  British  master  and  a  Ger- 
man mercenary  officer,  Togo's  smaller  guns 
opened  fire  on  the  few  boats  that  had  been 
launched  and  on  the  Chinese  still  struggling  in 
the  sea. 

The  author  of  this  biography  states  such  in- 
cidents with  the  dispassionate  flavor  of  any 
technician  describing  a  successful  operation. 
But  in  sketching  the  background  of  Togo's 
life,  he  has  made  it  clear  that  the  Japanese  ad- 
miral went  to  school  to  the  west  in  more  than 
naval  science.  In  1863  British  warships  had 
blown  the  paper  town  of  Kagoshima  into  bits, 
killing  thousands  of  civilians,  and  then,  after 
destroying  the  fortifications  at  Shimonoseki, 
presented  the  Japanese  with  a  demand  for  pay- 
ment not  only  of  the  cost  of  the  expedition  but 
also  of  a  ransom  because  the  town  of  Shimono- 
seki had  not  been  destroyed! 

— ^Joseph  Barnes 


Foreign  Policy  in  the  Far  East.  By  Tarak- 
nath  Das.  New  Tork:  Longmans,  Green  and 
Company.  1936.  2^2  pages.  $2.00. 

/^WING  mainly  to  his  keen  appreciation  of 
^^  the  central  role  played  by  Great  Britain 
in  world  imperialist  politics,  the  author  of  this 
collection  of  essays  has  produced  a  valuable 
and  stimulating  addition  to  the  study  of  Far 
Eastern  international  relations.  The  chapters 
on  the  complicated  shifts  of  inter-imperialist 
alliances  during  the  nineteenth  century,  with 
particular  reference  to  the  Far  East,  constitute 
an  accurate  and  brilliant  historical  resume.  No 
better  summary  introduction  to  this  subject 
exists  than  Chapters  III  to  VI  of  this  volume. 

On  the  more  recent  Far  Eastern  issues,  how- 
ever, summarized  in  Chapter  VII,  there  is 
much  greater  room  for  disagreement  with  the 
author's  interpretations.  Arguments  may  be 
raised,  for  example,  with  regard  to  the  follow- 
ing points:  the  author's  stress  on  the  extent 
and  depth  of  Anglo-Japanese  rivalry  in  the 
present  epoch;  his  playing  down  of  the  con- 
flicts of  interest  between  Japan  and  the  United 
States;  the  'defeat'  of  the  Chinese  Communist 
forces  by  Chiang  Kai-shek;  and  the  possibility 
of  a  Soviet-Japanese  understanding  which  will 
assure  Japan's  neutrality  in  case  a  third  power 
attacks  the  Soviet  Union.  In  the  final  chapter, 
which  constitutes  a  glowing  eulogy  of  the 
altruistic  nature  of  the  foreign  policies  of  the 
Roosevelt  administration,  the  author's  pro- 
American  inclinations  lead  him  to  extremely 
naive  conclusions.  His  general  position  with 
regard  to  the  present-day  tactics  of  American 
imperialism  is  well  summarized  in  this  sen- 
tence: 'Under  the  leadership  of  President 
Franklin  D.  Roosevelt  and  Secretary  of  State 
Cordell  Hull  the  United  States  has  embarked 
upon  a  new  era  of  international  diplomacy, 
based  upon  the  ideals  of  freedom,  justice  and 
peace  for  all  nations.' 

In  general,  the  fundamental  defect  in  the 
author's  philosophic  outlook  is  the  tendency  to 
ascribe  current  difficulties  to  conflicting  foreign 
policies  instead  of  to  the  controlling  influence 
exerted  by  underlying  economic  trends, 
illustrated  in  the  following  statement:  'The 
present-day  "world  depression,"  which  has 
affected  the  internal  conditions  of  all  nations, 
is  the  product  of  the  World  War;  and  the 
World  War  was  caused  by  the  conflicting 
foreign  policies  of  various  nations.' 

— T.  A.  BissoN 


[274] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


The  Making  of  Modern  Iraq,  A  Product  of 
World  Forces.  By  Henry  A.Foster.  Norman: 
University  of  Oklahoma  Press.  igjS-  319 
pages.  Maps.  $4.00. 

Iraq,  From  Mandate  to  Independence.  By 
Ernest  Main.  Foreword  by  Lord  Lloyd  of 
Dolobran.  New  Tork:  The  Macmillan  Com- 
pany^ igj6.  26J  pages.  $4.00. 

'T^HE  natives  of  Iraq  have  a  saying  which 
vividly  expresses  the  fertility  of  a  region, 
which  since  the  beginning  of  written  history 
has  been  one  of  the  foci  of  civilization.  *If  you 
tickle  her  soil,'  the  proverb  goes,  'it  smiles  a 
crop.* 

Professor  Foster,  who  cites  this  epigram,  has 
written  an  account  of  this  bitterly  contested 
earthly  Eden,  which  entitles  him  to  the  lasting 
gratitude  of  all  students  of  the  Near  East.  It 
is  his  contention  that '  the  new  Iraq  must  stand 
in  considerable  measure  for  the  deliberate 
repudiation  of  the  practice  of  annexation  by 
victors'  and  that  her  reception  into  the  League 
of  Nations  demonstrates  the  capacity  of  the 
great  Powers  to  act  on  the  principle  of  'world 
neighborliness,'  even  to  admittedly  backward 
and  helpless  nations.  To  illustrate  this  thesis 
(which  is  not  receiving  much  confirmation  from 
Mussolini  in  his  'civilizing'  mission  in  Ethio- 
pia) Professor  Foster  has  assembled  a  mass  of 
historical,  economic,  political  and  cultural 
material  bearing  on  the  history  of  Iraq  from 
the  earliest  times.  At  every  stage  we  see  the 
clash  of  interests  converging  from  all  points  of 
Europe,  watch  the  development  of  nationalist 
ambitions  under  the  'encouragement'  now  of 
one  Power  now  of  another.  Facts,  documents 
and  reports  abound:  of  particular  value  is  the 
very  extensive  account  of  the  British  period, 
beginning  with  the  'mandate'  experience. 

Dr.  Main,  an  experienced  British  journalist 
with  a  scholar's  background,  supplements 
Foster's  monograph,  and  amplifies  the  concrete 
economic  problems  of  Iraq  as  they  relate  to 
Great  Britain's  role.  He  frankly  believes  that 
'British  interest  and  British  honor  are  in- 
volved' all  along  the  line — and  demonstrates 
this  thesis  by  an  unusually  full  account  of  the 
strategic  factors  of  Iraq  in  the  fields  of  com- 
munications, airways  and  transportation  (the 
oil  tangle  centering  around  Mosul),  in  agri- 


culture, trade  and  industry.  Along  with  this 
plea  for  continued  British  'influence' — if  not 
overt  control — over  Iraq  the  reader  is  given 
some  remarkable  pictures  of  the  actual  life 
and  customs  of  the  natives,  including  the 
Bedouins  and  Arabs  whom  Lawrence  of 
Arabia  led — with  more  harm  than  good, 
according  to  Dr.  Main.  Indispensable  volumes, 
both  of  them. 

— Harold  Ward 

The  Abandoned  Wood.  By  Monique  Saint- 
Helier.  New  Tork:  Harcourt,  Brace  and 
Company.  igj6. 334  pages.  $2.50. 

ly/flSS  Saint-H^lier's  novel  was  honored  with 
the  France-America  Award.  It  is  an 
intimate,  carefully-observed,  sentimental  story 
of  French  country  life.  So  delicate  a  vin  du  pays 
could  not,  however,  survive  the  passage  into  a 
foreign  tongue  unspoiled.  Mr.  James  Whitall 
(once  a  collaborator  with  George  Moore)  has 
done  his  work  of  translation  as  well  as  anyone 
could  have  done  it,  but  he  has  failed,  as  anyone 
else  must  have  done,  in  conveying  the  fragrance 
of  the  original. 

— H.  B. 

Books  Received 

The  Eve  of  1914.  By  Theodore  fVolff.  Trans- 
lated by  E.  fV.  Dickes.  New  Tork:  Alfred  A. 
Knopf.  1936.  $4.30. 

(Reviewed  in  'Books  Abroad,'  December,  1935.) 

A  History  of  Europe.  By  H.  A.  L.  Fisher. 
Volume  in.  The  Liberal  Experiment.  Boston: 
Houghton  Mifflin  Co.  1936.  $4.00. 

(Reviewed  in  'Books  Abroad,'  February,  1936.) 

Soviet  Communism:  A  New  Civilization? 

By  Sidney  and  Beatrice  Webb.  Two  Volumes. 

New  Tork:  Scribners.  I936.'$7.50. 
(Reviewed  in  'Books  Abroad,'  January,  1936.) 

Recollections  of  a  Picture  Dealer.  By 

Ambroise  Vollard.  Translated  from  the  French 

by  Violet  M.  Macdonald.  With  illustrations. 

Boston:  Little,  Brown  &  Co.  1936.  $4.50. 

(Reviewed  in  'Books  Abroad,'  March,  1936.) 


AMERICA  AND  THE  LEAGUE 


A  Symposium 


IHE  LIVING  AGE  has  recently  asked 
certain  members  of  its  Advisory  Council 
to  express  their  opinions  on  two  of  the 
most  important  problems  confronting 
America  today.  As  our  regular  subscribers 
know,  our  Advisory  Council  consists  of 
persons  of  distinction  in  the  educational, 
professional,  official,  financial  and  indus- 
trial life  of  the  nation.  The  questions  on 
which  we  asked  these  gentlemen  to  give 
us  their  opinions  were:  i.  Do  you  believe 
that,  on  the  basis  of  what  the  League  of 
Nations  has  and  has  not  done  since  its 
foundation,  the  United  States  of  America 
should  or  should  not  become  a  member  of 
it,  or  should  cooperate  in  its  sanctions? 
2.  What  do  you  believe  to  be  the  wisest 
neutrality  policy  for  the  United  States, 
both  in  respect  to  the  Italo-Ethiopian 
War  and  in  case  of  further  European 
hostilities? 

The  response  to  The  Living  Age's  re- 
quest for  expressions  of  opinion  on  these 
topics  was  gratifying  indeed.  Some  of  the 
letters  which  have  been  received  are  pre- 
sented in  what  follows;  others  will  be 
given  in  the  June  Living  Age;  and  the  final 
instalment  of  them  will  probably  be  pub- 
lished in  July. 

One  very  earnest  group  of  correspond- 
ents expresses  regret  that  the  United 
States  did  not  retain  membership  in  the 
League  of  Nations  after  President  Wilson 
signed  the  Treaty  of  Versailles,  subject, 
of  course,  to  the  action  of  the  Senate, 
which  failed  to  ratify  it.  This  group  of 
correspondents  believes  that  the  world 
would  be  a  better  and  a  safer  place  to- 
day had  we  become  a  member  of  the 
League. 

Another  and  equally  articulate  group 
expresses  forcibly  the  view  that  whatever 
might  have  been  the  course  of  wisdom 
and  sound  policy  in  1919,  the  United 
States  should  not  now  subscribe  to  the 


Covenant  of  the  League  of  Nations. 
Others  believe  that  the  United  States 
should  cooperate  cordially  with  the  League 
of  Nations  without  becoming  a  member  of 
it,  while  the  consensus  of  opinion  of  still 
other  correspondents  is  that  participation 
in  the  League  of  Nations  would  have  been 
a  mistake  for  this  country  from  the  be- 
ginning. Others,  though  of  this  opinion, 
are  willing  to  acknowledge  that  the 
League  of  Nations  deserves  credit  for 
what  it  has  done. 

On  the  other  hand,  some  of  our  friends 
express  the  view  that  the  League  of  Na- 
tions, if  it  ever  had  any  real  value,  has 
exhausted  its  usefulness  and  should  now 
'disband.'  Another  conclusion  frequently 
expressed  is  that  the  League  of  Nations  is 
essentially  a  European  organization  with 
which  the  United  States  should  not  ac- 
tively cooperate  as  a  member  or  as  an  in- 
dependent nation. 

It  is  interesting,  finally,  that  a  number 
of  letters  advise  against  joining  the  League 
of  Nations  or  cooperating  with  it  because 
certain  nations  members  of  the  League 
have  repudiated  their  honest  debts. 

Some  of  our  correspondents  assume 
that  The  Living  Age  is  for  or  against  the 
League  of  Nations,  or  that  it  advocates  or 
opposes  certain  international  policies 
which  have  been  the  subject  of  much  con- 
troversy and  debate.  Because  of  its  desire 
to  secure  expressions  of  opinion  from  its 
correspondents  uninfluenced  by  anything 
that  it  might  say.  The  Living  Age  has 
sought,  for  the  present,  to  be  entirely 
impartial  and  neutral  upon  all  of  the  is- 
sues presented. 

ONE  of  the  most  interesting  letters  re- 
ceived was  from  Dr.  H.  A.  Garfield,  former 
President  of  Williams  College,  and  Chair- 
man of  the  Institute  of  Politics,  an  or- 
ganization which  performed  a  world  serv- 


[276] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


ice  of  genuine  importance  for  many  years. 
Dr.  Garfield  said  in  part: — 

Ever  since  the  days  of  the  League  to  En- 
force Peace  I  have  been  in  favor  of  the  ideas 
embodied  in  the  covenant  of  the  League.  In 
my  view  the  United  States  should  have  be- 
come a  party  to  the  League  and  shared  in  its 
responsibilities.  Isolation  and  the  narrow  na- 
tionalism advocated  by  many  of  our  fellow 
citizens  seem  to  me  chimerical.  Strong  as  she 
is,  America  cannot  stand  alone,  and  her  wide- 
spread interests  dictate  that  she  should  not 
seek  to  do  so.  Our  responsibilities  are  coexten- 
sive with  the  strength  that  is  ours. 

As  to  our  neutrality  policy  I  have  not  yet 
reached  a  firm  conclusion,  except  to  this  ex- 
tent: I  do  not  favor  tying  the  hands  of  our 
Chief  Executive.  In  other  words,  flexibility  and 
not  rigidity  should  characterize  the  policy,  and 
the  exercise  of  the  functions  which  make  for 
flexibility  should  be  in  the  hands  of  the  Presi- 
dent and  not  of  Congress,  subject  only  to  such 
general  limitations  as  the  act  conferring  power 
upon  the  President  should  designate.  The  rea- 
son for  my  hesitancy  concerning  the  neutrality 
policy  is  the  difficulty  of  formulating  the  act. 
Too  great  haste  here  may  lead  us  into  war 
rather  than  out  of  it. 

ANOTHER  communication  of  excep- 
tional interest  was  that  received  from  Dr. 
Harry  Woodburn  Chase,  Chancellor  of 
New  York  University.  Dr.  Chase  writes 
as  follows: — 

While  I  think  the  League  of  Nations  has 
been  many  times  inactive,  has  been  on  occa- 
sions a  catspaw  for  some  of  the  larger  powers, 
and  has  engaged  in  a  hopeless  attempt  to 
maintain  the  status  agreed  on  by  the  Treaty  of 
Versailles,  I  still  regard  it  as  an  indication  of 
the  path  which  the  world  must  ultimately 
travel.  Surely  in  the  long  run  nations  cannot 
live  together  by  isolating  themselves  from  each 
other  and  arming  desperately  against  each 
other.  I  do  not  believe  that  the  United  States 
by  a  merely  negative  policy  of  isolation  can  in 
the  end  stay  clear  of  a  world  disturbance  of 
first  magnitude.  It  therefore  seems  to  me  clear 
that,  if  not  the  present  League  of  Nations, 
then  some  other  international  agency  of  accord 
must  become  an  effective  instrument  in  the  af- 
fairs of  mankind.  The  alternative  is  nothing 
less  than  the  collapse  of  civilization  as  we  have 
known  it. 


FROM  Dr.  George  W.  Douglas,  associate 
editor  of  the  Evening  Public  Ledger  (Phil- 
adelphia), and  a  man  who  has  had  a  long 
and  interesting  career  as  newspaper  re- 
porter, author,  and  editorial  writer,  came 
the  following  communication: — 

The  Covenant  of  the  League  of  Nations  was 
formed  in  the  hope  that  it  might,  when  ap- 
proved by  the  various  nations,  discourage,  if 
not  prevent,  war.  I  have  always  regretted  that 
the  inability  of  President  Wilson  to  agree  to 
some  minor  changes,  which  did  not  seriously 
aflfect  the  general  purpose  of  the  Covenant, 
prevented  the  United  States  from  entering  the 
League.  If  the  United  States  had  been  a  mem- 
ber of  the  League,  that  organization  might 
have  accomplished  the  things  intended  a  little 
more  successfully.  But  it  should  be  noted  that 
the  League,  like  all  other  organizations,  can 
do  no  more  than  its  members  are  willing  to  do 
under  any  given  set  of  circumstances.  It 
should  also  be  noted  that  the  League  is  the 
embodiment  of  an  aspiration  toward  an  ideal 
condition  for  which  the  world  in  the  present 
state  of  civilization  is  not  yet  prepared. 

It  is  too  early  to  decide  what  effect  it  will 
have  upon  the  Ethiopian  situation,  but  it  is 
evident  that  its  influence  in  the  European 
crisis  has  been  beneficial.  If  there  had  been  no 
League,  it  is  probable  that  when  Hitler  moved 
troops  into  the  Rhine  provinces,  the  French 
would  have  marched  their  own  troops  there  to 
resist  the  advance  of  the  Germans.  The  effec- 
tiveness of  the  League  would  have  been 
strengthened  if  the  United  States  had  been  a 
member  and  had  thrown  its  influence  in  favor 
of  a  peaceful  settlement  of  the  dispute  with 
Hitler. 

Regarding  sanctions,  even  though  the 
United  States  is  not  a  member  of  the  League, 
President  Roosevelt  did  all  that  was  within  his 
power  to  cooperate  with  the  League  when  it 
planned  to  impose  sanctions  upon  Italy.  He 
did  his  best  to  discourage  shipments  of  war 
materials  to  Italy.  As  a  member  of  the  League 
the  United  States  would  never  have  to  do 
anything  which  it  did  not  want  to  do;  for,  ac- 
cording to  the  plan,  it  was  to  be  a  permanent 
member  of  the  Council,  and  there  was  to  be 
unanimous  agreement  in  the  Council  before  its 
decisions  became  eff'ective. 

In  the  present  state  of  opinion  in  the  United 
States,  however,  discussion  of  its  relation  to 
the  League  is  purely  academic. 


193^ 


AMERICA  AND  THE  LEAGUE 


[277] 


ANOTHER  editor  and  journalist,  E.  R. 
Eastman,  president  and  editor  of  the 
American  Agriculturist  of  Ithaca,  New 
York,  is  optimistic  concerning  the  world 
of  the  future,  though  he  thinks  *a  few 
funerals  of  the  so-called  diplomats  of  the 
old  school '  might  hasten  the  realization  of 
his  hopes.  Mr.  Eastman  writes: — 

When  the  young  pioneer  and  his  bride  left 
their  New  England  home,  and  turned  for  the 
last  look  backward  at  the  forest  edge,  well 
they  knew  that  chances  were  they  would 
never  see  their  old  home,  never  look  their  rela- 
tives and  friends  in  the  face  again  on  this  earth. 
Distances  were  so  far  because  of  lack  of  com- 
munication and  transportation  that  the  pio- 
neer who  went  West  might  almost  as  well 
have  gone  to  another  planet. 

But  we  don't  even  have  to  go  back  to  the 
short  time,  as  history  measures  time,  of  pio- 
neer days.  Any  middle-aged  man  who  lived  as 
a  boy  in  a  country  community  a  brief  forty  or 
fifty  years  ago  well  remembers  how  isolated 
country  neighborhoods  were  one  from  an- 
other, and  how  the  people  just  over  the  hill 
were  more  or  less  strangers  and  therefore  to  be 
largely  misunderstood  and  under  suspicion. 
Today  go  to  any  large  meeting  of  farmers  and 
note  how  through  improved  methods  of  trans- 
portation the  farm  folk  of  a  whole  county, 
even  of  a  whole  world,  have  become  neighbors, 
and  how  they  work  together  for  the  common 
good. 

It  seems  to  me  that  in  these  changes  within 
our  own  experience  we  see  the  hope  of  peace  in 
the  world  for  the  future.  Because  of  trans- 
portation and  communication  the  whole 
world  is  fast  becoming  one  neighborhood.  If, 
therefore,  we  can  let  down  the  barriers,  give 
these  modern  facilities  of  getting  together  an 
opportunity  to  work,  the  misunderstanding 
and  suspicion  of  one  another's  motives  are 
bound  to  disappear.  Perhaps  we  need  a  few 
funerals  of  the  so-called  diplomats  of  the  old 
school  and  a  placing  of  new  leaders  who  will 
use  the  opportunity  made  by  new  methods  of 
transportation  and  communication  to  bring 
about  better  understanding  among  men.  We 
boast  of  our  modern  civilization,  but  where  is 
it  when  men  fight  as  readily  and  more  viciously 
than  ever?  The  responsibility  for  this  must 
rest  on  the  leaders,  for  the  peoples  of  the  world 
are  overwhelmingly  for  peace. 


America  talks  of  strict  neutrality — of  keep- 
ing out  of  European  embroilments.  But  such 
talk  is  futile.  Because  of  modern  invention  we 
are  all  near  neighbors,  all  inter-dependent. 
What  affects  one,  affects  all.  If  our  neighbors 
fight,  sooner  or  later  we  will  be  drawn  in. 
Hence  the  imperative  necessity  of  using  our 
tremendous  influence  either  through  the 
League  of  Nations  or  in  cooperation  with  our 
great  Anglo-Saxon  cousin,  Great  Britain,  to 
work  for  peace. 

C.  A.  DYKSTRA  of  Cincinnati,  Ohio, 
one  of  the  earliest  and  most  successful 
'City  Managers,'  has  expressed  briefly 
these  views: — 

I  am  one  of  the  old-fashioned  devotees  of  the 
idea  of  a  League  of  Nations,  and  I  hope  the 
time  will  come  when  we  can  participate  in  its 
activities.  Moreover,  I  should  be  glad  to  see  the 
program  worked  out  which  would  curb  the 
trade  in  munitions  and  war  materials,  so  that 
war  would  be  a  very  difficult  policy  to  prose- 
cute. 

FROM  George  A.  Barton,  Professor 
Emeritus  of  the  University  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, has  come  a  much  appreciated  let- 
ter. Professor  Barton  writes  as  follows: — 

It  has  long  seemed  to  me  that  in  view  of  the 
close  relationship  into  which  modern  systems 
of  communication  have  bound  the  nations  of 
the  world,  together  with  the  great  advance  in 
the  ability  to  destroy,  it  is  imperative,  if  hu- 
manity is  to  continue  to  live  on  this  planet  at 
all,  that  some  sort  of  a  world  federation,  such 
as  the  League  of  Nations,  with  authority  to 
restrain  selfishly  aggressive  powers,  be  estab- 
lished. The  League  of  Nations  is  the  first  great 
step  toward  such  a  structure,  and,  in  my  judg- 
ment, should  receive  the  hearty  support  and 
cooperation  of  the  United  States.  Had  this 
country  been  a  part  of  the  League  when  it  was 
formed,  I  am  convinced  that  its  success  in 
preventing  the  unhappy  episodes  which  have 
occurred  since  would  have  been  very  much 
greater.  It  is  true  that  often  to  restrain  an 
aggressor  it  is  necessary  to  apply  'sanctions,' 
and  sanctions  may  mean  a  small  war,  but  in 
the  end  such  a  war  is  far  less  costly  than 
world-wide  conflagration. 

That  we  as  a  nation  refused  to  join  the 
League  has  always  seemed  to  me  greatly  to 
our  discredit.  Three  motives,  I  have  noted. 


[278] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


May 


have  often  been  assigned  for  our  action:  first, 
that  we  are  safely  protected  by  the  great 
oceans  and  are  not,  ourselves,  in  danger;  sec- 
ond, that  it  is  not  our  business  to  pull  Euro- 
pean chestnuts  out  of  the  fire,  or  to  pay  for  do- 
ing so;  and,  third,  that  we  are  so  inexperienced 
in  diplomatic  finesse  that  were  we  members  of 
the  League  European  nations  would  always 
succeed  in  making  us  an  instrument  for  the  ac- 
complishment of  their  purposes.  All  these 
reasons  seem  to  me  unworthy.  They  appear  to 
arise  partly  from  selfishness  and  partly  from  an 
inferiority  complex. 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  League  as  formed 
lacks  much  that  is  desirable.  Such  deficiencies 
are,  however,  due  to  the  present  backward 
ethical  state  of  the  world.  The  ideal  League 
should  be  able  to  deal  dispassionately  with 
such  problems  of  over-population  and  the 
need  for  relief  from  it  as  are  driving  Japan  and 
Italy  into  their  present  selfishly  aggressive 
courses.  Until  the  human  race  has  so  evolved 
that  nations  that  have  unoccupied  territory 
are  willing  to  turn  it  over  for  colonization  to 
peoples  like  the  Italians  and  Japanese,  or  until 
national  feeling  has  broadened  so  that  in- 
dividual nations  can  see  their  subjects  migrate 
to  another  territory  without  feeling  aggrieved 
that  they  must  lose  control  over  their  persons, 
such  painful  incidents  must  continue  to  arise 
and  will  undoubtedly  create  much  friction. 
That,  however,  seems  to  me  no  reason  for  re- 
fusing to  support  the  one  organization 
(namely,  the  League  of  Nations)  which  aflFords 
us  any  hope  for  the  gradual  building  up  in  the 
world  of  a  common  understanding  that  will 
result  in  the  building  up  of  an  international 
world  point  of  view  on  the  part  of  all  peoples. 

Meantime,  if  the  United  States  is  deter- 
mined to  refuse  to  join  the  League  of  Nations 
it  certainly  seems  to  me  that  she  ought  to  be 
willing  to  cooperate  in  enforcing  such  sanc- 
tions against  an  aggressor-nation  as  the 
League  of  Nations  may  impose.  Had  we  been 
willing  to  cooperate  with  Great  Britain  and  the 
League  in  enforcing  oil  sanctions  against 
Italy  this  past  summer  the  independence  of 
Abyssinia  need  not  have  been  sacrificed  to  the 
nationalistic  ambitions  of  a  stronger  nation,  in 
violation  of  that  nation's  pledged  word,  as 
seems  now  likely  to  be  the  case. 

ONE  of  the  most  impressive  and  striking 
communications  received,  in  spite  of  its 
brevity,  came  from  President  Raymond 


Leslie  Buell  of  the  Foreign  Policy  Associa- 
tion. Mr.  Buell  said: — 

In  my  opinion,  the  year  1936  may  see  a 
turning  point  in  world  affairs.  It  is  possible 
that  the  trend  will  continue  toward  war,  but  if 
wise  statesmanship  prevails,  we  may  see  a  new 
peace  conference  such  as  was  recently  sug- 
gested by  London. 

There  are  many  obstacles  which  will  have  to 
be  overcome  before  this  conference  can  be 
held.  I  doubt  very  much  whether  the  policy  of 
the  United  States  toward  Europe  will  change 
materially  until  the  situation  begins  to  clear 
up.  Should  this  world  conference  be  convened, 
then  certainly  the  United  States  should  par- 
ticipate in  so  far  as  the  economic  and  arma- 
ment matters  are  concerned.  No  one  in  Europe 
today  expects  the  United  States  to  join  the 
League,  but  there  is  a  general  hope  that  the 
United  States  will  not  obstruct  the  develop- 
ment of  the  League.  The  events  of  the  coming 
months  will  determine  whether  the  League  is 
to  live  or  give  way  to  a  new  balance  of  power. 
Only  when  the  results  of  this  are  known,  will  it 
be  possible  to  consider  a  reorientation  of 
American  foreign  policy. 

I  think  this  country  in  its  exaggerated 
armament  program  is  contributing  to  the  feel- 
ing of  general  insecurity.  America  is  in  a  better 
position  than  any  other  power  to  keep  its 
head,  but  instead  of  doing  it,  she  is  suflFering 
from  a  severe  case  of  jitters. 

HENRY  L.  STODDARD,  of  New  York 
City,  author,  editor,  and  newspaper  pub- 
lisher, expresses  strong  opposition  to  the 
United  States  becoming  a  member  of  the 
League  of  Nations  'at  any  time,  for  any 
reason.'  Mr.  Stoddard's  letter  continues: — 

The  problems  of  the  League  are  the  prob- 
lems of  Europe  and  of  prejudices  and  tradi- 
tions with  which  we  must  never  be  identified. 

President  Wilson  undertook  to  do  for  Eu- 
rope what  it  could  not  do  for  itself — and  what 
a  mess  he  made  of  it! 

Our  participation  would  mean  that  we 
would  become  the  arbiter  of  all  the  barbaric 
instincts  now  shown  in  the  attitude  toward 
each  other  of  practically  all  the  so-called 
statesmen  of  Continental  Europe.  They  are 
not  statesmen — they  are  merely  inflamers  of 
their  home  people  whose  passion  for  peace  and 
good-will  would  prevail  in  every  country  if 


193^ 


AMERICA  AND  THE  LEAGUE 


[279I 


their  governments  would  not  stir  them  to  war 
and  hatred.  It  is  the  man  at  the  top  who  is 
keeping  the  world  on  a  basis  of  barbarism — 
postponing  indefinitely  the  civilized  state 
which  we  boast  but  which  does  not  exist. 

England  is  burdened  with  responsibility  for 
leadership  toward  peace.  She  is  carrying  it 
with  true  British  sturdiness.  She  understands 
it  better  than  we  ever  can.  Where  England 
cannot  succeed  in  such  a  mission,  there  is  no 
possibility  that  the  United  States  could. 

No — let  us  stick  to  our  knitting  here  at 
home.  We  shall  find  plenty  to  occupy  us  if  we 
keep  to  that  pattern  that  every  President  but 
Wilson  believed  in  and  followed. 

All  power  to  the  League  of  Nations.  I  wish 
it  well.  It  has  done  more  good  than  it  is  popu- 
larly credited  with.  Let  it  keep  on — but  it  does 
not  need  and  should  not  have  us. 

As  for  neutrality,  there  would  be  none  by  us 
if  war  should  come  in  Europe.  Among  our 
citizens  we  have  too  many  of  every  nationality 
for  us  to  be  free  of  their  influence.  Every  poli- 
tician will  figure  where  the  most  votes  of  for- 
eign-born citizens  are — and  will  plump  for 
them.  Any  legislation  that  stands  in  the  way 
would  be  repealed  before  a  war  gets  far,  and 
our  factories  would  be  speeded  up  to  supply  the 
demand. 

Did  Texas  limit  oil  shipments  to  Italy? 
Didn't  the  'deserving  Democrats'  of  the  Lone 
Star  State  convince  Jim  Farley  (and  through 
him  the  Administration)  that  oil  prosperity  in 
Texas  was  essential  to  electoral  votes  from 
that  State,  while  'sanctions'  against  oil  would 
have  another  meaning?  So  oil  went  out  to 
Italy  by  ship  loads  and  the  electoral  vote  stays 
in  for  Roosevelt. 

That  is  just  an  example  of  the  neutrality 
and  'sanctions'  bosh. 

A  DISTINGUISHED  educator,  Profes- 
sor Norman  Mackenzie  of  the  University 
of  Toronto,  while  expressing  his  reluc- 
tance, as  a  Canadian,  to  comment  upon 
the  international  policies  of  the  United 
States,  has  favored  us  nevertheless  with 
interesting  observations.  In  part,  they 
follow : — 

I  believe  that  war  can  be  prevented  if  peo- 
ples and  their  governments  are  serious  in  their 
desire  to  prevent  it.  War  cannot  be  prevented 
unless  all  of  the  Great  Powers  and  the  ma- 
jority of  the  smaller  ones  are  prepared  to  work 


together  to  that  end.  To  achieve  this  three 
things  seem  essential. 

1.  The  guaranty  of  reasonable  security  to 
every  state.  This  can  only  be  done  by  the  col- 
lective guaranty  of  the  majority  of  nations  to 
assist  any  nation  attacked. 

2.  Adequate  measures  to  ensure  that  justice 
be  done  as  between  state  and  state,  and  to  pro- 
vide for  the  necessary  changes  that  must  be 
made  from  time  to  time  in  the  relations  of 
states. 

3.  Some  form  of  international  organization 
and  regulation  in  those  fields  in  which  organi- 
zation and  regulation  seem  necessary  or  desir- 
able. 

The  League  of  Nations  is  an  institution  or 
method  by  means  of  which  fifty-eight  of  the 
sixty-four  nations  in  the  world  are  attempting 
to  prevent  war  along  the  lines  I  have  indicated 
above.  I  have  always  felt  that  the  strength  of 
the  United  States,  together  with  the  other 
League  members,  would  have  guaranteed  se- 
curity while  her  detached  position  coupled 
with  her  strength  would  have  gone  a  long  way 
toward  achieving  justice,  in  Europe,  Asia,  and 
Africa,  and  toward  securing  the  necessary 
changes  from  time  to  time.  Her  withdrawal  in 
1920  from  the  League  and  all  that  it  represents 
has  (again  in  my  opinion)  been  largely  respon- 
sible for  the  failure  of  that  institution  to  deal 
adequately  with  so  many  of  the  problems  that 
have  come  before  it.  The  League  can  function 
without  the  United  States,  but  the  excuse  for 
not  functioning  in  the  absence  of  the  United 
States  is  so  obvious  and  available  that  it  is 
unlikely  that  any  state  member  of  the  League 
will  make  the  sacrifices  that  are  necessary  if 
the  League  is  to  prove  eflfective.  This  is  par- 
ticularly true  in  the  case  of  sanctions:  for  why 
should  any  nation  agree  to  cooperate  in  the  ap- 
plication of  sanctions  if  that  merely  means 
transferring  a  market  to  the  United  States? 

The  United  States'  policy  of  isolation,  while 
difficult  to  maintain  in  the  event  of  war,  may 
be  practicable.  It  is  wise  and  desirable  only  if 
the  United  States  is  convinced  that  there  is  no 
hope  of  preventing  war  and  never  will  be  any 
such  hope.  On  this  assumption  it  is  probably 
wise  and  feasible  for  the  United  States  to  re- 
main aloof.  But  in  so  doing  the  people  and 
Government  should  not  overlook  the  fact  that 
they  will  suffer  from  the  indirect  consequences 
of  another  world  war  even  if  they  escape  the 
direct  ones. 


[28o] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


Personally,  I  believe  this  policy  is  a  counsel 
of  despair  and  hopelessness,  and  I  do  not  ap- 
prove of  it.  Nor  do  I  agree  with  the  arguments 
so  often  used  in  condemning  the  League  be- 
cause of  the  nature  of  its  personnel,  member- 
ship, and  control.  Certainly  self-interest 
motivates  the  policies  of  its  members,  but  of 
what  human  institution  is  that  not  true?  To 
expect  that  it  or  international  society  will  be 
different  or  better  at  some  other  time,  presum- 
ably after  the  next  war,  is  childish  as  well  as 
foolish  and  completely  overlooks  the  experi- 
ence taught  us  by  Paris  and  Versailles. 

If  we  are  really  interested  in  peace,  in  the 
prevention  of  war,  we  must  take  human  na- 
ture and  human  institutions  exactly  as  we 
find  them  here  and  now,  and  make  the  best  of 
them  within  the  limits  of  our  intelligence  and 
ability.  If  we  are  not  interested  in  the  preven- 
tion of  war — then  isolation  by  all  means. 

AND  here  is  the  opinion  of  another 
prominent  educator,  Dean  Edwin  Watts 
Chubb  of  Ohio  University: — 

While  I  am  not  as  enthusiastic  a  supporter 
of  the  League  of  Nations  as  I  was  several 
years  ago,  yet  I  recognize  that  it  is  the  greatest 
organization  assembled  for  the  promotion  of 
peace.  It  is  the  best  clearing  house  that  we  have 
for  world  opinion.  It  furnishes  a  body  of  well- 
established  international  usages  and  methods 
of  procedure.  It  also  gives  an  opportunity  for 
the  smaller  states  to  become  vocal.  Unfortu- 
nately the  strength  of  the  League  for  coopera- 
tive action  is  weakened  by  the  absence  of  such 
countries  as  Germany,  Japan,  and  the  United 
States.  Nations  like  individuals  seem  to  be 
inherently  selfish,  and  it  likely  will  take  a 
long  process  of  evolution  before  a  national  un- 


selfishness can  be  established  as  a  national 
virtue.  While  the  League  has  failed  to  stop  the 
aggressions  of  Japan  and  Italy,  it  has  con- 
demned both  as  aggressors  and  has  stopped 
several  incipient  wars  between  minor  nations. 
As  to  neutrality:  I  believe  the  United  States 
should  use  every  method  possible  to  maintain 
a  neutral  position  when  European  nations  are 
engaged  in  hostilities.  We  gained  nothing  by 
our  participation  in  the  World  War  and  we 
have  nothing  to  gain  in  a  future  war.  The  man 
who  minds  his  own  business  has  a  good  steady 
occupation.  We  have  enough  business  at  home 
to  occupy  us  as  a  nation  without  helping  to 
settle  the  quarrels  of  others. 

IN  THE  LETTERS  presented  above,  the 
view  which  strongly  favors  the  League  of 
Nations  and  deprecates  the  United  States' 
failure  to  support  the  League  by  joining 
it  and  cooperating  with  it  appears  to 
predominate.  Other  letters  of  the  same 
general  character,  though  each  containing 
some  special  feature  of  interest,  will  be 
published  in  succeeding  numbers  of  The 
Living  Age.  Meanwhile,  the  editors  will 
welcome  communications  from  readers  on 
these  and  related  topics.  We  agree  with 
President  Buell  of  the  Foreign  Policy 
Association  that  it  is  not  unlikely  that  the 
present  year  will  witness  a  real  crisis  in 
world  affairs.  Too  much  light  may  not  be 
thrown  upon  nor  may  there  be  too  much 
intelligent  discussion  of  all  phases  of  the 
subjects  included  in  the  present  sym- 
posium, and  for  this  reason,  and  within 
reasonable  bounds,  the  columns  of  The 
Living  Age  are  opened  wide. 


WITH  THE  ORGANIZATIONS 


l\S  ITS  name  indicates,  the  Committee 
on  Militarism  in  Education  (2929  Broad- 
way, New  York,  N.  Y.)  is  an  organization 
formed  to  oppose  military  training  in 
public  secondary  schools  and  compulsory 
enrollment  in  military  training  units  in 
civil  institutions  of  college  and  university 
grade.  As  a  substitute  for  military  train- 
ing it  seeks  to  promote  the  establishment 
of  modern  physical  education  and  citizen- 
ship training  courses.  Founded  ten  years 
ago,  the  Committee  has  carried  on  count- 
less studies  of  military  training  in  our 
schools  and  colleges,  has  vigorously  op- 
posed all  efforts  to  extend  military  training 
in  this  country,  and  by  propaganda  and 
lobbying  has  sought  to  have  compulsory 
military  training  abolished  wherever  there 
was  any  hope  of  doing  so.  Among  its  most 
recent  activities  has  been  its  opposition 
to  the  War  Department's  program  for 
expansion  of  the  Reserve  Officers  Training 
Corps  and  to  military  training  in  the  Civil- 
ian Conservation  Corps.  It  supports  stu- 
dents in  their  fight  against  military  train- 
ing and  carries  on  extensive  propaganda 
against  it. 

Though  it  has  a  little  more  money  to 
spend  today,  the  Committee  on  Militarism 
in  Education  still  resembles  very  closely 
a  description  of  it  which  was  printed  in 
Harper's  Magazine  a  few  years  ago : '  There 
is  that  comparative  ragamuffin,  the  Com- 
mittee on  Militarism  in  Education,  which 
consists,  for  working  purposes,  of  two 
young  men  in  a  dilapidated  back-room 
furnished  with  chairs  that  must  be  sat  on 
carefully  lest  they  fall  apart;  budget, 
|8,ooo,  and  they're  lucky  if  they  get  it; 
luncheons,  if  any,  fifty  cent  ones,  Dutch 
treat.  Yet  all  over  the  country  the  mili- 
tary propagandists  are  constantly  har- 
assed by  this  Committee  and  unquestion- 
ably would  like  to  put  a  bounty  on  the 
heads  of  the  two  young  men.' 

One  of  the  most  recent  activities  of  the 


Committee  has  been  to  conduct  a  nation- 
wide contest  in  editorial  writing  for 
college  students  on  the  subject  'Why 
Congress  Should  Pass  the  Nye-Kvale 
Amendment'  to  the  National  Defense 
Act.  This  amendment  would  prohibit 
compulsory  military  training  in  civil 
schools  and  colleges. 

THE  Foreign  Policy  Association  (8  West 
40  Street,  New  York)  announces  that  the 
entire  first  edition  of  its  report  on  Japan's 
Trade  Boom:  Does  it  Menace  the  United 
States?  by  T.  A.  Bisson,  was  sold  out 
within  a  month  of  publication.  The 
pamphlet  gives  the  latest  statistics  on 
Japanese-American  trade,  together  with  a 
discussion  of  their  meaning,  and  concludes 
that  Japanese  competition  is  not  a  menace 
to  American  markets.  A  second  edition 
has  been  issued. 

THE  World  Peace  Foundation  (40  Mount 
Vernon  Street,  Boston)  has  recently  added 
to  the  growing  number  of  its  excellent 
'World  Affairs  Books'  a  study  of  Latin 
America  by  Stephen  Duggan,  Director  of 
the  Institute  of  International  Education. 
The  pamphlet  skillfully  reduces  to  brief 
compass  the  essential  facts  of  South 
American  geography,  history,  social  in- 
stitutions, politics,  and  economics. 

ANOTHER  recent  publication  on  Latin 
America  is  The  United  States  and  the 
Dominican  Republic,  by  Elizabeth  W. 
Loughran  and  the  Latin  America  Com- 
mittee of  the  Catholic  Association  for 
International  Peace  (13 12  Massachusetts 
Avenue  N.  W.,  Washington,  D.  C).  This 
pamphlet,  which  is  one  of  a  series  on  Latin 
American  relations,  describes  the  events 
which  led  to  our  military  occupation  of 
the  Dominican  Republic  from  19 16  to 
1922  and  considers  the  results  of  that 
occupation. 


[282] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


THE  GUIDE  POST 

{Continued) 

OUR  story  this  month  is  by  Norah 
Hoult,  an  Irish  writer  who  has  published 
several  successful  novels,  including 
Time,  Gentlemen,  Time!,  Touth  Can't  Be 
Served,  and  Holy  Ireland.  In  addition 
to  writing  novels  and  short  stories,  Miss 
Hoult  does  literary  criticisms  for  the 
Dublin  Review,  Time  and  Tide,  and 
other  papers,  [p.  241] 

THE  subject  of  Britain's  Betting  Busi- 
ness is  that  'commercialized  exploita- 
tion of  human  folly,'  that  'small  man's 
reaction  to  a  drab  environment' — the 
betting  pool.  The  English  lower  classes 
have  been  inveterate  gamblers  for  small 
stakes  for  generations,  but  it  is  only 
since  the  War  that  the  practice  has 
assumed  the  proportions  of  a  major  in- 
dustry. The  Economist's  article  analyzes 
this  industry  thoroughly,  and  reaches 
some  startling  conclusions  about  it. 
Ip.  250] 

THIS  month's  'Persons'  include  Chan- 
cellor Schuschnigg  of  Austria,  presented 
by  a  conservative  Frenchman  [p.  225]; 


Charles  Maurras  of  the  Action  Fran- 
(aise  [p.  231];  and  Marshal  Tukhachev- 
ski  of  the  Soviet  Red  Army  [p.  234]. 

AMONG  the  reviewers  of '  Books  Abroad ' 
this  month  are  Harold  J.  Laski,  professor 
of  political  science  at  the  University  of 
London  and  author  of  numerous  books  on 
government  and  politics;  Kurt  von  Stut- 
terheim,  one  of  the  Berliner  Ta^eblatt's 
London  correspondents;  and  Otto  Zarek, 
a  German  novelist  and  Dramaturg  now 
living  in  exile. 

AND  our  own  reviewers  include  Frederick 
V.  Field,  secretary  of  the  American  Coun- 
cil of  the  Institute  of  Pacific  Relations  and 
editor  of  the  Economic  Handbook  0/  the 
Pacific  Area;  Walter  Consuelo  Langsam, 
professor  of  modern  European  history 
at  Columbia  University  and  author  of 
The  World  since  19 14;  William  Harlan 
Hale,  until  recently  of  the  sta.ff  of  Fortune 
magazine  and  now  writing  a  novel;  Joseph 
Barnes,  of  the  New  York  Herald  Trib- 
une, editor  of  the  symposium  Empire  0/ 
the  East;  T.  A.  Bisson,  Far  Eastern  expert 
of  the  Foreign  Policy  Association;  and 
Harold  Ward,  a  frequent  contributor  to 
The  Living  Age  and  other  magazines. 


THE    LIVTNG    AGE 


CONTENTS 

for  June ^  1936 

Articles 

America's  Crisis Andri  Siegfried  290 

And  Quiet  Flows  the  Rhine 

I.  Germany's  War  Machine General  X  301 

II.  Business  As  Usual Paul  Allard  307 

III.  A  Conversation  in  Cologne Max  Rychner  311 

An  English  Miscellany 

I.  Inside  the  ^een  Mary Clir^e  Bell  329 

II.  The  Conspiracy  of  the  Dwarfs Osbert  Sitwell  332 

III.  'They' 334 

IV.  The  Intelligence  of  Cats Michael  Joseph  336 

Seaside  (Verse) JV.H.  Auden  339 

Mr.  Szabo  (A  Story) Zsuzsa  7*.  Thury  340 

Departments 

The  World  Over 283 

Persons  and  Personages 

Marshal  Badoglio,  Conqueror  of  Ethiopia 317 

Dr.  Hugo  Eckener:  Zeppelin's  Apostle H.  R.  320 

Karlis  Ulmanis,  Latvia's  Dictator Rene  Puaux  323 

The  Versatility  of  Mr.  Lubitsch 325 

Who  is  Ribbentrop? 328 

Letters  and  the  Arts Ruth  Norden  344 

As  Others  See  Us 348 

Books  Abroad 350 

Our  Own  Bookshelf 2^2 

America  and  the  League 369 

{With  the  Organizations 375 

Tb^ng  Age.  Published  monthly.  Publication  ofBce,  10  Ferry  Street,  Concord,  N.  H.  Editorial  and  General  offices,  253  Broad- 
wajw  York  City.  SOc  a  copy.  $6.00  a  year.  Canada.  $6.50.  Foreign,  $7.00.  Entered  as  second-class  matter  at  the  Post  Office  at 
Coj.  N.  H.,  under  the  Act  of  Congress,  March  3.  1879.  Copyright,  1936,  by  The  Livmg  Age  Corporation,  New  York.  New  York. 

Ttf  NG  Age  was  established  by  E.  Littell.  in  Boston.  Massachusetts,  May,  1844.  It  was  first  known  as  Littell's  Living  Age,  suc- 
cei'iuell's  Museum  of  Foreign  Literature,  which  had  been  previously  published  in  Philadelphia  for  more  than  twenty  years.  In  a 
prfcation  announcement  of  Littell's  Living  Age,  in  1844,  Mr.  Littell  said: '  The  steamship  has  brought  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa 
injneighborhood ;  and  will  greatly  multiply  our  connections,  as  -Merchants,  Travelers,  and  Politicians,  with  all  parts  of  the  world: 
sof^^ch  more  than  ever,  it  now  becomes  every  intelligent  American  to  be  informed  of  the  condition  and  changes  of  foreign  countries.' 

S  jers  are  requested  to  send  notices  of  changes  of  address  three  weeks  before  they  are  to  take  effect.  Failure  to  send  such  notlcea 
w  lit  in  the  incorrect  forwarding  of  the  next  copy  and  delay  in  its  receipt.  Old  and  new  addresses  must  both  be  given. 


THE  GUIDE  POST 


KJF  THE  comparatively  small  number  of 
European  scholars  whose  names  have  at- 
tained a  wide  currency  outside  their  na- 
tive countries,  one  of  the  best  known  is 
certainly  Andre  Siegfried.  Professor  at  the 
College  de  France  and  author  of  numerous 
books,  including  England's  Crisis  and 
America  Comes  of  Age,  Mr.  Siegfried  has 
commanded  large  audiences  in  both  Eng- 
land and  the  United  States.  A  few  months 
ago  he  paid  a  visit  to  these  shores,  and 
upon  his  return  to  France  he  wrote  for  the 
Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  an  extended  dis- 
cussion of  the  causes  and  consequences  of 
our  present  economic  recovery  as  he  saw 
them.  Under  the  title  of  'America's 
Crisis'  we  translate  the  greater — and  to 
Americans  the  more  interesting — part  of 
this  discussion,  [p.  290] 

THE  section  which  follows  Mr.  Sieg- 
fried's article  consists  of  three  French 
views  of  Germany.  In  the  first  of  them  an 
anonymous  General  reports  the  results  of  a 
survey  of  the  German  'military  poten- 
tial': in  case  of  war,  will  her  available 
supplies  of  raw  materials  enable  her  to 
continue  fighting  in  the  face  of  possible 
sanctions  and  blockades,  or  will  her  '  home 
front'  collapse  as  soon  as  her  reserve 
stocks  are  exhausted?  On  the  answer  to 
this  question,  which  is  given  without 
equivocation  in  the  article,  the  fate  of  all 
Europe  may  someday  depend,  [p.  301] 

IN  THE  second  article  of  this  group,  a 
French  journalist  who  has  done  much 
good  work  in  the  field  returns  to  the  sub- 
ject of  the  'arms  international.'  Regular 
readers  of  The  Living  Age  will  recall  the 
Briey  basin  scandal,  which  we  brought  to 
the  attention  of  the  American  public  some 
years  ago.  The  Briey  basin  is  an  area  rich 
in  iron  ore.  It  lies  south  of  Luxembourg 
and  west  of  the  Saar.  During  the  war  it 
was,  of  course,  behind  the  German  lines. 


and  consequently  it  served  as  one  c  the 
Central  Powers'  chief  sources  of  iron  The 
French  might  easily  have  bombed  i  and 
thus  have  shortened  the  war.  But  they 
never  even  attempted  to  do  so — beause, 
it  is  said,  the  mines  belonged  t  the 
Comite  des  Forges,  which  did  not  wnt  to 
have  its  property  injured,  and  was  pwer- 
ful  enough  in  French  Government  ^rcles 
to  see  that  it  was  not  injured,  whtever 
the  cost,  in  human  lives,  of  keepg  it 
inviolate. 

However  that  may  be,  today  thBriey 
basin  is  again  a  part  of  France;  anct  still 
belongs  to  the  Comite  des  ForgesBusi- 
ness  there  has  been  more  than  ually 
brisk  of  late.  Mr.  Allard  tells  why. .  307] 

AND  in  chapter  three  a  Swiss  joualist, 
Dr.  Max  Rychner,  meets  a  Frenman 
visiting  Cologne  and  reports  his  nsive 
reflections  on  the  essential  similty  of 
the  heavy,  plodding  and  somewl:  hu- 
morless Germans  and  the  unsysnatic 
and  volatile  French,  [p.  311] 

NEXT  we  have  a  group  of  foiehort 
pieces  from  England.  In  the  first  them 
Mr.  Clive  Bell,  the  well-known  arritic, 
makes  some  rather  caustic  co.ients 
about  the  interior  decorations  the 
^ueen  Mary.  By  way  of  a  footnoto  his 
remarks,  we  print  the  following  fn  the 
New  Statesman  and  Nation: — 

'As  long  ago  as  April,  1935,  M3un- 
can  Grant  was  commissioned  the 
Cunard  Company  not  only  to  paiieco- 
rations  for  the  lounge,  but  to  desig  car- 
pet and  textiles  for  the  upholstervfter 
consultation  with  the  company's  a;tect 
he  accepted.  In  the  middle  of  last  smer 
he  submitted  sketches,  which  wi  cri- 
ticized, discussed  and  approved,  the 
autumn,  when  the  decorations  theives 
were  nearly  complete,  the  compan^de 
{Continued  on  page  jy6) 


THE    LIVING    AGE 

Founded  by  E.  Littell 

In  1844 


June,  igj6  Volume  J50,  Number  44^'/ 

The  World  Over 

IVlUSSOLINrS  victory  in  Ethiopia  marks,  principally,  the  close  of  a 
chapter  in  British  foreign  policy.  During  the  past  year  two  rival  groups 
in  the  British  Cabinet  have  been  pulling  in  opposite  directions  and  creat- 
ing a  deadlock  which  the  new  rearmament  program  brings  to  an  end. 
The  group  represented  by  Anthony  Eden  has  tried  to  use  the  League  of 
Nations  to  defend  British  imperial  interests  both  in  Africa  and  Europe. 
The  group  represented  by  Sir  Samuel  Hoare  has  not  hesitated  to  use  the 
popularity  of  the  League  with  the  British  electorate  to  advance  the 
cause  of  the  Conservative  party  at  the  polls  while  at  the  same  time  they 
were  seeking  to  break  away  from  the  League.  The  Eden  group  empha- 
sized the  importance  of  the  League  as  the  chief  prop  of  the  status  quo 
and  exaggerated  the  Italian  threat  to  British  interests  because  they 
feared  the  German  threat  at  some  future  date  and  wanted  to  strengthen 
the  prestige  of  the  League  at  the  expense  of  Italy.  But  the  anti-League 
faction  not  only  distrusted  the  League;  they  favored  Italy,  partly  be- 

||  cause  Mussolini  had  crushed  Communism,  partly  because  he  represented 

I  white  prestige  in  Africa,  and  partly  because  they  hoped  to  gain  his  sup- 

I  port  against  Hitler. 

\i 

i  NOT  ONLY  is  the  British  Cabinet  split  into  pro-League  and  anti- 
League  factions;  it  is  also  split  into  pro-German  and  anti-German 
groups.  Most  of  the  pro-League  faction  opposes  Hitler  and  believes  that 
Re  will  threaten  the  peace  and  British  interests  before  Communist  Rus- 


[284]  THE  LIVING  AGE  June 

sia  does.  Most  of  the  anti-League  group,  on  the  other  hand,  favors  an 
understanding  with  Hitler  and  believes  in  giving  him  a  free  hand  against 
the  U.  S.  S.  R.,  Austria  and  Czechoslovakia.  But  the  Labor  Party,  which 
advocated  oil  sanctions  against  Italy,  urges  reconciliation  with  Germany, 
while  some  of  the  Die-Hard  Conservatives,  such  as  Churchill  and  the 
Chamberlains,  who  never  demanded  Mussolini's  scalp,  fear  Berlin  more 
than  they  do  Moscow. 

Events  in  Africa  have  settled  the  League  controversy:  henceforth 
Britain  will  act  alone.  The  sanctionists  and  the  anti-sanctionists,  the 
pro-Italians  and  the  anti-Italians,  the  pro-Leaguers  and  the  anti- 
Leaguers  have  all  been  liquidated.  Henceforth  the  chief  question  con- 
fronting British  foreign  policy  will  be  Germany. 

It  is  too  early  to  announce  that  the  anti-German  clique  has  carried 
the  day.  J.  L.  Garvin,  editor  of  the  Observer^  who  defended  Mussolini's 
course,  now  pleads  for  an  understanding  with  Hitler — significantly 
enough,  in  Western  Europe  only.  Mr.  Garvin  speaks  for  important  ele- 
ments in  the  Conservative  Party  and  carries  weight.  There  is  also  a 
considerable  body  of  pacifist  Labor  opinion  which  believes  that  Germany 
has  just  grievances  and  which  distrusts  Communism  in  any  shape  or 
form.  But  the  London  Economist^  speaking  for  the  more  progressive 
Conservatives  in  the  financial  district,  has  been  emphasizing  Germany's 
contempt  for  British  vacillations  and  the  desire  of  the  Dominions  for  a 
strong  foreign  policy.  Its  Berlin  correspondent  writes: — 

Being  themselves  given  to  posing  as  more  valiant  than  they  really  are,  German 
rulers  do  not  understand  the  Hamlet-like  sighs  of  London  that  the  world  is  out  of 
joint  and  that  tame  Great  Britain  is  merely  the  virtuous  and  despairing  onlooker; 
and  they  have  grounds  for  smiling  when  a  British  Prime  Minister,  in  order  to  ob- 
scure a  war-scandal  in  which  the  anti-German  Powers  are  the  culprits,  informs  the 
world  that  it  is  Herr  Hider  who  can  best  achieve  pacification.  They  have  very 
good  reasons  for  concluding  that  Great  Britain  is  afraid  to  fight  for  her  own,  not 
to  mention  the  collective,  interest;  and  while  they  would  admit  that  this  is  a  re- 
assuring, if  a  novel,  condition  in  British  history,  they  ask  why,  such  being  the 
shameful  case,  Great  Britain  expanded  the  purely  local  Abyssinian  dispute  in 
order  to  bring  peril  on  herself  and  to  set  Europe  by  the  ears. 

An  editorial  in  the  same  journal  concludes  as  follows: — 

In  fine,  the  British  Empire  cannot  survive  if  the  United  Kingdom  persists  in 
the  policy,  laid  down  by  Mr.  Baldwin's  Government,  that  we  will  not  take  the 
initiative  in  the  international  crisis.  A  heritage  of  greatness  cannot  be  repudiated 
with  impunity.  For  the  English  in  1936,  'a  craven  fear  of  being  great'  means 
national  suicide. 

SOURCES  inside  Germany  speak  with  more  authority  and  sometimes 
with  more  deadly  effect  than  emigres  concerning  what  goes  on  behind 
the  Nazi  dictatorship.  The  Statistical  Year  Book  for  1935,  for  example. 


1^3,6  THE  WORLD  OVER  [285] 

shows  that  during  1933,  the  latest  year  for  which  figures  are  available, 
nearly  19,000  people  committed  suicide  and  that  nea^rly  16,000  others 
fell  victims  to  *  unspecified  or  insufficiently  explained  causes  of  death.' 
During  1933,  too,  1698  people  were  found  guilty  of  high  treason  as  com- 
pared with  230  the  year  before,  and  over  7700  individuals  were  found 
guilty  in  regular  courts  of  political  crimes  that  did  not  even  figure  on 
the  statute  books  in  1932. 

Figures  on  military  and  naval  expenses  are  more  up-to-date  but  less 
specific.  During  the  fiscal  year  of  1934-35  armament  and  propaganda 
expenses  ate  up  approximately  half  the  national  budget.  Since  then,  the 
need  for  raw  materials  has  overshadowed  even  the  financial  difficulties. 
Today  aluminum  from  the  Balkans  and  stainless  or  galvanized  steel, 
domestically  produced,  are  replacing  copper,  which  is  no  longer  used  for 
roofing,  cooking  and  serving  utensils  m  homes  and  factories,  nor  for 
many  electrical  appliances.  Bergius,  who  discovered  how  to  extract  oil 
from  coal,  is  still  experimenting,  and  other  scientists  have  developed 
synthetic  rubber.  Their  products  not  only  cost  more  to  produce  and 
function  less  efficiently  than  the  real  thing;  they  are  manufactured  in  a 
few  factories.  In  the  event  of  war  a  few  successful  air-raids  could  put 
Germany's  sources  of  substitute  materials  out  of  business  and  cripple 
the  nation  more  in  a  week  than  the  submarine  campaign  crippled  Eng- 
land in  a  year.  In  view  of  all  these  factors,  only  the  most  desperate 
domestic  crisis  would  persuade  Hitler  to  resort  to  war  in  the  near  future. 

THE  ELEVATION  OF  GORING  to  the  post  of  economic  dictator 
which  Dr.  Schacht  used  to  occupy  constitutes,  among  other  things,  a 
victory  for  those  who  want  to  devalue  the  mark  and  produce  an  infla- 
tionary boom.  Indeed  the  Berlin  stock  market  was  anticipating  devalua- 
tion before  Schacht 's  prestige  received  its  sudden  jolt.  On  the  day  that 
German  troops  marched  into  the  Rhineland,  stock  prices  actually  rose, 
and,  although  they  sagged  during  the  ensuing  week,  within  a  month  they 
had  advanced  again.  The  issues  most  in  demand,  however,  were  not 
armament  shares,  which  would  naturally  profit  from  military  construc- 
tion in  the  Rhineland  area,  but  the  hitherto  neglected  industries — ^public 
utilities,  potash  companies,  and  textiles.  For  the  tendency  has  arisen  in 
recent  weeks  to  invest  money  in  sound  companies  and  real  estate  and  to 
get  rid  of  bonds  and  cash — a  sure  sign  of  inflation  ahead. 

Meanwhile  the  Frankfurter  Zeitung  has  been  conducting  a  private 
inquiry  into  the  profit-earning  capacity  of  German  industry  between 
1932,  the  depth  of  the  depression,  and  1935.  It  finds  that  hourly  wage- 
rates  have  declined  5  per  cent  while  total  payments  in  salaries  and  wages 
have  risen  21  per  cent.  Prices  of  home-produced  raw  materials  have  ad- 
vanced 38  per  cent,  and  of  imported  raw  materials  13  per  cent.  Industrial 


[286]  THE  LIVING  AGE  June 

output  has  risen  64  per  cent  but  output  of  consumers'  goods  has  ad- 
vanced only  14  per  cent,  while  production  of  new  plant  equipment  (pro- 
duction goods)  has  advanced  113  per  cent.  Profits  have  mounted  23  per 
cent.  Unemployment  continues  to  fall  and  stood  at  just  under  two  mil- 
lion in  March,  1936,  as  compared  with  almost  two  and  a  half  million  the 
year  before.  

THE  COLLAPSE  of  the  Phoenix  Insurance  Company  of  Austria 
parallels  the  collapse  of  the  Credit  Anstalt,  which  preceded  it  by  almost 
exactly  five  years.  In  both  cases  high  officials  committed  suicide;  in  both 
cases  important  political  maneuvers  followed  a  private  business  scandal. 
The  collapse  of  the  Credit  Anstalt  led  to  the  bank  failures  in  Germany 
and  to  the  fall  of  the  pound.  The  collapse  of  the  Phoenix  Insurance  Com- 
pany prepares  the  way  for  Hitler  to  destroy  Austrian  independence 
with  the  aid  of  Prince  Starhemberg  and  his  private  army,  the  Heimwehr. 
Jubilant  dispatches  in  the  Nazi  press  and  alarmist  reports  in  Communist 
organs  indicate  that  Nazi  influence,  working  in  collaboration  with 
Starhemberg  against  Chancellor  Schuschnigg,  dynamited  the  Phoenix 
Company  and  tried  to  blame  the  failure  on  Jewish  members  of  the  firm. 
The  stage  was  set  for  a  second  Stavisky  aflFair  and  a  Fascist  coup  d'etat^ 
such  as  nearly  occurred  in  France  after  the  riots  of  February,  1934. 

The  Nazis  and  Starhemberg  planned  to  strike  while  Schuschnigg 
was  visiting  Prague  and  Rome,  but  he  balked  their  plans  by  rushing 
back  to  Vienna  with  proof  that  leaders  of  Starhemberg's  Heimwehr 
troops  had  taken  bribes  from  the  Phoenix.  He  then  discomfited  them 
further  by  introducing  conscription.  This  move,  however,  had  wider 
implications  than  the  Phoenix  affair.  It  was  decided  upon  in  Rome,  where 
Schuschnigg,  who  takes  orders  from  Mussolini,  agreed  not  to  throw  in 
his  lot  with  the  Little  Entente.  Meanwhile  Starhemberg  remains  the 
man  to  watch  as  Hitler's  probable  under-cover  man  in  the  Austrian 
Government.  

THE  EXPERIENCE  of  Belgium  since  its  currency  was  devalued  in 
March,  1935,  shows  what  advocates  of  a  similar  course  in  France  may 
expect.  Back  in  1926  the  Belgians  stabilized  their  franc  at  a  lower  level 
than  the  French  franc,  and  within  ten  years  both  countries  were  talking 
further  devaluation.  While  France  continued  to  talk,  Belgium  acted, 
and  within  a  year  considerable  recovery  had  occurred.  Interest  rates 
have  dropped;  bond  prices  as  well  as  stock  prices  have  risen;  exports  in- 
creased 19  per  cent  in  quantity  and  imports  7  per  cent.  Between  March, 
1935,  and  January,  1936,  wholesale  prices  had  risen  25  per  cent,  which  is 
less  than  the  proportion  of  currency  devaluation.  The  cost  of  living 
mounted  13  per  cent,  while  wages,  as  usual,  lagged  behind,  the  pay  of 


/pjd  THE  WORLD  OVER  [287] 

civil  servants  having  increased  only  3  per  cent.  But  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  propertied  classes  and  their  economic  system  devaluation 
has  proved  a  blessing.  Electrical  output  has  risen  20  per  cent,  coal  pro- 
duction 13  per  cent,  and  most  of  the  basic  Belgian  industries,  including 
steel,  have  recorded  similar  progress.  The  most  important  index  of 
all — employment — ^has  risen  too. 

SPAIN'S  BALEARIC  ISLANDS,  once  the  last  refuge  of  American 
fugitives  from  vulgarity,  have  become  a  center  of  international  intrigue. 
No  less  than  eleven  million  pounds,  not  accounted  for  either  in  the  Span- 
ish or  the  local  budget,  have  gone  into  secret  fortifications,  consisting  of 
British  guns  which  arrive  on  British  ships  under  the  supervision  of 
British  officers.  A  year  ago  the  Majorcan  police  arrested  one  of  these 
officers,  a  certain  Captain  Kame,  and  when  the  Madrid  government 
ordered  his  release,  the  Majorcans  threatened  to  tell  what  he  was  doing. 
Lord  Beaverbrook's  Daily  Express,  which  had  sent  a  lawyer  to  defend 
the  incarcerated  captain,  fell  strangely  silent  at  the  same  time.  British 
money  has  also  deepened  the  harbor  at  Port  Mahon  and  presumably 
pays  the  upkeep  of  four  Spanish  submarines  and  four  cruisers  which 
have  been  sent  to  protect  the  Balearic  Islands,  although  the  naval  budget 
does  not  provide  for  their  expenses. 

The  general  purpose  of  these  activities  is,  of  course,  to  protect  the 
Mediterranean  trade  route  from  England  to  India.  But  they  also  have  a 
specific  aim.  In  recent  months  Italy  has  been  equipping  the  little  island 
of  Pantellaria,  sixty  miles  from  Sicily  and  fifty  miles  from  Tunis,  with 
guns  which  enable  it  to  command  the  sea  route  on  either  side.  Pantellaria 
has  become  a  stationary,  unsinkable  battleship  of  rock,  virtually  im- 
pregnable to  attack  and  without  any  inconvenient  civilian  population. 
Thus,  if  Italy  can  block  England's  route  to  India  from  Pantellaria, 
England  can  block  Italy's  route  to  the  Atlantic  from  the  Balearic  Islands. 

GIOVANNI  GIGLIO,  Rome  correspondent  of  the  Laborite  Daily 
Herald  of  London,  has  a  low  opinion  of  Mussolini  and  the  Ethiopian 
war.  Because  he  allowed  his  views  to  creep  into  his  dispatches,  the 
authorities  ejected  him  from  the  country.  Once  out  he  told  all.  Not  only 
are  the  war  and  the  regime  unpopular  among  the  Italian  masses;  they 
'understand'  that,  win  or  lose,  Italy's  export  trade  will  be  'negligible' 
for  'the  next  twenty  years  at  least.'  This  preposterous  statement  lays 
some  of  Mr.  Giglio's  other  excursions  into  the  field  of  wishful  thinking 
open  to  question;  but  there  seems  to  be  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the 
prices  of  oil,  sugar,  coflFee,  butter,  bacon,  codfish,  fruit,  and  vegetables 
doubled  during  the  first  four  months  of  1936.  Here  is  his  interpretation 
of  the  League's  failure  to  apply  oil  sanctions  against  Italy: — 


[288]  THE  LIVING  AGE  June 

Everybody  realized  that  if  the  Italian  War  Office  could  no  longer  receive  its 
oil  supplies  from  abroad,  Badoglio's  army  of  300,000  men  in  Abyssinia  would  be 
forced  in  a  few  months  to  suspend  hostilities. 

As  usual,  Mussolini  played  his  trump  card,  namely,  bluff. 

He  first  ordered  the  Ministry  of  Press  and  Propaganda  to  circulate  the  rumor 
that  if  the  oil  sanction  was  applied,  Italy  would  walk  out  of  the  League. 

This  rumor  was  later  denied  in  reply  to  inquiries  by  one  or  two  foreign  cor- 
respondents, but  its  place  was  taken  by  the  story  that  Italy  would  retaliate  with 
denouncing  the  agreement  signed  by  Mussolini  and  Laval  in  Rome  in  February, 

When  Mussolini  was  sure,  by  flying  these  and  similar  kites,  that  the  French 
Government  was  scared,  he  called  the  French  Ambassador  in  Rome,  and  asked 
him  to  inform  Laval  that  Italy  would  regard  oil  sanctions  as  an  act  of  'profound 
enmity'  which  would  lead  to  'grave  complications'  in  Europe. 

Whether  Laval  saw  through  Mussolini's  bluff  or  not,  he  convinced 
Sir  Samuel  Hoare  that  the  Duce  meant  business.  The  rest  is  history. 


JAPAN  TODAY  offers  many  parallels  with  Germany  in  191 4.  Both 
countries  had  doubled  their  populations  and  industrialized  themselves 
in  less  than  a  century;  in  both  countries  the  birth  rate  was  declining, 
although  the  population  continued  to  rise.  Professor  Teijiro  Uyeda  of 
the  Tokyo  University  of  Commerce  takes  this  comparison  as  the  text  of  a 
sermon  urging  his  country  to  make  bilateral  trade  agreements  and  to 
avoid  the  free  trade  doctrines  of  nineteenth  century  England  and  the 
gospel  of  self-sufficiency  preached  in  the  Third  Reich.  Between  1920 
and  1930  the  proportion  of  Japanese  supported  by  agriculture  fell  from 
50  per  cent  to  45  per  cent,  and  Professor  Uyeda  estimates  that  between 
1930  and  1950  the  number  of  Japanese  able  to  engage  in  productive 
labor  will  increase  by  10  millions.  He  insists  that  his  country's  statesmen 
take  an  international  view  of  their  economic  problems: — 

To  take  wool,  for  instance:  Japan  imports  it  from  Australia  to  the  value  of  150 
million  yen  a  year.  In  order  to  obtain  this  much  wool,  30  million  head  of  an  im- 
proved species  of  sheep  would  be  required.  It  would  be  the  height  of  absurdity  to 
imagine  that  so  much  wool-bearing  livestock  can  ever  be  raised  in  Mahchuria  and 
Mongolia.  Things  are  similar  with  regard  to  other  raw  materials. 

From  this  point  of  view  it  may  be  said  that  Japanese  industry  exists  on  a  life- 
line extending  from  Texas  out  to  British  India  and  Australia.  With  regard  to  ex- 
port markets  for  Japanese  manufactures,  they  are  so  "widely  distributed  over  the 
world  that  it  is  out  of  the  question  to  try  to  concentrate  them  in  Asia.  Nobody 
would  ever  think  of  selling  as  much  silk  to  China  as  Japan  is  selling  to  the  United 
States.  Such  being  the  state  of  affairs,  the  industrialization  which  Japan  is  bound 
to  accomplish  as  an  inevitable  sequel  of  her  problems  can  never  be  possible  except 
on  broad  international  lines.  It  is  therefore  more  comprehensible  that  Japan  today 
turns  back  to  the  principle  of  free  trade. 

He  does  not,  however,  urge  the  old  fashioned  free-trade  policy  that 


/pjd  THE  WORLD  OVER  [289] 

Secretary  Hull  has  imposed  on  the  United  States;  rather  does  he  urge 
bilateral  agreements,  such  as  George  Peek  vainly  advocated,  to  exchange 
one  surplus  for  another.  Japan  and  India  worked  out  an  agreement  to 
exchange  raw  cotton  and  textiles  on  this  basis,  and  Professor  Uyeda 
wants  more  arrangements  of  the  same  kind. 

A.  E.  BLANCO,  director  of  the  Anti-Opium  Information  Bureau  in 
Geneva,  has  written  an  article  for  the  Nationalist  People* s  Tribune  of 
Nanking,  revealing  the  extent  of  the  drug  traffic  in  China.  He  recalls  a 
Chinese  Government  Report  of  1928  stating  that  i  million  of  the  11 
million  inhabitants  of  Shansi  Province  were  drug  addicts  and  spent 
Jioo,ooo,ooo  a  year  in  Chinese  currency  on  narcotics.  Since  1928  drug 
consumption  has  increased  throughout  China,  especially  in  the  areas 
occupied  by  the  Japanese,  who  are  systematically  doping  millions  of 
Chinese  with  legalized  narcotics.  Mr.  Blanco  quotes  official  figures  to  the 
effect  that  there  are  210,000  addicts  in  Manchukuo  as  compared  with 
120,000  in  the  United  States. 

These  addicts  do  not  belong  to  the  well-to-do  classes.  Heroin,  the 
cheapest  and  most  efficacious  drug,  has  dropped  steadily  in  price,  and 
Mr.  Blanco  reports  that  when  he  was  in  Harbin  it  was  *  a  daily  occur- 
rence '  for  him  '  to  pass  on  the  way  to  my  office  the  bodies  of  three  or  four 
coolies,  whose  resistance  had  been  undermined  by  drugs,  and  who  had 
paid  the  penalty  with  their  life.'  The  International  Labor  Office  also 
states  that  opium  smoking  'is  most  widespread  among  workers  in  the 
most  arduous  occupations.'     

WHEN  THE  DELHI  CORRESPONDENT  of  the  London  rimes  de- 
votes a  whole  column  to  the  prospects  of  Socialism  in  India  and  then 
writes  daily  accounts  of  the  disputes  over  Socialism  in  the  all-powerful 
Congress  Party,  one  suspects  that  India  is  entering  a  pre-revolutionary 
period.  Today  Socialists  claim  that  they  represent  one  third  of  the 
Congress  Party;  certainly  they  are  strong  at  the  top,  for  Pandit  Jar- 
waharlal  Nehru,  President  of  the  Congress  Party,  now  tells  his  followers 
that  *  the  only  solution  of  India's  problems  lies  in  socialism,  involving 
vast  revolutionary  changes  in  the  political  and  social  structure  and  end- 
ing vested  interests  in  land  and  industry.'  But  Nehru  agrees  with  the 
more  moderate  members  of  the  Congress  Party  that  nationalism  must 
corne  first;  and,  since  the  Party  derives  much  of  its  income  from  rich 
Indians  who  want  only  to  be  free  of  English  rule,  no  immediate  uprisings 
should  be  expected.  As  for  Gandhi,  the  man  who  persuaded  Hindus  and 
Moslems  to  work  together  in  the  Congress  Party,  he  devotes  himself 
entirely  to  organizing  the  peasants,  improving  their  economic  condition, 
and  destroying  some  of  their  superstitions. 


A  famous  French  economist,  of  decidedly 
conservative  leanings,  gives  his  views 
on  'recovery'  in  these  United  States. 


America's 
CRISIS 


By  Andr£  Siegfried 

Translated  from  the  Revue  des  Deux  MonJes,  Paris 
Conservative  Bi-Monthly 


T« 


-HERE  is  no  denying  that  a  busi- 
ness recovery  has  been  in  progress  for 
several  months  in  the  United  States. 
Certain  qualified  observers  claim  that 
it  has  been  increasingly  apparent 
since  the  end  of  1934.  Last  summer 
and  autumn  the  automobile  industry 
showed  steady  signs  of  revival;  it 
could  be  felt  in  the  air  of  Detroit, 
air  charged  with  economic  oxygen.  In 
the  West,  farmers  helped  by  the  Gov- 
ernment's agricultural  policy  (the 
famous  AAA,  since  invalidated  by  the 
Supreme  Court)  sell  their  products  at 
better  prices  than  they  have  fetched 
for  a  long  time,  spend  more  liberally, 
and  declare  themselves  satisfied  with 
the  situation.  Wherever  one  turns,  it 
is  easy  to  see  signs  of  growing  activity. 
Wall  Street  records,  or  perhaps  antici- 
pates, the  activity  by  a  rise,  doubtless 
speculative  in  a  sense  and  perhaps 
tainted  by  a  sort  of  financial  distrust, 
but  still  by  a  persistent  rise  in  prices. 
The  index  number  of  seventy  selected 
industries,  which  stood  at  126  in  June, 
1934,  had  risen  to  136  by  December, 


1935.  In  short,  the  past  year  shows 
more  definite  signs  of  recovery  than 
have  ever  been  observed  during  the 
somber  hours  of  the  crisis.  The  Federal 
Reserve  Board's  figures  show  that  in- 
dustrial production  in  1935  surpassed 
that  of  1934  by  13  per  cent.  By  com- 
parison with  the  low-water  mark  of 
1932,  American  industrial  progress 
can  be  estimated  at  approximately  60 
per  cent,  which  means  that  almost 
one-half  of  the  ground  lost  since  1929, 
the  record  year,  has  been  recovered. 

These  are  the  facts,  the  famous 
'facts  and  figures'  without  which  an 
American  never  feels  entirely  at  ease 
in  an  argument.  But  apart  from  these 
figures,  which  we  could  continue  to 
cite  almost  indefinitely,  the  national 
psychology  reflects  important  changes. 
It  is  not  that  Americans  beheve  that 
prosperity  has  returned;  but  they 
would  not  be  surprised  to  see  it  coming 
'around  the  corner,'  according  to  the 
well-known  formula.  America,  though 
still  distrustful,  and  still  shaken,  is  be- 
ginning to  be  herself  again,  that  is, 


AMERICA'S  CRISIS 


[291] 


optimistic.  Nothing  so  far  has  really 
changed  our  America ! 

This  is  the  superficial  impression 
one  receives  almost  everywhere.  Let 
us  try  to  discover  what  this  impression 
is  based  upon.  This  is  the  essential 
problem  we  must  solve,  since  it  is 
possible  that  this  recovery  might 
prove  to  be  only  a  flash  in  the  pan. 
The  impression  may,  however,  corre- 
spond to  a  profound  change  in  the 
general  economic  trend  and  conse- 
quently mean  a  real  improvement,  one 
which  is  destined  to  endure. 

The  trade  revival  now  in  progress  in 
the  United  States  originates,  at  least 
partially,  in  the  Government's  sys- 
tematically spendthrift  policy,  which 
may  be  seen  in  the  failure  to  balance 
the  budget.  The  accumulated  deficit 
of  the  last  four  years  amounts  to  13 
billion  dollars.  This  deficit  continues 
and  doubtless  will  continue  for  a  long 
time,  if  one  may  judge  by  the  gigantic 
expenditures  promised,  demanded,  and 
suggested  on  all  sides.  The  uncertain 
effects  of  the  AAA  have  provided  the 
farmers  with  a  vast  purchasing  power 
in  the  form  of  innumerable  checks. 
The  policy  of  public  works,  whose 
tempo  has  been  considerably  acceler- 
ated, extends  subsidies,  salaries,  and 
benefits  to  every  part  of  the  country. 
Finally  Congress  has  placed  in  the 
hands  of  one  man,  the  President,  the 
extraordinary  power  of  spending  as  he 
deems  best  the  enormous,  astronomi- 
cal sum  of  4,800  million  dollars,  a  sum 
so  huge  that  its  dimensions  can  hardly 
be  conceived,  so  great  that  even  the 
Government  seems  to  feel  some  em- 
barrassment in  utilizing  it. 

In  traveling  through  the  country 
one  gets  the  impression  that  every- 
thing possible  has  been  done  to  get  rid 
of  this  sum,  though  not  with  constant 


success.  Any  demand  for  money,  no 
matter  for  whom  or  for  what  purpose, 
can  reasonably  expect  a  favorable  re- 
ception. It  has  thus  actually  been  pos- 
sible to  carry  out  the  most  useless  and 
unnecessary  work  projects.  In  these 
circumstances  one  need  not  be  sur- 
prised to  see  the  amount  of  money  in 
circulation;  and  the  effect  of  this  cir- 
culation on  both  purchases  and  sales 
creates  a  part,  probably  an  important 
one,  of  that  economic  activity  we  have 
observed.  Make  no  mistake:  it  is  this 
policy,  inspired  by  the  doctrine  of 
Government  intervention  in  economic 
processes,  which  supports  the  eco- 
nomic recovery. 

It  is  a  singular  fact  that  the  plat- 
form of  the  Democratic  Party  in  1932 
included  as  one  of  its  planks  the  bal- 
ancing of  the  budget  and  the  curtail- 
ing of  expenditures,  in  short,  a  re- 
trenchment in  the  true  Glads toni an 
manner.  Nevertheless  this  inundation 
of  credits,  subsidies,  premiums,  in- 
demnities, relief,  and  economic  stimu- 
lants of  all  kinds  characterizes  more 
than  anything  else  President  Roose- 
velt's policy,  and  is  an  element  in  his 
program  which  public  opinion  accepts 
very  readily.  It  has  taken  the  Su- 
preme Court's  condemnation  of  that 
immense  structure  of  laws,  decrees 
and  codes,  which  was  the  NRA,  with 
hardly  a  murmur;  without  any  spe- 
cially vehement  protests  public  opin- 
ion permitted  that  Court  to  disavow 
the  AAA;  but  it  is  unlikely  that  it 
would  support  quite  so  cheerfully  the 
abandonment  of  a  financial  policy 
consisting  of  countless  expenditures. 
Under  these  conditions  the  Govern- 
ment, with  the  Presidential  elections 
only  a  few  months  ahead,  finds  itself 
more  or  less  obliged  to  leave  the  tap 
running.  Even  if  the  Administration 


[292] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


were  dismayed  by  the  proportions  of 
this  budgetary  orgy,  neither  the 
House  of  Representatives  nor  the  Sen- 
ate could  reasonably  be  expected  to 
have  the  same  scruples,  since  their 
constituents  are  today,  as  always, 
convinced  that  America  is  a  continent 
of  'unlimited  resources'  and  that  the 
United  States  Treasury  is  bottomless. 


II 


To  obtain  these  fabulous  sums,  the 
Government  must  resort  to  constant 
borrowing.  The  budget  is  not  bal- 
anced, and  there  is  no  possibility  of 
balancing  it,  for  the  amount  of  money 
required  by  the  program  cannot  be 
collected  by  taxation.  It  is  a  state  of 
things  similar  to  a  wartime  mobiliza- 
tion of  all  resources  to  one  end,  with 
the  hope  of  readjustment  when  the 
crisis  is  past.  The  extreme  ease  with 
which  the  Government  finds  all  the 
money  it  needs  is  remarkable.  Borrow- 
ing passes  almost  unnoticed  because  it 
is  so  easy;  the  vast  sums  come,  not 
from  the  public,  but  from  the  banks, 
and  because  of  the  abundance  of  bank 
deposits  the  rate  of  interest  remains 
extremely  low:  less  than  yi  per  cent 
for  short  term  loans,  i>^  per  cent  to 
if^  per  cent  for  medium  term  loans, 
and  less  than  3  per  cent  for  long  term 
loans. 

A  European's  common  sense  tells 
him  that  lack  of  confidence,  and  then 
panic,  are  bound  to  be  the  natural, 
inescapable  results  of  a  policy  which 
laughs  at  balanced  budgets  and  seems 
to  possess,  from  the  point  of  view  of 
economic  wisdom,  a  certain  aura  of 
immorality.  But  the  experience  of  the 
past  months  proves  that  the  Govern- 
ment's borrowing  capacity  is  far  from 
being  exhausted.  Despite  a  public  debt 


which  has  grown  from  I9>^  billions  in 
1932  to  30  billions  today,  and  which 
will  doubtless  reach  35  billion  dollars 
tomorrow,  America,  as  contrasted 
with  Europe,  retains  so  great  a  margin 
of  security  that  nobody  feels  any  need 
to  fear.  After  a  few  months  in  the  at- 
mosphere of  the  New  World,  a  Euro- 
pean critic  loses  all  sense  of  propor- 
tion; he  becomes  American-minded, 
which  means  that  he  finds  himself 
thinking  that  what  would  prove  fatal 
in  the  Old  World  can  do  no  harm  to 
the  New.  He  knows  that  a  man  of 
sixty  must  take  better  care  of  himself 
than  a  lad  of  twenty  needs  to. 

Let  us  try  to  analyze  the  actual  re- 
sults of  this  policy  of  deliberate  and 
chronic  disequilibrium.  When  the  Gov- 
ernment borrows,  credit  is  given  to  it 
in  one  of  the  banks,  and  through  this 
credit  the  Government  distributes 
checks  to  the  recipients  of  its  bounty. 
These  beneficiaries,  who  are  innumer- 
able, spend  this  money,  and  at  last  the 
money  comes  back  to  the  bank  in  the 
form  of  constantly  accruing  deposits. 
We  had  this  cycle  in  France  on  the  eve 
of  the  War.  It  does  not  really  mean 
monetary  inflation  but  rather  credit 
inflation.  If  it  does  not  actually  create 
purchasing  power  out  of  nothing,  it 
nevertheless  amounts  almost  to  the 
same  thing. 

It  is  important  to  remember  that 
this  potential  inflation  is  being  im- 
posed upon  a  country  which  is  still  in 
the  state  of  deflation  that  was  so  ir- 
resistible and  general  at  the  beginning 
of  1933.  It  is  essential  to  remember 
this,  and  to  keep  in  mind  the  existence 
of  a  gold  reserve  which,  being  natu- 
rally subject  to  continuous  fluctua- 
tions, had  risen  to  10  billion  dollars  by 
the  end  of  1935,  and  which  may  be  a 
basis  for  a  new  and  formidable  expan- 


193^ 


AMERICA'S  CRISIS 


[293 


sion  of  credit,  as  some  fear.  These  la- 
tent resources,  however,  are  today- 
still  in  excess  of  the  real  needs  of  the 
country,  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the 
country  seems  neither  desirous  nor 
capable  of  absorbing  or  using  them. 
The  fact  that  loans  extended  to  com- 
mercial enterprises  show  no  increase  is 
very  significant.  Many  businesses  in 
good  financial  order  seem  able  to  take 
care  of  their  expenditures  for  equip- 
ment from  their  own  reserves.  Besides, 
a  good  share  of  speculation  on  the  ex- 
change is  done  by  foreigners  who 
carry  on  their  operations  by  importing 
gold.  It  is  not  correct  to  say  that  there 
is  no  credit  policy;  this  credit  exists, 
but  it  comes  from  the  Government  it- 
self rather  than  through  the  medium 
of  private  enterprise. 

Thus  we  are  forced  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  recovery,  in  so  far  as  it  is  the 
result  of  a  financial  policy,  is  an  arti- 
ficial phenomenon.  It  cannot  endure 
longer  than  the  tempo  of  Govern- 
mental expenditures  can  be  main- 
tained, and  this  tempo  cannot  be  kept 
up  unless  borrowing  remains  a  com- 
paratively easy  process. 

For  the  time  being  the  Government 
has  no  tremors  about  its  continued 
ability  to  borrow.  But  the  needs  of  the 
Treasury  are  far  from  lessening;  they 
must,  on  the  contrary,  increase.  Con- 
gress has  recently  voted  veteran's 
bonuses  which  will  cost  2  billion  dol- 
lars. And  who  can  guarantee  that  the 
Townsend  Plan  will  not  be  adopted  by 
the  House  of  Representatives  under 
the  pressure  of  a  well-organized  lobby } 
If  this  occurs,  the  number  of  billions 
to  be  disbursed  will  defy  the  imagina- 
tion. 

There  are  indeed  some  clear-headed 
men  who  tremble  when  they  envisage 
these  possibilities,  which  seem  to  be 


only  a  product  of  our  imagination  and 
which  nevertheless  can  very  well  be- 
come a  reality  one  of  these  days.  This 
is  exactly  what  is  being  said  by  pru- 
dent persons  who  prefer  to  invest  in 
stocks  rather  than  in  bonds  because 
they  fear  another  depreciation  of  the 
dollar.  If  the  Government  borrows 
mostly  in  short  term  loans,  it  is  doubt- 
less because  neither  the  banks  nor  the 
public  care  to  lend  it  their  capital  for  a 
long  term.  You  can  see  that  there  is 
lack  of  confidence;  but  there  is  little 
outward  sign  of  it,  and,  curiously 
enough,  it  exists  side  by  side  with  re- 
born confidence.  But  the  American 
habit  is  to  have  confidence  in  oneself 
and  to  distrust  the  Government; 
Americans  have  few  illusions  on  that 
score.  They  summarize  what  is  going 
on  as  a  sort  of  struggle,  a  race  between 
the  wealth  of  the  country  and  the 
power  of  that  wealth  to  withstand  this 
orgy  of  spending. 

If  the  Government  should  one  day 
find  it  impossible  to  borrow,  the  conse- 
quences would  be  terrific,  as  the  bank- 
ing system  is  inextricably  connected 
with  Government  credit.  But  one  does 
not  think  of  this  possibility,  and  much 
water  will  flow  under  many  bridges 
before  it  will  be  reahzed.  Meanwhile 
President  Roosevelt  follows  Nietz- 
sche's advice:  he  lives  dangerously. 


Ill 


Here  we  have  one  aspect  of  the  situ- 
ation. But  there  is  another,  perhaps  a 
more  important  and  at  any  rate  a 
much  more  healthy  one,  which  cer- 
tainly justifies  an  optimistic  view. 
The  Government  borrows  and  dis- 
burses dollars  by  the  billion  without 
even  seeming  to  do  so.  Yet  the  sums  it 
expends  are  small  in  comparison  with 


[294] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


the  enormous  mass  of  bank  deposits  in 
the  country.  These  deposits,  which  for 
many  complex  reasons  are  prudently 
accumulated  in  the  banks  without  be- 
ing invested  by  them,  will  eventually 
be  utilized  and  will  then  provide  a 
firm  basis  for  recovery.  To  liquefy 
these  assets  no  artificial  stimulus  is 
needed,  but  rather  a  return  to  normal 
conditions  in  the  economic  organism. 
When  such  a  return  occurs,  the  natu- 
ral course  of  events  will  bear  the  for- 
tunes of  the  country  on  its  rising  tide. 
At  the  moment,  the  crisis,  or  depres- 
sion, as  it  is  called  in  the  United 
States,  seems  to  have  exhausted  most 
of  its  effects  and  repercussions  in  the 
North  American  continent.  The  eco- 
nomic thermometer  now  records  not 
so  much  the  fever  of  inflation  as  the 
low  temperature  which  follows  sick- 
ness and  precedes  convalescence.  The 
favorable  counterpart  of  this  purge  is, 
we  must  not  forget  it,  the  correspond- 
ing disappearance  of  the  great  load  of 
debt  which  used  to  burden  the  system. 
A  host  of  impracticable  enterprises 
has  fallen;  imperfect  as  the  liquidation 
of  them  has  been,  and  retarded  as  it 
may  have  been  by  the  New  Deal,  it 
has  nevertheless  occurred. 

Against  this  background  we  see  the 
outlines  of  many  needed  undertakings, 
upon  which  action  has  until  now  been 
deferred.  During  the  five  years  of  the 
depression  construction  has  been  slowed 
up,  sometimes  completely  stopped; 
industrial  equipment  scantily  cared 
for,  rarely  replaced.  It  is  possible  that 
the  United  States  is  now  passing 
through  a  stage  of  industrial  over- 
equipment; but  from  the  statistical 
point  of  view  it  cannot  be  doubted 
that  were  the  recovery  ever  so  slight, 
a  good  part  of  the  nation's  industrial 
equipment  would  demand  renovation ; 


and  if  the  tempo  of  the  recovery  were 
swift,  the  masses  of  the  unemployed, 
whose  numbers  are  perhaps  exagger- 
ated, would  be  reduced.  These  symp- 
toms are  displayed  by  the  departments 
of  economic  activity  where  recovery, 
due  to  natural  causes,  is  about  to  ap- 
pear. And  they  are  not  those  upon 
which  most  of  the  Governmental 
manna  has  been  showered. 


IV 


What  channels  of  consumption  re- 
ceive the  stream  of  money  expended 
by  the  Government  as  part  of  its  plan 
for  the  stimulation  of  the  national 
economic  life?  It  is  directed  less  to- 
ward heavy  industry  than  toward  the 
enterprises  that  minister  directly  to 
everyday  consumption.  Generally  speak- 
ing, it  is  not  the  heavy  industries 
which  have  benefited  by  the  Govern- 
mental subsidies.  In  the  recovery 
which  has  been  evident  up  to  now 
these  heavy  industries  have  been 
lagging  behind.  The  industries  which 
profit  by  this  kind  of  financial  irriga- 
tion are  of  another  type.  According  to 
a  recent  bulletin  of  the  National  City 
Bank  the  industries  which  are  at  pres- 
ent the  most  active  include:  machine 
tools,  automobiles,  vacuum  cleaners, 
mail  order  sales,  petroleum  production, 
hosiery,  and  so  on.  This  is*an  interest- 
ing lesson,  teaching  us  that  a  govern- 
ment may  pour  money  into  circulation 
but  may  be  incapable  of  directing  its 
subsidies  to  those  points  where  they 
would  do  most  good.  In  the  opinion  of 
the  most  reliable  experts,  recovery  in 
the  United  States  cannot  be  con- 
sidered significant  and  lasting  until 
the  day  when  the  industries  which 
produce  capital  goods  show  renewed 
activity. 


193^ 


AMERICA'S  CRISIS 


[295] 


How  can  this  problem  be  solved? 
First  of  all,  by  taking  measures  that 
will  lead  to  the  investment  of  the 
frozen  bank  deposits  in  industries 
which  are  merely  vegetating.  Common 
sense  will  tell  us  that  such  investment 
will  not  take  place  until  there  is  a  hope 
of  profit,  and  there  can  be  little  prob- 
ability of  such  profit  unless  prices  can 
be  lowered  to  a  level  that  will  stimu- 
late consumption,  thus  restoring  to 
the  masses  the  purchasing  power  they 
have  lost.  The  Government's  policy  of 
intervention  in  industrial  production 
works  against  this  solution  by  main- 
taining prices  on  a  high  level. 

For  these  reasons  the  end  of  the 
NRA  caused  no  discouragement,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  brought  new  confi- 
dence to  the  business  world.  The  in- 
dustrialists and  the  merchants,  that  is 
to  say  the  very  social  classes  which  are 
capable  of  contributing  most  directly 
to  business  recovery,  could  and  did 
say  to  themselves  after  the  verdict 
that  the  Constitution  still  stood  as  a 
bulwark  of  safety  and  that,  after  all, 
the  principles  of  freedom  of  contract 
and  free  competition  were  still  the 
foundation  of  the  American  economic 
system.  The  fear  of  another  period  of 
reform,  in  the  sense  of  intervention- 
ism,  would  serve  to  counteract  this 
lukewarm  optimism.  Hence  the  un- 
certainty, not  only  concerning  the 
results  of  the  coming  Presidential  elec- 
tion, but  also  about  the  President's 
intentions  in  case  he  is  reelected, 
remains  a  serious  obstacle  to  a  thor- 
ough revival  of  economic  activity. 

It  is,  however,  easy  to  over-esti- 
mate the  weight  of  any  particular 
policy;  the  natural  cyclic  movement 
of  the  economic  tides  is  likely  to  prove 
so  much  more  important  a  factor  than 
any  policy.  And  it  seems  that  the  tide 


is  about  to  turn,  if  it  has  not  already 
done  so  without  our  being  aware  of  it. 
Perhaps,  when  the  dust  of  events  has 
settled,  we  shall  perceive  that  our  so- 
called  'exceptional'  economic  crisis 
very  much  resembles  other  preceding 
crises,  and  may  be  assigned  its  place  in 
the  series  of  economic  cycles. 

History  teaches  us  that  price  cycles 
also  exist.  Just  before  the  war  we  had 
a  cycle  of  rising  prices,  and  for  the 
last  fifteen  years  we  have  been  sub- 
jected to  an  irresistible  downward 
pressure  which  has  affected  the  entire 
world  economy  without  a  single  coun- 
try being  able  to  escape  it.  Is  it  so  un- 
reasonable to  think  that  a  rise  in 
prices  may  now  be  anticipated?  They 
seem  to  have  reached  their  lowest 
level  in  1932,  and  a  definite  increase  in 
gold  production  can  be  discerned  at 
the  present  time.  These  are  the  symp- 
toms, doubtless  more  important  in 
their  general  scope  than  the  policy  of 
a  President  of  the  United  States,  even 
if  the  latter  is  called  Roosevelt.  But 
America  forgets  quickly:  during  the 
crisis  she  has  forgotten  prosperity; 
during  the  imminent  prosperity  she 
will  forget  even  more  quickly  the 
crisis  and  the  lesson  it  taught. 


There  are  two  parallel  kinds  of  re- 
covery. The  first  is  the  result  of  a  defi- 
nite policy,  the  second  the  conse- 
quence of  an  economic  tide  which  this 
policy  has  not  occasioned  nor  even 
hastened.  Thus  two  types  of  recovery 
are  at  work  at  the  same  time,  their 
courses  parallel  to  each  other.  The 
Governmental  expenditures  play  the 
role  of  the  starter  which  is  needed  to 
set  the  motor  going;  but  the  machine 
must  have  gasoline  if  it  is  to  continue 


[296] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


running.  You  could  not  run  an  auto- 
mobile with  nothing  but  a  starter,  and 
that,  after  all,  is  what  the  President 
would  be  trying  to  do  if  he  claimed  to 
have  instigated  the  recovery  and  to 
have  sustained  it  without  the  condi- 
tions for  its  lasting  and  normal  proc- 
esses being  fulfilled.  The  economic 
Renaissance,  once  set  in  motion,  will 
benefit  most  by  a  policy  of  Govern- 
mental abstention.  As  for  the  kind  of 
recovery  which  is  caused  by  artificial 
stimulants,  it  would  not  be  able  to 
continue  indefinitely;  the  financial 
and  economic  disorder,  which  it  im- 
plies, must  bring  about  its  end.  Under 
these  conditions,  the  two  kinds  of  re- 
covery cannot  exist  together  beyond  a 
certain  length  of  time. 

Are  the  principles  vaunted  before 
the  crisis  as  the  necessary  foundation 
of  the  American  system  still  being  ac- 
cepted, or  has  the  depression  taught 
Americans  others?  During  the  twenty- 
five  or  thirty  years  preceding  the  War 
the  policy  pursued  by  the  trusts  in- 
cluded centralization  designed  to  lower 
costs.  But,  by  means  of  arbitrary 
intervention,  the  trusts  also  sought  to 
maintain  a  rise  in  selling  prices,  in 
order  to  profit  at  the  expense  of  the 
consumer.  It  is  true  that  the  Sherman 
Law  forbade  combinations  and  mo- 
nopolies; but  the  great  industries 
knew  how  to  evade  the  law  and  ended 
by  adjusting  its  workings  to  their  pur- 
poses. Thus  in  spite  of  a  decidedly  hos- 
tile public  opinion  they  remained 
powerful.  It  is  doubtful  whether  they 
served  their  own  true  interests  by  this 
policy,  for  only  by  lowering  prices 
could  they  assure  themselves  of  the 
markets  which  these  great  and  ever- 
expanding  industries  needed. 

It  was  Ford  and  the  automobile  in- 
dustry in  general  which  first  discerned 


the  truth:  that  a  mass  market  is  neces- 
sary for  mass  production.  Ford's  pol- 
icy, which,  for  courage  and  true  wis- 
dom, can  never  be  over-praised,  was 
diametrically  opposed  to  that  of  the 
trusts.  It  sought  to  reduce  costs  by  in- 
creasing the  volume  of  production,  at 
the  same  time  passing  on  this  reduc- 
tion to  the  public,  systematically  and 
obstinately  diminishing  selling  prices; 
it  also  endeavored  to  increase  or  (in 
time  of  crisis)  to  maintain  wages  at 
the  maximum  amount  compatible 
with  the  returns,  thus  raising  the  level 
of  the  standard  of  living,  that  is  to  say 
of  mass  purchasing  power.  American 
industry  adopted  this  doctrine  in 
some  measure  during  the  piping  times 
of  post-War  prosperity,  but,  looking 
back  from  today,  it  seems  to  have 
done  so  too  half-heartedly.  Many  in- 
dustrial leaders  tried  to  stimulate 
sales  without  lowering  prices,  so  that 
the  consumer  found  himself  at  a  dis- 
advantage. Then  manufacturers  re- 
sorted to  the  economic  equivalent  of  a 
shot  in  the  arm,  such  as  sales  by  in- 
stallment, a  drawing  upon  the  reve- 
nues of  tomorrow.  Another  method  is 
the  systematic  use  of  advertising;  still 
another  is  intensive  sales  eflforts,  in 
which  the  industry  pursues  the  cus- 
tomer to  his  very  home,  and  obliges 
him  to  show  more  energy  in  refusing 
to  buy  than  in  buying.  But  these 
processes  are  expensive.  They  demand 
a  large  personnel  and  run  up  costs. 

When  the  depression  gained  the 
catastrophic  proportions  which  we 
remember,  these  two  methods  were 
available  to  combat  it;  that  of  the 
trusts  and  that  of  Ford.  In  his  New 
Deal  program  President  Roosevelt 
decided  upon  the  former,  after  having 
first  advocated  a  policy  of  severe  de- 
flation. The  business  world,  demoral- 


'93^ 


AMERICA'S  CRISIS 


[297] 


ized  and  desperate,  was  ready  to 
accept  whatever  measures  were  coun- 
seled by  the  savior.  Instead  of  seeking 
a  solution  in  the  reduction  of  costs  and 
selling  prices,  the  NRA  recommended 
their  consolidation.  The  industries 
gained  the  right  to  get  together  and 
control  prices  by  monopolistic  meth- 
ods, a  privilege  for  which  they  had 
fought  for  thirty  years;  but  they  were 
asked  to  pay  for  this  tolerance  by 
adopting  a  social  policy  imposed  upon 
them  by  the  Government:  recognition 
of  trade  unions,  limitation  of  working 
hours,  regulation  of  wages,  etc.  The 
old  trust  spirit  reappeared  in  a  new 
form,  partaking  a  little  of  Italian 
'corporativism,'  yet  influenced  by  a 
vague  sort  of  Marxism.  The  consumer 
bore  the  weight  of  the  combination; 
the  worker  and  the  boss  were  invited 
to  share  the  benefits,  and  the  Govern- 
ment assumed  the  role  of  mediator 
and  arbitrator — a  role  never  before  as- 
sumed by  it  in  America. 


VI 


Now  that  the  NRA  has  ceased  to 
exist,  now  that  the  judgment  of  the 
Supreme  Court  has  freed  production 
from  Government  control,  industry  is 
at  liberty  to  continue  of  its  own  ac- 
cord what  the  Government  had  at- 
tempted to  impose  upon  it  by  the 
•codes.  The  practice  varies  among  dif- 
ferent industries;  some  of  them,  like 
the  iron  and  steel  industries,  for  in- 
stance, seem  to  favor  the  principle  of 
maintaining  prices  by  the  trust  policy 
and  tariff  protection.  The  automobile 
industry,  on  the  contrary,  remains 
faithful  to  Ford's  methods,  and  does 
quite  well.  Other  industries,  like  the 
textiles  and  coal,  are  in  a  fever  of  com- 
petition, which  lowers  prices  in  an  un- 


healthy manner  without  making  suffi- 
cient profit  for  capital. 

At  heart  industry  would  like  to  see 
the  Sherman  Law  repealed  and  to 
benefit  by  freedom  of  combination 
without  the  accompanying  social  legis- 
lation. It  is  improbable  that  it  will  at- 
tain this  advantage  otherwise  than  in 
the  precarious  form  of  law  breaking. 
But  it  seems  to  me  that  Ford  repre- 
sents the  true,  traditional  spirit  of 
America,  the  spirit  of  initiative  and 
audacity  and  readiness  to  accept  risk. 

When  an  industry  in  the  United 
States  tries  to  lower  the  cost  of  its 
product,  what  must  it  do?  Wage  re- 
duction is  not  usually  its  method  of 
tackling  the  problem.  First  it  tries  to 
increase  the  volume  of  production, 
then  to  decrease  the  burden  of  general 
costs.  At  the  same  time  it  systemati- 
cally replaces  workers  by  machinery, 
so  that,  without  any  sacrifice  by  the 
remaining  workers,  the  effective  equiva- 
lent of  wage  cuts  is  attained.  The  solu- 
tion is  then  to  be  found  in  the  individ- 
ual organization  rather  than  in  the 
general  economy.  The  great  difference 
between  Europe  and  America  in  this 
respect  is  that  the  social  rather  than 
the  political  organism  sets  up  an  in- 
stinctive resistance  to  the  reduction  of 
wages.  The  industry  must  then  look 
for  another  solution,  and  if  it  does  not 
find  it,  be  disqualified  as  an  effective 
competitor. 

The  destiny  of  American  industry  is 
thus  bound  up  with  the  progress  of 
mechanization.  Its  great  achievement 
is  the  substitution  of  machines  for 
manual  labor.  In  this  policy  it  is  un- 
questionably ahead  of  Europe;  but 
there  always  exists  a  limit  beyond 
which  the  machine  cannot  be  further 
utilized.  Then  the  American's  advan- 
tage disappears;  the  burden  of  wages 


[298] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


becomes  too  heavy  to  be  supported. 
Neither  the  crisis  nor  President  Roose- 
velt's policy  seems  to  have  brought 
any  new  specific  factors  into  this 
situation,  since  the  conditions  of 
American  success  in  industrial  com- 
petition depend  upon  basic  circum- 
stances which  even  the  most  sensa- 
tional of  crises  cannot  change. 

In  order  to  struggle  against  the  de- 
pression and  emerge  from  it,  America, 
then,  must  choose  between  two  meth- 
ods, one  orthodox,  one  necessitating 
the  use  of  artificial  stimulants.  We 
have  discussed  the  President's  ap- 
parent choice  and  indicated  the  hesita- 
tions of  industry,  reverting  at  last  to 
its  former  methods,  as  if  the  depres- 
sion had  never  existed.  What  is  the 
opinion  of  the  general  public,  of  the 
electors,  whose  votes  are  what  really 
count  in  the  long  run? 

VII 

As  long  as  its  amazing,  exceptional 
post-War  prosperity  lasted.  North 
America  gave  the  impression  of  pro- 
found conservativism.  The  majority 
thought  only  of  individual  possibilities 
of  enrichment  to  be  achieved  by  per- 
sonal initiative  within  the  existing 
social  system.  Few  people  thought 
about  social  reforms  or  the  revolution. 
What  is  the  situation  now  that  busi- 
ness success  has  ceased  to  be  an  easy 
thing  and  millions  are  ruined  or  re- 
duced to  unemployment.^ 

We  must  first  of  all  realize  that  the 
European  vocabulary  is  misleading 
when  applied  to  the  New  World.  In 
America  inescapable  and  rigid  social 
distinctions  do  not  exist.  Therefore 
the  class  struggle.  Socialism,  Commu- 
nism or  Fascism,  are  not  expressions 
which  one  can  usefully  employ — that 


is,  not  without  some  shift  of  meaning. 
If  people  whose  state  of  mind  could  be 
compared  to  that  of  our  revolution- 
aries are  to  be  found  in  America,  they 
may  be  explained  away  as  immigrants 
of  recent  European  origin,  and,  no- 
tably, Jews.  One  would  be  wrong  to 
consider  them  as  representative. 

On  the  other  hand,  and  here  we 
have  the  true  contrast  with  the  Old 
World,  the  struggle  is  less  between  the 
'haves'  and  the  'have  nots'  than  be- 
tween debtors  and  creditors.  When 
business  is  good,  everybody  needs 
capital  for  business  purposes,  or  per- 
haps for  speculation.  When  the  crisis 
comes,  business  men  and  speculators 
lose  everything,  but  remain  debtdrs. 
The  great  protests  in  the  bad  years 
came  from  the  embittered  debtors, 
and  were  directed  against  the  bankers. 
Particularly  is  this  true  in  the  West, 
where  the  farmers  cannot  meet  the 
mortgages  which  they  have  contracted 
(perhaps  imprudently  but  still  con- 
tracted), and  where  their  condition  is 
rendered  even  more  intolerable  by  the 
general  fall  in  prices.  Accordingly  they 
regard  themselves  as  victimized  by 
the  moneyed  interests,  whom  they 
invest  with  a  sort  of  superhuman, 
Mephistophelian  quality.  Nowhere  do 
people  speak  with  more  passion  against 
the  Banks  (with  a  capital  B),  or  the 
Capitalists  (with  a  capital  C);  no- 
where are  there  more  indignant  ha- 
ranguers  about  the  rights  of  the  Peo- 
ple (with  a  capital  P)  exploited  by  the 
industrial  and  financial  oligarchies. 

The  atmosphere  is  demagogic,  yes, 
but  is  it  revolutionary?  One  must  not 
lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  these  pro- 
testing elements,  desperate  and  vio- 
lent as  they  are,  consist  largely  of  land 
proprietors,  employers  of  manual  la- 
bor. To  consider  them  as  Marxists  or 


193^ 


AMERICA'S  CRISIS 


[299 


Communists  would  be  to  misunder- 
stand them,  psychologically  and  so- 
cially. One  must  seek  the  revolution- 
aries, in  the  European  sense  of  the 
word,  in  the  large  cities  or  in  the  mines. 
Notably  on  the  Pacific  coast  one  finds 
true  Communists,  trouble-makers  and 
real  anarchists  at  heart.  But  they  are 
few  in  number,  at  the  most  capable  of 
instigating  local  discontent  which  the 
police  repress  easily  enough  with  the 
full  cooperation  of  public  opinion.  The 
true  travail  of  spirit  is  elsewhere. 

If  the  crisis  does  cause  a  number  of 
social  or  political  protests,  they  are 
linked  with  a  quite  different  tradition: 
that  of  Populism,  which  stands  for  the 
instinctive  popular  recourse  to  the 
demagogy  of  inflation.  And  doubtless 
this  same  tradition  accounts  for  the 
most  recent  tendencies  toward  social 
reform  by  means  of  the  reorganization 
of  distribution  and  the  increase  of 
general  purchasing  power  by  artificial 
stimulants.  Such  movements  begin 
and  develop  chiefly  among  farmers  or 
the  petite  bourgeoisie  of  large  cities, 
rather  than  among  industrial  workers, 
and  it  may  be  added  that  the  greatest 
social  agitation  exists  among  those  of 
Anglo-Saxon  Protestant  origins,  as 
contrasted  with  the  Catholics,  who  are 
protected  by  their  priests  from  such 
contagions.  The  curious  fact  is  that 
religious  sentiment  is  inextricably 
bound  up  with  any  policy  of  economic 
panaceas.  The  protests  against  the 
crisis,  particularly  as  one  advances 
towards  the  West,  take  on  a  sort  of 
apostolic  complexion.  The  embattled 
apostle-leaders  are  promptly  elevated 
to  the  rank  of  martyrs  in  an  atmos- 
phere of  fanaticism  and  passion  which 
often  recalls  the  heroic  era  of  our  own 
Dreyfus  case. 

In  this  last  category  of  economic 


contagions  the  'Social  Credit'  move- 
ment must  be  classed.  Its  irresistible 
wave  swept  the  Canadian  province  of 
Alberta  last  summer,  carrying  its 
leader,  Mr.  Aberhart,  to  the  post  of 
Prime  Minister  by  an  almost  unani- 
mous vote.  According  to  him,  every 
citizen  of  Alberta  is  entitled  each 
month  to  a  dividend  of  twenty-five 
dollars  in  the  form  of  a  certificate  for 
that  sum  issued  by  the  state.  The 
state  is  thus  conceived  as  a  great  joint- 
stock  company,  whose  collective  re- 
sources are  the  foundation  of  credit. 
The  rapid  circulation  of  the  credit 
thus  mobilized  will  allow  business  to 
regain  the  tempo  which  renders  it 
profitable,  and  at  the  same  time  pro- 
duce the  fiscal  resources  necessary  for 
the  payment  of  the  dividend.  Collec- 
tive industry  will  repay  the  benefits  it 
reaps  from  such  an  arrangement  by 
fixing  'just  prices,'  above  which  it  will 
be  forbidden  to  sell. 

VIII 

The  Townsend  Plan,  which  may 
very  well  be  adopted  by  the  Congress 
of  the  United  States  in  the  near  future, 
is  the  result  of  an  analogous  inspira- 
tion, although  the  two  movements 
have  no  real  connection.  The  system 
conceived  by  Dr.  Townsend  is  ex- 
tremely simple.  All  persons  over  sixty 
will  receive  a  monthly  sum  of  two 
hundred  dollars  on  condition  that  it 
be  spent  within  the  month;  it  loses  its 
value  at  the  end  of  the  month. 

How  is  this  venture  to  be  paid.? 
When  this  question  was  put  to  him  by 
a  Congressional  committee,  the  good 
doctor  replied  with  some  impatience: 
'That's  not  my  business;  that's  up  to 
Congress.'  He  admits,  however,  that 
an    indirect    tax   on    all   commercial 


[30o] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


transactions  would  furnish  the  means 
to  finance  his  scheme;  and  that  is  the 
only  suggestion  he  offers.  The  advan- 
tage of  the  scheme  is  that  the  old  peo- 
ple, instead  of  continuing  to  compete 
with  the  younger  ones  in  the  field  of 
production,  will  become  consumers 
only,  since  they  will  not  be  able  to 
hoard.  As  a  consequence  business  will 
be  stimulated  and  general  consump- 
tion revived. 

What  is  the  philosophical  or  doc- 
trinal origin  of  such  a  political  pro- 
gram.'' Having  asked  myself  that 
question  many  times,  I  have  arrived 
at  the  conclusion  that  it  has  neither 
philosophy  nor  doctrine.  The  doctor  is 
not  an  economist,  nor  does  he  try  to  be 
one.  He  belongs  to  no  school  of 
thought.  Simply,  haying  seen  human 
misery,  he  humanely  wishes  to  remedy 
the  situation.  But  the  movement 
should  not  be  under-estimated,  for  it 
reflects  a  preoccupation  of  the  Ameri- 
can mind,  diffuse,  it  is  true,  but  aware 
of  the  fact  that  the  great  urge  toward 
production  means  that  some  way 
must  be  found  to  stimulate  and  sys- 
tematize consumption. 

Dr.  Townsend,  in  his  fashion,  re- 
sponds to  the  need  for  a  solution.  And 
when  Father  Coughlin,  whose  eloquent 
words  inflame  the  multitudes  of  his 
radio  audience  every  Sunday,  claims 
that  credit  is  the  source  of  wealth, 
that  it  belongs  to  the  People  alone 
(and  People  here  again  boasts  a  capi- 
tal P),  and  that  this  instrument  of 
power  should  not  be  abandoned  to  the 
bankers,  he  responds  to  the  same 
need,  but  in  a  different  form. 

On  the  eve  of  the  dawning  economic 
recovery  we  may  profitably  recall  La 
Rochefoucauld's  advice:  'Certain  states 
of  affairs,  as  well  as  certain  illnesses, 
are  at  times  only  aggravated  by  reme- 


dies: and  the  great  wisdom  is  to  know 
when  it  is  dangerous  to  use  them.* 
When  America  was  writhing  in  the 
throes  of  a  crisis  which  she  believed  to 
be  hopeless.  President  Roosevelt,  in 
1933,  was  able  to  restore  the  confi- 
dence she  had  lost.  Since  then  the 
tide  has  turned:  industry  demands 
only  one  thing,  and  that  is  to  throw 
off  governmental  control  and  regain 
the  right  to  cure  itself  by  its  own 
means.  Its  present  attitude  towards 
the  Administration  is  that  of  hostility, 
which  it  no  longer  seeks  even  to  hide. 
Business  men  have  little  by  little  be- 
come exactly  what  they  were  in  pros- 
perous times.  The  President  of  their 
choice  would  be  a  conservative  Re- 
publican, a  'real  Republican'  of  the 
type  of  McKinley,  Harding  or  Coo- 
lidge. 

Their  opponents  say  that  they  have 
learned  nothing;  and  from  the  social 
point  of  view,  in  which  America  is  at 
least  forty  years  behind  Europe,  this 
may  be  true.  It  is  probable  that  a 
laissez-faire  solution  will  be  avoided, 
as  the  general  public  runs  a  risk  in 
changing  horses  in  midstream.  The 
business  world  under-estimates  its 
present  unpopularity;  for  it  speaks  in 
terms  of  common  sense  and  profit, 
while  the  masses  speak  the  language  of 
humanity,  sentiment  and  subsidy. 
While  prosperity  is  being  reborn,  even 
like  spring,  the  Government  pursues  a 
policy  designed  to  encourage  its  re- 
turn by  means  of  a  spendthrift  dema- 
gogy, which  is  less  efficacious  against 
unemployment  than  would  be  a  pro- 
gram of  official  abstention,  and  which 
is  bound  eventually  to  be  fatal  either 
to  the  Government's  credit  or  to 
monetary  stability.  America  has  ar- 
rived at  that  stage  of  the  crisis  where 
the  remedy  is  worse  than  the  disease. 


'>^>vWH£/V 


Public  Lilu,ry  ) 


Here  is  a  sheaf  of  articles  on  Germany- 
appraising  her  'home  front*  in  case  of 
war;  showing  how  French  industriaHsts 
help  her  rearm,  and  winding  up  with 
the  remarks  of  a  visitor  from  France. 


And  Quiet  Flows 
ae  RHINE 


I.  Germany's  War  Machine 

By  General  X 
Translated  from  Fu,  Paris  Topical  Weekly 


Tb 


HE  violation  of  the  Locarno 
Treaty  and  the  occupation  of  the 
Rhineland  have  again  brought  to  the 
fore  the  question  of  German  mili- 
tary strength.  Every  day  the  papers 
enumerate  the  German  regiments, 
cannons,  tanks,  and  airplanes.  They 
compare  these  armaments  to  ours, 
trying  to  find  in  the  comparison  a 
cause  for  hope  or  alarm;  for  the  gen- 
eral public  does  not  know  how  to 
estimate  a  nation's  strength  except  by 
its  peacetime  military  organization. 

And  yet  a  standing  army,  indis- 
pensable as  it  is  for  inflicting  the  first 
blows  or  meeting  the  first  shock,  is 
only  a  trifling  part  of  a  country's  mili- 
tary strength  in  time  of  war.  After  a 
few  weeks  of  the  struggle  have  passed, 


the  active  troops  will  have  been  used 
up,  the  munitions  amassed  in  the 
magazines  will  have  been  exploded, 
and  the  airplanes  which  were  new 
when  the  war  was  first  declared  will 
have  been  brought  down.  And  then 
any  nation  which  had  imprudently 
neglected  to  provide  itself  with  rein- 
forcements of  troops  and  materials,  to 
prepare  plans  for  meeting  the  prob- 
lems of  transportation,  and  to  lay 
down  roads  on  which  to  move  its 
troops  quickly  to  the  front — such  a 
nation  would  ultimately  succumb, 
notwithstanding  the  victories  it  might 
have  won  at  the  outbreak  of  hostili- 
ties. 

To  estimate  the  military  strength  of 
any  country  on  the  basis  of  its  stand- 


[302] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


ing  army  alone  would  be  a  blunder 
pregnant  with  the  gravest  conse- 
quences, and  one  bound  to  result  in 
bitter  disappointment.  Even  more 
than  the  present  strength  of  a  nation, 
we  should  consider  how  much  this 
strength  would  count  for  in  the  com- 
ing struggle,  what  inner  resources  the 
nation  could  draw  upon  to  support  its 
battle  line,  what  hidden  wells  of 
strength  it  conceals — in  short,  what  is 
commonly  called  its  *  military  poten- 
tial.' 

Impressive  as  it  may  be,  the  Ger- 
man army  is  not  in  itself  a  grave  dan- 
ger: it  is  the  potential  war-strength  of 
the  German  nation  as  a  whole  that  we 
ought  to  know  in  order  to  calculate  the 
danger  we  run. 

Thus,  instead  of  counting  regiments 
and  cannons,  we  have  scrutinized 
Germany's  commercial  bulletins,  her 
statistics,  her  factory  balance  sheets; 
we  have  sought  to  estimate  her  re- 
serves of  manpower;  we  have  studied 
the  organization  of  the  economic  and 
human  forces  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Rhine.  From  these  figures  we  have 
been  able  to  estimate  the  German 
military  potential,  and  all  else  is  either 
guesswork  or  fiction. 

The  question  is:  could  Germany 
live  in  case  of  war?  Could  she  go  on 
arming?  What  would  her  men,  her 
transports  be  worth  ?  This  is  what  we 
propose  to  look  into. 

In  order  to  exist,  to  be  able  to  fight, 
people  must  eat.  Could  the  German 
soil  feed  the  nation  ?  This  is  a  problem 
of  prime  importance,  the  significance 
of  which  could  be  seen  even  by  old 
Moltke,  who  said:  'The  moment 
German  agriculture  can  no  longer 
feed  the  army  and  the  people  in  time 
of  war  without  resorting  to  imports 
from  abroad,  any  war  we  might  en- 


gage in  would  be  lost  before  the  first 
shot  was  fired.'  In  191 8,  when  there 
was  a  shortage  of  bread,  both  the 
front  and  the  rear  collapsed.  How  far 
has  Germany  progressed  since  then? 
Would  an  economic  blockade  have  the 
same  tragic  consequences  today  that 
it  had  in  191 8?  We  shall  try  to  answer 
this  question,  taking  up  only  the 
key  food  products:  cereals,  potatoes, 
sugar,  meat  and  fats. 


II 


Let  us  look  at  a  graph  of  German 
production.  Since  1932  production  of 
wheat  has  exceeded  consumption. 
One  would  think  that,  this  being  so, 
imports  of  wheat  would  no  longer  be 
necessary  and  would  have  ceased  or  at 
least  have  been  balanced  by  corre- 
sponding exports.  Nothing  of  the  sort: 
and  this  is  where  the  surprises  begin. 
Imports  are  falling  oflF  only  slightly, 
while  exports  decrease  from  day  to 
day.  For  example,  in  1933,  in  addition 
to  a  domestic  surplus  of  i  million 
tons,  the  Reich  imported  770,000  tons 
of  wheat,  while  exporting  only  536,- 
000.  In  1934  imports  exceeded  exports 
by  450,000  tons. 

What  is  being  done  with  these 
enormous  quantities  of  wheat,  which 
cannot  be  consumed?  Obviously  they 
are  a  part  of  the  reserve -stocks,  which 
in  January,  1935,  had  risen  as  high  as 
4  million  tons — enough  to  last  a  year! 
The  Germans  remember  their  war- 
time bread  rations,  and  do  not  want  to 
go  on  empty  stomachs  again.  But  now 
that  existence  has  been  assured,  and 
their  stock  of  provisions  enables  them 
to  face  the  future  with  some  confi- 
dence, it  would  be  madness  to  con- 
tinue at  a  tempo  which  is  bound  in  the 
long  run  to  bring  about  the  collapse 


/pjd 


AND  QUIET  FLOWS  THE  RHINE 


[303] 


of  the  market,  and  the  ruin  of  the 
peasants.  Accordingly  they  are  quietly 
returning  to  normal  demands;  for 
Germany  is  henceforth  sure  of  her 
bread. 

The  same  is  true  of  rye,  the  produc- 
tion of  which  the  Nazis  whipped  up  to 
a  peak  in  1933.  Since  then  production 
has  tended  to  equal  consumption. 
Here,  too,  the  reserves  are  immense 
(nearly  5  million  tons  at  the  beginning 
of  1935);  the  situation  takes  on  alarm- 
ing colors  when  one  realizes  that  more 
of  that  cereal  was  imported  in  the 
month  of  January,  1935,  alone  than 
during  the  whole  of  1934;  and  that  in 
the  meanwhile  exports  have  dwindled 
to  nothing.  In  1933  Germany  exported 
more  rye  than  she  imported.  In  1934 
imports  exceeded  exports  by  approxi- 
mately 25,099  tons;  in  January,  1935, 
the  imports  were  80  times  greater 
than  in  January,  1934,  while  in  the 
same  period  exports  had  declined. 

Over-production  of  potatoes  is  con- 
siderable; yet  imports  have  mounted 
from  70,000  tons  in  1933  to  110,000 
tons  in  1934.  These  reserves  keep  on 
growing!  This  is  also  true  of  beet 
sugar:  the  excess  of  production  over 
consumption  did  not  prevent  the  im- 
port trade  from  increasing  fivefold  be- 
tween 1934  and  1935,  in  contrast  to 
the  export  trade,  which  fell  off  con- 
siderably. 

Germany  produces  just  enough  live- 
stock to  satisfy  her  demands — al- 
though only  just  barely  enough.  But 
production  is  increasing;  the  number 
of  pigs,  which  are  particularly  im- 
portant in  the  production  of  fat,  in- 
creased by  8  per  cent  last  year.  At 
present  Germany  produces  only  about 
two-thirds  of  the  edible  fats  con- 
sumed, in  spite  of  intensive  efforts  in 
the  last  few  years.  In  order  to  meet 


this  deficiency,  which  distresses  the 
Government  considerably,  Germany 
is  attempting  to  plant  the  soya  bean. 
The  future  will  tell  whether  or  not 
these  efforts  will  be  rewarded. 

So  it  seems  that  even  if  she  is  block- 
aded, isolated,  surrounded  by  enemies, 
Germany  will  be  able  to  go  on  living. 
Of  all  her  foodstuffs  she  lacks  only 
fats.  Old  Moltke  may  rest  in  peace. 
German  agriculture  will  be  able  to 
feed  both  the  people  and  the  army. 


Ill 


Food  is  all  very  well;  but  it  is  also 
necessary  to  have  arms  to  fight.  Arms 
— that  is  to  say  raw  materials  from 
which  to  obtain  metal,  yarn,  rubber, 
fuel  and  petroleum;  and  factories  in 
which  to  transform  these  into  cannons, 
cloth,  tires,  gasoline  or  munitions.  We 
shall  now  study  the  industrial  poten- 
tial of  the  German  nation. 

The  production  of  ferrous  metals  in 
Germany  is  not  extensive,  and  the  loss 
of  the  Lorraine  mines  deprived  her  of 
three-fourths  of  her  pre-War  resources. 
Here  are  the  figures.  In  19 13  Ger- 
many was  mining  28,608,000  tons  of 
iron  ore,  of  which  7,300,000  tons  came 
from  the  mines  which  she  still  owns. 
Today,  in  spite  of  all  her  efforts,  out  of 
16,700,000  tons  of  iron  ore  which  she 
consumes  annually,  the  Reich  mines 
only  4,000,000  tons  from  her  own  soil, 
in  addition  to  2,000,000  tons  of  scrap 
and  residue.  Every  means  has  been 
used  to  increase  this  domestic  produc- 
tion. The  meager  deposits  of  the  Ba- 
varian Palatinate  and  South  Baden 
are  to  be  exploited  again.  It  was  hoped 
that  this  measure  would  serve  to  in- 
crease the  iron  production  to  5  million 
tons  in  1935 — an  increase  of  one  mil- 
lion over  1934. 


[3041 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


But  in  spite  of  all  her  efforts  Ger- 
many will  never  be  able  to  meet  her 
needs  adequately;  not  even  if  she 
utilized  scrap  iron,  of  which  she  uses 
an  enormous  amount,  nearly  7  million 
tons  in  1934  (counting  imports). 

Should  this  be  considered  a  grave 
danger  to  German  economy?  Yes,  for 
although  the  inordinate  increase  of 
iron  ore  imports  into  Germany  in  com- 
parison to  her  own  iron  and  steel  pro- 
duction shows  clearly  that  she  is 
creating  a  reserve  in  order  to  insure 
herself  at  least  temporary  safety  from 
economic  or  military  blockade  (it 
seems  that  this  reserve  is  now  about 
liyi  million  tons  of  mineral  ore),  //  is 
France  which  is  at  present  furnishing 
her  with  50  per  cent  of  her  total  imports! 
It  is  true  that  Sweden,  which,  with 
Spain,  ranks  second  as  Germany's 
purveyor  of  iron  ore,  would  probably 
continue  to  supply  all  her  needs,  in 
time  of  war,  as  has  been  the  case  for 
the  last  twenty  years.  The  recent  re- 
birth of  the  German  navy  is  also  dis- 
quieting, in  view  of  the  fact  that  the 
control  which  it  may  some  day  extend 
over  the  Baltic  region  may  facilitate 
trade  between  the  German  coast  and 
the  Nordic  countries.  But  these  im- 
ports will  be  relatively  small,  not 
enough  for  Germany's  war-time  needs. 

Germany  has  almost  no  copper  ore; 
the  mines  of  the  Mansfield  Company 
produce  about  one-tenth  of  what  she 
consumes:  of  the  287,000  tons  con- 
sumed in  1934,  Germany  contributed 
only  28,000  tons.  Imports  coming 
from  the  United  States,  South  Africa, 
the  Belgian  Congo  and  Chile  will 
probably  be  stopped  in  case  of  war; 
and  no  matter  how  large  her  stocks 
are,  they  will  soon  be  exhausted.  Con- 
scious of  this  danger,  Germany  is 
making  a  prodigious  effort  to  substi- 


tute aluminum  for  copper  and  all  the 
other  metals  which  she  lacks:  zinc, 
tin,  and  so  forth. 

In  the  production  of  aluminum, 
Germany  leads  the  world.  Her  pro- 
duction of  18,000  tons  of  aluminum  in 

1933,  46,000  tons  in  1934,  and  prob- 
ably 52,000  tons  in  1935  makes  her 
one  of  the  first  metal  converters  in 
Europe. 

But  she  has  no  raw  materials. 
Her  production  of  bauxite  and  cryolite 
(sources  of  aluminum)  amounts  to  al- 
most nothing:  7,300  tons  of  bauxite  in 
1929,  which  was  the  peak  year;  in 

1934,  imports  exceeded  exports  by 
326,500  tons.  Fearing  that  her  princi- 
pal purveyors  (France,  Hungary,  Yugo- 
slavia, and  Italy)  would  cut  off  her 
imports  in  case  of  war,  Germany  is 
doing  her  best  to  free  herself  from  de- 
pendence on  them  and  is  seeking  to 
extract  aluminum  from  the  clay  de- 
posits in  her  own  soil.  The  German 
press  recently  declared  that  this  prob- 
lem had  been  solved;  but  so  far  noth- 
ing has  appeared  to  confirm  this  news, 
which,  if  true,  would  transform  the 
whole  economic  life  beyond  the  Rhine. 

Of  certain  textiles  German  re- 
sources are  very  inadequate  (she  pro- 
duces only  5  to  10  per  cent  of  her  total 
consumption  of  flax,  hemp  and  linen 
and  has  no  natural  silk  or  cotton  at 
all).  The  Germans  have-  vigorously 
attacked  this  problem  also:  in  1933 
they  increased  their  stock  of  sheep  by 
100,000  heads,  and  all  the  official  or- 
ganizations were  forced  to  use  lamb, 
despite  its  unpopularity. 

The  area  given  over  to  the  cultiva- 
tion of  flax  increased  from  4,313  hec- 
tares in   1932  to  20,500  hectares  in 

1935,  This  year  Germany  hopes  to 
produce  50  instead  of  10  per  cent  of 
what  she  consumes — an  achievement 


1936 


AND  QUIET  FLOWS  THE  RHINE 


[305] 


which  would  save  her  12  million 
marks.  The  figures  for  the  hemp  in- 
dustry are  even  more  impressive:  210 
hectares  in  1933;  2,635  i^  i935- 


IV 


But  German  ingenuity  has  won  its 
greatest  triumphs  in  replacing  natural 
products  with  substitutes.  Not  only 
can  Germany  produce  artificial  silk 
from  wood  cellulose,  but  also,  by  mix- 
ing certain  fibers  with  flax,  cotton 
and  silk,  she  has  been  able  to  manu- 
facture new  fabrics,  called  Vistra, 
Silakstra,  etc.,  the  appearance  of 
which  at  the  Leipzig  Fair  created  a 
veritable  sensation. 

As  for  coal — two  figures  will  tell  the 
story:  annual  consumption:  275,000,- 
000  tons;  annual  production:  281,000,- 
000  tons. 

How  does  Germany  stand  on  the 
question  of  petroleum  ?  There  are  oil 
wells  in  Thuringen  and  Hanover. 
Their  output  of  oil  has  been  quad- 
rupled during  the  last  few  years.  In 
1935  the  output  reached  104,000  tons. 
This  is  good  work,  but  seems  like  a 
drop  in  the  ocean  when  one  recalls 
that  Germany's  consumption  of  crude 
oil  in  1934  was  3,322,000  tons. 

But  let  us  forget  crude  oil  and  limit 
ourselves  exclusively  to  motor  fuel: 
gasoline  and  benzine.  What  a  differ- 
ence between  the  consumption  of 
gasoline  (1,218,000  tons  in  1935)  and 
the  output  of  the  German  gasoline 
refineries  (150,999  tons)!  There  is  a 
\  difference  of  more  than  a  million  tons 
here,  and,  since  nature  refuses  to  yield 
the  necessary  products  of  its  own  ac- 
cord, Germany  is  trying  to  create  a 
J  synthetic  product  from  coal  and  lig- 
;  nite,  both  of  which  she  possesses  in 
abundance.  Does  she  want  a  million 


tons  of  petroleum  ?  She  will  have  them 
presently;  she  almost  has  them  now. 
In  1929  the  Leuna  works  were  built  for 
the  purpose  of  transforming  coal-tar 
into  gasoline,  and  it  is  hoped  that  they 
will  produce  350,000  tons  of  gasoline 
this  year.  In  1932  a  factory  in  Merse- 
burg  attempted  the  hydrogenation  of 
lignite;  it  should  be  capable  of  produc- 
ing 300,000  tons  of  gasoline  a  year.  In 
October,  1934,  the  Braunkohlen  Com- 
pany, representing  a  capital  of  100 
million  marks,  was  set  up.  What  will 
the  capacity  of  this  formidable  estab- 
lishment be? 

From  now  on  Germany  can  count 
on  650,000  tons  of  synthetic  gasoline, 
which,  in  addition  to  the  150,000  tons 
coming  from  her  oil  wells,  ought  to  as- 
sure her  800,000  tons  a  year.  Actually 
in  1935  she  produced  only  380,000.  In  a 
few  years  she  will  be  supplying  all  her 
own  needs;  but  at  the  present  time  she 
lacks  30  per  cent  of  that  goal.  Further- 
more this  figure  is  misleading,  for  the 
synthetic  substance  is  not  suitable  for 
airplane  motors,  and  it  will  probably 
be  impossible  to  use  all  of  the  nat- 
ural gasoline  for  this  purpose. 

The  aviation  problem  has  still  to  be 
solved,  then.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
it  will  eventually  be  solved;  but  when? 
The  day  when  they  reach  the  solution 
to  it  German  military  strength  will  be 
more  than  doubled. 

Benzine,  another  fuel  used  in  mo- 
tors, is  produced  in  almost  sufficient 
quantity  to  meet  the  demand:  280,000 
tons  out  of  320,000.  As  for  alcohol, 
its  production  corresponds  to  its  con- 
sumption. To  summarize,  thanks  to 
her  ingenuity  and  to  the  genius  of  her 
chemists,  Germany  will  probably  soon 
make  up  for  her  natural  poverty  with 
synthetic  products. 

Industrial  mobilization  is  one  of  the 


[3o6] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


most  complex  problems  of  modem 
warfare.  The  number  of  factories 
which  make  arms  in  time  of  peace  is 
inadequate  for  wartime  needs.  Let  us 
take  as  an  example  the  German  ar- 
tillery industry;  at  the  end  of  1914  it 
was  putting  out  100  pieces  a  month. 
In  June,  191 8,  the  army  required 
3,000  cannons  a  month,  and  the  indus- 
try succeeded  in  supplying  them.  To 
reach  this  level  of  production  it  is 
necessary  to  mobilize  all  the  factories 
of  the  land  and  to  have  them  partici- 
pate in  this  prodigious  output  of 
arms,  which  modern  warfare  squan- 
ders without  stopping  to  count. 

But  it  takes  a  long  time  before  a 
workshop  which  ordinarily  produces 
tin  boxes  can  be  got  to  produce  gas 
masks,  torpedoes  or  tanks — there  are 
delays  of  weeks  and  sometimes  months. 
During  that  time,  while  production  is 
at  a  standstill,  reserves  are  exhausted 
and  armies  stopped  by  lack  of  mate- 
rials and  munitions.  The  country 
which  succeeds  in  reducing  the  period 
of  inactivity  before  production  gets 
under  way  has  a  staggering  advantage 
over  an  adversary  who  is  slower  in 
equipping  himself — an  advantage  which 
might  mean  ultimate  victory. 

Look  at  Germany.  Her  industrial 
potential  is  incomparable:  the  last 
war  has  already  given  us  ample  proof 
of  that:  3,000  mortar  cannons,  1 1  mil- 
lion projectiles,  14,000  machine-guns, 
250,000  firearms,  12,000  tons  of  pow- 
der; you  think  you  are  dreaming  when 
you  read  these  figures.  But  they  mean 
nothing,  for  we  too  can  attain  them. 
The  serious  danger  lies  in  the  fact 
that  today  the  whole  of  German  in- 
dustry is  devoted  to  the  making  of 
arms,  and  is  organized  as  if  in  time  of 
war.  Its  mobilization  days  are  over; 
its  period  of  standstill  will   be  nil; 


while  ours  will  last  more  than  six 
months.  This  is  where  the  danger  lies. 

Let  us  take  the  aeronautical  indus- 
try as  an  example.  Of  the  nineteen 
known  airplane  factories,  ten  are  fully 
equipped.  The  best  equipped,  Heinkel, 
Junkers,  Dornier,  Arado,  are  at  pres- 
ent employing  more  than  20,000 
workmen;  they  only  employed  8,000 
at  the  beginning  of  1933.  Work  goes 
on  day  and  night,  in  three  shifts.  As 
for  the  eleven  motor  factories,  these 
are  also  producing  at  full  steam.  If 
necessary,  industrial  production  could 
be  immediately  doubled.  Right  now 
there  is  a  monthly  output  of  200 
pieces  of  machinery.  During  this  last 
year  the  Reich  will  have  spent  60  bil- 
lion francs  for  armaments  (France  ap- 
proximately 15  billion).  Imagine  to 
what  level  of  production  such  sums 
could  carry  the  industrial  potential  of 
a  powerful  nation  like  Germany! 

A  great  industrial  power  but  not 
enough  raw  materials — these  are  Ger- 
many's two  characteristics.  When  one 
day  the  frontiers  are  closed,  her  fac- 
tories will  quickly  exhaust  their  re- 
serve stocks,  large  as  they  are,  and 
Germany  will  find  herself  reduced  to 
her  national  production  and,  if  she 
still  has  control  over  the  Baltic  region, 
to  the  insignificant  imf)orts  from  her 
neighbors.  Then  how  can  the  cannons 
be  cast  when  there  is  no  more  iron  ore? 
The  genius  of  the  German  chemists  is 
not  equal  to  replacing  steel  by  some 
Ersatz.  How  can  they  build  airplanes 
if  there  is  no  bauxite?  For  the  extrac- 
tion of  aluminum  from  German  argils, 
if  such  a  thing  is  possible,  is  not  an  in- 
dustry that  can  be  perfected  in  a  few 
months.  With  what  will  they  supply 
their  airplane  motors  if  synthetic  fuel 
will  not  lend  itself  to  this  use? 

Germany  can  feed  herself.  She  can 


.^^^ 


'^t,    X. 


'  public  Libcaty 


1Q36 


AND  QUIET  FLOWS  THE  RHINE  \.t^ 


produce  quicker  and  in  greater  vol- 
ume than  any  other  country  in  Eu- 
rope. But  the  enormous  effort  which 
she  has  made  to  obtain  these  results  is 
doomed  to  failure  as  long  as  she  must 


obtain  from  abroad  certain  essential 
raw  materials.  This  is  the  flaw  in  her 
armor;  this  is  the  crack  which  may 
perhaps  one  day  cause  the  whole  edi- 
fice to  topple  over. 


II.  Business  As  Usual 
By  Paul  Allard 

Translated  from  Vuy  Paris  Topical  Weekly 


I 


N  THE  course  of  a  recent  diplo- 
matic gathering  a  high  official  from 
the  Foreign  Office  said: — 

'For  a  year  now  the  Germans  have 
been  buying  nothing  but  war  materials 
from  France.' 

As  if  in  reply  to  this,  Dr.  Goebbels, 
who  had  recently  made  a  statement  in 
Berlin  to  the  effect  that  food  imports 
had  declined  from  four  to  one  billion 
marks  in  two  years,  exclaimed 
mockingly: — 

*We  are  more  interested  in  import- 
ing war  materials  than  food  products.' 

Is  it  possible  that  France  is  arming 
Germany? 

Even  in  a  normal  period  our  na- 
tional conscience  may  well  be  outraged 
by  the  thought  that  French  soldiers 
have  been  and  will  be  killed  by 
French  shells  fired  from  French  can- 
nons constructed  by  French  labor 
working  to  make  a  profit  for  French 
employers!  All  this  is  a  part  of  the 
general  problem  of  the  private  trade  in 
arms  and  munitions  and  the  bloody 
armaments  International.  Then  should 
we  not  as  a  nation  feel  this  outrage 
even  more  deeply  at  the  present  time, 
when  the  whole  country  is  under  ten- 
sion because,  to  put  it  mildly,  a  nation 
inimical  to  ours  has  violated  a  treaty? 

Sanctions  against  Germany?  I  have 
met  with  nothing  but  skepticism  on 


that  score  in  interested  circles.  One 
recalls  what  happened  in  the  midst  of 
the  War:  the  farce  that  was  the  block- 
ade; how,  according  to  the  testimony 
of  Admiral  Consett,  the  'ignoble, 
dishonorable  British  trade'  (Admiral 
Consett's  words)  prolonged  the  war 
when  an  economic  blockade  and  an 
embargo  on  British  exports  could  un- 
doubtedly have  crushed  Germany 
even  before  the  collapse  of  the  Russian 
army  and  the  entrance  of  Rumania. 

One  recalls  the  scandalous  traffic 
with  the  enemy  during  the  War,  the 
Carburiers  affair — with  the  particu- 
lars of  which  Mr.  Laval  can  supply 
you;  the  Penarroya  affair;  and  lastly, 
and  best  known  of  all,  the  failure  to 
bombard  the  Briey  basin,  from  which 
the  Germans  drew  all  their  military 
resources,  and  which  was  deliberately 
spared  by  the  French  General  Staff  in 
order  to  protect  the  interests  of  the 
Comite  des  Forges! 

One  of  the  German  objectives  in  the 
World  War  was  to  appropriate  these 
Briey  iron  ore  deposits,  which,  by  a 
diabolical  arrangement  of  geography, 
were  spread  through  the  Franco- 
German  subsoil.  Germany  has  no  iron 
ore.  What  a  temptation  this  magic 
basin  was  for  her,  accounting,  as  it 
does,  for  91  per  cent  of  French  iron 
production ! 


[3o8] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


The  Socialist  Party  recently  asked 
Mr.  Albert  Sarraut  the  following 
question : — 

'How  much  iron  ore — in  tons — ^was 
exported  from  France  to  Germany 
during  the  years  1932,  '^tZ^  '34  ^"^ 
'35?  What  measures  do  you  intend 
taking  to  stop  this  export  trade,  which 
is  a  grave  danger  to  our  country's 
security  ? ' 

Mr.  Albert  Sarraut  has  not  yet 
answered  this  question. 


II 


He  could  have  answered,  though, 
that,  in  their  zeal  for  national  defense, 
his  predecessors  had  already  passed  a 
series  of  embargo  measures.  These  had 
been  either  demanded  or  counter- 
signed by  the  General  Staff. 

*.  .  .  An  embargo,  or  more  ac- 
curately, a  requirement  that  a  permit 
be  issued  by  the  Ministers  of  War, 
Foreign  Affairs,  the  Interior  and 
Finances  before  shipping  abroad — 
that  is,  to  countries  which  may  be- 
come our  enemies — our  war  materials, 
our  arms,  munitions  and  aeronautical 
supplies.'  (Decree  of  September  3, 
1935.  Signed  by  Pierre  Laval,  Presi- 
dent of  the  Council;  Jean  Fabry, 
Minister  of  War;  Francois  Pietri, 
Minister  of  Marine;  General  Denain, 
Air  Minister.) 

' .  .  .  An  embargo  on  aluminum  in 
ore,  bullion  or  scrap;  also  on  aluminum 
hydrate.*  (Decree  of  April  16,  1935, 
signed  by  Pierre  Laval,  President  of 
the  Council;  Flandin,  Minister  of 
Foreign  Affairs;  Jean  Fabry,  Minister 
of  War.) 

* .  .  .  An  embargo  on  scrap  copper, 
on  lead,  zinc,  nickel  and  tin.*  (Decree 
of  August  18,  1935.  Signed  by  Pierre 
Laval,  President  of  the  Council  and 


Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs;  Jean 
Fabry,  Minister  of  War.) 

Lastly,  'an  embargo  on  wood  for 
firearms,  walnut  wood,  exotic  woods, 
flax,  cotton,  cotton  waste.  .  .*  (Signed 
by  Pierre  Laval,  President  of  the 
Council;  Flandin,  Minister  of  Foreign 
Affairs;  General  Maurin,  Minister  of 
War.) 

This  last  prohibition  was  called 
forth  by  the  great  volume  of  German 
purchases  in  the  northern  region 
during  March,  1935.  In  that  month 
there  passed  through  the  railway  sta- 
tion of  Tourcoing  alone  1,700  tons  of 
carded  flax,  as  compared  to  517  tons  in 
February;  300  tons  of  cotton  waste,  as 
compared  to  60  in  February;  350  tons 
of  cotton  yarn,  as  compared  to  65  in 
February.  All  the  evidence  shows  that 
Germany  was  getting  in  stocks  of 
important  materials — stocks  which 
would  permit  her  to  live  in  a  closed 
economy  if  circumstances  demanded 
it.  Wagons  and  trucks  full  of  linen, 
cotton  and  silk  wastes  passed  the 
custom  houses  on  the  Kehl  Bridge, 
and  went  on  to  Germany,  loaded  with 
stuffs  which  were  to  equip  the  German 
army — and  to  be  used  in  the  manu- 
facture of  explosives. 

On  the  day  after  the  prohibitive 
decree  was  published,  there  was  a  wild 
outburst,  a  unanimous  public  protest. 
The  Union  of  Linen  Merchants,  the 
Syndicate  of  Flax  Carders,  and  va- 
rious Chambers  of  Commerce  pro- 
tested vigorously  against  this  general 
prohibition  of  exports — a  step  which 
had  been  taken  for  reasons  which  they 
'failed  to  see,*  and  which,  they 
claimed,  would  only  serve  to  increase 
unemployment! 

Are  these  products — flax,  cotton, 
wood,  aluminum — the  only  ones  we 
export  to  Germany.?  Let  us  consult 


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AND  QUIET  FLOWS  THE  RHINE 


[309] 


the  statistics.  In  1935  French  exports 
to  Germany  totaled  1,008,642  francs. 
And  more  than  half  of  them  were 
products  that  could  be  used  in  war, 
either  as  raw  materials,  or  interme- 
diary products.  Thus  we  sold  47,000 
tons  of  gun  metal  (for  10  million 
francs);  152,000  tons  of  iron  and  steel 
(for  100  million  francs);  3  million 
francs  worth  of  copper;  4  million 
francs  worth  of  tin;  and,  lastly, 
5,945,000  tons  of  various  ores — of 
which  5,400,000  tons  were  iron  ore. 

Here  we  are  then !  The  iron  ore  is  by 
far  the  most  important  staple  of 
Franco-German  trade.  This  iron  ore 
comes  from  the  Briey  basin.  In  order 
to  get  everything  straight,  let  us 
compare  the  figures  for  1935  with 
those  for  1934.  Last  year  Germany 
bought  from  us  a  round  total  of  6 
million  tons  of  iron  ore — she  had 
bought  only  1%  million  tons  in  1934. 
What  can  this  alarming  jump  mean 
except  that  Germany  is  laying  up  war 
stocks.'' 

And  in  order  to  give  the  average 
Frenchman  a  concrete  idea  of  French 
collaboration  in  German  rearmament, 
here  is  the  exact  ratio  of  the  share 
supplied  by  France  to  that  supplied 
by  the  other  countries.  In  1932  the 
total  iron  ore  imported  into  Germany 
was  3,400,000  tons;  in  1933,  4,500,000 
tons;  in  1935,  12  million  tons.  Of  this 
last  figure,  6  million — that  is  exactly 
one-half — came  from  France.  That 
means  that  of  every  two  German  shells y 
one  is  of  French  origin ^  and  as  such  has 
brought  profit  to  the  Comite  des 
Forges ! 

'Could  the  Government,'  I  asked 
the  Ministry  of  Commerce,  'proclaim 
an  embargo  on  iron  ore  any  day,  as  it 
has  done  in  the  case  of  cotton  waste 
and  wood  for  rifle  butts.''* 


'The  Government  can  impose  a 
general  embargo  at  any  time — that  is 
to  say,  on  trade  with  all  countries.'  I 
was  told.  'But  it  is  an  unfriendly  act 
to  prohibit  export  to  any  one  particu- 
lar country.  It  amounts  to  a  sanction. 
The  French  Government  would  cer- 
tainly never  do  it  without  the  vote  of 
the  League  of  Nations.' 

'If  Germany  were  to  lose  our  iron 
ore  one  of  these  days,  where  else 
would  she  be  able  to  get  it?' 

'From  her  other  purveyors:  Swe- 
den, Spain  and  the  U.S.S.R.  But  ob- 
viously it  would  cost  her  much  more, 
and  it  would  not  be  the  same  qual- 
ity.' 

'And  what  about  us?  If  we  lose  this 
excellent  customer,  what  will  happen  ?' 

Here  my  interlocutors  became  sud- 
denly very  prudent. 

'Our  other  customers,'  they  told 
me,  'are  Belgium,  which  imports  9 
million  tons,  and  the  Netherlands, 
which  imports  i  million,  of  which  a 
good  part  doubtless  goes  to  Germany. 
To  forbid  exports  to  all  countries 
might  mean  a  crisis  in  the  Belgian 
metallurgical  factories,  and  increased 
unemployment.  Besides,  don't  forget 
that  international  trade  is  carried  on 
not  under  Government  control  but 
by  means  of  agreements,  alliances  and 
cartels  made  between  the  industries  of 
the  countries  concerned,  often  with 
the  consent  of  the  League  of  Nations.' 


Ill 


Here  we  are  confronted  by  the 
problems  of  international  commerce 
and  the  necessity  of  exchanging  goods. 
Those  in  charge  of  our  economy  have 
shown  me  that  if  Germany  needs  our 
iron  for  her  national  defense,  France, 
in    her    turn,    by    an    atrocious    but 


[3io] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


inescapable  parallel,  cannot  do  with- 
out Germany  because  she  needs  cer- 
tain materials  which  can  only  be  ob- 
tained beyond  the  Rhine.  They  have 
cited  me  several  examples  which 
prove  that  if  the  average  French 
male  of  military  age  has  a  right  to 
object  to  the  possibility  of  being 
killed  by  a  French  shell,  the  average 
German  male  of  military  age  faces  a 
similar  unpleasant  prospect  of  being 
killed  by  a  lethal  weapon  coming 
from  Germany.  What  complete  reci- 
procity! 

The  barges  which  travel  on  our 
canals  and  supply  our  powder-maga- 
zines are  German.  The  presses  for  our 
torpedos  were  sold  to  us  by  Krupp, 
who  was  the  only  manufacturer  in  a 
position  to  make  them.  The  forts,  both 
large  and  small,  on  our  Maginot  line 
are  equipped  with  Diesel  motors 
manufactured  in  a  German  factory 
near  Paris,  where  the  workers,  me- 
chanical experts,  and  technical  director 
are  all  Germans.  The  synthetic  nitrate 
which  we  buy  abroad  because  our 
nitrogen  plant  in  Toulouse  does  not 
make  enough  of  it  is  obtained  from 
Germany  by  virtue  of  a  Franco- 
German  agreement  which  guarantees 
us  an  option  on  as  much  as  150,000 
tons. 

Finally — and  this  is  the  principal 
article  of  Franco-German  trade — 
Germany  sells  us  coal.  In  1933  we 
bought  as  much  as  5,990,000  tons. 
And,  mind  you,  coal,  like  iron  and 
copper  ores,  like  cotton,  silk,  alumi- 
num, etc.,  has  been  listed  by  the 
League  of  Nations  as  one  of  the  so 
called  'strategic*  or  'military*  raw 
materials. 

Are  these  reasons  for  continuing 
this  trade  valid.''  Do  France  and 
Germany  enjoy  'equality  of  rights*  in 


the  exchange  of  war  materials?  Ger- 
many still  needs  our  iron  ore  more 
than  we  need  her  coal.  Could  not 
France  find  her  coal  elsewhere?  Par- 
ticularly since  iron  ore  heads  the  list  of 
strategic  materials:  it  is  the  number 
one  war  material. 

Germany  is  in  a  most  convenient 
position  to  get  her  supplies  from  us. 
Our  iron  goes  directly  from  our  Briey 
mines  to  their  Ruhr  factories.  Stras- 
bourg is  no  longer  the  principal  chan- 
nel of  communication  with  Germany 
that  it  was  only  a  short  time  ago:  the 
river  route  from  Strasbourg  to  the 
Ruhr,  once  taken  by  French  barges 
carrying  iron  ore,  is  now  meeting  stiff 
competition  from  the  newly  con- 
structed German  route.  That  route  is 
shorter  and  cheaper,  for  the  German 
railways  have  reduced  the  tariffs  be- 
tween the  Franco-German  frontier 
and  the  German  manufacturing 
centers. 

On  the  French  side  the  free  export 
of  iron  ore  from  the  Briey  basin  to 
Germany  has  been  made  easier  by  the 
opening,  in  July,  1932,  of  a  canal  near 
the  Moselle  mines.  This  canal  serves 
all  the  ports  of  the  Wendel  factories,  of 
the  Forges  et  Acieries  du  Nord,  and  of 
Uckange.  Thanks  to  this  new  route, 
shipments  to  Germany  are  constantly 
increasing:  from  340,000  tons  in  July, 
1932,  to  421,000  tons  in- November, 

1933- 

And — the  height  of  the  irony — this 
Franco-German  traffic  has  been  stimu- 
lated also  by  the  construction  or  repair 
of  our  strategic  Hnes  of  communication 
from  Audun  to  Fontoy,  and  Fontoy  to 
Thionville.  .  . 

But  there!  these  are  state  secrets. 

Sanctions  against  Germany,  indeed! 
Will  the  Comite  des  Forges  allow 
them? 


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AND  QUIET  FLOWS  THE  RHINE 


[311] 


III.  A  Conversation  in  Cologne 

By  Max  Rychner 

Translated  from  the  Neue  Ziircber  ZeUung,  Zurich  Liberal  Daily 


A, 


.FTER  visiting  some  of  the  most 
beautiful  old  churches  of  Cologne, 
we  settled  lazily  and  comfortably 
on  a  bench  on  the  bank  of  the 
Rhine.  My  companion,  the  French- 
man, pushed  his  Derby  hat  back  from 
his  forehead  and  began  to  roll  a  cig- 
arette for  me.  He  was  a  widely  trav- 
eled man  who  had  seen  life  from  many 
different  angles  and  who  accepted 
people  with  equanimity.  His  age  was 
hard  to  estimate,  for  he  had  one  of 
those  faces  that  reach  full  masculine 
maturity  with  thirty  and  then  re- 
main unchanged  another  thirty  years. 
He  appeared  to  give  little  thought  to 
his  clothing,  which  was  selected  for 
its  wearing  qualities,  so  that  he  would 
not  be  bothered  with  such  questions 
for  years  at  a  time.  He  was  traveling 
on  business;  his  means  of  livelihood 
were  as  remote  from  his  heart  as  the 
man  in  the  moon;  but  he  did  not  find 
this  circumstance  at  all  tragic.  We 
had  met  by  chance,  and  by  even 
greater  chance  the  conversation  had 
turned  to  Jean  Giraudoux.  As  we 
had  quickly  discovered  that  we  shared 
the  same  lively  interest  in  this  writer, 
we  had  been  strolling  along  together 
this  warmish  March  afternoon. 

'Ah,  there  it  is — the  Rhine!'  We 
looked  at  it  carefully,  as  though  there 
were  still  something  new  to  be  found 
in  it. 

*It  flows  faster  than  I  thought,'  my 
companion  remarked.  'People  easily 
grow  sluggish  along  slow  streams. 
Perhaps  a  slow  river  would  do  the 


Germans  good — a  Yangtze-kiang  or  a 
Mississippi;  they  work  too  hard. 
Moreover,  they  are  constantly  goad- 
ing themselves  into  becoming  even 
more  efficient.  And  the  way  they 
organize — it  is  really  a  frenzy  of 
logic.  I  admire  it,  but  I  can  never  for- 
get that  ants  and  termites  are  also 
splendid  organizers — sans  philosophy, 
to  be  sure. 

'Organization!  During  the  War  the 
Americans  occasionally  made  quite 
unnecessary  remarks  about  conditions 
in  France.  As  though  we  could  not 
organize  too !  We  know  very  well  how 
to  do  it;  but  it  always  makes  us  un- 
easy. It  is  so  easy  to  become  the  pris- 
oner of  one's  own  system,  and  we  are 
always  half  unsystematic,  coiners  of 
aphorisms.  The  idea  of  the  moment, 
and  its  potentialities — we  do  not 
want  to  be  forever  spoiling  it  by  pre- 
meditation. It  sometimes  seems  to  us 
that  with  the  Germans  everything  is 
thought  out  beforehand  and  rigidly 
planned  with  a  "fixed  route  of  march." 
That  is  why  we  are  so  ready  to  look 
for  mental  reservations  or  ambiguities 
in  everything  they  say.  Their  plan- 
ning, either  in  thought  or  in  action, 
is  always  long-range.  And  what  is  the 
result.''  Every  few  years  everything 
must  be  reshaped  from  the  ground  up. 
The  reformers  take  turns.  Take  Luther 
or  Kant  or  Nietzsche!  We  Frenchmen 
have  improvised  a  genuine  conti- 
nuity .  .  . 

'Take  a  look  at  this  organization. 
I  know,  German  organization  is  gigan- 


[312] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


tic.  They  used  to  say  "colossal,"  but 
today  everything  is  "gigantic."  Gigan- 
tic ..  .  Why  not!  For  a  while  one 
may  find  pleasure  in  such  words, 
which  roar  along  like  Zeppelins.  I  do 
not  know  whether  atoms  can  die — 
giants  must  die  inevitably.  But  let's 
keep    to   the   subject. 


II 


*As  I  said  before:  organization.  I  do 
not  by  any  means  refuse  to  recognize 
the  artistic  elements  in  organization. 
Man  must  rule,  that  is,  organize.  But 
when  organization  begins  to  rule  man, 
we  Frenchmen  feel  we  have  had  too 
much.  We  have  thought  a  good  deal 
about  this  point,  and  not  without  seri- 
ous self-searching,  either!  When  the 
Germans  began  to  rearm,  I  was 
frightened.  I  thought:  well,  this  is 
going  to  be  a  pretty  state  of  affairs! 
If  these  devils  are  out  to  build  up  an 
army,  there  can  be  only  one  result — 
they  will  of  course  achieve  a  marvel 
of  organization.  Once  again  they  will 
be  incomparable.  This  thought  was 
oppressive  enough  to  me.  I  asked 
myself:  what  will  their  weak  point — 
our  chance — be?  At  last  I  found  it. 
Our  chance:  it  lay  in  the  very  perfec- 
tion of  organization  itself.  They  will 
over-organize,  and  thus  it  will  all 
again  be  full  of  inward  dangers. 

'Since  that  time  I  have  been  calm, 
for  I  know  that  they  will  not  be  able 
to  conquer  us.  With  us  the  inspiration 
of  genius,  the  spontaneous  mastery  of 
a  hopeless  situation,  will  time  and 
again  supervene — the  miracle  of  the 
Marne.  You  think  that  is  nothing  but 
pious  faith?  Oh  no,  I  know  it!  We  have 
plenty  of  human  reserve  power  within 
"US,  and  that  is  what  counts.  In  the 
beginning  we  may  fare  badly — there  is 


nothing  like  the  precision  of  a  German 
mobilization:  that  is  pure  algebra. 
But  there  will  always  be  an  ;c,  an  un- 
known quantity;  and  the  moment  will 
come  when  one  of  our  generals  will 
find  the  value  of  this  x  and  will  include 
it  in  his  calculations;  and  from  that 
time  on  the  German  plans  will  no 
longer  be  in  tune.  Don't  think  for  a 
moment  that  I  under-estimate  the 
German  General  Staff!  Possibly  it  has 
a  Moltke.  If  so,  then  France  must 
produce  a  Napoleon  in  the  hour  of 
danger.  It  will  have  to  be  so  because 
of  the  laws  of  harmony  .  .  .  Whether 
Hitler  takes  this  into  consideration? 
I  do  not  know. 

'Alas,  what  thoughts!  They  are  of 
no  great  value,  for  everyone  has  them. 
"  War ! "  the  people  say,  and  what  hap- 
pens inside  them?  I  am  afraid  nothing 
at  all,  or  far  too  little.  If  they  grasp 
the  meaning  of  the  word,  they  ought 
to  turn  pale  and  tremble.  Look  over 
there — a  German  and  a  French  tug- 
boat, with  swastika  and  tricolor,  are 
passing  each  other;  the  young  German 
in  his  white  singlet  and  blue  trousers 
waves  a  greeting  to  the  French  girl  who 
is  hanging  up  her  wash;  he  is  dark;  she 
blonde  .  .  .  She  answers  smilingly, 
with  outstretched  arms,  a  cute  little 
thing!  Are  they  thinking  of  war?  At 
most  of  a  tussle  ^  deuxl  They  don't 
want  to  have  anything  to  do  with 
cemeteries. 

'Must  the  two  most  soldierly  peo- 
ples in  the  world  be  forever  at  odds 
with  one  another?  Everyone  says  it  is 
nonsense;  but  it  is  something  much 
deeper  and  more  terrible  than  non- 
sense. The  word  nonsense  is  an  in- 
effectual word;  you  cannot  exorcise 
with  it.  It  does  not  banish  the  evil 
spirits  which  enjoy  having  so  much 
free  play  between  the  two  nations — 


I 


193^ 


AND  QUIET  FLOWS  THE  RHINE 


[313I 


free  play  which  they  perhaps  ought 
not  to  have  .  .  . 

'On  this  soil  here,  on  the  Rhine,  I 
should  be  understood.  We  visited  the 
Romanesque  churches  here:  Saint 
Gerion,  Saint  Ursula,  Saint  Martin, 
Maria  im  Kapitol,  Saint  Cunibert, 
the  Holy  Apostles,  Saint  Pantaleon — 
what  melodious  names!  What  splen- 
did works  of  architecture!  At  once 
Romanesque  and  German;  borrowed 
and  yet  filled  and  transformed  by  an 
essence  of  their  own.  And  the  ca- 
thedral: French  Gothic,  in  conscious 
imitation  of  the  cathedral  of  Amiens; 
but  magically  recreated  by  German 
inspiration;  heavy  and  grandiose, 
especially  splendid  in  the  darkness 
of  night.  When  I  saw  it  again  today, 
I  found  it  gigantic — a  monument  to 
the  cooperation  of  two  peoples  who 
have  no  need  to  resort  to  battle  to 
demonstrate  their  greatness  to  each 
other.  They  do  it  all  the  same,  alas! 

*In  either  country  I  have  the  feeling 
that  I  am  standing  on  a  raft;  for  some 
time  the  two  were  close  together, 
bumping  each  other  in  neighborly 
fashion;  now  they  drift  apart,  the 
stretch  of  water  between  them  be- 
comes wider  and  wider.  That  goes 
on  for  some  time;  then  the  movement 
is  reversed. 

Ill 

'Look  at  those  children  playing! 
There  they  jump  about  in  the  squares 
they  have  drawn  with  chalk  on  the 
pavements.  At  the  top  is  "Heaven" 
and  "Luck;"  at  the  bottom  there  is 
the  "Hell"  for  those  out  of  luck.  The 
losers  scuffle  with  the  winners.  How 
they  wade  in,  full  of  eagerness  and 
decision!  They  suffer,  they  beam, 
they  weep  or  shout.  For  us  their  play, 
with   its   rules,   is  just   hurly-burly; 


that's  why  the  youngsters  don't  have 
any  too  high  an  opinion  of  us;  cer- 
tainly not  that  lively  and  intelligent 
little  brat  over  there. 

'Later  on  they  will  hop  about  on 
another  checker  board  and  call  it  the 
State.  Perhaps  they  will  design  a  new 
one;  the  relative  heaven  shifts  to  an- 
other spot;  the  relative  hell  too;  a 
little  more  to  the  right  or  to  the  left, 
whatever  it  happens  to  be.  You  may 
smile,  sir;  but  please  don't  think  I  am 
scoffing.  Those  youngsters  over  there 
won't  be  able  to  do  anything  else;  it  is 
their  destiny.  That  artful  little 
dodger  there  will  put  the  others  into  a 
concentration  camp,  or  appoint  them 
sub-leaders;  or  he  may  throw  bombs 
into  the  Rue  de  Vaugirard  and  burn 
up  my  Delacroix  drawings;  or  he  may 
ruin  his  career  at  an  early  stage  by 
practising  a  little  race  defilement.  I 
think  he's  easily  capable  of  it.  He 
is  bold,  and  women  will  like  him. 
Twenty  years  hence  will  he  still  know 
what  he  owes  to  the  honor  of  German 
blood? 

'Let  him  remember  it  until  he  is 
ninety  and  dried  up,  as  far  as  I  am 
concerned,  if  such  an  attitude  will 
prevent  him  from  shedding  his  blood 
in  a  war  against  us. 

*  Surely  he  knows  already  who  Adolf 
Hitler  is.  This  boy!  But  he  knows  it 
only  for  moments,  a  few  seconds  a 
day.  Yet  it  is  these  that  count.  They 
will  prevail  over  the  remaining  hours. 
Our  young  friend  is  in  the  game,  as 
Pascal  remarks;  he  must  follow  the 
rules  without  demur.  He  must  follow 
them,  this  nimble  little  German,  diffi- 
cult as  it  may  be  for  him. 

'At  bottom  we  Frenchmen  really 
are  much  more  disciplined  than  the 
Germans,  though  on  both  sides  of 
this  river  people  say  the  opposite.  But 


[314] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


I  have  my  own  experiences,  and  I 
believe  only  these. 

*A  good  friend  of  mine  lives  right 
around  the  corner;  I  have  been  drop- 
ping in  to  see  him  for  many  years, 
whenever  I  come  here.  At  Verdun 
we  were  on  opposite  sides.  When  I 
enter  his  house,  I  say  "Heil  Hitler!" 
• — he  laughs  and  greets  me  with  "  Vive 
la  France!''  We  speak  openly  and 
without  that  sensitivity  that  is  as 
easily  hurt  nowadays  as  an  inflamed 
nerve.  He  is  about  one-half  Nazi;  the 
border-line  between  the  two  halves  is 
never  quite  clear.  Once  he  told  .me: 
"You  just  can't  understand  it!" 
"What  do  you  mean?"  "The  ideas 
of  the  Movement,  of  National  Social- 
ism." "Why?"  "It's  something  purely 
German;  we  found  ourselves  in  it, 
and  that  is  why  the  world  will  not 
be  able  to  understand  it  for  a  long 
while."  He  was  proud  and  sad  at  the 
same  time  when  he  said  that  to  me. 

*  But  he  made  me  laugh,  and  I  told 
him:  "Pardon  me,  my  friend,  but  I 
really  do  regard  National  Socialism 
as  a  French  creation.  You  can't  de- 
prive me  of  this  opinion.  Here  are  the 
proofs.  Sorel  and  Barres  and  Maur- 
ras;  all  revolutionaries  against  the 
'system,'  against  liberalism  and 
parliamentarism,  and  in  favor  of 
authority,  national  mysticism,  social 
reconstruction  and  the  end  of  the 
class  struggle;  for  a  cultural  tradition, 
the  cult  of  the  land  and  of  the  peasant 
life.  Eighty  years  ago  Gobineau  pio- 
neered the  way  for  race  research;  fifty 
years  ago  Edouard  Drummond  pub- 
lished his  nationalistic  pamphlet  about 
anti-Semitism.  Proudhon  taught  the 
sharply  accentuated  division  of  races 
by  characteristics  and  social  tasks, 
with  a  patriarchal  family  cult.  In  1789 
the    anti-clerical    and    anti-Christian 


revolt  was  much  more  radical.  Even 
the  centralized  State  we  have  known 
for  some  time.  All  in  all  it  is  wrong  to 
assume  that  we  French  do  not  under- 
stand anything  about  National  So- 
cialism, when  actually  it  was  we  who 
invented  nearly  all  its  ideas."  I  say 
that  without  arrogance,  for  it  is  of 
other  achievements  of  my  people  that 
I  am  proud. 

IV 

'"At  last  we  are  catching  up  with 
what  Richelieu  achieved  for  you,"  a 
German  professor  told  me  two  years 
ago.  He  saw  only  the  tightening  solid- 
ity of  the  unity  of  the  Reich,  and  he 
was  happy.  In  his  house  that  same 
evening  a  man  explained  to  me:  "Now 
we  are  decades  ahead  of  France.  We 
have  overcome  the  bourgeois,  with  his 
egoism.  We  have  done  with  the  inter- 
play of  interests  of  countless  parties. 
You  will  have  to  follow  the  same 
path,  which  leads  from  disintegration 
to  unity!"  A  third  man  asked  me: 
"Don't  you  envy  us  our  Fiihrer?" 
Do  I  seem  envious?  I  knew  nothing 
about  it!  Why  are  Germans  so  ready 
to  believe  that  they  are  being  envied? 
First  it  was  Wilhelm  II;  and  now  it  is 
Hitler,  or  the  Winter  Aid,  the  con- 
centration camps,  the  birth  rate,  the 
automobile  highways,  the  Gestapo — 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  we_do  not  react 
to  all  of  these  things  indiscriminately. 
Perhaps  that  may  even  be  a  mistake. 
But  really  now:  is  the  professor  right 
or  the  other  fellow?  Has  the  Reich 
merely  made  up  for  historical  back- 
wardness, or  has  it  far  outdistanced 
us?  Doubtless  this  question  could  be 
argued;  it  is  even  possible  to  get  ex- 
cited about  it.  As  for  me,  it  is  a  matter 
of  supreme  indifference,  like  the  onion 
crop  in  Siberia.  Is  France  modern? 


1 


i93(> 


AND  QUIET  FLOWS  THE  RHINE 


[31 51 


Up-to-date?  What  childish  worries! 
It  is  such  immature  questions  as  these 
that  make  life  tedious.  But  there  they 
are,  at  least  for  some  people. 

'My  son  regards  me  as  a  survivor 
from  the  age  of  Hadrian;  everything 
that  has  happened  since,  he  says,  has 
left  no  marks  on  me.  Then  he  asks  for 
his  monthly  check.  I  count  out  the 
shekels  with  a  sigh;  I  would  like  to 
give  him  more.  He  wants  to  be  an  en- 
gineer, and  he  swears  by  Moscow. 
Moscow!  I  prove  to  him  that  the 
Muscovites  are  pre-Neanderthalers 
compared  with  us.  A  bare  200  years 
of  historical  experience  have  been 
accumulated  in  that  city;  when  they 
started,  we  already  had  men  like 
Poussin  and  Descartes  and  Racine 
and  Gluck.  Gluck!  We  gave  the  Ger- 
mans architecture  and  they  rewarded 
us  with  music.  How  much  they  mean 
to  me,  these  names! 

'And  what  do  they  mean  to  him, 
who  is  my  own  flesh  and  blood,  sepa- 
rated from  me  by  a  mere  twenty- four 
years.''  He,  too,  is  famiHar  with  them; 
admitted.  But  to  him  they  represent 
inscriptions  on  museum  pieces.  He 
says  that  they  belong  in  the  Louvre. 
What  are  the  names,  then,  that  make 
his  heart  beat  faster.''  Kerensky, 
Trotsky,  Lenin  and  Stalin  and  what- 
ever they  may  be.  These  names  mean 
all  the  world  to  him.  The  world  of 
the  future.  The  one  that  must  come 
and  for  which  he  is  preparing.  He 
lives  in  the  ecstatic  state  of  an  evan- 
gelist, and  derision  a  la  Voltaire  does 
not  reach  him,  does  not  make  the 
slightest  impression  on  him.  He  moves 
in  a  vacuum,  like  a  cog-wheel  that  is 
too  far  from  the  others. 

'  And  I  ?  Naturally  I  love  this  young 
fellow,  who  carries  within  him  a  whole 
world  that  is  completely  strange  to 


me,  a  world  toward  which  I  am  full  of 
aversion  and  antipathy.  He  will  be, 
some  day,  in  precisely  the  same  posi- 
tion. 

*  By  the  way,  he  is  very  thoughtful 
of  me,  especially  since  his  mother  died; 
he  treats  me  tenderly,  like  a  Chinese 
vase  of  the  Ching-hwa  period,  which 
apparently  must  remain  the  way  it  is. 
We  hurt  each  other  no  more  than  our 
common  life  demands,  and  we  disguise 
our  irrevocably  different  points  of 
view  with  all  sorts  of  jokes  and  teas- 
ing. We  do  not  solve  the  basic  ques- 
tions that  stand  between  us,  but  we 
alleviate  the  tension  at  least  tem- 
porarily. We  succeed  because  we 
painstakingly  observe  a  number  of  un- 
written rules.  Two  sovereign  powers, 
with  equal  rights,  the  older,  "dated," 
one  being  at  the  moment  more  solvent 
than  the  younger  one,  whose  home  is 
the  future.  But  this  argument  does  not 
get  me  any  further;  my  partner  would 
not  accept  it  because  of  its  bourgeois 
origin. 

'  It  has  grown  late;  we  have  talked  a 
good  deal  and  I  shall  have  to  leave 
soon.  I  have  been  invited  for  dinner  at 
the  house  of  my  enemy  at  Verdun. 
First  he  will  serve  Moselle,  later  Rhine 
wine — they  say  it  causes  hardening 
of  the  arteries;  well,  I  shall  simply  risk 
a  little  more.  Then  comes  Riides- 
heimer:  really  it  is  worth  while.  The 
first  half  hour  we  shall  talk  of  politics; 
it  is  always  so  with  us,  and  at  present 
all  the  world  is  bewitched  by  it.  We 
shall  emphasize  the  "necessity  for  an 
understanding  between  Germany  and 
France."  What  noble  gallimaufry!  All 
the  world  talks  like  that,  he  as  well  as 
I.  Reality,  the  actual  events,  are  be- 
yond such  phrases.  Secretly  we  know 
that,  and  it  makes  us  feel  grave  and 
significant. 


[3i6] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


'Soon  the  wine  begins  to  give  us 
wings;  then  the  German  begins  to 
entwine  French  phrases  into  the  con- 
versation, and  I  risk  a  few  German 
words.  He  talks  Hke  Balzac's  Baron 
Nucingen,  and  I  like  Lessing/s  Ric- 
caut  de  la  Marliniere — he  has  read  two 
scenes  of  the  play  to  me.  We  are  like 
two  healthy  people  who  use  crutches 
for  fun.  What  does  it  matter.''  It  serves 
to  get  us  closer  to  each  other.  He  too  is 
alone;  he  could  not  go  on — for  political 
reasons,  incidentally.  The  Hider  Move- 
ment had  taken  hold  of  his  wife  like  a 
religious  mania.  She  saw  Hitler  as  the 
true  German  god-man,  and  could  no 
longer  put  up  with  her  uninspired 
husband.  He  was  a  Stahlhelm  man, 
strictly  loyal,  but  no  more.  At  heart 
he  remained  half-and-half,  as  I  have 
said. 

'He  persuades  himself  every  morn- 
ing that  Germany  is  taking  the  only 
possible,  the  necessary  path.  Then 
he  determines  not  to  think  about 
it  any  more.  How  often  he  succeeds! 
He  is  a  technician  with  a  good  head  on 
his  shoulders,  and  very  realistic  during 
the  day! 

'But  in  the  evening!  When  he  gets 
out  his  phonograph  records!  Schubert, 
Bruckner,  Berlioz.  Then  he  sits  back, 
and  an  expression  comes  over  his  big 
face  which  I  know  only  from  such  mo- 


ments. Everything  real  grows  small 
before  this  astonishingly  comprehen- 
sive gaze — countries,  peoples,  individ- 
uals. I  keep  my  eye  on  him  as  he  seems 
to  vanish.  I  see  him,  though  he  no 
longer  sees  me.  The  walls  of  the  room 
recede  and  I  feel  how  he  has  softly 
passed  through  them  into  a  beyond, 
lost  in  thought,  motionless  and  at  the 
same  time  surrendering  to  motion  that 
knows  neither  beginning  nor  end. 

'Come,  I  must  leave.  He  asked  me 
to  come  early,  and  he  is  punctual — 
still  quite  the  soldier  in  many  things.  I 
am  not;  but  I  could  at  any  time  be- 
come so  again.  I  never  feel  that  so 
strongly  as  when  I  am  in  his  presence. 
Come  on.  Where  has  our  little  jumper 
gone?  Vanished!  I  hadn't  noticed  it. 
Heaven  and  Hell  stand  lonely  and 
empty,  nothing  but  clumsy  chalk 
marks.  And  our  little  chief  is  up  and 
away.  Let  us  go,  too. 

'Tomorrow  I  shall  return  home.  At 
the  station  I  shall  be  received  by  my 
Stalin,  who  will  immediately  proceed 
to  ask  a(  multitude  of  clever  questions 
about  Germany  and  what  is  happening 
there.  I  shall  have  to  pull  myself  to- 
gether. The  fellow  knows  a  lot  of  sta- 
tistics. We  must  walk  faster,  or  I  shall 
keep  my  pleasant  host  waiting.  How 
shall  I  translate  him  into  statistics 
tomorrow  night?  How  serious  life  is!' 


My  Country,  Right  or  Right 

All  this  is  in  keeping  with  Gauleiter  Wagner's  theory  of  international 
law:  'Even  if  we  have  violated  a  treaty,  nobody  has  the  right  to  con- 
demn us.  What  profits  Germany  is  Right.  What  harms  Germany  is 
Wrong.  And  what  the  Fiihrer  decides  is  Right  for  all  time.' 

— From  the  New  Statesman  and  Nation,  London 


<^vf^ 


Persons  and  Personages 

Marshal  Badoglio,  Conqueror  of  Ethiopia 

Translated  from  the  Neue  Ziircher  Zeitung,  Zurich  German  Language  Daily 


Jr lEDMONT  is  the  heart  of  the  new  Italy;  it  was  the  Italian  pygmy 
state  of  Piedmont  which  achieved  the  military  miracle  of  conquering 
three  powers  during  the  course  of  the  Risorgimento — the  House  of  Haps- 
burg  in  North  Italy,  the  House  of  Bourbon  in  South  Italy,  and  the  Papal 
State  in  Central  Italy — and  creating,  in  three  great  stages,  1859,  1866 
and  1870,  the  united  kingdom  of  Italy.  The  Piedmontese  army  became 
the  foundation  for  the  Italian  army,  and  the  Piedmontese  spirit  became 
the  military  tradition  of  Italy,  which  lives  still  in  the  Italian  army  of 
today.  At  present  its  authoritative  representative  is  Marshal  Badoglio. 

The  Piedmontese  stock  is  distinguished  by  unswerving  perseverance. 
The  Piedmontese  seem  to  lack  the  emotional  qualities  ascribed  to  the 
Italians  and  the  French.  They  strike  a  historical  balance  between  Italy 
and  France.  The  Piedmontese  is  neither  passionate  nor  cold,  but  simply 
normal;  his  actions  show  a  tenacity  which  is  as  intense  in  the  end  as  in 
the  beginning.  Thus  the  Piedmontese  reaches  his  goal  at  a  rather  moder- 
ate tempo;  but  he  is  perfectly  at  ease  and  as  cheerful  in  the  end  as  he 
was  at  the  beginning.  Today  Marshal  Badoglio  is  the  most  striking  ex- 
ample of  this  indestructible  mental  and  physical  Piedmontese  whole- 
someness,  of  this  epic  strength  of  the  Italian  people. 

Badoglio's  career  is  a  long,  well-organized  series  of  accomplishments. 
He  was  born  in  Grazzano  Montferrato  in  1871,  the  son  of  simple  people. 
He  attended  military  school  and  became  an  artillery  officer.  He  partici- 
pated as  a  lieutenant  in  the  East-African  campaign  of  1895-96,  and  later 
attended  the  Military  Academy.  Because  of  his  excellent  record  in  action 
during  the  Libyan  campaign  of  1911-12  he  was  promoted  to  the  rank  of 
major.  At  the  beginning  of  the  Austro-Italian  War,  in  191 5,  he  was  a 
lieutenant-colonel  with  the  second  army  corps;  he  became  colonel  and 
Chief  of  Staff  of  the  Sixth  Army  Corps  in  191 6.  Seven  war  promotions 
quickly  followed.  After  the  defeat  of  Caporetto,  as  Second  Chief  of  Staff 
he  was  the  real  reorganizer  of  the  Italian  defense  forces,  and  it  was  he 
who  prepared  the  defensive  on  the  Piave  and  the  victory  of  Vittorio 
Veneto.  He  was  the  leader  of  the  Italian  Armistice  Commission  which 
negotiated  with  Austria  in  November,  191 8.  From  191 9  to  1921  he  was 
the  Chief  of  the  General  Staff  of  the  Army,  later  on  envoy  extraordinary 
to  Rumania  and  America,  and  Ambassador  to  Brazil.  In  1925  he  was 


[3 1 8]  THE  LIVING  AGE  June 

again  appointed  Chief  of  the  General  Staff,  and  in  1926  he  received  the 
title  of  Maresciallo  d' Italia;  in  1929  he  was  knighted,  with  the  title  of 
Marchese  del  Sabotino.  From  1928  to  1933  he  was  Governor  of  Libya; 
later  once  again  Supreme  Chief  of  the  General  Staff  of  the  entire  Italian 
defense  forces — ^until  he  took  over  the  command  in  East  Africa  in  1935. 

During  the  World  War  Badoglio  was  Second  Chief  of  the  General 
Staff.  When,  in  certain  sectors  of  the  front,  troops  who  had  been  in  the 
trenches  for  a  full  year  became  exhausted,  dissatisfaction  spread. 
Badoglio  knew  that  the  situation  could  not  be  met  by  discussions  at 
staff  headquarters.  He  also  knew  that  the  troops  had  had  a  very  hard 
time  and  quite  often  had  good  reasons  for  grumbling.  He  investigated 
the  situation  personally;  day  after  day  he  went  into  the  front  trenches 
and  spoke  to  the  outposts.  He  approached  the  simple  soldier  as  a  com- 
rade, inquired  about  his  domestic  conditions,  whether  he  had  good  news 
from  home,  how  long  he  had  been  in  the  trenches,  and  if  the  food  was 
sufficient. 

The  privates  confided  in  the  high  officer  who  came  to  the  trenches  to 
visit  them.  They  answered  truthfully  and  told  him  about  their  worries 
and  apprehensions.  Badoglio  found  time  to  take  up  every  detail.  He  en- 
couraged the  soldiers  and  gave  advice  and  active  help.  When  a  man  had 
been  in  the  trenches  for  too  long  a  period,  he  gave  him  a  hundred  lire 
and  got  him  a  decent  furlough,  so  that  he  could  go  home  to  his  family 
and  look  after  things.  The  troops  were  grateful  for  the  fatherly  care  of 
their  superior;  they  had  unlimited  confidence  in  Badoglio;  what  he  said 
was  well  said,  and  what  he  did  was  well  done.  His  orders  were  blindly 
followed.  And  thus  the  reorganization  of  the  army  was  achieved  organi- 
cally, not  merely  mechanically;  the  army  recuperated;  the  command  won 
back  its  prestige,  lost  through  incitement  and  propaganda.  The  rank  and 
file  went  through  fire  and  water  for  Badoglio  because  he  was  a  *  good  man.' 

The  'good  man,'  however,  could  also  be  severe  and  hard,  in  ac- 
cordance with  military  rules.  He  never  argued;  he  acted.  In  191 8  he 
brought  to  a  rapid  close  the  negotiations  with  Austria  which  he  con- 
ducted as  head  of  the  Armistice  Commission.  He  succeeded  in  doing  this 
because  he  did  not  let  himself  get  involved  in  dialectical  maneuvers. 
When,  during  the  negotiations,  a  high  Austrian  officer  vigorously  op- 
posed his  demands,  Badoglio  turned  away  with  the  remark:  'Basta! 
Under  the  circumstances  we  have  nothing  more  to  say!'  Whereupon  he 
quietly  told  his  adjutant:  'Please  make  a  telephone  call  and  see  to  it  that 
the  order  for  the  cessation  of  hostilities  is  withdrawn !'  In  the  face  of  this 
decision  the  Austrian  delegation  was  forced  to  accept  the  Italian  stipula- 
tions. 

In  his  operations  Badoglio  is  never  a  hothead,  but  always  a  temperate 
and  steady  calculator.  He  placed  special  emphasis  on  keeping  large 


/pjd  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [319] 

reserves.  In  a  report  of  1920  he  put  forth  the  following  point  of  view:  *In 
wartime  the  command  must  be  exercised,  strategically  as  well  as  tacti- 
cally, in  such  a  way  as  to  preserve  a  maximum  of  material  and  human 
reserves;  troops  as  well  as  ammunition  must  be  carefully  husbanded,  to 
be  put  into  lightning-like  action  at  the  decisive  moment.  In  every  in- 
stance this  principle  has  scored  the  best  results.  Whenever  this  principle 
was  abandoned,  we  ran  into  trouble.'  In  the  Battle  of  the  Piave,  in  191 8, 
which  was  so  fateful  for  Italy,  Badoglio  illustrated  this  principle  convinc- 
ingly: out  of  the  nineteen  divisions  that  had  been  kept  in  reserve  at  the 
beginning  of  the  operations,  six  divisions  and  the  entire  cavalry  remained 
intact  after  the  victory. 

Badoglio  is  also  a  realistic  calculator,  and  no  'office  general.'  He  dis- 
misses the  most  brilliant  of  theories  with  hearty  laughter,  while  any 
simple  and  modest  presentation  of  facts  receives  his  serious  attention.  He 
never  tries  to  apply  a  pre-conceived  scheme  to  facts,  or  to  press  facts 
into  theoretical  fetters.  Everything  in  Badoglio's  strategic  measures  and 
tactics  must  be  sound.  He  even  suspects  the  reports  he  receives  of  being 
idealistic  and  theoretical,  and  thus  he  relies  on  his  own  eyes  rather  than 
on  any  information  from  others.  When,  one  day,  the  Italian  and  foreign 
journalists  tried  to  'pump'  him  for  exact  details  as  to  certain  positions, 
the  Marshal  did  give  some  clear-cut  information  about  some  of  them,  but 
remained  so  utterly  silent  about  others  that  the  correspondents  finally 
asked  him  to  give  them  some  facts  about  these  also.  Whereupon  Badoglio 
remarked  drily:  *I  can't  tell  you  anything  about  them  because  I  haven't 
seen  them  personally,  and  of  course  I  don't  trust  the  reports.' 

Badoglio  never  engages  in  any  large-scale  operations  until  he  has  in- 
spected things  personally  and  in  detail.  Sometimes  his  critics  have  ob- 
jected to  his  taking  too  much  time;  for  instance,  when  weeks  of  in- 
activity passed  after  he  took  over  the  supreme  command  in  East  Africa. 
Rumors  were  spread  to  the  effect  that  Badoglio  wanted  to  transform  the 
colonial  war  into  a  European-style  one,  a  war  of  position,  with  trenches 
and  barbed  wire.  But  as  soon  as  he  had  investigated  everything  suffi- 
ciently, when  the  reserves  were  ready  and  the  whole  front  organized 
through  and  through,  he  won  four  decisive  battles  within  the  course  of  a 
few  days.  He  always  proceeded  with  circumspection  and  tranquillity,  not 
too  rapidly  and  not  too  slowly,  with  the  certainty  of  a  natural  event. 

He  regards  his  strategic  talent  as  a  natural  gift,  without  making  much 
fuss  about  it.  Thus  it  is  his  organizing  ability  that  appears  in  the  spot- 
light of  public  opinion,  rather  than  his  much  more  important  strategic 
genius,  which  only  the  experts  can  fully  appreciate.  Badoglio  is  so  effi- 
cient as  an  organizer  that  a  military  critic  once  remarked:  'If  you  give 
this  man  a  pile  of  guns,  messkits,  and  some  soldiers,  he  will  conjure  up 
a  fighting,  organized  army  with  a  flick  of  his  wrist.' 


[32o]  THE  LIVING  AGE  June 

In  his  private  life  this  most  eminent  strategist  of  the  new  Italy  is 
charmingly  simple,  cheerful  and  kind.  When  he  visits  his  native  village, 
Grazzano  Montferrato,  he  enjoys  mingling  with  the  simple  folk  and  go- 
ing to  the  rural  taverns  to  chat  and  to  play  games  with  the  peasants. 
Then  he  takes  off  his  coat  and  plays  'Boccia'  with  them  for  hours.  The 
peasants  are  more  afraid  of  him  as  a  Boccia  player  than  as  a  Marshal,  be- 
cause he  always  hits  his  partner's  balls  and  even  predicts  in  advance  by 
what  complicated  maneuvers  he  is  going  to  win.  The  prediction  is  usually 
correct,  and  the  peasants  admit  his  ability  in  simply  stating,  without 
special  praise:  'Well,  of  course,  Badoglio  was  just  born  that  way  .  .  .* 

Before  the  battle  of  Amba  Aradam  took  place,  Badoglio  told  the  as- 
sembled press  correspondents  exactly  how  he  would  achieve  his  victory, 
and  what  were  his  and  the  Negus's  chances.  He  revealed  his  plans  in 
detail,  and  afterward  the  correspondents  were  amazed  to  learn  that  his 
predictions  had  been  correct,  and  not  only  as  far  as  he  himself  was  con- 
cerned, but  also  in  regard  to  the  Abyssinian  troops.  But  Badoglio  merely 
remarked:  'Thank  heaven  Amba  Aradam  has  finally  fallen!  That  moun- 
tain has  been  giving  me  indigestion  for  some  time.' 

Badoglio  tries  to  keep  aloof  from  fame.  He  transfers  the  glory  of  his 
deeds  to  his  *  brave  troops.'  For  him  military  genius  is  but  a  dutv.  No 
commander  of  his  great  popularity  has  ever  held  himself  so  aloof  from 
ballyhoo  or  has  remained  so  simple,  prosaic,  objective  and  modest. 


Dr.  Hugo  Eckener:  Zeppelin's  Apostle 

By  H.  R. 

Translated  from  the  Prager  TagilaU,  Prague  German-Language  Daily 

Hugo  eckener  of  Flensburg  had  just  finished  his  studies  with 
Wilhelm  Wundt  of  Leipzig,  and  had  settled  down  in  the  then  peaceful 
little  fishing  town  of  Friedrichshafen  to  devote  several  year^  to  a  great 
work  on  the  causes  of 'periodic  economic  crises.'  The  first  volume  of  the 
work.  Shortage  of  Labor  or  Shortage  of  Money,  had  just  been  published, 
and  he  had  Jbegun  working  on  the  second  part,  which  was  to  get  him  a 
professorship.  But  just  then  the  Frankfurter  Zeitung  asked  him  to  report 
the  announced  ascensions  of  the  'Zeppelin  Balloon.' 

His  first  report  was  entitled  A  Balloon  'Trip  under  Difficulties.  In  it 
he  said:  'Those  in  charge  of  the  enterprise  had  thought  of  everything 
except  the  fact  that  an  airship  behaves  like  a  fire-hose,  and  must  be 
rehearsed  like  a  play.' 

Inflating  the  airship  took  twenty-five  hours  instead  of  five,  a  dis- 
covery which,  in  the  words  of  the  Frankfurter  Zeitung' s  reporter,  'put 


/pj(5  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [321] 

the  whole  business  of  staging  the  first  official  ascension  in  a  somewhat 
peculiar  light  .  .  .  The  entire  country  had  been  solemnly  invited  to  a 
spectacle  .  .  .  of  which  not  even  the  overture  could  be  played.' 

For  many  years  the  Frankfurter  Zeitung  did  not  think  it  worth  while 
to  send  its  own  reporter  to  Lake  Constance.  For  many  years  it  continued 
to  have  Zeppelin's  unending  experiments  covered  by  its  occasional  con- 
tributor, Dr.  Eckener,  a  man  who  had  studied  psychology,  philosophy 
and  national  economy,  but  who  knew  nothing  whatever  about  technical 
matters.  The  whole  Zeppelin  business  was  regarded  as  the  somewhat 
eccentric  hobby  of  a  cantankerous  old  gentleman.  The  reports  were 
treated  in  a  rather  cavalier  fashion,  and  appeared  under  the  head  of 
'Miscellany.'  Dr.  Eckener  himself  was  opposed  to  the  whole  thing  be- 
cause he  was  convinced  that  important  economic  resources  were  being 
needlessly  squandered  in  a  hopeless  cause. 

Inside  of  four  years  Zeppelin's  fortune,  which  ran  into  the  millions, 
had  been  exhausted.  But  money  was  the  indispensable  pre-requisite  for 
building  a  new  ship  and  undertaking  further  experiments.  The  German 
newspaper  most  widely  read  by  business  men  and  industrialists  com- 
mented in  an  unfriendly  fashion  on  all  Zeppelin's  experiments,  and  thus 
immeasurably  ccmphcated  his  money  raising  problems.  The  reporter  for 
the  Frankfurter  Zeitung  had  now  watched  these  efforts  for  four  years. 
He  had  no  faith  in  the  cause.  All  the  trials  seemed  to  him  to  have  failed, 
and  he  could  not  see  why  now,  after  four  years,  there  had  to  be  still  more 
ballyhoo. 

In  the  late  summer  of  1905  Count  Zeppelin,  retired  general  and  ex- 
ambassador,  drove  to  Dr.  Eckener's  little  house  in  his  coach-and-four, 
dressed  in  a  top  hat  and  a  Prince  Albert.  He  demanded  that  his  adversary 
should  at  once  drive  out  to  the  hangar  with  him  to  have  the  ship  and 
the  plan  explained  in  detail  by  Zeppelin  himself.  Dr.  Eckener  raised  ob- 
jections. He  said  he  did  not  believe  he  would  be  able  to  change  his  mind; 
he  had  checked  the  speeds  and  found  them  inadequate;  the  airship 
would  never  become  a  means  of  transportation ;  His  Excellency  would  be 
exerting  himself  in  vain. 

But  the  old  gentleman  kept  on  talking.  Inwardly  Eckener  began  to 
grow  impatient.  Suddenly,  however,  he  felt  himself  strangely  stirred  by 
the  faith  and  vigor  with  which  this  man  Zeppelin  defended  his  cause. 
Just  as  Eckener  was  about  to  assent,  much  as  one  yields  to  a  stubborn 
child,  he  saw  a  sight  which  moved  him  from  earnest  conversation  to 
thoroughly  impolite  and  inconsiderate  laughter.  As  Dr.  Eckener  told 
me  the  story:  Count  Zeppelin  had  put  down  his  top  hat,  brim  up,  next 
to  a  vase  which  stood  on  a  little  flower  stand.  Perhaps  the  decisiveness 
with  which  Zeppelin  had  sought  out  the  residence  of  his  keenest  enemy 
had  communicated  itself  to  the  movement  with  which  he  set  his  hat 


[322]  THE  LIVING  AGE  June 

down.  For  at  this  point  in  the  dramatic  conversation,  beyond  the 
zealous,  white-bearded  face  of  Zeppelin  Eckener  saw  the  flower  vase 
slowly  inclining  and  pouring  its  water  into  the  hat.  Shaking  with  laugh- 
ter, Eckener  silently  directed  the  bridling  Zeppelin's  attention  to  the 
spectacle.  For  the  first  time  in  their  lives  Zeppelin  and  Eckener  both 
laughed  simultaneously. 

Ten  minutes  later  Eckener  drove  out  to  the  hangar  in  Zeppelin's 
carriage.  There  he  was  conducted  for  hours  through  the  scaffolding  of 
the  new  ship.  Old  Zeppelin  climbed  about  with  a  speed  which  made  it 
difficult  for  young  Eckener  to  follow.  He  was  shown  plans,  drawings, 
calculations,  and  when  he  finally  took  his  leave  he  strode  thoughtfully 
through  the  quiet  town  back  to  his  little  house.  From  that  day  on  he 
was  converted.  More  and  more  Zeppelin's  cause  took  hold  of  him,  and 
soon  the  convert  became  an  apostle — the  Paul  of  the  airship. 

The  merit  of  the  new  apostle  of  the  Zeppelin  lies,  above  all,  in  the 
fact  that — in  contrast  to  Zeppelin — he  recognized,  correctly  and 
sufficiently  early,  that  the  future  of  the  airship  was  not  in  the  military 
field  (where  airships  have  failed  and  always  will  fail)  but  in  peaceful 
fields.  He  was  the  first  to  realize  that  airships  must  become  a  means  of 
transportation  or  nothing  at  all. 

'Your  navigation  is  no  good,  your  Excellency,'  Eckener  told  Count 
Zeppelin.  And  Zeppelin,  who  was  gifted  with  unerring  instinct  in  all 
matters  afi^ecting  his  cause,  replied:  'Come  and  work  up  a  better  one!' 

His  youth  in  Flensburg  had  made  Eckener  weather-wise.  Relying  on 
the  preparatory  work  ofHugo  Hergesell,  he  created  air  navigation 
and  thus  one  of  the  most  important  factors  of  their  safety.  Before  the 
War  he  organized  the  first  air  transportation  company.  After  the  War  he 
kept  together  the  skilled  nucleus  of  Zeppelin's  workers;  to  keep  them 
from  scattering  he  had  them  manufacture  aluminum  cooking  ware  for 
two  years,  as  long  as  the  building  of  new  airships  was  prohibited  and 
there  was  no  money  for  them  anyway.  By  means  of  a  bold  plan  he  saved 
Zeppelin's  work  from  destruction.  In  matters  of  navigation  he  was  cap- 
tain; in  matters  of  business  he  was  the  business  man;  and  he  became  a 
politician  of  great  ability  in  the  cause  of  the  struggling  airship  industry. 

As  captain  and  statesman  he  grew  to  know  the  world,  and  to  love 
freedom.  He  appointed  himself '  ambassador  extraordinary  of  good  will,' 
and  once  he  even  decided  to  enter  heart  and  soul  into  the  political  arena. 
When  Hindenburg's  first  term  as  President  of  the  German  Reich  neared 
its  end,  Hindenburg  at  first  did  not  want  to  run  again.  Even  at  that  time 
the  success  of  the  present  German  Chancellor  was  a  foregone  conclusion 
unless  he  was  opposed  by  a  man  of  the  broadest  possible  popularity. 

Besides  Hindenburg  himself  there  was  only  one  man  in  Germany 
whose  name  at  that  time  held  out  hopes  of  a  successful  candidacy  against 


/pjd  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [323] 

Hitler.  That  man  was  Hugo  Eckener.  The  Republican  parties  contacted 
him  and  he  replied  that  he  had  never  intended  to  engage  in  politics 
except  in  behalf  of  air  transportation,  which  was  his  life  work.  From  his 
knowledge  of  the  world,  however,  he  was  of  the  opinion  that  Hitler's 
victory  would  mean  Germany's  isolation.  If  he  could  be  convinced  that 
he  alone  could  save  Germany  from  this  fate,  he  would  not  shirk  his 
duty.  In  those  weeks  Hugo  Eckener  made  the  only  political  speech  of  his 
life.  It  would  be  interesting  to  read  it  again  today.  Hindenburg,  how- 
ever, did  run  a  second  time  .  .  . 


Karlis  Ulmanis,  Latvia's  Dictator 
By  Rene  Puaux 

Translated  from  the  TempSy  Paris  Semi-Official  Daily 

WN  THE  night  of  May  15-16,  1934,  the  President  of  the  Latvian 
Council,  Karlis  Ulmanis,  and  the  Minister  of  War,  General  Janis 
Balodis,  decreed  a  state  of  siege  for  a  period  of  six  months.  It  has  been 
constantly  maintained  ever  since.  At  the  same  time  the  'House  of  Com- 
mons' was  occupied  by  troops;  the  'most  turbulent'  Socialist  leaders  and 
the  legionaries  were  arrested  and  their  secret  arsenals  revealed  and  con- 
fiscated. The  parties  were  dissolved,  and  the  deputies  were  advised  to 
indulge  in  any  hobby  they  pleased  except  that  of  politics.  This  was  done 
without  ballyhoo,  without  demonstrations,  and  with  so  much  discretion 
that  three-quarters  of  Europe  is  today  still  unaware  of  the  fact  that 
Latvia  is  under  the  heel  of  a  dictatorship.  Karlis  Ulmanis  thus  has  the 
right  to  be  included  in  the  already  imposing  gallery  of  twentieth  century 
dictators,  and  a  sketch  of  his  personality  and  his  life  will  perhaps  be 
appropriate. 

This  giant  of  fifty-eight  looks  like  a  Yankee  from  the  Middle  West.  He 
reminds  me  of  the  Mayor  of  Saint  Paul,  Minnesota,  a  man  of  Swedish 
origin,  built  like  an  ex-prizefighter,  with  hair  which  rebels  against  the 
rule  of  comb  and  pomade,  and  is  curled  in  thin  tufts  above  his  ruddy, 
childlike  face.  Karlis  Ulmanis  has  spent  five  years  in  America.  He  bears 
the  marks  of  it. 

He  was  born  on  September  4, 1877,  in  a  Kurzeme  (formerly  Courland) 
farmhouse  in  Berzmuiza;  and  he  attended  the  public  and  secondary 
schools  of  Jelgava.  His  parents,  well-to-do  farmers,  sent  him  to  an  East 
Prussian  dairy  farm  for  a  term  of  apprenticeship.  At  twenty  he  returned 
to  Riga,  and  went  to  work  on  the  agricultural  journals  Zemkopis  (The 
Farmer)  and  Majas  Viesis  (The  Friend  of  the  Family).  In  1899  he  spoke 
up  at  the  first  dairymen's  congress  in  Riga,  inaugurated  a  series  of  meet- 


[324]  THE  LIVING  AGE  June 

ings  on  the  same  subject  in  the  provinces,  and  became  one  of  the  founders 
of  the  Agricultural  Inspection  Societies. 

In  1903  he  attended  the  school  of  agriculture  at  the  University  of 
Zurich,  spent  two  years  at  the  University  of  Leipzig  and  returned  to 
Latvia  to  place  himself  at  the  disposal  of  the  Baltic  Agricultural  Society. 
But  he  arrived  at  a  moment  when  the  revolutionary  movement  of  1905 
was  casting  suspicion  on  young  men  whose  patriotism  was  too  ardent. 
He  was  arrested  and  released;  but  he  had  to  leave  the  country,  and  so  he 
accepted  an  appointment  as  a  professor  at  a  German  agricultural  school. 

In  1907  he  emigrated  to  the  United  States,  where  he  attended  Lin- 
coln University  in  Nebraska,  pursuing  his  agricultural  studies  and  then, 
having  received  his  degree,  lecturing.  From  America  he  sent  articles  to 
the  Latvian  periodicals,  always  on  the  subject  that  was  dearest  to  him, 
and  in  which  he  had  become  a  competent  authority:  namely,  agriculture. 

The  amnesty  of  1913  permitted  him  to  return  to  his  native  country, 
where  he  again  took  up  his  activities  as  a  lecturer,  at  the  same  time  edit- 
ing an  agricultural  magazine,  Zeme  (The  Land).  When  the  War  broke 
out,  he  directed  the  evacuation  of  the  peasant  population  of  Kurzeme. 
In  1917,  in  Valka,  he  founded  the  Farmers'  Union,  of  which  he  was 
elected  President.  The  Provisional  Government  of  Russia  appointed  him 
vice-governor  of  Vidzeme  (formerly  Livonia)  and — in  response  to  the 
wishes  of  the  local  authorities — he  remained  in  Riga  during  the  German 
occupation.  There  he  created  the  Democratic  Latvian  bloc,  while  the 
National  Latvian  Council  was  set  up  at  Valka. 

On  November  18,  191 8,  when  the  Volksrat  proclaimed  the  independ- 
ence of  Latvia,  it  was  Karlis  Ulmanis  who  was  approached  with  the 
task  of  forming  the  first  cabinet.  This  cabinet  functioned  until  June  18, 
1 92 1,  during  the  whole  terrible  period  of  the  German  offensive  of  von 
der  Gollz  and  Bermond  Aveloff.  Karlis  Ulmanis  returned  to  power  in 
1925,  1931  and  1934.  The  Latvian  Parliament  of  one-hundred  members 
included  twenty  groups  which  gave  themselves  over  frenziedly  to  the  in- 
trigues of  lobbying  and  dreamt  only  of  overthrowing  cabinets  in  order 
to  prove  their  own  political  maturity.  The  pursuit  of  this  unfruitful 
game  led  to  disaster. 

In  the  fall  of  1933  Karlis  Ulmanis  proposed  a  constitutional  reform. 
The  Diet  took  evident  pleasure  in  tearing  the  plan  to  pieces  in  order  to 
preserve  every  last  morsel  of  the  selfish  interests  of  its  members.  During 
this  time  the  *  leaders  of  the  proletariat '  armed  themselves  for  the  future 
glory  of  Communism.  In  reply  the  extreme  Right  organized  'Legions,' 
which  were  ready  to  go  out  into  the  streets. 

On  the  night  of  May  16,  Karlis  Ulmanis  surprised  the  whole  world 
by  locking  up  and  disarming  the  ringleaders  of  both  the  Left  and  the 
Right.  This  he  did  with  the  smiling  briskness  of  a  robust  peasant  to 


ig36  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [325] 

whom  political  theories  seem  fruitless  as  well  as  dangerous.  From  his 
long  stay  in  America  he  had  retained — we  spoke  English  when  he  told  me 
this — a  businessslike  attitude  toward  public  affairs,  which,  after  all,  were 
not  very  different,  as  far  as  procedure  was  concerned,  from  business  af- 
fairs. But,  as  he  frequently  proclaimed,  no  serious  industry  contracts 
expenses  without  taking  its  revenues  into  account.  Real  competence  is 
more  useful  than  mere  oratorical  talents.  Avoid  intermediaries  and 
achieve  economies. 

Freed  from  parhamentary  fetters,  Karlis  Ulmanis,  playing  on  the 
plain  confidence  of  the  peasant  majority  of  the  Latvian  people,  tackled 
the  essential  problems:  the  production  of  flax,  of  butter,  or  pork,  of 
wood.  He  kept  the  currency  stable,  encouraged  exports.  He  created  a 
Chamber  of  Agriculture,  a  Chamber  of  Commerce  and  of  Industry. 
And  he  laid  the  foundation  for  a  Vocational  Bureau  and  a  Labor  Ex- 
change. 

And  so  far  everything  has  proceeded  as  in  an  enterprise  where  the 
boss  knows  the  machinery  well  enough  to  begin  as  an  apprentice. 

The  Vadonios  (the  Latvian  equivalent  oiFuhrer  or  Duce)  remains  a 
pleasant  giant  in  suspenders,  without  a  brown  shirt  or  a  black  one,  with- 
out a  Sam  Brown  belt  across  his  large  chest,  without  riding  boots  or 
horse  whip.  He  keeps  house  in  Latvia  like  a  pater  jamilias — severe,  but 
just. 


The  Versatility  of  Mr.  Lubitsch 

By  A  Film  Correspondent 
From  the  Observer,  London  Independent  Conservative  Sunday  Paper 

In  a  suite  near  the  French  delegates  at  the  Savoy  Hotel,  surrounded 
— for  it  is  his  honeymoon — with  banks  of  spring  flowers,  is  a  little,  dark, 
swift-eyed  man  who  has  possibly  done  more  for  the  cinema  than  any  film 
director  living. 

Other  directors  have  made  individually  finer  films  than  Ernst  Lu- 
bitsch. Chaplin  is  the  greater  artist;  Clair  has  the  wittier  spirit;  Pudow- 
kin  speaks  with  the  greater  authority.  But  not  one  of  them  has  Lubitsch's 
rich  combination  of  consistence  and  versatility;  not  one  of  them  can  be 
counted  on  to  make  so  many,  and  so  many  different,  films  so  well. 

Lubitsch  is  a  man  whom  time  and  circumstance  have  never  beaten. 
All  his  career  has  been  a  story  of  experiment  and  adaptation.  His  style 
has  changed  from  spectacle  to  tragedy,  from  tragedy  to  burlesque,  from 
burlesque  to  musical  romance,  from  romance  to  melodrama,  from  melo- 
drama to  satire,  with  equal  versatility.Twice  in  his  work  he  has  come  up 


[326]  THE  LIVING  AGE  June 

against  a  major  crisis — once  when  he  moved  from  Berlin  to  Hollywood, 
once  when  sound  revolutionized  the  industry — and  each  time  he  emerged 
successfully  and  with  an  added  zest. 

No  other  director  has  such  a  list  of  joyous  films  to  his  credit.  Sumu- 
run^  Forbidden  Paradise,  ne  Marriage  Circle,  Lady  Windermere' s  Fan, 
ne  Love  Parade,  Monte  Carlo,  Trouble  in  Paradise,  Design  for  Living, — 
they  were  all  Lubitsch's. 

*I  have  always  enjoyed  myself  in  pictures,'  he  says  simply.  *Yes, 
there  has  been  fun  and  tragedy  in  my  life,  but  mostly  fun.' 

He  speaks  to  you  quick  and  eagerly,  in  good  working  American  with 
a  German  rotundity.  His  'Yes,'  is  a  rich  mixture  of  the  American  'Yeah' 
and  the  German  'Ja.'  His  eye  is  always  cocked  for  humor.  I  have  never 
seen  him  without  a  cigar. 

He  is,  in  an  interview,  a  great  ragger,  mainly,  I  think,  as  a  defense 
against  the  indiscretions  of  t\\Q  genus  reporter.  If  you  can  get  under  his 
guard  with  a  quick  one,  he  likes  you  for  it.  He  is  ready  with  the  right 
answer,  but  his  eyes  gleam  with  pleasure  at  the  challenge.  A  talk  with 
Ernst  Lubitsch  is  a  fine  spar. 

*In  America,'  he  told  me,  smoking  his  cigar  among  the  tulips,  'you 
must  have  humor.  You  can  put  over  the  most  serious  drama  if  it  is  salted 
with  humor.  You  must  learn  to  laugh  at  things.  That  is  where  so  many 
European  directors  have  made  their  mistake  in  Hollywood.* 

'Like  Dupont  and  Sjostrom?'  I  asked,  quickly. 

But  he  was  ready. 

'Like  nobody  in  particular.  But  it  is  an  essential  condition  of  film- 
making. And  you  must  move  with  the  times — never  fight  against  new 
technical  conditions.* 

'Meaning,'  I  said,  'that  you  must  now  make  films  in  color?' 

'Of  course  we  shall  have  to  make  films  in  color.  As  soon  as  I  get  back 
to  Hollywood,  I  shall  experiment  with  more  color  pictures  for  Para- 
mount. The  thing  is  inevitable.  Presently,  all  films  will  be  in  color, 
though  I  don't  know  when.  Five  years?  Three  years?  Perhaps  sooner.  I 
can't  say.' 

'And  then  stereoscopy ? ' 

'And  then  stereoscopy.' 

'And  then  television?' 

'And  then  television.' 

'And  then  what?' 

'Ah,  what!  But  does  it  matter?  We  look  ahead  too  much.  We  are  al- 
ways worrying  about  what  will  happen  in  ten,  twenty  years'  time.  What 
will  happen,  must  happen.  We  can't  change  it,  and  we  can't  expedite  it. 
The  only  thing  is  to  accept  changing  conditions  as  they  come,  and  in  the 
meantime  make  the  best  of  what  we  have  today.* 


/pjd  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [327] 

'And  did  you  feel  so  philosophic,'  I  asked  him,  'when  the  talkies 
came  along  to  stop  you  making  films  like  Forbidden  Paradise  and  'The 
Marriage  Circle?' 

'JaJ  he  said,  grinning.  'I  welcomed  the  talkies.  There  had  always 
seemed  to  me  something  missing  in  silent  films.  For  one  thing,  I  hated 
the  sub-titles.  If  you  remember,  in  my  silent  pictures,  I  had  the  mini- 
mum of  sub-titles.  If  I  had  to  choose,  I  would  say  the  best  of  all  my  pic- 
tures was  Trouble  in  Paradise — a  talkie.' 

'Will  you  make  more  films  like  that?' 

'I  don't  know.  I  should  like  to  make  another  costume  piece — like 
The  Patriot.  I  think  the  times  are  ready.  But  you  cannot  tell  from  month 
to  month  what  will  be  the  apposite  subject.  Who  knows  what  will  hap- 
pen next  year  in  the  cinema  ? ' 

'  I  wish  you  would  guess,'  I  said.  '  Guess  at  least  what  will  be  Eng- 
land's position  in  the  film  industry.' 

'England?  England  has  a  great  chance.  London  right  now  is  the 
center  of  European  production.  If  the  English  producers  aren't  dazzled 
by  talk  of  millions,  and  overbuild,  spending  vast  sums  on  studios  they 
can't  staff,  they  are — what  do  you  call  it? — in  a  sweet  spot.  The  three 
biggest  stars  of  last  year,  you  must  remember,  were  all  English — Laugh- 
ton,  Donat,  Merle  Oberon — ' 

'All  Korda's  discoveries,'  I  murmured  wickedly. 

'All  great  stars,'  he  amended  with  a  twinkle.  'And  characteristic  of 
changing  taste.  Ten  years  ago  a  star  like  Charles  Laughton  could  not 
have  been  popular.  The  public  wanted  pretty  heroes.  Today  they  are 
beginning  to  understand  great  acting.' 

*A  happy  thought  for  a  finale,'  I  said.  'You  really  think  that  public 
taste  is  improving?' 

'Ja.  Assuredly.  They  will  not  stand  any  longer  for  exhibitions  of 
mugging.  Do  you  have  that  word  in  English  ? ' 

'We  understand  it,'  I  said  sadly,  and  rose  to  go.  At  the  door  I  turned. 
I  could  not  resist  it. 

'  Mr.  Lubitsch,'  I  asked,  *  how  did  you  come  to  make  that  one  terrible, 
really  terrible  picture?  Eternal — ' 

*  Sh ! '  he  said,  looking  round  him,  finger  on  lip.  '  I  had  hoped  no  one 
would  remember.  It  was  so  long  ago,  eight  years  or  more.  You  really  re- 
member it?  Confound  you!  I  will  tell  you  something.  I  was  in  New 
York  with  my  assistant  for  the  premiere.  I  saw  the  final  copy.  I  said  to 
my  assistant,  "Be  prepared,  we  leave  town  Wednesday."  He  said: 
"Why?  The  film  will  not  be  shown  till  Thursday."  I  told  him,  "7^, 
therefore  we  leave  town  Wednesday."  Couldn't  we  agree  to  forget  it?' 

'  Mr.  Lubitsch,'  I  assured  him, '  from  now  onward,  so  far  as  I  am  con- 
cerned, Eternal  Love  has  never  been  made.' 


[328]  THE  LIVING  AGE 

Who  is  Ribbentrop? 

Translated  from  the  Prager  Tagblatt,  Prague  German-Language  Daily 

JnLlTLER'S  ambassador  extraordinary,  Joachim  von  Ribbentrop,  who 
recently  conducted  such  important  negotiations  in  London,  has  been 
the  subject  of  a  study  by  Louis  Delapree  in  the  Paris  Soir.  Of  special 
interest  in  this  account  is  the  juxtaposition  of  statements  by  Ribben- 
trop's  friends  and  enemies. 

What  His  Friends  Say: —  What  His  Enemies  Say:— 

About  his  Family 
Springs  from  an  old  Rhenish  fam-     His  real  name  is  merely  Ribben- 
ily,  the  son  of  a  certain  Richard     trop.  He  met  by  accident  an  elderly 
von  Ribbentrop  and  his  wife,  nee     General     von     Ribbentrop,     who 
Sophie  Hertwig.  adopted  him. 

His  Education 
Academy  in  Metz;  college  in  Gren-     A  mediocre  student  in  Germany; 
oble    and    London;    an    excellent     expelled    from    three    schools    for 
student.  infractions  of  discipline. 

His  Youth 
Emigrated  to  Canada  at  eighteen;     Dissipated  a  fortune  inherited  from 
worked  for  several  import  houses;     an  uncle  in  drinking  and  other  de- 
went  through  severe  struggles.  baucheries  in  London  and  Paris. 

His  War  Record 

EnHsted  with  the  Twelfth  Hussars  Drafted  in  1915;  deserted  in  1917 

in   September,    1914;  staff  officer  by    escaping    to    Sweden    during 

with  General  von  Seeckt;  in  191 8  a   furlough;   a   few   months   later 

sent  on  a  special  mission  to  Tur-  offered  his  services  to  the  German 

key;  entered  the  reserve  with  the  Intelligence  Service,  and  was  sent 

rank  of  Colonel.  to  the  Turkish  Front. 

His  Political  Orientation 
At  first  a  Liberal,  then  a  guest  of    Was  a  Social  Democrat  as  long  as 
the  Herrenclub;   became    a    Nazi     that  seemed  advantageous;  became 
when  he  reached  the  conclusion  that     a    Nazi    when    the   Nazis   gained 
only  Hitler  could  save  Germany.       power. 

His  Income 
Entered  the  wine  business;  met  one     Represented    the    wine    firm    of 
of  the  greatest  liquor  barons;  mar-     Henckel;     courted     the     owner's 
ried  his  daughter  and  managed  his     daughter,  who  married  him  against 
business.  her  father's  will. 


From  Lx)ndon  comes  fare  for  every 
taste:  Clive  Bell  on  the  decorations  of 
the  ^ueen  Mary;  Osbert  Sitwell  being 
waggish  about  dwarfs;  and  two  others 
on ,  respectively,  the  *  in  terests '  and  cats. 


An  English 
Miscellany 


I.  Inside  the  ^ueen  Mart 

By  Clive  Bell 
From  the  Listener,  Weekly  Organ  of  the  British  Broadcasting  Corporation 


Te 


HE  beauty  of  the  ship,  her  gracile 
slenderness,  as  one  looks  along  her 
tapering  and  swelling  hull  from  some 
point  exactly  in  front  of  the  bows,  or, 
as  seen  from  the  opposite  bank,  her 
precipitous  side-on  splendor  is  so  sat- 
isfying that  the  seeker  after  beauty 
who  has  no  intention  of  crossing  the 
Atlantic  may  be  advised  to  go  no 
farther.  Inside  waits  disappointment. 
And  yet  nine-tenths  of  the  interior 
would  have  been  well  enough,  and 
something  more  than  well,  if  only  the 
people  who  settle  these  things  could 
have  let  it  alone.  The  ship  is  lined  in 
wood  as  a  ship  should  be,  lined  with 
veneers  of  every  texture  and  color, 
ordered  as  often  as  not  with  consider- 


able taste.  But  the  good  wood  surface 
has  been  broken  up  and  disfigured 
with  what  business  men  call  'art.' 

It  was  decided  by  those  who  decide 
these  things  that  the  ^ueen  Mary 
should  be  decorated.  The  experiment 
might  have  been  interesting.  There 
are  plenty  of  serious  artists  in  Eng- 
land, some  of  whom  are  not  only 
serious  but  gifted.  To  what  extent 
they  are  gifted  for  decoration  on  the 
grand  scale  we  do  not  know.  Here  was 
a  chance  of  putting  them  to  the  test. 

Gifted  and  serious  artists,  however, 
do  not  commend  themselves  to  a  cer- 
tain kind  of  business  man,  and  as- 
suredly the  men  who  ordered  and 
interfered  with  the  decoration  of  the 


[33o] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


^ueen  Mary  are  of  that  kind.  So,  any 
serious  artist  who  has  had  the  mis- 
fortune to  be  stumbled  on  by  the 
management  has,  it  seems,  been  di- 
verted from  his  or  her  natural  bent; 
has  been  hampered  by  stupid  and 
ignorant  instructions;  and,  when  all 
else  failed,  has  had  his  or  her  achieve- 
ment stultified  by  a  crushingly  in- 
appropriate setting. 

About  the  wholly  or  partially  frus- 
trated efforts  of  these  artists  I  shall 
have  a  word  to  say  presently;  but 
neither  they,  nor  the  veneer-setters, 
set  the  tone  of  the  boat.  That  is  set 
by  'the  management,'  and  what  the 
management  wants,  and  gets,  is  the 
humoristic-artistic.  That  is  the  pre- 
vailing note:  the  Teddy  Bear  style. 
Nothing  is  suffered  to  be  merely 
good-looking:  it  must  be  funny  as 
well;  which  means  that  hardly  any- 
thing is  good-looking  and  that  almost 
everything  is  vulgar.  The  managers, 
having  voted  recklessly  for  decoration, 
have  been  overtaken  by  terror  lest 
they  should  be  accused  of  a  taste  for 
art:  'they  will  be  calling  us  highbrows 
next.'  To  escape  this  deadly  impeach- 
ment they  have  decided  to  make  a 
joke  of  it.  The  decoration  of  the 
^ueen  Mary  is  facetious. 

As  I  was  saying,  a  few  serious  art- 
ists have  been  employed:  Wadsworth, 
Cedric  Morris,  Lambert,  Skeaping, 
Vanessa  Bell,  Connard  and  Newton, 
for  instance.  I  am  surprised  to  find 
myself  naming  the  last  two,  whom,  to 
be  frank,  I  am  not  in  the  habit  of 
thinking  of  as  artists  at  all.  But  it 
must  be  admitted  that  Connard's 
decoration  in  the  main  restaurant 
'comes  off,'  as  does  one  of  Wads- 
worth's  in  the  smoking-room;  also, 
these  are  the  only  big  decorative 
schemes  that  do  come  off.  Connard's 


Merrie  England  will  not  bear  looking 
into,  of  course:  every  form  in  itself  is 
feeble  and  commonplace;  but  as  'dec- 
oration' the  whole  is  eflfective  and 
pleasant. 

In  the  smoking-room  Wadsworth 
has  done  something  really  interesting 
with  a  decoration  that  pulls  the  piece 
together  notwithstanding  the  effort  of 
a  bunch  of  hideous  nodosities  and 
carvings  to  disintegrate  it.  He  has 
painted  two  panels,  one  at  each  end  of 
the  room :  of  these  one  is  first-rate,  the 
other — an  aflfair  of  rigging — a  com- 
parative failure;  and  it  does  not  need 
a  very  acute  eye  to  perceive  that  the 
failure  owes  its  rather  feeble,  com- 
promising character  to  official  inter- 
ference. Whether  the  fine  abstract 
panel  will  continue  to  tell  when  to  the 
murderous  effect  of  the  wooden  gar- 
goyles is  added  that  of  the  upholstery, 
I  do  not  know. 

When  I  was  shown  over  the  boat, 
almost  all  the  furniture  was  under 
housings,  which,  so  far  as  I  could 
judge,  was  a  bit  of  good  luck  for  me. 
What  I  did  see  was  all  in  the  palace 
hotel  style.  In  early  days  we  were 
told  that  the  artists  were  to  be  allowed 
to  choose  their  own  settings,  but  nat- 
urally this  could  not  be  allowed.  They 
might  have  chosen  beautiful  stuffs 
which  did  not  look  expensive. 


II 


Newton's  picture — which  is  a  pic- 
ture and  not  a  decoration — is,  I  dare 
say,  no  more  significant  than  the  rest 
of  his  work;  but  it  was  a  treat  to  see  a 
calm,  carefully  painted  English  land- 
scape in  the  midst  of  this  fun-fair. 
Here  at  any  rate  was  something  that 
did  not  giggle.  There  are  two  private 
dining-rooms   on    the   ship,    both   of 


193^ 


AN  ENGLISH  MISCELLANY 


[331] 


which  will  make  decent  settings  for  a 
party — small  paneled  chambers  with 
a  picture  in  each;  but  this  again,  since 
the  artists  have  not  designed  the  furni- 
ture or  chosen  the  upholstery,  is  not 
decoration. 

The  best  picture  is  that  by  Vanessa 
Bell,  but  it  is  a  picture  and  pretends 
to  be  nothing  more.  Laura  Knight, 
another  serious  artist,  has  unfor- 
tunately failed  on  this  occasion.  Her 
panel  is  too  heavy  and  spatially  com- 
plicated for  a  room  of  this  size.  Over- 
complication  in  applied  art — for  a 
panel  designed  to  set  off  a  particular 
room  is  applied  art — is,  by  the  way. 
Miss  Knight's  besetting  sin,  as  ap- 
peared in  that  curious  dinner  service 
she  produced  a  couple  of  years  ago. 

It  is  generally  known  that  Duncan 
Grant,  the  best  decorative  artist  in 
England  and  one  of  the  best  England 
has  produced,  was  to  have  made  lovely 
the  central  lounge.  He  was  to  have 
carried  out  a  complete  scheme,  panels, 
upholstery  and  all.  Had  he  done  so, 
the  result  must  have  been  a  landmark 
in  the  history  of  decorative  art.  It  is 
known  also  that  all  competent  judges 
who  have  seen  his  canvases — for  the 
work  was  done — consider  them  mas- 
terpieces. It  goes  without  saying  that 
the  managers  did  not  like  them;  but 
it  is,  perhaps,  a  little  surprising  that 
they  should  have  refused  to  put  them 
up.  Frankly,  is  it  proper  or  seemly 
that  on  a  matter  of  taste  some  igno- 
rant business  man  should  be  allowed  to 
overrule  the  best  official  and  unofficial 
opinion  in  England? 

To  name  the  persons  who  have  dis- 
figured this  beautiful  ship  with  their 
titterings  in  paint,  wood,  glass,  plaster 
and  metal  would  be  invidious,  and  is, 
fortunately,  unnecessary.  Their  do- 
ings may  be  compared  with  those  of 


the  mosaicists — almost  all  of  them — 
who  have  defiled  the  glorious  interior 
of  Westminster  Cathedral;  happily 
these  are  not  indestructible.  The  bet- 
ter of  them — those  that  titter  least — 
are  merely  feeble;  the  worse  are 
quaintly  vulgar.  They  do  not  matter: 
it  is  the  prevailing  mood  that  matters, 
and  this,  we  may  take  it,  was  inspired 
by  the  management.  The  artistico- 
comical  creeps  all  over  the  ship,  and 
proclaims  the  frivolous  and  frightened 
attitude  to  art  of  rich  people  who  are 
not  sure  of  themselves. 

The  whole  boat  giggles  from  stem  to 
stern.  Even  the  modest,  unpainted 
studio,  a  small  room  provided  with  a 
piano  for  practice,  has  not  escaped 
the  infection:  the  carpet,  the  very 
windows  are  prettified  with  treble 
clefts,  crotchets,  and  quavers.  In  the 
gymnasium  are  comic  boxers,  in  the 
cabin  nursery — but  the  cabin  nursery 
will  not  bear  remembering.  And,  as 
the  ladies  and  gentlemen  who  have 
been  employed  to  hide  the  walls  have 
not  the  remotest  idea  of  decoration, 
all  they  have  been  able  to  do  is  to 
make  funny  drawings,  that  would 
look  mean  in  illustrated  papers,  and 
aggrandize  them.  There  is  something 
peculiarly  depressing  about  a  comic 
strip  raised  to  the  power  of  a  hundred. 

The  answer  to  this  criticism  is  no 
doubt  that  the  company  knows  what 
its  customers  like.  I  wonder.  It  may 
be  so,  but  like  Malvolio  I  think  more 
nobly  of  the  soul.  It  is  significant, 
perhaps,  that  the  'tourist'  (second) 
class  apartments  are  much  to  be  pre- 
ferred to  the  '  cabin '  or  first.  Here  both 
veneer  and  glass  have  been  used  with 
surer  and  more  consistent  taste  and 
with  better  effect.  You  cannot  expect 
much  business  man's  art  for  a  second- 
class  fare.  But,  considering  the  interior 


[33'^] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


as  a  whole,  I  do  believe,  if  the  business 
men  could  not  leave  the  wood  alone — 
which,  being  business  men,  they  could 
not — they  would  have  done  better  to 


hand  the  ship  over  to  some  large  firm 
of  upholsterers  who  would  have  fitted 
it  out  in  any  style  of  period-plenishing 
from  Middle  Minoan  to  ^ri  Nouveau. 


II.  The  Conspiracy  of  the  Dwarfs 

By  OSBERT  SiTWELL 
From  the  Daily  'telegraph,  London  Conservative  Daily 


H 


EIGHT,  I  suppose,  like  beauty, 
resides  in  the  eye  of  the  beholder. 
Sculptors,  for  example,  invariably 
present  Queen  Victoria  to  us  as  a 
seated  giantess,  though  the  whole 
charm  and  dignity  of  her  appearance 
consisted  in  her  being  so  small. 

All  writers,  again,  are  imagined  by 
the  non-writing  world  as  essentially 
tiny  and  insect-like  (for  writers  are  not 
popular);  while  the  height  of  Mr. 
Bernard  Shaw  ever  comes,  I  fancy — 
and  so  does  his  geniality — as  a  shock 
to  those  who  have  not  seen  him  before; 
for  they,  like  his  works,  have  been 
misrepresented. 

Again,  caricaturists  have  always 
represented  me  as  a  thin,  black  dwarf 
of  somewhat  Semitic  appearance,  whereas 
in  reality — unless  my  mirror  lies — I 
am  not  by  any  means  either  as  short — 
or  as  black — as  I  am  painted,  or,  more 
often,  drawn.  Besides,  the  tape- 
measure  supports  the  statement  of  my 
mirror:  somewhat  over  six  feet  in 
height.  Nevertheless,  many  today  are 
certainly  much  taller. 

For  the  truth  is  that,  though  we 
may  not  be  much  wiser,  we  are  cer- 
tainly much  taller  than  our  ancestors. 
The  cave-dwellings  reveal  the  traces 
of  a  small,  if  wiry,  people;  and  in  medi- 
eval times  armor  crushed  and  con- 
tracted the  physique  of  the  governing 
classes,  wrong  and  bad  feeding  that  of 


the  governed;  for  a  winter  diet  of  salt 
fish  once  every  twenty-four  hours,  day 
in  and  day  out,  without  ever  a  sight 
of  fruit  or  vegetables,  was  their  lot. 
No  vitamins  worried  their  heads;  none 
ever  figured  in  the  food  of  the  Middle 
Ages. 

Height,  of  course,  does  singularly 
vary  with  the  generations.  It  is  said 
that  after  the  decimation  of  the 
French  race  by  the  Napoleonic  and 
Franco-Prussian  wars  the  average 
Frenchman  lost  two  inches  or  so  of 
his  stature. 

Certainly  they  have  recaptured  it 
since  the  end  of  the  last  war.  If  now 
traveling  abroad  you  ever  see  a  tall 
man  looking  typically  English,  he  al- 
ways turns  out  to  be  a  Frenchman.  It 
is  not,  therefore,  as  though  English- 
men were  the  only  tall  race.  (And  here 
we  may  notice,  in  parentheses,  that  it 
is  curious  that  the  citizens  of  a  free 
democracy  should  be  tall,  for  surely 
the  essence  of  democracy  is  that  all 
should  be  short  and  of  the  same  size?) 

Why,  then,  when  the  young  are  so 
tall,  when  height  has  so  much  in- 
creased, is  the  modern  world  entirely 
constructed  for  the  benefit  of  the 
dwarf? 

Looking  round  it  is  indeed  hard 
not  to  believe  that  there  is  in  process 
a  conspiracy  of  dwarfs.  It  is  all  very 
well  for  the  poet  to  sing: — 


193^ 


AN  ENGLISH  MISCELLANY 


\2>ZZ\ 


How  jolly  are  the  dwarfs ^  the  little 
ones,  the  Mexicans, 

but  they  are  not  as  jolly  as  they  seem, 
being  a  cruel  and  malignant  race. 
Everywhere  you  go — 'you'  signifying 
any  ordinary  person  of  ordinary  size — 
you  are  compelled  to  walk  almost  on 
all  fours;  a  penalty  comparable  to 
those  exacted  in  medieval  times,  when 
sinners,  or  those  who  had  made  vows, 
were  induced  to  crawl  up  the  aisles  of 
cathedrals  on  hands  and  knees. 

Go  to  the  National  Gallery,  for  ex- 
ample. The  rooms,  though  certainly 
empty,  are  lofty,  old-fashioned  ones; 
but  only  try  to  look  at  the  pictures! 
The  bigger,  more  important  works  are 
hung  just  below  the  level  of  the  neck, 
though  the  whole  of  the  space  above 
them  is  empty,  so  that  this  must  have 
been  done  on  purpose,  and  is  not 
merely  accidental. 

By  craning,  it  is  just  possible  to  see 
— though  not  to  enjoy — as  much  of 
the  canvas  as  the  reflection  in  the  glass 
allows;  for  the  image  of  a  custodian 
sleeping  on  his  chair,  or  of  rows  of 
empty  benches  and  skylights,  is  super- 
imposed upon  the  artist's  conception 
of  Mrs.  Siddons  or  of  Bacchus  and  his 
pards. 

To  see  any  fragment  of  the  sec- 
ond row  of  pictures,  however,  hung 
just  above  the  wainscotting,  it  is 
necessary  to  throw  yourself,  after  the 
manner  of  the  Moor  in  Petrouchka,  at 
full  length  on  the  floor,  and  then  push 
upward  with  the  arms. 

But  this  behavior,  though  neces- 
sary, unfortunately  worries  the  at- 
tendants and  embarrasses  any  spec- 
tators who  may  chance  to  be  in  the 
room;  though  most  of  them,  since  they 
come  here  to  'do  the  sights,'  are  not 
perturbed  by  the  fact  that  under  no 


circumstances  can  they  possibly  see 
the  pictures.  The  dwarfs  are,  indeed, 
triumphant. 

Very  probably,  gentle  reader,  you, 
though  tall,  are  one  who  prefers  the 
picture  theater  to  the  picture  gallery, 
and  therefore  doubt  the  truth  of  this 
particular  conspiracy.  But  the  patron 
of  the  picture  theater,  too,  is  victim- 
ized. Just  try  pushing  your  way  be- 
tween two  rows  of  seats. 

As  for  hotels,  they  are  entirely  built 
for  the  midget  tribe.  Attempt  to  wash 
your  hands  in  any  modern  hotel  bed- 
room; only  by  going  down  on  your 
knees,  that  terrible  classic  attitude  of 
submission,  is  it  possible;  only  thus 
can  you  gain  quarter.  The  wardrobes, 
whether  let  into  the  wall  or  boldly 
jutting  out  from  it,  are  made  too  shal- 
low for  suits  and  too  short  for  dresses. 
If  the  cupboard  is  not  built  in,  its 
corners  will  knock  out  your  eye  every 
time  you  pass  it. 

But,  worst  of  all,  try  to  unpack  your 
case  from  the  stand  which  the  authori- 
ties provide  for  it.  Often  the  wretched 
victims  must  remain  there  for  ten 
or  fifteen  minutes  before  they  can 
straighten  themselves  out  again.  Only 
a  long  series  of  Dalcroze  eurythmics  or 
practice  in  the  gymnasium  can  help 
you  in  this  direction. 

The  private  house,  it  is  true,  is  less 
dwarf-ridden  than  the  hotel,  but  there 
are  also  the  low-ceilinged  ranges  of 
modern  flats.  Choose  any  one  you  like 
and  try  to  wash  up  the  cups  and  plates 
at  the  sink.  Your  least  reward,  the 
lightest  penalty  which  the  dwarfs  de- 
cree for  you,  is  a  sharp  attack  of  lum- 
bago. 

And  what  of  the  aluminum  chairs, 
which,  it  seems,  may  hold  you  in 
their  cold  embrace  for  ever  without 
your  being  able  to  rise.? 


[334] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


Again,  cars  are  nowadays  con- 
structed solely  for  dwarfs.  Only  a  man- 
ikin, a  midget  of  two  feet  high,  can  be 
comfortable  in  them.  To  reach  the 
further  seat  is  a  torture  to  anyone  over 
that  height,  while  to  leave  it,  to  get 
your  feet  on  the  step,  you  are  obliged 
to  adopt  the  position  of  a  dancer  in  the 
famous  Cossack  dance — is  it  called 
the  gopak? — arms  crossed,  one  leg 
doubled,   the   other   straight   out   in 


front  of  you  at  right  angles.  *Ai,  Ai, 
Ai!'  you  must  shout. 

Only  in  one  instance  are  the  giants 
victorious.  The  Tube  trains  must 
have  been  designed  to  avenge  our  suf- 
ferings. As  you  rush  shrieking  through 
the  burrow  at  sixty  miles  an  hour, 
observe  the  poor  little  people  swinging, 
hke  so  many  monkeys,  from  the  straps, 
or,  in  some  cases,  looking  at  them 
wistfully:  for  they  are  out  of  reach. 


III.  'They' 

From  the  Economist^  London  Financial  Weekly 


A 


DISTINGUISHED  person  who 
had  just  received  a  title  was  being 
congratulated  by  a  friend. 

'You  ought  to  have  had  it  long  ago,' 
said  the  friend. 

*  Well,  actually,  three  years  ago  they 
told  me.  .  .' 

'Excuse  me,'  interrupted  the  friend, 
*but  who  are  "they"?' 

There  was  no  answer. 

*I  wish  you'd  tell  me,*  said  the 
friend.  T'm  always  hearing  about 
"  they"  and  what  "  they"  do,  and  I've 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  if  only  I 
knew  who  "they"  are,  I  should  know 
who  governs  us.' 

Who  does  govern  us.^  When  we  were 
very  young  indeed,  we  used  to  think  it 
was  the  King  sitting  on  his  throne  with 
a  crown  perched  on  his  head.  Later  on 
we  knew  that  that  was  a  childish 
fantasy.  Really  we  were  governed  by 
the  Prime  Minister  or  by  the  Cabinet 
or  by  Parliament.  Time  passed,  and 
we  knew  that  that  was  a  boyish 
fantasy.  Really  we  were  governed  by 
the  Civil  Service — those  bureaucrats! 
More  time  passed,  and  with  the  wis- 


dom of  age  we  came  to  suspect  that 
that  was  a  middle-aged  fantasy.  We 
no  longer  believed  that  we  were 
governed  either  by  this  man  or  by 
that,  by  this  one  element  in  the 
constitution  or  by  the  other.  The 
power  behind  the  Government  and 
behind  the  Civil  Service  and  behind 
(very  much  behind)  public  opinion  is 
an  anonymous,  intangible,  almost 
irresistible  entity  which  is  almost 
always  referred  to  by  the  use  of  the 
third  person  plural  and  takes  its  place 
in  the  unwritten  scheme  of  the  Con- 
stitution as  'they.' 

Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling  once  wrote  a 
short  story  which  he  called  T^hey.  It 
was  a  very  mystical  story;  for  'they' 
were  the  souls  of  dead  children  who 
haunted  a  garden  and  were  very 
elusive  indeed.  But  their  presence 
could  occasionally  be  detected  by  a 
trained  sense  which  knew  how  to 
search  for  them  and  where.  They  who 
govern  us  are  not,  perhaps,  quite  such 
insubstantial  fairies  as  they  in  Mr. 
Kipling's  garden,  but  they  are  scarcely 
less  elusive  or  less  difficult  to  detect; 


/pjd 


AN  ENGLISH  MISCELLANY 


[335] 


and  although  now  and  again  by  a 
miscalculation  or  mischance  they  are 
caught  in  the  light  of  day,  generally 
the  observer  has  to  know  a  good  deal 
of  their  methods  and  movements 
before  he  begins  to  recognize  their 
handiwork. 

In  an  age  of  publicity  they  do  not 
court  the  limelight,  and  they  prefer,  as 
a  rule,  not  to  appear  in  person.  In  the 
intimacy  of  a  room  in  Whitehall  their 
arguments  will  be  cogent  and  con- 
vincing; but  they  do  not  in  the  or- 
dinary course  make  platform  speeches, 
choosing  rather  to  inspire  and  super- 
vise the  eloquence  of  others  than  to 
proffer  their  views  and  policy  direct  to 
the  public.  They  like  to  do  their 
business  through  a  middle-man,  re- 
maining themselves  what  the  lawyers 
call  'undisclosed  principals.' 

But  for  all  their  reticence  and  retire- 
ment there  is  no  speech  or  language  in 
which  their  voice  is  not  heard.  It  is 
heard  in  the  precise  phrases  of  an  Act 
of  Parliament;  in  the  undulating 
periods  of  an  elder  statesman;  in  the 
smooth  pleadings  of  a  barrister-politi- 
cian; in  the  clarion  calls  of  a  great 
patriot;  in  the  gruff  pronouncements 
of  a  trades  union  leader;  in  the 
cultured  voice  of  the  talkie  machine  at 
the  local  cinema.  Not  one  of  these 
media  will  they  in  their  catholicity 
disdain.  But  not  often  will  you  be 
allowed  to  catch  the  voice  of  Jacob  in 
the  speech  of  Esau. 

Now  and  again  some  Paul  Pry  who 
has  gone  out  hunting  for  vested  inter- 
ests will  make  a  fuss  and  cause  them  a 
certain  amount  of  embarrassment — 
will  even,  when  he  has  had  a  good 
day's  hunting,  drag  one  of  them,  head, 
shoulders,  trunk,  legs  and  feet,  into 
the  public  gaze.  Paul  Pry  cannot  often 
obtain  publicity  for  his  complaints  and 


criticisms,  but  sometimes  he  succeeds. 
Then  John  Bull  realizes  for  a  brief 
moment  that  they  are  producing  quite 
an  astonishing  amount  of  some  com- 
modity that  is  no  good  for  anything 
except  to  produce  some  other  com- 
modity, and  that  this  second  com- 
modity is  being  sold  only  because  John 
Bull  is  subscribing  £1  out  of  his  own 
pocket  for  every  £1  that  the  com- 
modity sells  for.  He  discovers,  but  is 
apt  to  forget  rather  quickly,  that  they 
are  doing  very  nicely  and  drawing 
very  pleasant  dividends  at  his  expense 
and  for  their  benefit. 

Or — still  more  embarrassing — an 
inquisitive  Yankee  will  launch  an 
inquiry  into  how  they  sell  their  guns 
and  shells  and  to  whom,  and  how  they 
start  their  panics,  and  how  they  tor- 
pedo disarmament  conferences,  and 
into  the  stories  they  tell  to  the  press 
and  the  influence  that  they  bring  to 
bear  in  what  is  known  as  the  Right 
Quarter.  When  that  happens,  they 
must  bestir  themselves  and  set  up  the 
right  smoke  screen  in  the  Right 
Quarter  to  obscure  their  past  and 
future  movements  from  sight  and 
thought. 

Sometimes  even — and  this  is  per- 
haps most  painful  of  all — they  will  fall 
out  among  themselves  and  publicly 
accuse  each  other  of  not  playing  the 
game  in  the  Right  Way.  Then  you 
may  hear  one  of  them  openly  com- 
plaining that  another  of  them  has  not 
done  the  proper  thing  by  him.  It  will 
appear  that  measures  put  forward  and 
put  over  for  their  mutual  benefit  are 
being  used  too  much  for  the  advantage 
of  one  of  them  and  to  the  positive 
detriment  of  another  of  them. 

But  happily,  most  happily,  open 
disputes  among  them  are  not  usual. 
For  they  are  men  of  common  sense, 


[336] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


and  they  appreciate  the  fact  that  if 
one  of  them  has  put  prices  up  too 
quickly  for  the  convenience  of  another 
of  them,  it  is  much  better  to  talk  the 
little  problem  over  between  them  in 
private  than  to  air  the  grievance  in 
public  and  so  lead  to  possible  mis- 
understandings in  the  mind  of  the 
public. 

Between  them,  after  all,  there 
must  be  give  and  take,  and  with 
mutual  forbearance  and  patience  and 
a  decent  reticence  there  is  enough  for 
all  of  them.  And  anyhow  dog  does  not 
eat  dog.  This  very  sensible  line  of 
argument  will  always  appeal  to  them, 
and  any  little  burst  of  irritation  from 
one  of  them  will  be  forgotten,  for- 
given, and  not  repeated. 

In  the  last  four  years  they  have  had 
a  splendid  time.  What  with  tariffs  and 
quotas  and  marketing  boards  and 
subsidies,  their  interests  have  grown 
more  and  more  firmly  vested,  and 
(what  is  nicest  of  all)  they  have  reason 
to  think  that  they  will  have  the  whip 
hand  in  future. 

'It  may  be,'  they  will  murmur  into 
the  ear  of  the  Right  Person,  *  that  the 
public  is  paying  a  good  deal  for  our 
products  and  that  our  show  is,  as  you 
say,  preposterously  uneconomic,  but 


you  daren't  let  us  down.  It  is  true  that 
the  Committee,  which  you  so  un- 
necessarily appointed  to  investigate, 
has  reported  unfavorably  on  us,  but 
you  daren't  take  its  advice.  If  you  do, 
we  shall  shut  our  factories,  and  then 
our  workmen  and  our  shareholders 
will  suffer.  And  you  will  not  forget 
that  both  our  workmen  and  our  share- 
holders (we  refer,  of  course,  to  such  of 
our  shareholders  as  are  of  British 
nationality)  have  votes.  Now  be 
sensible.  Go  and  make  one  of  your 
perfectly  splendid  speeches  showing 
how  tariffs  simultaneously  raise  prices 
for  the  producer  and  lower  them  for 
the  consumer.  And  leave  the  rest  to 
us.' 

So  when  we  hear,  as  in  time  we 
doubtless  shall,  that  a  subsidy  has 
been  arranged  out  of  public  funds  to 
encourage  the  growth  of  pineapples  in 
Aberdeenshire,  and  that  a  marketing 
board  has  been  set  up  for  the  better 
regulation  of  the  sale  of  yellow  trouser 
buttons  in  Great  Britain  and  Northern 
Ireland,  then  we  shall  know  that  they, 
in  the  process  of  governing  England, 
have  seen  the  commercial  possibilities 
of  pineapples  and  yellow  trouser 
buttons;  and  what  they  get  they  will 
hold. 


IV.  The  Intelligence  of  Cats 
By  Michael  Joseph 

From  the  Spectator,  London  Conservative  Weddy 


I 


N  MOST  arguments  about  animal 
intelligence  cat-lovers  are  an  eloquent 
minority.  A  comparison  between  cats 
and  dogs  is  inevitably  made,  nearly  al- 
ways to  the  cat's  disadvantage.  The 
dog  has  all  the  virtues  which  gratify 
his  master's  sense  of  proprietorship. 


He  is  useful,  loyal,  good-tempered, 
demonstrative,  and  always  ready  to 
adapt  himself  to  his  owner's  mood. 
The  cat  is  independent,  fastidious, 
disobedient,  and  master  of  his  own 
destiny.  It  is  because  the  cat  is  rela- 
tively unpopular  that  his  intelligence 


193^ 


AN  ENGLISH  MISCELLANY 


[337] 


is  in  danger  of  under-estimation.  Un- 
popular animals  are  rarely  credited 
with  their  good  qualities. 

Sentiment  and  tradition  are  largely 
responsible  for  popular  fallacies  about 
animals.  The  lion  is  universally  hailed 
as  the  king  of  beasts,  whereas  he  is  in 
fact  inferior  in  courage,  strength  and 
skill  to  other  animals.  But  he  looks 
the  part.  The  intelligence  of  the  horse 
is  overrated,  because  he  is  a  hand- 
some and  willing  creature.  The  dog  is 
by  tradition  the  friend  of  man,  and  I 
will  not  deny  that  he  deserves  his  pop- 
ularity, although  I  suspect  he  is  often 
credited  with  more  intelligence  than 
he  really  has.  The  squirrel  is  a  pretty 
little  thing,  but  does  far  more  damage 
than  the  rat  and  is  infinitely  more 
cruel  and  destructive  to  bird  life  than 
the  cat. 

Yet  the  cat  is  more  unpopular.  The 
very  qualities  which  excite  the  ad- 
miration of  his  friends  cause  him  to  be 
disliked  by  others.  Few  people  will 
take  the  trouble  to  insinuate  them- 
selves into  friendship  with  a  cat.  Why 
should  they?  If  all  they  want  is  an 
affectionate,  uncritical,  obedient  com- 
panion, there  is  always  a  dog  to  be 
had.  It  is  only  the  true  cat-lover  who 
can  understand  the  subtlety  of  the 
cat's  character. 

The  intelligence  of  animals  is  a  fa- 
vorite subject  with  the  present-day 
biologist.  Scientists  claim  that  they 
can  assess  the  intelligence  of  any  liv- 
ing creature  by  applying  a  series  of 
laboratory  tests.  An  American  au- 
thority on  animal  psychology  recently 
rated  animal  intelligence  in  this  order: 
chimpanzee,  orang-outang,  elephant, 
gorilla,  dog,  beaver,  horse,  sea-lion, 
bear — with  the  cat  tenth  on  the  list. 

It  is  easy  to  dispute  an  individual 
assessment  of  intelligence.   Consider 


the  notorious  fallibility  of  examina- 
tions. Every  schoolmaster  knows  that 
the  student  who  excels  in  the  exam- 
ination room  is  not  necessarily  supe- 
rior to  others  who  are  mentally  or 
temperamentally  unable  to  do  them- 
selves justice  in  written  papers.  I 
wonder  whether  the  scientists  are  on 
the  right  track.  Can  the  cat  be  classi- 
fied by  scientific  experiments?  Re- 
member that  cats  are  peculiarly  sensi- 
tive and  temperamental  creatures. 
You  can  learn  nothing  about  them 
unless  you  first  establish  friendly 
relations,  and  that  takes  time,  sym- 
pathy and  patience. 

The  nature  of  the  scientific  tests 
from  which  the  cat  emerges  so  dis- 
creditably in  the  eyes  of  the  professors 
is  worth  examination.  A  favorite 
method  is  the  maze.  A  cat  (or  other 
animal)  is  put  in  the  maze  and  left  to 
find  his  way  out.  Usually  a  reward  of 
food  is  placed  at  the  exit.  The  maze 
can  be  fairly  simple,  with  only  one 
blind  alley,  or  more  intricate  with 
many  turnings.  Another  instrument 
is  the  puzzle-box.  This  is  a  kind  of 
cage  from  which  the  imprisoned  ani- 
mal can  only  escape  by  manipulating 
latches  and  similar  contrivances.  The 
victim's  intelligence  is  measured  by 
the  speed  with  which  it  overcomes 
mechanical  obstacles  and  the  faculty 
it  shows  for  recognizing  and  memoriz- 
ing such  artificial  devices  as  a  white 
card  placed  over  the  correct  exit  from 


II 


Such  experiments  are  presumably 
based  on  the  assumption  that  the  cap- 
tive wishes  to  escape  or  eat  as  quickly 
as  possible.  The  food  placed  at  the 
exit  may  be  a  magnet  for  some  ani- 
mals, but  to  try  to  induce  a  cat  to  per- 


[338] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


form  any  sort  of  evolution  for  the  sake 
of  food  betrays  a  complete  misunder- 
standing of  feline  nature.  Fear  has  a 
stronger  influence  over  cats  than 
hunger;  and  every  cat-lover  knows 
that  a  frightened  or  even  an  offended 
cat  cannot  be  tempted  by  food.  The 
fallacy  underlying  these  'scientific' 
experiments  is  quite  plain,  except  to 
the  scientists.  Their  idea  appears  to 
be  to  test  animals  by  human  stand- 
ards. 

Up  to  a  point  such  a  test  prob- 
ably is  illuminating,  provided  it  is  only 
applied  to  animals  like  the  chimpan- 
zee, who  are  physically  capable  of 
imitating  human  actions  and  to  whom 
such  imitations  are  plainly  congenial. 
Nothing  could  be  more  uncongenial  to 
a  cat,  on  the  other  hand,  than  imita- 
tions of  human  beings. 

I  like  to  imagine  a  new  Gulliver  in 
Cat-Land,  put  through  his  paces  by 
inquisitive  cats.  What  an  unhappy 
and  unsuccessful  time  this  Gulliver 
would  have! 

In  Cat-Land  he  would  cut  a  sorry 
figure.  He  would  be  made  to  jump 
'blind,'  to  judge  distance  to  the 
fraction  of  an  inch,  to  climb,  to 
move  adroitly,  to  fend  for  himself  in 
primitive  surroundings,  to  catch  fish 
with  his  hands,  to  defend  himself 
against  the  aggression  of  menacing 
creatures  much  heavier  and  stronger 
than  himself.  By  cat-standards  poor 
Gulliver  would  fail  as  miserably  as  the 
cat  in  the  hands  of  the  human 
investigators. 

It  is  impossible  to  understand  cats 
on  the  strength  of  superficial  ac- 
quaintance. They  are  shy,  unobtru- 
sive creatures  who  prefer  solitude  to 
uncongenial  company.  Unlike  dogs, 
they  are  not  anxious  to  make  a  good 
impression.  In  the  cat's  personality 


there  is  aloofness,  pride  and  a  pro- 
found dignity.  Even  the  most  ordi- 
nary cat  has  a  touch  of  the  aristocrat. 
The  cat  does  not  ask  to  be  under- 
stood. The  blandishments  of  other 
more  sociable  animals  are  not  in  his 
line.  If  human  beings  are  so  foolish  as 
to  regard  him  as  the  social  inferior  of 
the  dog,  as  a  convenient  mousetrap 
and  nothing  else,  the  cat's  philosophy 
is  proof  against  such  injustice.  He 
goes  his  own  way,  blandly  indiflPerent 
to  human  folly.  It  is  not  his  business 
to  correct  it. 

Above  all,  the  cat  is  independent.  If 
he  chooses,  he  will  follow  you  around, 
play  with  you,  demonstrate  his  aflPec- 
tion;  but  try  to  exact  obedience  from  a 
cat  and  you  will  immediately  find  it  is 
not  forthcoming.  Even  Siamese  cats, 
who  are  more  responsive  than  other 
breeds,  will  refuse  to  do  what  they  are 
told.  If  I  say  to  my  dog,  'Come  here,' 
he  comes.  I  have  not  the  slightest 
doubt  that  my  cat  understands  me, 
but  unless  he  feels  like  it,  I  can  sum- 
mon him  in  vain. 

This  reluctance  to  obey — call  it 
perversity  if  you  will — is  responsible 
for  the  common  lack  of  appreciation 
of  the  cat.  His  disregard  of  us  and 
our  wishes  is  disagreeably  unflatter- 
ing. The  trouble  is  that  we  human 
beings  are  so  vain  that  we  look  upon 
the  habits  of  any  domestic  animal 
(of  course,  the  cat  is  not  truly  domes- 
ticated) as  being  specially  developed 
for  our  benefit.  The  dog  or  monkey 
who  will  fearn  mechanical  tricks  for 
the  reward  of  a  pat  on  the  head  or  a 
piece  of  sugar  is  acclaimed  for  his 
skill.  And  this  ability  to  understand 
and  obey  is  applauded  as  a  sign  of 
intelligence.  The  cat,  on  the  other 
hand,  applies  his  skill  and  intelligence 
to  his  own  purposes. 


/pjd                            AN  ENGLISH  MISCELLANY                            [339] 

Because  I  think  that  intelHgence  is  be  no  doubt  that  animals  exhibit  ac- 

something  more  than  the  abihty  to  tivities  which  are  obviously  not  me- 

understand  and  to  obey,  I  offer  this  chanical,  and  that  the  cat  is  one  of  the 

definition  of  animal  intelligence:  an  animals  which  can  learn  and  profit  by 

animaVs  ability  to  reason  and  act  for  experience.  The  extent  of  the  cat's 

itself,  in  any  situation  which  may  arise  intelligence  can  only  be  gauged,  in  my 

in  its  experience,  without  human  inter-  opinion,  by  close  observation  allied  to 

ference.  a  peculiar  sympathy  with  the  cat's 

Judged  by  this  standard,  the  cat  character.  That  is  where  the  scientists 
passes  with  distinction.  If  there  is  an  go  wrong.  A  detached  and  objective 
opportunist  in  the  animal  world,  it  attitude  towards  cats  is  likely  to  yield 
is  the  cat.  He  is  independent  and  re-  very  misleading  results;  and  although 
sourceful;  and  innumerable  stories  allowance  must  be  made  for  the  ex- 
have  been  told  by  such  expert  observ-  cessive  enthusiasm  of  the  cat-lover,  I 
ers  as  the  late  W.  H.  Hudson  which  am  convinced  that  the  cat  can  only  be 
confirm  the  view  that  the  cat  is  a  understood  and  appreciated  by  his 
highly  intelligent  animal.  There  can  friends. 


Seaside 
By  W.  H.  AuDEN 

From  the  Listener,  Weekly  Organ  of  the  British  Broadcasting  Corporation 

-L/OOK,  stranger,  at  this  island  now 

The  leaping  light  for  your  delight  discovers, 

Stand  stable  here 

And  silent  be, 

That  through  the  channels  of  the  ear 

May  wander  Hke  a  river 

The  swaying  sound  of  the  sea. 

Here  at  the  small  field's  ending  pause 

Where  the  chalk  wall  falls  to  the  foam,  and  its  tall  ledges 

Oppose  the  pluck 

And  knock  of  the  tide. 

And  the  shingle  scrambles  after  the  sucking  surf,  and  the  gull  lodges 

A  moment  on  its  sheer  side. 

Far  off  like  floating  seeds  the  ships 

Diverge  on  urgent  voluntary  errands; 

And  the  full  view 

Indeed  may  enter 

And  move  in  memory  as  now  these  clouds  do. 

That  pass  the  harbor  mirror 

And  all  the  summer  through  the  water  saunter. 


*.  .  .  All  at  once  he  felt  that  he  was 
afraid,    terribly,    desperately    afraid.* 


Mr.  Szabo 


By  ZsuzsA  T.  Thury 

Translated  from  the  Pester  Uoyd,  Budapest  German- 
Language  Daily 


1/RANz  Szabo,  a  superior  clerk  in  a 
large  business  office,  pulled  his  napkin 
through  the  bone  napkin  ring,  gave 
his  wife  a  kiss,  and  said,  '  Mablzeit!' 

Then  he  lay  down  on  the  couch, 
stretched  out  comfortably,  and  took 
up  the  newspaper.  He  read  the  edi- 
torial carefully,  but  merely  glanced 
over  the  items  about  foreign  and  do- 
mestic politics,  while  the  maid  cleared 
the  table  and  left  the  room.  Mr. 
Szabo  passed  the  paper  to  his  wife: — 

'Nothing  good  in  it.  The  whole 
world  is  nothing  but  misery,  nothing 
but  misery.' 

He  turned  toward  the  wall  and 
closed  his  eyes. 

The  paper  rustled  in  the  woman's 
hands,  but  otherwise  the  little  room 
was  quiet,  filled  with  the  sleepy  mood 
of  afternoon.  Not  without  anger, 
Szabo  realized  that  he  was  not  sleepy. 
He  thought  of  two  of  the  fellows  in  his 
office,  both  of  whom  had  received  let- 
ters that  morning.  The  one  had  turned 
pale  and  had  torn  the  envelope  open 
nervously,  staring  for  a  long  time,  dis- 


tracted and  silent,  at  the  few  lines  on 
the  sheet.  The  other  man  had  not  even 
opened  the  letter,  but  had  thrown  it 
on  the  desk.  'God  damn  the  whole  lot 
of  them,'  he  had  cursed.  'Are  we  to  die 
of  starvation  like  dogs.^  I  hope  the 
whole  world  is  stood  on  its  head  .  .   !' 

'Two  more  fellows  were  given  no- 
tice today,'  Szabo  said  aloud,  turning 
to  his  wife,  'Simonflfy  and  Gero.' 

Mrs.  Szabo  looked  expectantly  at 
her  husband.  He  said  importantly: — 

'That's  the  way  it  is  everywhere 
today.  Incidentally,  Simonffy  and 
Gero  have  only  been  with  the  com- 
pany for  a  relatively  -short  time. 
Neither  of  them  has  served  more  than 
twenty  years  .  .  .  Naturally  such  a 
surprise  can't  hit  the  old  officials.' 

Reassured,  Mrs.  Szabo  became  ab- 
sorbed in  her  newspaper  again.  Her 
husband  looked  at  his  watch:  half  past 
three.  He  still  had  a  little  less  than  an 
hour  left.  He  determined  to  fill  it  out 
with  sleep,  and  closed  his  eyes;  but  his 
inner  thoughts  continued. 

'To    tell    the    truth,    I    too    have 


MR.  SZABO 


changed  somewhat.  For  thirty  years  I 
have  slept  well,  now  I  can't  ...  It 
began  on  that  first  of  the  month,  when 
fifteen  employees  were  given  notice. 
None  was  prepared  for  it.  Of  course 
you  feel  sorry  for  the  men  you  have 
worked  with  for  decades  .  .  .  Inci- 
dentally it's  really  all  the  same,  this 
business  of  sleeping.  The  only  diflfer- 
ence  is  that  up  to  now  I  have  always 
slept  systematically,  while  now  sys- 
tematically I  don't  sleep  .  .  .' 

He  smiled  to  himself,  and  the 
corners  of  his  mouth  twitched.  He 
tried  to  control  this  twitching,  which 
seemed  suspiciously  like  trembling. 

'It  really  wouldn't  be  surprising  if 
I  got  nervous,'  he  thought.  'What 
will  those  two  poor  devils  do  now, 
Simonffy  and  Gero  ? ' 

He  felt  a  strange  unrest;  his  heart 
beat  under  his  open  waistcoat,  and  he 
could  not  go  on  lying  down.  He  rose 
and  stared  around  in  perplexity. 
Where  should  he  go  now;  what  should 
he  do?  For  thirty  years  his  wife  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  waking  him  every 
day  at  five  o'clock.  Mr.  Szabo  strode 
to  the  door. 

'I'll  go  down  and  have  a  Uttle 
walk,'  he  called  back  from  the  door.  *  I 
think  I  have  eaten  a  little  too  much.* 

The  following  morning,  when, 
promptly  at  eight  o'clock,  Szabo  en- 
tered his  office,  he  was  beset  from  all 
sides  with  questions: — 

'What  do  you  say?  Do  you  know 
already?  Poor  Simonffy!' 

From  the  confused  hubbub  of  inter- 
jections he  gradually  grasped  the  fact 
that  Simonffy,  the  always  quarrel- 
some Simonffy,  had  fired  a  bullet  into 
his  chest.  Now  he  lay  delirious  in  the 
hospital;  but  the  doctors  said  his  life 
was  not  in  danger:  he  would  survive. 

Szabo    turned    to    his    work    and 


thought  of  Simonffy,  but  only  mechan- 
ically, with  no  real  feeling  of  pity. 
Well,  it  was  an  infamous  world  these 
days,  real  warfare.  One  man  falls,  an- 
other survives  unscathed.  Those  under 
safe  cover  or  behind  the  front  cannot 
bother  about  the  whisthng  of  the 
bullets,  the  thunder  of  the  cannon,  the 
moans  of  the  dying.  The  best  thing  is 
to  plug  up  one's  ears  so  as  not  to  hear 
anything.  That's  the  way  the  world  is 
today,  and  there's  no  help  for  it  .  .  . 

'  Mr.  Szabo,  will  you  come  in  my  of- 
fice a  minute?'  the  voice  of  the  boss 
was  suddenly  heard.  Szabo  winced. 
Something  gripped  his  heart,  and  he 
was  hardly  able  to  rise. 

'Please  answer  these  letters,  Mr. 
Szabo,  and  then  send  the  mail  in  to 
me.' 

'Yes,  sir,  certainly.' 

Gradually  he  quieted  down  and 
began  to  read  the  letters.  But  unrest 
had  already  gained  a  hold  in  his  breast 
and  gave  him  small,  cruel  pangs. 

'Nonsense.  I'm  seeing  ghosts  .  .  . 
Dependable  old  employees  aren't  dis- 
missed like  that,  without  any  warn- 
ing: "Mr.  Szabo,  kindly  pack  up  your 
things;  you  may  leave  now!"  .  .  .* 


II 


At  quarter  past  two  on  the  dot  he 
entered  his  apartment.  In  the  hall  he 
changed  his  street  coat  for  a  house 
jacket,  and  washed  his  hands  in  the 
bathroom.  During  dinner  he  reported 
the  day's  news,  including  Simonffy's 
attempt  at  suicide,  to  his  wife.  She  lis- 
tened to  him  in  silence.  Questions 
burned  in  her  eyes. 

'The  boss  called  me,'  Szabo  con- 
tinued. 'He  entrusted  me  with  the 
handling  of  some  very  important  let- 
ters; it  takes  an  expert  to  do  that,  you 


[342] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


know.'  And  he  added,  *In  such  cases 
he  always  calls  on  me.' 

Why  had  he  said  that?  There  had 
only  been  a  few  unimportant  letters. 
He  had  wanted  to  calm  his  wife,  for 
horror  was  in  her  eyes.  As  he  lay  on 
the  divan,  sleepless  again  today,  he 
thought  about  the  reason  why  his  wife 
had  looked  so  horrified.  Did  she  really 
believe  that  he,  too,  might  be  given 
notice?  Nonsense  .  .  .  He  turned 
around  and  said: 

'Why  do  you  look  so  horrified,  my 
dear,  as  though  starvation  were  star- 
ing us  in  the  face?  I  can  tell  you  once 
and  for  all,  they  will  not  dismiss  me.' 

He  said  it  almost  at  the  top  of  his 
voice.  His  wife  looked  at  him,  scared 
to  death,  and  gave  no  answer.  Szabo 
closed  his  eyes.  He  no  longer  thought 
of  his  wife.  His  thoughts  went  their 
own  way,  without  any  discipline.  How 
would  it  be  if  someone  should  sud- 
denly ring  the  apartment  bell  .  .  .  ? 
A  messenger  from  the  office  is  looking 
for  you,  Mr.  Szabo;  he  has  a  letter  for 
you  .  .  .  Beginning  with  the  first  of 
next  month  we  must  regretfully  dis- 
pense with  your  further  services  .  .  . 
the  necessity  of  the  difficult  situation. 
.  .  .  Yes,  thank  you.  How  do  you  do, 
good-bye  .  .  .  Am  I  to  acknowledge 
receipt.  .  .  ?  What  was  he  to  do 
then?  Curse?  scream?  or  not  say  a 
word,  only  his  hand  trembling? 

All  at  once  he  definitely  felt  that  he 
was  afraid,  terribly,  desperately  afraid. 
What  would  tomorrow  bring,  what  the 
day  after?  What  would  happen  if  he 
lost  his  position?  The  pension  was 
ridiculously  small.  The  comfortable, 
happy,  petty  bourgeois  life  would  col- 
lapse .  .  .  But  it  was  altogether  out 
of  the  question.  He  had  always  been  a 
capable  and  conscientious  employee, 
honest    and    dependable.     Still  .  .  . 


Simonffy  and  Gero  had  been  that  too, 
as  had  been  the  others  who  had  been 
dismissed.  Well,  they  would  know  how 
to  help  themselves;  none  of  them  was 
important  to  him.  But  this  terrible 
fear  that  held  him  in  its  power,  grip- 
ping his  heart  in  its  iron  fist  and  dead- 
ening his  nerves! 

Ill 

From  now  on  Franz  Szabo  awoke 
every  morning  with  this  pressing  feel- 
ing of  fear.  His  anxiety  rose  as  he 
neared  his  office,  and  was  allayed  only 
slightly  when  he  sat  at  his  customary 
old  desk  and  bent  over  his  work.  This 
feehng  grew  into  definite  and  unmis- 
takable horror  when  the  boss  entered 
and  called  his  name.  The  quiet,  sleepy 
afternoon  came  alive  with  spooks  and 
ghosts,  nor  did  the  nightmare  leave 
him  when  he  went  to  bed  at  night, 
physically  and  mentally  exhausted. 
His  nights  were  sleepless;  the  darkness 
widened  his  imagination. 

'It  is  inexorable,'  he  thought  then, 
'perhaps  only  a  matter  of  days.  I  have 
been  working  in  that  office  for  thirty 
years  .  .  .  and  now  such  an  end! 
They  will  throw  me  out.' 

One  morning  he  got  up,  put  on  his 
slippers,  and  went  into  the  bathroom, 
where  he  washed  and  brushed  his 
teeth.  As  he  bent  his  head  back,  and 
the  water  in  his  throat  made  strange 
gargling  noises,  he  remembered  how, 
when  he  and  his  wife  were  newly  weds, 
they  had  laughed  about  those  sounds. 

'What  opera  do  you  care  to  hear?' 
he  had  been  in  the  habit  of  asking. 
And  his  wife  had  always  replied: 
'Tosca!' 

They  were  the  same  gargling  sounds 
now.  And  the  maid  was  serving  break- 
fast in  the  dining-room — coffee  and 
sandwiches,  for  thirty  years  the  same 


193^ 


MR.  SZABO 


[343] 


morning  meal.  The  room,  too,  was  the 
same — the  pictures  on  the  wall,  the 
broken  cane  bottoms  of  the  chairs. 
Nothing  seemed  to  have  changed. 
Only  the  invisible  was  new  in  the 
apartment,  that  latent,  slowly  gnaw- 
ing unrest  of  which  no  one  knew. 

Szabo  returned  to  the  bedroom. 

*  I  am  ill,'  he  said,  and  sat  down.  *  I 
can't  bear  it  any  longer.  I  can't  bear 
it  .  .  .'  His  wife  put  him  to  bed.  She 
wanted  to  get  a  doctor,  but  he  would 
not  allow  it.  The  whole  thing  was 
trifling,  would  soon  be  over.  He  had 
slept  badly,  that  was  all. 

Mrs.  Szabo  went  to  the  market  with 
the  maid  to  buy  fruit  for  preserving, 
and  Szabo  remained  alone. 

'They  must  all  be  at  the  office  by 
now,'  it  passed  through  his  mind. 
'Even  the  boss.  Where  is  Szabo?  111? 
The  boss  would  certainly  reflect  that 
he  could  not  use  old  and  ill  employees. 
We  need  young  men  .  .  !'  It  was 
enough  to  drive  you  mad.  He  buried 
his  head  in  the  pillows  and  knew  that 
he  would  never  have  any  other 
thoughts  but  these  now,  never  live  in 
peace  and  quiet  again  .  .  . 

Feverishly  he  slipped  on  his  house 
jacket  and  stumbled  into  the  kitchen, 
locking  the  door  behind  him.  He 
opened  the  gas  jet  on  the  wall  and 
drew  a  halting  breath.  He  slipped  the 
rubber  hose  over  the  jet  and  put  it  in 
his  mouth.  Greedily  he  drew  in  the 
poison;  then  he  began  to  cough,  and 
sat  down  on  the  chair  before  the  stove. 
Gradually  the  smell  of  gas  spread  in 
the  kitchen,  and  Szabo  sat  there,  his 
limbs  dropping,  his  body  occasionally 
swaying  to  the  right  or  left. 


*It  would  be  a  good  thing  to  lie 
down,'  he  thought,  pushing  the  chair 
away  and  lying  down  on  the  tiles.  A 
strange  feeling  of  drunkenness  over- 
came him;  he  tried  to  open  his  eyes, 
but  could  not. 

'If  I  wanted  to  very  much,  I  could 
succeed,'  he  thought.  '  But  it  is  better 
Uke  this.' 

He  thought  that  it  would  have  been 
good  to  go  on  living.  In  another  way, 
to  be  sure,  without  fear  or  anxiety. 

The  gas  poured  through  the  rubber 
hose  in  dense,  heavy  quantities.  It  lay 
on  his  chest  and  strangled  him.  Szabo 
no  longer  felt  the  tiles  beneath  him. 

'  It  should  have  been  possible  to  live 
well  and  beautifully,'  distant  thoughts 
passed  through  his  mind.  'It  would 
have  been  fine  not  to  have  had  to  fear 
anything.  My  pension  does  not  mean 
the  future,  and  of  what  little  impor- 
tance is  my  future  ...  I  have  none 
at  all  ...  I  am  not  there  at  all.  Some 
unknown  force  has  sent  me  down  to 
earth  for  some  reason.  Me,  everyone, 
to  work  together.  .  .  .  For  the  sake  of 
a  common  retirement  salary  to  come 
...  I  was  unfit  for  this  work;  they 
gave  me  notice  ...  I  was  thrown 
out.' 

Under  his  closed  eyelids  he  had  the 
feeling  that  the  gas  was  growing 
denser  and  denser  around  him.  It  no 
longer  seemed  like  an  invisible  stream 
of  vapor  but  a  black  fog  through 
which  one  could  not  penetrate.  One 
ought  to  try  .  .  .  One  ought  to  try  to 
move  ...  But  then  he  failed  to 
move,  and,  dying,  smiled: — 

'If  I  wanted  to  very  much.  .  .  . 
But  it  is  better  so.' 


LETTERS  AND  THE  ARTS 


Nazi  Kultur 

IHOSE  who  follow  the  fate  of  art  in  all 
its  forms  throughout  the  world  have  long 
been  aware  that  it  does  not  flourish  under 
Fascist  dictatorships.  This  is  especially 
true  of  Germany,  which  was  once  in  the 
forefront  of  modern  art,  but  is  now  par- 
alyzed by  a  stagnation  that  has  almost 
entirely  extinguished  creative  activities. 
In  the  field  of  architecture,  for  instance, 
the  'International  Style,*  with  its  severely 
*  functional '  forms,  its  emphasis  on  spatial 
relationships  and  its  renunciation  of 
decorative  elements,  has  been  banished. 
In  its  place  the  Government  favors  un- 
inspired imitations  of  classical  models — 
buildings  somewhat  like  many  in  the 
Federal  Capital,  but  even  less  vigorous 
and  free.  Here  is  how  Paul  Westheim,  the 
exiled  editor  of  the  Kunstblatty  feels  about 
the  contemporary  architecture  of  his  na- 
tive land  (from  the  Neues  Tage-Bucb) : — 

*A  VISITOR  from  Germany  tells  of  a 
painting  he  saw  in  a  Berlin  exhibition:  "A 
fair  woman — Mother  Germania.  In  one 
hand  she  holds  the  model  of  a  village,  in 
the  other  a  bottle  containing  some  fluid. 
The  village  is  the  Soil;  the  fluid  in  the 
bottle  is  the  Blood." 

'"And  who  buys  such  stuflF?" 

'"Nobody.  The  painters  produce  it  in 
the  hope  that  it  will  be  regarded  as  the 
mythology  of  the  twentieth  century, 
bringing  them  at  least  a  mention  in  the 
papers.  The  better  artists,  the  luminaries 
of  the  Republic,  no  longer  exhibit  at  all  if 
they  can  help  it." 

'"Why?  It  is  their  right!" 

'"It  is.  But  to  exercise  it  is  a  diflferent 
matter.  Why  expose  oneself  to  annoy- 
ance? The  present  way  seems  to  serve 
toth  sides  best:  the  better  painters  do  not 
attract  unnecessary  attention,  are  not 
attacked,  and  do  not  run  the  danger  of 


having  their  pictures  seized.  And  the  new 
Nazi  luminaries  have  in  this  way  con- 
quered the  gallery  walls.  Only  no  one 
goes  to  see  the  conquered  walls  any  longer; 
or  rather  only  those  go  who  are  ordered  to: 
Nazi  cultural  groups  or  the  'Strength 
through  Joy*  organization.'* 

'"How  about  commissions?  If  I  recall, 
there  was  talk  in  Nuremberg  of  undertak- 
ing the  biggest  program  in  centuries?*' 

'"Commissions?  Yes,  indeed — decorat- 
ing armories.  One  could  almost  say  that 
the  Reichswehr  is  the  painters*  employ- 
ment agency.  Whoever  has  the  proper 
connections  with  the  Reichswehr  is  well 
off^ — Wolf  Rohricht,  for  example.  He  used 
to  exhibit  still-lives  of  calla  lilies  in  pre- 
Hitler  times.  Now  he  is  doing  splendidly. 
He  has  actually  specialized  as  a  barracks 
painter.'* 

'It  is  significant  that  when  an  enumera- 
tion of  the  various  "Great  Deeds*'  was 
made  last  January  painting  was  not 
even  mentioned.  "The  New  Architecture 
since  the  Resurgence*'  was  played  up  all 
the  more — with  the  appropriate  illustra- 
tions. 

'The  building  activities  are  enormous. 
Adolf  Hitler  believes  that  he  owes  this 
much  to  his  "legend.*'  Last  fall,  at  Nurem- 
berg, he  explained  that  a  people  is  remem- 
bered by  the  visible  monuments  it  leaves. 
Hence  the  mania  for  building:  in  Munich 
the  Party  Buildings,  the  Temple  of  Honor 
on  the  Konigsplatz,  the  House  of  German 
Art;  in  Nuremberg  the  Congress  Building; 
in  Berlin  the  Olympia  Forum,  the  Reich 
Air  Ministry,  the  New  Reichsbank,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  smaller  German  Halls, 
Thing  Forums,  etc. 

'  As  early  as  August  4,  1935,  the  Deutsche 
Allgemeine  Zeitung  called  this  a  "  Periclean 
Age,"  or,  to  be  exact,  an  "almost  Periclean 
Age."  This  term  seems  to  have  become  the 
official  Party  designation.  In  addition,  the 
Volkischer  Beobacbter  constantly  calls  the 


LETTERS  AND  THE  ARTS 


[345] 


Konigsplatz  in  Munich  "the  Acropolis  of 
the  Movement."  A  correspondent  for  the 
Basel  National-Zeitungy  evidently  an  ex- 
pert, offers  a  different  judgment  of  this 
Age  of  Pericles: — 

'"The  Konigsplatz,  praised  by  Wolfflin 
as  the  most  beautiful  of  its  kind  produced 
by  the  classic  period,  has  been  completely 
robbed  of  its  enchantment.  The  changes 
made  by  the  building  of  the  Party  struc- 
tures have  completely  destroyed  the  ro- 
mantic character  of  the  Square.  Countless 
German  architects  are  disturbed  as  an- 
cient beauty  is  here  destroyed  by  dilet- 
tantes. This  classic  Troost-Hitler  style 
shows  no  trace  of  the  'self-willed,  self- 
confident  features  of  a  new  style.'  Or 
even  of  'autochthonous  architecture.' 
Any  self-confidence  it  may  possess  is 
shown  merely  in  the  manner  in  which  the 
new  German  style  is  dictated;  and  the 
manner  in  which  the  classic  creations  in 
city  building  are  completed — or,  more 
correctly,  destroyed — is  indeed  self-willed, 
if  not  arbitrary.  For  the  rest  we  have  a 
dry  and  unimaginative  uniform  paste- 
board architecture,  anxiously  and  slav- 
ishly following  its  models." 

*A  closer  examination  of  the  multitude 
of  photographs  published  recently  shows 
the  same  barren  pattern  everywhere — in 
Nuremberg,  Munich  or  Berlin.  Formerly 
the  various  German  regions  took  great 
pride  in  the  native  peculiarities  of  their 
architecture.  Munich,  with  its  comfortable 
Gemiltlichkeit^  rejected  the  rationalism  of 
the  North.  Hamburg  wished  to  have 
nothing  in  common  with  the  curlicue 
sausage  ornamentation  of  the  so-called 
New  Dresden  Baroque.  This  regionalism 
is  at  a  complete  end  under  Hitler.  In 
North  and  South  there  is  the  same  uniform 
paste-board  architecture.  This  is  the  au- 
thoritarian Fiihrer  principle  in  architec- 
ture: a  "Court  of  Honor"  with  wings  to 
the  right  and  left,  the  main  feature  being  a 
surrounding  colonnade  up  to  300  feet  in 
length.  Always  the  same  court  with  the 
same  square  pillars,  as  though  turned  out 
on  the  assembly  line.  What  happens  be- 


hind these  pillars,  which  preferably  reach 
straight  up  to  the  roof,  is,  as  the  Basel 
National-Zeitung  says,  "unimaginably  in- 
sipid." 

'It  is  characteristic  that  this  alleged 
"New  Architecture  since  the  Resurgence" 
is  not  represented  by  a  single  new  architect 
of  any  importance.  Old  Troost  of  Munich, 
a  craftsman  who  served  the  rich  to  their 
taste  for  decades,  has  been  dug  out  from 
beneath  the  moth  balls  and  appointed  the 
"greatest  German  architect  since  Schin- 
kel."  The  remainder — Ruff  of  Nuremberg 
(who  has  recently  died),  and  Sagebiel,  who 
produced  the  Reich  Air  Ministry — are,  to 
put  it  in  the  politest  way,  architectural 
hacks.  Before  1933  Germany  was  rich  in 
significant  architectural  personalities,  and 
was  one  of  the  leading  countries  in  archi- 
tecture. Beside  Wright  in  America,  Oud  in 
Holland,  Loos  in  Vienna,  Perret,  Cor- 
busier  and  Garnier  in  France,  Germany 
could  place  dozens  who  were  creating  a 
new  architecture  out  of  the  space  ex- 
perience of  our  time:  Poelzig,  Behrens, 
Gropius,  Taut,  Mies  van  der  Rohe,  Men- 
delsohn, Charoun,  Docker — one  could  go 
on  enumerating  them  for  hours.  In  the 
entire  world  there  never  has  been  an  archi- 
tectural style  that  did  not  produce  a 
characteristic  and  well-defined  architec- 
tural personality — ^unless  it  be  the  kind  of 
style  subsequently  called  "decadent"  by 
history.  The  new  paste-board  architecture 
has  been  unable  to  bring  to  the  fore  even 
a  single  half-way  representative  architect. 
All  the  same  it  is  "autochthonous"  and 
"  Periclean." ' 

WORDINESS  and  grandiloquence— these 
additional  symptoms  of  countries  where 
freedom  of  thought  and  expression  no 
longer  exist !  Grandiose  phrases  invariably 
hide  the  fact  that  there  is  nothing  to  say. 
UEtat — c'est  moiy  whether  it  be  Stalin, 
Mussolini  or  Hitler.  Whatever  a  dicta- 
torial government  does,  however  perni- 
cious and  erroneous  its  acts  may  be,  they 
must  be  spoken  of  in  terms  of  praise — 
supplied  by  headquarters,  mind  you.  The 


[346] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


press  in  Russia  is  for  the  most  part  con- 
trolled, that  of  Italy  and  Germany  strictly 
so.  Only  the  German  Frankfurter  Zeitung 
occupies  a  peculiar  position.  This  news- 
paper belongs  to  the  great  German  Dye 
Trust,  the  I.  G.  Farbenindustrie,  and  it 
remains  today  the  only  organ  which  re- 
tains the  privilege  of  dropping  a  word  of 
criticism  about  the  Fiihrer  now  and  then. 
Usually  such  criticism  is  disguised,  or 
buried  on  an  inside  page.  But  it  is  evident 
to  the  acute  observer  all  the  same. 

In  general  the  method  is  to  open  an 
article  with  a  deep  obeisance  to  the  new 
doctrine  of  salvation:  Allah  is  Allah  and 
Hitler  is  his  prophet.  There  follows  a 
complaint  about  the  viciousness  of  the 
western  Powers  and  their  distrust  of  the 
peaceful  intentions  of  the  Fiihrer,  whose 
'immoderate  rearmament  policy'  (a  mere 
boyish  prank,  of  course)  has  'brought 
Germany  to  the  brink  of  bankruptcy'  and 
who  (still  carrying  on  the  fun)  keeps 
prisoner  the  'bravest  of  all  German 
apostles  of  peace' — Carl  von  Ossietzky! 

But  when  this  lip  service  to  the  Fiihrer 
has  been  rendered,  the  Frankfurter  Zei- 
tung^ drawing  on  its  intimate  acquaintance 
with  German  economy,  generally  ex- 
presses a  few  apprehensions  which  indicate 
that  the  actual  state  of  affairs  is  somewhat 
different  from  what  it  is  usually  repre- 
sented to  be. 

To  give  a  few  examples:  when  recently 
there  was  a  hint  that  sanctions  might  be 
applied  to  Germany,  the  Frankfurter 
Zeitung  made  a  remarkably  frank  admis- 
sion. It  said  that  the  response  to  sanctions 
differed  among  the  various  countries. 
'While  sanctions  against  Italy  have  re- 
sulted in  a  disturbance  of  Italy's  eco- 
nomic relations  with  the  rest  of  the  world, 
they  could  only  result  in  utter  ruin  for 
Germany.'  (The  italics  are  in  the  original.) 

In  addition  to  serious  criticism,  the 
Frankfurter  Zeitung  occasionally  pokes  sly 
fun  at  the  Government.  The  following 
dispatch  was  published  without  com- 
ment, but  it  is  hard  to  believe  that  the 
editor  who  passed  it  on  to  the  composing 


room  was  not  laughing  up  his  sleeve  as  he 
did  so: — 

'Next  Sunday  the  people  of  the  city  of 
Brunswick  will  eat  their  One-Dish-Meal 
in  common.  The  local  Party  groups  will 
assemble  at  specific  points  and  march  to 
the  city's  armories,  led  by  bands.  There 
soldiers  will  serve  the  meal  in  canteens. 
Every  participant  must  bring  plate  and 
spoon.  It  is  requested  that  during  the 
march  the  spoon  be  worn  in  the  button- 
hole.' 

If  the  Frankfurter  Zeitung  is  permitted  a 
measure  of  free  expression,  this  is  not  the 
case  with  the  Berliner  Tageblatt.  Though 
not  a  Party  publication,  this  old  Berlin 
newspaper,  with  a  long  tradition  of  inde- 
pendent journalism  behind  it,  is  under 
effective  Government  control.  Yet  here, 
too,  a  note  of  frivolity — to  say  the  least — 
recently  appeared.  The  well-known  dra- 
matic critic  Herbert  Jhering — once  the 
champion  of  the  Left-wing  theatre,  but 
more  recently  a  convert  to  Mr.  Goebbels' 
ideas  of  culture — broke  out  in  a  sarcastic 
Monologue  of  an  Awakened  Sleeper.  Com- 
menting upon  the  theatrical  offerings  in 
Berlin,  Jhering  wrote: — 

'  If  a  man  were  to  awake  from  a  long  and 
deep  slumber,  and  view  the  Berlin  stage, 
what  year  would  he  think  it  was?  The 
answer  is  1900.  "Ah,"  he  would  say,  "it 
seems  that  Sudermann  has  written  a  new 
play.  Die  Scbmetterlingsschlacbt^  when 
everybody  thought  he  would  stop  with 
Die  Ehre.  And  Gerhart  Hauptmann,  too, 
has  done  something  new,  Michael  Kramer! 
And  here  is  Ibsen's  Peer  Gynt.  A  man 
by  the  name  of  Shaw  has  written  a 
Candidal  Think  of  it,  nothing  but  new 
authors!  Nothing  but  new  plays!" 

'Thus  would  a  man  awakening  from 
his  slumber  speak;  and  he  would  go  his 
way  in  joyous  excitement,  fully  convinced 
that  Berlin  is  still  the  city  of  premieres^ 
first  nights  and  the  most  modern  plays. 
Having  been  asleep  for  thirty-six  years,  he 
would  believe  that  only  one  night  had 
passed.  He  would,  however,  not  be  a 
producer.' 


193^ 


LETTERS  AND  THE  ARTS 


[347] 


Jhering  seems  to  be  on  good  terms  with 
the  Propaganda  Ministry,  but  even  so  one 
wonders  if  he  will  get  away  with  this. 

AS  IS  fairly  well  known,  the  German  book 
stores,  publishing  houses  and  libraries 
have  been  constantly  raided  ever  since 
Hitler's  advent  to  power.  Since  the  burn- 
ing of  the  books  a  '  cold  boycott '  has  been 
exercised,  consisting  of  issuing  more  or 
less  official  black  lists,  labeled  'strictly 
confidential.'  Achim  Altz,  in  Otto  Stras- 
ser's  Prague  publication,  Die  Deutsche 
Revolution^  gives  some  information  about 
the  latest  developments  in  the  field. 

These  lists,  of  course,  barred  the  works 
of  *  Marxists,  Jews,  and  traitors'  from  the 
very  beginning.  Lately,  however,  innu- 
merable authors  of  world  fame  have  begun 
to  be  included,  authors  to  whom  the  afore- 
mentioned epithets  cannot  possibly  be 
applied.  Nevertheless  these,  too,  are  to  be 
denied  to  the  German  readers.  It  appears 
that  many  librarians  are  ignoring  these 
lists  all  the  same,  and  are  continuing  to 
circulate  books  which,  though  frowned 
upon,  are  still  being  demanded  by  their 
dissatisfied  and  insistent  readers. 

Frank  Wedekind,  Guy  de  Maupassant, 
Balzac  and  Zola  are  on  this  index.  The  case 
of  Zola  is  of  considerable  interest.  The 
Nazis  at  one  time  actually  enlisted  him  as 
one  of  their  own  and  hooted  at  over- 
zealous  librarians  who  had  consigned  the 
great  Frenchman  to  the  locked  bookcase. 
But  today  Zola  is  once  more  anathema. 

When  Goebbels  started  his  'anti- 
hypocrite'  campaign,  there  were  stirrings 
among  librarians,  who  resented  being 
called  hypocrites  and  who  remembered 
their  great  old  tradition  of  freedom  of 
thought.  But  all  that  is  long  since  for- 
gotten. Libraries  in  Germany  have  sunk 
to  the  lowest  possible  standard.  They 
carry  chiefly  Party  literature  and  fare 
suitable  for  morons  and  adolescents. 

Hermann  Hesse,  one  of  Germany's 
finest  and  most  cultivated  writers,  has  been 
banned,  as  have  been  Romain  Rolland, 
Andre  Gide,  Jean  Giono,  James  Joyce, 


Theodore  Dreiser,  and  Richard  Hughes. 
Others  included  are  D.  H.  Lawrence,  H.  D. 
Wells,  J.  B,  Priestley,  Alfred  Neumann, 
Leonhard  Frank,  Thomas  Mann,  and 
Franz  Werfel.  Foreign  names  are  con- 
spicuous on  the  lists,  confirming  the  im- 
pression that  the  Nazis  are  deliberately 
isolating  Germany  from  the  main  streams 
of  European  culture.  No  sense  or  system  is 
evident  in  the  selection  of  names,  and 
even  the  flimsiest  pretexts  are  dispensed 
with. 

Until  1935  a  number  of  books  of  pro- 
nounced Socialist  tinge  were  tolerated. 
There  was,  for  example,  the  Memoirs  of  a 
Socialist,  by  Lily  Braun,  a  book  that  had 
been  widely  read.  As  late  as  1934  the 
Nazis  denied  the  Socialistic  character  of 
this  book  and  maintained  that,  on  the 
contrary,  it  was  a  forerunner  of  Nazi 
ideas.  In  addition  they  attacked,  in  a 
moment  of  expansiveness,  the  theory 
that  every  book  smacking  of  Socialism 
must  be  rooted  out,  pointing  to  the  revo- 
lutionary and  Socialistic  character  of 
Nazi  ideology.  Now  that  book  has  been 
banned,  too,  as  have  those  of  Moeller  van 
den  Bruck  and  Ernst  Jiinger,  from  which 
the  Nazis  have  taken  more  than  one  idea. 
Today,  with  a  new  and  strongly  bourgeois 
trend  evident  in  the  Nazi  Movement, 
these  older  and  more  intelligent  Nazi 
writers  are  too  dangerous  to  be  tolerated. 
In  the  case  of  a  considerable  number  of 
authors  the  critic  is  entirely  at  a  loss  to 
explain  their  exclusion.  These  include: 
Rabindranath  Tagore,  Jules  Romains, 
Baudelaire,  Anatole  France,  Marcel 
Proust,  Pirandello,  Hemingway,  Huxley, 
Claude  Anet,  Colette,  and  such  harmless 
native  writers  as  Bonsels  and  Rosegger. 

The  facts  speak  for  themselves,  and  any 
further  comment  would  be  supereroga- 
tory. What  will  become  of  a  generation 
brought  up  solely  on  the  tirades  of  Rosen- 
berg and  Goebbels  ?  And  what  will  a  coun- 
try look  like  in  the  future  that  is  denied  so 
many  of  the  things  that  make  life  beauti- 
ful and  worth  living? 

— Ruth  Norden 


AS  OTHERS  SEE  US 


Th 


Inhuman  America 


.HROUGHOUT  Europe  the  events 
of  the  last  days  of  Bruno  Richard 
Hauptmann's  hfe  aroused  the  bitter- 
est criticism  of  American  methods  and 
customs.  Here,  for  instance,  is  the  out- 
cry of  Louis  Martin-Chauffier,  pub- 
lished in  the  Paris  topical  weekly  Vu 
a  day  or  so  after  the  execution: — 

Whether  Hauptmann  was  innocent  or 
guilty  of  the  murder  of  the  Lindbergh 
child  is  another  case — one  which  now 
seems  as  far  from  being  ended  as  it  is  from 
being  explained.  Meanwhile  it  threatens 
to  divide  the  United  States  into  two 
camps,  with  much  use  of  printing  presses, 
loud-speakers  and  microphones  on  both 
sides.  America  loves  these  doubtful  cases, 
these  flagrant  injustices  which  make  such 
good  subjects  for  discussions  and  bets, 
which  provide  such  good  copy  for  extras, 
enrich  the  Hearsts,  put  money  into  circu- 
lation, fill  body  and  spirit  with  a  fine  in- 
toxication, and  even  eclipse  for  a  time  the 
glory  of  Joe  Louis,  Father  Coughlin  and 
the  Black  Prophet,  Father  Divine. 

This  wave  of  publicity,  stimulated  by 
all  these  exploiters  of  an  infantile  public, 
does  not  deceive  us  in  the  least.  It  is  not 
merely  an  exploitation  to  the  full  of  a 
scandal  in  American  taste,  indulged  in  on 
the  margin  of  more  serious  questions;  it  is 
actually  their  way  of  dealing  with  serious 
questions.  This  steeplechase  race  between 
Governor  Hoffmann,  who  doubts,  and  At- 
torney General  Willentz,  who  is  sure  of 
Hauptmann's  guilt,  is  carried  on  with 
nothing  less  in  view  than  the  Presidency 
of  the  Republic.  The  policy  of  the  United 
States  for  four  years  will  be  determined 
not  by  the  triumph  of  justice  or  injustice 
but  rather  by  the  respective  skill  of  Re- 
publicans and  Democrats  in  exciting  the 
passions  of  the  mob,  in  multiplying  the 


scandals  and  in  sustaining  the  general 
nervous  tension.  Babbitt  is  nothing  much, 
even  in  his  right  mind,  but  that  is  not 
enough  for  his  masters:  he  is  of  no  use  to 
them  except  when  he  is  beside  himself, 
half-mad,  half-brutalized. 

Here  we  arrive  at  the  true  trial,  in 
which  Hauptmann  is  no  longer  the  de- 
fendant but  the  victim,  where  the  de- 
fendant, or  the  guilty  one,  is  American 
justice,  American  pwlitics,  American  pub- 
lic opinion,  American  mentality. 

This  is  the  third  time  in  ten  years  that 
the  whole  world  has  been  horrified  by  the 
savagery  of  America.  First,  Sacco  and 
Vanzetti,  the  innocent  anarchists,  guilty 
only  of  having  Communist  support;  then 
the  Scottsboro  Negroes,  also  innocent, 
guilty  only  of  being  black;  and  lastly 
Hauptmann,  who  might  have  been  either 
innocent  or  guilty,  but  whose  punishment 
was  more  atrocious  than  his  crime. 

All  three  cases  have  one  common  ele- 
ment which  may  well  fill  the  world  with 
horror:  the  meting  out  of  justice  with  in- 
herent bad  faith,  the  blind  routine  of  the 
law — these  felon-magistrates  take  care  to 
pay  due  respect  to  the  letter  of  the  law 
while  they  deliberately  violate  its  spirit — 
is  followed  by  failure  to  carry  out  promptly 
the  trumped-up  verdict.  And  the  victim's 
punishment  is  made  even  harder  by  many 
futile  reprieves — the  last  gasps  of  an  al- 
most defunct  conscience. 

The  condemned  man  sees  death  ap- 
proaching and  withdrawing  again;  his  tor*, 
mentors  let  him  hope,  then  they  condemn 
him  again,  .only  to  give  him  another 
reprieve.  When  the  law  has  condemned  a 
man  to  death,  if  he  is  led  to  his  punish- 
ment three  times,  if  he  is  made  to  live  his 
last  moments  three  times  over,  it  is  clear 
that  he  has  been  murdered  on  two  of  the 
three  occasions. 

It  seems  that  with  time  the  game  is  be- 
ing perfected.  In  the  beginning  its  interest 


AS  OTHERS  SEE  US 


[349I 


lay  chiefly  in  its  duration:  Sacco  and  Van- 
zetti  remained  in  prison  six  years  before 
the  executioner  pressed  the  button. 
Hauptmann  stayed  in  his  prison  less  than 
two  years;  but  in  his  case  refinement  of 
torture  was  added  to  intensity;  the  re- 
prieve would  arrive  at  the  very  last  mo- 
ment, when  the  victim  was  already  dressed 
for  execution,  after  he  had  already  bade 
farewell  to  life.  The  reprieve  is  not  given 
in  anticipation  of  a  pardon,  but  merely  in 
order  to  prolong  the  game.  Three  days 
later  this  living  dead  man  dies  for  good, 
just  when  his  guilt  has  become  more 
doubtful  than  ever. 

All  this  gives  the  papers  a  magnificent 
opportunity  to  sell  their  extras  by  the  mil- 
hon.  As  for  the  people,  impassioned  by  the 
game,  maddened  by  the  sight  of  suffering, 
ravished  by  this  escape  from  their  own 
worries  and  misery,  these  people  who  toss 
up  a  coin  to  decide  Hauptmann's  life  or 
death — they  have  been  given  two  delirious 
days,  which  each  one  of  them  will  remem- 
ber to  his  last  hour.  Americans  are  a 
spoiled  people. 

INHUMAN.  That  is  just  the  word  with 
which  to  brand  this  society,  which  one 
would  not  venture  to  call  civilized.  Too 
rapid  a  material  progress,  a  madness  of 
overproduction,  speculation,  profits  and 
the  comforts  of  life.  A  fool's  prosperity, 
founded  on  faith  and  not  on  fact.  In  the 
midst  of  this  abundance,  this  illusion  of 
false  youth  and  false  wealth,  the  Ameri- 
can, mechanized,  forced  into  an  ever 
quickening  tempo,  confused  by  it  all,  but 
never  stopping  his  mad  activity  as  busi- 
nessman, journalist,  sweatshop  worker 
except  to  plunge  into  noisy  pleasures,  has 
been  avoiding  all  spiritual  life.  His  very 
soul  had  been  given  over  to  the  wildest 
prophets,  to  fanaticism  of  the  most 
grossly  illiterate  sort.  And  yet  America 
has  been  showing  the  world  the  most  in- 
solent and  beatific  pride  possible — pride  in 
having  the  highest  skyscrapers,  the  great- 
est factories,  the  most  millionaires,  more 


automobiles  than  drivers,  more  accidents 
on  the  roads,  more  three-headed  calves, 
more  laws,  more  bandits,  more  sects,  more 
champions  and  more  nudists  than  any- 
body else.  For  the  American,  patriotism 
was  not  emotion  but  statistics,  religion 
not  an  exhaltation  but  a  frenzy,  justice 
not  an  application  of  the  laws  but  a  giving 
away  of  offices,  politics  an  appendage  to 
business,  and  virtue  an  advertisement  for 
trumped-up  products. 

Now  that  their  machine  has  gone  mad, 
and  has  taken  to  running  free  or  in  re- 
verse, to  swallowing  sausages  so  that  a  pig 
may  come  out  of  the  other  end,  how  will 
these  poor  marionettes,  whose  threads  have 
been  all  mixed  up,  ever  be  able  to  stop 
being  marionettes  and  become  humans? 
How  will  they  ever  be  able  to  see  a  matter 
of  life  and  death  as  anything  but  an  excit- 
ing, mechanical  game?  If  the  Hauptmann 
aflFair  has  any  reverberations,  it  will  not  be 
because  it  awakes  in  their  souls  any  desire 
for  justice,  or  even  for  certainty;  it  will 
only  be  because  this  affair  has  become  a 
match  between  two  parties  which  have 
risked  their  fortune  and  their  power  in  it. 

Such  is  the  sad  spectacle  that  America 
offers  the  world.  This  is  what  she  has  to 
show;  what  she  exports  as  her  national 
product.  Of  course,  there  are  better  things 
in  America:  men  who  are  able  to  think, 
who  are  wise  and  just,  universities  in  full 
spiritual  and  cultural  flower,  simple,  men 
with  plenty  of  commonsense,  who  are 
more  than  just  Babbitts  in  their  right 
minds.  Why  do  we  never  hear  anything  of 
them  ?  Because  how  could  they  ever  show 
themselves,  all  alone,  at  this  gigantic  free- 
for-all,  at  which  they  can  only  tremble? 

These  wiser  ones  know  that  they  are  as 
yet  merely  children.  The  others,  whose 
howling  can  be  heard  across  the  ocean,  be- 
lieve it  too,  and  flaunt  their  youth 
abroad.  But  youth  is  exactly  what  they 
lack.  Once,  indeed,  they  were  young;  but 
now  they  are  dead.  The  empty  noise  which 
they  go  on  making  should  make  good 
sound  effects  for  the  Chaplin  film. 


BOOKS   ABROAD 


The  Great  Failure 

A  History  of  the  German  Republic. 
By  Arthur  Rosenberg.  London:  Methuen. 
1936. 

(John  Hallett  in  the  Sunday  'Times,  London) 

'T^HE  Weimar  Republic  must  on  any 
showing  be  written  down  as  one  of  the 
great  failures  of  history.  Nobody  standing 
so  near  to  it  in  time,  and  above  all  nobody 
who  himself  participated  in  its  affairs,  can 
be  expected  to  write  of  it,  from  whatever 
standpoint,  without  bitterness.  Dr.  Rosen- 
berg, now  an  exile  in  this  country,  was 
once  a  member  of  the  Reichstag,  and  writes 
as  a  Left-wing  Social  Democrat.  His  preju- 
dices are  undisguised  but  not  excessive. 
This  is  a  balanced,  though  admittedly  not 
impartial,  history  of  the  German  Republic. 

There  is  always  a  certain  ghoulish  ex- 
citement about  a  post-mortem,  particu- 
larly when  accusations  of  murder  have 
been  freely  bandied  about;  and  for  Ger- 
many's former  enemies  this  particular  in- 
quiry involves  the  question  of  their  own 
responsibilities.  Did  the  Weimar  Republic 
succumb  to  natural  causes?  Or  was  it 
foully  murdered  by  traitors  within  ?  Or  did 
it  die  of  the  Treaty  of  Versailles? 

As  a  good  party  man.  Dr.  Rosenberg 
leans  to  the  hypothesis  of  murder.  Al- 
though he  has  many  bitter  words  for  the 
Social  Democrats,  he  regards  their  policy 
on  all  essential  points  as  mistaken  but 
honest;  and  it  is  of  course  true  that  after 
the  death  of  Stresemann  they  were  the 
only  sincere  defenders  (poor  defenders  at 
that!)  of  the  Weimar  Constitution. 

The  Reichswehr,  on  the  other  hand, 
were  outwardly  loyal  to  the  Republic  only 
so  long  as  it  suited  their  purpose.  Every 
Government  was,  in  the  last  resort,  sub- 
ject to  the  veto  of  a  military  clique,  though 
that  veto  was  seldom  exercised  except  in 
directly  military  matters;  and  the  Reichs- 


wehr, for  reasons  of  their  own,  counte- 
nanced and  encouraged  the  private  armies 
which  were  more  or  less  openly  hostile  to 
the  Republic.  When  the  Ebert  Govern- 
ment of  1919  permitted  the  reconstruction 
of  the  Reichswehr  for  the  purpose  of  main- 
taining public  order,  the  Republic  ob- 
tained not  a  servant  but  a  master. 

But  the  role  of  chief  murderer  is  as- 
signed by  Dr.  Rosenberg  not  to  the  Reichs- 
wehr, but  to  the  capitalists.  He  has  a 
high  regard  for  Stresemann,  of  whose  skill 
and  courage  he  speaks  in  almost  glowing 
terms.  But  Stresemann,  in  his  view,  occu- 
pied a  fundamentally  false  position.  He 
attempted  to  reconcile  loyalty  to  the  capi- 
talists with  loyalty  to  the  Weimar  Repub- 
lic. The  capitalists  tolerated  the  Republic 
so  long  as  they  could  enjoy  the  sweets 
first  of  inflation  and  then  of  the  Dawes 
period,  when  American  loans  poured  al- 
most unasked  into  their  pockets.  When 
these  halcyon  days  were  over,  they  had 
no  hesitation  in  stabbing  the  regime  in  the 
back,  using  first  Dr.  Briining  and  later 
Herr  Hitler  as  their  instrument. 

Dr.  Rosenberg  is  presumably  a  Marxist 
(though  it  is  strange  to  find  a  Marxist 
bracketing  Lassalle,  as  he  does  in  two 
places,  with  Marx  and  Engels),  and  there- 
fore bound  by  his  creed  to  adopt  the  slogan 
'  Le  capitalisme^  wild,  renemi*  But  in 
p)oint  of  fact  his  denunciation  of  the  capi- 
talists is  the  most  superficial  part  of  the 
book.  When  he  writes  of  'war  guilt,'  he 
sees  readily  enough  that  something  more 
fundamental  is  at  stake  than  the  ambition 
or  the  perversity  of  a  few  individuals. 
But  when  he  comes  to  deal  with  the  in- 
flation, he  is  content  to  attribute  every- 
thing to  the  machinations  of  the  wicked 
capitalists. 

He  shows,  moreover,  something  less 
than  his  usual  fairness  when  he  describes 
'the  German  wage  and  salary  earners'  as 
the  'chief  sufferers  from   the  inflation.' 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[35 1] 


The  most  disastrous  social  consequence 
of  the  inflation  was  surely  what  Strese- 
mann  once  called  the  'proletarianization 
of  the  middle  class.'  It  was  from  this  un- 
classed  bourgeoisie,  this  new  proletariat, 
which  hated  Marxism,  which  hated  the 
Jews  (as  the  real  proletariat  never  did), 
and  which  shared  the  fate  without  sharing 
the  outlook  of  the  working  class  that  Na- 
tional Socialism  eventually  drew  the  great 
majority  of  its  recruits. 

In  his  treatment  of  domestic  affairs,  Dr. 
Rosenberg's  point  of  view,  whether  ac- 
cepted or  not,  is  always  clear  and  in- 
cisively put.  On  the  question  of  the  part 
played  by  the  Versailles  treaty  in  the 
downfall  of  the  Weimar  Republic,  he  is 
more  inclined  to  waver.  He  does  not  sum 
up,  and  the  reader  must  form  his  own 
conclusions. 

On  the  one  hand  he  points  out  rightly 
enough  that  whereas  in  18 15  the  states- 
men of  Vienna  showed  every  possible 
tenderness  for  the  restored  French  mon- 
archy, the  victors  of  191 8  did  not  display 
the  same  farseeing  prudence.  'The  policy 
of  the  French,  especially,  made  life  im- 
possible for  every  single  republican  or 
democratic  Government  in  Germany.' 
He  shrewdly  remarks  that  the  prohibition 
on  conscription  and  the  rigorous  limita- 
tion of  the  size  of  the  Reichswehr  were 
the  direct  cause  of  the  growth  of  those  pri- 
vate armies  which  proved  fatal  to  the  de- 
velopment of  an  orderly  political  life  in 
Germany. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  rather  surpris- 
ingly rejects  the  theory  that  'the  nation, 
and  especially  the  younger  generations, 
were  oppressed  by  a  feeling  of  national  in- 
feriority, and  that  the  political  changes 
that  have  taken  place  since  1930  are  trace- 
able in  their  ultimate  origins  to  this  in- 
feriority complex.' 

Here  Dr.  Rosenberg  has,  we  think,  defi- 
nitely been  led  astray  by  his  desire  to 
deprive  the  Hitler  regime  of  its  basis  in  a 
genuine  and  deeply  felt  national  grievance. 
During  the  years  from  Locarno  to  the 
death  of  Stresemann  this  complex  was 


successfully  exorcised,  because  Germany 
seemed,  during  this  heyday  of  interna- 
tional cooperation,  well  on  the  way  to 
regain  her  equality.  But  with  the  collapse 
of  this  policy  in  1930,  the  demand  for 
'equality  of  rights'  became  once  more 
passionate  and  insistent. 

That  the  'ultimate  origins'  of  the  pres- 
ent regime  in  Germany  included  other 
factors  nobody  will,  of  course,  deny.  The 
reading  of  Dr.  Rosenberg's  history  with 
its  terrible  record  of  internal  discords  and 
divisions  tempts  one  to  suspect  that  the 
greatest  of  them  all  was  the  desire  for 
national  unity.  Throughout  the  nineteenth 
century,  until  the  days  of  Bismarck, 
democracy  and  national  unity  were  the 
two  inseparable  slogans  of  the  German 
progressive  movement.  Bismarck  sacri- 
ficed democracy  to  unity.  The  Weimar  Re- 
public made  a  fetish  of  democracy,  and 
cared  little  for  unity.  Above  and  beyond  the 
interminable  party  divisions,  successive 
republican  governments  found  themselves 
paralyzed  by  the  inveterate  separatism 
of  the  larger  States.  Prussia,  Bavaria, 
and  Saxony  all  clung  jealously  to  their 
prerogatives  while  facing  the  Reich  with 
exorbitant  financial  demands  for  their 
upkeep. 

The  realization  of  unity,  though  once 
more  at  the  expense  of  democracy,  is  per- 
haps the  most  solid  achievement  of  the 
Nazi  regime.  The  States  have  disappeared, 
and  all  divergences  have  been  obliterated 
beneath  a  good  thick  coating  of  brown 
paint.  Will  this  uniformity  be  permanent? 
Or  will  the  ominous  fissures  reappear 
when  the  paint  begins  to  lose  its  freshness? 
That  is  a  question  which  only  history  can 
answer. 

Science  in  the  U.  S.  S.  R. 

Soviet  Science.  By  J.  G.  Crowther.  Lon- 
don: Kegan  Paul.  1^36. 

(C.  P.  Snow  in  the  Spectator,  London) 

jB  Y  AN  odd  chance,  the  most  famous 

scientist  both  in  Germany  and  Russia 

found  himself  in  bitter  opposition  to  his 


[35^] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


country's  revolution.  Einstein  escaped  at 
the  beginning  of  the  Nazi  regime,  ac- 
cepted with  a  pleasing  but  bewildering 
impartiality  a  Studentship  at  Christ 
Church  as  well  as  chairs  at  Madrid  and 
Constantinople,  and  finally  arrived  at  the 
Mathematical  Institute  at  Princeton. 
Meanwhile  his  countrymen  dedicated  the 
new  department  at  Heidelberg  to  the  dis- 
proving of  his  discoveries.  Pavlov  stayed 
in  Russia;  he  behaved  not  so  much  with 
dignity  as  with  the  Slavonic  buffoonery 
that  comes  from  the  same  emotional  source 
and  produces  almost  the  same  effect;  he 
crossed  himself  in  front  of  churches,  or  the 
sites  of  churches  now  transformed,  and 
sometimes  invented  the  sites  in  order  to 
perform  the  gesture;  he  made  a  point  of 
saying  on  Soviet  festivals  that  the  Russian 
Revolution  was  the  greatest  disaster  that 
had  happened  to  mankind.  The  Soviet 
Government  named  laboratories  after 
him,  gave  him  houses,  a  large  salary, 
motor-cars  and  assistants;  his  death  was 
mourned  as  no  scientist's  in  England  or 
France  has  ever  been. 

It  is  possible  to  argue,  of  course,  that  if 
Einstein  had  stayed  in  Germany  to  see  the 
revolution  through,  the  Nazis  would  have 
done  as  much  for  him;  but  to  do  so  shows 
a  lack  of  realization  of  an  essential  differ- 
ence between  the  two  sorts  of  dictatorship. 
Fascism,  particularly  in  Germany,  is 
forced  by  its  own  nature  to  relegate  any 
kind  of  intellectual  activity  to  the  back- 
ground; intellectual  work  may  be  per- 
mitted so  long  as  it  does  not  intrude;  but 
ultimately  the  values  of  Fascism  must  be 
judged  not  by  the  intellect,  but  by  the 
'blood' — that  is,  by  the  fears  and  rages 
and  jealousies  that  move  us  all,  though 
we  have  not  been  taught  to  give  them  such 
a  transcendental  significance.  The  '  blood,' 
as  it  happens,  can  tell  us  a  number  of 
things  which  the  intellect  will  not  allow, 
such  as  the  homogeneity  of  the  German 
race,  and  the  Nordic  blood  of  Jesus;  so 
much  the  worse  for  the  intellect.  And  so 
much  the  worse  for  the  intellect's  most 
triumphant  organization,  science;  at  the 


best  it  can  be  tolerated  in  those  depart- 
ments where  it  does  not  interfere  with  the 
authority  of  the  'blood,'  just  as  in  the 
Middle  Ages  it  could  work  in  obscurity 
under  the  authority  of  the  Church. 

The  Communist  dictatorship  has  to 
take  a  very  different  attitude.  For  the 
Soviet  Government,  by  its  official  philos- 
ophy, has  an  explicit  aim  the  maximum  de- 
velopment of  the  material  resources  in 
Russia;  not  only  the  material  resources  as 
they  are  now  worked  and  understood,  but 
as  they  could  be  with  complete  control 
over  the  natural  world.  The  Soviets  are 
committed,  in  fact,  to  an  application  of 
that  material  humanism  which  I  tried  to 
describe  a  little  in  a  recent  review  in  The 
Spectator;  and  since  control  of  the  natural 
world  is  simply  another  name  for  applied 
science,  they  are  bound  to  regard  the 
development  of  science  as  one  of  the  first 
tasks  of  government.  Material  humanism 
— the  desire  for  the  material  well-being  of 
the  race,  increasing  as  science  progresses — 
is  meaningless  without  science;  science  is 
both  its  inspiration  and  its  instrument; 
accordingly,  science  in  Russia  today  is 
more  closely  interwoven  with  the  Gov- 
ernment than  it  has  ever  been  elsewhere  in 
the  world. 

The  new  conditions  under  which  it  is 
carried  on  give  Russian  science  its  pe- 
culiar interest.  We  are  used  to  scientific 
research  as  an  academic  pursuit,  admitted 
rather  reluctantly  into  our  universities, 
worked  at  more  or  less  in  private,  with 
very  little  organization,  occasionally  ap- 
plied to  practical  purposes-by  those  scien- 
tists with  an  inventive  turn  of  mind  or  by 
the  ingenious  employees  of  industrial 
firms:  the  whole  structure  as  irrational  as 
the  M.C.C.  or  the  Jockey  Club,  and  grown 
up  in  somewhat  the  same  fashion.  The 
Soviets  have  changed  all  that.  Applied 
science  is  to  control  industry  and  invent 
industries;  so  great  scientific  institutes  are 
built  in  industrial  centers,  in  order  that, 
by  contact  with  the  working  reality,  scien- 
tists should  perceive  their  problems  and 
be  at  hand  to  apply  their  own  solutions. 


p 


1936 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[35^1 


This  continual  interplay  of  technical 
process  and  science  follows  from  the 
materialist  theory;  according  to  the  the- 
ory, it  is  the  way  science  should  be  organ- 
ized to  be  most  effective,  both  in  devising 
applications  and  in  reaching  fundamental 
laws.  Thus  the  immense  physical  labora- 
tories at  Leningrad  and  Kharkov  are 
Physico-Technical  Institutes,  divorced 
from  any  kind  of  university  in  our  sense, 
in  closer  touch  with  engineering  works 
than  with  the  liberal  studies;  the  internal 
organization  is  more  democratic  than  ours, 
where  a  professor  can  be  a  fairly  complete 
autocrat,  and  at  the  same  time  more  rigid, 
each  man's  work  discussed  and  mapped 
out  by  frequent  meetings  of  the  research 
staff;  the  external  organization  and  gen- 
eral control  of  each  institute's  work  is  in 
the  hands  of  the  Commissariat  of  Heavy 
Industry.  All  this  is  described  in  Mr. 
Crowther's  new  book,  which  is,  like  every- 
thing he  writes,  informed,  fresh  and  stim- 
ulating (and  also  slightly  irritating,  be- 
cause one  has  to  quarry  for  the  information 
in  a  mass  of  short  paragraphs  arranged  in 
a  haphazard  fashion  rather  like  a  scrap- 
book). 

But  any  grumbles  at  Mr.  Crowther  can 
only  be  trivial.  He  does  work  that  is  gen- 
uinely important  and  that  no  one  else 
shows  any  signs  of  doing;  his  journalism  is 
scholarly  and  his  reporting  always  fair. 
'He  has  traveled  over  the  Russian  labora- 
tories in  his  bright-eyed  alert  fashion,  and 
here  are  his  results;  it  is  the  best  of  tributes 
to  him  (no  commentator  could  be  less 
egotistic)  to  say  one  almost  forgets  the 
book  in  the  excitement  of  the  questions: 
how  is  it  all  coming  out?  What  is  the  prog- 
ress of  science  when  it  is  organized  as 
thoroughly  as  this?  Is  Russian  science 
better  than  ours  now?  Is  it  going  to  be 
better? 

IT  IS  difficult  to  reach  any  answers  that 
are  remotely  satisfying.  About  the  actual 
achievement  of  Russian  science  since  the 
Revolution  one  can  make  a  tentative 
judgment:  it  is  not  negligible,  but  rather 


disappointing.  Just  as  in  literature  there 
has  been  no  creative  work  of  a  high  order, 
in  the  exact  sciences  there  have  been  very 
few  important  discoveries;  there  has  been 
a  quantity  of  adequate  research,  much  of 
it  insufficiently  worked  out;  the  general 
state  of  physics  and  physical  chemistry 
in  Russia  now  would  seem  rather  like  that 
in  America  towards  the  end  of  the  nine- 
teenth century. 

The  triumphs  of  Russian  science  in  re- 
cent years  have  been,  not  unnaturally,  in 
fields  where  planning  and  large-scale  or- 
ganization are  more  important  than  de- 
tailed imaginative  work:  Vavilov's  re- 
searches on  plant  genetics  are  on  a  scale 
unequaled  in  the  rest  of  the  world,  and 
there  is  no  doubt  that  in  the  scientific  side 
of  agriculture  Russia  is  going  to  produce 
most  of  the  important  work  of  the  next 
few  years.  But  that  will  probably  not  be 
so  in  the  exact  sciences;  there  is  still  a 
great  distance  before  Russian  physics 
catches  up  to  that  of  England,  America, 
even  Scandinavia  or  Holland. 

The  reasons  are  important  for  us  as  well 
as  Russia;  some  may  be  connected  with 
the  new  method,  and  some  need  only  time 
before  they  disappear.  The  first  is,  it 
seems  to  me,  that  a  good  deal  of  the  or- 
ganization defeats  itself;  most  successful 
research,  like  any  detailed  creative  work, 
demands  a  continuous  supply  of  minor 
ideas  and  devices  which  are  independent 
of  the  main  conception  and  which  must, 
for  the  most  part,  be  supplied  by  one  man 
working  alone.  People  vary  much  in  their 
needs  for  help  and  solitude;  some  go  into 
the  wilderness  and  some  solve  their  diffi- 
culties by  thinking  aloud  in  company  and 
asking  advice;  but  almost  everyone  has 
to  be  alone  at  times.  And  it  is  just  that 
individual  solitariness,  in  which  ideas  get 
worked  out,  that  the  Russian  organiza- 
tion, or  any  organization  for  that  matter, 
makes  more  difficult  to  obtain  than  does 
the  freedom  of  academic  tradition. 

The  Soviet  planners  make  a  genuine 
attempt  to  cope  with  the  oddities  of 
human  temperament;  but  it  is  more  diffi- 


[354] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


cult  to  allow  for  individual  temperament 
in  an  institution  than  to  let  it  work  its  oWn 
way  out,  untrammeled  by  any  institution 
at  all.  Libraries  and  apparatus  and  expert 
information  at  hand — organization  must 
supply  all  these;  but  as  soon  as  it  goes 
farther  and  intrudes  into  a  man's  habit  of 
thought,  it  is  as  likely  to  be  a  hindrance 
as  a  help. 

If  there  is  anything  in  this  criticism, 
the  defect  is  not  one  which  time  will  rem- 
edy of  its  own  accord;  probably  there 
will  be  a  gradual  lessening  of  the  rigor  of 
the  plans,  and  an  approach  to  something 
more  like  the  tradition  of  academic  re- 
search. Some  of  the  other  defects  in 
Soviet  science  are,  of  course,  simply  due 
to  lack  of  time:  for  instance,  the  supply  of 
competent  research  workers  is  at  present 
far  too  small.  This  must  be  caused  mainly 
by  deficiencies  in  secondary  education, 
and  should  be  rectified  within  the  next 
decade  or  two.  By  then,  there  is  no  reason- 
able doubt,  the  Soviets  will  be  producing, 
in  all  the  fields  of  science,  work  that  will 
bear  comparison  with  any  in  the  world. 

Ali  of  Jannina 

A  LI  THE  Lion.  By  William  Plomer.  Lon- 
don: Cape.  1936. 
(Simon  Harcourt-Smith  in  the  Observer,  London) 

'TpHE  obscure,  ill-populated  rocks  of  Al- 
bania  have  in  their  time  given  to 
middle  eastern  history  a  formidable  array 
of  great  men,  great  adventurers.  Alexander 
of  Macedon  on  his  mother's  side,  the 
Macedonian  Emperors  of  Byzantium, 
Skanderbeg,  Mohamed  Ali  of  Egypt, 
Enver  Pasha,  Mustapha  Kemal  (Ata- 
turk) — all  came  out  of  that  fierce  moun- 
tain air,  those  steep,  remote  valleys. 
Among  the  number  of  those  heroes,  how- 
ever, the  sardonic  ghost  of  Ali,  Pasha  of 
Jannina,  the  subject  of  Mr.  Plomer's 
latest  work,  can  hardly,  despite  all  the 
author's  art,  be  placed. 

His  achievement  was  certainly  remark- 
able; for  one  moment  it  seemed  as  if 
he  would  contrive  to  build  up  a  great 


Balkan  state,  and  during  the  Napoleonic 
age  he  played  a  considerable  part  in  the 
Levantine  policies  of  England,  France, 
and  Russia.  Nevertheless  I  cannot  believe 
with  his  biographer  that  his  bloody  but 
simple  life  would  in  any  way  have  inter- 
ested Shakespeare;  nor  does  even  the 
elegant  pen  of  Mr.  Plomer  persuade  me 
that  Ali  of  Jannina  was  other  than  a  sa- 
distic old  rascal,  with  no  virtue  save 
bravery,  and  talent  only  for  destruction. 

Ali  was  born  in  1741  near  Tebeleni, 
a  small  town  now  unusually  flea-ridden 
even  for  Albania.  His  genealogy  is  a 
matter  for  dispute.  It  is  generally  held 
that  his  grandfather  was  an  Epirote  Chris- 
tian converted  to  Islam  at  the  siege  of 
Corfu  in  17 16;  Mr.  Plomer,  however,  be- 
lieves that  Ali  was  descended  from  a 
dervish  who  had  settled  near  Tebeleni  in 
the  previous  century.  (This  may  account 
for  the  respect  which  Ali  accorded  to 
dervishes  throughout  his  life.)  Ali's  father, 
Veli,  a  Pasha  of  Two  Tails,  died  when  Ali 
was  but  fourteen,  and  the  family,  like 
those  of  Genghiz  and  of  Akbar,  were  har- 
ried from  pillar  to  post  by  the  dead  man's 
enemies. 

Khamco,  Ali's  mother,  a  voluptuous 
termagant,  whose  bodyguard,  as  Mr. 
Plomer  puts  it,  'shared  not  only  her  anxi- 
eties but  her  bed,'  was  finally  caught  by 
the  treachery  of  two  disgruntled  towns, 
Khormovo  and  Gardiki;  before  being 
ransomed  she  was  raped  by  the  entire 
male  population  of  the  latter  place.  This 
mortal  insult  she  never  forgot,  and  on  her 
death-bed  she  made  Ali  apd  his  sister 
Shainitza  swear  to  be  revenged  upon  her 
ravishers. 

Ali  was  a  likely  youth  for  this  labor  of 
filial  love.  At  ten  he  was  already  unman- 
ageable, at  fourteen  an  accomplished 
sheep-stealer,  by  the  age  of  twenty  he 
was  a  gang-leader  whose  forays  through 
Thessaly  had  become  legendary.  By  a 
remarkable  mixture  of  ferocity  and  fraud 
he  gradually  made  himself  master  of 
several  small  places  in  Epirus  and  Thes- 
saly; then,  during  the  Russo-Turkish  war 


1936 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


h^s\ 


of  1787-91  he  became,  by  the  simple 
expedient  of  forging  an  Imperial  Edict, 
Pasha  of  the  rich  and  beautiful  town  of 
Jannina.  The  supine  Porte  in  due  course 
confirmed  him  in  his  swindle.  Ali  was 
now  a  great  man,  with  power  to  satisfy 
both  revenge  and  his  own  unbounded 
ambition. 

The  times  were  peculiarly  ripe  for  his 
designs.  Ever  since  the  Peace  of  Karlovitz 
(1699)  the  Porte  had  been  losing  author- 
ity, till  now  the  Sultan  was  little  better 
than  the  prisoner  of  his  janissaries,  defied 
by  his  outlying  dominions.  The  great 
Pashas  of  Bagdad  and  Trebizond,  the 
Druses  of  the  Lebanon,  in  Egypt  the 
Mamelukes,  and  later  Mohamed  Ali,  in 
Arabia  the  Wahabis,  while  acknowledging 
the  sovereignty  of  the  Porte  and  flattering 
it  with  presents,  were  hardly  less  than 
independent  Governments.  It  was  in  such 
circumstances  as  these  that  Ali's  career 
was  made. 

In  his  advance  to  power  he  showed  a 
savagery  and  falseness  which  surprised 
even  the  middle  east.  He  betrayed  his 
benefactors,  poisoned  his  friends,  violated 
his  daughter-in-law,  treacherously  butch- 
ered the  entire  populations  of  brave 
towns  which  had  honorably  surrendered 
to  him.  In  accordance  with  his  vow  he 
wreaked  upon  the  unfortunate  inhab- 
itants of  Khormovo  and  Gardiki  a  fero- 
cious vengeance.  One  of  the  principal  men 
of  the  former  place  was  thrown  to  Ali's 
mulatto  foster-brother,  Yusuf  Arab,  the 
Blood-Drinker,  and  by  him  spitted  and 
roasted  alive.  Urged  on  by  his  sister 
Shainitza,  whose  sadism  amounted  to 
mania,  Ali  dealt  no  more  tenderly  by  the 
men  of  Gardiki,  and  stufi^ed  her  divans 
with  the  hair  of  Gardikiot  women.  At  any 
moment,  or  for  the  most  inane  of  reasons, 
the  blood-lust  would  come  upon  him.  In 
his  heyday  he  boasted  of  being  directly 
responsible  for  thirty  thousand  deaths, 
and  once  he  said: '  I've  shed  so  much  blood 
in  my  time,  it  seems  to  follow  me  like  a 
wave;  I  dare  not  look  behind  me.' 

By  an  endless  stream  of  presents  Ali 


for  many  years  purchased  the  acquies- 
cence of  the  Sultan  in  his  barbarities;  but 
at  last  his  menacing  power  became  in- 
suflPerable,  and  he  was  declared  a  rebel; 
deserted  by  his  children  (whose  incom- 
petence he  always  deplored),  he  neverthe- 
less at  the  age  of  eighty  defied  the  Turkish 
armies  for  two  years.  Then,  finally,  he  was 
murdered  by  just  such  an  act  of  treachery 
as  he  would  himself  have  admired;  his 
head  was  his  last  present  to  the  Sultan. 

Too  much  of  the  book  is  a  chronicle  of 
slaughter;  here  Mr.  Plomer's  style,  usually 
so  graceful,  becomes  as  monotonous  as 
the  fall  of  the  executioner's  axe;  yet  in 
the  main  it  is  a  masterly  book,  filled  with 
the  scent  and  sound  of  Ali's  strange,  bare 
hills.  You  see  a  Greek  archbishop  dancing 
the  carmagnole,  Byron  riding  down  the 
orange  groves  past  the  dismembered  body 
of  a  Greek  patriot,  Ali  chuckling  in  the 
dark  among  his  nightingales,  real  and 
mechanical.  More  curious  still,  there 
emerges  from  a  welter  of  horror  some  faint 
echo  of  the  charm  that  made  Ali's  victims 
trust  him  long  after  his  baseness  had  be- 
come a  legend. 

A  Stylist  at  War 

Fine  Writing.  By  Logan  Pear  sail  Smith. 
Oxford:  Oxford  University  Press.  igs6. 

(Rose  Macaulay  in  the  New  Statesman  and  Nation, 
London) 

|y/[R.  PEARS  ALL  SMITH,  exasperated 
by  the  recent  crying  down  of  fine 
writing  by  certain  modern  critics  and 
writers,  has  set  himself,  with  his  usual 
felicitous  ease  and  grace,  and  more  than 
his  usual  vigor,  to  cry  it  up.  He  tilts 
against  Mr.  Herbert  Read,  Mr.  Middleton 
Murry,  '  several  members  of  the  flourish- 
ing school  of  Cambridge  criticism,'  and  all 
those  who  shudder  at  magniloquence,  who 
cast  cold,  captious  and  contemptuous  eyes 
at  the  grand  manner,  at  the  prose  of  Sir 
Thomas  Browne,  of  Milton,  of  Jeremy 
Taylor,  of  the  magnificent  Elizabethans, 
at  the  delicate  mimical  archaisms  of 
Lamb,  the  exquisite  patterning  of  Pater, 


[3S^] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


the  intricate  periods  of  Henry  James,  and 
all  those  other  writers  who  have  fonded  on 
language  for  its  own  sake  and  have  been 
curious  to  polish  and  fine  a  phrase. 

It  is  an  old  battle.  A  century  and  more 
ago,  Isaac  d'Israeli,  himself  a  charming, 
but  an  unmusical  and  stilted  writer,  re- 
joiced that  'the  embarrassed  periods  of 
Hooker,  Raleigh  and  Clarendon  will  no 
more  languish  on  the  ear.'  And  now  cer- 
tain critics,  armed  to  the  teeth  with  the 
mixed  weapons  dropped  about  by  earnest 
continentals  and  trans-Atlanticists  (such 
as  Teutonic  psychologists,  French  sur- 
realists, Marxist  ideologists,  Italian  aes- 
thetic critics,  and  American  toughs)  are 
trying  to  shoot  up  the  rich  and  lovely 
growth  of  English  prose.  I  am  so  much 
with  Mr.  Pearsall  Smith  in  this  language 
feud,  that  I  can  scarcely  bring  myself  to 
find  flaws  in  his  over-statement  of  the 
case;  for  I  feel  that  such  cases  should  be 
over-stated. 

'You  must  beware  of  thinking  too  much 
about  Style,'  said  a  kindly  adviser  to  Mr. 
Pearsall  Smith  long  ago  (see  Trivia),  'or 
you  will  become  like  those  fastidious  peo- 
ple who  polish  and  polish  until  there  is 
nothing  left.' 

'Then  there  really  are  such  people?'  he 
asked  eagerly  .  .  . 

He  is  now  once  again  bidden  to  beware 
of  them,  to  flee  'the  terrible  attraction  of 
words.'  The  young  writer  is  warned 
against  rhythmical  eflfects  and  the  use  of 
images,  and  told  that '  any  conscious  care 
for  such  devices  .  .  .  must  be  carefully 
eschewed.'  Such  warnings,  says  Mr.  Pear- 
sall Smith,  are,  at  the  present  time,  little 
needed.  Carrying  the  war  into  the  enemy's 
camp,  he  joins  battle  with  those  who 
'promulgate  aesthetic  dogmas  in  unwieldy 
sentences,'  and  imputes  to  them,  'not  per- 
haps unspitefully,'  'a  certain  deficiency  in 
aesthetic  sensibility.'  He  quotes  Lytton 
Strachey  on  the  great  gulf  that  yawns  be- 
tween those  who  like  magnificence  in 
prose  and  those  who  hate  it,  and  adds  that 
still  more  profound  is  the  gulf  between 
those  who  value  the  informational  ele- 


ments of  literature,  its  truthfulness  as  a 
transcript  of  experience,  its  penetration 
into  the  secrets  of  life  and  feeling,  and 
those  who  take  more  interest  in  the  musi- 
cal and  creative  potency  of  language. 

He  perhaps  magnifies  this  gulf,  which 
has  been,  after  all,  bridged  by  most  great 
writers.  On  which  side  of  it,  for  instance, 
would  one  place  Shakespeare?  Or  Chau- 
cer? Or  Montaigne?  Or  the  Elizabethan 
travel-writers?  Or  Henry  James?  Or  Gib- 
bon? It  is  true  that  there  stand  conspicu- 
ous figures  definitely  on  each  side,  and 
probably  most  of  us  know  to  which  side  we 
personally  incline.  But  should  the  gulf 
widen,  it  must  eventually  swallow  litera- 
ture up. 

I  think  Mr.  Pearsall  Smith  probably 
over-estimates  the  danger  from  the  anti- 
stylist  critics;  it  is  far  less  than  that  from 
those  who  from  incompetence  or  insensi- 
bility cannot  achieve  style.  There  have 
always  been  those  who  have  no  use  for 
literary  dandyism,  and  always  those  who 
have,  to  the  best  of  their  ability,  practiced 
it.  There  may  be  more  doing  so  now  than 
Mr.  Pearsall  Smith  in  his  anxiety  thinks; 
more  writers  than  swim  into  his  ken  may 
be  even  now  polishing  away  at  phrases, 
delving  away  for  words,  serenely  un- 
deterred by  these  literary  warnings.  And 
graceful,  elegant  and  musical  prose  seems 
more  palatable  to  the  general  than  Mr. 
Pearsall  Smith  here  admits.  Does  not 
Religio  Medici,  in  soft  suede  binding  with 
ribbon  marker,  sell  in  its  thousands  each 
year?  Does  not  Elia?  Does  not  'that  great, 
solemn,  heraldic,  hierarchic  animal,  the 
Authorized  Translation  of  the  Bible, 
whose  pages  of  magnificent  prose  have 
never  been  surpassed?'  Nor,  I  believe,  are 
Trivia  or  Eminent  Victorians,  those  mas- 
terpieces of  delicate  ironic  style,  suffered 
to  go  out  of  print,  though  Mr.  Pearsall 
Smith  holds  that  most  readers  do  not  care 
for  irony  or  for  style.  It  is  true  that,  as  he 
says,  Henry  James  was  not  a  popular 
writer;  but  then  his  needlework  was  too 
fine  and  small;  it  strains  the  eyes.  For  that 
matter,  Hardy,  'that  famous  master  of 


193^ 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[357I 


clumsy  phrases  and  undistinguished  dic- 
tion,' is  not  popular  either. 

I  think  here  Mr.  Pearsall  Smith  does 
less  than  justice  to  that  poor  irritating 
butt,  the  general  reader.  And  less  than 
justice,  too,  to  Cambridge,  which,  he  de- 
clares with  unashamed  Oxford  malice,  has 
not,  since  Tennyson  left  it,  sent  into  the 
world  more  than  one  or  two  conscious 
verbal  artists.  I  can  think  of  a  dozen 
straight  off.  As  to  those  maligned  beings, 
women,  when  he  agrees  with  Sainte- 
Beuve  that  they  '  seldom  or  never  exercise 
any  conscious  choice  of  words,'  all  he  can 
really  mean  is  that  they  don't  do  it  so 
competently  as  men,  which  applies, 
surely,  to  nearly  every  activity  of  this 
somewhat  inefficient  sex.  America,  too, 
may  have  something  to  reply  to  its  whole- 
sale indictment.  But,  as  I  said,  I  am  too 
much  in  agreement  with  most  of  this  en- 
gaging, entertaining  and  timely  plea  for 
'prose  full  of  poetry  and  color'  by  one  of 
our  finest  witty  stylists  to  want  to  pick 
holes.  It  is  stimulating  and  delightful  to 
read,  and  deserves  distribution  about 
schools  and  colleges.  For  'is  there'  (as  the 
author  has  asked  elsewhere)  'any  solace 
like  the  solace  and  consolation  of  lan- 
guage?' 

A  Modern  Quixote 

Die  Blendung.  By  Elias  Canetti.  Vienna: 

Verlag  Herbert  Reichner.  igjS. 
(Paul  Frischauer  in  the  Neue  Freie  Presse,  Vienna) 

J  REGARD  the  publication  of  Elias 
Canetti's  novel  as  a  rare  event.  The 
author  relates  the  story  of  a  scholar  of  very 
aristocratic  bearing,  somewhat  eccentric, 
but  an  expert  in  his  field,  and  a  man  of 
noble  character.  Canetti  tells  how  a 
woman  gets  him  into  her  clutches,  makes 
him  lose  his  mental  balance,  and  finally 
forces  him  to  marry  her.  It  is  the  story  of 
this  marriage  which  occupies  the  first  part 
of  the  novel.  This  story  is  just  as  extraor- 
dinary as  the  above  summary  of  it  sounds 
ordinary.  No  situation  is  borrowed;  there 
is  nothing  in  it  to  remind  one  of  novels 


one  knows.  Canetti  reveals  with  genuine 
originality  the  grotesque  and  tragic  com- 
panionship of  two  people  who  have  noth- 
ing in  common  but  a  surname.  They  speak 
entirely  different  languages,  and  one  is 
frequently  tempted  to  play  the  role  of 
interpreter.  It  really  is  a  parable  of  every 
marriage,  full  of  wrath  and  Aristophanic 
humor. 

But  that  is  merely  a  secondary  effect, 
and  not  the  real  aim  of  the  book.  The 
author  is  much  more  interested  in  the  in- 
fluence of  this  marriage  on  the  sensitive 
mind  of  the  scholar.  It  is  obvious  that  a 
person  who  has  been  used  to  living  alone 
undergoes  decisive  changes  living  with 
another  person.  Kien — the  protagonist — 
is  more  and  more  hounded  by  a  persecu- 
tion mania.  His  conceptions  of  reality 
shift;  he  becomes  entirely  wrapped  up  in 
himself.  The  psychopathic  state  in  which 
he  finds  himself  makes  him  grow  dumb. 
After  a  series  of  strange  conflicts  with  his 
wife  he  becomes  paralyzed.  He  would 
probably  have  ended  his  days  in  this  state 
of  paralysis  if  his  wife  had  not  thrown  him 
out  of  the  house  as  soon  as  she  found  she 
could  get  no  more  out  of  him. 

In  the  second  part  of  the  book,  the  au- 
thor grants  both  himself  and  the  reader  a 
respite.  He  leads  Kien  into  the  thick  of 
full-blooded  life.  How  does  a  mentally 
unbalanced  person  react  to  the  world,  and 
how  does  the  world  react  to  him?  Into 
whose  hands  will  he  fall  as  he  drifts  along, 
released  from  all  the  bonds  which  have 
hitherto  tied  him  down  ?  Here  it  is  a  hunch- 
backed dwarf,  a  demoniac,  who  plays  the 
role  of  Kien's  Sancho  Pansa.  The  charac- 
terization of  this  dwarf,  incidentally,  is 
one  of  the  outstanding  accomplishments 
of  this  comprehensive  book.  The  colorful 
chapters  in  which  the  two,  dwarf  and 
scholar,  meet  with  one  adventure  after 
the  other  remind  one  of  the  old  rogue 
stories,  although  here  everything  develops 
from  the  conditions  and  relations  of  our 
modern  times.  A  number  of  strange  and 
not-to-be-forgotten  characters  enter  the 
hero's  life.  Thus  the  second  part  of  the  book 


[358] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


represents  a  lively  and  eventful  descrip- 
tion of  our  world  of  today. 

In  the  third  part,  which  I  should  charac- 
terize as  one  of '  concentration,'  everything 
that  has  impressed  Kien  during  his  mar- 
riage and  his  worldly  adventures  is  con- 
densed. Nothing  has  failed  to  leave  its 
mark  on  this  brilliant  mind.  The  slightest 
event  has  been  preserved,  to  take  its 
place  in  the  structure  of  a  growing  de- 
lusion. It  is  impossible  to  sum  up  the  sub- 
stance of  this  third  part  in  a  few  words. 
In  contrast  to  the  prolixity  of  the  first 
part,  here  everything  is  terse  and  rapidly 
moving.  The  tension  grows  almost  unbear- 
able. Fear,  horror,  laughter,  exuberant 
ferocity  and  tottering  weakness  mingle 
in  grand  simplicity. 

A  new  field  of  literature  has  here  been 
conquered.  Nowhere,  to  the  best  of  my 
knowledge,  have  mental  diseases  ever 
been  described  in  such  a  way  as  to  become 
understandable  and  clear.  The  sense  of 
strangeness  which  we  ordinarily  feel  in  the 
presence  of  such  diseases  gradually  dis- 
appears. The  illusion  is  carried  so  far  that 
one  takes  what  is  happening  as  a  matter  of 
course.  Not  until  the  book  is  laid  aside, 
and  the  emotion  into  which  one  has  been 
plunged  recedes,  does  one  realize  that  one 
has  experienced  something  entirely  new. 

It  would  be  worth  the  trouble  of  a  more 
thoroughgoing  study  to  find  out  by  just 
what  means  Canetti  achieves  this  effect. 
Here  this  can  be  done  only  briefly.  Above 
all,  there  is  an  artistic  discipline  which  has 
yet  to  find  an  equal.  The  author  himself  is 
eclipsed  by  his  characters.  He  almost 
vanishes.  The  novel,  so  to  speak,  writes 
itself.  Even  more  than  in  the  structure  of 
this  novel,  Canetti's  discipline  is  mani- 
fested in  his  style.  As  long  as  he  himself 
is  speaking,  his  is  a  fascinating,  supple, 
deliberately  reserved  style.  Its  inherent 
glamour  appears  but  seldom,  and  then 
very  unpretentiously.  His  diction,  how- 
ever, and  his  character's  mind  reveal  him 
as  a  born  dramatist.  It  is  an  astounding 
phenomenon  how  each  character  has  a 
style  which  is  entirely  its  own.  And  the 


effect  which  the  author  achieves  with  their 
technique  of  speech  is  one  of  the  strongest 
in  the  whole  book. 

I  have  pondered  over  Canetti's  spiritual 
forbears  for  a  long  time.  It  is  always  a 
great  pleasure  for  an  intellectual  to  puzzle 
his  brains  over  the  elements  of  a  new  and 
original  synthesis.  No  writer  is  born  a 
master.  Therefore  it  seems  to  me  that  two 
gigantic  streams,  in  modern  transforma- 
tion, flow  together  here:  the  greatest  of 
Frenchmen,  Stendhal,  and  the  greatest  of 
Russians,  Gogol.  Nobody  could  ask  for 
better  forbears.  Here  once  more  is  a  novel- 
ist of  European  stature. 

Black  Angels 

Les  Anges  Noirs.  By  Franqois  Mauriac. 
Paris:  Grasset.  1936. 

(Marcel   Arland   in  the  Nounelle  Revue  Franfaise, 
Paris) 

A  FEW  WEEKS  ago  Mr.  Francois 
"^  Mauriac  spoke  very  pertinently  about 
criticism.  A  critic,  he  said,  is  always  struck 
first  of  all  by  the  absence  of  something  in  a 
book.  Thus  he  would  reproach  the  author 
of  Black  Angels  with  not  having  Balzac's 
breadth  or  G)lette's  sensuousness.  He 
would  proceed  as  if  there  were  one  abso- 
lute standard  of  perfection  in  accordance 
with  which  all  works  should  be  judged;  or 
as  if  the  art  of  novel  writing  had  its  fixed 
laws  by  which  one  must  abide  if  one 
wishes  to  produce  an  excellent  pieceof  work. 
Instead  of  crushing  a  book  by  invoking 
the  name  of  some  no  doubt  admirable 
masterpiece,  Mr.  Mauriaa  said  further,  it 
would  be  better  to  see  what  it  has  to  offer 
that  is  new,  that  cannot  be  reduced  to  the 
terms  of  other  books;  whether  it  has  some- 
thing amazing,  something  that  might  at 
first  shock,  but  would  some  day  serve  as  a 
criterion  by  which  other  books  will  be 
(probably  with  equal  injustice)  judged. 
One  reproaches  Mauriac  now  with  not 
being  Balzac;  later  one  will  reproach  some 
new  novelist  with  being  neither  Balzac 
nor  Mauriac.  This  reminds  me  of  a  saying 
of  Cocteau's  which,  when  every  allowance 


r93(> 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[359] 


has  been  made  for  the  petulance  that 
prompted  it,  still  seems  to  me  to  be  true: 
'Be  sure  to  cultivate  whatever  other  people 
deprecate  in  you:  for  that  is  the  real  you.' 

It  goes  without  saying  that  some  mental 
reservations  must  be  made  to  this.  Even 
though  the  novel  is  the  freest  of  all  liter- 
ary forms,  it,  too,  is  subject  to  some 
laws  common  to  all  works  of  art.  What  are 
these  laws?  Well,  for  example,  a  book 
should  be  consistent:  by  this  I  mean  that 
there  should  be  perfect  agreement  between 
the  work  and  its  author  (this  is  what 
makes  a  book  seem  an  organic  extension 
of  a  man  rather  than  an  artificial  creation), 
between  the  method  and  the  matter  of 
expression. 

On  the  other  hand  one  might  say — 
and  here  the  contradiction  is  only  an 
apparent  one — that  a  writer,  who  can 
never  know  himself  completely  anyway, 
would  do  well  to  explore  and  reveal  some 
unexpected  element  in  himself  by  utilizing 
themes  other  than  his  favorite  ones;  that 
perhaps  he  actually  needs  an  obstacle,  a 
struggle  in  self-expression,  in  order  ulti- 
mately to  reach  new  heights  in  it;  that, 
when  all  is  said,  it  is  a  good  thing  to  see 
him  take  a  chance  from  time  to  time. 

I  do  not  believe  that  B/ack  Angels  is  the 
best  novel  Frangois  Mauriac  has  ever 
written  (and  I  am  not  taking  Balzac  as  a 
model,  either);  but  it  certainly  is  one  of 
the  most  curious,  the  most  amazing  books 
that  has  ever  come  from  his  pen.  One  likes 
him  for  having  written  it.  It  is  a  book  that 
foreshadows  others;  it  both  shocks  and 
pleases;  and  one  is  conscious  of  its  faults 
perhaps  only  as  indications  of  the  great 
scale  on  which  the  book  is  written. 

Thus  we  have  another  *  Mauriac, '  with 
his  shadows,  his  mystic  odors,  his  dis- 
illusioned souls,  and  his  bitterness;  but  a 
Mauriac  more  feverish  and  tortured  than 
ever.  It  is  not  that  in  this  book  he  returns 
to  the  same  subject  with  a  greater  mastery 
or  precision,  but  rather  with  more  vio- 
lence, breadth  and  sense  of  drama.  The 
book  is  made  up  of  three  separate  frag- 
ments that  creak  somewhat  where  they 


are  joined  together:  there  is  an  exposition, 
which  is  at  once  too  long  and  too  swift — 
too  long  drawn-out  for  the  drama  and  too 
short  in  relation  to  the  events  it  recounts; 
there  is  the  central  tragedy  itself,  one  of 
the  most  sinister  that  Mauriac  has 
penned;  and  lastly  there  is  a  third  act, 
brief  and  pregnant  with  meaning,  as 
spontaneous  as  the  Divine  Grace,  and  in 
which  one  perceives  less  the  natural  play 
of  passions  and  events  than  the  author's 
will,  the  task  he  set  himself,  and  the  struc- 
ture he  employs. 

It  is  not  the  sort  of  book  that  wins  an 
immediate  following.  One  resists  its  at- 
traction; one  sometimes  remains  incredu- 
lous before  the  tragedy  and  its  characters. 
This  is  not  because  they  are  painted  too 
black;  but  the  author  seems  to  want  them 
to  be  like  that;  he  needs  the  blackness  in 
order  to  make  the  light  that  he  dispenses 
in  the  last  pages  more  dazzling.  One  does 
not  doubt  that  such  characters  can  exist; 
but  one  is  not  at  all  sure  that  the  author 
has  known  them:  he  is  not  as  well  ac- 
quainted with  them  as  he  was  with  the 
heroes  of  the  Baiser  au  Lepreux  or  the 
Preseances.  For  although  they  do  not  differ 
essentially  from  the  latter,  it  is  as  if  the 
author  thought  they  were  sufficiently  well 
known  to  his  public,  and  for  that  reason 
did  not  take  the  trouble  to  depict  them  in 
detail  in  their  everyday  life.  The  sensual 
atmosphere,  of  odors,  sounds,  moments, 
in  which  he  customarily  wraps  his  char- 
acters, is  more  elusive  here.  In  the  same 
way,  true  to  life  as  the  angelic  figure  of 
his  priest  may  be,  somehow  he  does  not 
succeed  in  making  it  convincing.  He  seems 
to  be  interested  less  in  his  characters  than 
in  their  symbolic  ramifications. 

In  this  doubtless  lies  the  novel's  weak- 
ness; yet  this  is  exactly  what  moved  me 
most.  There  exists  a  Mauriacian  drama  of 
which  the  author  is  growing  more  and 
more  conscious,  and  by  which  he  is  ever 
more  tormented:  the  drama  of  salvation 
(or  damnation),  bound  up  with  the  in- 
dissoluble union  of  good  and  evil.  Mau- 
riac's    profound    consciousness    of    this 


[36o] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


drama  makes  his  books  something  more 
than  either  psychological  studies  or  de- 
scriptions of  provincial  life.  It  imparts  to 
them  their  urgent  tone,  and  their  lyricism. 
One  likes  it  in  this  writer  that  he,  whose 
success  is  beyond  dispute,  remains  un- 
appeased;  that  he  strives  to  tell  the  story 
of  Man  rather  than  stories  about  men; 
that  he  aspires  to  make  all  his  books  con- 
form to  the  title  he  gave  one  of  them — 
Destinies^  and  that  in  this  way  he  unites  in 
his  works  novelist,  moralist  and  believer. 

The  Georgtcs  of  Georges 

DUHAMEL 

Fables  de  mon  Jardin.  By  Georges  Du- 
bamel.  Paris:  Mercure  de  France.  1936. 

(Eduard  Korrodi  in  the  Neue  Zurcber  Zeitung, 
Zurich) 

"\X/'HAT  a  simple  world  this  would  be  if 
we  could  all  retire  with  Voltaire's 
Candide  to  cultivate  our  gardens!  A  sa- 
vant, tired  of  dreary  polemics,  becomes 
absorbed  in  catalogues  of  flower  bulbs, 
finds  relaxation  in  the  Scientia  amabalis^ 
and  survives  even  a  long  reading  of 
Brehm's  Life  of  Animals. 

This  wise  Candide  is  Georges  Duhamel, 
who,  oppressed  with  the  burdensome 
honor  of  becoming  one  of  the  Forty  Im- 
mortals, sometimes  retires  to  his  own 
garden.  His  new  book  begins  just  at  the 
point  where  Voltaire's  Candide  ends.  He 
shows  that  he  deserves  his  garden  by 
writing  about  it.  He  is  lucky  enough  to 
have  avoided  the  modern  horticultural 
magazines,  from  which  he  could  hardly 
have  failed  to  learn  that  a  modern  Can- 
dide must  talk  enthusiastically  of  such 
matters  as  the  'technology*  of  the  garden, 
of  the  invention  of  an  implement  which 
releases  man  from  the  necessity  of  'low- 
ering himself  to  the  ground  to  pull  out 
the  weeds,  permitting  him  to  stand  erect, 
at  a  distance  becoming  to  one  of  the  Lords 
of  Creation.  Georges  Duhamel  prefers  to 
bow  down  to  the  earth,  for  the  earth  has 
inspired  this  charming  book  on  the  phi- 
losophy of  the  garden. 


Duhamel  writes  delightfully  of  every- 
day happenings.  His  family  is  working 
busily  at  the  task  of  preserving  currants 
and  strawberries,  and  an  economist,  hap- 
pening to  drop  in,  declares  that  theirs  is  a 
medieval  practice,  and  that  canned  fruit 
is  far  cheaper.  There  is  no  excuse  for  such 
an  error  in  economics. 

'Stop,  sir!  Do  you  suppose  a  grocer  can 
sell  me  the  best,  the  most  vital  part  of  my 
own  preserves?'  'What  do  you  mean?' 
'The  fragrance!  The  house  is  full  of  it! 
The  world  would  be  a  sad  place  without 
that  fragrance.' 

The  rationalist  stares.  Duhamel  ex- 
plains: '"The  truth  is  that  we  preserve 
fruit  only  because  of  its  fragrance.  When 
it  is  ready  for  eating,  we  throw  it  away." 
I  say  this  with  great  lyrical  rhythm,  to 
delude  the  learned  gentleman.  Though  of 
course  it  is  not  quite  true;  eating  our 
preserves,  we  recollect  their  fragrance.' 

Duhamel's  defense  of  nature  is  sly  and 
witty.  He  listens  to  her  and  marks  what 
she  says.  He  thinks  her  a  good  deal  more 
than  a  still-life. 

A  young  cherry  tree  speaks  to  its  neigh- 
bor, a  pear:  'I  always  bloom  early.  Not 
because  I  want  to  be  conspicuous,  I  assure 
you.  I  am  modesty  itself.  But  the  tradition 
of  our  honorable  family  is  to  bloom  before 
the  others.'  The  cherry  tree  boasts  of  its 
veil  of  lovely  blossoms,  of  the  garment  of 
loveliness  that  drops  from  it  when  its 
blooming  is  over.  A  poem.  .  .  .  'And  you, 
neighbor,  what  have  you  to  show  us?* 
The  neighbor  replies,  gruffly,  that  its 
business  is  pears — if  it  is  nqt  bothered  too 
much.  A  crippled  apple  tree  whispers:  *I 
do  what  I  can.' 

The  time  arrives.  The  cherry  tree 
stands  in  full  bloom  and  even  gives  a  few 
cherries.  The  pear  tree  is  on  strike,  but  the 
apple  tree  in  the  shade  is  generous.  Ten 
years  elapse.  The  apple  tree  enchants  by 
its  generosity;  the  pear  tree  bears  nothing 
at  all;  and  the  cherry  has  nothing  to  give 
but  its  fireworks  and  a  breakfast  for  the 
sparrows. 

Duhamel's  fables  and  dialogues  have  no 


1936 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[361! 


morals  tacked  on  to  them,  but  point  to  an 
inexhaustible  wonder  at  nature's  fantasies. 
The  barren  cherry  tree  makes  fun  of  its 
fruit-bearing  colleague,  for  although  it  has 
borne  innumerable  cherries,  it  presents  a 
sad  picture  by  the  time  June  has  come,  its 
branches  broken,  a  scarecrow  hanging 
from  its  boughs,  a  ladder  leaning  against 
it.  The  barren  tree  boasts  its  caution  and 
its  chastity. 

The  owner  of  the  garden  passes  by 
sullenly.  'We'll  cut  this  one  down.  It'll 
be  good  to  make  a  box  out  of,  anyway!' 
This  may  seem  a  moralistic  fable,  but:  — 

'By  Jove,'  the  good  tree,  trembling, 
says,  after  the  owner  has  gone,  'wouldn't 
it  have  been  wiser  to  have  put  up  with  a 
little  trouble?  What  he  said  must  be 
awful  for  you!'  'Oh!  Don't  worry!  He 
says  that  every  year,  but  he  never  does  it. 
He  needs  me.  I  belong  in  the  row ! ' 

The  creatures  of  the  garden  stimulate 
Duhamel's  contemplative  spirit.  An  ant- 
hill shows  him  that  even  among  the  ants 
there  are  idlers.  The  unemployed  ant  fills 
Duhamel  with  admiration  for  the  ant- 
state,  which  has  so  arranged  things  that 
even  unemployed  ants  need  not  go 
hungry. 

There  is  nothing  of  the  science  of  horti- 
culture in  these  Fables  de  mon  Jardin;  but 
they  are  written  with  a  masterly  simplic- 
ity. 

The  Isles  of  Greece 

Cyclades.  a.  de  Marignac.  Illustrated  by 
M.  E.  Wrede.  Athens:  Kaufmann.  1936. 

(Samuel    Baud-Bovy    in    the   Journal  de   Geneve, 
Geneva) 

TT  TAKES  courage  to  make  into  a  book 
today  the  notes  and  impressions  gath- 
ered during  a  stay  in  Greece.  The  fashion 
of  taking  a  cruise  has  brought  us  such  an 
influx  of  hastily  written  books  that  one 
may  well  hesitate  to  increase  their  number 
by  a  book  of  one's  own.  How  is  it  possible 
to  avoid  both  disheartening  banality  and 
insufferable  affectation,  the  two  perils  of 
'traveling  through  Greece?' 


By  simplicity,  replies  the  little  book 
which  our  young  compatriot,  Mr.  A.  de 
Marignac,  has  just  dedicated  to  the  Cy- 
clades. Like,  once,  Frederick  Boissonnas 
and  his  friend  Baud-Bovy,  he  went  from 
one  to  another  of  the  islands  in  a  sailing 
ship,  jotting  down  with  scrupulous  con- 
scientiousness everything  he  saw,  every- 
thing he  heard,  and  everything  he 
thought.  The  young  Greek  girl  in  Naxos 
who  offered  him  some  glyko  at  her  white 
house — he  tells  us  her  name  and  her  desire 
to  become  'Miss  Hellas.'  Jacques  Bou- 
lenger,  who  saw  her  before  our  author  (it 
must  be  the  same  girl :  the  descriptions  are 
so  much  alike),  made  her  one  of  the  hero- 
ines of  that  charming  fantasy,  Les  Soirs  de 
VArchipel. 

With  pleasing  naivete,  Mr.  de  Marignac 
tells  us  about  his  fears:  that  his  companion 
on  the  cruise  might  prove  to  be  a  dunce; 
that  he  would  not  find  Mycense  as  beauti- 
ful as  his  Athenian  friends  had  said  it  was; 
that  the  emotion  which  he  would  experi- 
ence in  Delos  would  be  'an  artificial  one 
produced  by  a  laborious  overheating  of 
the  imagination.'  But  the  pleasure  which 
he  felt  on  finding  his  apprehensions  to  be 
groundless,  his  joy  in  discovering  himself 
at  the  same  time  he  discovered  Greece — 
these  are  contagious.  The  value  of  this 
book  lies  in  its  youthful  gaiety,  and  in  the 
vivacity  with  which  it  was  lived  before  it 
was  written. 

I  feel  grateful  to  Mr.  de  Marignac,  who 
speaks  modern  Greek,  for  having  been 
able  to  enjoy  the  smiling  simplicity  of  the 
Greek  people,  for  not  having  wanted  to 
distress  his  muleteer  from  Milos  by  con- 
fessing that  he  was  not  an  archaeologist 
but  only  an  'insignificant  little  writer 
making  his  debut.'  He  has  known  how  to 
translate  this  simplicity  into  his  style: 
'A  few  steps  away  from  the  sea,  near  the 
well,  at  the  place  where  the  sandy  path 
divides  in  two,  I  give  my  address  to  the 
agoyatey  who  expects  to  come  to  Athens 
soon  to  marry  oflF  his  daughter.  The  man 
draws  us  some  water  from  the  well;  we 
drink  it  one  after  another:  the  archaeolo- 


[362] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


gist,  the  agoyatCy  the  donkey  and  the  dog. 
Then  we  take  our  leave  of  one  another.' 
These  lines  express  convincingly  the  au- 
thor's regret  at  having  to  part  with  so 
pleasant  a  traveling  companion. 

Mr.  de  Marignac's  book  is  illustrated 
with  drawings  and  water  colors  by  an 
English  painter,  Mrs.  M.  E.  Wrede.  The 
water  colors  are  full  of  enchanting  poet- 
ical feeling,  and  the  drawings  show  ad- 
mirable precision  and  the  ability  to  sug- 
gest much  with  a  few  strokes. 

Paul  Valery,  who  posed  for  Mrs.  Wrede 
and  who  has  had  no  occasion  to  regret  it, 
has  written  an  introduction  to  the  volume. 
I  shall  borrow  his  conclusion:  'Happy  is 
the  author  whose  fine  narrative  has  been 
ornamented  by  a  running  commentary 
of  sketches  as  delicate  and  as  well  suited 
to  fill  the  white  spaces  of  the  pages  as  are 
these.  One  may  well  envy  him  both  his 
charming  trip  and  his  charming  book  .  .  .' 

Since  Daguerre 

La  vieille  photographie,  depuis  Da- 
guerre jusQu'X  1870.  By  Henri  Jon- 
quieres.  Paris:  RenS  Helleu.  1936. 
(Michel  Vaucairc  in  Crapouillot,  Paris) 

A  VERY  fine  book  about  old  photo- 
^^  graphs  has  just  appeared.  It  is  a  sub- 
ject which  up  to  now  has  not  greatly 
tempted  either  historians  or  collectors.  It 
was  only  a  few  years  ago  that  the  artistic 
value  of  photos  began  to  be  recognized. 
But  while  there  are  thousands  of  dealers  in 
paintings  and  prints  in  Paris,  there  is  not  a 
single  shop  which  sells  old  photos.  Lacking 
collectors,  the  masterpieces  of  the  be- 
ginnings of  photography  have  almost  all 
disappeared,  like  popular  engravings. 

Poor  photography,  so  long  unrecog- 
nized! Thumb  through  Henri  Jonqui^res's 
book,  and  you  will  understand  that  it  is 
high  time  to  rehabilitate  it.  No  sooner  was 
it  invented  than,  like  printing,  it  began  to 
produce  masterpieces.  The  incunabula  of 


photography — that  is  the  fitting  term  for 
the  work  of  Daguerre  and  his  pupils  before 
1870. 

Believe  me,  they  have  never  been  sur- 
passed. The  photography  of  today  has 
doubtless  perfected  technical  details,  the 
taking  of  snapshots,  the  developing;  but 
it  has  not  surpassed  nor  even  equalled  the 
excellent  taste  shown  by  the  first  photog- 
raphers. After  you  examine  Jonqui^res's 
book  you  begin  to  perceive  the  kinship 
between  a  photo  and  a  painting.  The 
photographic  landscapes  are  done  in  the 
spirit  of  Courbet,  Theodore  Rousseau,  and 
particularly  Corot. 

Once  photography  and  painting  lived  in 
harmony  side  by  side.  It  was  only  later 
that  the  term  'photographic'  became  an 
insult  when  applied  to  a  painter's  work. 
Today  photography  and  painting  are  far 
apart.  They  are  the  hostile  sister  arts. 
The  one  is  proud  of  its  color;  the  other,  of 
its  accuracy.  . 

The  Museum  of  Decorative  Arts  re- 
cently assembled  a  large  exhibition  of 
photos.  I  should  not  like  to  annoy  my 
contemporaries,  but  the  truth  is  that  it 
was  the  'retrospective'  section  of  the  ex- 
hibition which  called  forth  the  most  ad- 
miration. Too  many  of  today's  photog- 
raphers are  first  of  all  technicians.  Once 
they  used  to  be  artists. 

Why  should  not  the  painters  of  1936 
have  some  samples  of  photography  to 
show,  side  by  side  with  their  paintings? 
Photography  requires  the  same  feeling  for 
composition,  the  same  eye  for  detail. 
Good  photography  is  not  the  result  of 
pure  chance.  Looking  through  the  mar- 
velous specimens  that  Jonqui^res  has 
collected,  one  observes  that  the  best  ones 
are  all  the  work  of  two  or  three  men. 

There  is  no  reason  why  a  Nadar,  for 
one,  should  not  be  given  a  much  higher 
place  in  the  history  of  French  art  than  a 
Bonnat.  Nadar's  work  cannot  even  be 
compared  to  Bonnat's. 


OUR  OWN  BOOKSHELF 


Neutrality.  New  York:  Columbia  University 
Press.  rgj6.  Volume  II:  The  Napoleonic 
Period.  By  W.  Allison  Phillips  and  Arthur 
H.  Reede.  jjg  pages.  $3.75.  Volume  III: 
The  World  War  Period,  By  Edgar  Tur- 
lington. 267 pages.  S3-7S'  Volume  IV:  Today 
AND  Tomorrow.  By  Philip  C.  Jessup.  237 
pages.  $2.75. 

Can  We  Stay  out  of  War?  By  Phillips  Brad- 
ley. New  Tork:  W.  W.  Norton  ^  Company^ 
Inc.  J936.  288  pages.  $2.75. 

Diplomacy  and  Peace.  By  R.  R.  Mowat.  New 
Tork:  Robert  M.  McBride  ^  Company.  1936. 
295  pages.  $2. so. 

M-Day.  By  Rose  M.  Stein.  New  Tork:  Har- 
court,  Brace  £5?  Company.  1936.  398  pages. 
$2.50. 

npHE  excellent  historical,  economic  and 
legal  discussion  of  neutrality  prepared 
under  the  direction  of  Columbia  University 
has  now  been  continued  and  completed.  Part  i 
of  Volume  II  is  an  analysis  of  the  roles  played 
by  belligerents  and  neutrals  during  the  con- 
flicts of  the  period  1792-18 12;  Part  2  treats  of 
the  effects  upon  the  commerce  and  economics 
of  the  neutrals,  notably  the  United  States,  the 
Scandinavian  countries,  and  Germany.  The 
work  is  carried  on  in  the  same  spirit  of  exact 
scholarship  that  characterized  the  initial  vol- 
ume of  the  series;  it  is  unfortunate,  however, 
that  there  runs  through  Professor  Phillips's 
section  that  vein  of  special  pleading  that  is  so 
typical  of  the  work  of  many  Britishers  who 
have  to  treat  of  the  French  Revolution.  The 
familiar  contemptuous  attitude  toward  Napo- 
leon is  to  be  found  here;  as  is  also  the  old 
justification  of  the  British  policy  of  strangulat- 
ing neutral  trade. 

Professor  Phillips  leans  heavily  on  Admiral 
Mahan,  apparently  unaware  of  the  fact  that 
by  now  competent  American  scholars  have 
written  off  the  admiral's  opinions  as  untrust- 
worthy on  the  ground  of  their  extreme  British 
bias.  As  regards  America's  entry  into  the  War 
of  1 81 2,  Professor  Phillips  can  see  no  causes 
other  than  the  successful  culmination  of  Napo- 
leon's plotting.  Thus  he  writes:  'Napoleon  had 
every  reason  to  be  satisfied  with  the  result  of 
his  diplomacy,  which  had  deceived  Madison 
and  his  advisers  into  believing  that  the  re- 


sponsibility for  continuing  the  violation  of 
neutral  rights  now  rested  upon  Great  Britain 
alone.'  In  fairness  it  should  be  noted  that  the 
effect  of  his  prejudices  is  considerably  softened 
by  the  excellent  chapter  on  the  United  States 
written  in  Part  1  by  Mr.  Reede,  an  American 
scholar. 

Volume  III  continues  the  narrative,  the 
bridge  between  the  Napoleonic  Wars  and  the 
World  War  being  made  through  the  highly 
competent  preface  of  the  editor,  Professor 
Jessup.  By  191 4  the  following  rules  had  the 
sanction  of  law:  i.  Paper  blockades  were  il- 
legal. 2.  Free  ships  made  for  free  goods,  i.e., 
neutral  goods  were  safe  on  neutral  ships  and 
indeed  on  belligerent  ships  if  the  articles  were 
not  contraband  and  not  destined  for  a  block- 
aded port.  3.  Absolute  contraband  was  held 
to  apply  strictly  to  goods  used  in  war  and 
destined  for  an  enemy  country;  however,  the 
principle  of  continuous  voyage  was  applied 
here.  4.  Conditional  contraband  applied  to 
goods  used  by  civilian  populations  which  were 
susceptible  of  wartime  use;  but  continuous 
voyage  did  not  hold. 

In  Volume  III  Professor  Turlington  indi- 
cates how,  step  by  step,  belligerents  in  the 
World  War — meaning,  obviously,  Great  Brit- 
ain— proceeded  on  the  basis  of  'sovereign 
right'  to  place  under  their  control  all  those 
neutrals  who  were  trading  with  the  enemy. 
The  bill  of  particulars  is  a  long  one:  the  dis- 
tinction between  absolute  and  conditional 
contraband  was  broken  down;  the  list  of  con- 
traband was  amplified;  the  rule  of  blockade 
was  openly  flouted;  embargoes  were  placed  on 
commodities  needed  by  neutrals,  and  belliger- 
ents' own  nationals  were  forbidden  to  have 
dealings  with  neutrals  known  to  be  trading 
with  the  enemy;  neutral  ships  which  chanced 
to  be  in  belligerent  ports  were  seized  instead  of 
waiting  for  capture  on  the  high  seas.  The  dire 
effects  of  such  policies  on  the  economies  of 
neutral  powers  are  presented  in  considerable 
detail. 

In  the  face  of  such  developments.  Professor 
Jessup,  writing  in  Volume  IV,  is  prepared  to 
admit  that  the  concept  of  neutrality  demands 
serious  reconsideration.  He  notes  an  increasing 
willingness  in  the  United  States  to  abandon 
neutral  rights;  and  he  reads  the  meaning  of 


[364] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


current  American  legislation  in  that  light. 
Correctly,  he  points  out  that  'profits  or  peace' 
will  determine  America's  attitude  toward  the 
next  general  conflict;  and  because,  realistically 
considered,  complete  American  isolation  is  an 
economic  impossibility,  he  seeks  to  formulate 
a  program  that  will  leave  us  some  trade  with- 
out carrying  with  it  the  danger  of  our  en- 
tanglement. 

Professor  Jessup's  plan  calls  for  a  united 
front  of  all  neutrals  to  deter  belligerent  viola- 
tions and  on  the  basis  of  the  maintenance  of 
reasonable  neutral  trade.  He  is  prepared  to  see 
neutral  embargoes  on  arms,  munitions  and 
implements  of  war;  embargoes  on  shipments  to 
belligerents  of  raw  materials  like  oil,  cotton, 
rubber,  steel,  and  iron;  also  embargoes  on  the 
export  of  capital.  He  is  ready  to  advocate 
drastic  measures  even  in  the  case  of  food- 
stuffs. In  short,  only  normal  inter-neutral 
trade  will  keep  us  out  of  trouble,  and  this  can 
be  effected  only  on  the  basis  of  the  keeping  of 
the  faith  by  all  neutrals.  Professor  Jessup  de- 
nies justly  that  neutrals  in  the  long  run  profit 
from  wartime  business,  and  he  makes  quite  an 
eloquent  plea  for  peace.  He  says:  'The  country 
as  a  whole  draws  no  lasting  economic  advan- 
tage from  neutrality,  and  it  is  fallacious  to 
build  a  policy  on  the  assumption  that  it  does. 
...  In  time  of  neutrality  we  must  take  the 
losses  which  cannot  be  avoided,  hoping  thereby 
to  escape  the  greater  losses  which  follow  in  the 
wake  of  peace.' 

This  is  honestly  reasoned,  has  the  fine  ring  of 
conviction,  and  therefore  is  all  to  the  good. 
One  may  question,  however,  whether  sound 
neutrality  legislation,  even  backed  up  by  for- 
mal agreements  among  nations  not  having 
anything  to  gain  immediately  from  war,  will 
produce  the  desired  results.  The  same  doubt 
insistently  arises  in  connection  with  Professor 
Bradley's  excellent  work.  As  an  introduction 
to  the  whole  question.  Can  We  Stay  out  of 
fVar?  is  easily  the  best  one-volume  presenta- 
tion currently  available.  The  author  is  deeply 
indebted  to  Charles  A.  Beard's  theoretical 
analysis  of  the  nature  of  American  national 
interest,  and,  like  his  mentor,  he  accepts  the 
thesis — as  who  does  not.'' — that  our  business 
interest  will  involve  us  in  conflict. 

Professor  Bradley's  program,  prepared  in- 
dependently, is  much  like  Professor  Jessup's: 
rigid  embargoes  on  arms,  munitions  and  imple- 
ments of  war,  and  on  loans  and  credits  should 
be  imposed;  credits  to  neutrals  are  to  be  under 


Government  surveillance;  travel  in  belligerent 
ships  and  in  war-zones  generally  should  be 
prohibited;  international  trade  only  should  be 
conducted  and  this  on  the  basis  of  a  licensing 
system  to  prevent  trans-shipment  to  belliger- 
ents. 

Professor  Bradley  knows  the  severe  eco- 
nomic penalties  such  a  program  would  impose 
on  the  United  States,  and  he  thinks  it  will 
work  if  the  tocsin  of  alarm  is  constantly 
sounded.  It  is  significant  to  note  that  neither 
he  nor  Professor  Jessup  is  prepared  to  consider 
or  call  upon  any  unofficial  agencies  in  the 
cause  of  peace:  the  students,  the  organized 
workers  and  farmers,  and  the  like.  One  may 
question  whether  legislation  and  inter-neutral 
agreements  alone  will  do  the  trick.  Essentially, 
peace  will  be  maintained,  if  it  can  be,  only 
through  extra-legal  devices. 

Diplomacy  and  Peace  is  irritating  and  occa- 
sionally amusing.  It  is  a  discursive  and  anec- 
dotal recital — done  with  that  extraordinary 
erudition  that  so  many  British  scholars  can 
command — of  the  differences  between  the  old 
and  the  new  diplomacy.  The  former  was  in  the 
care  of  the  professionals,  who  were  affable  and 
cynical  upper-middle  class  representatives 
to  whom  negotiation  was  a  business.  Today, 
diplomacy  is  the  concern  of  politicians,  who 
cannot  differentiate  between  the  functions  of 
policy  and  negotiation.  The  thesis,  presented 
ramblingly,  is  amazingly  unreal:  presumably 
trade,  finance,  colonies  and  struggles  for  mar- 
kets have  nothing  to  do  with  peace  and  war. 
One  random  observation  of  the  author  must 
suffice  to  show  his  general  attitude:  'A  steadily 
pursued,  traditional  policy  is  not  likely  to  pro- 
duce war  because  other  governments  come  to 
know  this  policy  and  to  take  it  into  their  cal- 
culations; but  policy  dependent  on  a  changing 
legislature  is  liable  to  breed  fear  and  uncer- 
tainty abroad,  and  so  to  lead  to  war  crises.'  In 
short,  only  the  Metternichs  can  maintain 
world  sanity! 

Miss  Stein's  book  is  of  an  altogether  differ- 
ent temper.  Poorly  organized  and  occasionally 
revealing  judgment  based  on  bias  rather  than 
considered  opinion,  it  is  nevertheless  one  of  the 
truly  significant  books  of  the  day.  Miss  Stein 
writes  with  excitement  and  has  a  story  to  tell 
— one  that  merits  the  serious  attention  of  all  in- 
telligent people.  M-Day  simply  means  the 
first  day  of  mobilization  when  America  enters 
war;  and  Miss  Stein  adequately  reveals  that 
the  War  Department  is  ready  with  its  plans. 


^93^ 


OUR  OWN  BOOKSHELF 


\Z^S\ 


The  whole  manpower  of  the  nation  is  to  be 
conscriptedj  whether  for  military  or  industrial 
purposes;  agencies  of  opinion  and  intelligence 
of  course  will  come  under  complete  control; 
and  business  is  to  be  regulated — under  the 
profit  system,  naturally.  In  short,  we  are  in  for 
as  complete  a  taste  of  military-Fascist  control 
as  the  keenest  American  admirers  of  Hitler  and 
Mussolini  might  wish. 

Miss  Stein  hopes  we  can  do  something  about 
it,  and  her  opinions  are  no  better  and  no  worse 
than  those  ofmost  of  us.The  book's  importance 
arises  from  the  dramatic  way  in  which  the  au- 
thor makes  public  and  points  out  the  implica- 
tions of  the  War  Department's  preparations. 
Her  summary  of  the  reasons  why  we  got  into 
the  late  war  is  a  little  less  than  adequate,  but 
Miss  Stein — as  any  reader  of  the  Nye  Commit- 
tee findings  must  know — does  not  distort  the 
r61e  of  the  business  and  financial  interests.  The 
recent  conspiracy  of  silence  against  the  book  is 
one  of  the  curiosities  of  our  day. 

— Louis  M.  Hacker 

Eastern  Industrialization  and  its  Effect 
UPON  the  West:  With  Special  Reference 
TO  Great  Britain  and  Japan.  By  G.  E. 
Hubbard^  assisted  by  Denzil  Baring,  with  a 
conclusion  by  T.  E.  Gregory.  New  Tork: 
Oxford  University  Press.  1936.  395  pages. 
$7.00. 

"TOURING  the  1936  Conference  of  the  Insti- 
tute of  Pacific  Relations  one  of  the  major 
topics  to  be  discussed  will  be — quoting  from 
Lord  Astor's  Foreword  to  the  present  volume 
— 'the  international  aims  and  results,  in  the 
Pacific,  of  the  social,  economic,  and  political 
policies  of  the  countries  most  intimately  con- 
nected with  that  area.'  A  vast  subject,  of  which 
one  sub-division — that  of  'Eastern  Industrial- 
ization'— was  assigned  to  a  body  of  experts 
associated  with  the  Royal  (British)  Institute 
of  International  Affairs,  and  by  them  made  the 
point  of  departure  for  a  broad,  painstaking  and 
extremely  thorough  investigation. 

The  principal  results  of  that  investigation 
are  contained  in  Mr.  Hubbard's  book,  which 
for  scope,  range  of  information,  historical  and 
technical  value  easily  ranks  with  such  classic 
studies  as  Orchard's  Japan's  Economic  Posi- 
tion, Cressey's  China's  Geographic  Foundations 
and  the  Economic  Handbook  of  the  Pacific  Area, 
issued  by  the  Pacific  Institute  in  1934  under 
the  able  editorship  of  Frederick  V.  Field. 


An  introductory  survey  on  'Competition 
in  World  Markets'  shows,  with  the  aid  of  care- 
fully checked  statistical  material,  the  relentless 
penetration  of  the  Orient  into  markets  formerly 
dominated  by  the  West.  Next  follow  special 
surveys — each  a  monograph  in  miniature — of 
the  situation  in  Japan,  China,  India,  and 
Great  Britain.  In  each  case  the  emphasis  is 
placed  upon  the  character,  development, 
quantitative  and  qualitative  peculiarities  of 
the  industrial  production,  factory  manage- 
ment, labor  and  capital  relationships  of  the 
country.  The  general  picture  which  emerges 
from  the  mass  of  factual  evidence  is  one  of 
tremendous  economic  potentialities,  which, 
under  Japanese  leadership,  are  being  ruthlessly 
exploited  at  the  expense  of  British  imperialist 
interests.  In  his  shrewd  'Conclusion,'  however, 
Prof.  T.  E.  Gregory  shows  where  the  economic 
contradictions  lie: — 

*A  complete  industrialization  of  the  East 
would  obviously  involve  enormous  sums,  only 
a  portion  of  which  can  be  supplied  locally.  .  .  . 
The  conclusion  seems  obvious  that  either  the 
process  of  industrialization  will  take  decades 
to  accomplish,  so  that  the  dreaded  complete 
supersession  of  the  western  industrial  system 
by  the  eastern  is  on  this  ground  a  chimera;  or, 
if  the  pace  of  industrialization  is  to  be  acceler- 
ated, western  capital  must  assist.' 

Whatever  the  practical  outcome  of  the  strug- 
gle between  Occident  and  Orient,  the  actual 
processes  of  this  struggle  are  brilliantly  indi- 
cated in  this  compact  volume. 

— ^Harold  Ward 

India's  New  Constitution  :  A  Survey  of  the 
Government  of  India  Act,  1935.  By  G.  P. 
Eddy  and  F.  H.  Lawton.  New  Tork:  The 
Macmillan  Company.  1935.  239  pages.  $2.10. 

npHE  subtitle  of  this  work  portrays  ac- 
curately  its  scope  and  contents:  it  is  a  care- 
ful analysis  by  two  British  lawyers  of  the  con- 
tents of  the  Act  of  Parliament  under  which 
India  will  probably  be  governed  for  some  years 
to  come.  Primarily  a  work  of  exposition  and 
explanation,  it  is  admirably  arranged  and 
indexed  to  enable  anyone  to  obtain  precise  and 
authoritative  information  on  any  specific  topic 
or  section  of  the  Act  in  which  he  may  be  inter- 
ested. It  should  further  be  of  great  value  as 
giving  a  clear  picture  of  the  actual  constitu- 
tional arrangements  of  India,  and  its  intelli- 
gent use  should  do  much  to  prevent  rash  and 


[3^6] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


7««^ 


ignorant  statements  about  British  government 
in  India. 

At  the  same  time  it  does  not  go  beyond  the 
Act:  it  explains  neither  the  political  situation 
which  produced  it  nor  the  conditions  to  which 
it  is  to  apply,  A  brief  introductory  chapter  is 
indeed  devoted  to  a  statement  of  past  consti- 
tutional developments  and  to  a  description  of 
the  dyarchy  preceding  the  present  arrange- 
ments, but  it  is  far  too  short  to  inform.  Alone, 
therefore,  the  work  will  be  of  little  value  to 
those  who  know  nothing  of  India. 

It  makes  clear,  however,  that  the  three 
achievements  of  the  present  Act  are  provisions 
for  AH -India  Federation,  provincial  autonomy, 
and  responsibility  with  safeguards.  The  safe- 
guards are  considerable,  and  a  reading  of  the 
work  suggests  how  far  India  still  is  from  self- 
government  and  Dominion  status,  even  if  it 
also  reveals  that  some  progress,  however  slow, 
has  been  made  since  the  Crown  took  it  over 
from  the  East  India  Company  in  1858.  Finally, 
the  authors  give  no  conclusions  about  the  Act 
as  a  whole  and  pass  no  judgments,  even  from 
the  viewpoint  of  the  constitutional  lawyer. 
— ^T.  I.  Cook 

Fascism  and  National  Socialism.  By  Mi- 
chael T.  Florinsky.  New  Tork:  The  Macmillan 
Company.  1936.  276  pages.  $2.§0. 

T_JOW  does  the  Fascism  of  Italy  differ  from 
the  National  Socialism  of  Germany?  In 
what  ways  are  they  similar?  Dr.  Florinsky's 
study  gives  us  the  answer  in  simple,  almost 
primer-like  fashion.  His  book  is  useful  almost 
in  the  way  that  reference  books  like  the  World 
Almanac  are  useful.  Here,  in  concise,  easily- 
understood  fashion,  are  the  dates  of  the  big 
events,  the  important  points  of  the  doctrines, 
the  desired  goals,  and  the  progress  (or  lack  of 
it)  made  toward  these  goals. 

Except  for  a  few  back-handed  slaps  at  the 
Roosevelt  administration  and  the  Soviet 
Union,  which  are  dragged  in  for  no  good  rea- 
son. Dr.  Florinsky  has  been  able  to  present  his 
findings  in  a  seemingly  objective  manner.  He 
writes  forcefully  and  convincingly,  and  the 
reader  goes  along  in  a  contented  frame  of  mind 
believing  that  he  is  getting  facts  and  nothing 
but  the  facts — until  he  comes  across  state- 
ments like  this:  'The  upward  trend  had  begun 
in  Germany  while  she  was  still  under  the 
Marxist-Liberal  regime,  just  as  in  the  U.  S.  it 
started  under  President  Hoover'  (italics  mine). 


This  statement — certainly  not  a  fact — makes 
one  less  confident  that  it  is  a  thoroughly  un- 
biased account  he  has  been  reading.  Fortu- 
nately such  obviously  questionable  remarks 
are  rare,  and  the  book,  on  the  whole,  is  a  good 
one. 

Leo  Hu HERMAN 

An  Introduction  to  Contemporary  German 
Philosophy.  By  Werner  Brock.  New  Tork: 
'The  Macmillan  Company.  1935.  143  pages. 
$2.00. 

'T^HIS  short  scholarly  handbook  was  needed; 
■^  for  a  world  which  has  heard  much  of 
Nietzsche  as  the  great  German  philosopher — 
perhaps  too  much — tends  to  be  ignorant  of 
other  German  philosophers  since  then.  The 
only  two  figures  of  popular  European  repute 
are  Spengler  and  Keyserling.  But  in  Germany 
the  former  is  largely  a  target  for  academic 
brickbats,  and  the  latter  is  politely  overlooked 
as  a  sort  of  baronial  Walter  B,  Pitkin.  Pro- 
fessor Brock,  now  in  English  exile,  dispassion- 
ately records  the  outlines  of  development 
since  Hegel  and  Nietzsche:  there  is  treatment 
of  Husserl's  broad  work  on  logic,  Dilthey's 
cultural  philosophy,  Heidegger's  new  analysis 
of  metaphysics.  No  name  seems  to  stand  out  as 
of  one  who  discovered  a  new  relationship  be- 
tween philosophy  and  life;  they  are  academic 
men,  excellent  in  tradition.  The  one  formal 
German  thinker  who  has  made  recent  con- 
tributions basic  to  sociology  remains  Max 
Weber,  the  author  of  The  Protestant  Ethic  and 
The  Spirit  0/  Capitalism. 

Professor  Brock's  Introduction  suffers  from 
the  fact  that  it  is  too  advanced  in  terminology 
to  be  a  convenient  layman's  book,  and  too  re- 
stricted in  compass  to  satisfy  the  student. 
— William  Harlan  Hale 

International  Delusions.  By  George  M. 
Stratton.  Boston:  Houghton  Mifflin  Company. 
1936.  232  pages.  $2.00. 

DROFESSOR  Stratton  describes  in  popular 
style  the  psychology  of  nationalism,  with 
the  creation  in  every  land  of  such  stereotypes 
as:  'Our  nation  is  unique  in  its  devotion  to 
peace;  our  armament  is  for  defense  alone;  we 
wage  only  righteous  wars;  our  life  depends  on 
what  we  may  attain  through  this  war;  our 
motives  are  of  the  noblest;  others  are  responsi- 
ble; we  are  the  elect  and  upright  nation;  in- 


193^ 


OUR  OWN  BOOKSHELF 


[367] 


dividuals  must  not  lie,  steal  or  kill  but  nations 
may.'  He  shows  how  such  ideas  are  developed 
through  social  learning.  Innately  human  beings 
are  no  more  patriotic  than  are  coyotes.  His 
proposal  is  the  familiar  one  that  as  courts  and 
police  keep  peace  among  individuals  or  tribes, 
so  a  world  state  must  legislate,  adjudicate  and 
enforce  decisions  for  nations.  Words,  sentences 
and  chapters  are  short.  There  is  no  inkling  of 
Marx  and  little  of  any  economic  interests  in  the 
author's  picture.  Hence  the  title? 

— Goodwin  Watson 

Education  Before  Verdun.  By  Arnold 
Zweig.  Translated  from  the  German  by  Eric 
Sutton.  New  Tork:  Viking  Press.  igj6.  447 
pages.  $2.50. 

'P'DUCATION  Before  Verdun  comes  chron- 
ologically between  Toung  Woman  of  1^14 
and  The  Case  of  Sergeant  Grischa,  to  form  with 
them  part  of  a  tetralogy  that  will  be  com- 
pleted by  the  projected  novel  The  Crowning  of 
a  King.  Like  Grischa  it  is  built  on  the  theme  of 
man's  inhumanity  to  man,  and  on  the  petty 
and  great  injustices  that  breed  like  lice  where- 
ever  men  are  given  god-like  power  over  their 
fellows. 

Its  story  is  the  story  of  Bertin,  of  the  Army 
Service  Corps,  who  went  into  the  war  believing 
that  war  might  be  good  and  that  good  might 
come  of  it,  and  who  learned  otherwise. 

Bertin  was  taught  by  his  own  experiences, 
when  he  became  the  victim  of  a  series  of  petty 
persecutions  after  he  gave  a  drink  of  water, 
against  orders,  to  a  thirsting  French  prisoner; 
and  by  the  Kroysing  affair.  He  met  and  be- 
came a  friend  of  young  Christoph  Kroysing, 
who,  because  he  had  complained  when  he  saw 
officers  taking  the  best  of  the  food  and  the 
supplies  intended  for  the  ranks,  was  shifted 
by  his  captain  to  the  most  dangerous  sector 
of  the  front,  and  kept  there  until  a  shell  killed 
him.  He  told  Christoph's  brother  Eberhard  of 
the  affair;  and  both  directly  and  indirectly 
thereafter  he  was  affected  by  Eberhard's  at- 
tempt tq  get  vengeance. 

Despite  its  many  excellencies,  one  cannot 
help  feeling  that  the  book  has  not  the  power 
that  it  might  have.  The  crimes  against  Bertin 
are  essentially  petty.  The  crime  against  Chris- 
toph, though  a  deliberate  and  even  devilish 
piece  of  malice  when  viewed  in  isolation,  is, 
when  taken  in  conjunction  with  the  surround- 
ing circumstances  of  a  war  in  which  wanton 


death  for  the  innocent  was  a  familiar  story, 
hardly  of  dramatic  proportion.  And  the  con- 
stantly shifting  emphasis,  now  on  Eberhard, 
now  on  Bertin,  now  on  minor  characters  who 
themselves  were  brought  into  and  affected  by 
the  Kroysing  affair,  lends  a  chopped-up,  epi- 
sodic, wastefully  formless  character  to  the 
book. 

Which  does  not  mean  that  it  is  an  inconsid- 
erable piece.  Definitely  it  is  worth  reading,  as 
a  moving  and  truthful  narrative.  It  has  not  the 
dramatic  force  of  Grischa,  nor  the  bitter  and 
tearing  intensity  of  that  similar  book  Paths  of 
Glory.  But  it  is  excellent  in  its  own  way,  well 
able  to  stand  with  the  best  of  the  novels  that 
the  War  has  brought  forth. 

— Arthur  Heinemann 


The  Rape  of  Africa.  By  Lamar  Middleton. 

New  Tork:  Harrison  Smith  and  Robert  Haas. 

193^-  331  P'^ge^-  $3-00. 
/^NE  of  the  recurrent  phenomena  in  litera- 
^■'^  ture  is  the  writing  of  books  for  the  pur- 
pose of  '  revealing '  the  dark  side  of  imperial- 
ism. The  theme  is  the  obvious  one:  how  the 
white  man  in  exploiting  the  resources  of 
Africa  killed  natives,  stole  their  land  and  other 
property,  and  hypocritically  justified  such 
activity  at  home  by  saying  his  only  interest  in 
the  Dark  Continent  was  to  civilize  the  native 
and  to  fight  slavery.  This  is  the  typical  for- 
mula; and  all  that  is  necessary  for  each  part  of 
Africa  is  to  give  the  requisite  dates,  names,  and 
places. 

Of  this  body  of  quasi-historical  literature  the 
present  volume  is  one  of  the  poorer  examples. 
To  be  sure,  the  author  has  done  a  good  deal  of 
reading,  although  it  is  obvious  that  sources 
and  very  good  secondary  works  have  not  been 
used  to  best  advantage.  The  style  is  journalis- 
tic; in  fact,  one  senses  a  labored  attempt  to  give 
every  sentence  a  head-line  quality.  The  title 
shows  an  obviously  one-sided  approach,  a 
prejudice  that  supplies  material  where  facts  are 
lacking.  As  to  missions  in  Africa  the  book  sup- 
plies practically  no  information,  the  little  of- 
fered showing  complete  ignorance  of  the  facts. 

Without  wishing  to  justify  white  imperialism 
in  Africa,  the  reviewer  suggests  that  attention 
be  given  to  a  point  not  altogether  academic; 
namely,  what  would  Africa  have  been  without 
white  imperialism,  cruel  as  it  is?  Very  few  writ- 
ers seem  to  realize  that  some  of  the  criticism 
leveled  at  the  European  exploitation  is  valid 


[368] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


A^ 


only  by  comparison  with  the  alternative  to 
such  imperialism.  Some  good  can  be  claimed 
for  white  imperialism  when  one  thinks  of  the 
more  repellent  character  of  Arab  or  Fulani 
exploitation. 

— Harry  R,  Rudin 

Raw  Materials,  Population  Pressure  and 
War.  By  Sir  Norman  Angell.  New  Tork: 
World  Peace  Foundation.  {World  Affairs 
Books ^  No.  14).  1936.  46  pages.  75  cents. 

^S  ITS  title  suggests,  this  small  pamphlet 
by  the  eminent  British  pacifist  attempts 
to  analyze  the  economic  and  physical  factors 
leading  to  war.  Sir  Norman  agrees  with  most 
qualified  authorities  that  population  has  little 
or  nothing  to  do  with  the  actual  drive  to 
military  conquest — as  witness  the  difficulties 
of  promoting  emigration  and  the  irrational 
propaganda  for  more,  rather  than  fewer  births, 
in  countries  utilizing  the  argument.  In  respect 
to  raw  materials  Sir  Norman  is  convinced  that 
the  only  logical  solution  is  some  effective 
international  arrangement  whereby  each  na- 
tion in  need  of  basic  materials  could  obtain 
them  by  peaceable  means.  His  main  thesis  is 
that  'neither  the  struggle  for  raw  materials 
nor  for  population  outlets  is  normally  dictated 
by  any  real  economic  or  peace  need,'  but  that 
'both  aims  find  their  motive  in  military  ad- 
vantage. .  .  .  For,'  he  believes,  'as  long  as 
nations  feel  themselves  to  be  at  the  mercy  of 
others,  they  will  struggle  for  territory,  for 
empire,  whether  it  is  to  their  economic  advan- 
tage or  not.' 

What  is  not  made  sufficiently  clear  is  the 
fundamental  politico-economic  forces  which, 
in  this  period  of  extreme  imperialist  contradic- 
tions, compel  each  nation  to  lay  plans  against 
every  other.  It  is  a  variant  of  the  old  problem: 
who  will  swallow  first,  the  horse  or  the  man? 

— H.  W. 

Once  We  Had  a  Child.  By  Hans  Fallada.  New 
Tork:  Simon  and  Schuster.  1936.  631  pages. 
$2.50. 

'TpHIS  long  novel  is  described  by  its  author  as 
^  the  story  of  '  a  man  who  lived  the  lives  of 
his  own  ancestors;'  but  it  is  with  weary  feet 
that  we  attempt  to  follow  Mr.  Fallada's  hero 
back  into  his  ancestral  past  and  forward  into 
the  life  in  which  he  does  and  says  so  many 
disagreeable,  boorish,  and  brutal  things.  Hans 


Gantschow  makes  himself,  at  his  mildest,  an 
infernal  nuisance  to  everyone  with  whom  he 
has  anything  to  do,  and  his  creator  fails  to 
persuade  us  that  his  sole  virtue,  devotion  to  the 
soil,  excuses  the  thoroughly  detestable  rest  of 
him.  Mr.  Fallada  hammers  away  at  proving 
that  the  events  and  people  of  his  tale  are 
somehow  tremendously  important,  but  the 
hammer  blows  ring  hollow;  the  earthy,  robust 
countryfolk  are  only  soiled  pasteboard. 

All  of  this  exaggerated  ado  about  so  very 
little  is  to  be  laid  to  its  author's  almost 
desperate  and  perfectly  understandable  effort 
to  write  in  a  way  that  will  lend  significance  to 
things  in  themselves  insignificant  or  even  false. 
We  shall  do  better  to  seek  for  modern  Ger- 
many's representative  fiction  in  the  pages  of 
Der  StUrmer  than  in  such  head-in-the-sand 
story  books. 

—  Henry  Bennett 

The  Baroness.  By  Ernst  Wiechert.  Translated 
from  the  German  by  Phyllis  and  Trevor 
Blewitt.  New  Tork:  W.  W.  Norton  and  Com- 
pany. 1936.  29s  pages.  $2.50. 

TN  THE  sixth  edition  of  Naumann's  history 
of  modern  German  literature,  which  was 
issued  after  the  triumph  of  Fascism,  a  page  is 
given  to  Ernst  Wiechert  in  the  section  which 
follows  that  on  the  leader-cult.  In  The  Baroness 
Wiechert  describes  the  unspoken  understand- 
ing that  develops  between  the  Baroness  and 
the  peasant  soldier,  who  returns  from  the  dead 
after  twenty  years  to  become  pure  of  heart  and 
kill  the  bird  of  death.  The  irrationalism  and 
primitivism  of  the  story  are  part  of  the 
philosophical  background  of  Fascism. 

— ^Joseph  Kresh 

In  the  Second  Year.  By  Storm  Jameson. 
New  Tork:  The  Macmillan  Company.  1936. 
3ti  pages.  $2.50. 

TN  some  measure  a  British  counterpart  of 
■'■  //  Can't  Happen  Here^  Miss  Jameson's 
anti-Fascist  novel  is  far  too  good  to  miss.  Most 
of  us  have  ploughed  through  quasi-novels  full 
of  the  misapplied  skill  of  the  pamphleteer,  who 
has  succeeded  only  in  transmuting  the  bare 
bones  of  doctrine  into  unconvincing  narrative. 
Here  is  something  very  diflFerent,  a  piece  of 
work  which  concerns  itself  with  vital  issues  and 
is  yet  a  thoroughly  interesting  story  with 
recognizable  human  beings  for  characters. 

-H.  B. 


■■^^'^F^srKi.^r,    ^h.'r>'i' 


AMERICA  AND  THE  LEAGU^"^^*"^ 

A  Symposium — II 


With  the  collapse  of  Ethiopian  re- 
sistance and  the  failure  of  the  League  of 
Nation's  sanctions  to  stop  Italian  agres- 
sion, the  question  of  how  best  to  preserve 
the  peace  of  Europe  and  the  world  be- 
comes more  urgent  than  ever.  Newspaper 
dispatches  report  that  while  the  Left 
parties  in  France,  which  won  a  signal 
victory  in  the  recent  elections,  are  likely 
to  pursue  a  policy  more  friendly  to  the 
League  of  Nations  than  that  of  the  Laval 
and  Sarraut  Governments,  there  is  a 
considerable  amount  of  French  public 
opinion  which  favors  withdrawal  from  the 
League.  In  Britain,  too,  the  friends  of  the 
League  are  discomfited  and  discredited, 
and  it  seems  likely  that  that  nation  will 
return  to  something  like  the  'splendid 
isolation'  which  it  attempted,  unsuccess- 
fully, to  establish  before  the  World  War. 
At  the  same  time  there  is  talk  of  recasting 
the  Covenant  of  the  League  in  such  a  way 
as  to  eliminate  Article  XVI  and  thus 
frankly  admit  that  that  organization  can- 
not and  should  not  attempt  to  prevent 
armed  conflicts  in  which  major  powers 
have  an  interest. 

But  students  of  the  history  of  the 
League  of  Nations  recall  that  the  men  who 
drew  up  the  Covenant  did  not  believe 
that  in  doing  so  they  were  creating  a  cer- 
tain guaranty  of  peace.  They  conceived 
of  the  League  as  a  continuing  conference 
between  the  powers  great  and  small,  in 
which  minor  conflicts  could  be  solved  and 
major  conflicts  discussed,  and  the  out- 
break of  hostilities  thus  delayed.  The 
League  was  not  to  be  a  super-government 
but  an  instrument  which  might  or  might 
not  be  used  in  the  prevention  of  war  ac- 
cording as  the  major  powers  chose. 

When  the  United  States  failed  to  ratify 
the  Treaty,  even  this  modest  aim  had  to 
be  contracted.  Thus  the  success  of  the 
League  in  solving  the  Aland  Islands  dis- 


pute and  the  Corfu  incident  was  more 
surprising  to  students  of  its  structure  than 
was  its  failure  to  prevent  or  stop  the  wars 
in  South  America  and  Manchuria. 

The  resort  to  sanctions  in  the  case  of 
Italy  versus  Ethiopia  was  the  first  serious 
effort  to  prevent  a  conflict  in  which  a 
strongly  armed  power  had  an  interest. 
And  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  effort  was 
made  primarily  because  of  the  desire  of 
Great  Britain  to  keep  Italy  from  estab- 
lishing a  large  and  powerful  colony  on  the 
Red  Sea,  and  failed  because  France  con-  ' 
sidered  it  more  important  to  her  own 
interest  to  preserve  the  friendship  of 
Italy  for  possible  use  against  Germany 
than  to  establish  a  'collective  system'  of 
security. 

Today  the  League  stands  at  the  cross- 
roads. Theoretically  it  is  still  possible  for 
it  to  become  what  its  most  ardent  sup- 
porters hoped  it  might  become:  the 
embryo  of  a  super-state.  But  it  seems 
more  likely  that  it  will  become  less  even 
than  what  it  has  been:  a  center  around 
which  will  be  gathered  such  international 
services  as  the  control  of  the  drug  traffic, 
the  traffic  in  women  and  children,  etc., 
but  not  in  any  degree  a  preserver  of  the 
peace. 

In  determining  the  future  of  the  League 
and  consequently  of  world  peace,  it  is 
again  possible  for  the  United  States  to 
play  a  decisive  role,  just  as  it  was  in  1920. 
In  that  year  we  decided  to  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  problems  of  Europe,  and 
our  decision  has  colored  the  history  of  the 
succeeding  years.  Shall  we  continue  on 
the  path  on  which  we  have  traveled,  or 
shall  we  reverse  our  stand  and  attempt 
belatedly,  but  perhaps  not  too  late,  to 
stem  the  tide  which  seems  to  be  leading  to 
a  second  World  War?  That  is  the  problem 
which  confronts  us  today. 

Thus  the  questions  which  The  Living 


[37o] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


Age  put  to  its  Advisory  Council  last 
month  do  not  become  academic  in  the 
light  of  the  latest  developments;  rather 
do  they  assume  a  new  importance.  For 
the  answers  to  them  reflect  the  public 
opinion  which  is  to  determine  our  decision 
on  this  most  vital  issue.  Those  questions 
were: — 

I.  Do  you  believe  that  the  United 
States  should  or  should  not  become  a 
member  of  the  League  of  Nations  or 
cooperate  in  its  sanctions? 

1.  What  do  you  believe  to  be  the  wisest 
neutrality  policy  for  the  United  States? 

ONE  of  the  most  thoughtful  of  the  many 
replies  we  have  received  comes  from  Clyde 
Eagleton,  Professor  of  Government  at 
New  York  University.  Professor  Eagleton 
writes: — 

The  first  and  most  fundamental  question  is: 
is  there  anything  more  important  than  peace? 
It  is  surprising  to  me  that  there  are  so  many 
people  in  the  United  States  who  answer  'no' 
to  this  question,  because  a  negative  answer 
seems  to  me  entirely  out  of  harmony  with 
American  character  and  tradition.  Such  a  po- 
sition is  contrary  to  all  history  and  all  political 
experience.  Men,  and  especially  Americans, 
have  always  put  justice  and  liberty  above 
peace,  and  other  things  at  various  times.  So 
civilization  has  been  builded.  There  have  al- 
ways been  some  things  worth  fighting  for;  and 
when  I  have  asked  this  question  of  audiences 
or  of  students  who  have  taken  the  Oxford 
pledge,  they  have  nearly  always  been  able  to 
think  of  something  for  which  they  would  be 
willing  to  fight.  A  true  passive  resister  is  one 
so  emotionally  disturbed  by  war  that  he  is 
willing  to  sacrifice  the  gains  of  civilization  in 
order  to  placate  his  own  feelings.  One  may 
sympathize;  it  is,  nevertheless,  an  anti-social 
attitude. 

Most  persons  admit  that  it  is  necessary  to 
use  force  to  uphold  certain  principles  of  im- 
portance to  humanity  against  those  who,  for 
their  own  ends,  would  use  force  in  violation  of 
these  principles.  This  being  so,  the  next  ques- 
tion is:  who  should  use  this  force?  The  lesson 
of  history  is  that  force  must  be  made  the 
monopoly  of  the  organized  community,  to  be 
used  only  by  the  authorized  agents  of  the 


community  to  uphold  the  law  established  in 
the  community.  This  explains  the  origin  of  all 
government.  Individuals  are  both  unable  and 
unwilling  to  take  the  risk  of  defending  them- 
selves; they  prefer — except  the  criminal — to 
submit  to  the  law  of  the  community  in  order 
to  obtain  the  protection  of  the  community. 

It  is  the  same  principle  which  confronts  the 
community  of  nations  today.  Law  and  govern- 
ment always  arise  with  a  conflict  of  ambitions 
and  desires.  As  these  conflicts  increase  in 
number,  men  must  choose  between  eternal 
fighting  to  achieve  their  ends  or  submission  to 
a  law  in  return  for  which  they  may  expect  a 
government,  with  its  overwhelming  physical 
force,  to  protect  their  rights  under  the  law. 
Modern  interdependence  is  bringing  that 
problem  to  nations  today.  Most  of  the  states 
of  the  world,  particularly  European  states, 
have  felt  this  increasing  pressure  and  as  human 
beings  happily  do,  have  preferred  to  build  a 
system  of  law  between  themselves.  This  system 
— the  League  of  Nations — is  naturally  ineffi- 
cient in  its  beginning;  but  such  a  system  is  the 
only  alternative  to  continual  fighting  in  the 
continual  disputes  between  peoples.  In  the 
long  run,  there  are  only  two  alternatives:  to 
use  our  own  army  and  navy  to  defend  our 
rights  or  to  join  in  with  all  to  defend  the  rights 
of  each. 

This,  of  course,  rests  upon  the  assumption 
that  there  are  some  things  which  we  think  are 
worth  defending.  Our  present  attitude,  re- 
flected in  the  neutrality  legislation  recently 
passed  by  Congress,  seems  to  deny  this.  It  is  an 
amazing  attitude,  entirely  inconsistent  with 
American  character;  indeed,  no  other  state  in 
the  world  has  even  thought  of  taking  such  a 
position.  We  notify  the  world  through  this 
legislation  that  any  state  may  go  to  war  and 
that  we  will  do  nothing  to  stop  it;  that  it  may 
conduct  the  war  as  it  pleases  without  fear  of 
interference  from  us;  that  we  will  accept  all 
insults  and  injuries.  It  is  an  open  invitation  to 
the  criminal  to  proceed  with  his  crime — for 
aggressive  war  is  now  regarded  as  a  crime  by 
peoples  everywhere.  Civilization  was  never 
builded  upon  such  supine  surrender  to  crime. 

This  is  a  unique  form  of  neutrality,  confined 
to  the  United  States,  though  out  of  harmony 
with  the  American  people.  But  neutrality  as  a 
general  principle  must  today  be  regarded  as 
immoral,  impracticable,  and  dangerous.  It  is 
immoral  because  the  right  should  be  defended 
against  the  wrong;  it  is  impracticable  because 


/pjd 


AMERICA  AND  THE  LEAGUE 


[371: 


under  modern  interdependence  it  is  impossible 
for  a  neutral  to  be  impartial;  it  is  dangerous 
because  if  its  neutral  rights  are  maintained, 
this  can  be  done  only  by  fighting  for  them,  as 
we  did  in  our  two  greatest  wars.  And  if  neutral 
rights  are  maintained,  we  surrender  all  to  the 
criminal  and  invite  him  to  attack  us. 

Why  should  anyone  have  to  suffer  loss  or 
even  inconvenience  simply  because  two  states 
are  seized  with  the  hydrophobia  of  war.''  Why 
not  stop  the  war  instead  of  stopping  or  em- 
barrassing the  activities  of  the  rest  of  the 
world?  It  is  an  absurd  idea  that  everyone  must 
meekly  submit  whenever  criminals  break  loose. 
As  between  individuals,  we  would  not  even 
think  of  permitting  it;  why  should  we  as  be- 
tween states.'' 

Of  course,  it  will  cost  something  to  stop  war. 
But  it  costs  quite  a  lot  to  carry  on  a  national 
war  or  even  to  suffer  the  loss  of  surrendering 
neutral  rights.  If  there  is  to  be  such  a  cost,  I 
would  prefer  to  have  it  expended  for  a  good 
rather  than  a  bad  cause — for  preventing  rather 
than  encouraging  war.  And  I  am  sure  that 
through  collective  action  the  cost  would  be 
reduced  by  division  and  by  the  reduction  of 
war. 

This  is  the  lesson  of  political  experience,  and 
I  know  of  no  other  answer.  We  have  tried  isola- 
tion in  vain;  disarmament  has  been  futile;  the 
Kellogg  Pact  (outlawry  of  war)  is  impotent; 
our  neutrality  legislation  is  obviously  absurd. 
One  after  another,  states  violate  the  law  and 
outrage  human  feelings — Japan,  Germany, 
Italy.  The  League  of  Nations  would  be  weak 
without  us;  it  has  been  hamstrung  by  our 
failure  to  cooperate  in  economic  sanctions. 

It  is  hopeful  that  Americans  are  now  so  in- 
terested in  the  League.  Their  ideas  are  badly 
confused  but  their  hearts  are  in  the  right  place. 
We  still  believe  in  justice  and  in  maintaining 
it  if  necessary  by  force.  I  am  sure  that  we  will 
ultimately  adopt  the  principle  of  collective 
security  in  international  affairs  as  we  have  in 
domestic  affairs. 

A  SOMEWHAT  similar  view  is  that  of 
Mr.  Nathaniel  M.  Hubbard  Jr.,  executive 
Vice-President  of  the  Navy  League  of  the 
United  States  and,  of  course,  a  sincere 
believer  in  the  ultimate  authority  of 
force.  Mr.  Hubbard  writes  in  part: — 

So  far  as  the  League  of  Nations  and  its  ac- 
complishments are  concerned,  I  have  never 


thought  that  it  could  be  made  of  much  value 
in  the  preservation  of  world  peace,  except  it 
was  instrumented  with  force.  Its  organization 
lends  itself  to  the  control  of  European  powers 
and  their  alliances.  The  attitude  of  mind  of 
nations  which  believe  themselves  to  lack  either 
sufficient  territory  or  sufficient  natural  re- 
sources for  their  proper  economic  development 
will  not,  in  my  judgment,  be  influenced  in 
their  aggressive  policies  by  preachments.  The 
history  of  the  human  race  is  quite  convincing 
that  human  nature  is  practically  static;  and 
all  human  progress  has  had  to  adjust  itself  to 
those  static  qualities. 

As  the  fate  of  world  peace  is  largely  in  the 
hands  of  European  nations,  and  that  family 
of  nations  is  not  a  congenial  one,  joining  the 
League  of  Nations  by  the  United  States  would 
in  all  probability  have  the  same  effect  on  it  as 
usually  follows  when  an  individual  interferes 
in  any  family  row.  To  join  in  sanctions  would 
involve  us  in  unforseeable  difficulties,  eco- 
nomic as  well  as  military. 

No  statutory  formula  for  preserving  our 
neutrality  is  thinkable — if  you  think  it 
through.  If  all  the  nations  of  the  world  would 
adopt  a  similar  statutory  formula,  then  it 
would  become  essentially  a  formula  of  interna- 
tional law  pertaining  to  neutrality.  Embargoes 
are  pregnant  with  dangers.  If  applied  by  other 
nations  against  us  in  a  war  in  which  we  are  a 
participant,  they  might  work  to  our  serious 
disadvantage,  and  we  cannot  afford  to  disre- 
gard that  contingency.  A  war  embargo  which 
is  not  enforced  100  per  cent  would  fail  to  pre- 
serve our  neutrality  and  no  embargo  has  ever 
reached  that  percentage  of  enforcement.  Their 
violation  is  too  profitable. 

Probably  the  most  effective  way  to  preserve 
the  neutrality  of  a  nation  is  to  acquire  and 
maintain  sufficient  maritime  strength  to  render 
it  an  unwelcome  antagonist  in  the  pending 


MANY  of  our  correspondents  express 
regret  that  the  United  States  did  not  join 
the  League  when  it  was  set  up  but  feel 
that  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  do  so  now. 
This  view  is  well  stated  by  Mr.  George  W. 
Coleman,  president  of  Boston's  Ford  Hall 
Forum.  Mr.  Coleman  says: — 

From  the  beginning  I  have  been  consistently 
in  favor  of  the  League  of  Nations  and  regretful 
that  the  United  States  did  not  play  its  part  in 


[372] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


June 


full  membership  in  the  League.  Notwithstand- 
ing the  growing  opinion  in  this  country  against 
the  League  and  against  our  participation  in 
the  World  Court,  I  am  still  of  the  same  mind. 

It  is  true  that  the  present  League,  with  the 
United  States,  Japan  and  Germany  not  in  its 
membership,  has  lost  power  and  prestige.  The 
League  was  not  strong  enough  to  enforce  its 
decision  with  reference  to  Japan's  action  in 
Manchukuo  and  it  has  been  able  to  do  only  a 
little  better  in  the  Italo-Ethiopian  situation. 
In  fact  so  far  as  all  major  matters  are  con- 
cerned, the  League  at  this  juncture  would 
seem  to  be  doomed,  unless  something  develops 
very  soon  to  indicate  that  the  League's  ma- 
chinery and  influence  is  still  potent. 

Under  these  circumstances  one  can  hardly 
be  a  thick-and-thin  advocate  and  supporter  of 
the  League  as  now  constituted.  Nevertheless 
I  am  persuaded  that  it  was  a  fateful  mistake 
when  the  United  States  did  not  take  its  place 
in  the  League  at  its  inception. 

The  question  of  what  is  the  wisest  neutrality 
policy  for  the  United  States  under  the  present 
circumstances  is  of  course  closely  related  to  the 
subject  of  our  relationship  to  the  League.  I 
cannot  help  feeling  instinctively  with  the  over- 
whelming opinion  of  my  fellow  citizens  that 
the  United  States  should  maintain  strict  neu- 
trality with  reference  to  the  next  Great  War, 
whether  it  is  confined  to  Europe  or  spreads  to 
the  Orient.  Whether  the  coming  war  is  wide- 
spread, or  as  a  European  conflict  grows  more 
desperate,  it  is  a  question  if  the  United  States 
can  keep  out  of  it,  try  as  hard  as  it  may. 

But  I  think  there  is  a  moral  as  well  as  a 
material  side  to  this  question  of  neutrality  for 
us.  So  far  as  one  can  see,  we  would  unquestion- 
ably be  far  better  off  materially  to  keep  out  of 
it  entirely.  But  in  school  and  church  we  were 
all  brought  up  to  despise  the  priest  and  Levite 
who  passed  by  on  the  other  side  and  to  admire 
the  good  Samaritan.  The  cases  may  not  be 
wholly  parallel  but  there  is  enough  of  a  likeness 
between  them  to  stagger  our  idealism,  if  we 
take  the  stand  of  the  priest  and  Levite  and 
say:  'It's  a  dirty  mess  for  which  we  are  not 
responsible  and  so  would  much  better  keep  out 
of  it.' 

ANOTHER  interesting  statement  comes 
from  Silas  Bent,  author,  lecturer,  journal- 
ist and  free-lance  writer.  Mr.  Bent 
states: — 

In   a  lucid   interval,   Mussolini   has   said: 


'Europe  has  grown  too  small  for  war.  Within 
forty  minutes  after  war  starts  the  capitals  of 
Europe  would  be  so  demolished  that  it  would 
take  fifty  years  to  rebuild  them.'  And  Hitler, 
the  other  principal  disturber  in  the  situation 
abroad,  has  made  statements  as  peaceful,  al- 
though not  so  graphic. 

All  of  us  are  familiar  with  the  menacing 
suavities  of  dictators  and  diplomats.  But  I  am 
persuaded  that  neither  Germany  nor  Italy 
wants  a  Continental  war  because  neither  can 
afford  it.  Their  gold  stocks  are  so  negligible 
that  both  of  them  for  years  have  carried  on 
foreign  purchases  only  on  condition  that  an 
equal  value  of  goods  be  ordered  from  Germany 
or  from  Italy.  That  is,  they  have  been  reduced 
to  barter.  I  am  told  that  under  this  arrange- 
ment one  American  firm  got  half  a  million 
dollars'  worth  of  German  harmonicas! 

Although  the  United  States  has  taken  a  far 
more  active  part  in  the  affairs  of  the  League  of 
Nations  than  most  of  our  citizens  realize,  and 
has  done  a  deal  of  good  thereby,  I  am  skeptical 
whether,  as  at  present  functioning,  the  League 
is  a  club  we  ought  to  join.  It  has  lost  a  great 
deal  of  prestige  lately,  and  from  the  first  its  air 
has  been  somewhat  the  atmosphere  of  an  I- 
Got-Mine  Club.  If  we  were  a  member,  we 
would  be  obligated  to  observe  sanctions  when- 
ever and  wherever  imposed  by  the  majority, 
and  that  is  not  a  position  conducive  to  our 
peace.  As  things  are,  I  believe  there  is  no  dan- 
ger for  years  to  come  of  another  World  War. 

OF  THE  many  letters  received  from 
members  of  our  Advisory  Council  who 
believe  that  we  should  join  the  League 
now  one  of  the  clearest  and  briefest  comes 
from  Dr.  E.  Gordon  Bill,  Dean  of  the 
Faculty  of  Dartmouth  College: — 'Start- 
ing from  the  assumption  that  it  is  impos- 
sible for  any  nation  of  the'importance  of 
the  United  States  of  America  to  live  unto 
itself  alone,'  Dean  Bill  says, 
I  am  driven  to  believe  that  open  and  active 
participation  in  the  League  of  Nations,  instead 
of  some  sporadic  action  into  which  we  are 
simply  bound  some  time  to  be  driven,  is  our 
only  logical  procedure.  Moreover  I  am  in- 
clined to  believe  that  if  the  United  States  of 
America  had  been  a  member  of  the  League  of 
Nations  since  its  formation,  the  condition  of 
the  world  as  regards  peace  would  have  been 
greatly  improved. 


193^ 


AMERICA  AND  THE  LEAGUE 


[373] 


DR.  YANDELL  HENDERSON  consid- 
ers the  question  'as  a  physiologist  and  a 
student  of  human  and  animal  behavior,' 
and  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  'we 
should  let  other  nations  cut  each  other's 
throat  without  help  or  hindrance  from 
us.'  Dr.  Henderson,  who  is  professor  of 
applied  physiology  at  Yale,  writes  as 
follows : — 

The  most  effective  contribution  that  Amer- 
ica can  make  toward  world  peace,  or  at  least 
toward  limitation  of  the  next  world  war,  is  to 
refuse  to  pay  for  it.  The  best  reason  for  refusing 
to  pay  for  it  is  that  we  should  certainly  not  be 
repaid;  and  the  best  hope  on  that  score  comes 
from  the  fact  that  the  debts  left  by  the  Great 
War  have  in  effect  been  repudiated.  And  with- 
out supplies  from  America,  based  on  loans — 
the  'worst  form  of  contraband' — the  European 
powers  probably  could  not  again  carry  on  a 
general  war  for  as  much  as  a  year. 

The  most  serious  hazard  for  us  arises  from 
the  fact  that — as  in  the  matter  of  oil  for  Italy — 
there  are  still  possibilities  for  profit  for  some  of 
our  industries  in  a  European  war.  There  are 
also  among  our  people  always  two  elements 
that  tend  sooner  or  later  to  advocate  war.  They 
are  first  the  ultra-righteous,  who  'see  a  moral 
issue,'  and  second  those  imitative  and  sug- 
gestible people — a  large  element — who  are 
excited  by  the  sounds  of  battle  and  the  sight 
of  blood.  As  Voltaire,  himself  a  pacifist,  sadly 
admitted,  'Man  is  a  carnivorous  animal.'  And 
he  meant,  I  take  it,  that  a  dog-fight  tends 
strongly  to  draw  in  other  dogs.  If  a  dog  could 
put  his  feelings  into  words,  he  would  probably 
explain  that  he  'went  into  a  fight  that  did  not 
concern  him  out  of  sympathy  for  the  under 
dog,'  thereby  making  the  upper  dog  an  under 
dog,  and  drawing  in  yet  other  dogs  to  right 
that  wrong.  To  me,  as  a  physiologist  and  stu- 
dent of  animal  and  human  behavior,  that 
appears  to  be  the  best  explanation  of  why 
America  goes  into  European  wars. 

Instead  of  going  in  under  our  animal  in- 
stincts, we  should  treat  the  League  of  Nations 
as  essentially  a  European  organization  in 
which  we  are  not  concerned;  and  we  should  use 
our  influence  to  keep  the  nations  of  the  rest  of 
the  world  from  becoming  embroiled  in  wars 
that  are  primarily  European.  We  should  aim 
that  future  historians  may  not  have  occasion 
to  paraphrase   Macauley's   celebrated   state- 


ment to  the  effect  that  'because  Frederic 
wanted  a  piece  of  Silesia,  redmen  scalped  each 
other  by  the  Great  Lakes  of  America,  and 
brown  men  slaughtered  each  other  in  Coro- 
mandel.' 

We  should  learn  from  other  nations  to  revise 
international  law  in  accord  with  our  own  vital 
interests— just  as  they  do;  and  we  should  have 
a  strong  enough  navy  to  enforce  that  revision. 

We  are  not  British  colonials — as  the  British 
and  some  Americans  would  have  us.  But  we 
are  vitally  interested  in  the  economic  organ- 
ization of  the  world  that  centers  and  banks  in 
London.  Stanley  Baldwin  has  said  that  'Eng- 
land has  a  frontier  on  the  Rhine.'  And  our 
Secretary  of  State  might  well  announce  that 
America  has  a  frontier  on  the  English  Channel; 
but  he  should  add  that  we  have  no  vital  inter- 
est a  foot  beyond  that  frontier.  This  new  kind 
of  Monroe  doctrine  would  also  cover  all  Eng- 
lish speaking  countries  such  as  Australia  and 
New  Zealand. 

But  we  should  leave  China  to  be  absorbed 
by  Japan,  if  Japan  is  able  to  absorb  it;  and 
Germany  to  effect  the  Anschluss  with  Austria 
and  organize  Middle  Europe,  if  she  is  able.  We 
should  continue  to  refuse  any  support  to  the 
Treaty  of  Versailles  and  the  'dog-in-the- 
manger*  policy  of  France.  We  may  deplore  the 
fate  of  southern  Tyrol,  but  we  should  not  try 
to  right  that  or  any  similar  wrong. 

The  Governments  of  other  countries  look 
first  to  the  vital  interests  of  their  peoples.  Why 
should  not  our  Government  also.?  Once,  back  in 
1913,  I  sat  from  3:30  P.M.  of  one  day  until 
3:30  A.M.  of  the  next  day  in  the  gallery  of  the 
House  of  Commons — twelve  hours  continu- 
ously. And  in  one  of  the  first  of  those  hours  I 
heard  Sir  Edward  Grey  discuss  the  diplomacy 
of  the  Second  Balkan  War.  He  had,  he  said, 
done  everything  he  could  for  international 
righteousness  and  the  welfare  of  Europe. 
'But,'  he  would  stop  to  assert  as  he  looked 
about  the  House,  'I  have  never  neglected 
British  interests.'  And  the  full  benches  rum- 
bled, 'Hear,  hear.' 

The  American  government  should  imitate 
that  example  and  do  all  that  it  can  for  interna- 
tional righteousness  and  world  welfare,  but 
subject  to  the  proviso  of  never  neglecting  vital 
American  interests.  Our  most  vital  interest  is 
peace  for  ourselves.  And  to  maintain  that  in- 
terest we  should  let  other  nations  cut  each 
other's  throat  without  help  or  hindrance  from 
us.  In  other  words,  barring  impairment  of  a 


[374] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


vital  American  interest,  we  should  resist  our 
canine  impulse  to  get  into  the  fight, 

ANOTHER  University  man,  Dr.  Comfort 
A.  Adams,  Lawrence  Professor  of  Engi- 
neering at  Harvard  University,  tells  us 
that  'the  subject  in  question  is  one  in 
which  I  am  deeply  interested  and  on 
which  I  have  decided  views.'  Dr.  Adams 
believes  that: — 

One  of  the  greatest  mistakes  that  the  United 
States  Government  ever  made  was  its  failure 
to  join  the  League  of  Nations  at  the  start.  In 
my  opinion  most  of  the  recent  eruptions  in 
Europe  and  Asia  would  have  been  prevented  if 
we  had  been  members  of  the  League.  Our  at- 
titude as  to  the  League  and  as  to  the  World 
Court  seems  to  me  not  only  short-sighted  but 
petty  and  childish. 

If  time  permitted  I  could  name  a  dozen 
directions  in  which  we  are  already  entangled 
with  European  affairs,  and  inevitably  so.  It  is 
foolish  to  talk  about  neutrality. 

If,  however,  we  do  maintain  our  nominal 
position  of  neutrality,  we  certainly  should 
cooperate  fully  in  the  matter  of  League 
sanctions. 

A  RATHER  different  view  is  that  of 
Irving  T,  Bush,  one  of  New  York's  most 
prominent  industrialists.  Mr.  Bush  be- 
lieves in  the  theory  of  the  League  of  Na- 
tions but  not  in  its  effectiveness.  He  holds 
that:— 

The  age-old  forces  of  intrigue  and  domina- 
tion by  the  powerful  prevent  its  being  the  force 
for  good  it  might  be.  Despite  this,  it  is  better 
for  Europe  than  what  went  before — but  for  us, 
no.  We  do  not  belong  in  the  quarrels  of  Europe 
and  can  exert  a  greater  influence  outside. 

Henry  Ward  Beecher  was  once  asked  '  Why 
has  Christianity  failed?'  and  replied:  'Because 
it  has  never  been  tried.'  This,  I  think,  is  true 
of  the  theory  of  the  League. 


So  far  as  sanctions  are  concerned,  I  believe 
we  should  cooperate  in  any  move  toward  world 
peace,  but  should  determine  the  extent  of  our 
participation  as  each  issue  arises. 

DR.  JAMES  E.  AMENT,  President  of 
the  National  Park  Seminary,  Forest  Glen, 
Maryland,  expresses  regret  that  the 
United  States  did  not  join  the  League  at 
the  outset,  but  does  not  say  what  policy  he 
believes  should  be  followed  today.  Dr. 
Ament  writes  in  part: — 

I  would  like  to  say  that  I  have  always  be- 
lieved that  the  document  prepared  by  Presi- 
dent Wilson  relative  to  the  League  of  Nations 
was  the  most  outstanding  thing  of  its  kind 
since  the  four  gospels.  I  regret  to  say  that  it  is 
my  belief  that  Senator  Lodge  made  a  success- 
ful attack  on  it  for  political  reasons,  and  I 
wish  to  say  that  I  believe  that,  if  we  had  gone 
into  the  League  from  the  start,  the  whole 
world  would  be  better  off  at  this  time. 

DIAMETRICALLY  opposed  to  that  of 
Mr.  Ament  is  the  view  of  Mr.  Harry  W. 
Watrous,  painter  and  President  of  the 
National  Academy  Association  of  New 
York.  In  one  of  the  briefest  and  most 
positive  statements  of  the  many  received 
Mr.  Watrous  says: — 

I  think  that  the  United  States  was  very  wise 
in  refusing  to  join  the  League  of  Nations,  and 
hope  that  it  will  stay  out.  As  to  becoming  in- 
volved in  further  foreign  sanctions  or  entangle- 
ments, I  believe  that  we  will  have  enough 
troubles  at  home  to  keep  us  busy. 

THE  letters  quoted  above  have  been 
chosen  almost  at  random  from  the  many 
interesting  expressions  of  opinions  The 
Living  Age  has  received  in  response  to  its 
questionnaire.  Other  letters  will  be  pub- 
lished in  succeeding  issues. 


I 


WITH  THE  ORGANIZATIONS 


In  cooperation  with  the  New  Jer- 
sey Joint  Council  on  International  Rela- 
tions, the  Foreign  Policy  Association  (8 
West  40th  Street,  New  York,  N.  Y.)  is 
sponsoring  an  'Institute  on  International 
Affairs  for  Young  People,'  to  be  held  at 
Shawnee-on-the-Delaware,  Pennsylvania, 
from  August  22  to  August  29.  In  addition 
to  sports  and  other  camp  activities  there 
will  be  speeches  and  round  table  discus- 
sions by  such  authorities  as  Bruce  Bliven, 
editor  of  the  New  Republic,  and  Dr.  Frank 
Kingdon,  President  of  Newark  Univer- 
sity. Expenses,  including  board  and  room 
for  the  week,  will  be  ^20.00. 


THE  Tenth  Session  of  the  Institute  of 
Public  Affairs  will  be  held  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Virginia  from  July  5  to  July  18. 
Dr.  Charles  G.  Maphis,  whose  leadership 
has  made  the  Institute  the  most  widely 
recognized  public  forum  of  its  kind  in 
America,  will  again  assume  the  director- 
ship. Round  Tables  will  be  held  every 
morning,  and  Open  Forum  Discussions 
each  afternoon.  There  will  also  be  public 
lectures  in  the  open  air  every  evening. 

IN  COOPERATION  with  the  Institute 
of  Pacific  Relations,  the  University  of 
California  is  offering  two  intensive  courses 
in  the  Russian  language,  to  be  held  in 
Berkeley  in  the  ten  weeks  from  June  22  to 
August  29.  The  courses  are  intended  for 
mature  students  who  wish  to  acquire  a 
reading  knowledge  of  the  Russian  lan- 
guage in  the  shortest  possible  time.  The 
work  is  a  continuation  of  the  inter-uni- 
versity project  which  began  with  the 
Russian  Language  Section  of  the  Harvard 
Summer  School  in  1934  and  was  continued 
at  Columbia  University  last  year.  The 
membership  is  limited  to  thirty  students, 
and  the  tuition  fee  is  1 100.00  for  each 
course. 


AT  THE  beginning  of  this  year  the  Ameri- 
can-Russian Institute  for  Cultural  Rela- 
tions with  the  Soviet  Union  {^6  West  45th 
Street,  New  York,  N.  Y.)  inaugurated  a 
monthly  bulletin,  each  issue  of  which  con- 
tains at  least  one  article  based  on  a  care- 
ful study  of  all  the  available  material  in 
both  English  and  Russian.  Current  biblio- 
graphical material  is  also  included  in  the 
bulletins.  Subscriptions,  at  $1.50  a  year, 
may  be  entered  through  the  Institute. 

ON  BEHALF  of  the  Carnegie  Endow- 
ment for  International  Peace,  The  Cath- 
olic Association  for  International  Peace 
(13 1 2  Massachusetts  Avenue,  N.W., 
Washington,  D.  C.)  has  published  a  book 
by  John  Eppstein  entitled  'The  Catholic 
'Tradition  of  the  Law  of  Nations.  This 
large  volume  (515  pages;  $3.50)  is  a  com- 
pendium of  the  teaching  and  traditions  of 
the  Catholic  Church  on  international  law. 
In  it  Mr.  Eppstein  sets  forth,  from  the 
writings  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  Fathers, 
the  Popes,  the  Schoolmen  and  the  Theo- 
logians, the  passages  which  mark  the 
development  of  Catholic  doctrine  upon 
peace  and  war,  military  service,  arbitra- 
tion and  the  community  of  nations. 

AT  A  meeting  held  early  in  April,  the 
Governing  Board  of  the  Pan-American 
Union  appointed  an  inter-American  com- 
mission of  experts  on  the  codification  of 
international  law,  as  provided  in  a  reso- 
lution of  the  Seventh  International  Con- 
gress, held  in  Montevideo,  Uruguay,  in 
1933.  The  Commission  (which  includes 
Victor  M.  Maurtua  of  Peru;  Alberto 
Cruchaga  Ossa  of  Chile;  Carlos  Saavedra 
Lamas  of  Argentine;  Luis  Anderson 
Morua  of  Costa  Rica;  Afranio  de  Mello 
Franco  of  Brazil;  Eduardo  Suarez  of 
Mexico;  and  J.  Reuben  Clark  of  the 
United  States)  is  to  organize  the  prepara- 
tory work  of  codifying  the  international 
law  of  the  American  continents. 


[376] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


THE  GUIDE  POST 

{Continued) 

difficulties  about  the  scale  of  the  figures; 
but  here  again  the  artist  met  them  and 
was  instructed  to  continue  his  work. 

'It  was  not  till  after  the  big  designs  had 
been  sent  to  Glasgow  in  February  that 
Mr.  Grant  learnt  to  his  amazement  that 
the  whole  scheme  had  been  rejected,  ap- 
parently on  the  mere  judgment  of  a  Sir 
Percy  Bates.  On  this  a  number  of  the 
most  eminent  critics,  museum  officials  and 
connoisseurs,  headed  by  the  director  of  the 
National  Gallery,  wrote  to  Sir  Percy  ask- 
ing him  to  reconsider  his  decision.  Sir 
Percy  was  pleased  to  consider  his  own 
taste  superior  to  theirs. 

'Adding  a  piece  of  impertinence  to  the 
public  to  a  private  insult,  he  now  proposes 
that  the  decorations  should  be  given  to  the 
Tate  Gallery.  Apparently  what  is  not 
good  enough  for  the  Cunard  is  good 
enough  for  the  nation.  The  unfortunate 
nation,  by  the  way,  has  already  contrib- 
uted to  the  building  of  the  ^ueen  Mary^ 
and  may  well  think  that  the  opinion  of  its 
museum  and  gallery  directors  should  not 
be  over-ridden  by  a  shipowner.* 

But  it  was.  [p.  328] 

'THEY'  is  one  of  those  inconspicuous  but 
not  insignificant  phenomena  which  only 
England  can  produce:  an  article  from 
a  highly  conservative  financial  review 
which,  in  its  quiet  way,  does  a  good  deal  of 
damage  to  the  reputations  of  'the  inter- 
ests'— 'they*  who  are  England's  real 
rulers,  [p.  334] 

THEN,  for  the  cat  lover,  there  is  a  vin- 
dication of  cats.  Writing  in  the  Spectator^ 
the  author,  Mr.  Michael  Joseph,  indig- 
nantly denies  that  cats  are  less  intelligent 
than  other  domestic  animals,  and  proposes 
a  test  of  his  own  which  makes  them  come 
out  first,  [p.  336I 

MR.  OSBERT  SITWELL  is  by  nature 
whimsical,  as  one  can  plainly  see  by  look- 


ing in  Who's  Who.  There,  besides  stating 
that  he  obtained  his  education  *  during  the 
holidays  from  Eton,'  and  that  he  'advo- 
cates the  shutting  of  the  Stock  Exchange 
for  5  days  out  of  7,'  Mr.  Sitwell  lists  his 
recreations  as  'lounging,  lolling,  and  look- 
ing at  landscapes.'  In  'The  Conspiracy  of 
the  Dwarfs'  he  is  even  more  whimsical 
than  usual,  [p.  332] 

'  MR.  SZABO,'  by  the  Hungarian,  Zsuzsa 
T.  Thury,  is  a  story  about  economic  in- 
security and  its  effect  on  the  mind  of  an 
aging  man.  It  comes  from  the  Pester 
Uoyd^  the  Budapest  pro-Fascist  German- 
language  daily,  [p.  340] 

OUR  'Persons'  include  Marshal  Pietro 
Badoglio,  conqueror,  and  now  Viceroy,  of 
Ethiopia;  Dr.  Hugo  Eckener,  the  modest 
stepfather  of  the  Zeppelins;  Karlis  Ul- 
manis,  the  dictator  of  Latvia;  Mr.  Ernst 
Lubitsch,  the  movie  director;  and  Herr 
Joachim  von  Ribbentrop,  Hitler*s  am- 
bassador extraordinary. 

AMONG  the  reviewers  of  'Books 
Abroad*  this  month  are  Rose  Macaulay, 
the  author  of  Told  by  an  Idiot;  Charles 
Percy  Snow,  Fellow  of  Christ's  College, 
Cambridge  and  an  authority  on  molecular 
structure;  Marcel  Arland,  French  novelist 
and  essayist,  and  one  time  winner  of  the 
Prix  Goncourt;  and  Paul  Frischauer, 
Austrian  novelist  and  author  of  biog- 
raphies of  Garibaldi  and  Beaumarchais. 

AND  our  own  reviewers  include  Louis  M. 
Hacker,  Professor  of  History  at  Columbia 
University,  and  co-author  of  "The  United 
States  since  186$;  Thomas  I.  Cook,  In- 
structor in"  Government  at  Columbia  Uni- 
versity; William  Harlan  Hale,  author  of 
Challenge  to  Defeat^  a  book  on  Spengler; 
Goodwin  Watson,  Professor  of  Psychology 
at  Teachers'  College;  and  Harry  R. 
Rudin,  of  the  History  Department  of  Yale 
University,  and  an  authority  on  African 
imperialism. 


THE    LIVING    AGE 


!i    Public  LAinixiy 


CONTENTS 

for  July,  1936 

Articles 


Though  China  Fall 

I.  I  Call  ChikTa  to  War General  Li  Tsung-jen  384 

II.  The  Prospects  of  Communism  in  China George  E.  Taylor  389 

With  Honors  Crowned Felix  E.  Hirsch  393 

To  the  Victors 

I.  The  Second  Roman  Empire UOsservatore  400 

II.  Diogenes  in  Rome Constance  Coline  404 

Three  of  a  Kind 

I.  The  Desert  and  the  Sown Mrs.  Edgar  Dugdale  419 

II.  Spain  Catches  Up Professor  Bonorko  423 

III.  Czechoslovakia:  The  Dangerous  Corner F.  L.  426 

The  White  Men's  Road  (A  Story) Pierre  Galinier  429 

Coming  Down  to  Earth Lyubov  Berlin  437 

Departments 

The  World  Over 377 

Persons  and  Personages 

Leon  Blum Louis  LSvy  407 

Ibn  Saud  of  Arabia M.Y.  Ben-Gavriel  410 

A.  E.  HousMAN Percy  Withers  414 

Letters  and  the  Arts Paul  Schofield  440 

Books  Abroad 444 

Our  Own  Bookshelf 457 

America  and  the  League  , 463 

With  the  Organizations 469 

The  Living  Agb.  Published  monthly.  Publication  office,  10  Ferry  Street,  Concord,  N.  H.  Editorial  and  General  offices,  63  Park 
Row,  New  York  City.  50c  a  copy.  $6.00  a  year.  Canada.  $6.50.  Foreign,  $7.00.  Entered  as  second-class  matter  at  the  Post  Office  at 
Concord,  N.  H.,  under  the  Act  of  Congress,  March  3,  1879.  Copyright,  1936,  by  The  Living  Age  Corporation,  New  York,  New  York. 

The  Living  Age  was  established  by  E.  Littell,  in  Boston,  Massachusetts,  May,  1844.  It  was  first  known  as  Littell's  Living  Age,  suc- 
ceeding Liuell's  Museum  of  Foreign  Literature,  which  had  been  previously  published  in  Philadelphia  for  more  than  twenty  years.  In  a 
prepublication  announcement  of  Littell's  Living  Age,  in  1844,  Mr.  Littell  said: '  The  steamship  has  brought  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa 
into  our  neighborhood;  and  will  greatly  multiply  pur  connections,  as  Merchants,  Travelers,  and  Politicians,  with  all  parts  of  the  \yorld: 
so  that  much  more  than  ever,  it  now  becomes  every  intelligent  American  to  be  informed  of  the  condition  and  changes  of  foreign  countries' 


Subscribers  are  requested  to  send  notices  of  changes  of  address  three  weeks  before  they  are  to  take  effect.  Failure  to  send  such  notices 
will  result  in  the  incorrect  forwarding  of  the  next  copy  and  delay  in  its  receipt.  Old  and  new  addresses  must  both  be  given. 


THE  GUIDE  POST 


10  OCCIDENTAL  minds,  China  has 
always  been  a  more  or  less  impenetrable 
mystery,  and  it  is  only  a  little  less  so  to- 
day than  it  was  after  the  Polo  brothers 
paid  their  first  visit  to  the  court  of  the 
Great  Khan  over  six  hundred  years  ago. 
We  still  know  almost  nothing  about  what 
goes  on  in  the  vast  stretches  of  the  in- 
terior; and  though  they  are  faithfully  re- 
ported, the  moves  and  decisions  of  the 
various  governments  and  war  lords  of  the 
seaboard  provinces  often  seem  wholly 
capricious  to  us. 

This  is  particularly  true  of  the  latest  de- 
velopments in  the  Southwest,  where  for 
some  time  there  has  been  growing  agita- 
tion for  a  war  of  defense  against  Japan; 
and  where  early  last  month  the  Canton 
Government  was  threatening  a  civil  war 
against  Nanking.  In  this  issue  we  present 
the  case  of  the  Canton  Government  as  it 
was  expressed  by  one  of  its  leading  figures 
just  before  the  trouble  began.  General 
Li  Tsung-jen  is  Commander-in-Chief  of 
China's  Fourth  Army;  in  1933  he  was  one 
of  the  leaders  of  the  Fukien  Province  re- 
bellion. In  /  Call  China  to  War  (which  is 
really  an  interview  rather  than  an  article, 
having  been  written  down  by  a  corre- 
spondent of  the  Canton  Truth  after  a 
conversation  with  the  General,  and  then, 
with  his  permission,  published),  he  gives 
the  reasons  why  he  and  his  associates  be- 
lieve China  must  challenge  Japan  to 
battle,  [p.  384] 

BUT  Nanking  is  embarrassed  by  these 
belligerent  demands  from  Canton  not  only 
because  of  the  strength  of  Japan  but  also 
because  of  a  threat  from  the  rear:  despite 
all  assertions,  the  Chinese  Communists 
are  by  no  means  licked,  and  in  a  war  with 
Japan  they  would  be  the  first  to  challenge 
the  war  lords'  leadership.  From  the 
New  Statesman  and  Nation  of  London  we 
reprint  an  article  which  sums  up  rather 


concisely  the  present  position  and  future 
prospects  of  the  Soviets  of  China.  Its 
author,  Mr.  George  E.  Taylor,  is  an  Eng- 
lishman who  has  lived  in  China  for  five 
years;  he  speaks  Chinese  fluently,  and  is 
therefore  in  a  position  to  write  from  inti- 
mate knowledge  of  the  country  and  its 
people,  [p.  389] 

ON  THE  second  anniversary  of  the  Nazi 
'blood  purge'  of  June  30,  1934,  Heidel- 
berg University  will  celebrate  with  much 
pomp  and  ceremony  its  550th  birthday. 
Dr.  Felix  E.  Hirsch,  himself  a  graduate  of 
the  University,  and  later  political  editor 
of  the  Berliner  Tageblatt^  takes  the  occa- 
sion to  defend  the  German  scholars  from 
the  charge  of  cowardice  which  has  often 
been  brought .  against  them  since  Hitler 
came  to  power.  Dr.  Hirsch  is  now  a  vol- 
untary exile  from  Germany;  he  makes  his 
home  in  the  United  States,  [p.  393] 

NEXT  we  have  two  articles  on  the  '  new ' 
Italy,  the  'Empire'  proclaimed  by  Mus- 
solini after  the  occupation  of  Addis  Ababa. 
Of  these,  the  first,  by  an  Italian  emigre,  is 
an  attempt  to  prove  that  the  future  of  that 
Empire  is  none  too  rosy.  Sour  grapes? 
Only  the  future  will  tell.  [p.  400] 

THE  other  article  in  the  group  is  by  a 
Frenchwoman  who  says  that  she  'spent 
two  weeks  scouring  Rome '  in  search  of  an 
intelligent  and  disinterested  Fascist,  and 
that  in  spite  of  her  efforts  she  failed  to  find 
a  single  one.  She  goes  on  to  present  some 
observations  and  reflections  on  Fascists 
and  Fascism  of  a  sort  which,  if  not  cal- 
culated to  please  the  rabid  anti-Fascists, 
is  not  likely  to  bring  much  joy  to  the  pro- 
Fascists,  either,  [p.  404] 

THE  strikes,  riots  and  other  disturbances 

in   Palestine   have   been    the   subject   of 

{Continued  on  page  4^0) 


THE    LIVING    AGE 


Founded  by  E.  Littell 

In  1884 


July,  1936 


Volume  ^50,  Number  44.38 


The  World  Over 

iHE  PEOPLE'S  FRONT  did  not  win  the  general  election  in  France 
on  the  old  cry  'Turn  the  rascals  out  of  Parliament.'  That  had  sufficed 
for  the  ineffective  Left  victories  of  1924  and  1932.  But  in  the  electoral 
contest  last  May,  the  'rascals'  were  identified  for  the  first  time  with  the 
financial  oligarchy  which  had  ruled  France  outside  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies,  through  the  agencies  of  the  Bank  of  France  and  the  Comite 
des  Forges.  Hence  the  slogans  'Down  with  the  two  hundred  families' 
and  'Hang  Wendel'  proved  more  popular  than  'Remember  Stavisky.' 
With  a  radical  program — including  nationalization  of  the  armament 
business,  public  works,  reform  of  the  Bank  of  France,  end  of  deflation — 
this  alliance  of  Communists,  Sociahsts,  Socialist  Union,  Independent 
Socialists  and  Radicals  obtained  a  total  of  381  seats,  a  clear  majority. 
Thus  they  possess  a  mandate  for  a  New  Deal. 

The  comparison  between  the  People's  Front  success  and  the  Demo- 
cratic landslide  in  this  country  is  by  no  means  far-fetched.  Alexander 
Werth,  Manchester  Guardian  correspondent,  finds  that  the  new  premier, 
Leon  Blum,  enjoys  an  almost  Rooseveltian  popularity  among  the 
masses  of  the  people.  They  see  in  him  a  'symbol  of  a  new  hope'  and  they 
have  faith  that  he  will  not  turn  coat  hke  Ramsay  McDonald. 

Probably  the  most  concrete  evidence  that  Blum  means  business  Hes 
in  his  promise  to  nationalize  the  armament  industry.  For  the  latest 
munitions  scandal  has  aroused  much  protest.  Last  month  The  Living 
Age  published  an  article  by  Paul  AUard  describing  how  France  was 


[378]  THE  LIVING  AGE  July 

supplying  Germany  with  iron  ore  for  her  armament  program.  Now 
Francis  Delaisi,  writing  in  the  new  Left  weekly,  Vendredi,  reveals  that 
the  situation  is  even  worse,  that  without  France's  iron  ore  Germany 
could  not  rearm.  He  says:  'France  is  at  present  the  largest  seller  [of  iron 
ore]  to  Germany,  supplying  28  per  cent  of  the  whole  German  consump- 
tion. Suppose  she  reduced  her  sales  by  two-thirds;  she  would  reduce  the 
Reich's  supply  to  the  level  of  last  year  and  paralyze  its  war  manufactures. 

Germany,  Delaisi  points  out,  can  buy  iron  ore  only  from  those  iron- 
producing  countries  where  there  is  a  sufficient  commercial  balance  ij 
favor  of  Germany  (because  the  Reich  treasury  lacks  gold  and  conse- 
quently has  enforced  severe  currency  restrictions).  But  there  are  oni) 
two  of  these  countries,  France  and  Sweden.  Already  Germany  is  taking 
90%  of  Sweden's  iron  ore  and  there  is  a  limit  to  the  Swedish  supply. 
France,  therefore,  as  a  source  of  the  most  important  mineral  used  in 
armament  production,  is  a  vital  link  in  the  German  war  program. 

That  the  Blum  Government  contemplates  some  move  in  this  situa- 
tion could  be  gathered  from  an  article  by  Paul  Faure,  close  friend  of 
Blum  and  secretary  of  the  Socialist  party,  in  a  recent  issue  of  PopulairCy 
organ  of  the  Socialists.  Mr.  Faure  suggested  that  if  Hitler  refused  to 
assent  to  Blum's  plan  for  peace  and  disarmament,  raw  material  sanc- 
tions might  be  invoked  to  stop  his  war  preparations. 

STANLEY  BALDWIN  for  the  present  has  successfully  weathered 
attacks  on  his  Cabinet  by  groups  within  his  own  party.  His  Conservative 
opponents,  the  Chamberlain- Churchill-Eden  coalition,  did  not  exploit 
the  budget  leak  scandal.  Only  Mr.  J.  H.  Thomas  was  involved,  and  he,  as 
a  former  Labor  man,  was,  to  use  the  phrase  current  in  the  Carlton  Club, 
'not  one  of  us.'  Also,  Sir  Austen  Chamberlain  has  vacillated  on  foreign 
policy  even  more  than  Mr.  Baldwin.  He  was  all  for  sanctions;  now  he  is 
dead  against  them.  Winston  Churchill  has  made  some  fiery  speeches 
directed  at  Mr.  Baldwin,  but  these  have  not  been  deemed  'good  form.' 
Besides,  people  are  still  rather  uncertain  about  the  volatile  Mr.  Churchill. 
Neither  of  these  leaders  has  announced  any  clear  or  definite  policy. 
The  Economist  sums  up  the  situation  very  well,  as  follows: — 

'The  truth  is  that  a  Government  can  be  overturned  only  if  there  is  both 
an  alternative  group  of  men  and  an  alternative  policy  that  command  general 
allegiance.  A  mere  collection  of  picturesque  personalities  bound  together  by  no 
program  or  principle  is  not  enough.' 


BUT  THERE  ARE  other  troubles  for  the  Baldwin  Government. 
Britain's  famous  prosperity  seems  to  be  entering  a  critical  period.  Of 
course  there  is  plenty  of  food  for  the  optimist  in,  for  instance,  the  index 
number  of  industrial  production  (Board  of  Trade  figures),  which  was 


igs6  THE  WORLD  OVER  [379] 

1 23. 1  for  the  first  quarter  of  this  year  as  compared  with  120.8  for  the  last 
quarter  of  1935  and  1 13.0  in  the  first  quarter  of  last  year.  Also,  iron  and 
steel  output  increased  20  per  cent,  the  building  industry  10.5  per  cent, 
engineering  and  shipbuilding  9.5  per  cent,  food,  drink  and  tobacco, 
8.5  per  cent;  and  in  general  the  manufacturing  industry  (except  miner- 
als) showed  an  increase  in  production  of  1.8  per  cent  over  the  previous 
quarter  and  of  9.5  per  cent  over  the  same  quarter  of  1935. 

But,  as  against  this,  there  are  some  disturbing  developments.  Brit- 
ain's trade  balance  is  unfavorable  and  is  growing  more  so.  Her  European 
markets  are  declining  at  a  disquieting  rate.  Thus  while  in  the  first 
quarter  of  this  year  her  imports  from  Europe  increased  9.9  per  cent  over 
the  corresponding  quarter  last  year,  her  exports  declined  by  10.4  per 
cent.  Nor  was  this  entirely  because  of  sanctions  against  Italy.  The  de- 
cline was  steepest — 29  per  cent — in  one  of  Britain's  best  markets,  Ger- 
many. While  exports  to  non-European  countries  and  the  Empire  offset 
this  and  show  a  total  increase  of  3  per  cent,  the  tendency  is  strong 
enough  to  move  the  Economist  to  say:  *In  contrast  to  the  striking 
recovery  which  has  occurred  in  the  meantime  in  domestic  trade  activity, 
the  headway  we  have  made  in  foreign  markets  is  meager  and  dis- 
appointing.' 

These  figures  point  their  warning  at  a  moment  when  a  decline  in 
house-building,  regarded  as  one  of  the  cornerstones  of  British  recovery, 
has  begun.  In  his  budget  speech,  Mr.  Neville  Chamberlain,  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer,  recognized  this  'slowing  down  of  the  rate  of  building,' 
but  expected  that  the  armament  activity  would  take  up  the  slack.  The 
unhealthy  nature  of  this  sort  of  economics  needs  no  comment.  Finally, 
the  Bank  of  England  contributed  an  additional  factor  of  uncertainty 
by  announcing  that  bankers'  deposits  at  the  Bank  had  declined  from 
£104,704,589  at  the  end  of  April  to  £80,081,052  by  the  end  of  May. 
Francis  Williams,  financial  editor  of  the  'Daily  Herald^  suggests  that  the 
Bank  is  thereby  starting  on  a  deflationary  policy.  He  points  out  that  the 
Bank  has  probably  been  moved  to  reduce  bankers'  deposits  because  note 
circulation  has  been  rising  more  rapidly  than  has  the  Bank's  gold  re- 
serves and  that  the  obvious  remedy  for  this  would  be  to  write  up  the 
value  of  the  gold.  Here  is  his  interpretation  of  the  situation: — 

That  it  [the  Bank]  should  force  upon  the  country  a  policy  of  deflation  with  all 
the  serious  consequences  inherent  in  such  a  policy,  rather  than  write  up  the  value 
of  its  gold  nearer  to  its  present  real  value,  has  the  most  serious  significance.  It 
suggests  that  the  Bank  is  opposed  to  writing  up  the  value  of  its  gold  because  it  has 
in  mind  a  return  to  the  gold  standard  at  some  future  time  at  or  near  the  old  level 
despite  the  consequences  to  our  industry  of  the  previous  attempt  to  maintain  the 
gold  standard  at  that  level  ...  If  that  is  its  object,  it  would  indeed  appear  al- 
ready to  be  succeeding — with  the  Treasury  and,  indirectly  but  no  less  certainly, 
the  public  as  its  first  victim.  For  it  was  anticipated  in  the  Money  Market  yester- 


[380]  THE  LIVING  AGE  July 

day  that  there  would  be  a  sharp  rise  in  the  Treasury  bill  rate  to  around  12s.  6d. 
compared  with  lis.  a  week  ago  and  with  a  rate  of  around  los.  for  several  months 
previously. 


A  TREMENDOUS  INCREASE  of  German  influence  in  the  Balkan , 
on  a  scale  which  recalls  the  Berlin-to-Bagdad  days  preceding  19 14,  has 
appeared  recently.  On  the  surface  there  have  been  the  spectacular 
activities  of  Fascist  elements  like  the  Iron  Guard  in  Rumania  and  th 
growing  prominence  of  many  small  Nazi  German  colonies  in  Yugo- 
slavia. Assisting  this  more  or  less  surreptitious  campaign,  Germany  h  .- 
openly  launched  a  'cultural'  drive.  Slav  students  are  given  scholarships 
bearing  fat  stipends  if  they  enter  German  universities.  German  books 
and  magazines  are  distributed  at  prices  much  lower  than  French  publica- 
tions. Berlin  is  fast  replacing  Paris  as  the  Mecca  of  South  Slav  intel- 
lectuals. The  diplomatic  front  has  been  pushed  forward  by  the  Balkan 
visits  of  General  Goring  and  other  high  Nazi  officials. 

But  the  most  effective  element  of  this  new  Drang  nach  Osten  has 
been  economic.  In  Bulgaria,  for  instance,  Germany's  share  of  Bulgarian 
exports  has  risen  from  26  per  cent  to  48  per  cent.  These  are  paid  for 
largely  in  German  goods,  which  now  comprise  more  than  54  per  cent  of 
Bulgarian  imports.  The  German  Dye  Trust  has  established  a  subsidiary 
company  engaged  in  large-scale  raising  of  soy  beans.  Rumania  today 
finds  that  Germany  is  the  largest  purchaser  of  her  oil;  Germany's  im- 
ports of  Rumanian  oil  rose  from  260,000  tons  in  1934  to  670,000  in  1935. 
To  pay  for  this,  increasing  quantities  of  German  goods  have  flowed  into 
Rumania  and  German  loans  have  built  up  certain  raw  material  indus- 
tries whose  products  have  a  vital  significance  to  Germany's  rearmament 
program:  such  as  Transylvanian  copper  and  bauxite.  There  are  reports 
that  German  firms  are  trying  to  obtain  large  shares  in  Rumanian  oil 
companies.  Thus  Germany  has  pursued  a  clever  policy  of  incurring 
debts  which  can  be  met  only  if  the  creditors  accept  German  goods, 
since  Germany  under  her  present  currency  crisis  cannot  pay  in  gold. 
Meanwhile  France  relapses  into  a  minor  position. 


NOWHERE  has  this  situation  become  so  marked  as  in  Yugoslavia. 
Here  the  French  share  of  Yugoslav  exports  has  sunk  almost  to  zero. 
Italy,  which  used  to  occupy  a  strong  position  in  this  market,  lost  her 
trade  by  the  imposition  of  sanctions.  Germany  promptly  entered.  She 
diverted  to  Yugoslavia  large  orders  for  farm  produce,  and  especially  raw 
materials  for  armaments,  notably  copper,  lead,  zinc,  antimony,  chromite, 
etc.  Germany's  debt  soon  increased  from  223  million  dinars  to  470  mil- 
lion dinars.  To  oflFset  this,  Belgrade  had  to  give  contracts  to  German 
firms  for  building  a  hydro-electric  plant  and  a  railway  works,  and  for 


1^36  THE  WORLD  OVER  [381] 

furnishing  bridge-building  material,  machinery  and  rolling  stock.  How- 
ever, most  widely  remarked  was  the  contract  which  the  Yugoslav  Gov- 
ernment awarded  to  Krupp  for  renovating  the  Zenitza  iron  and  muni- 
tions plant.  This  is  cited  as  an  instance  of  how,  in  an  economic  way, 
Germany  is  breaking  up  the  Little  Entente  front.  For  Belgrade  accepted 
Krupp's  offer,  although  a  Czech  firm  made  a  lower  bid. 

Thus,  although  all  this  helps  Germany's  economic  problems,  it  pos- 
sesses even  greater  importance  politically.  Germany  by  these  methods  is 
fast  pulling  the  Little  Entente  States  away  from  French  hegemony, 
which  was  badly  damaged  by  the  weak  role  Paris  played  in  the  Rhine- 
land  crisis.  No  wonder  that  the  Nazi  magazine  Europdische  Revue  re- 
marks with  complacence:  'The  figures  for  the  exports  of  the  south- 
eastern European  states  to  Germany  so  much  outweigh  their  imports 
from  Germany  that  Germany  is  seizing  first  place.' 

BEHIND  THE  SMOKE-SCREEN  of  riots,  strikes  and  anti-Semitic 
disorders  in  Poland,  a  fierce  struggle  for  power  goes  forward  between  the 
governing  groups.  Briefly,  it  is  a  fight  between  the  Colonels  and  the 
Generals,  the  former  led  by  Foreign  Minister  Colonel  Beck,  the  latter  by 
the  Commander  of  the  army.  General  Rydz-Smigly.  The  Generals  are 
pro-French  and  anti-Nazi.  They  view  with  some  military  alarm  the 
growing  power  of  Hitler.  They  minimize  the  danger  from  Soviet  Russia. 
The  Colonels,  on  the  other  hand,  incline  towards  Germany.  Colonel 
Beck  has  been  guest  and  host  at  a  number  of  those  hunting  parties 
which  brought  together  General  Goring  and  Premier  Gombos  of  Hun- 
gary. In  internal  politics  the  Generals  show  democratic  tendencies, 
whereas  the  Colonels  are  Fascistic.  General  Rydz-Smigly  is  said  to 
recognize  the  necessity  of  establishing  a  wide  popular  base  for  the  Gov- 
ernment and  army.  Colonel  Beck  is  allied  with  various  Fascist  groups 
and  demands  that  strikes  and  other  mass-movements  be  ruthlessly  sup- 
pressed. Both  sides  have  their  backers  among  the  vested  interests  of  the 
country.  The  Generals  find  support  among  the  big  industrialists,  the 
Colonels  among  the  large  landowners.  The  Neue  Weltbuhne  describes 
this  interesting  situation; — 

The  Polish  crisis  has  many  reasons.  The  Government  party  lacks  a  mass  base; 
it  leans  upon  the  bureaucracy  and  vacillates  between  the  landowners  and  the 
industrialists.  But  the  strongest  industrial  group,  under  the  firm  Leviathan^  is 
strongly  opposed  to  the  landowners,  whose  representatives  are  the  Colonels. 
Industry  wants  friendly  relations  with  the  Soviets;  it  wants  to  sell  to  Russia, 
since  the  Polish  economic  system  was  badly  damaged  by  the  failure  of  Germany  to 
buy  its  products.  The  agrarian  interests  support  Beck's  friendship  for  the  Third 
Reich;  consequently  they  are  enemies  of  the  Soviets  and  advocate  a  military 
alliance  with  Germany;  they  even  wish  to  copy  the  governing  methods  of  Hitler. 
Koscialkowski  [until  recently  Premier]  perceived  that  the  Government  must  have 


[382]  THE  LIVING  AGE  July 

a  wider  base.  He  chose  between  Right  and  Left  and  now  seeks  a  closer  relation- 
ship with  the  workers  and  peasants.  The  struggles  in  Lwow  and  Cracow  have 
clearly  shown  how  radical  the  Polish  working  class  is  .  .  .  The  situation  recalls 
that  of  May  1926,  when  Pilsudski,  with  the  assistance  of  the  working  class,  un- 
seated the  reaction  and  established  his  regime. 

The  Generals  now  seem  to  have  the  upper  hand.  They  suppressed  an 
issue  of  the  Gazeta  Polska,  mouthpiece  or  Colonel  Beck,  for  an  attack  on 
them.  Koscialkowski,  the  moderate,  has  been  succeeded  as  premier  by 
Skladkowski,  who  is  considered  a  puppet  of  the  Generals.  But  Colonel 
Beck  still  retains  his  old  post  as  Foreign  Minister  in  the  new  Cabinet. 


THE  WORLD  STRUGGLE  for  oil,  often  described  in  these  pages, 
aggravates  the  current  troubles  between  Japan  and  Russia,  and  suggests 
one  reason  why  Japan  has  recently  called  off  her  hostilities  against 
Russia.  Japan's  domestic  supply  of  the  fuel  for  her  battle-ships  and  tanks 
is  sadly  inadequate.  Besides  huge  importations  from  America  and  the 
Dutch  East  Indies,  a  considerable  part  of  her  oil  comes  from  Russian 
territory  on  the  island  of  Sakhalin,  where  in  1925  she  obtained  a  ten-year 
concession  from  the  Soviet  government.  Last  year  the  concession  expired 
and  Japan  obtained  a  one-year  extension.  Now  she  seeks  another  ten 
years.  News  Review^  the  English  news-weekly  which  apes  the  style  of 
'Time,  explains  why  Russia  hesitates  and  Japan  grows  anxious: — 

While  negotiations  proceed,  Prime  Minister,  cocky  Hirota,  is  being  as  diplo- 
matic as  possible  over  the  Mongolian  frontier  incidents  .  .  .  But  all  is  not  well. 
Last  year  Russia's  General  Blucher,  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Far  Eastern  Red 
Army,  protested  against  extension  of  the  oil  contract.  Snorted  he:  'Extension  of 
the  contract  is  tantamount  to  supplying  war  material  to  the  enemy,*  and  at  his 
instigation  Commissar  Voroshilov  made  representations  to  Moscow.  But  business 
man  Rosenholtz,  head  of  Russia's  Board  of  Trade,  was  sorely  in  need  of  the  good 
foreign  exchange  which  the  Japs  paid  as  royalties  on  oil  produced,  so  the  army 
was  overruled.  Last  week  the  Red  Army  knocked  again  on  Rosenholtz's  door, 
with  a  more-than-ever  emphatic  demand  that  the  concession  must  not  be  re- 
newed ... 

Now  for  the  first  time  the  Soviet  Naphtha  Syndicate  joins  in  the-struggle  on 
the  side  of  the  Army.  Claim  the  Syndicate  Commissars:  the  Sakhalin  wells  yield 
at  least  a  quarter  of  a  million  tons  of  high-grade  oil  a  year  and  Japan  should  be 
made  to  pay  through  the  nose  for  it,  or  else  return  the  concession  to  its  original 
owners. 

Rapidly  the  struggle  becomes  a  free  fight,  with  everyone  wanting  to  join  in. 
No  sooner  had  the  Naphtha  Syndicate  got  busy  than  the  Central  Executive  Com- 
mittee of  the  Communist  Party  dealt  a  withering  blow  at  the  Army  and  the  Syndi- 
cate, shot  oflF  to  Josef  Stalin  a  hotly  worded  epistle  expressing  the  view  that  Japan 
could  never  be  isolated  and  that  it  was  unwise,  for  the  sake  of  another  five-year 
extension,  further  to  upset  relations  between  the  two  countries  just  at  the 
moment.  Slipped  into  the  message  was  a  secret  memorandum  reminding  Ruler 
Stalin  that  in  case  of  emergency  Russia's  submarines  would  be  able  to  cut  off 


ig36  THE  WORLD  OVER  [383] 

supplies  from  Sakhalin  anyway.  Oil  interests  in  Russia  and  Japan  are  anxiously 
awaiting  Stalin's  reply. 

ANOTHER  MOVE  occurred  last  month  in  the  triangular  contest  be- 
tween Japan,  Britain  and  the  United  States  on  the  Chinese  chess-board. 
The  piece,  in  this  case,  was  silver.  The  Sino-American  Silver  Pact,  an- 
nounced on  May  18,  appeared  on  the  surface  to  be  but  another  attempt 
on  the  part  of  the  United  States  Government  to  favor  the  silver  pro- 
ducers of  the  mountain  states.  Under  this  agreement,  the  United  States 
Treasury  is  bound  to  purchase  silver  from  China  at  market  prices,  and 
China  guarantees  to  maintain  at  least  25  per  cent  of  her  currency  re- 
serve in  silver.  This  is  designed  to  help  silver  producers  in  this  country, 
and  to  protect  them  from  the  possibility  that  China  might  throw  her 
silver  reserves  on  the  market,  thus  depressing  world  prices  of  the  metal. 

But  this  is  not  all.  China  is  also  setting  up  a  central  bank  with 
offices  in  New  York.  This  suggests  that  a  considerable  portion  of  the 
non-silver  reserve  (which  includes  both  gold  and  foreign  exchange)  will 
be  in  American  dollars.  The  London  Statist  remarks:  'Meanwhile  they 
[the  Chinesel  will  have  an  Exchange  Equalization  Fund  to  control  the 
situation,  and  if  we  may  judge  by  the  arrangements  that  are  being  made 
to  keep  this  fund  adequately  supplied  with  U.  S.  dollars,  it  should  be  safe 
to  assume  that  for  the  time  being  the  Chinese  dollar  will  be  effectively 
pegged  on  its  American  namesake.'  Thus  the  attempt  to  link  Chinese 
currency  to  the  pound  sterling,  made  during  Sir  Frederick  Leith-Ross's 
mission  to  the  Far  East  last  year,  meets  with  a  defeat.  America  rather 
than  Britain  will  hold  such  foreign  control  as  exists  over  Chinese 
currency. 

This  move  is  perhaps  also  directed  at  Japan.  For  the  smuggling  of 
goods  by  the  Japanese  into  China  via  Manchuria  and  the  occupied 
provinces  has  become  a  menace  of  enormous  proportions.  According  to 
the  London  'Times  correspondent  in  Shanghai,  writing  on  May  12,  smug- 
ghng  operations  between  August  i,  1935,  and  March  31,  1936,  resulted 
in  a  loss  of  £850,000  customs  revenue  in  Tientsin  and  Chinwangtao. 
The  British  are  upset  because  the  customs  revenues  help  to  pay  the' 
service  on  foreign  loans,  a  large  part  of  which  are  held  in  London.  But  the 
United  States  is  also  concerned  because  American  exports  to  China  de- 
clined almost  50  per  cent  during  1935,  largely  because  of  the  smuggling. 
Closer  currency  relations  between  China  and  the  United  States,  as  ex- 
pressed in  the  new  silver  plan,  are  expected  to  assist  American  trade. 

Meanwhile,  Britain,  looking  at  the  Sino-American  agreement,  de- 
cides to  lie  low.  The  London  Economist  comments:  'There  is  no  need  for 
us  to  feel  much  anxiety;  and  in  any  case  it  is  a  matter  between  China 
and  the  United  States.'  The  next  move  is  Japan's. 


In  the  first  of  these  two  articles, 
a  Canton  general  tells  why  he  thinks 
that  China  should  fight  Japan;  in  the 
second,  an  English  observer  estimates 
the  strength  of  China's   communists. 


. . . Though 
China  Fall 


I.  I  Call  China  to  War 
By  General  Li  Tsung-jen 

From  the  Canton  Truth,  Canton  English-Language  Weekly 


V^HINA'S  most  urgent  need  today 
is  the  salvation  of  her  people.  In  order 
that  the  Chinese  people  may  obtain 
liberty  and  equality  with  other  peo- 
ples, and  that  China's  territorial  in- 
tegrity may  not  be  further  jeopar- 
dized, the  present  impossible  state  of 
affairs  must  not  be  allowed  to  con- 
tinue. We  must  be  aroused  from  our 
lethargy.  We  must  move  our  people 
to  a  struggle  for  national  emancipa- 
tion. We  must  be  prepared  to  answer 
our  aggressors  with  resolute  measures 
and,  true  to  our  great  tradition  of 
self-help  and  independence,  to  see 
our  country  reduced  to  ashes  rather 
than  submit.  Only  thus  can  China 
exist  as  an  independent  nation.  In 
this  way  alone  can  we  arrive  at  an 
amicable  and  permanent  solution  of 
the  Sino-Japanese  problem. 

When  a  country  has  been  the  vic- 
tim of  aggression,  it  is  only  proper 


that  it  should  resist  and  show  the 
world  its  spirit  of  independence  and 
self-help.  That  Japan's  aggression 
will  not  stop  short  of  the  conquest 
of  the  whole  of  China  has  been  at- 
tested to  by  the  Amau  Declaration 
of  April  17,  1934.  The  fate  of  our 
country  being  now  in  the  balance, 
the  question  is  not  whether  we  can 
or  cannot  resist,  but  whether  we 
should  or  should  not  resist.  Resist, 
and  we  shall  stand;  submit,  and  we 
shall  fall.  For  us  there  is  really  no 
option  except  resolute  armed  resist- 
ance. 

If  armed  resistance  means  sacri- 
fices, submission  entails  greater  sacri- 
fices, the  result  of  which  can  be  noth- 
ing less  than  the  complete  destruction 
of  our  country.  Despite  sacrifices,  a 
war  of  resistance  may  pave  the  way 
for  the  regeneration  of  our  nation.  It 
not  infrequently  happens  that    pre- 


.  THOUGH  CHINA  FALL 


[385] 


paredness  for  war  serves  to  avert  a  war 
and  to  facilitate  peace  parleys,  while 
unconditional  submission  only  under- 
mines the  national  consciousness  of  a 
people. 

Under  the  wings  of  the  Japanese, 
with  their  policy  of  'using  China  to 
control  the  Chinese,'  Chinese  traitors 
have  daily  extended  their  power  and 
have  handed  more  and  more  territory 
over  to  the  enemy.  When  only  the 
last  slice  of  territory  remains,  it  is 
possible  that  those  of  our  country- 
men who  are  unwilling  to  be  slaves 
may  rise  in  armed  struggle.  But  then 
the  struggle  will  no  longer  be  one  with 
the  Japanese  direct,  but  one  with  our 
own  traitors.  Taking  advantage  of 
the  conflict  between  the  Chinese  on 
the  one  hand  and  their  traitors  on 
the  other,  the  Japanese  can  easily 
attain  their  object  of  subjugating  the 
whole  of  China,  which  would  be  one 
of  the  greatest  tragedies  in  all  history. 

Only  a  war  of  resistance  when  there 
is  still  time  to  resist  can  unite  our 
people  against  the  common  foe  and 
serve  as  a  warning  to  those  who, 
though  still  loyal  Chinese  now,  may 
later  turn  traitor  if  such  anomalous 
conditions  continue  indefinitely.  Those 
who  advocate  a  war  of  resistance  are 
really  in  the  majority,  while  those  of 
us  who  are  against  such  a  war,  and 
dream  of  an  international  conflict  in 
which  they  would  take  part,  constitute 
but  a  small  minority. 

To  the  opportunists  it  seemed  at 
first  that  Japanese  aggression  could 
be  stopped  by  an  external  Power. 
This  belief  led  to  the  policy  of  relying 
on  the  League  of  Nations  alone.  That 
policy  having  proved  to  be  ineffec- 
tual, these  opportunists  now  hope 
for  the  eventuality  of  an  international 
war,  thinking  that  a  Russo-Japanese 


conflict  is  inevitable,  and  that  the 
rivalries  between  Japan  and  America, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  Japan  and  Brit- 
ain, on  the  other,  must  necessarily 
lead  to  a  war  in  the  Pacific  in  the  not 
very  distant  future.  Opportunists  see 
in  that  event  a  chance  to  win  back  our 
terra  irredenta. 

Such  a  materialist  way  of  thinking, 
however,  is  a  mere  mental  illusion. 
For  what  Japan  wants  now  is  the 
subjugation  of  China,  not  a  war  with 
the  other  Powers.  iUthough  realizing 
the  Japanese  menace,  Soviet  Russia  is 
now  preoccupied  with  internal  recon- 
struction, and  has  adopted  a  policy 
of  peace  with  all  nations  while  await- 
ing the  outbreak  of  the  'world  revo- 
lution' consequent  upon  the  mutual 
antagonism  of  the  capitalist  states. 
When  one  considers  Hitler's  threat 
to  Russia's  western  border,  and  the 
fact  that  Russia  has  sold  the  Chinese 
Eastern  Railway,  has  proposed  non- 
aggression  pacts  on  every  hand,  and 
has  consistently  tried  to  avoid  an 
armed  conflict  with  Japan,  it  becomes 
at  once  evident  that  Soviet  Russia 
knows  that  her  interests  do  not  lie 
in  starting  a  war  with  Japan.  The  re- 
cent incidents  on  the  Mongolian  bor- 
der have  been  mere  gestures  on  the 
part  of  Japan,  'anti-Red'  propaganda 
used  as  a  bait  for  British  and  American 
sympathies  and  as  a  smoke-screen  for 
covering  her  encroachments  on  China. 

If  Soviet  Russia  does  not  relish  a 
war  with  Japan,  neither  does  Great 
Britain,  for,  being  an  advanced  in- 
dustrial country  and  having  posses- 
sions all  over  the  world,  she  finds  it  to 
her  interest  to  maintain  the  status  quo 
and  preserve  international  peace, 
meanwhile  fighting  her  battles  with 
the  rest  of  the  world  by  purely  eco- 
nomic means.  As  the  European  situa- 


[386] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


tion  is  still  unsettled,  though  she  is 
reluctant  to  lose  the  Chinese  market, 
it  is  doubtful  whether  Great  Britain 
would  go  far  afield  and  decide  that 
the  time  is  ripe  to  start  a  war  with 
Japan,  even  though  the  latter's  po- 
litical and  economic  competition  has 
been  keenly  felt. 

As  for  America,  her  trade  with  Ja- 
pan is  larger  than  her  trade  with 
China.  With  their  hatred  of  war,  the 
American  people  wish  only  to  main- 
tain their  Monroe  Doctrine,  and  to 
extend  their  economic  power  abroad 
by  purely  diplomatic  means.  Their 
abandonment  of  the  Philippines  is 
further  evidence  of  their  lack  of  desire 
for  an  immediate  war  with  Japan. 


II 


If  neither  Soviet  Russia  nor  Great 
Britain  nor  America  is  willing  to  go 
to  war  alone,  they  are  still  less  likely, 
because  of  their  mutual  antagonisms, 
to  engage  in  joint  hostilities  against 
Japan.  While  another  world  war  is 
probably  not  impossible,  no  one  knows 
when  it  will  come.  If  China  does  not 
resist  Japan's  redoubled  aggression, 
it  is  certain  that  no  one  will  help  her, 
and  that  she  will  be  another  Japanese 
colony  before  the  next  world  war 
comes.  If  we  resist  in  war,  it  is  possi- 
ble that  the  international  situation 
thus  produced  may  compel  the  Powers 
to  adopt  a  more  positive  policy  toward 
Japan.  Then  and  not  until  then  shall 
we  be  able  to  make  use  of  an  inter- 
national situation  for  our  own  salva- 
tion. And  then  it  will  be  clear  who 
is  responsible  for  having  inveigled 
both  China  and  Japan  into  the  irre- 
deemable catastrophe. 

The  peace  talkers  are  those  whg 
think  that  everything  in  Japan,  and 


especially  her  war  machine,  is  or- 
ganized on  scientific  lines:  that  the 
Chinese  armed  force  has  not  a  chance 
against  the  battleships,  airplanes, 
cannons  and  machine-guns  of  Japan; 
and  that  China's  economic  and  com- 
munication systems  are  so  hopelessly 
backward  that  a  war  with  Japan 
would  mean  defeat  as  certain  as  the 
outcome  of  a  contest  between  a  grass- 
hopper and  the  Juggernaut.  The  logi- 
cal deduction  from  such  premises  is 
the  'annihilation  within  three  days* 
theory,  which  has  not  only  under- 
mined our  spirit  of  self-defense  but 
also  whetted  the  enemy's  insatiable 
appetite  by  our  readiness  to  tem- 
porize and  to  surrender  more  and 
more. 

Such  a  materialistic  theory  is  dis- 
credited by  the  historical  facts  that 
Dr.  Sun  Yat-sen  overthrew  the  Man- 
chu  Dynasty  with  bare  hands,  and 
that  the  Northern  Expedition  was 
brought  to  fruition  with  relatively 
poor  military  equipment.  It  is  dis- 
credited also  by  the  success  of  many 
a  war  for  national  emancipation  in 
which  the  spirit  has  triumphed  over 
matter.  For  many  factors  decide  the 
success  of  warfare,  and  these  material 
resources  constitute  only  one.  If  we 
have  the  determination  to  resist, 
though  it  is  superior  to  ours,  the 
Japanese  armed  force  willjneet  with 
insurmountable  difficulties  when  con- 
fronted with  what  seem  to  most 
people  our  'weaknesses.' 

Militarily  speaking,  Japan's  mod- 
ern and  superior  war  machine  will 
not  know  how  to  operate  in  a  wide 
terrain  (such  as  China),  with  in- 
numerable people,  poor  communica- 
tion, and  sources  of  supplies  as  yet 
undeveloped.  Under  such  topograph- 
ical   conditions    our    enemy    can    be 


193^ 


.  .  .  THOUGH  CHINA  FALL 


[387] 


brought  through  exhaustion  to  even- 
tual defeat  if,  determined  and  united, 
we  adopt  the  strategy  of  continuously 
widening  the  area  of  hostilities  and 
entangling  the  enemy  on  all  sides 
with  the  help  of  armed  volunteers. 
Such  strategy,  if  persisted  in,  will  be 
fatal  to  Japan's  existence  as  a  State, 
for  she  is  practically  alone  in  the  world 
and  has  many  insoluble  problems  and 
contradictions  within  her  social  and 
economic  system.  Like  France  under 
Napoleon  and  Germany  under  Wil- 
liam II,  Japan,  though  possibly  vic- 
torious in  the  beginning,  will  be  finally 
laid  low,  as  befits  all  aggressors  and 
all  users  of  brute  force. 

Economically  speaking,  China  has 
the  advantages  of  economic  back- 
wardness and  primitive  production. 
If  war  comes,  Japan  will  of  course 
blockade  our  sea  ports  and  devastate 
our  sea  coasts;  but  these  ports  on  our 
coast  are  mere  centers  of  trade  and 
not  centers  of  production,  so  that  their 
destruction  will  not  mean  the  stran- 
gulation of  our  economic  life.  Our 
farmers  will  still  be  able  to  work  and 
produce  and  give  us  self-sufficiency. 
With  the  low  standard  of  living  of 
our  people  and  our  soldiers,  their 
patience,  and  their  capacity  for  work 
and  endurance,  they  will  be  able  to 
hold  on  despite  vast  sacrifices. 

In  contrast  with  China,  Japan  is  a 
capitalist  country  with  highly  de- 
veloped industries.  The  business  de- 
pression has  aggravated  her  economic 
crisis  and  embittered  the  already  hard 
lot  of  her  toiling  masses.  Her  budget 
deficits  have  exceeded  800,000,000 
yen,  and  her  national  debt  has  in- 
creased to  over  9,000,000,000  yen. 
Her  manufactures  are  being  barred  in 
many  markets  of  the  world.  To  be 
sure,  her  armament  industry  has  been 


able  to  withstand  the  business  de- 
pression, but  only  at  the  expense  of 
other  industries.  She  lacks  power 
resources,  provisions,  clothing  ma- 
terials, and  other  necessities.  A  pro- 
tracted war  with  Japan  will  not  only 
increase  her  military  expenditures  to 
the  breaking  point,  but  will  also  de- 
prive her  of  the  Chinese  market,  with 
such  certain  results  as  a  precipitate 
fall  in  exports,  decreased  productivity, 
further  impoverishment  of  her  prole- 
tariat and  aggravation  of  the  economic 
crisis  that  now  stalks  in  her  political 
arena. 

Ill 

Politically  speaking,  there  is  in 
Japan  today  an  ever  sharpening  con- 
flict between  Fascist,  Leftist  and  Lib- 
eral schools  of  thought.  Under  the 
strain  of  war,  her  present  political 
instability  will  lead  to  abrupt  changes, 
not  the  least  of  which  will  be  a  poHtical 
imbroglio  tantamount  to  civil  war, 
making  it  impossible  for  her  to  prose- 
cute her  foreign  war  any  further.  It  is 
probable  that,  under  the  impact  of 
foreign  aggression  and  the  rally  around 
the  standard  of  war  for  national  eman- 
cipation, the  Chinese  will  become  more 
united  than  ever  and  their  political 
structure  further  strengthened.  Then, 
although  the  Powers  may  be  reluc- 
tant to  start  a  war  with  Japan,  yet, 
if  we  resist,  Japan  will  fall  into  such 
diplomatic  isolation  that  it  would  be 
easy  for  the  Powers  to  help  China 
either  morally  or  materially,  and  to 
take  advantage  of  Japan's  exhaustion. 

After  a  careful  weighing  of  all  the 
military,  economic,  political,  and  in- 
ternational factors,  and  a  due  com- 
parison of  the  parties  to  the  conflict, 
the  conclusion  is  inescapable  that  in  a 
war  of  resistance  against  Japan  China 


[388] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


is  more  likely  to  meet  with  victory 
than  with  defeat. 

It  has,  however,  been  argued  that 
such  a  war  will  result  in  the  destruc- 
tion of  our  civiHzation,  and  that  a 
policy  of  forbearance  and  submission 
should  be  preferred  to  war,  which 
should  be  resorted  to  only  as  the  last 
expedient.  Those  who  make  this 
argument  are  either  under  the  influ- 
ence of  a  special  motive  or  ignorant 
of  what  they  pretend  to  know.  It  can 
easily  be  seen  that  a  war  of  resistance 
is  essential  to  our  national  regenera- 
tion. 

The  value  of  a  civilization  is 
measured  by  the  extent  to  which  it 
ensures  the  existence  and  the  progress 
of  a  people.  China's  civilization  is 
now  in  a  state  of  stagnation.  The  sal- 
vation of  her  people  requires  the  in- 
fusion into  this  stagnant  civilization 
of  new  life  and  vigor;  and  this  can 
be  most  easily  accomplished  by  a  de- 
fensive war,  for  such  a  war  will  in- 
vigorate the  people  and  change  their 
habits  of  life. 

The  idea,  'civilization  is  life,'  is 
clearly  borne  out  by  the  fact  that  a 
change  in  the  life  of  a  people  is  always 
followed  by  a  change  in  their  civiliza- 
tion. History  reveals  that  periods  of 
intense  struggle  have  usually  been 
eras  of  great  activities  and  great 
civilization.  The  latter  part  of  the 
Chow  Dynasty,  the  Roman  Empire  in 
ancient  times,  and  Europe  in  the 
nineteenth  century  are  good  examples 
of  this.  On  the  other  hand,  as  in  the 
case  of  Egypt  and  India,  those  peoples 
who  have  lost  the  power  of  defending 
themselves  are  in  possession  of  a 
deteriorating  civilization.  In  order 
further  to  develop  the  civilization  we 
have,  and  to  impart  to  it  the  spirit  of 
progress,  we  should  not  shrink  from 


the  war  of  defense  which  has  now 
been  imposed  upon  us. 

Even  if  we  wanted  only  to  maintain 
our  civilization  as  it  is,  we  should  need 
to  preserve  our  political  independence 
and  sovereignty.  We  have  not  seen  a 
case  in  which  a  nation  which  has  lost 
its  political  independence  and  sov- 
ereignty could  still  keep  what  it  had 
in  its  civilization.  Submission  to 
Japanese  Imperialism  would  mean 
not  only  the  surrender  of  our  national 
independence  but  also  the  end  of  our 
existence  as  a  civilized  people.  When 
we  hear  the  argument  that  a  war  will 
result  in  the  destruction  of  our  civi- 
lization, we  are  reminded  of  an  old 
Chinese  saying: '  Nothing  is  to  be  more 
deplored  than  the  death  of  the  heart.' 
And  we  hope  that  this  is  not  an  ex- 
ample of  a  dying  heart. 

It  must  also  be  made  clear  that  a 
war  of  resistance  is  necessary  for  the 
permanent  and  peaceable  solution  of 
the  Sino-Japanese  problem,  for  our 
enemies  are  the  Japanese  aggressors, 
and  not  the  Japanese  people.  For  the 
Japanese  people,  who  are  of  our  own 
race  and  have  substantially  our  own 
culture,  and  who  groan  under  their 
militaristic  system  no  less  than  the 
Chinese,  we  have  the  fullest  sympa- 
thies. 

But  in  order  that  such  a  Govern- 
ment may  be  established  in  Japan 
as  will  really  represent  the  Japanese 
people,  we,  the  Chinese,  must  resist 
in  war.  Only  thus  can  the  relation 
between  China  and  Japan  be  put  on 
the  rational  basis  of  equality  and  mu- 
tual assistance. 

From  the  foregoing  it  must  be  clear 
that  China's  existence  as  a  State  de- 
pends on  whether  we  resist  in  war  or 
not,  and  that  success  in  our  war  of 
resistance  depends  in  turn  on  whether 


193^ 


THOUGH  CHINA  FALL 


[389] 


or  not  we  can  fully  employ  our  spir- 
itual, instead  of  only  our  material, 
power.  China's  existence  depends,  in 
other  words,  on  whether  or  not  our 
soldiers  and  our  people  have  awakened 
to  the  peril,  on  whether  or  not  our 
military  and  political  leaders  are  equal 
to  their  task  of  leadership,  and  on 
whether  or  not  we  are  ready  to  make 
efforts  and  sacrifices  for  our  national 
emancipation  with  a  united  purpose 


and  a  spirit  of  daring  to  reduce  things 
to  ashes. 

Since  the  War  Mustapha  Kemal  of 
Turkey  and  his  aids  have  accomplished 
such  a  task.  With  a  true  revolutionary 
spirit,  they  led  their  countrymen  into 
a  war  of  national  emancipation  and 
fought  and  sacrificed  until  finally 
Turkey  was  saved  by  their  victory 
over  a  strong  foe.  This  is  indeed  food 
for  careful  thought. 


n.  The  Prospects  of  Communism  in  China 

By  George  E.  Taylor 
From  the  New  Statesman  and  Nation,  London  Independent  Weekly  of  the  Left 


XHE  graveyard  of  Communism  in 
China  has  been  prepared,  according 
to  Nanking,  and  we  have  only  to  wait 
for  the  Red  Armies  to  starve  in  the 
mountains  of  Szechwan.  Admittedly 
these  armies  marched  through  the 
Government's  cordon  around  the  one- 
time Chinese  Soviet  Republic  of 
Kiangsi,  an  earlier  graveyard,  and 
Communist  generals,  after  being  re- 
ported as  dead,  have  been  flattered  by 
the  rewards  offered  for  their  capture. 
But  this  time  is  definitely  to  be  the 
last.  Another  lost  cause  is  about  to  be 
added  to  an  already  long  list.  Not  even 
Trotski  will  be  there  to  weep  at  the 
grave.  Why,  indeed,  should  he.^  He 
has  never  believed  in  victory  for  the 
Chinese  Communists  if  they  took  up 
arms  in  alliance  with  the  Kuomintang, 
for  to  him  the  struggle  lay  entirely 
between  the  industrial  workers  and 
the  bourgeoisie.  The  suicide  was 
predicted. 

The  Nanking  Government,  of  course, 
claims  that  the  Soviets  are  dying  a 
violent  death,  and  congratulates  itself 
on  the  passing  of  a  nightmare  which 


has  haunted  if  for  eight  long  years,  as 
well  it  might  have,  for  the  past  has 
not  been  pleasant  to  look  upon.  It  is 
only  a  dozen  years  since  the  Kuomin- 
tang (National  People's  Party),  now 
the  National  Government  of  China,  a 
party  that  did  not  pretend,  at  least 
before  1927,  to  represent  the  masses, 
was  joined  in  unholy  matrimony  with 
the  newly  formed  Communist  Party, 
which  sought  support  only  among  the 
peasantry,  the  soldiers  and  the  prole- 
tariat. The  marriage  lines  summed  up 
the  aims  of  the  revolution  as  being 
anti-imperialist  and  anti-feudal,  but 
this  program  merely  papered  over 
the  cracks  between  the  real  interests 
of  the  two  parties. 

Many  expected  an  early  divorce, 
but  few  anticipated  that  the  revolu- 
tionary honeymoon  would  break  up, 
as  it  did,  before  reaching  Nanking, 
that  the  Kuomintang  would  establish 
a  National  Government  with  the 
cooperation  of  the  foreign  powers,  and 
be  faced  with  a  revolting  Communist 
Party  and  Army.  It  was  natural  that 
both  parties  should  claim  to  be  sole 


[39o] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


legatees  of  the  Revolution  and  in- 
heritors of  the  whole  estate.  Hence 
eight  years  of  civil  war. 

The  National  Government  has  cre- 
ated a  new  China  and  given  her  far 
more  than  the  facade  of  unity,  yet, 
unless  it  believes  its  own  propaganda, 
several  questions  should  give  it  food 
for  thought.  Funerals  may  be  pre- 
pared, but  is  Communism  being  bur- 
ied dead,  or  alive?  Is  there  any  reason 
to  believe  that  the  dragon  of  revolu- 
tion will  not  in  the  future,  as  in  the 
past,  grow  new  heads  faster  than  old 
ones  are  lopped  off?  Does  the  strength 
of  Communism  lie  in  its  territorial 
extent  or  does  it  depend  on  other 
things — the  quality  of  its  leaders,  its 
capacity  to  win  the  support  of  the 
people,  and  its  social  and  military 
strategy? 

To  this  question  Chiang  Kai-shek 
himself  provided  the  answer  when  he 
stated  that  the  Chinese  Soviets  must 
be  fought  with  70  per  cent  political 
and  30  per  cent  military  methods.  In 
other  words  Communism  in  China 
can  be  estimated  only  by  its  nature, 
not  by  its  size.  Here  two  warnings  are 
in  order.  Communism  cannot  be  dis- 
missed either  as  mere  agrarian  revolt 
or  as  ordinary  banditry,  though  many 
out  of  Mindness  or  interest  take  this 
view.  It  began  in  the  big  towns  and 
was  forced  out  into  the  poorer  rural 
areas,  which  are  least  worth  defending 
by  the  Government.  The  backbone  of 
the  party  is  still  the  industrial  work- 
ers, students  and  soldiers.  In  the 
movement  as  a  whole,  however,  the 
peasantry  necessarily  play  a  large, 
though  subordinate,  part.  The  Com- 
munist strategy  is  to  give  proletarian 
leadership  to  agrarian  revolt,  a  task 
for  which  industrial  workers  are  well 
fitted  in  a  country  where  so  many  of 


them  come  from  and  return  to  agri- 
culture. 

On  the  charge  of  banditry,  it  is  true 
that  the  'Communist  bandits,'  as  the 
Kuomintang  so  cleverly  classifies  the 
Red  Army,  are  open  to  the  charges  of 
killing,  looting  and  kidnapping,  but 
all  this  has  been  done,  by  and  large, 
with  discrimination  and  for  a  purpose. 
The  discrimination  is  between  various 
classes  in  the  villages;  the  purpose  is 
the  sovietization  of  China. 


II 


What  was  done  in  the  application 
of  Communism  in  Kiangsi  can  be  re- 
peated elsewhere.  The  70  per  cent 
political  and  30  per  cent  military 
methods  of  Chiang  Kai-shek  might 
well  describe  the  strategy  of  the  Com- 
munists themselves,  for  their  social- 
economic  policy  has  to  be  backed  by 
the  Red  Army.  The  Communists,  for 
example,  always  drive  out  the  existing 
Government,  and  certain  classes  such 
as  landlords,  usurers  and  rich  mer- 
chants are  'liquidated.'  Then,  as  in 
Kiangsi,  the  land  is  divided,  but  not 
nationalized,  the  agricultural  laborers 
receiving  good  land,  the  rich  farmers, 
bad.  Economic  change  is  made  per- 
manent by  the  establishment  of  vil- 
lage, district  and  provincial  Soviets; 
the  political  sense  of  the  peasantry  is 
aroused  by  propaganda,  organization 
and  participation  in  local  affairs.  The 
toleration  of  private  trading  ensures 
the  allegiance  of  the  small  merchants, 
while  the  encouragement  of  coopera- 
tives gives  the  State  some  control  over 
prices.  By  factory  Soviets  the  indus- 
trial workers  are  given  considerable 
power. 

Though  special  privileges  are  us- 
ually given  to  the  Red  Army,  to  keep 


193^ 


.  THOUGH  CHINA  FALL 


[391I 


up  morale,  the  military  is  always 
under  civilian  and  political  control, 
and  in  administration  the  Communist 
Party,  unlike  the  Kuomintang,  en- 
sured that  each  soviet  executive 
committee  should  include  non-party 
members,  a  wise  provision  for  a  new 
Government. 

Thus  it  is  easy  to  understand  why 
the  Soviet  Republic  had  the  willing 
support  of  a  large  section  of  the  peo- 
ple, why  the  Red  Armies,  with  very 
inferior  military  equipment,  defied 
five  campaigns  against  them,  and  why 
the  Government  was  finally  compelled 
to  change  its  policy  and  imitate  the 
Communists  in  order  to  defeat  them. 
It  is  some  indication  of  the  hold  that 
Communism  took  in  Kiangsi  that  the 
Central  Government,  after  recaptur- 
ing the  province,  has  been  forced  to 
accept  the  Communist  redistribution 
of  land  in  seven  counties. 

It  is  one  thing  for  Nanking  to  ac- 
cept a  mihtary  challenge;  it  is  another 
thing  to  meet  the  challenge  of  achieve- 
ment. The  military  struggle  has  al- 
ways been  unequal.  Since  1927  the 
*  Reds'  in  China  have  received  only 
advice  and  inspiration  from  Russia; 
but  this  has  been  sufficient  to  rob  them 
of  that  air  of  legitimacy  which  perme- 
ates the  National  Government,  with 
its  German  military  advisers,  its  Ital- 
ian and  American  airplanes  and  avi- 
ation instructors,  and  its  League  of 
Nations  experts.  No  wonder  that  the 
official  British  attitude  towards  China 
changed  when  the  Kuomintang  broke 
with  the  Communists  in  1927,  and 
that  Anglo-Chinese  relationships  were 
then  much  improved  by  the  Far 
Eastern  activities  of  that  holy  and 
mysterious  thing,  British  foreign  pol- 
icy. 

To  the  Chinese  Soviets,  of  course. 


British  foreign  policy  is  neither  holy 
nor  mysterious.  To  them,  as  in  earlier 
days  to  the  Kuomintang,  the  British 
Empire  is  part  of  that  ring  of  imperial 
powers  which  has  encircled  and  in- 
vaded China  with  fleets,  armies,  loans 
and  spheres  of  interest.  Indeed,  if  the 
Chinese  Red  Armies  had  received  as 
much  material  help  from  Russia  as 
the  Kuomintang  has  from  Europe 
and  America,  the  hammer  and  sickle 
would  now  be  floating  over  most  of 
China. 

In  achievement,  which  is  a  matter 
of  quality  rather  than  quantity,  the 
Communists  have  a  case  and  a  hope, 
as  we  have  seen.  But  a  good  case  is  no 
guarantee  of  success.  The  obstacles 
are  obvious  and  enormous.  The  real 
problem  is  whether  the  party  can  de- 
velop from  its  new  base  in  Szechwan 
and  expand  in  non-soviet  territories  in 
spite  of  rigorous  censorship  of  the 
press,  prostitution  of  the  intelligentsia 
through  political  intimidation,  repres- 
sion in  the  universities.  Government 
control  of  trade  unions,  and  all  the 
secret  arrests  that  are  customary  but 
none  the  less  to  be  deplored  in  a  coun- 
try that  has  few  civil  liberties. 

For  the  Communists,  external  con- 
ditions are  important  but  the  prob- 
lems of  party  growth,  leadership  and 
morale  are  paramount.  Granted  the 
right  conditions,  would  they  be  equal 
to  the  occasion?  At  the  moment  they 
would  not;  they  have  neither  the  army 
nor  the  organization  for  countrywide 
sovietization.  It  may  be  comparatively 
easy  to  recruit  and  proselytize  sol- 
diers; it  is  much  more  difficult  to  ex- 
pand among  the  other  classes,  students 
and  industrial  workers,  upon  which 
the  party  depends  for  leadership.  Not 
that  sympathy  and  support  are  lack- 
ing among  the  latter.  Red  trade  un- 


[392] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


ions  exist  in  most  large  towns,  and 
'cells'  abound  all  over  the  country; 
and  in  other  classes,  such  as  the  poor- 
est peasants  and  the  city  poor,  mate- 
rial for  the  movement  is  plentiful. 

These  materials  have  been  largely 
increased  by  Japanese  aggression. 
Loss  of  trade  and  revenue  after  the 
Manchurian  incident,  the  cost  of  the 
fighting  and  destruction  in  the  Shang- 
hai war  of  1932,  the  short  struggle 
over  the  seizure  of  Jehol  in  1933,  and 
the  further  financial  losses  apparently 
involved  by  the  setting  up  of  the 
Hopei-Chahar  political  council  in  1935, 
have  robbed  the  nation  of  funds  which 
might  have  gone  into  reconstruction, 
have  made  the  army  the  first  charge 
on  the  national  treasury  and  have  un- 
dermined the  moral  position  of  the 
Nanking  Government. 

What,  indeed,  can  Nanking  do.''  If 
it  allows  China  to  become  a  protector- 
ate of  Japan,  the  present  tendency  for 
national  patriotism  and  Communism 
to  become  identical  will  be  increased 
in  direct  proportion  to  Japanese  dom- 
ination. If  it  should  fight,  the  eco- 
nomic consequences  are  likely  to  be 
disastrous  for  China,  and  large  bodies 
of  unpaid  soldiery  would  be  easily 
converted    to    Communism.    Nor    is 


there  much  possibility  of  a  com- 
promise with  the  Communists  in  case 
of  war  with  Japan.  It  is  an  awkward 
dilemma. 

In  the  meantime  it  is  possible,  ac- 
cording to  some,  that  we  may  soon 
see  the  establishment  of  autonomous 
Soviet  Republics  on  the  Outer  Mon- 
golian model  in  the  west.  It  is  said 
that  in  Kansu  and  Chinghai,  where 
racial,  religious,  and  economic-politi- 
cal antagonisms  are  prevalent,  there 
would  be  good  material  for  the  en- 
largement of  the  Communist  move- 
ment. The  future,  however,  depends 
almost  entirely  on  the  Japanese. 
There  is  no  shred  of  evidence  to  show 
that  Russia,  any  more  than  England, 
is  helping  the  Communists  in  China. 
Japan,  the  self-appointed  bulwark 
against  Communism,  is  in  reality  its 
best  friend.  Finally,  the  strength  of 
Communism  is  potential  rather  than 
actual,  and  a  movement  that  includes, 
as  it  does,  a  well-organized  party,  a 
powerful  social  economic  program  and 
strategy,  and  the  memory  of  consider- 
able achievement,  is  not  yet  ready  for 
the  grave.  Nor  is  it  likely  to  be  suc- 
cessfully interred  while  Japan  is  plund- 
ering the  homes  and  lands  of  the 
gravediggers. 


Come  Now! 


*  We  can't  build  warships  and  things  hke  that  unless  you  people  pay 
up  more  cheerfully,'  said  Alderman  Barber  in  dealing  with  fifty-six 
income-tax  defaulters  at  Wood  Green  Court  today. 

— From  the  Edinburgh  Evening  Dispatch,  Edinburgh 


A  voluntary  exile  from  Germany  comes 
to  the  defense  of  the  German  scholars. 


With  Honors 
Crowned 


By  Felix  E.  Hirsch 


Germans  like  to  celebrate  an- 
niversaries; their  academic  circles  in 
particular  never  pass  a  jubilee  by  in 
silence.  Foreigners  often  find  this 
rather  funny.  Of  course  it  is  nonsense 
to  publish  books  and  articles  or  stage 
festivals  to  honor  a  man  or  an  institu- 
tion of  doubtful  achievements  and 
limited  reputation.  But  sometimes 
such  celebrations  give  food  for  thought 
and  offer  opportunities  to  reappraise 
men  and  events  from  a  new  and  better 
vantage  point. 

Next  year,  for  instance,  Germany 
could  celebrate  the  centenary  of  a 
very  remarkable  historical  event.  In 
November,  1837,  King  Ernest  Augus- 
tus of  Hanover  banished  seven  famous 
professors  of  Gottingen  University. 
The  King,  an  English  Duke,  had  as- 
cended the  throne  of  that  State  some 
months  before.  Being  a  very  reac- 
tionary Tory  aristocrat,  he  hated  the 
modern  constitution  of  Hanover,  and 
decided  to  annul  by  a  mere  ordinance 
the  fundamental  law  of  the  State. 
That    was    undoubtedly    a    pohtical 


crime,  and  it  shocked  the  feelings  of 
all  fair-minded  people  in  Germany. 
Seven  professors  of  Gottingen,  the 
State  university  of  Hanover,  were 
courageous  enough  to  lodge  a  vigorous 
protest  against  the  King's  coup  d'etat. 
Among  them  were  the  famous  brothers 
Grimm  and  the  great  historians  Dahl- 
mann  and  Gervinus.  They  signed  a 
memorial  to  the  governing  body  of  the 
university  in  which  they  declared  that 
in  their  view  they  were  still  bound  by 
their  oath  of  fealty  to  the  constitution. 
Foaming  with  rage,  the  King  dis- 
missed the  seven  professors  and  or- 
dered Dahlmann,  Gervinus,  and  Jacob 
Grimm  to  quit  the  country  within 
three  days. 

This  event  created  a  good  deal  of 
excitement  in  Middle  Europe.  The 
exiles  were  inundated  from  all  sides 
with  letters  and  other  marks  of  sym- 
pathy and  respect.  Even  poets  raised 
their  voices  in  condemnation  of  the 
King's  action.  A  fable  was  circulated 
entitled  'Anno  1937.'  It  described  how 
in  1937  an  old  woman  would  tell  her 


[394] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


grandson  about  the  wicked  King 
Ernest  Augustus,  the  torn  charter, 
and  the  seven  Gottingen  professors, 
and  how  the  boy,  amazed  and  ex- 
cited, would  reply:  'Such  things  can't 
possibly  have  ever  happened!' 

I  don't  know  whether  the  German 
public  will  pay  due  attention  to  that 
anniversary  next  year,  or  whether 
there  will  be  such  a  grandmother  and 
such  an  excited  little  boy.  But  we  are 
now  on  the  eve  of  an  actual  academic 
jubilee  no  less  significant  and  no  less 
instructive  for  the  historian  of  modern 
German  culture.  The  University  of 
Heidelberg,  the  oldest  and  most  fa- 
mous one  in  the  country,  will  very 
soon  celebrate  its  550th  anniversary. 
In  recent  months  the  newspapers  of 
the  world  have  been  filled  with  articles 
on  the  question  of  whether  or  not 
foreign  universities  and  learned  so- 
cieties should  be  represented  at  that 
festival;  the  English  scholars,  for  in- 
stance, have  refused,  whereas  most  of 
the  American  ones  have  accepted  the 
invitations.  There  were  good  reasons 
for  both  points  of  view;  at  this  mo- 
ment it  seems  unnecessary  to  inter- 
vene in  that  long  and  disheartening 
discussion.  Here  we  have  to  deal  only 
with  the  historical  aspects  of  the 
jubilee;  from  them  we  can  gain  some 
understanding  of  Germany's  principal 
cultural  problems. 


II 


This  new  jubilee  reminds  one  of  the 
festival  of  fifty  years  ago,  when  they 
were  celebrating  the  half-millenary  of 
the  'Ruperto  Carola,'  the  name  by 
which  Heidelberg  University  has  been 
known  since  its  reconstitution  in  1803. 
There  are  still  some  people  alive  today 
who  can  tell  you  that  there  never  was 


such  an  overwhelming  academic  festi- 
val in  Middle  Europe  as  that  of  1886. 
The  famous  scholars  of  all  nations 
assembled  in  'the  most  beautiful  city 
of  the  Fatherland,'  as  Holderlin  right- 
ly called  Heidelberg;  the  old  Hohen- 
zollern  ruler,  William  I,  was  repre- 
sented by  his  son  Frederick,  the  second 
German  Emperor,  and  there  was  an 
abundance  of  celebrities.  Kuno  Fisch- 
er, the  renowned  philosopher  of  the 
University,  made  a  memorable  speech 
— one  of  those  great  orations  German 
academic  history  from  Schiller  to  Har- 
nack  and  Wilamowitz  is  rich  in.  He 
spoke  of  all  the  fateful  events  the 
University  had  witnessed  in  the  five 
centuries  of  its  existence,  the  days  of 
glory  in  the  epoch  of  Humanism  and 
Reformation,  the  breakdown  in  the 
horrible  times  of  the  Thirty  Years 
War  and  the  French  aggression,  and 
then  the  rejuvenation  in  the  era  of 
liberalism.  The  men  and  women  who 
were  present  at  the  meeting  in  the  old 
Church  of  the  Holy  Spirit  where 
Fischer  spoke  had  the  distinct  feeling 
that  Heidelberg  was  at  that  time  the 
heart  of  the  world's  academic  com- 
munity. 

When,  thirty-five  years  later,  we 
students  of  Heidelberg  celebrated 
another  jubilee  in  the  city  hall  near 
the  Neckar,  the  face  of  Europe  had 
changed.  The  Ruperto .  Carola  had 
become  the  poor  university  of  a  de- 
feated country;  half-an-hour  away,  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Rhine,  colored 
French  soldiers  were  on  duty  before 
the  old  cathedrals  of  Speyer  and 
Worms.  But  even  in  those  dark  times 
(and  nobody  will  ever  be  able  fully  to 
understand  the  events  of  later  years 
in  Germany  who  did  not  see  and  feel 
the  consequences  of  the  Versailles 
Treaty) — even  in  those  dark  times  we 


193^ 


WITH  HONORS  CROWNED 


[395] 


had  a  right  to  celebrate:  fifty  years  of 
German  unity.  The  speaker  of  the  day, 
the  historian  Hermann  Oncken,  could 
state  with  a  kind  of  pride  that  the 
German  nation  had  saved  the  Reich, 
even  though  the  greatest  war  in  our 
history  had  been  lost. 

And  then  there  was  a  merry  May 
day  in  1928.  The  world  had  apparently 
forgotten  the  ill-feeling  of  the  first 
post-War  period,  and  Germany  was 
enjoying  a  brief  era  of  prosperity  and 
true  liberalism.  Professors  and  stu- 
dents of  Heidelberg  University  were 
assembled  in  the  Convocation  Hall, 
where  honorary  degrees  were  being 
conferred  upon  two  outstanding  states- 
men. One  was  the  then  American 
Ambassador  in  Berlin,  Jacob  Gould 
Schurman,  an  old  student  of  Heidel- 
berg (as,  in  happy  pre-War  days,  so 
many  of  his  fellow-countrymen  had 
been)  and  a  man  who  had  done  a  great 
deal  for  the  rehabilitation  of  his  be- 
loved alma  mater.  The  other  was 
Gustav  Stresemann,  the  German  Min- 
ister of  Foreign  Affairs. 

It  is  worth  while  reading  again  to- 
day the  speeches  the  two  men  de- 
livered on  that  occasion.  How  far  we 
are  now  from  the  ideal  Stresemann 
sketched  in  his  last  sentences!  *.  .  . 
A  stream  of  peace  and  liberty  which 
shall  ensure  our  much-tried  and  suf- 
fering generation  the  fullest  exercise  of 
the  right  of  self-determination,  and 
unadulterated  respect  for  the  culture, 
the  religion,  and  the  language  of 
every  human  being.  .  .  .  May  such  a 
state  of  affairs  provide  for  a  free 
Germany,  whose  sovereignty  shall  be 
unrestricted,  whose  share  in  intellec- 
tual leadership  shall  be  unsurpassed 
and  whose  task  shall  be  to  promote  the 
liberty  and  progress  of  mankind!* 

Five  years  later  the  same  Univer- 


sity held  another  convocation:  pro- 
fessors and  students  were  celebrating 
the  National  Sociahst  revolution,  and 
in  the  old  citadel  of  liberalism  the 
speaker,  a  Minister  of  State  and  pro- 
fessor of  history,  called  on  his  audi- 
ence to  bid  final  farewell  to  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  nineteenth  century.  .  .  . 
And  then  they  held  another  festival 
in  Heidelberg  only  last  December. 
The  President  of  the  German  Re- 
search Society,  Professor  Stark,  one 
of  the  leading  National  Sociahst 
scholars,  paid  a  visit  to  the  Heidelberg 
Lenard  Institute  for  Physics  and  used 
the  occasion  to  make  a  vehement  at- 
tack on  those  of  his  world-famous 
colleagues  who  had  not  joined  the 
Nazi  party.  He  made  some  acrimoni- 
ous remarks  about  Einstein  and  the 
theory  of  relativity,  and  condemned 
'Jewish  Physics'  and  the  'Aryan' 
Nobel  prize-winners,  Planck,  Schro- 
dinger,  Heisenberg  and  von  Laue,  for 
their  cooperation  with  it.  He  criticized 
the  Ministry  of  Education  because 
some  of  those  men  were  still  being 
permitted  to  work  in  their  old  way. 
In  the  same  city  where  Helmholtz, 
Bunsen,  and  Kirchhoff  once  estab- 
lished the  fame  of  German  physical 
research,  the  foremost  expert  in  the 
ruling  party  could  call  for  measures 
against  their  intellectual  heirs.  And 
nobody  dared  to  raise  his  voice  in 
protest! 

Ill 

This  brings  us  to  an  important 
question,  one  which  is  often  discussed 
both  inside  and  outside  of  Germany: 
do  the  professors  who  are  not  sym- 
pathetic to  the  ideals  of  National 
Socialism  but  are  cautious  about  ex- 
pressing their  objections  to  them 
really  lack  courage,  and  was  it  their 


[396] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


fault  that  the  German  universities 
surrendered  to  the  totalitarian  State? 
I  must  say  that  I  think  the  answer  is 
*No!'  Of  course,  everybody  was  ex- 
pecting a  vigorous  and  heroic  declara- 
tion of  the  type  the  seven  Gottingen 
professors  chose  to  make.  We  should 
have  felt  a  kind  of  psychological  relief 
if  the  intellectual  leaders  of  the  nation 
had  resigned  their  positions  by  unani- 
mous action  and  had  thus  rejected 
political  and  racial  persecution.  About 
fifty  years  ago,  when  the  great  his- 
torian Treitschke  undertook  to  in- 
troduce anti-Semitism  into  the  Ger- 
man universities,  Mommsen,  Virchow, 
Werner  Siemens,  and  all  the  other 
world-famous  scholars  of  the  country 
delivered  a  public  rebuke  he  could 
never  forget. 

But  conditions  in  the  academic 
world  had  changed  completely  since 
Treitschke's  day.  Universities  in  Ger- 
many had  ceased  to  be  intellectual 
units;  there  were  so  many  different 
points  of  view  among  the  rank  and 
file  of  the  professors  that  they  could 
no  longer  act  as  communities.  First  of 
all  there  was  a  striking  contrast  be- 
tween the  old  professors  and  the 
younger  ones.  The  greater  part  of  the 
older  generation  was  (and  is  perhaps 
still)  opposed  to  the  ideology  of 
National  Socialism.  But  these  men 
were  not  flexible  enough  to  face  a  real 
political  struggle.  Some  of  them  had 
fought  bravely  for  liberty  fifteen 
years  ago,  when  the  Weimar  Republic 
was  established.  In  1933  they  were 
already  between  sixty  and  seventy 
years  old,  and  at  that  age  a  man  is  not 
likely  to  want  to  fight. 

The  young  generation  was  in  a 
still  more  difficult  position.  Even  if 
they  wished  to  do  so,  its  members 
could  not  follow  the  example  set  by 


two  Heidelberg  professors:  the  master 
of  public  law,  Gerhard  Anschiitz,  the 
foremost  expert  on  the  German  Con- 
stitution, retired  the  very  moment 
that  Constitution  was  demolished, 
and  so  did  his  colleague,  the  famous 
economist  Alfred  Weber.  For  many 
reasons  the  younger  professors,  men 
of  forty  or  forty-five,  had  not  always 
such  clear  political  convictions  as  the 
men  of  the  preceding  generation. 

And  they  felt  very  strongly  their 
responsibilities  to  their  families,  too. 
They  knew  very  well  that  it  would 
now  be  much  more  difficult  for  dis- 
missed scholars  to  earn  their  liveli- 
hood than  it  had  been  one  hundred 
years  ago.  After  a  little  time  the 
seven  Gottingen  professors  had  found 
new  positions  (and  better  ones!)  in 
other  German  States;  a  man  banished 
in  Hanover  might  be  very  welcome  in 
WiJrttemberg  or  Saxony  in  that  epoch. 
But  in  the  meantime  Germany  had 
been  united  and  more  and  more  cen- 
tralized. A  conflict  with  the  Govern- 
ment now  meant  that  one  lost  not 
only  a  certain  post  but  any  chance  of 
working  in  the  whole  Reich.  So  a 
professor  who  protested  against  the 
new  methods  and  condemned  the  new 
ideals  would  have  almost  no  other 
choice  than  to  leave  the  country  like 
a  beggar  and,  with  little  or  no  money 
in  his  pocket,  face  an  uncertain  fate  in 
another  part  of  the  world. 

An  anecdote  will  illustrate  this  last 
point.  Some  months  ago  there  died  a 
German  professor  who  had  been  a 
Democrat  during  his  whole  career, 
but  who  in  the  Spring  of  1933  had 
suddenly  become  a  member  of  the 
National  Socialist  Party.  On  the  oc- 
casion of  his  death,  an  old  friend  of  his 
discussed  with  me  that  painful  change 
of  allegiance.  He  said:  'Do  you  know 


193^ 


WITH  HONORS  CROWNED 


[397] 


what  happened  in  his  mind  at  that 
time?  I  imagine  that  during  a  restless 
night  he  may  have  entered  the  room 
where  all  his  little  children  were  sleep- 
ing and  have  decided  to  sacrifice  his 
own  political  faith  to  the  future  of  his 
babies.' 

Perhaps  this  interpretation  was 
fair;  at  least  we  should  not  forget  that 
it  is  very  easy  to  criticize,  but  it  is 
extremely  difficult  to  find  the  right 
solution  if  one  has  to  choose  between 
academic  freedom  and  exile  on  the 
one  hand,  and  external  compromises 
on  the  other.  Nobody  should  judge 
before  he  himself  has  faced  such  a 
dilemma!  But  by  this  I  do  not  of 
course  mean  to  absolve  those  oppor- 
tunists who  were  able  to  change  their 
opinions  and  conform  to  the  new 
order  without  any  qualms  of  con- 
science at  all. 

IV 

Furthermore,  when  we  speak  of  the 
'cowardice'  of  the  German  profes- 
sors, we  should  not  forget  that  there 
were  among  them  some  distinguished 
scholars  who  stood  up  for  their  ideals 
in  a  very  forthright  manner.  The 
world  knows  the  case  of  Einstein,  but 
most  of  our  contemporaries  have  for- 
gotten that  he  was  not  the  only  one  to 
set  an  example  of  great  courage  and 
nobility  of  mind.  Let  us  recall  the 
letter  the  Nobel  prize  winner,  James 
Franck,  then  professor  of  physics  at 
Gottingen,  wrote  to  the  rector  of  his 
university  in  the  Spring  of  1933:  *I 
have  requested  the  authorities  to  re- 
lieve me  of  my  office,'  he  wrote  '  but  I 
shall  try  to  continue  my  scientific 
work  in  Germany.  We  Germans  of 
Jewish  descent  are  being  treated  like 
aliens  and  enemies  of  the  fatherland. 
We  are  asked  to  let  our  children  grow 


up  in  the  knowledge  that  they  must 
not  represent  themselves  as  Germans. 
Although  those  who  served  in  the  War 
have  received  permission  to  continue 
in  their  positions,  I  decline  to  avail 
myself  of  this  privilege.  Nevertheless, 
I  appreciate  the  point  of  view  of  those 
who  consider  it  their  duty  in  these 
times  to  remain  at  their  posts.'  Later 
on,  having  seen  that  there  was  no 
place  for  him  in  the  German  academic 
world,  Franck  came  to  America  and 
is  now  teaching  at  Johns  Hopkins  Uni- 
versity. 

Some  weeks  after  Franck's  retire- 
ment, a  scholar  of  even  greater  re- 
nown, Fritz  Haber  (also  a  Nobel 
prize  winner),  resigned  his  position  as 
Director  of  the  Kaiser  Wilhelm  In- 
stitute for  Chemistry.  When,  about 
Easter,  1933,  I  asked  him  to  write  a 
leading  editorial  in  defense  of  academ- 
ic freedom  for  the  Berliner  Tageblatt, 
he  angrily  refused;  certainly  not  be- 
cause of  lack  of  courage,  but  because 
he  saw  no  hope  in  public  action  at 
that  moment.  But  when  his  most 
valuable  assistants  were  dismissed  for 
no  other  reason  than  their  non-Aryan 
descent,  he  decided  to  retire.  Some 
months  later  he  left  Germany  and 
went  to  England.  He  died  suddenly  on 
a  holiday  trip  in  Basel.  The  most  im- 
portant German  chemist,  the  man 
whose  inventions  made  it  possible  for 
his  country  to  hold  out  against  the 
world  for  more  than  four  years,  died 
and  was  buried  in  exile. 

But  after  his  premature  death  his 
German  fellow  scientists,  keenly  aware 
of  the  debt  his  country  owed  him, 
decided  to  hold,  in  Berlin,  the  memo- 
rial meeting  that  was  his  due.  Al- 
though the  Minister  of  Education  had 
forbidden  all  officials  to  take  part  in 
that    celebration,    representatives    of 


[398] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


Germany's  cultural  life  crowded  the 
large  hall  to  the  doors.  The  speakers, 
among  them  the  famous  physicist 
Planck,  paid  touching  tribute  to 
Haber's  scientific  accompHshments 
and  patriotic  services.  They  wished  to 
show  that  gratitude  and  the  sense  of 
justice  still  exist  among  German 
scholars. 

In  his  capacity  as  President  of  the 
Kaiser  Wilhelm  Society,  the  greatest 
research  foundation  in  Germany,  Max 
Planck  has  been  to  this  day  a  sincere 
and  courageous  fighter  in  the  cause  of 
academic  freedom.  At  every  meeting 
of  that  distinguished  society,  and  even 
more  in  his  other  activities,  he  tries  to 
preserve  the  influence  and  moral 
position  of  the  German  scholars.  It  is 
not  his  fault  that  he  has  not  succeeded, 
and  I  think  we  should  all  have  great 
respect  for  this  fair-minded  old  gentle- 
man. It  is  foolish  to  criticize  him  for 
having  sent  a  telegram  of  homage  to 
the  German  Chancellor  on  the  occa- 
sion of  the  last  meeting  of  the  Society; 
that  is  his  duty  in  these  times,  and  one 
needs  only  to  look  into  the  National 
Socialist  newspapers  to  find  the  most 
severe  attacks  against  Planck's '  lack  of 
political  reliability.* 

We  owe  the  same  regard  to  his  close 
colleague  and  fellow  Nobel  prize  win- 
ner, Erwin  Schrodinger,  who  pre- 
ferred exile  in  England  to  his  profes- 
sorship in  Berlin  only  because  he  could 
not  stand  the  recent  changes  in  Ger- 
many's academic  life.  A  third  man  of 
this  type  is  now  working  in  this  coun- 
try (at  Swarthmore  College):  the  ex- 
cellent experimental  psychologist  of 
Berlin  University,  Wolfgang  Kohler. 
The  spirited  article  against  the  defa- 
mation of  Jewish  scholars  he  pub- 
lished in  the  Deutsche  Allgemeine 
Zeitung  in  April,   1933,  is  a  lasting 


document  of  the  best  German  virtues; 
at  that  time  it  was  a  real  consolation 
to  suppressed  liberals  and  was  passed 
from  hand  to  hand  among  educated 
people. 

But  it  is  not  only  scientists  who 
have  shown  strength  of  character. 
Much  the  same  thing  has  happened  in 
the  fields  of  history  and  theology 
also.  Here  the  pressure  exerted  by  the 
Government  is  even  greater.  On  the 
whole,  the  historians  refused  to  ac- 
knowledge the  Nazi  theories  regarding 
the  old  Germans.  When  the  party 
speakers  spat  at  the  memory  of 
Charlemagne,  the  alleged  murderer  of 
thousands  of  Nordic  Saxons,  the 
experts — among  them  the  late  Heidel- 
berg historian,  Karl  Hampe — joined 
in  writing  a  pointed  book  to  show  the 
real  greatness  of  that  German  em- 
peror. At  an  academic  meeting  in  1935 
the  famous  Berlin  Professor,  Her- 
mann Oncken  (who  had  earlier  been 
one  of  Heidelberg's  greatest  assets), 
criticized  the  National  Socialist  ideals 
of  history  so  tellingly  that  the  Govern- 
ment forced  him  to  retire;  the  official 
party  newspaper,  the  ydlkiscbe  Beo- 
bachtery  then  investigated  his  whole 
past  in  a  manner  unknown  in  Germany 
even  under  the  Third  Reich.  Oncken's 
friend  and  colleague,  Friedrich  Mein- 
ecke,  did  not  stop  expressing  his 
opinions  freely  in  the  internationally 
recognized  periodical  Historische  Zeit- 
schrifty  of  which  he  was  the  editor, 
until  he  was  replaced  by  a  party 
member  last  fall.  He  is  one  of  the 
leading  European  scholars  Harvard 
University  intends  to  honor  at  its 
coming  tercentenary. 

Yet  the  most  impressive  examples 
of  courage  among  German  scholars 
are  to  be  found  in  the  ranks  of  the 
Protestant    theologians.    If,    after    a 


^93^ 


WITH  HONORS  CROWNED 


[399] 


hundred  years,  another  grandmother 
happens  to  tell  her  little  grandson  the 
story  of  the  lost  fight  for  Germany's 
academic  freedom,  she  will  mention  as 
its  noblest  defender  the  professor  of 
theology,  Karl  Barth.  A  Swiss  by 
birth,  he  was  teaching  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Bonn  in  1933;  hundreds  of  stu- 
dents lingered  in  that  charming  Rhen- 
ish town  only  to  attend  his  lectures  on 
systematic  theology.  When  he  saw 
what  was  happening  in  ecclesiastical 
circles,  he  decided  to  write  a  booklet 
against  political  meddling  with  Chris- 
tianity. This  pamphlet,  Theological 
Existence  I'oday^  contains  the  strong- 
est arguments  against  the  National 
Socialist  Weltanschauung  ever  written 
by  a  theologian. 

Barth,  moreover,  was  the  spiritual 
head  of  German  Protestantism  in  its 
heroic  fight  against  the  totalitarian 
state  and  Nordic  paganism;  in  the  end 
he  refused  to  take  the  oath  of  alle- 
giance to  the  German  Chancellor  and 
was  therefore  deprived  of  his  office.  In 
the  summer  of  1935,  his  fellow-coun- 
trymen summoned  him  to  his  home- 
university  of  Basel,  but  when  he 
returned  to  Germany  for  a  short  trip, 
he  was  arrested  and  deported.  This  is 
only  one  outstanding  example,  but 
there  have  been  dozens  of  Protestant 
theologians  at  German  universities 
who  have  shown  the  same  sense  of 
duty  and  the  same  courage  in  the  last 


three  years.  Of  course,  there  were  able 
defenders  of  their  faith  among  the 
Cathohc  theologians,  too;  but  one 
does  not  find  among  them  a  personal- 
ity to  be  compared  with  Karl  Barth — 
with  the  one  exception  of  Cardinal 
Faulhaber,  who  is  an  Archbishop, 
not  a  mere  professor! 


Nobody  can  prophesy  the  future 
of  Germany's  academic  institutions. 
Perhaps  the  words  of  President  Nich- 
olas Murray  Butler  of  Columbia  Uni- 
versity, that  'university  Hfe  begins 
west  of  the  Rhine,'  will  remain  true 
for  a  long,  long  time  to  come.  Let 
us  remember  that  there  was  an  inter- 
val of  nearly  two  centuries  between 
the  first  era  of  Heidelberg's  glory  and 
the  second  one:  from  1619  to  1803  the 
University  was  driven  from  disaster 
to  disaster,  from  humiliation  to  hu- 
miliation. But  we  should  not  be  too 
pessimistic.  Perhaps  at  the  six-hun- 
dredth anniversary  of  the  University, 
in  1986,  our  sons  or  grandsons  will 
be  able  to  sing  Scheffel's  famous 
verse  with  the  same  pride  and  grati- 
tude as  our  fathers  and  grandfathers 
did  in  1886:— 

Old  Heidelberg^  dear  city. 
With  honors  crowned,  and  rare. 
O'er  Rhine  and  Neckar  rising, — 
None  can  with  thee  compare! 


To  the 
VICTORS 


An  Italian  emigre  discusses  the  pros- 
pects of  Mussolini's  'Empire,'  and  a 
Frenchwoman  tells  of  her  vain  search 
for  an  honest  and  intelligent  Fascist. 


I.  The  Second  Roman  Empire 

By  L'OSSERVATORE 

Translated  from  Giustizia  e  Libertiy  Paris  Italian  Anti-Fasdst  Weekly 


Sooi 


)NER  or  later  the  great  intoxica- 
tion of  these  days  will  pass.  And  then 
the  Italians  will  have  to  look  at  the 
Abyssinian  undertaking  and  the  '  Sec- 
ond Roman  Empire'  with  a  more 
critical  eye. 

All  problems  would  be  very  simple 
if  changing  the  name  of  a  thing  would 
transform  it.  But  this  is  far  from 
being  the  case.  It  is  the  names  that 
change,  while  the  substance  remains 
immutable. 

In  order  not  to  irritate  the  mad 
Hamlet,  Polonius,  in  Shakespeare's 
tragedy,  always  agrees  with  him. 

Hamlet:  Do  you  see  yonder  cloud 
that's  almost  in  the  shape  of 
a  camel? 

Polonius:  By  the  mass,  and  't  is  like  a 
camel  indeed. 

Hamlet:  Methinks  it  is  like  a  weasel. 

Polonius:  It  is  backed  like  a  weasel. 

Hamlet:  Or  like  a  whale. 

Polonius:  Very  like  a  whale. 


This  is  a  bit  like  the  dialogue  be- 
tween Mussolini  and  the  Italian 
people.  In  May,  1934,  in  a  speech 
which  oozed  pessimism,  Mussolini 
informed  the  Italian  people:  'We  have 
been  going  steadily  downhill.  It  would 
be  hard  to  go  any  lower.  Three  quar- 
ters of  our  industries  require  Govern- 
ment assistance.  Either  we  must 
balance  our  budget  and  stop  incurring 
debts  or  we  shall  go  under.' 

The  Italian  people  approved.  They 
expected  a  period  of  recovery  in  which 
they  could  concentrate  on  pulling 
themselves  together.  Inste'ad  came  the 
war. 

After  two  years  of  mad  expenditures 
on  this  war — during  which  all  the 
symptoms  denounced  by  Mussolini  in 
1934  became  aggravated — Mussolini 
says  to  the  Italian  people:  'Abyssinia 
is  ours.  Abyssinia,  added  to  Italy, 
marks  the  rebirth  of  the  Roman 
Empire.  This  is  the  first  stage.' 

And  the  Italian  people  cheer. 


\;AVrf^<^ 


<••?• 


TO  THE  VICTORS 


J401I 


Perhaps  the  names  'Roman  Em- 
pire' and  'Fascist  Empire'  can  change 
the  facts?  No.  Whether  called  an 
Empire  or  a  Kingdom,  Italy  is  and 
remains  a  poor  country,  a  country 
hard-hit  by  the  depression,  one  of  low 
wages  and  reduced  consumption,  but 
with  the  highest  taxes  in  Europe,  and 
a  national  debt  which  we  shall  soon 
have  to  reckon  with.  Abyssinia',  for 
her  part,  remains  (and  since  the 
destruction  of  the  war  is  more  than 
ever)  an  extremely  poor  country, 
without  roads,  without  houses  worthy 
of  the  name,  without  irrigation  or 
reclamation,  without  public  services, 
etc.  It  is  difficult  to  see  how,  by  adding 
Italian  poverty  to  Abyssinian  misery, 
not  only  wealth,  but  actually  an 
Empire  can  be  expected  to  emerge. 
An  Empire,  yes,  but  an  Empire  of 
misery! 

To  say  that  Abyssinia  would  lend 
itself  to  more  intense  cultivation,  and 
might  conceivably  hide  mineral  riches, 
is  not  the  same  as  saying  that  she  is 
rich.  There  is  a  difference  between 
potential  riches  and  those  that  can  be 
realized.  A  thousand  years  ago  the 
valley  of  the  Po  was  a  useless  swamp. 
Many  centuries  of  work  and  the 
investment  of  immense  capital  have 
made  it  the  most  fertile  plain  in 
Europe.  But  who  could  have  called  it 
rich  when  it  was  still  under  water? 

Abyssinia,  too,  can  in  time  become 
rich.  But  how  long  will  it  take?  And 
how  much  will  it  cost? 

This  matter  of  capital  is  an  im- 
portant point.  Italians  have  a  lyric, 
Eesthetic  idea  of  colonization.  They  do 
not  understand  that  colonization,  if  it 
has  any  significance  in  our  day,  must 
be  considered  solely  from  the  economic 
point  of  view.  To  bleed  the  mother 
country  in  order  to  conquer  a  colony 


is  an  obvious  paradox,  a  manifest 
absurdity.  As  the  name  itself  indi- 
cates, a  colony  must  be  the  comple- 
ment of  a  country. 

The  English — who  may  have  their 
faults,  but  who  at  least  know  what 
they  are  talking  about  in  this  line — 
have  always  conceived  of  and  con- 
ducted colonization  as  a  business 
enterprise.  The  French  have  not 
always  clung  to  this  rule,  but  one 
knows  that  the  foremost  problem  with 
them  is  one  of  military  reserves. 
Moreover  their  Empire  (never  bap- 
tized as  such)  yields  considerably  less 
than  England's.  The  idea  of  colonial 
philanthropy  never  occurs  to  serious 
imperialists  and  colonists.  With  in- 
ferior forces  and  with  more  limited 
means  than  have  been  at  Italy's 
disposal,  the  English  have  conquered 
a  quarter  of  the  globe.  Why?  Because 
their  colonization  was  made  possible 
by  trade  and  private  enterprise.  The 
only  real  colonial  war  that  England 
ever  carried  on  was  that  in  South 
Africa,  but  that  was  the  result  of 
under-estimating  the  resistance  of  the 
Boers,  not  of  foresight.  They  knew 
that,  once  the  war  was  won,  no  matter 
how,  the  diamonds  and  the  gold  mines 
would  repay  them  beyond  the  dreams 
of  avarice. 

Free  circulation  of  capital  is  the 
essential  condition  for  profitable  col- 
onization. In  a  recent  polemic  edito- 
rial, the  Giornale  d' Italia  affirmed  that, 
on  the  contrary,  with  faith  and  willing 
hands  at  their  disposal,  the  financial 
question  would  come  second.  It  is  a 
fine-sounding  sentence.  But  when  the 
time  comes  to  colonize  seriously,  it 
will  be  seen  how  significant  the  lack  of 
adequate  capital  is. 

The  foreign  loans  which  have  been 
so  much  talked  about,  and  which  Italy 


[402] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


is  none  too  sure  of  getting,  will  cer- 
tainly not  solve  this  problem  by 
themselves.  They  will  invariably  be  at 
a  high  rate  of  interest.  While  the  work 
of  occupation,  of  pacification  and  of 
general  organization  goes  on — and  it 
will  take  a  number  of  years — the 
interest  on  these  loans  will  have  to  be 
paid,  though  there  will  be  no  com- 
pensating income  from  them.  Result: 
pressure  on  the  already  depleted  gold 
reserve  and  on  the  domestic  money 
market. 

Besides  this  it  will  be  difficult  to 
obtain  concessions  of  foreign  capital 
in  the  form  of  general  loans,  as  foreign 
capitalists  will  demand  a  direct  par- 
ticipation in  the  exploitation  of  the 
colony.  And  in  the  last  analysis  it  will 
be  they  who  will  get  the  tidbits.  Hav- 
ing laid  down  their  guns  for  spades 
the  soldiers  will  find  themselves  re- 
duced to  the  status  of  employees  work- 
ing at  very  low  wages  for  foreign- 
controlled  enterprises.  But  whether 
employed  by  Italians  or  foreigners, 
they  will  soon  realize  what  the 
patriotism  of  the  renovated  Roman 
Empire  leads  to.  It  will  end  in  fat 
profits  and  private  camorras  for  a 
privileged  minority,  while  the  working 
men  will  have  to  compete  with 
Abyssinian  labor,  which  will  be  pre- 
ferred to  Italian  because  it  is  infinitely 
cheaper.  At  present  it  is  Italy  which  is 
annexing  Abyssinia.  But  it  will  tend 
to  be  the  Abyssinians  who,  through 
their  lower  standard  of  living,  will 
annex  the  Italians. 

With  her  past  diplomatic  errors,  it 
will  be  especially  difficult  for  Italy  to 
obtain  large  foreign  loans.  But  capital 
she  must  have,  even  if  she  has  to  go  to 
the  country.  Contrary  to  the  general 
opinion,  we  believe  that  a  small  part 
of  this  initial  capital  is  to  be  found 


there.  In  the  exaltation  of  victory  it 
would  not  be  impossible  to  launch  a 
domestic  bond  issue  of  several  billions 
for  colonization  purposes. 

But  what  will  follow?  There  will 
follow — we  proceed  by  synthesis — an 
extreme  tightening  of  the  already 
impoverished  domestic  market,  a  con- 
sequent rise  in  the  legal  rate  of  inter- 
est, and  a  corresponding  fall  in  wages 
even  in  Italy! 

II 

This  is  a  sequence  of  phenomena 
which  is  well-known  to  economists. 
Hobson  in  particular  has  shown  ('?"£»<? 
Export  of  Capital),  and  the  fact  has 
recently  been  confirmed  by  Keynes, 
how  heavy  capital  exports  tend  to 
diminish  the  effectiveness  not  only  of 
the  capital  but  also  of  the  labor 
employed  in  the  mother  country.  The 
great  flight  of  capital  from  England  to 
the  colonies  before  the  War  was  one 
of  the  principal  causes — probably  the 
fundamental  one — which  for  many 
years  prevented  wages  from  rising  in 
England,  notwithstanding  the  eco- 
nomic progress  made.  But  England 
before  the  War  had  a  great  abundance 
of  capital.  The  rate  of  interest  was 
low.  She  did  not  export  capital  which 
was  needed  at  home. 

Not  so  Italy.  In  order  to  initiate  the 
colonizing  of  Abyssinia  she  will  find 
herself  obliged  to  endanger  her  already 
tottering  finances.  She  will  spend  to 
no  purpose  in  Abyssinia  money  that 
could  be  well  used  in  Italy.  A  few 
large  business  concerns,  the  same  ones 
which  today  have  a  monopoly  on  war 
supplies,  will  be  the  gainers.  The 
others  will  pay. 

The  example  of  Lybia  is  eloquent. 
Today  it  is  customary  to  say  that  it  is 
worthless,  that  it  is  nothing  but  sand. 


/pjd 


TO  THE  VICTORS  .  . 


[403] 


But  when  it  was  occupied,  it  was  an 
infatuation  hardly  less  fervent  than 
the  present  infatuation  for  Abyssinia. 
Not  counting  the  capital  brought  in 
privately,  and  aside  from  the  expenses 
of  military  occupation,  almost  ten 
billion  lire  have  been  spent  in  Lybia 
since  191 2.  Where  has  it  gone?  Most 
of  it  has  gone  up  in  smoke  in  the 
desert. 

Twenty  years  from  now — if  Abys- 
sinia is  still  ours —  many  tens  of  billions 
will  have  gone  up  in  smoke  there,  too; 
and  probably  without  giving  that 
country  any  great  advantage,  either. 
The  English,  on  the  contrary,  have 
immense  riches  in  India.  But  what 
have  been  the  benefits  to  the  Indians 
themselves  ?  They  are  just  as  miserable 
today  as  they  ever  were.  Only  a  small 
number  of  Indian  and  English  mag- 
nates have  made  money.  (The  busi- 
ness of  the  actual  colonial  merchants 
has  developed  very  little  in  the  last 
century,  while  the  development  of 
colonial  capitalism  has  taken  place 
outside  the  colonies.) 

The  function  of  modern  colonial 
empires  is  not  so  much  to  possess 
colonies  as  to  further  the  industrial 
and  financial  power  of  the  mother 
country.  An  imperialistic  capitalistic 
country  can  often  expand  more  suc- 
cessfully in  another  country's  colonial 
markets  than  can  that  country  itself. 
Example:  Germany  and  the  United 
States.  The  United  States  is  now 
getting  rid  of  its  last  direct  colony, 
Porto  Rico;  but  in  spite  of  being 
organized  as  a  republic  it  is  the  out- 
standing example  of  imperialist  ex- 
pansion in  our  time.  Who  knows,  for 
example,  whether  in  her  commercial 
relations  with  the  Dominions  the 
United  States  does  not  occupy  a 
position  superior  to  that  of  England 


herself?  And  this  in  spite  of  the  prefer- 
ence for  English  goods  implied  by  the 
treaty  of  Ottawa?  As  for  Germany, 
though  she  has  not  a  single  colony,  she 
has  very  nearly  recovered  her  for- 
midable pre-War  position. 

If  we  consider  the  world's  colonial 
empires,  we  find: 

England:  ^^-S  million  square  kilo- 
meters with  455  million  inhabitants. 

France:  11.7  million  square  kilo- 
meters with   63   million   inhabitants. 

Japan:  1.6  million  square  kilometers 
with  61  million  inhabitants. 

The  'Second  Roman  Empire:'  3.5 
million  square  kilometers  with  12 
miUion  inhabitants. 

Isn't  Mussolini  guilty  of  exaggera- 
tion in  speaking  of  an  'Empire'  so 
soon  ? 

This  Fascist  habit  of  attributing  an 
infinitely  broader  significance  to  things 
than  they  actually  have  is  a  thor- 
oughly pestiferous  one.  It  engenders  in 
the  people  a  false  sense  of  grandeur 
and  power,  and  will  eventually  lead 
them  to  ruin.  The  real  Romans  were 
more  serious.  They  began  to  talk  of 
Empire  only  when  their  Empire  had 
already  begun  to  decline. 

It  may  be  that  Fascism  really  is 
destined  to  give  Italy  an  immense 
empire.  But  so  far,  through  a  lucky, 
though  very  expensive,  war  (which,  by 
the  way,  is  not  yet  over),  she  has 
limited  herself  to  opening  up  ample 
but  impoverished  markets,  markets 
which  will  not  be  of  much  help  to  her 
for  twenty  years,  but  which  will  in 
the  meantime  weigh  heavily  on  her 
domestic  economy. 

And  now  Italy's  New  Deal — a  clay 
pot  between  two  iron  ones — has  en- 
tered the  imperialistic  competition, 
having  just  knocked  violently  against 
England,  and  in  all  probability  being 


[404] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


about  to  clash  with  France  and  with  a 
Germany  which  is  preparing  for  a  coup 
in  Austria  (and  consequently  a  menace 
to  Trieste).  And  all  this  during  a 
period  of  acute  economic  crisis. 


Announced  amid  songs  and  deli- 
rium in  a  night  of  orgies  and  collective 
prostitution,  the  Second  Roman  Em- 
pire has  not  been  presented  under 
exactly  the  most  favorable  auspices! 


II.  Diogenes  in  Rome 

By  Constance  Coline 
Translated  from  V Europe  NouvelU,  Paris  Political  and  Literary  Monthly 


I 


HAVE  just  spent  two  weeks  scour- 
ing Rome  asking  people  to  show  me 
an  intelligent  and  disinterested  Fas- 
cist, and  I  have  not  had  the  luck  to 
meet  a  single  one. 

I  have  seen  many  enthusiastic  sup- 
porters of  the  regime.  They  were  men 
of  action,  endowed  with  little  enough 
grey  matter,  and  corresponding  to 
the  class  which,  in  France,  finds  its 
spiritual  nourishment  pre-chewed  for 
it  every  day  in  a  so-called  'newspaper 
of  information.'  Like  ours,  this  'elite' 
is  satisfied  with  big  words,  takes  its 
desires  for  realities,  is  innocent  of 
arithmetic  and  geography — that  is  to 
say,  is  incapable  of  judging  the  politi- 
cal and  economic  problems  which 
make  the  present  age  so  dangerous — 
and  goes  about  with  the  words  'we 
who  are  true,  noble,  intelligent  and 
brave'  forever  on  its  lips.  This  class 
seems  to  exist  in  every  country  in  the 
world,  and  includes  at  one  and  the 
same  time  aristocrats,  bourgeois,  and 
men  of  the  people.  It  is  more  of  an 
intellectual  than  a  social  class;  in 
physiognomic  terms  you  would  call  it 
the  'muscular*  type. 

I  have  also  seen  fanatics  who  have 
explained  to  me  that  Fascism  fused 
all  the  parties  in  the  crucible  of  love 
for  a  single  party;  that  no  one  gave 
any  thought  to  his  own  private  inter- 


ests any  more  but  devoted  himself  to 
the  general  interest;  that  everybody 
was  happy,  not  only  in  the  cities  but 
also  in  the  country;  and  that  if  anyone 
was  poor  he  would  not  suffer  from  his 
poverty,  because  he  would  be  borne  up 
by  the  Idea.  I  ought  to  confess  that 
these  fanatics  attracted  me  strongly, 
and  that  I  tried  to  believe  them.  Un- 
fortunately the  counter-proofs  to 
which  I  was  exposed  proved  that, 
however  sincere,  honest  and  con- 
vinced they  were,  one  could  not  put 
the  slightest  trust  in  what  they  said, 
for  they  were  so  imbued  with  their 
faith  that  they  had  lost  all  power  of 
discernment. 

Moreover,  I  discovered  that  it  was 
very  disappointing  to  search  out  the 
truth,  for  in  that  game  one  came  to 
realize  that  many  of  man's  most 
noble  illusions  are  based  on  erroneous 
interpretations. 

Examples: — 

A  fanatic:  'The  enthusiasm  people 
showed  in  giving  their  wedding  rings 
and  their  gold  jewelry  to  the  father- 
land was  perfectly  genuine  and  really 
stirring.' 

Counter-proofs:  The  fake  jewelry 
merchants  made  a  fortune  in  the  days 
preceding  the  ceremony  by  selling 
imitation  wedding  rings. 

All  Italian  citizens  resident  abroad 


1936 


TO  THE  VICTORS 


[405] 


received  individual  letters  enjoining 
them  to  take  their  gold  to  the  nearest 
consulate. 

Many  persons,  from  many  different 
circles,  swore  to  me  that  they  had 
only  given  their  wedding  rings  out  of 
fear  of  trouble  if  they  failed  to  do  so. 

A  fanatic:  'The  Party  accepts  all 
those  who  really  love  the  regime:  they 
pay  what  they  can.  The  important 
thing  is  not  their  money  but  their 
faith.' 

Counter-proof:  A  poor  woman  (typ- 
ical of  her  class),  without  husband  or 
parents,  goes  to  renew  her  Party 
membership  card.  'Did  you  donate 
your  wedding  ring  to  the  fatherland  ? ' 
they  ask  her.  'I  haven't  got  one.' 
'Then  your  jewelry,  your  confirma- 
tion crucifix?'  'I  haven't  any.  I  don't 
own  anything.'  'All  right,  that  will  be 
100  lire  instead  of  20,  to  teach  you  to 
obey.' 

She  paid,  for  without  her  member- 
ship card  there  would  be  absolutely 
no  chance  of  her  finding  work. 

A  fanatic:  'The  corporative  system 
works  admirably.  Every  worker  is 
protected  against  his  employer,  but 
their  interests  are  identical.  Coopera- 
tion between  employer  and  employee 
has  been  realized  at  last.' 

Counter-proof:  A  public  works  con- 
tractor (and,  notwithstanding  that,  a 
Fascist):  'Since  the  introduction  of 
the  corporations  it  has  been  a  terrible 
job  to  find  good  workers.  They  send 
you  men  who  are  in  good  standing  in 
their  Fascio  without  bothering  their 
heads  about  whether  they  are  skilled 
or  not.  It  doesn't  matter  a  tinker's 
dam  to  them  whether  we  are  satisfied 
or  not.' 

I:  'Do  you  find  that  the  corporative 
system  is  improving.?' 

He:  'It  is  just  so  much  more  red 


tape.  On  the  whole,  there  is  no  change, 
because  as  each  innovation  is  made,  a 
scheme  is  devised  for  getting  around 
it.' 

A  fanatic:  'There  is  not  a  single 
Italian  who  would  not  be  ready  to  die 
tomorrow  to  uphold  the  regime.' 

Counter-proof:  I  know  personally 
at  least  ten  Italians  who  are  ready  to 
die  tomorrow  to  end  the  regime. 


II 


I  know  still  another  race  of  fervent 
defenders  of  the  regime  (and  among 
them  are  some  intelligent  men,  too) — 
those  who  have  a  place  at  the  govern- 
ment trough.  I  don't  think  they  are 
Fascists  by  necessity,  or  that  they 
camouflage  their  sentiments.  I  think 
that  it  is  the  same  with  love  for  a 
cause  as  it  is  with  love  for  a  person: 
one  can  be  mistaken  about  the  sources 
of  the  flame.  From  the  moment  when 
one  participates  in  action  one  shuts 
the  door  of  one's  mind  on  both  one's 
critical  sense  and  one's  skepticism.  It 
is  precisely  this  fact  which  has  been 
fastened  upon  by  that  admirable 
politician  who  calls  the  dance  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Alps;  and  that  is 
why  he  has  multiplied  at  will  the  in- 
numerable wheels  of  his  machine. 

But,  as  sincere  and  as  imbued  with 
the  ideas  of  their  chief  as  they  are,  I 
cannot  regard  these  men  as  'typi- 
cal Fascists.'  What  I  looked  for  for 
two  weeks  was  a  man  at  once  culti- 
vated, informed,  and  disinterested  who 
approves  and  loves  the  regime  and 
has  cleaved  to  it  of  his  own  free  will. 
And  it  is  such  a  man  that  I  have  failed 
to  find. 

Let  us  pass  now  to  the  enemies  of 
the  regime.  All  shades  and  varieties  of 
them  are  to  be  found,  but  it  has  to  be 


[4o6] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


admitted  that  they  do  not  count  for 
much  in  the  nation.  They  comprise 
the  most  intelligent,  high-minded  and 
best  educated  elements  in  Italy,  but 
that  fact  is  of  no  importance.  Dic- 
tatorships do  not  need  intelligence  or 
high-mindedness  or  culture;  what  they 
need  is  obedience. 

These  people  do  not  count  because, 
as  a  class,  they  are  individualists. 
They  are  not  organized;  they  are  not 
even  agreed.  They  are  afraid.  As  soon 
as  they  threaten  to  become  trouble- 
some, they  are  gotten  rid  of.  They 
don't  fit  in  anywhere,  they  don't  con- 
trol any  of  the  wheels,  and  people  fear 
them  and  keep  away  from  them  be- 
cause to  be  seen  with  them  gives  *a 
bad  impression.* 

One  must  understand  that  the 
whole  present  organization  is  based 
on  secret  accusations.  Informing  of 
this  sort  begets  fear.  Fear  makes  men 
obedient,  whence  that  admirable  ser- 
vility of  the  whole  nation.  It  is  neces- 
sary to  specify  also  that  the  anti- 
Fascists  are  partisans  for  the  same 
reason  that  the  'fanatics*  are.  To 
listen  to  them  you  would  think  that 
everything  was  wrong.  They  deny 
obvious  truths,  and  they  are  often 
just  as  provoking  as  the  'fanatics.' 

Some  time  ago,  Morand  uttered  a 
sentiment  which  takes  on  more  and 
more  meaning  the  better  one  under- 
stands Fascism:  'Was  it  necessary  to 
suppress  liberty  of  thought  just  to  get 
the  trains  to  run  on  time?'  he  asked. 

To  us  French,  whose  trains  run 
relatively  well,  whose  roads  are  re- 
spectable, who  have  rebuilt  62,000 
square  kilometers  of  the  devastated 
regions    (with   what   bad   taste!   but 


finding  the  thing  perfectly  natural), 
who  provide  for  our  unemployed  with- 
out dressing  them  up  in  uniforms,  and 
who  instinctively  find  every  parade 
ridiculous,  all  this  seems  completely 
useless.  But  if  one  recalls  what  Italy 
was  in  1922,  if  one  pictures  to  oneself 
the  state  of  anarchy,  of  bad  temper,  of 
jealousy  and  of  bitterness  into  which 
Giolitti  had  let  the  country  sink,  one 
can  understand  in  retrospect  why  it 
was  necessary  'to  do  something.'  The 
'something'  has  been  done,  and  well 
done.  Would  it  have  been  as  well  done 
if  they  had  left  the  newspapers  free  to 
accept  other  subventions  than  those 
of  the  Government, — free,  therefore, 
to  criticize  on  behalf  of  other  masters 
than  the  Master, — if  the  agents  of 
doubt  and  of  skepticism  had  not  been 
so  carefully  muzzled?  It  is  possible 
that  it  would  not  have  been  (it  is  also 
possible  that  it  would). 

But  now  that  the  country  has 
passed  this  crisis  of  its  puberty,  now 
that  the  framework  has  been  com- 
pleted, that  'the  trains  arrive  on 
time,'  why  continue  to  hold  in  leash 
this  well-trained  animal?  Why  invent 
new  chains  like  war  for  it,  which  it 
accepts  as  opportunities  for  deliver- 
ance? Why  set  up  more  and  more 
nationalistic  aims  for  this  people — 
more  and  more  dangerous  ones,  too? 
Why  impose  upon  it  material  sacri- 
fices from  which  it  will  emerge  bled 
white?  Perhaps  it  is  neither  to  give  it 
importance  nor  to  better  it.  Why, 
then  ? 

I  don't  want  to  conclude  that  it 
is  to  save  the  prestige  of  a  single 
man,  but  there  are  moments  when  I 
am  strongly  inclined  to  think  so.  .  .  . 


Persons  and  Personages 

Leon  Blum 
By  Louis  Levy 

Translated  from  Vu,  Paris  Topical  Weekly 

JVIANY  contradictory  stories  are  current  about  Leon  Blum.  People 
talk  in  turns  about  his  Marxism,  his  intellectual  dilettantism,  and  his 
fierce  sectarianism.  He  is  an  object  of  mean  and  relentless  hatred,  even 
to  the  point  of  personal  attacks  by  fanatical  brutes.  The  same  persons 
who  for  twenty  years  have  extolled  the  peerless  charm  of  his  intellect 
now  cover  him  with  insults  and  calumnies.  They  contrast  him  with 
Jaures,  forgetting  that  they  once  addressed  the  same  insults  and  villain- 
ies to  Jaures,  too. 

But  all  this  is  in  the  past.  Today  Leon  Blum  is  the  man  of  the  hour. 
Any  one  of  his  calumniators  may  become  his  sycophant.  As  for  us,  let  us 
keep  calm  about  it.  Since  our  aim  here  is  to  see  things  and  men  as  they 
are,  let  us  try  to  look  at  Leon  Blum  without  passion  or  flattery,  as  he 
really  is,  as  the  facts  of  his  life  show  him  to  be. 

Leon  Blum  was  born  in  Paris,  in  1872.  His  parents  were  Parisians  of 
Alsacian  origin.  His  childhood  was  passed  in  the  vicinity  of  St.  Dennis — 
a  neighborhood  where  memories  of  the  Paris  insurrections  linger  still. 
His  grandmother  on  his  mother's  side  was  fullheartedly  for  the  Com- 
mune. One  of  the  first  books  which  she  gave  her  grandson  to  read  was 
Tenot's  on  the  coup  d'etat. 

Leon  Blum  proved  to  be  an  unruly  pupil  at  the  Lycee  Charlemagne. 
Only  the  fact  that  he  was  first  in  his  class  saved  him  from  being  con- 
stantly punished;  for  even  in  his  youth  he  had  the  soul  of  a  rebel. 

At  fourteen,  he  happened  to  read  Les  Effrontes,  by  Emile  Augier.  The 
tirade  in  the  third  act,  in  which  Giboyer  asserts  that  'the  revolution  of 
'89  was  only  a  beginning,'  made  a  strong  impression  on  him.  At  the 
Lycee  Henri  Quatre,  where  he  finished  his  secondary  education,  and  at 
the  Normal  School  where  he  prepared  for  his  agregation  (qualifying 
examination)  in  philosophy,  he  came  under  the  influence  of  Clemenceau 
and  of  Barres.  Soon  after  we  see  him  collaborating  on  the  Revue  Blanche, 
where  he  met  anarchists  like  Jean  Grave  and  To  d'Aza.  At  that  time 
Leon  Blum  was  an  anarchist-individuahst,  like  the  majority  of  the  in- 
tellectuals of  his  generation. 

And  then  one  day  in  1893  he  happened  to  meet  Lucien  Herr,  whom 
he  had  not  seen  since  Normal  School  days.  The  two  of  them  went  for  a 


[408]  THE  LIVING  AGE  July 

long  walk  in  the  Champs  Elysees.  Until  then  Leon  Blum  had  been 
merely  a  rebel  who  felt  social  injustice  keenly.  The  librarian  of  the 
Normal  School,  who  exercised  so  curious  an  influence  upon  several 
generations  of  young  men,  crystalized  his  diffuse  tendencies  into  a  defi- 
nite bent  toward  collectivism.  Thus,  at  twenty,  Leon  Blum  became  a 
Socialist. 

Then  came  the  Dreyfus  affair — about  which  he  has  just  written  a 
book — and  his  friendship  with  Jaures.  Then  we  find  him  helping  in  the 
work  of  forming  the  Sociahst  united  front. 

In  1905,  Leon  Blum  gradually  withdrew  from  active  politics.  In  his 
work  in  LHumanite  he  confined  himself  strictly  to  literary  criticism. 
While  fulfilling  his  functions  as  a  Master  of  Petitions  in  the  Privy  Coun- 
sel, where  he  was  distinguished  from  the  first  by  his  juridical  acuteness 
and  lucid  expositions,  he  specialized  in  dramatic  criticism.  He  wrote  for 
the  Matin  and  for  the  Comcedia. 

Then  came  the  war.  As  Marcel  Sembat's  assistant  in  the  Ministry  of 
Public  Works  he  gradually  returned  to  politics.  In  1917  he  was  at  the 
Bordeaux  Congress.  In  191 8,  when  the  united  Sociahst  front  was  men- 
aced, he  threw  himself  into  the  battle.  In  1 919  he  organized  the  resist- 
ance to  Bolshevism.  In  1920  he  was  the  spokesman  of  the  traditional 
Sociahst  party  at  the  Congress  of  Tours. 

In  the  meanwhile  he  had  been  elected  a  deputy.  Then  and  there  his 
vigorous  intelligence  won  for  him  the  leadership  of  a  parliamentary 
group.  At  one  time  he  led  an  attack  against  the  National  bloc,  whose 
financial  policy  was  the  butt  of  his  relentless  criticism.  At  another,  he 
denounced  the  criminal  madness  of  the  Ruhr  invasion,  braving  a  hostile 
majority  with  cool  disdain. 

All  this  is  well  known — as  well  as  the  special  talents  which  he  has 
placed  at  his  party's  disposal:  his  ability  as  a  logician,  his  cleverness  in 
debates,  his  gift  for  introducing  a  touching  human  element  into  a  cold 
logical  sequence  of  ideas. 

But  there  is  not  the  slightest  need  to  praise  Leon  Blum's  vigorous 
logical  thought,  his  intellectual  intrepidity.  His  worst  enemies  are  forced 
to  bow  before  these.  It  is  not  his  intelligence  but  his  personal  qualities 
that  they  deprecate.  For  some  unknown  reason  the  cartoons  show  him  as 
a  half-starved  talmudist.  Because  he  wears  glasses,  has  mincing  gestures, 
and  usually  begins  his  first  sentence  in  a  high-pitched  voice,  he  is  pic- 
tured as  an  overgrown  schoolmaster.  The  truth  is  that  he  is  robust,  has 
wide  shoulders,  and  likes  sports.  He  used  to  be  a  fencer  of  some  repute, 
and  later  took  up  boxing.  It  is  not  for  nothing  that  he  is  a  close  friend  of 
Tristan  Bernard! 

The  journalists  think  he  is  a  cold,  calculating  soul,  distant  and  im- 
penetrable. Those  who  know  Leon  Blum  well  cannot  help  smiling  at  this 


/pj^  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [409] 

legend.  Distant?  Cold?  To  be  sure,  he  knows  how  to  be  cold  and  cutting 
to  some  toady  who  comes  and  fawns  on  him  after  having  vilified  him  a 
short  while  before.  It  is  also  true  that  his  shortsightedness  and  absent- 
mindedness  sometimes  cause  him  to  pass  a  friend  by  without  noticing 
him.  But  in  reality  no  one  is  less  distant  than  Leon  Blum.  And  no  one 
realizes  this  better  than  the  members  of  the  Socialist  party  whom  he 
knows  and  likes. 

One  must  give  him  his  due:  he  is  neither  a  monster  nor  a  god.  He  is  a 
man — a  man  endowed  with  an  unusual  responsiveness  to  ideas,  but  one 
who  loves  life  in  all  its  many  aspects.  He  loves  children,  animals,  green 
landscapes.  He  never  tires,  when  he  has  time,  of  ranging  the  French 
countryside,  with  his  wife  at  the  wheel  of  their  little  car.  He  enjoys  gdod 
painting,  harmonious  architecture:  he  is  capable  of  taking  a  long  detour 
simply  to  admire  some  noble  mansion,  with  a  majestic  pediment 
glimpsed  behind  thick  foliage.  He  relishes  music — particularly  the  music 
of  Beethoven,  Duparc,  Dukas  or  Ravel.  He  has  read  widely  and  has 
retained  all  he  has  read.  He  knows  by  heart  hundreds  of  Victor  Hugo's 
verses,  and  whole  passages  from  Jaures's  speeches.  He  knows  all  the 
classics  and  finds  time  to  keep  in  touch  with  the  contemporary  literary 
movement.  He  has  written  on  Stendhal  and  Marcel  Proust,  and  can,  if 
he  wishes,  discuss  the  knottiest  problems  of  scientific  philosophy.  He 
can  talk  on  political  economy  as  easily  as  on  the  history  of  the  French 
theater.  He  is  informed  on  all  things  and  there  is  nothing  that  does  not 
interest  him,  be  it  even  gastronomy.  .  .  . 

For  he  is  a  gourmand.  He  has  a  hearty  appetite,  knows  how  to  en- 
joy a  good  dish,  and  can  at  a  pinch  give  a  recipe  for  one.  Moreover,  even 
if  he  is  a  temperate  drinker,  he  has  always  liked  good  wine.  And  with 
all  due  respect  to  his  adversaries,  he  did  not  wait  to  become  a  deputy 
from  Narbonne  to  learn  to  appreciate  a  good  bottle! 

Yes,  he  is  a  human  person — a  man  with  his  virtues  and  his  faults,  but 
one  very  unlike  the  legend  that  has  grown  up  about  him.  A  man  who 
likes  to  laugh  and  jest  with  his  intimate  friends,  who  has  remained 
young  in  body  and  mind,  and  whose  intellect  has  remained  surprisingly 
alive  to  what  is  new  and  fresh. 

You  will  find  him  capable  of  the  nimblest  mental  gymnastics  and 
of  almost  brutal  frankness  in  following  his  thought  to  its  logical  con- 
clusion; capable  of  being  strictly  circumspect  and  at  the  same  time  ex- 
tremely foolhardy  in  exposing  himself  to  danger;  capable  of  listening 
courteously  to  everybody,  and  yet,  underneath  it  all,  impenetrable.  .  .  . 

Such  is  Leon  Blum — at  least,  as  I  see  him.  May  these  few  lines  per- 
suade unprejudiced  minds  that  his  experiment  runs  no  risk  of  being  a 
banal  one,  that  at  any  rate  it  deserves  to  be  followed  with  curiosity  and 
even  with  sympathy. 


[4io]  THE  LIVING  AGE  July 


Ibn  Saud  of  Arabia 
By  M.  Y.  Ben-Gavriel 

Translated  from  the  Pester  Uoydy  Budapest  German  Language  Daily 

AF  A  dictator  is  a  man  who,  without  having  any  continuous  tradition 
to  fall  back  upon,  imposes  his  will  on  a  state  or  a  people  and  leads  them 
toward  a  definite  goal,  then  Ibn  Saud,  King  of  the  Wahabi,  should  be 
counted  among  the  dictators  of  our  time.  In  contrast  to  the  other  two 
Asiatic  dictators,  Kemal  Ataturk  and  Shah  Pahlevi,  Ibn  Saud,  or,  as  his 
full  name  goes,  Abdul  Aziz  ibn  Abdur  Rahman  al  Faisal  al  Saud,  does 
not  spring  from  the  masses,  nor  was  he  pushed  to  the  top  by  any  group; 
rather  he  is  the  scion  of  an  ancient  clan  of  religious  warriors,  a  man,  as  it 
were,  with  a  charismatic  mission,  a  man  the  springs  of  whose  determina- 
tion are  primarily  spiritual.  His  neighbor  and  opponent,  the  Imam 
Yahya  of  Yemen,  who  is  a  descendant  of  Mohammed,  is  also  supposed  to 
be  endowed  with  the  charism;  but  he  is  an  autocratic  ruler  over  his 
people  rather  than  their  leader,  while  the  Wahabi  possesses  all  the 
characteristics  of  ethical  leadership. 

Ibn  Saud  was  the  descendant  of  a  ruling  central  Arabian  family  which 
went  into  exile  in  the  small  sultanate  of  Kuwait  in  the  eighties  of  the  last 
century.  When  he  was  still  a  young  man — in  1901 — ^he  was  already  ca- 
pable of  making  correct  estimates  of  the  political  situation.  In  that  year 
the  balance  of  power  between  Turkey  and  England  in  Arabia  began  to  be 
stabilized,  and  by  engineering  a  coup  d'etat  Ibn  Saud  took  possession  of 
Riyadh,  thus  providing  himself  with  a  concrete  jumping-off  place. 

But  not  until  191 2  could  young  Ibn  Saud  lay  the  spiritual-economic 
foundation  which  marks  him  as  possibly  the  greatest  modern  executor 
of  Mohammed's  political  and  religious  ideas.  It  was  in  191 2  that  he 
founded  the  first  'Hidjras,' — Bedouin  villages, — together  with  the 
fraternity  of  Ikhwan,  which  represented,  and  to  a  certain -extent  still 
represents,  the  nucleus  of  his  power.  He  took  up  the  old  idea  of  Waha- 
biism,  that  sect  which  had  almost  vanished  by  the  turn  of  the  century, 
and  began  to  gather  Bedouins  of  various  tribes  into  communal  educa- 
tional camps,  from  which  permanent  Hidjras  rapidly  developed.  From 
these  camps  sprang  his  doctrine  of  a  united,  puritanical  Islam,  purified 
of  all  foreign  elements,  all  mysticism  and  hero-worship — the  doctrine  of 
a  unified  Arabian  nation  which  penetrated  into  the  tents  of  the  Bed- 
ouins, upon  whom — another  innovation — he  relied  from  the  beginning. 
With  these  Ikhwans,  whose  missionary  propaganda  spread  like  wildfire 
among  the  Arabs,  he  conquered,  when  the  time  came,  half  of  Arabia, 


/pjd  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [411] 

including  the  sacred  places,  so  that  almost  overnight  the  unknown  emi- 
grant scion  of  a  long  since  disintegrated  sect  became  king  of  the  Hejaz, 
Nejd  and  half  of  Asir,  and  England's  most  important  ally  and  foil  on  the 
great  British  highway  and  oil  route  to  India. 

But  it  is  not  his  political  and  strategic  success  that  distinguish  him 
as  a  gigantic  figure  in  the  history  of  Arabia  and  that  of  the  whole  Orient; 
rather  is  it  the  moral  greatness  and  the  unyielding  qualities  of  his  char- 
acter. Standing  at  the  turn  of  two  ages  of  Arabia,  this  man  is  the  only 
statesman  of  Asia  who  interferes  dictatorially  with  the  destiny  of  his 
people  in  the  name,  and  on  the  basis,  of  a  purified  religion.  There  is  an 
Executive  Council  and  an  Assembly  in  Saudi,  but  neither  is  more  than 
an  instrument  of  a  central  will:  that  of  Ibn  Saud. 

But — and  this  must  always  be  taken  into  consideration — Ibn  Saud 
has  submitted  with  inviolable  faithfulness  to  the  ancient  law  of  his 
people.  This  dictator  rules  in  the  name,  not  of  an  imaginary,  but  of  an 
already  existing  code,  which  everybody  can  consult  and  on  the  basis  of 
which  the  dictator  could  be  brought  before  the  courts  should  he  infringe 
the  law.  Although  Ibn  Saud  has  created  an  unprecedented  revolution  in 
Arabia, — a  revolution  whose  results  for  the  whole  Orient  cannot  yet  be 
estimated, — ^he  has  not  only  not  barred  religious  law  from  the  state,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  has  proclaimed  it  as  the  highest  statute  of  the  commu- 
nity. Yet  this  has  not  led  him  to  declare  war  on  the  modern  age,  insofar 
as  it  can  be  taken  into  consideration  at  all  in  Bedouin  Arabia. 

The  mission  of  this  man  is  an  extraordinary  one;  it  goes  to  the  heart 
of  things,  and  has  many  ramifications.  This  son  of  the  desert  knew  how 
to  bring  the  idea  of  a  religious  task  and  national  unity  to  a  mass  of  Bed- 
ouins who  were  without  religion  and  nationality  and  were  split  into  a 
thousand  tribes  and  clans.  Almost  overnight  he  gave  to  this  hodge-podge 
of  nomad  tribes  the  means  to  become  politically  active  instead  of  being 
the  victims  of  dark  and  arbitrary  historical  accidents.  In  forcing  Islam, 
which  was  growing  ever  more  inflexible,  to  take  a  stand  he  transformed 
it  gradually  into  a  constructive  belief  in  god,  conscious  of  its  task  in  the 
world  of  reality. 

By  learning  from  the  mistakes  of  the  first  Wahabi  empire  in  the  19th 
century  he  solved  the  greatest  social  problem  of  inner  Arabia,  that  of  the 
Bedouins,  with  which  his  rule  stands  and  falls.  The  progressive  trans- 
formation of  the  nomads  into  sedentary  tribes  in  Hidjra  settlements 
means  a  progressive  change  in  social  structure  and  therefore  the  begin- 
ning of  Arabia's  transition  from  antiquity  into  the  modern  age.  But  Ibn 
Saud's  greatest  deed  is  that  this  transition  is  not  merely  a  movement  to 
strengthen  his  dynastic  power  in  the  immediate  future,  but  a  long-range 
leadership  in  a  definite  direction — a  leadership  by  the  lawfully  bound 
will  of  the  leader,  utilizing  tradition  and  translating  it  into  reality. 


[412]  THE  LIVING  AGE  July 

Whatever  happens  in  Saudi  today  is  new.  Whether  it  be  the  organi- 
zation of  an  army  of  volunteer  Ikhwans — in  contrast  to  the  traditional 
Arabian  slave  and  mercenary  troops — or  the  shifting  of  the  center  of 
gravity  of  the  state  from  the  urban  population  to  the  Bedouins,  there 
is  a  chain  of  innovations  of  various  kinds  which  in  spite  of  their  revolu- 
tionary character  accord  with  the  traditions  and  nature  of  the  desert. 
The  adoption  of  certain  European  institutions,  without  yielding  to 
Europe,  and  without  assimilating  the  mentality  of  the  West — this  is 
what  sharply  distinguishes  Ibn  Saud  from  the  rulers  of  Persia  and 
Turkey. 

NATURALLY  the  evolution  from  the  Turkish  bandit  province  of  Nejd 
to  the  Kingdom  of  Saudi  was  impossible  without  grave  disturbances,  quite 
apart  from  the  effects  of  the  War  and  the  world  crisis.  From  among  the 
ranks  of  the  most  faithful  Ikhwans,  and  especially  under  the  leadership 
of  Ibn  Saud's  friend  and  pioneer  Faisal  Ed  Dawish,  opposing  move- 
ments formed  and  several  times  threatened  the  rule  of  the  King.  This 
opposition  was  inspired  by  certain  innovations,  such  as  radio  stations, 
telephones  and  automobiles,  which  the  King  introduced  to  modernize 
the  army,  and  which  were  held  to  be  in  violation  of  the  Wahabian  doc- 
trines. 

This  propaganda  fell  on  fertile  ground  in  certain  spheres  because  the 
King  had  bottled  up  the  tribes'  elementary  instincts  for  war  and  pillage 
almost  overnight,  and  without  creating  a  safety  valve  for  the  forces  thus 
restrained.  Predatory  expeditions  between  tribes  were  forbidden,  and 
suppressed  by  means  of  armed  force.  Under  the  leadership  of  Faisal  Ed 
Dawish  these  energies  now  pressed  in  other  directions,  but  primarily 
beyond  the  borders  and  against  the  King's  enemies  in  Iraq  and  Trans- 
jordania.  When  the  King's  peace  policy  compelled  him  to  take  action  by 
force  of  arms  against  his  own  over-exuberant  partisans,  the  guns  were 
naturally  turned  upon  him;  for  the  simple  code  of  the  desert  could  not 
comprehend  the  complex  western  policy  the  King  had  to  adopt  to  pre- 
serve his  empire  against  the  Britisn  bombing  planes. 

To  the  European  way  of  thinking  the  occasion  for  the  clash  was  ab- 
surd. It  was  the  fact  that  Ibn  Saud,  the  Imam  of  Wahabi,  had  con- 
structed a  telephone  line  from  the  port  of  Jidda  to  his  palace  in  Mecca. 
(This  palace,  incidentally,  has  a  letter  box  through  which  everyone  may 
reach  the  King  directly  with  petitions  and  complaints.)  The  telephone 
line  transformed  the  latent  dissatisfaction  of  a  part  of  the  Ikhwan  into 
revolution — the  so-called  'telephone  revolution.'  It  was  not  technical 
innovations  alone,  however,  that  excited  the  minds  of  the  tribes.  There 
was,  above  all,  the  breach  of  the  Takfir — the  decree  of  the  King — that 
neither  non-Wahabi  Mohammedans  nor  non-Mohammedan  aliens  were 


/pjd  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [413] 

any  longer  to  be  fought  as  infidels  in  a  constant  Djihad — ^Holy  War. 
The  peaceful  mission  of  the  word  and  the  good  deed  were  to  take  the 
place  of  warlike  propaganda.  The  struggle  of  Faisal  Ed  Dawish  against 
those  'Bidas'  (innovations),  this  revolution  of  the  faithful  ended  in  the 
Batin  valley  in  December,  1929,  when  the  rebels  were  defeated  in  bloody 
battle.  Ibn  Saud  decided  to  make  an  example  of  Faisal  Ed  Dawish,  who 
had  to  die  because  he  had  not  grasped  the  fact  that  the  Wahabi  revo- 
lution, as  it  had  existed  before  the  King  seized  power,  could  not  become 
a  permanent  institution;  that  every  State,  even  a  Bedouin  State,  must 
ultimately  turn  to  peaceful  and  constructive  application  of  its  creative 
powers.  At  this  stage  of  development  no  State  has  any  use  for  hotheads 
of  the  type  of  this  ardent  fighter  for  the  Wahabi  ideals,  except  as  hon- 
ored pensioners  or  border  fighters  at  the  command  of  the  ruler. 

We  do  not  know  the  direction  in  which  time  and  the  development  of 
the  observable  facts  will  lead.  Nor,  in  a  time  when  prophesy  has  become 
discredited,  can  we  predict  whether  Ibn  Saud  and  his  work  will  stand  the 
test,  or  whether  the  struggle  for  oil — ^which  is  found  in  great  abundance 
both  in  the  eastern  and  in  the  western  part  of  this  immense  realm — ^will 
some  day  strangle  the  ethical  mission  of  this  liberator  of  the  desert.  But 
we  do  know  the  historical  fact  that  Arabia's  passivity  is  at  an  end  and 
that  every  power  and  every  movement  which  has  anything  to  do  with 
the  Near  East  must  take  this  fact,  and  especially  the  existence  of  the 
great  Wahabi  king  and  regenerator  of  Islam,  into  very  serious  con- 
sideration. Any  trifling  with  the  changes  now  taking  place  in  the  struc- 
ture of  Arab  life  may  well  bring  about  very  serious  consequences. 

Ibn  Saud  is  a  dictator,  but  he  differs  from  the  masters  of  Turkey  and 
Persia.  He  differs  also  from  his  neighbor,  the  autocrat  of  Yemen,  who 
comes  from  almost  the  same  background.  Yemen  seeks  to  maintain  its 
independence  by  hermetically  sealing  itself  against  Europe  in  a  medieval 
system  of  despotic  government.  Ibn  Saud,  on  the  other  hand,  is  able  to 
distinguish  the  essential  from  the  non-essential — ^the  deteriorating  part 
of  Europe  from  that  which  is  necessary  for  progress  and  self-preserva- 
tion. His  Ministers  and  his  office-holding  sons  are  indeed  Ministers  and 
commissioners,  but  they  are  merely  fingers  on  a  body  whose  mighty  head 
is  Ibn  Saud,  son  of  Abdur  Rahman,  ruler  of  Saudi  and  Imam  of  all 
Ikhwan. 

One  thing  must  not  be  forgotten.  Arabia  in  no  way  resembles  Europe 
or  America.  The  Bedouin  of  the  desert  occupies  an  entirely  different 
position  in  life  than  a  citizen  of  a  western  State.  Thus  when  applied  to 
Arabia  the  expression  'dictatorship'  does  not  by  any  means  imply  an 
evaluation.  When  exercised  against  its  own  appropriate  background  and 
in  the  spirit  appropriate  to  that  background,  it  is  Arabia's  only  escape 
from  an  alien,  colonial,  European  dictatorship  directed  solely  toward 


[414]  THE  LIVING  AGE  July 

exploitation.  For  this  reason  it  is  hoped  that  this  small  effort  at  an 
evaluation  of  Ibn  Saud  may  be  read  not  from  a  European,  but  from  an 
eastern,  point  of  view. 


A.  E.  HOUSMAN 

By  Percy  Withers 

From  the  Neva  Statesman  and  Nation,  London  Independent  Weekly  of  the  Left 

IhE  friends  who  knew  him  best  will  lament  the  death  of  A.  E.  Hous- 
man  neither  for  his  sake  nor  for  the  loss  to  poetry  and  scholarship,  but 
on  personal  grounds  alone.  He  had  repeatedly  averred  his  work  in  both 
spheres  was  finished  and  he  desired  death.  In  a  letter  dated  towards  the 
end  of  1934 — one  of  his  unusually  long  and  communicative  letters — he 
wrote,  recounting  signs  of  old  age:  *  My  life  is  bearable,  but  I  do  not  want 
it  to  continue,  and  I  wish  it  had  ended  a  year  and  a  half  ago.  The  great 
and  real  troubles  of  my  early  manhood  did  not  render  those  days  so 
permanently  unsatisfactory  as  these.'  No  explanation  was  given  of  the 
period  mentioned,  but  I  remembered  that  it  coincided  with  the  com- 
pletion o{  Manilius.  And  along  with  this  wish  was  another,  reiterated  in 
latter  years  like  an  obsession,  that  death  might  come  suddenly.  Often  in 
our  talks  he  had  referred  with  a  sort  of  exultant  envy  to  those  of  his 
acquaintance  to  whom  the  boon  had  been  given,  to  one  in  particular,  who 
had  taken  his  accustomed  meal  at  high  table,  gone  for  his  accustomed 
walk,  and  stayed  to  rest  on  his  accustomed  seat  under  the  elms.  Passers- 
by  had  remarked  the  sleeping  figure.  It  was  death  that  had  come  thus 
gently;  and  that  to  Housman  was  life's  one  perfect  gift. 

As  to  poetry,  he  neither  wished  nor  intended  to  write  more.  It  was 
not  that  tne  fount  had  run  dry;  rather  a  determined  resolve  that  its  flow 
should  be  suppressed.  He  dreaded  the  cost.  As  our  intimacy  grew  and  I 
became  more  venturesome  in  inquiry,  he  talked  willingly  of  his  creative 
methods  and  experiences.  The  more  superficial  and  amusing  of  these 
figured  in  the  famous  lecture  delivered  in  the  Senate  House  in  1933;  the 
private  recital  told  a  very  different  story.  It  conveyed  the  impression  of 
nervous  travail  so  intense,  so  prostrating,  that  the  bare  thought  of  a 
recurrence  was  too  formidable  to  contemplate. 

The  whole  of  the  sixty-three  lyrics  in  A  Shropshire  Lad  were  com- 
posed in  something  less  than  eighteen  months,  the  first  half-dozen,  he 
confessed,  before  he  had  ever  set  foot  in  the  county.  Then,  as  the  im- 
pulse gathered  force,  he  felt  it  might  be  well  to  pay  Shropshire  a  visit — 
'for  local  color,'  he  added  scoffingly.  What  precisely  the  benefit  had  been 
he  did  not  say;  the  flow  continued  intermittently  or  tumultuously  till 


/pj<5  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [415] 

the  end  was  reached.  Most  of  the  poems  were  composed  during  his  after- 
noon walks  and  set  down  on  paper  with  little  more  than  verbal  correc- 
tions; when  difficulty  was  encountered,  it  was  almost  invariably  with  the 
final  verse,  which  sometimes  involved  a  three  weeks'  struggle.  Such 
direct  influences  as  he  was  conscious  of  were,  he  told  me,  the  Old  Ballads, 
Shakespeare's  Songs,  and  Heine,  and  these  he  had  studied  intensively 
before  a  line  of  A  Shropshire  Lad  was  written. 

When  the  subject  of  composition  was  first  broached  he  spoke  only  of 
its  trials,  and  this  primarily,  I  believed,  to  combat  my  appeal  for  more. 
When  I  persisted,  he  admitted  to  having  written  some  half-dozen  lyrics 
during  the  eighteen  subsequent  years;  they  were  lying  in  his  desk — he 
pointed  to  it — 'awaiting  posthumous  publication,'  he  said  laughingly. 
My  renewed  importunities  in  and  out  of  season  seemed  rather  to  amuse 
and  please  than  to  vex  him,  but  it  was  only  at  the  moment  of  farewell  on 
leaving  Cambridge  and  its  war  work  that  I  had  the  satisfaction  of  hear- 
ing that  my  'prayer,'  as  he  expressed  it  with  the  faintest  curl  of  lip,  had 
been  answered,  and  that  the  number  of  poems  in  his  desk  had  doubled 
since  he  first  mentioned  them.  In  the  succeeding  four  years  they  increased 
to  the  forty-one  published  as  Last  Poems  in  1922. 

The  depths  and  complexities  of  Housman's  character  were  almost 
impenetrably  obscured  by  his  reticence,  and  still  more  perhaps  by  his 
determined  habit  of  self-suppression.  In  the  early  days  of  friendship  I 
could  only  attribute  his  unyielding  patches  of  taciturnity  to  my  own 
insufficiencies  and  so  probably  made  confusion  worse  confounded,  until 
one  day,  immediately  following  his  visit  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bridges,  Rob- 
ert Bridges  vociferated  in  a  breath:  'Can  you  get  him  to  talk?  I  can't.' 
This  was  appeasing,  and  still  more  so  when  a  universally  popular  Head 
of  College  regaled  me  with  the  inconspicuous  devices  he  had  resorted  to 
in  the  capacity  of  host  to  limit  their  unsupported  interviews  to  ten  min- 
utes at  a  stretch. 

True,  Housman  could  never  be  garrulous,  the  easy  and  traditional 
exchanges  of  personalities  seemed  impossible  to  him,  and,  except  good 
stories  were  passing,  never  jocund.  But  search  his  knowledge,  suggest 
and  question  with  discrimination,  refuse  defeat,  and  the  reward  was 
converse  not  brilliant  but  rich  in  information,  excellently  clear  and  in- 
cisive in  expression,  prompt  in  analogy  and  quotation,  whether  in  prose 
or  verse,  and,  perhaps  its  rarest  quality,  judgments  and  opinions  that 
were  never  perverse  or  whimsical,  but  the  fruits  of  a  mind  trained  to 
precision,  amazingly  retentive,  and  exquisitively  sensitive  to  literary 
values. 

His  assessments  of  literary  merit  were  always  given  with  decision,  in 
the  case  of  poetry  with  an  air  of  finality;  almost  they  brought  conviction 
when  least  anticipated.  As  instances,  he  spoke  of  Shelley  as  maintaining 


[416]  THE  LIVING  AGE  July 

the  highest  level  of  all  our  poets;  of  the  original  issues  of  Bridges'  Shorter 
Poems  as  probably  the  most  perfect  single  volume  of  English  verse  ever 
published;  and  of  William  Watson's  Wordswortlos  Grave  as  *one  of  the 
precious  things  in  English  literature.' 

What  was  and  what  was  not  poetry  he  decided  simply,  and  I  should 
say  with  the  nearest  possible  approach  to  infallibility,  by  the  physical 
response,  or  none,  in  the  throat,  the  spinal  cord,  or  the  pit  of  the  stom- 
ach, and  the  last  the  supreme  oracle.  Once  when  he  had  used  the  term 
in  conversation,  he  was  asked,  'What  is  the  solar  plexus?'  A  doctor 
present  was  hastening  the  Faculty's  definition,  when  Housman  whipped 
in  with  the  rejoinder:  *It  is  what  my  poetry  comes  from.'  One  of  his 
favorite  books,  and  constantly  reverted  to  as  a  model  of  style,  was 
Selden's  Table  Talk;  among  contemporary  novelists  he  was  enthusiastic 
in  praise  of  Arnold  Bennett,  scornful  in  disparagement  of  Galsworthy; 
detective  stories  he  read  as  avidly  as  M'Taggart,  and  readily  advised 
those  he  liked. 

He  enlightened  my  ignorance  at  length  on  Manilius^  from  which  I 
got  an  impression  of  immense  labor  and  of  an  adventure  pursued  less  for 
the  sake  of  literary  worth  than  of  resolving  textual  difficulties.  The 
subject  came  pat  for  discussion  as  a  consequence  of  his  telling  me,  with 
an  ironic  laugh,  that  I  should  be  amused  to  hear  he  had  been  hailed  in 
Germany  on  the  completion  of  the  book  as  the  first  of  living  scholars. 
The  laugh,  not  for  the  first  time,  nipped  felicitations  in  the  bud. 

But  scholars  if  not  scholarship  provided  during  one  of  our  walks  the 
best  and  most  sustained  talk  I  ever  won  from  him.  I  chanced  to  remark 
that  more  than  once  in  Cambridge  he  had  been  described  in  my  hearing 
as  their  greatest  scholar  since  Bentley.  His  face  darkened,  his  whole 
frame  grew  taut,  and  in  an  angered  voice  he  replied :  '  I  will  not  tolerate 
comparison  with  Bentley.  Bentley  is  alone  and  supreme.  They  may 
compare  me  with  Porson  if  they  will — the  comparison  is  not  preposterous 
— ^he  surpassed  me  in  some  qualities  as  I  claim  to  surpass  him  in  others  .  .  .' 
And  thereafter  for  a  full  hour  he  dilated  on  the  personalities  and  achieve- 
ments of  the  two  eighteenth-century  scholars,  illustrated  by  copious 
anecdotes  and  incidents,  relating  both  to  the  men,  their  characteristics, 
and  their  milieu. 

HOUSMAN'S  knowledge  could  hardly  have  been  less  extensive,  or  his 
memory  less  retentive,  than  Macaulay's;  to  his  tastes  and  predilections 
there  were  definite  limits.  He  cared  little  for  pictures,  nothing  for  music. 
Since  he  had  so  often  and  so  unaccountably  allowed  his  verses  to  be  set 
to  music,  and  never  as  I  knew  experienced  the  results,  it  occurred  to  me 
that  he  might  like  to  hear  gramophone  records  of  Vaughan  Williams' 
settings  sung  by  Gervase  Elwes.  I  was  oblivious  of  the  effect  until  two 


/pjd  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [417] 

of  them  had  been  played,  and  then  turning  in  my  chair  I  beheld  a  face 
wrought  and  flushed  with  torment,  a  figure  tense  and  bolt  upright  as 
though  in  an  extremity  of  controlling  pain  or  anger,  or  both.  To  invite 
comment  or  question  was  too  like  bearding  the  lion  in  its  den,  so  I 
ignored  the  subject  and  asked  mildly  if  there  was  anything  else  he  would 
like.  A  pause.  There  was  a  visible  struggle  for  self-possession,  a  slow 
relaxation  of  posture,  and  then  a  na'ive  admission  that  people  talked  a 
good  deal  about  Beethoven's  Fifth  Symphony:  had  we  got  a  record?  I 
turned  it  on,  and  watched.  The  Sphinx-like  countenance  suggested 
anything  and  everything  but  pleasure,  though  there  was  an  expression 
of  contentment  during  the  slow  movement  and  faintest  praise  of  it,  and 
it  alone,  at  the  close. 

I  never  saw  him  so  much  as  glance  at  the  water-colors  on  the  walls. 
Once  at  my  suggestion  he  went  steadily  and  rather  precipitately  through 
cases  of  Japanese  color-prints;  the  landscapes  he  liked — or  did  he?  I  am 
not  sure;  but  on  the  same  wet  visit  he  spent  most  of  one  day  voluntarily 
with  the  several  volumes  of  Max  Beerbohm's  caricatures  in  visible  and 
audible  enjoyment.  These  exhausted,  I  offered  the  recently  published 
Yashiro's  Botticelli.  He  refused  with  the  surprising  remark  that  he  cared 
nothing  for  Italian  art  earlier  than  Giovanni  Bellini.  Such  an  oppor- 
tunity of  correcting  his  chronology  had  never  come  before,  would  never 
come  again;  I  smacked  my  lips  over  the  temptation — and  resisted  it. 

Of  Housman's  outside  interests  three  only  came  within  my  cogni- 
zance— flowers,  medieval  churches,  and  wine;  and  one  or  another  of  them 
filled  many  an  ugly  gap  in  conversation,  drew  him  when  talk  had  become 
difficult  as  drawing  blood  from  a  stone,  and  afforded  astonishing  in- 
stances of  the  exactness  and  particularity  of  his  knowledge.  In  search  of 
wines  and  their  allurements,  ecclesiastical  architecture  and  its  grandeurs, 
he  had  toured  year  by  year  the  famous  vineyards,  hostelries  of  repute, 
and  the  great  churches  of  France. 

His  reaction  to  the  flowers  of  the  garden  was  amusing,  if  for  no  other 
reason,  as  a  revelation  of  two  pronounced  characteristics:  strange  and 
rabid  aversions,  and  naked  literalness  in  expressing  them.  I  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  flowers  he  loved  were  the  flowers  known  in  child- 
hood, and  the  more  familiar  in  childhood  the  greater  his  wrath  at  the 
horticulturists'  'improvements.'  Like  Robert  Bridges,  he  had  a  peculiar 
fondness  for  the  scent  of  flowers  and  herbs.  I  have  seen  the  former,  when 
well  past  eighty,  flop  on  to  the  ground  a  dozen  times  in  as  many  minutes 
to  smell  the  flowers  at  his  feet;  Housman,  with  more  sobriety  and  less 
regard  for  pernickety  proprietorship,  would  trample  the  border  to  get 
at  any  flowers  that  promised  the  desired  whiff  on  unbending  terms. 

He  was  an  avowed  misogynist,  uneasy  and  self-conscious  in  the 
company   of  unfamiliar   women,   courteous   always,   but   strained   in 


[418]  THE  LIVING  AGE 

courtesy,  and  frank  and  emphatic  in  his  denunciation  of  the  sex  gen- 
erally. 'Where  would  you  expect  her  to  be?'  he  was  once  asked  at  table 
when  savagely  inveighing  against  a  hostess  who,  after  presiding  at  a 
dinner-party  of  men,  joined  them  later  in  the  drawing-room.  *In  the 
pantry!'  he  snapped. 

Indeed  no  subject  was  more  certain  of  rousing  him  to  willing  and 
decisive  speech.  But  there  is  a  companion  picture,  so  different,  and  of  his 
own  unconscious  portraying;  of  another  Housman,  and  of  one  exception 
at  any  rate  to  the  sweeping  condemnation.  We  were  discussing  friend- 
ship, when,  after  a  jibe  at  my  fecundity  in  this  kind,  he  told  me  he  had 
numbered  but  three  friends  in  his  whole  life,  and  added  with  a  note  of 
exultation  how  more  comfortably  he  could  die  now  that  he  had  seen  the 
last  of  them  put  to  rest.  With  a  tenderness  of  passion  utterly  undisguised 
he  went  on  to  speak  of  this  last  of  his  friends — a  woman — ^recently  dead. 
He  had  loved  and  revered  her  from  youth;  she  was  his  senior  in  age,  I 
judged  a  close  and  constant  companion  in  earlier  days,  in  more  recent 
years  of  separation  a  presence  still  to  which  he  owed — though  he  did  not 
quote  the  words — 

In  hours  of  weariness,  sensations  sweet. 
Felt  in  the  blood,  and  felt  along  the  heart. 

A  stifled  voice  told  more  eloquently  than  the  abrupt  words  both  what 
he  had  won  and  what  lost  in  her;  and  the  story  ended  with  a  thank  God 
he  had  outlived  her  and  knew  her  safely  laid  in  earth. 

This  is  the  Housman,  implicit  in  his  poetry,  so  hidden  in  his  person, 
who,  on  hearing  of  the  fatal  disease  that  had  attacked  the  gondolier  he 
had  employed  for  many  successive  summers,  rushed  off  to  Venice  in 
mid-winter,  made  all  provision  with  legal  security  for  the  man's  comfort 
while  he  lived — and  life  was  prolonged  for  several  years — and  left  for 
England  three  days  later  never,  as  he  told  me  significantly,  to  go  back 
again.  The  emotions  may  have  run  as  deep  and  strong  in  many  men,  but 
few  can  have  repressed  them  so  eflfectually  that  only  intimacy  provided 
a  rare  and  fleetmg  glimpse.  The  consequence  was,  for  him, "loneliness; 
for  most  of  those  who  knew  him  a  half-knowledge — the  half  that  tended 
to  exclude  those  feelings  that  are  the  better  part  of  friendship. 

He  seemed  neither  to  ask  nor  expect  affection,  but  when,  on  the  two 
or  three  occasions  he  either  related  or  received  in  my  presence  unques- 
tionable evidences  of  it,  he  describes  the  effect  as  almost  overwhelming. 
A  common  enough  phrase,  but  coming  from  such  a  man  as  Housman,  a 
revelation  of  qualities  hidden  too  deep  away,  and  of  potentialities,  I 
cannot  but  think,  grievously  and  mistakenly  thwarted. 


These  three  articles  focus  our  atten- 
tion in  turn  on  the  background  of  the 
recent  Palestine  riots,  on  Spain's  new 
land  reforms,  and  on  Czechoslovakia's 
probable  role  in  a  Russo-German  war. 


THREE  of 
a  KIND 


I.  The  Desert  and  the  Sown 
By  Mrs.  Edgar  Dugdale 

From  the  Manchester  Guardian,  Manchester  Liberal  Daily 


Jackals  yelled  in  the  orange  groves, 
which  covered  the  land  like  a  motion- 
less, glossy  sea,  dark  green  in  sunlight, 
but  now  silver  under  the  moon.  It  was 
a  hot,  flower-scented  night  early  in 
May  of  this  year.  In  a  day  or  two  I 
was  leaving  Palestine. 

I  stood  on  the  balcony  of  a  house 
in  a  small  country  town  in  the  heart 
of  the  red  citrus-growing  belt  which 
borders  the  coast,  and  I  looked  out 
over  the  peaceful  landscape.  The  soft 
throbbing  of  irrigation  pumps  formed 
a  persistent  accompaniment  to  the  in- 
termittent bowlings  of  the  jackals. 
They  made  a  fantastic  mixture  of 
noises  characteristic  of  modern  Pales- 
tine, where  by  night  as  by  day  the  odd 
contrasts  of  life  force  themselves  upon 


every  sense.  They  are  all  symptoms  of 
the  conflict  between  the  forces  of 
civilization  and  the  forces  of  the  desert 
which  is  being  waged  from  Dan  to 
Beersheba  today. 

Among  the  oleander  bushes,  white 
with  flowers  under  the  window,  I  heard 
from  time  to  time  footsteps  and  the 
low  voices  of  men.  The  sound  was  the 
reverse  of  alarming,  for  these  were 
Jewish  patrols  guarding  life  and  prop- 
erty. But  their  presence  in  the  garden 
signified  that  jackals  were  not  the 
only  wild  creatures  who  might  be 
moving  that  night  in  the  moon- 
shadows  through  crops  and  orange 
groves. 

Palestine  had  been  in  a  state  of 
disturbance  all  through  my  brief  visit. 


[420] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


One  morning  about  the  middle  of  April 
two  or  three  Jews  had  been  murdered 
in  cold  blood  by  Arabs,  in  streets 
linking  the  contiguous  cities  of  Jaffa 
and  Tel-Aviv.  The  victims  were  un- 
offending, unsuspecting  people,  going 
about  their  daily  business.  Then  an 
Arab  crowd  had  gathered  and  at- 
tempted a  larger-scale  attack  on  Jews. 
The  police  had  fired,  two  Arabs  had 
been  killed;  but  no  Arab  had  lost 
his  life  at  Jewish  hands,  though  seven 
Jews  were  murdered  and  eleven  seri- 
ously wounded  with  knives  or  stones. 

The  official  communique  issued  by 
the  High  Commissioner  made  these 
facts  quite  clear.  Arson  in  towns  or 
harvest-fields,  stone-throwing,  or  shots 
at  motors  driven  by  Jews,  attacks  on 
individuals  had  been  repeated  every 
morning  for  a  fortnight,  and  the  Arab 
political  leaders,  who  were  perhaps 
taken  by  surprise  at  the  first  outbreak, 
soon  exploited  it  by  proclaiming  a 
general  strike,  which  was  to  end  (so 
they  were  suffered  to  declare)  only 
when  the  British  Government  had 
granted  their  political  demands,  which 
included  complete  stoppage  of  Jewish 
immigration.  The  Arab  mayor  of 
Jerusalem,  where  Jews  form  the  ma- 
jority of  the  population,  and  the 
Mufti,  who,  as  head  of  the  Supreme 
Moslem  Council,  is  an  official  who 
receives  pay  from  the  British  Adminis- 
tration, were  prominent  among  the 
instigators  of  tnis  strike  but  had  not 
been  removed  from  their  offi.cial  posi- 
tions. 

What,  the  Jews  asked  themselves, 
would  have  been  the  reaction  of  the 
Government  if  a  Jewish  mayor  of 
Jerusalem  had  so  snapped  his  fingers 
at  authority  and  at  his  Arab  constit- 
uents ?  As  the  days  of  the  strike  length- 
ened   to    a    week,    and    more,    such 


questions  multiplied.  And  one  day  a 
Jew  told  me  that  he  had  been  asked 
point-blank  by  an  Arab  acquaintance 
whether  the  British  really  approved  of 
the  strike,  since  they  were  doing 
nothing  to  stop  it. 

It  seemed  best  to  laugh  at  such  a 
question  and  say  that  the  strike  would 
probably  break  down  of  itself.  It  was 
not  popular,  and  there  were  plenty  of 
stories  of  Arabs  who  were  being  per- 
suaded to  return  to  work  by  induce- 
ments not  open  to  the  Government 
to  offer.  The  strikers  were  perhaps  be- 
coming aware  that  the  presence  of 
some  400,000  Jews,  among  them  shop- 
keepers, taxi-drivers,  porters,  and 
stevedores,  made  a  strike  a  less  for- 
midable political  argument  than  it 
had  lately  appeared  to  be  in  Syria. 
Meanwhile  it  was  not  only  the 
Jews  who  were  losing  money  by  the 
semi-paralysis  of  business. 


II 


But  it  was  not  of  the  strike,  or  even 
of  the  outrages,  that  I  was  chiefly 
thinking  as  I  stood  that  evening  listen- 
ing to  the  cheery  voices  of  the  Jewish 
patrol  coming  up  from  the  garden.  All 
these  things  are  merely  incidents  in 
the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  long  struggle 
which  must  be  fought  through  in 
Palestine,  though  not  necessarily  with 
weapons  of  war — the  struggle  between 
the  desert  and  the  sown. 

We  British  made  ourselves  respon- 
sible for  the  opening  of  that  struggle 
nearly  twenty  years  ago,  when  we 
offered  our  co-partnership  to  Jewry  in 
reestablishing  a  national  home  on  the 
ancient  soil.  What  part  are  we  playing 
in  it  now?  Where  are  the  real  sym- 
pathies of  the  mandatory  power?  How 
much  are  we  trying  to  understand  the 


193^ 


THREE  OF  A  KIND 


character  and  point  of  view  of  both 
the  races  that  symbolize  the  conflict? 
What  is  the  ultimate  aim  of  British 
poHcy?  Has  it  got  an  ultimate  aim? 
These  were  the  kind  of  questions  to 
which  I  sought  for  some  answer 
among  my  own  experiences  on  this, 
my  third  visit  to  Palestine. 

They  are  important  questions,  for 
Palestine,  being  what  it  is,  lying 
where  it  does,  will  always  raise  for 
Britain  big  issues  of  Imperial  defense 
and  foreign  policy.  Its  peace,  its  pros- 
perity, and  the  feelings  its  population 
entertain  toward  us  may  at  any  min- 
ute become  far  more  than  mere  local 
administrative  interests. 

Nowhere  does  one  realize  that  better 
than  in  Haifa.  Haifa  stands  above  the 
wide  bay  of  Acre,  where  the  whole 
British  Mediterranean  fleet  could  ride 
at  anchor,  where  the  line  of  big  oil- 
tanks  on  the  beach  shows  that  here  is 
a  mouth  of  the  long  pipe-line  which 
begins  far  away  in  Mosul.  In  Haifa  one 
feels  that  Palestine  is  a  link,  and  may 
be  a  vital  link,  in  the  endless  chain  of 
communications  which  join  up  the 
parts  of  the  British  Empire  by  sea  and 
air. 

From  the  deck  of  the  ship  that 
brought  me,  I  saw  Haifa  town  rising 
steeply  up  the  steps  of  Carmel.  Its 
tiers  of  houses  had  spread  much  far- 
ther along  the  hillside  than  when  I 
visited  it  last,  two  years  ago.  Half-an- 
hour  after  landing  I  was  breakfasting 
with  Jewish  friends  on  the  veranda  of 
a  charming  house,  built  with  every 
newest  modern  comfort.  Then  we 
drove  out  that  I  might  see  the  changes 
in  the  town.  The  first  change  was  not 
for  the  better.  It  was  a  loathsome  col- 
lection of  hovels,  made  out  of  old 
petrol  tins  and  rags,  without  any 
sanitation  whatever,   in   which  hun- 


dreds   of  Haurani   Arabs,    attractecP^ 
across  the  Syrian  border  by  the  pros- 
perity and  employment  in  Palestine, 
had   been   permitted   to   squat,   with 
their  wives  and  children. 

'The  public  health  authorities  were 
inquisitive  about  the  plumbing  in  our 
house,'  said  my  hostess,  'but  these 
places  have  been  here  for  a  year  as  you 
see  them.' 

We  drove  on  a  few  hundred  yards  to 
the  beautiful  power-house  of  the 
Palestine  Electric  Company,  dignified 
and  simple,  like  some  vast  ancient 
temple,  enclosing  inside  its  white  walls 
the  huge  engines  that  manufacture 
Hght  and  power  for  distribution  over 
the  whole  country  but  still  cannot  do 
enough  to  keep  pace  with  the  demand. 
It  stands  close  to  the  seashore  in  its 
own  trim  garden,  looking  out  over  the 
blue  Mediterranean.  But  the  wavelets 
were  lapping  a  greasy,  nasty  red  on  to 
the  pure  yellow  sand  near  by.  They 
were  dyed  with  blood  from  a  neigh- 
boring slaughter-house. 

Jews  who  are  putting  their  work 
and  their  money  into  Palestine  are 
disgusted  that  the  British  Adminis- 
tration should  tolerate  such  things. 
They  cannot  understand  why  the 
amenities  of  life  should  be  so  largely 
left  to  them  to  provide,  when  the 
Treasury  contains  a  surplus  of  six 
or  seven  million  pounds  which  also  is 
mainly  provided  by  them,  for  Jews, 
who  at  present  form  30  per  cent  of  the 
population,  pay  nearly  60  per  cent  of 
the  taxes. 

We  drove  a  mile  or  two  farther  along 
the  bay  and  came  to  an  expanse  of 
ground  where  Brobdingnagian  chil- 
dren seemed  to  have  been  arranging  a 
sand  tray  under  the  eye  of  a  kinder- 
garten teacher.  On  the  dunes  hundreds 
of  little  yellow  houses  stand  in  rows. 


t**!rs- 


[422] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


each  In  a  garden  where  carnations, 
roses,  strawberry  plants,  and  vege- 
tables of  all  sorts  are  growing  straight 
out  of  the  loose  sand.  I  plucked  up  a 
pansy  by  the  roots  to  convince  myself 
that  it  had  them. 

1  asked  how  the  conjuring  trick 
was  done.  'By  fertilizers,  by  the  sun, 
and  by  love,'  answered  the  owner 
of  the  garden,  picking  me  a  bouquet. 
Not  long  ago  he  was  a  well-to-do  pro- 
fessional man  in  Germany.  Now  he  is 
a  clerk  in  Haifa,  and  comes  out  by 
motor-bus  every  evening  to  his  home 
in  this  new  dormitory  settlement  out- 
side the  town.  Every  one  of  the  tiny 
houses  has  its  bathroom  and  its  elec- 
tric cooker. 

A  few  minutes  later,  passing  again 
through  the  Haurani  encampment,  I 
saw  a  householder  outside  his  tin 
shanty  tearing  his  dinner  with  his 
teeth.  It  was  a  strip  of  red  flesh, 
buzzing  with  flies. 


Ill 


Civilization  and  the  desert  are  at 
hand-grips  on  this  spot.  And  the 
British  seem  to  be  holding  the  ring 
if  they  are  not  weighting  the  scales. 
Take  this  very  example  of  the  Haurani 
squatters.  They  are  not  Palestinian 
Arabs,  nor  even  Transjordanians. 
They  are  immigrants  from  Syria,  just 
as  the  bulk  of  the  Jews  are  immigrants 
from  Europe,  but  with  two  important 
diff"erences.  First,  Jews  have  been  told 
they  can  look  upon  Palestine  as  their 
national  home,  where  they  may  settle 
*by  right  and  not  on  suff"erance,* 
whereas  the  Hauranis  have  no  claim 
whatever  on  the  country.  Secondly, 
Jewish  immigration  is  by  statute  lim- 
ited by  the  economic  capacity  of 
Palestine  to  absorb  it,  but  Haurani 


immigration  has  no  such  check  and 
can  flood  the  labor  market,  thus  di- 
minishing the  amount  of  employment 
available  either  for  Jews  or  Palestinian 
Arabs.  The  apparent  lack  of  power,  or 
of  will,  on  the  part  of  the  Administra- 
tion to  keep  these  aliens  out  is  a  source 
of  political  discontent  which  the  recent 
disturbances  may  intensify. 

I  have  never  heard  a  Palestinian 
Jew  criticize  the  Government  for  any 
public  expenditure  for  the  benefit  of 
Palestinian  Arabs,  whether  on  educa- 
tion, on  hospitals,  on  agricultural 
training,  or  in  any  other  way.  Jews 
are  perhaps  more  clear-sighted  than 
most  of  the  British  officials  about  the 
real  nature  of  the  battle  they  must 
fight,  and  they  believe  the  British 
could  shorten  the  struggle  by  years  if 
they  would  devote  more  of  their  ener- 
gies to  lessening  the  gap  between 
Arab  and  Jewish  standards  of  living. 

Jews  would  certainly  like  to  see  less 
hoarding  of  public  money  and  more 
assistance  for  their  own  schools,  sana- 
toriums,  and  so  forth,  institutions 
which  they  maintain  at  a  far  higher 
level  than  the  Government  aflx)rds 
to  the  rest  of  the  population.  But  the 
weight  of  their  criticism  at  present  is 
against  the  backwardness  of  many 
public  services  which  are  for  the  prog- 
ress of  the  country  as  a  whole.  Exist- 
ing posts,  railways,  secondary  roads, 
and  telephones  most  of*  all  are  blots 
on  a  prosperous  country,  with  in- 
dustries expanding  almost  quicker 
than  factories  can  be  built. 

'Why,'  people  ask,  'does  the  Gov- 
ernment suit  its  pace  to  Arab  eco- 
nomic development  instead  of  to  ours? 
Jewish  prosperity  is  making  the  Arabs 
more  prosperous  also.  Why  not  do 
more  to  help  us  push  it  along?'  The 
question  became  bitterer  and  more  in- 


193^ 


THREE  OF  A  KIND 


[423] 


sistent  after  the  Colonial  Office  began 
to  envisage  the  question  of  immedi- 
ately granting  the  Arab  demand  for  a 
political  constitution. 

Standing  there  on  the  balcony, 
Hstening  to  the  jackals  and  the  thud, 
thud  of  the  pumps  spreading  water 
over  the  thirsty  ground,  I  listened  for 
the  footsteps  of  the  Jewish  patrols 
guarding  those  pumps  (and  incidental- 
ly myself)  against  the  perils  of  the  dark. 
Scores  of  others  like  them  were  keep- 
ing similar  watch  in  fields  and  farms 
up  and  down  the  country  that  night. 
Brawny  young  men  in  shirts  and 
shorts,  these  Jewish  agricultural  work- 
ers have  developed  together  with 
muscle  an  air  of  self-confidence  utterly 
removed  from  aggressiveness,  which 
has  never  hitherto  been  considered 
characteristic  of  their  race. 

It  is  too  easily  assumed  that  the 
difficulties  of  governing  Palestine  are 
chiefly  due  to  the  presence  of  the 
Jews,  an  idea  which  is  eagerly  fostered 
by  the  Arab  politicians  and  is  encour- 
aged rather  than  otherwise  by  the 
British  official  attitude.  It  is  rare  in 
those  quarters  to  hear  ungrudging 
acknowledgment  of  what  the  Jewish 
population  has  done  for  the  country, 
but  the  most  is  made  out  of  any  short- 
coming or  indiscretion  that  Jews  may 
commit.  Such  at  least  has  been  my 
impression,  which  has  only  deepened 


with  every  successive  visit  to  Pales- 
tine. 

It  is  now  nearly  twenty  years  since 
a  British  Government  first  gave  the 
Jews  the  opportunity  to  show  what 
they  could  do  with  a  country  where 
they  might  feel  themselves  at  home. 
For  twenty  years  they  have  been 
busy  convincing  us  (and  themselves) 
that  they  could  make  a  success  of 
national  life.  They  have  done  it,  and 
done  it  under  conditions  which  no 
nation  has  ever  had  to  face  before, 
without  any  decisive  voice  in  govern- 
ment, without  any  say  in  the  disposal 
of  public  money,  without  any  choice  in 
the  personnel  of  government,  or  any 
control  over  the  proportion  of  Jews  in 
the  public  services  or  the  administra- 
tion of  justice. 

None  of  these  things  was  specified 
in  the  original  bond  between  us  and 
them,  and  the  Jews  have  not  yet  asked 
that  they  should  be  added.  But  they 
cannot  fail  to  feel  their  increasing 
stake  in  the  country,  and  the  time 
must  surely  come — recent  events  may 
hasten  it — when  Palestinian  Jewry  will 
ask  for  more  definite  indications  that 
we  are  on  their  side — not  against  the 
Arabs,  but  against  the  forces  which 
some  of  the  Arab  leaders  exploit  for 
their  own  ends:  the  blind,  ignorant 
lust  for  destruction  which  the  desert 
breeds. 


II.  Spain  Catches  Up 

By  Professor  Bonorko 
Translated  from  the  Pester  Lloyd,  Budapest  German-Language  Daily 


D. 


'URING  the  course  of  the  month 
of  March  the  ownership  and  opera- 
tion of  Spanish  agriculture  underwent 
changes  so  extensive  and  so  rapidly 


achieved  as  to  make  them  almost 
unique  in  economic  history.  The  vic- 
tories of  the  Left  at  the  general 
parliamentary  election  of  February  16, 


[4241 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


1936,  not  only  opened  up  questions  of 
the  distribution  of  economic  power 
but  in  many  instances  have  already 
solved  them.  Tens  of  thousands  of 
agricultural  workers  and  small  tenant 
farmers  who  were  for  the  most  part 
without  income  until  a  few  weeks  ago 
are  today  tilling  their  own  soil,  which 
was  allotted  to  them  by  the  'Institute 
for  Agrarian  Reform.' 

This  agrarian  reform,  which  may 
without  exaggeration  be  character- 
ized as  an  agrarian  revolution,  con- 
tinues and  completes  the  first  Spanish 
agrarian  reform  of  the  years  1932-33, 
which  was  stopped  and  for  the  most 
part  repealed  as  a  result  of  the  swing 
to  the  Right  in  the  years  1934-35. 

The  present  happenings  restore  the 
conditions  existing  in  the  fall  of  1933, 
though  in  many  instances  they  have 
already  gone  beyond  those  conditions. 
In  the  first  days  of  March  rural  work- 
ers and  tenant  farmers  returned  to  the 
lands  allotted  them  by  the  first  agra- 
rian reform,  and  taken  away  when  the 
reaction  came.  The  Government  has- 
tened to  legalize  by  decree  the  often 
forcible  seizures.  Thus  the  Institute 
for  Agrarian  Reform  was  enabled  to 
note  with  satisfaction  that  within  a 
single  week  it  had  'installed'  on  the 
lands  at  its  disposal  17,114  families  of 
rural  workers  or  tenant  farmers. 
More  accurately,  these  settlers  'in- 
stalled' themselves  on  the  plots  orig- 
inally allotted  them  and  subsequently 
taken  away. 

Another  official  release  speaks  of 
77,000  hectares  (190,000  acres)  chang- 
ing hands  in  one  week.  On  April  3  the 
Ministry  of  Labor  announced  that  in 
the  province  of  Badajoz  in  Estremad- 
ura  the  agrarian  reform  had  been 
concluded,  with  42,000  families  settled 
on  105,000  hectares  (259,350  acres). 


Thus  the  average  size  of  each  settle- 
ment here  is  2.5  hectares  (6.17  acres). 
From  other  provinces  only  partial  re- 
turns are  available;  but  the  work  is 
progressing  rapidly  everywhere.  Such 
rapid  and  relatively  orderly  change  of 
ownership  would  be  unthinkable  with- 
out the  many  months  of  preliminary 
technical  and  legal  work  of  the  first 
agrarian  reform  of  1932-33. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  national 
economy  three  main  tasks  confront 
Spanish  agrarian  reform. 

(i)  Spanish  economy  is  to  be  made 
increasingly  independent  of  expensive 
imports  of  foreign  agricultural  prod- 
ucts. Even  in  years  of  bumper  crops 
Spain  has  to  import  wheat,  corn, 
legumes  and  other  agricultural  prod- 
ucts which,  with  better  distribution 
and  utilization  of  the  soil,  it  could 
raise  itself.  For  in  antiquity  Spain  was 
called  the  granary  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire; and  subsequently  the  Arabs, 
with  their  skillful  use  of  irrigation, 
actually  increased  the  fertility  of  the 
land  and  the  luxuriousness  of  the 
forests.  But  at  present  the  total  an- 
nual imports  of  the  products  of  agri- 
culture, forestry  and  animal  husbandry 
amount  to  a  sum  which  could  be  re- 
duced by  about  75  per  cent. 

(2)  Rural  unemployment  and  mis- 
ery and  the  usurious  exploitation  of 
agricultural  labor  are  tobe  replaced 
by  profitable  work  on  land  owned  by 
the  workers  themselves. 

(3)  The  ^x-tensive  exploitation  of 
the  arable  «oil  practiced  on  the  large 
estates  is  to  be  converted  into  /wten- 
sive  exploitation  by  dividing  the 
estates  into  small  homesteads.  The 
large  estates  to  be  subjected  to  this 
process  total  about  1.5  million  hec- 
tares (3.7  million  acres). 

Spain's  three  greatest  landowners, 


1936 


THREE  OF  A  KIND 


[425] 


the  former  Archdukes  of  Medina, 
Penaranda  and  Alba,  control  respec- 
tively more  than  79,000;  52,000;  and 
36,000  hectares  each  (194,130;  128,- 
440;  and  88,920  acres) — together  more 
than  170,000  hectares  (419,900  acres). 
The  next  five  largest  holders,  accord- 
ing to  the  statistics,  control  17,000; 
17,000;  10,000;  8,000  and  7,000  hec- 
tares (41,990;  41,990;  24,700;  19,760 
and  17,290  acres).  Thus  the  eight 
largest  landowners  control  altogether 
more  than  230,000  hectares  (568,100 
acres).  Twelve  hundred  families  own 
more  than  40  per  cent  of  all  the  agri- 
cultural land  in  Spain.  Another  20 
per  cent  is  owned  by  75,000  families. 
In  Andalusia  and  Estremadura  almost 
all  the  land  belongs  to  large  land- 
owners, who  hold  it  in  feudal  tenure. 

The  land  recognized  by  the  Insti- 
tute for  Agrarian  Reform  as  suitable 
for  settlement  projects  is  distributed 
over  fourteen  of  Spain's  fifty  prov- 
inces. Today  it  is  estimated  that  10 
per  cent  of  this  settlement  program 
has  been  realized. 

On  the  one  hand  the  agrarian  laws 
of  September,  1932,  set  aside  for  ex- 
propriation all  the  large  estates  of 
medieval-feudal  origin,  and  on  the 
other  hand  all  properties  larger  than 
50.  hectares  (123.5  acres)  if  irrigated, 
and  750  hectares  (1,852.5  acres)  if  not 
irrigated.  In  addition,  estates  which 
were  acquired  for  speculative  purposes 
or  were  not  under  cultivation  were  to 
be  subject  to  expropriation. 


II 


To  punish  a  few  of  the  old  noble 
families  for  their  participation  in  the 
monarchist  rebellion  of  August,  1932, 
the  expropriation  of  the  estates  of  the 
grandees  was  carried  out  without  re- 


muneration. In  1934-35  the  Rightist 
Governments  either  paid  indemnities 
to  the  grandees  or  revoked  the  ex- 
propriations. One  of  the  first  decrees 
of  the  Azafia  Government  was  that  of 
February,  1936,  which  stopped  all 
such  payments  to  the  grandees.  The 
estates  of  the  grandees  amount  to 
573,000  hectares  (1,415,310  acres), 
a  good  third  of  all  the  land  to  be  dis- 
tributed. The  other  landowners  are 
indemnified  with  special  bonds  amount- 
ing to  50  per  cent  of  the  value  of  their 
holdings  as  determined  by  their  tax 
returns,  the  bonds  to  be  amortized  in 
fifty  years. 

Settlement  is  carried  out  either  in- 
dividually, by  single  colonists,  or  col- 
lectively, through  cooperative  man- 
agement, by  labor  organizations.  Only 
rural  workers  or  tenant  farmers  are 
eligible  for  settlement. 

The  official  State  institution  is  the 
Institute  for  Agrarian  Reform  in 
Madrid.  The  Institute  has  formed  a 
Chamber  of  Agriculture  in  every  prov- 
ince where  settlements  are  to  be  es- 
tablished. These  Chambers  take  over 
the  expropriated  land  and  distribute 
it  to  the  settlement  associations, 
which  must  themselves  choose  be- 
tween individual  and  collective  opera- 
tion. Finally,  the  Institute  fixes  the 
rent  which  the  colonists  must  pay  the 
State. 

The  Institute  for  Agrarian  Reform 
receives  an  annual  Government  sub- 
sidy of  50  million  pesetas.  This  it  has 
to  turn  over  to  the  settlers  in  the  form 
of  advances,  loans,  seeds  and  imple- 
ments. This  task  can  be  accompHshed 
by  an  expenditure  of  approximately 
3,000  pesetas  per  settler.  Thus  the 
annual  budget  of  50  million  pesetas 
takes  care  of  only  17,000  settlers,  and 
the  Institute's  subsidy  will  probably 


[426] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


have  to  be  increased  considerably  in  the 
near  future  if  rational  management  of 
the  soil  is  to  keep  pace  with  the 
accelerated  tempo  of  its  distribution. 

Opinions  are  much  divided  about 
the  time  the  agrarian  reform  will  take. 
Until  quite  recently  people  were 
speaking  in  terms  of  ten  years.  Now 
many  believe  that  the  whole  thing 
can  be  wound  up  in  a  few  weeks.  Be- 
cause of  the  present  haste  the  land 
allotments  are  naturally  provisional, 
being  based  on  a  special  decree  calling 
for  more  intensive  cultivation  of  the 
soil.  It  is  the  blanket  power  this  decree 
gives  the  communes  to  dispose  of  the 
land  provisionally  which  makes  the 
acceleration  possible. 

There  are  two  categories  of  settlers: 
the  rural  workers  and  the  small  tenant 
farmers.  With  a  daily  wage  which  was 
often  as  little  as  two  pesetas,  the  rural 
workers  led  an  existence  of  almost 
inconceivable  privation.  The  tenant 
farmers,  on  the  other  hand,  worked 
not  so  much  for  the  owners  as  for  the 


middlemen.  The  sub-tenant  who  ac- 
tually tilled  the  land  was  frequently 
fourth  in  line  after  the  owner,  the 
leaseholder  and  another  middleman. 
He  had  to  pay  usurious  rent,  fre- 
quently six  times  as  high  as  that  the 
landowner  received.  In  the  new  ten- 
ancy decree  these  middlemen  are 
excluded.  The  Institute  for  Agrarian 
Reform  sees  to  it  that  the  agreement 
between  the  landowner  and  the  yun- 
tero  who  tills  the  soil  with  his  own 
team  is  carried  out. 

Spain's  agrarian  reform  is  helping 
her  to  catch  up  with  what  has  been 
the  rule  for  decades  or  centuries  in 
most  of  the  civilized  states  of  Europe. 
A  remnant  of  medieval  feudalism 
which  maintained  its  position  with 
remarkable  tenacity  is  being  extermi- 
nated. To  the  advantage  of  the  starv- 
ing unemployed,  the  poorly  paid 
workers  and  the  small  tenant  farmers, 
Spain  is  building  up  a  project  which 
will  give  her  economic  system  a  great 
boost. 


III.  Czechoslovakia:  The  Dangerous  Corner 
By  F.  L. 

Translated  from  the  Weltwochty  Zurich  Independent  Swiss  Weekly 


r^EW  States  watch  the  course  of  events 
more  apprehensively  than  Czech- 
oslovakia. The  Saar — the  Franco- 
Soviet  Pact — Germany's  rearmament 
— the  occupation  of  the  Rhine — con- 
scription in  Austria.  .  .  .  These  events 
have  followed  each  other  in  rapid 
succession,  and  for  Czechoslovakia 
each  is  important. 

At  the  time  of  its  genesis  the  mili- 
tary pact  which  Czechoslovakia  con- 
cluded with  the  Soviet  Union  in  1935 
was  the  subject  of  a  violent  contro- 


versy. For  it  automatically  puts 
Czechoslovakia  into  a  war  from  which, 
on  account  of  her  exposed  position, 
she  will  suffer  the  most.  France  is 
protected  by  the  world's  most  gigantic 
fortifications;  Russia  is  difficult  to 
overcome  because  of  its  immense  ex- 
tent. 

Czechoslovakia,  on  the  other  hand, 
has  none  of  these  advantages:  no 
fortresses;  a  frontier  2,000  miles  long 
— a  headache  for  a  general  staff; 
her   most    important    industrial    dis- 


193^ 


THREE  OF  A  KIND 


[427] 


tricts  close  to  her  borders,  which  are 
settled  by  the  Czech  Nazis,  the  Sude- 
tendeutschen;  and,  above  all,  six  of 
her  15  million  inhabitants  minorities 
which — on  account  of  her  not  very 
effective  minorities  policy — are  only 
waiting  for  the  moment  when  they 
can  assert  their  rights.  Her  most  im- 
portant districts,  as  well  as  her  cap- 
ital, are  within  half-an-hour's  reach 
of  fast  planes. 

Even  today  there  is  no  lack  of  ad- 
visers who  would  rather  have  Czecho- 
slovakia a  neutral  business  agent  in 
the  event  of  a  European  conflict.  But 
.  .  .  these  wishful  dreams  can  hardly 
be  fulfilled  in  a  coming  war.  For 
Germany  would  mistrust  even  a  neu- 
tral Czechoslovakia,  and  would  strive 
to  get  rid  of  this  threat  to  her  rear  as 
quickly  as  possible.  Besides,  such 
armed  preparedness  would  merely 
encourage  the  3>^  million  Sudeten- 
deutschen  (called  the  Henlein  party, 
and  driven  into  the  network  of  Goeb- 
bels'  propaganda  by  a  severe  economic 
depression)  to  provoke  a  conflict 
which  would  give  Hitler  the  oppor- 
tunity to  play  the  role  of  peacemaker. 

These  may  have  been  the  main  con- 
siderations behind  Czechoslovakia's 
decision  to  conclude  a  military  pact 
with  the  Soviet  Union — and  subse- 
quent developments  have  shown  that 
her  politicians  were  right.  Neverthe- 
less it  is  not  quite  clear  what  Czecho- 
slovakia's situation  would  be  if  she 
were  forced  to  fight  shoulder  to  shoul- 
der with  France  and  the  Soviet  Union. 
One  must  remember  that  the  States 
which  surround  her  are  out  of  the 
question  as  allies:  Germany  as  the 
main  opponent;  Austria,  which  might 
be  the  first  to  fall  victim  in  a  conflict, 
and  which  could  then  be  occupied 
without  great  resistance;  Poland,  the 


rather  unfriendly  Slav  brother,  which 
was  not  on  good  terms  with  the  Czechs 
even  before  she  established  a  friend- 
ship with  the  Germans;  Hungary, 
which  cannot  forget  Slovakia  and  the 
million  former  subjects  who  live  there. 
Rumania  is  the  only  ally  with  which 
Czechoslovakia  shares  a  small  section 
of  her  frontier. 

Lately,  border  violations  by  the 
Reichswehr  have  increased.  Their 
aim  is  undoubtedly  to  gain  greater 
familiarity  with  important  mihtary 
points — for  years  Germans  have  been 
hiking  to  Bohemia,  in  the  summer  as 
well  as  in  the  winter.  As  is  well  known, 
one  of  the  German  war  plans  pro- 
vides for  a  rapid  invasion  in  the 
direction  of  Moravia-Ostrava  and 
Bratislava;  the  occupation  of  the 
coal  basin;  and  the  cutting  in  two  of 
Czechoslovakia,  thus  making  it  harm- 
less and  ineffective. 


But  there  are  other  places  where 
such  plans  could  be  carried  out,  too. 
In  such  an  event  the  Czechoslovakian 
military  forces  would  have  to  fall 
back  on  their  own  resources,  for  there 
are  no  defensive  works,  fortresses  or 
outer  forts,  and  the  strategic  position 
is  as  unfavorable  as  it  could  well  be. 
In  revenge,  they  could  certainly  un- 
dertake an  attack  on  Saxony,  Silesia 
or  Bavaria;  but  fundamental  German 
industries  would  scarcely  be  endan- 
gered by  such  an  attack,  and  no 
strategically  significant  results  would 
be  accomplished.  Pilsen,  which  boasts 
the  Skoda  Works,  Czechoslovakia's 
armament  center,  is  no  more  than 
twenty-five  miles  from  the  Bavarian 
border,  so  that  an  extended  and  suc- 
cessful defense  of  the  western  part 


[428] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


of  the  State — the  so-called  'historical 
countries'  of  Bohemia,  Moravia  and 
Silesia — could  hardly  be  hoped  for 
even  if  the  domestic  political  apprehen- 
sions about  the  minorities  (especially 
the  Czech  Nazis)  were  disregarded — 
which  would  be  very  foolhardy.  It  is 
enough  to  read  about  the  constant 
trials  of  spies  in  the  Czech  press  to 
see  this. 

Under  these  circumstances  it  would 
perhaps  be  wisest  to  surrender  the 
western  part  of  the  State  after  a  little 
resistance  on  the  borders.  Thus  the 
population  and  the  national  wealth 
would  be  protected  from  fruitless 
losses,  and  the  able-bodied  men  could 
retreat  to  the  Slovak-Carpatho-Russ 
region,  where  a  first  line  of  defense 
ought  to  be  established.  Forced  to 
wage  a  war  on  these  fronts,  Germany 
would  hardly  place  armed  forces 
there.  Here  in  the  east,  cooperation 
with  the  Russian  army  should  be 
sought.  Hungary  can  be  more  easily 


kept  under  control  by  the  allies  in 
the  Little  Entente.  On  the  other 
hand,  Russia  would  have  here  an 
eflPective  jumping-off  place  for  its  air- 
craft, which  could  penetrate  far  into 
Germany — a  plan  in  which  there  is  a 
kernel  of  truth,  despite  all  denials. 
Czechoslovakia  would  thus  follow 
Serbia's  plan  in  the  World  War:  re- 
treat and  organize  defense  far  from 
the  border.  Then  Russia  and  France 
would  take  the  lead. 

Airplanes  roar  through  the  air  and 
searchlights  flicker  over  the  night 
sky  in  Prague  as  these  lines  are  being 
written.  Let  us  hope,  in  spite  of  all, 
that  it  will  not  become  a  bloody, 
gruesome  truth,  that  millions  will  not 
be  seared  by  flame-throwers,  crushed 
by  tanks,  burnt  by  poison  gas,  or 
torn  to  pieces  by  grenades.  Between 
1 914  and  191 8  5,000,000  were  starved, 
10,000,000  were  killed,  20,000,000 
injured.  How  many  would  there  be 
this  time? 


Helpful  Suggestions 

Give  the  parents  of  every  boy  who  enlists  a  policy  of  insurance  of 
£500  (or  any  amount  sufficient  to  induce  parents  to  part  more  readily 
with  their  sons)  in  case  of  death  in  war  or  death  through  disease  in 
wartime. 


Abolish  from  the  streets  the  great  numbers  of  begging  ex-service 
men,  wearing  medals  and  giving  by  their  appearance  psychologically 
the  worst  impressions  of  the  results  of  an  army  career  to  the  young 
would-be  recruits. 

— Two  Letters  in  the  Daily  Mail,  London 


*By  noon  neither  man  nor  house  had 
come  in  sight.  Suddenly  he  lost  the  path. ' 


The 

White  Men's 

ROAD 


By  Pierre  Galinier 

'Translated  by  Henry  Bennett 
From  Marianne,  Paris  Liberal  Weekly 


R< 


.OBERT  NOBLET  had  come  to 
Darlac,  in  the  Moi  country,  searching 
for  that  red  earth  which  delights  the 
eyes  of  tropical  planters. 

He  had  left  his  meager  baggage  in  his 
riverside  headquarters,  and,  having 
camped  by  the  side  of  the  intermina- 
ble colonial  highway,  began  to  sur- 
vey the  surrounding  country.  Pleased 
with  the  land  and  the  richness  of  its 
ferruginous  soil,  he  thought  of  ending 
his  wanderings  and  settling  down. 

But  the  Moi's  behavior  was  some- 
thing he  had  not  taken  into  account. 
They  were  a  sullen  people  who  seemed 
by  no  means  anxious  to  put  them- 
selves out  by  encouraging  a  white 
man  to  settle  near  them.  With  in- 
finite patience,  Noblet  addressed  him- 
self to  the  task  of  winning  them  to  a 
more  accommodating  frame  of  mind. 
Alone  and  unarmed,  he  went  every 
day  to  some  village,  bringing  small 
gifts  with  him.  He  palavered  for  hours, 
exchanged  the  copper  bracelets  that 
signify  friendship,  and  returned  to  his 
camp  in  the  afternoon. 


The  wisdom  of  his  course  had  pro- 
duced immediate  results.  He  was  ac- 
corded a  punctilious  and  ceremonious 
politeness.  A  whole  back-country 
opened  up  to  him,  a  territory  over- 
looked in  the  Geographic  Service's 
sketchy  investigations,  where  an  un- 
known population  went  peaceably 
about  its  affairs,  protected  by  a  no- 
man's-land  that  guarded  them  from 
all  approaches  from  the  hated  White 
Men's  Road. 

Noblet  went  out  one  morning,  as  he 
had  done  so  many  times,  in  search  of 
adventure.  He  was  sure  of  meeting 
with  people  wherever  he  went,  and  his 
pockets  were  full  of  cigarettes  and 
glass  beads  for  the  chiefs  he  hoped  to 
win  over. 

For  three  kilometers  he  followed  the 
straight  road  that  leapt,  agile  as  an 
animal,  from  hill  to  hill.  Its  reddish 
trail  ran  on  through  the  desert  of 
burnt  grass  as  far  as  the  eye  could  see. 
The  road  was  a  warming  sight  to 
a  solitary  pioneer,  a  living  witness 
of   the    thought    and    travail    of   so 


[43o] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


many  elder  brothers,  numberless  and 
remote,  who  had  furrowed  the  world 
through  time  and  space. 

Noblet  recognized  the  track  he  had 
found  the  day  before,  and  turned  into 
it.  He  wore  espadrilles,  the  customary 
helmet,  short-sleeved  shirt  and  khaki 
trousers.  Light  of  heart  and  firm  of 
limb  he  strode,  fresh  and  young  as  the 
fresh  morning  hours.  He  gripped  a 
stout  stick.  He  was  elated,  filled 
with  the  joy  that  intoxicates  men 
who  thrust  out  into  unknown  country. 

The  early  morning  mists,  pink  with 
the  rays  of  the  still  invisible  sun,  dis- 
solved gradually.  The  endless  veldt, 
dotted  with  puny  greenish- black 
bushes,  undulated  in  the  breeze;  the 
monotony  of  the  landscape  gave  it 
something  of  the  quality  of  a  primi- 
tive painting,  without  background  or 
values.  He  was  so  near  the  sky  he 
seemed  to  elbow  the  horizon.  In  the 
distance  a  few  thin  clouds  flamed. 
Clean-washed,  limpid,  and  blue,  the 
sky  deepened.  The  sun  rose. 

The  tall  grasses  sunned  themselves 
in  the  heat  of  the  new  day;  they  moved 
now  and  then  with  little  rustlings; 
lightly,  quickly,  an  animal  scurried. 

His  man-smell  heralded  Noblet's 
approach.  Watched  by  creatures  terri- 
fied at  his  presence,  he  kept  his  course 
through  the  silence  of  a  hundred  held 
breaths. 

When  the  path  wound  through  the 
jungle,  a  deafening  hubbub  began. 
The  stifling  heat  of  the  moist,  massive 
shadows  of  the  trees  brooded  over  an 
astonishing  activity;  Mrident  sounds 
riddled  the  still  air.  i  he  birds  and 
monkeys,  those  impudent  peoples, 
barely  moved  aside  to  let  Noblet  pass, 
and,  as  he  went,  took  up  their  games, 
their  songs  and  quarrels  again  with 
scarcely  a  moment's  interruption. 


And,  slow,  ponderous  and  scorch- 
ing, vast  as  the  arena  of  vanished  cen- 
turies, draped  in  its  transparent  wind- 
ing-sheet of  silence,  the  veldt  stretched 
before  him. 

Now  and  then  there  were  traces  of 
man.  On  the  flanks  of  hills  were 
squares  of  burnt  earth  that  contrasted 
with  the  foliage.  Rotten  thatch,  scat- 
tered bamboo,  clods  of  burnt  clay, 
pink  and  red,  bore  witness  to  past 
inhabitants.  Sprung  from  fallen  seeds, 
a  papaw-tree  and  a  few  pineapples  and 
pimentoes  flourished.  In  such  places, 
not  long  since,  wandering  families  ban- 
ished from  villages  had  set  up  their 
roofs;  then,  when  the  tiny  yams  had 
reddened  and  the  maize  was  har- 
vested, had  gone  a-journeying  again. 

Noblet  went  on  with  mighty  strides. 
Sometimes  the  acrid  odor  of  dried 
grass  was  in  his  nostrils;  sometimes  the 
heavy  smell  of  cardamom  or  the  honey- 
sweetness  of  white  orchids  striped 
with  mauve.  His  lungs  expanded;  a 
kind  of  drunkenness  possessed  him; 
strong  in  his  freedom,  mighty  in  his 
youth,  he  raised  his  voice  and  sang. 


II 


Later  in  the  morning,  from  a  hill, 
he  saw  a  thicket  of  prickly  bamboo. 
It  was  tender  green  in  the  reddish 
grass,  at  the  end  of  a  glen.  He  knew 
there  must  be  a  watercourse  there. 
The  path  that  took  him  toward  it  ran 
along  a  track  that  bore  traces  of  wild 
beasts;  the  stream  flowed  through  a 
plateau  of  volcanic  rock.  A  light  breeze 
stirred  the  bamboos;  they  creaked 
like  the  ropes  of  a  sailing-boat. 

Noblet  sat  for  a  moment  in  the 
shade  beside  the  clear  water,  then 
crossed  the  stream  by  the  beasts' 
ford,  following  the  track.  Soon  he  was 


193^ 


THE  WHITE  MEN'S  ROAD 


[431] 


plunged  to  his  chest  in  tall  grasses 
that  split  around  him  like  water  round 
a  moving  ship,  billowing  behind  him, 
to  regain  their  immobility  after  long 
swayings.  Then  he  passed  beneath 
trees  whose  refreshing  shadows  ca- 
ressed his  skin.  Alone  in  these  limit- 
less spaces,  he  seemed  to  bring  with 
him  a  revelation  of  human  sover- 
eignty. 

On  his  right  hand  at  last  he  saw  a 
hut.  He  went  up  to  the  door,  shoving 
against  it  in  the  manner  of  the  natives, 
and  asked  for  drink.  With  arm  out- 
stretched, seeking  his  direction,  he 
asked  in  bad  Moi: — 

'Village  near?' 

His  host  made  a  vague  gesture. 

*Euh  .  .  .  euh.  .  .  .  Boun  Tlu- 
oung.' 

'Come  with  me!' 

When  they  had  covered  three  hun- 
dred yards,  the  Moi  set  him  on  a  new 
path,  signifying  with  his  hand  that 
Noblet  should  go  on  alone. 

'Near?' 

'Yes,  yes.  Very  near.' 

They  drew  apart.  Noblet  looked  at 
his  watch;  it  was  ten  o'clock.  He  would 
never  make  camp  until  early  evening. 
Well,  this  time  he  would  have  to  ac- 
cept the  unspeakable,  saltless,  badly 
plucked,  ungutted  chicken  the  chief 
of  the  next  village  would  be  sure  to 
offer  him,  and  borrow  a  horse  besides. 

After  another  quarter  of  an  hour  of 
walking,  the  path  was  crossed  by  a 
river;  it  continued  on  the  opposite 
bank,  much  less  trodden,  narrower, 
with  far  fewer  signs  of  use  across  the 
stream,  where  only  a  handful  of  crea- 
tures sought  their  food. 

By  midday,  neither  man  nor  house 
had  come  in  sight.  Suddenly,  he  lost 
the  path. 

Bent  among  the  giant  grasses,  peer- 


ing for  the  way,  he  came  upon  his  own 
footprints.  This  was  luck,  for  he  had 
decided  to  go  back,  and  now,  it  seemed, 
here  was  the  path  again,  hidden  be- 
neath a  mass  of  tall  grass  blown  down 
by  a  recent  storm.  But  there  was  only 
the  sound  of  the  hard  earth  beneath 
his  feet  to  tell  him  in  which  direction 
he  should  go. 

The  veldt  was  white  under  the 
straight-flung  rays  of  the  sun,  and  a 
few  scattered,  puny  trees  arose  slowly 
from  the  unknown  horizon.  Their 
shadows  were  like  the  reflection  in  the 
sea  of  high,  rounded  clouds  in  a  sum- 
mer sky.  Under  the  sharply-defined 
edges  of  this  double  illumination,  a 
landscape  void  of  life  was  spread,  as  if 
awaiting  resurrection.  The  horizon 
disappeared.  Through  the  endless  tem- 
ple of  colonnades  and  silence,  the 
white  man  went  more  slowly,  in  the 
grip  of  an  instinctive  reverence,  under 
the  spell  of  the  great  immobile  priest- 
ess. Solitude. 

He  came  into  a  region  of  forest 
clearings.  Suddenly,  the  tide  of  tall 
grasses  retreated.  On  the  short  turf 
that  succeeded  them,  in  the  deeper 
shadow  of  the  trees,  Noblet  could 
find  no  trace  at  all  of  the  path;  but  the 
hope  of  discovering  another  track 
bore  him  on,  and  he  explored  the  ter- 
rain with  minute  care.  It  was  in  vain; 
and  when,  in  disappointment,  he  de- 
cided to  return  to  the  starting  point  of 
his  search,  he  could  not  find  it. 

His  back  tingled  with  nerves,  as  he 
covered  the  ground  once  more,  losing 
his  bearings  completely.  His  legs  were 
weak  with  tension.  It  was  three 
o'clock.  Dead  tired,  without  food  or 
weapons,  he  was  overcome  by  a  spell 
of  faintness. 

'Pull  yourself  together,  old  man! 
Keep  your  wits  about  you!  Suppose 


[432] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


you  are  a  bit  nervous  and  empty- 
bellied?  Might  as  well  admit  it;  but 
that  doesn't  mean  the  situation  is 
tragic!  Rest  is  what  you  need!  Sit 
down!  Splendid!  Now,  a  cigarette. 
And  afterwards?  Well,  we'll  see!' 

The  need  he  felt  of  reasoning  with 
himself  had  made  him  talk  aloud.  But 
his  weakness  annoyed  him,  and  he 
went  on : — 

'So  you  don't  care  for  this  sort  of 
thing?  Playing  the  fool  and  waving 
your  arms!  Well,  you'll  stay  here  half 
an  hour,  you  hear?  Thirty  minutes, 
watch  in  hand!' 

He  began  his  wait.  Heavy  under 
the  caldron  of  the  sky,  the  earth  slept, 
unbreathing.  Objects  trembled  in  the 
heat-haze,  as  if  they  were  seen  through 
the  flame  of  a  fire. 

But  before  fifteen  minutes  had 
passed  he  could  endure  the  waiting  no 
more;  he  wanted  tremendously  to  be 
off,  to  find  a  track,  to  make  his  way 
out  of  this  imaginary  cage  with  its 
disappearing  sides.  Anxious  to  relieve 
himself  of  his  self-imposed  obliga- 
tion, he  insisted  that  his  weakness 
had  passed,  that  there  was  no  justifi- 
cation for  further  delay.  Half  con- 
vinced of  the  merit  of  the  argument, 
in  which,  he  was  sure,  fear  played 
no  part,  he  determined  to  proceed 
slowly  and  methodically,  and,  satis- 
fied to  have  overreached  himself  in 
such  a  manner,  set  oflF  again. 


Ill 


Trusting  to  the  benevolence  of  his 
lucky  star,  he  took  a  definite  direction, 
resolved  to  follow  the  first  track  he 
should  come  upon. 

He  was  still  calm,  despite  the  diffi- 
cult situation.  But  the  strong  light 
made  it  impossible  for  him  to  search 


as  he  wanted  to,  and  he  grew  weak 
again;  his  arms  were  striped  with 
scratches,  his  feet  were  afire,  he  was 
ravenously  hungry.  And  he  was  ob- 
sessed with  the  terror  of  moving  in  a 
circle  from  which  he  would  never  es- 
cape. Time  after  time,  the  sun  helped 
him  follow  a  straight  line. 

At  last  he  reached  the  veldt. 

For  two  hours,  his  eyes  held  by  the 
hands  of  his  watch,  he  scoured  the 
weary  plain  with  hastened  steps  and 
heightened  anxiety  as  time  sped  by. 
While  the  sun  descended  slowly  to  the 
naked  horizon,  a  vague  uneasiness 
possessed  him.  Would  a  tardy  stroke 
of  luck  bring  him  to  the  White  Men's 
Road? 

He  set  off  once  more. 

Down  below,  suddenly  a  somber 
rampart  of  vegetation  stood,  setting 
bounds  to  the  retreating  horizon.  It 
was  the  jungle.  So,  as  the  day  ended, 
he  was  left  with  the  choice  between 
jungle  and  veldt,  the  one  as  hospitable 
as  the  other  for  a  night's  lodging. 

More  than  ever  now  he  wanted  to 
find  a  track,  the  track  that  would  take 
him  back  to  men.  It  was  the  hope  of 
coming  upon  it,  a  hunter's  track,  a 
pathway  made  by  fruit-gatherers, 
perhaps,  that  took  him  to  the  fringe 
of  the  trees.  Feverishly,  with  bent 
back  and  wide  eyes,  he  searched  the 
ground.  There  was  not  the  least  sign. 
His  head  empty,  his  belly  racked  with 
pain,  he  leaned  against  a  tree.  Stupe- 
fied, sodden,  he  could  not  make  up  his 
mind  to  take  to  the  plain  or  the  forest, 
but  he  imagined  himself  to  be  deep 
in  thought. 

Thirst  brought  him  back  to  reality. 
Surely  a  stream  sang  a  few  steps  away, 
under  the  brushwood.  Stretched  on  the 
flat-rocked  bank,  he  drank,  bathed 
his  face  and  neck,  plunged  his  shod 


193^ 


THE  WHITE  MEN'S  ROAD 


[433] 


feet  in  the  current.  But  it  was  a  dismal 
respite. 

A  sound  broke  the  silence.  Uncer- 
tain of  its  reality,  he  held  his  breath, 
listening  intently.  Distant,  dulled,  a 
series  of  distinct  sounds  followed  one 
another  quickly. 

*A  Moi  woodcutter!' 

He  leapt  up,  trembling  from  head 
to  heel.  New  strength  possessed  him. 
To  find  his  way  to  the  Moi,  go  with 
him  to  his  village,  ask  hospitality  for  the 
night  and  be  set  upon  the  right  track 
next  day — what  could  be  simpler.? 

Fatigue,  hunger,  confusion  van- 
ished instantly.  A  fellow-man  was  near. 
It  was  a  revivifying  thought,  and  as 
courage  grew  in  him,  the  weariness 
and  anguish  of  the  day  seemed  like 
dreams.  He  bent  again  to  drink  from 
the  stream,  listened  intently  for  the 
sounds,  measured  the  high  wall  of 
vegetation  with  his  eye,  and  forced  a 
passage  into  the  jungle  as  if  he  were 
pushing  open  the  great  door  of  a 
cathedral. 

Braving  snares  and  stumbling- 
blocks,  hidden  tree-stumps,  saturnine 
briars,  low-hanging  branches,  unseen 
rocks,  shadowed  crevasses,  worn  out 
by  twelve  hours'  heavy  going,  he  went 
nevertheless  light-footed. 

Sometimes  the  sound  of  the  axe 
died.  Then  motionless,  breathing  fast, 
blood  buzzing  in  his  ears,  he  stood 
and  waited.  The  sound  began  anew;  it 
filled  him  with  joy. 

The  day's  heaviness  lifted;  night 
descended,  and  its  numberless  crea- 
tures awakened  and  yawned.  The 
jungle's  poor  humanity,  the  monkeys, 
unused  to  nocturnal  orgies,  clumsy  at 
this  late  hour,  and  tired  with  the  day's 
antics,  leapt  from  branch  to  branch 
seeking  a  safe  shelter  from  beasts  large 
and  small. 


Noblet  went  on,  swallowed  up  in  the 
endless  jungle,  mantled  with  the 
gloom  of  the  dying  day;  flayed,  driven, 
he  hurled  himself  against  ever-recur- 
ring obstacles;  he  waded  through 
swamps  full  of  slimy  mud,  where  ferns 
and  little  cresses  grew. 

Now  the  sounds  were  so  near  he  was 
surprised  not  to  see  the  native.  The 
noise  was  just  a  few  yards  off.  But 
there  was  no  one  there.  Very  carefully 
he  advanced  again,  crouched  on  his 
heels.  Fearful  even  of  the  creaking  of 
his  bones,  bending  his  body  instinc- 
tively, he  assumed  the  position  from 
which  his  ancestors  had  spied  out  the 
land  in  times  of  danger.  Shivers  like 
sea-ripples  ran  over  his  back,  con- 
tracting his  shoulders,  gliding  up  and 
down  his  spine,  converging  in  his 
chest,  to  lose  themselves  in  his  legs. 
Ten,  twenty,  thirty  seconds  he  waited, 
crouching,  in  a  silence  that  seemed 
like  eternity. 

The  sounds  were  not  renewed.  There 
was  a  sudden  echo,  brief  and  sonorous, 
and  Noblet  leapt  from  the  ground  and 
looked  about  him  uncomprehending. 
Now  the  sounds  were  retreating,  be- 
hind him.  Softly  he  followed  them. 
Three  blows  resounded,  clearer  and 
closer  than  ever,  in  the  stillness  of  the 
increasing  twilight.  He  peered  with  all 
his  strength,  hopelessly;  he  was  still 
alone. 

While  he  watched  the  treetops, 
three  more  blows  rang  out  hke  shots. 

Above  him,  high  on  a  branch,  he 
saw  a  bird  with  half-open  beak  utter- 
ing its  night-call. 

His  last  hope  gone,  he  understood 
the  vanity  of  all  thought,  all  decision, 
the  uselessness  of  courage;  a  tide  of 
fragmentary  thoughts  rose  in  him. 
Now  he  lacked  even  so  much  as  a  hope 
that  his  needs  might  be  satisfied;  he 


[434] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


crouched  unmoving,  his  arms  inert, 
his  eyes  wandering. 

'What's  the  use?'  he  answered  him- 
self. 'What  on  earth's  the  use?' 

He  sat  sunk  on  his  legs,  his  head 
bent,  his  eyelids  heavy;  his  arms 
sagged  as  if  they  were  filled  with  saw- 
dust. Overcome  with  weariness,  he 
gave  up  the  struggle.  His  body's  com- 
mands could  go  unheeded  no  longer. 
He  stretched  himself  on  the  ground. 

'Sleep,  that's  all;  I  don't  care 
where!  I  don't  give  a  damn  where!' 


IV 


Over  the  free  horizon  of  the  veldt, 
melted  in  the  copper  mists,  the  sun's 
last  rays  hung  like  gilded  banners  in 
the  sky.  Here,  under  the  shadowing 
trees,  where  increasing  gloom  heralded 
an  end  of  daytime  security,  the  terror 
of  the  coming  darkness  goaded  the 
beasts  into  vigilance.  It  was  a  fearful 
world's  ending  that  renewed  itself 
each  night. 

The  heavy  weight  of  silence  awak- 
ened Noblet.  His  ears  were  empty,  his 
eyes  were  drowned  in  shadows;  his 
breathing  seemed  to  be  the  only  sound 
in  the  world  and  he  himself  the  one 
survivor  on  a  dead  planet. 

'The  night — the  night,'  he  mur- 
mured. 

He  could  not  understand  his  words. 
It  was  like  talking  in  a  foreign  tongue. 
The  words  flew  from  him,  vanishing 
— senseless,  meaningless  bubbles  of 
sound;  his  mind  could  not  follow  them. 

He  heard  a  noise  of  singing.  At  first 
it  was  timid,  intermittent,  then  swelled 
into  a  mighty  chorus.  The  birds  were 
saying  their  sad  or  quarrelsome  good- 
nights.  Each  kind  gathered  together, 
looked  to  see  if  all  were  there,  waited  a 
little  for  latecomers,  and  moved  ofl^ 


together  in  thick  flight,  soon  lost  in 
the  blue  peace  of  the  empty  sky. 
When  all  had  flown,  their  prince,  the 
peacock,  last  on  his  branch,  sounded 
his  rattle-throat  cry.  Silence  dwelt 
again  in  the  sky  and  the  dusk  grew 
deeper. 

Darkness  had  almost  closed  upon 
the  zenith  when  a  lost  deer  began  to 
bellow.  A  roar,  sharp  and  clear,  fol- 
lowed its  cry.  It  was  the  tiger,  pursu- 
ing. 

Noblet  stood  up  suddenly,  murmur- 
ing. He  grasped  the  meaning  of  the 
roar. 

Fear  pushed  him  on;  he  set  oflf 
without  knowing  where  his  steps  were 
tending,  but  aware  that  he  must  go, 
and  that  he  must  give  blustering 
warning  of  his  presence. 

Soon  he  had  himself  in  hand;  he 
reasoned  that  he  would  be  wise  to 
await  the  rising  of  the  moon,  for  the 
most  dangerous  part  of  the  night  was 
still  to  come. 

He  struck  a  match  to  look  at  his 
watch,  but  it  had  stopped;  the  last 
thread  that  bound  him  to  civilization 
was  snapped.  Now  nothing  distin- 
guished him  from  a  savage  but  his 
ignorance  of  the  jungle  and  his  civi- 
lized uselessness. 

It  was  not  so  easy  to  remain  still. 
Inaction  made  his  skin  itch.  He 
wanted  to  move  on,  yet  a  stronger  im- 
pulse stayed  him.  But  he'realized  the 
true  nature  of  the  impulse  and  decided 
to  go  on,  for  he  was  fearful  that  he 
would  be  unable  to  overcome  it  if  he 
delayed. 

Unseeing,  his  stick  held  out  before 
him,  a  hand  protecting  his  face,  he 
went;  heavy,  unbalanced,  raging  and 
cursing  when  he  felt  brave  enough — 
making  as  much  noise  as  he  could. 

After  having  lain  dormant  all  his 


193^ 


THE  WHITE  MEN'S  ROAD 


[435] 


life,  instinct,  that  sixth  sense  of  wild 
creatures,  revived  in  him.  He  knew 
that  animals  watched  him  from  the 
deep  shadows.  The  supple  creepers 
that  fouled  his  legs,  the  night-birds 
that  caressed  his  face  with  cold  wings, 
the  cries,  the  growls,  the  whistlings, 
the  calls,  the  moans,  the  howls  on 
every  side  made  him  stiff  with  fear. 
He  groped  along,  dragging  his 
worn-out  espadrilles;  their  soles  were 
gone. 

He  lost  his  footing  and  tumbled  to 
the  bed  of  a  dried  watercourse.  It  was 
a  lucky  fall,  he  thought.  Under  its 
arches  of  verdure,  the  river  bed  gave 
him  a  sense  of  security,  and  set  him  in 
a  definite  direction.  Now  and  then 
masses  of  ferns,  like  thick  screens  of 
lace,  arose  along  the  pebbly  path.  He 
beat  them  down  with  his  stick,  stun- 
ning himself  with  the  noise  he  made. 
Into  this  tunnel,  where  the  moisture  of 
vegetable  decay  stagnated,  the  cool- 
ness of  the  night  could  not  come.  Very 
rarely  there  were  gaps  in  the  leafage, 
and  he  caught  glimpses  of  a  fiery  sky. 
The  moon  must  be  large  and  red.  It 
struck  his  mind  with  the  dazzling 
precision  of  lightning;  he  knew  that 
he  was  being  followed — that  It  was 
following  him. 

Petrified,  hair  on  end,  he  felt  strong 
enough,  nevertheless,  to  control  his 
flashing  intuition;  he  would  turn  half 
about,  to  see,  to  make  sure.  Yes — he 
could — he  would! 

Slowly,  carefully,  he  pivoted.  Fif- 
teen paces  away,  two  glittering  eyes 
stared. 

He  staggered.  Terror  hung  before 
his  face,  scorched  him  with  its  flame. 

*  I  am  falling !  I  am  falHng !  I  mustn't ! 
I  mustn't!' 

The  noise  of  a  tremendous  scuffling 
broke  on  his  ears.  He  dropped  his 


stick,  his  hat  fell  off;  he  began  to  run 
desperately,  a  straw  borne  on  a  wind 
of  panic.  His  joints  were  sore,  his 
knees  bent  with  fatigue,  but  he  ran. 

Tried  to  the  utmost,  giddy,  broken- 
backed,  he  fell.  'No,  that's  all!  No 
more!  I  can't!  Get  it  over  with,  quick! 
quick!' 

His  closed  eyes  danced  in  a  chaos  of 
stars.  He  wanted  to  supplicate,  cry 
mercy,  howl  aloud.  But  he  choked, 
his  throat  was  stuffed.  His  arm  held 
about  his  face,  he  waited  .  .  .  He 
waited  ...  an  infinity.  .  .  . 

Childishly,  with  all  manner  of 
superstitious  precautions,  just  as  if  he 
were  playing  hide-and-seek,  he  dared 
at  last  to  raise  his  head. 

The  green  eyes  shone  with  im- 
placable hatred,  still  at  the  same  dis- 
tance. The  tiger  was  following  him, 
then,  as  tigers  do  when  they  are  uncer- 
tain about  something.  Perhaps  he  was 
hungry. 

Noblet  shuddered  Hke  a  guilty  crea- 
ture at  the  sight  of  those  eyes.  He 
tried  to  stand  up,  but  he  could  not, 
and  terror  redoubled  within  him. 

He  began  to  make  his  way  on  all 
fours,  groaning,  shaking  with  weak- 
ness, his  knees  and  hands  torn  and 
bloody. 

He  persevered  so  for  hours,  un- 
knowing, without  thought  or  will, 
pressing  down  the  blinding  gulf  that 
hung  giddily  before  him.  .  .  . 


He  came  to  himself  in  the  pink  light 
of  the  dawn.  Stiff  with  pain,  he  could 
not  move  at  first.  But  the  nauseating 
anguish  of  intense  hunger  forced  him 
to  rise. 

The  jungle  was  powdered  with  sun- 
light. It  filled  gradually  with  the  con- 


[436] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


fused,  indefinable,  and  tranquilizing 
murmurs  of  the  life  of  day.  Noblet 
listened,  and  heard  a  cock  crow.  His 
stricken  senses,  at  war  with  his  mind, 
grasped  the  meaning  of  the  sound, 
there  in  the  slow  dawn.  Suddenly, 
furiously,  like  the  last  leap  of  a  fear 
that  has  outlived  its  cause,  hope  leapt 
in  him.  A  cock  was  certainly  no  wild 
bird!  The  thought  gave  him  strength 
enough  to  crawl. 

In  the  midst  of  a  trodden  clearing 
he  saw  a  Moi  village.  In  the  serenity 
of  the  morning,  ranged  round  the 
floor  where  the  rice  was  winnowed, 
the  long  huts  showed  signs  of  life. 

He  crossed  the  enclosure,  and 
stopped,  trembling. 

They  came  out  to  him.  The  whole 
community  gathered  together  to  gape 
at  this  white  man  who  could  not  speak 


but  who  devoured  the  raw  eggs  and 
bananas  they  gave  him. 

'Elanh?'  he  asked  at  last. 

Then  he  slept. 

A  sturdy  hand  awakened  him.  He 
was  being  carried  in  a  litter.  A  war- 
rior shook  him  with  rough  joviality, 
and  pointed  to  a  spot  in  the  dis- 
tance. 

'Elanh!' 

He  saw  the  Road  running  out  to  the 
barrier  of  the  horizon;  the  road,  un- 
tiring, winding,  red;  coiled  in  the 
silence  of  the  veldt,  more  obstinate, 
bloodier,  more  human  than  ever,  un- 
der the  ardent  perpendicular  sun. 

The  White  Men's  Road  .  .  . 

He  sat  tailor-wise  on  his  litter  of 
branches,  his  throat  full  of  little  hic- 
coughs of  joy;  two  tears  trickled  down 
his  cheeks.  He  grinned  stupidly. 


Dachau  Defined 


Karl  Valentin  is  the  popular  German  vaudeville  artist  who  was 
temporarily  suspended  from  the  stage  because  he  poked  fun  at  the 
Nazis.  But  that  has  not  stopped  him.  In  one  of  his  new  acts,  his  partner, 
Liesl  Karlstadt,  asks  him:  "Tell  me,  what  is  this  Dachau  concentration 
camp?'  Valentin  reflects  a  moment.  Then  he  says:  'Imagine  a  great 
big  square.  Around  the  square  there  is  a  thick  wall  six  feet  high.  And 
around  the  wall  there  is  a  very  deep  ditch.  And  the  ditch  is  surrounded 
by  a  multiple  barbed  wire  fence,  charged  with  electricity.  And  on  top 
of  the  wall  machine  guns  have  been  placed,  and  heavily  armed  S.S. 
men  patrol  them.  .  .  .  Even  so,  if  I  really  wanted  to,  I  could  get  in !  * 

— From  the  Neue  Weltbubne^  Prague 


Here,  in  her  own  words,  is  the  story 
of  a  Russian   girl  parachute  jumper. 


Coming 
Down 
to  Earth 


By  Lyubov  Berlin 

Translated  from  Pravda, 
Moscow  Official  Communist  Party  Daily 


I 


N  THE  summer  of  1933  an  ac- 
quaintance invited  me  to  visit  the 
Tushino  flying  field.  On  arriving  I 
looked  around  and  saw  some  tarpaulin 
bags  lying  on  the  ground — they  were 
parachutes.  Presently  an  airplane  took 
off.  All  this  was  so  new  that  I  did  not 
know  where  to  look.  Then  suddenly  I 
hear: — 

'See  him  jump!' 

And  I  see  a  tiny  little  man  dangling 
from  a  white  parasol.  But  I  missed  the 
moment  when  he  jumped. 

Then  the  director  of  the  parachute 
school,  Moshkovski,  said:  'This  time 
I'm  taking  a  girl  up.  This  is  her  second 
jump.' 

It  was  Tassia  Nefedova.  I  looked  at 
her  with  eyes  as  big  as  saucers.  It's 
not  so  surprising  to  see  men  in  soldiers' 
uniforms  jump,  but  a  girl! 

'Nefedova!' 

She  came  over  to  us  gayly  and 
asked:  'Time  to  dress?' 

I  kept  on  looking  at  the  airplane 
and  putting  myself  in  her  place.  Then 
I  saw  her  crawling  out  on  the  wing. 


jumping,  opening  the  parachute.  And 
I  said  to  myself:  'I've  got  to  jump.' 

I  took  to  visiting  the  flying  field 
every  day.  At  that  time  a  small  group 
of  parachute  jumpers  was  being  or- 
ganized there.  I  kept  after  Moshkov- 
ski, and  finally  he  saw  that  I  really 
wanted  to  jump.  It  seems  that  he  was 
trying  me  out — seeing  how  much  I 
really  wanted  to.  At  last  he  consented: 
'Very  well,  get  yourself  examined.'  I 
went  to  see  a  doctor.  My  heart  seemed 
to  be  all  right;  he  examined  me  and 
gave  me  a  certificate  which  I  brought 
to  the  school.  There  they  told  me: — 

'Very  well,  you'll  jump  on  July  27.' 

On  the  morning  of  July  27  I  was 
very  excited.  The  weather  was  fine.  I 
took  a  bus  to  the  flying  field.  When  I 
saw  the  field  in  the  distance  and  the 
airplane  standing  there  ready  to  take 
off,  my  heart  seemed  to  stop.  I  went 
over  to  the  director:  'Am  I  jumping 
today.?' 

'No,  not  today.  I  have  some  stu- 
dents to  take  care  of.  Besides,  the  wind 
is  too  strong.' 


[438] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


The  next  day — the  same  thing.  I 
think  it  was  done  on  purpose.  The 
delay  quieted  me  down.  I  worried  and 
fretted,  and  then  got  over  being  nerv- 
ous. On  August  3  I  came  to  the  flying 
field  again.  But  I  did  not  really  believe 
that  they  would  let  me  jump  this  time. 
On  the  way  the  bus  broke  down.  I  ran 
across  the  flying  field  thinking:  'Prob- 
ably no  parachutes  left.  How  annoy- 
ing!' 

The  sun  had  almost  set.  A  crowd 
gathered  around  me.  It's  always  quite 
an  event  on  the  flying  field  when  a  girl 
takes  her  first  jump.  I  was  not  at  all 
afraid.  My  pulse  was  a  little  fast,  but 
that  was  from  a  sort  of  joyous  excite- 
ment— *At  last,  I'm  going  to  do  it!* 
Everybody  was  looking  at  me,  and  I 
thought  to  myself:  'Wait,  I'll  show 
you!* 

I  got  into  the  airplane.  I  was  warned 
once  again:  'If  you  don*t  feel  right 
on  the  wing,  if  you  are  nervous  or  un- 
certain— don't  try  to  jump.  Just  get 
back  into  the  cock-pit.* 

We  took  oflF.  I  looked  down  and 
thought:  'Here  I  am  going  up  in  the 
airplane.  But  I'll  be  coming  down 
alone!*  It  was  very  easy  to  climb  out 
on  the  wing.  I  sat  down  and  waited. 
The  wind  is  not  as  strong  as  it  seems 
at  first.  When  the  throttle  is  cut,  you 
can  easily  talk  to  the  pilot.  I  took  hold 
of  the  ring.  Then  I  let  go  with  my  left 
hand,  with  which  I  was  holding  on  to 
a  strut,  turned  around  to  the  left,  and 
immediately  jumped.  It  felt  as  if  I 
just  let  go  of  the  strut  and  the  wind 
carried  me  oflF. 

The  first  sensation  is  that  the  air 
around  you  is  extremely  elastic.  First 
you  think  you  are  falling  into  empti- 
ness and  then  you  stop  feeling  the 
speed  with  which  you  are  falling  be- 
cause the  minute  you're  off  the  plane 


you  have  pulled  the  ring,  there's  a 
jerk,  and  the  parachute  opens  out 
above  you.  I  looked  up  and  saw  a  bright, 
dappled  dome  shutting  out  the  sky. 
And  immediately  I  felt  very  calm.  All 
the  tension  passed.  First  there  was  the 
noise  of  the  motor,  then  the  jump,  and 
now  suddenly— silence.  I  looked  around 
and  saw  the  airplane  flying  by.  And  I 
felt  terribly  happy  that  I  had  jumped 
without  balking.  The  whole  thing  is 
not  at  all  as  frightening  as  people  say. 
On  the  contrary,  it  is  very  pleasant. 
You  experience  a  sort  of  purely  moral 
satisfaction  because  you  have  mas- 
tered your  excitement  and  jumped 
after  all. 

I  went  home.  All  the  folks  were 
asleep.  Next  morning  I  told  them,  and 
the  news  created  great  excitement.  I 
had  to  promise  never  to  do  it  again. 
But  all  I  could  think  of  was  the  next 
jump.  The  following  day  I  went  back 
to  the  flying  field,  and  from  that  time 
on  I  would  go  up  in  the  plane  when- 
ever the  weather  was  good. 

After  a  while  I  started  thinking 
about  delayed  jumps.  It  seemed  in- 
credible to  be  able  to  fall  without 
pulling  the  ring  immediately.  I  wanted 
badly  to  do  it,  but  at  the  same  time  I 
was  afraid.  I  asked  all  my  friends 
about  how  they  made  their  delayed 
jumps.  Everybody  told  me  something 
different. 

That  summer  I  asked  rny  father  to 
come  to  the  field.  He  was  nervous.  He 
kept  on  following  me  around  and  ask- 
ing: 'Going. to  jump  today?* 

'Yes,  and  a  delayed  jump,  too!' 

They  told  me  to  take  eight  seconds. 
In  such  cases  I  count  eight  with 
intervals.  Some  people  count  until 
sixteen,  others  count  like  this :  one-hun- 
dred-one, one-hundred-two,  one-hun- 
dred-three, and  so  on  until  you  reach 


193^ 


COMING  DOWN  TO  EARTH 


[439] 


one-hundred-eight.  It's  all  a  question 
of  convenience. 

That  day  I  jumped  from  the  air- 
plane as  usual.  Only  this  time  I  held 
my  left  hand  with  my  right  to  stop 
myself  from  pulling  the  ring  before  I 
was  supposed  to.  Then  I  was  falling. 
The  ring  was  in  its  proper  place.  The 
air  around  me  felt  buoyant  and  brac- 
ing. It  is  the  most  pleasant  sensation 
in  the  world  to  feel  yourself  falling  in 
space  and  to  know  that  any  minute 
you  can  open  the  parachute.  I  grounded. 
Father  came  running  to  me  and  helped 
to  extricate  me  from  the  parachute. 
The  men  told  me  later  that  while  I 
was  up  he  kept  on  walking  in  circles, 
looking  up  at  the  sky,  and  almost  went 
frantic  counting  the  seconds. 

From  that  time  on  I  always  took 
delayed  jumps. 

On  May  30,  1935,  I  took  a  para- 
chute jump  from  a  glider.  Only  three 
or  four  men  in  the  Soviets  had  ever 
tried  to  do  this  before;  and  no  woman 
had  ever  done  it  anywhere.  The  glider 
was  piloted  by  one  of  our  best  pilots — 
Malyugin.  When  we  separated  from 
the  airplane,  the  noise  of  the  motors 
stopped,  and  it  was  possible  to  talk 
without  any  trouble.  I  said  to  the 
pilot: — 

*  Go  left.  I  know  a  river-beach  there 
that's  just  right.' 

Malyugin  said:  'All  right.'  But 
every  once  in  a  while  he'd  look  back  at 
me  anxiously.  I  couldn't  help  laughing 
at  him.  His  fears  seemed  so  absurd. 
Never  before  had  I  had  such  a  calm, 
easy  time  of  it.  Evidently  the  noiseless 


flight  of  the  glider  is  soothing  to  the 
nerves.  We  came  to  the  beach.  I  said: 
'Let's  go!' 

It.  was  like  jumping  down  from  a 
chair. 

The  speed  at  which  a  ship  is  going 
affects  the  opening  of  the  parachute. 
The  glider  does  not  go  fast  enough.  In 
order  to  gather  speed,  you  have  to  de- 
lay a  bit;  then  the  parachute  will  open 
as  it  should.  Malyugin  told  me  later 
that  I  forgot  to  tell  him  that  I  would 
delay  opening  and  he  was  scared  to 
death.  When  you  look  down  from  a 
glider  which  is  moving  slowly,  it  looks 
as  if  the  parachute  jumper  is  already 
close  to  the  ground.  He  told  the  com- 
rades later: — 

'First  she  sits  there  and  laughs. 
Next  thing  I  know,  she's  gone.  I  look 
down  and  see  her  falling,  falling,  and 
the  parachute  isn't  open!  I  look  again 
and  she  is  still  falling.  The  third  time  I 
looked,  the  parachute  opened.  It  was 
like  a  load  falling  off  my  chest  .  .  .' 

People  say  I  am  courageous.  Per- 
haps. I  know  I  never  was  afraid  of  any- 
thing. I  never  minded  going  home  late 
all  by  myself.  And  I  used  to  swim  out 
as  far  as  I  could.  But  now  they  call  me 
a  dare-devil.  Well,  that  is  nonsense. 
The  more  you  learn  about  parachute 
jumping,  the  more  you  see  that  there 
is  nothing  wonderful  about  it.  The 
m^ain  thing  is  accuracy  and  self-con- 
trol. 

\0n  March  26,  ^93^y  Lyubov  Berlin 
was  instantly  killed  when,  after  a  de- 
layed jump,  her  parachute  failed  to 
open  in  time.  Editor. 1 


LETTERS  AND  THE  ARTS 


The  Age  of  Symbolism 

L/ET  this  year  be  underscored  as  the 
fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  symbolist 
movement.  For  it  was  in  the  year  1886 
that  the  French  poet  Jean  Moreas,  in  an 
article  in  the  Figaro^  proposed  that  the 
term  '  symbolism '  be  applied  to  a  tendency 
which,  up  to  that  time,  had  passed  under 
the  name  of  'decadence.'  His  argument 
was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  simply  a  matter 
of  taking  the  bull  by  the  horns.  The  word 
'decadent'  had  a  negative  value,  implying 
at  once  the  decline  of  a  former  tradition 
and  the  surrender  to  that  premise.  The 
early  Verlaine,  for  instance,  when  he  said: 
'  I  am  the  Empire  at  the  end  of  its  deca- 
dence,' merely  voiced  the  skeptic  resigna- 
tion of  Renan  and  found  both  his  subject 
and  his  absolute  therein.  So  with  the 
other  spirits  of  that  particular  epoch,  who, 
because  they  were  bred  on  a  proposition 
which  had  ceased  to  have  reality,  nurtured 
the  only  consolation  which  it  was  possible 
to  have  on  the  same  terms — namely, 
sentimental  moaning.  Taking  what  shreds 
of  glory  were  still  there,  they  wove  them 
into  sharp  and  voluptuous,  but  ineffectual 
and  hopeless,  patterns. 

It  was  at  this  point  that  Moreas,  hurd- 
ling into  the  breach,  took  up  the  most 
salient  characteristics  of  the  decadents 
and  endowed  them  with  the  dignity  of 
values.  Replying  to  Paul  Bourde,  who  had 
reviled  the  tendency  from  the  hard- 
headed  columns  of  the  T^empSy  Moreas 
declared  for  the  achievements  of  the 
group  at  the  same  time  that  he  attacked 
the  sterility  of  both  the  realists  and  the 
Parnassians,  then  at  their  apogee.  Setting 
aside  the  term  'decadent'  as  a  willful 
designation  of  inferiority,  he  pleaded  for 
the  name  'symbolism'  as  the  truest 
standard  of  the  poets.  For  under  this 
banner,  with  its  greatest  accent  on  the 
impersonal    aesthetic    consideration,    the 


artists  could  realize  themselves  regardless 
of  the  burden  of  past  sins  and  glories. 
In  other  words,  whereas  under  any  other 
colors  they  were  harnessed  to  the  yoke 
of  conditioned  judgment, — and  therefore 
destined  to  inferiority, — as  symbolists 
they  could  be  free. 

Thus,  presented  with  a  package  of 
negative  values  suddenly  turned  positive, 
the  new  school  of  symbolist  poets  arose. 
Yet  what  were  these  new  positive  values? 
In  the  first  place,  the  realists  were  bound 
to  nature,  to  society.  To  which  the  sym- 
bolists replied:  'Our  subject  is  ourselves, 
and  we  are  concerned  only  with  our  art.' 
The  Parnassians  were  bound  to  form. 
To  which  the  symbolists  said:  'There  is  no 
form,  except  as  we  choose  to  create  it.' 
All  literature  had  heretofore  been  de- 
pendent upon  subject,  i.e.  subject-matter. 
To  which  the  symbolists  countered:  'A 
work  of  art  is  its  own  subject,  lives  of  it- 
self and  should  be  approached  only  on 
these  terms.' 

What,  then,  guided,  or  could  guide, 
this  new  school?  The  answer  is:  self. 
Taking  it  for  granted  that  only  the  true 
artist  dared  enter  the  province  of  true  art, 
the  symbolists  let  each  man  be  a  law  unto 
himself. 

The  question  then  presents  itself: 
what  was  the  symbolist  conception  of  the 
artist?  Edmund  Wilson,  in  his  study  of 
symbolism,  selected  Villiers  de  I'lsle- 
Adam's  Axel  as  the  archetype  of  the 
symbolist  hero  and  artist,  a  sort  of  trans- 
ported Wagnerian  character,  who,  at  one 
juncture,  says  typically:  'Our  dreams  are 
so  beautiful!  Why  realize  them?'  This 
worldly  renunciation,  in  favor  not  of 
heavenly  bliss  but  of  sensual  reward  in 
terms  of  words,  rhythms,  new  forms,  new 
revelations  in  the  depths  of  the  sub- 
conscious ego — such  was  the  material  and 
occupation  of  the  symbolist  poet,  and  his 
sole  desideratum. 


LETTERS  AND  THE  ARTS 


[441] 


Had  this  movement,  such  as  it  was, 
expired  at  birth,  there  would  be  no  object 
today  in  commemorating  its  anniversary. 
But  no  such  ignoble  destiny  awaited  this 
bright  and  kicking  baby.  On  the  contrary 
the  symbolist  movement  not  only  thrived 
and  flowered  in  its  younger  days,  but 
eflFected  a  sort  of  rebirth  after  the  War 
under  the  names  of  dadaism,  surrealism, 
etc.,  etc. 

And  its  influence  on  other  arts  was 
sweeping  and  tremendous.  Because  of  its 
repudiation  of  traditional  forms,  and  the 
deference  paid  to  those  forms,  it  altered 
the  whole  conception  of  the  work  of  art 
and  the  task  of  the  artist  toward  his  work. 
The  entire  post-impressionist  movement 
in  painting,  for  instance,  the  urge  toward 
the  abstract  known  as  cubism,  is  directly 
derivative,  on  its  ideological  (literary) 
side,  of  symbolism.  Likewise,  the  modern 
movement  in  music,  commencing  with 
Debussy,  and  continuing  through  a 
composer  like  Schonberg  (for  whom  the 
subject  of  music  is  his  own  music  itself, 
worked  out  according  to  its  own  condi- 
tions), is  a  counterpart  of  the  same  general 
tendency.  Examples,  in  fact,  may  be 
drawn  from  every  phase  of  the  arts  during 
the  past  fifty  years,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
revolution  wrought  in  pure  literature  by 
such  authors  as  Mallarme,  Joyce,  Cocteau, 
and  among  Americans  Stein  and  T.  S. 
Eliot. 

And  despite  hasty  assertions  to  the 
contrary  the  symbolist  movement  is  still 
with  us  today.  There  has,  to  be  sure,  as 
Andre  Gide  predicted  fully  ten  years  ago, 
been  recently  a  violent  return  to  nature. 
Practitioners  in  all  the  arts  have,  under 
the  stress  of  economic  and  social  forces, 
felt  the  urgency  of  the  subject,  the  press 
of  'life'  against  the  portals  of  'art.'  Yet 
at  the  same  time  that  they  violate  the 
symbolist  creed  of  the  irreconcilability  of 
the  real  and  artistic  worlds,  they  are  true 
children  of  the  symbolist  revolt  in  numer- 
ous respects. 

Take  the  matter  of  the  great  technical 
revisions  in   form  which  have  occurred 


within  living  memory.  When  a  contempo- 
rary painter  or  poet  presents  us  with  his 
work,  it  is  no  longer  relevant  that  the 
production  be  classified  either  according 
to  its  subject  or  according  to  its  tangible 
pattern.  It  is,  of  course,  possible  to  classify, 
but  not  so  much  in  our  time  according  to 
externals  as  according  to  the  tradition  of 
approach.  And  if  the  approach  is  governed 
— as  it  seems  to  be  today — not  by  ex- 
trinsic formulae  but  by  organic  rhythm, 
with  the  result  that  the  finished  work  of 
art  takes  on  a  form  conditioned  by  its 
angle  of  conception, — then  the  producing 
artist  has  the  symbolists  to  thank  for  his 
success,  no  matter  how  emphatically  he 
personally  may  deny  any  residence  what- 
ever within  the  ivory  tower. 

So,  in  desiring  to  fete  the  year  1936, 
conscientious  artists  are  also,  in  a  manner 
of  speaking,  desirous  of  reassuring  them- 
selves. There  is,  in  fact,  something  rather 
comforting  to  a  man  in  the  belief  that  he 
proceeds  logically  from  a  valid  tradition. 
And  thus  it  is  a  question,  now,  of  returning 
to  origins,  reexamining  them,  and  dis- 
covering what  progress  has  been  made  on 
the  black  side  of  the  ledger.  In  this  atti- 
tude, indeed,  a  group  of  writers  in  Paris 
have  constituted  themselves  into  a  com- 
mittee to  commemorate,  fittingly,  the 
fiftieth  year  of  life  of  a  baby  now  grown 
into  a  great  big  man,  perhaps  the  only 
truly  international  gentleman  (and  I 
think  he  is  entitled  to  the  noun)  now  alive. 
— Paul  Schofield 

Films  Abroad 

In  the  commercial  film,  the  greatest 
national  advance  seems  to  have  occurred 
in  England.  Until  recently,  in  fact,  British 
pictures  were  all  but  impossible,  at  least 
to  any  non-Britisher.  Acting  was  poor, 
story  local  at  best,  and  the  whole  move- 
ment was  as  tedious  in  pattern  as  the  late 
Victorian  novel.  But  as  if  these  defects 
were  not  alone  a  sufficient  doom,  photog- 
raphy was  consistently  so  bad  that  it  was 
painful  even  to  look  at  the  pictures. 


[442] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


Several  years  ago,  however,  somebody 
injected  a  shot  of  digitalis.  Perhaps  capi- 
tal was  found.  Perhaps  even  the  British 
public  was  aroused.  At  any  event  British 
cinema  suddenly  blossomed  forth  with  a 
vitality  that  was  all  the  more  amazing 
because  so  unexpected.  Laughton  ap- 
peared in  Henry  VIIL  The  tone  was 
worldly,  performance  superb,  tempo  ex- 
cellent and  photography,  above  all, 
flawless.  The  picture  was  successful  and 
deserved  to  be.  But  most  important  was 
that  a  standard  had  been  set  and  hence- 
forth people  would  expect  things  from 
the  British  studios. 

Alexander  Korda  is  of  course  Holly- 
wood, hardly  more  and  never  less.  But  the 
Hollywood  technique,  in  spite  of  all  that 
may  be  said  against  the  product,  is  some- 
thing. Russia  may  be  more  interested  in 
the  social  document,  all  but  absent  in  the 
American  film.  The  American  film,  how- 
ever, has  it  all  over  the  average  Russian 
picture  in  the  matter  of  rhythm,  pace, 
tempo,  as  the  play  with  movement  is 
called.  And  it  is  precisely  this  same  kind  of 
pace,  essentially  of  the  cinema  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  stage,  that  Korda 
has  adapted  to  the  British  picture.  The 
material  may  be,  and  usually  is,  gro- 
tesquely unreal;  but  the  manner  of 
handling  it  is  the  something  that  the  world 
must  reckon  with. 

In  view  of  Korda's  stimulant,  therefore, 
it  is  amusing  and  also  a  little  bewildering 
to  read  this  from  Alistair  Cooke,  movie 
reviewer  of  the  Listener,  London  weekly: 
'It  has  been  a  constant  grumble  of  mine 
that  British  [sic]  films  have  always  done 
one  of  three  things:  that  they  stayed 
indoors  and  tried  to  present  an  English 
newspaper  office  not  as  it  is  but  as  it  might 
be  if  it  were  run  by  Clark  Gable  and  Lee 
Tracy;  or  that  they  went  outdoors  and 
took  charming,  wistful  stills  of  bridges 
and  running  brooks — and  called  it  Eng- 
land; or  that  they  went  both  indoors  and 
out,  sometime  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
and  gave  a  clear  romantic  picture  of  the 
Hungarian  view  of  English  history:  card- 


board castles,  a  great  deal  of  filtered 
cloud,  a  kingly  wink  or  two,  mention  of  the 
"wenches,"  and  bustling,  patriotic  laugh- 
ter in  the  kitchens,  where  the  lambs — the 
lambs  of  Old  England — were  being  slaugh- 
tered.' Then,  after  this  is  laid  down,  Mr. 
Cooke  goes  on  to  laud  two  recent  English 
pictures,  The  Clairvoyant,  and  Turn  of  the 
Tide,  'full  of  English  faces  and  English 
voices.' 

It  is  not,  obviously,  my  intention  to 
underestimate  the  quality  of  the  English 
face  and  the  English  voice  in  an  English 
picture.  The  more  the  merrier,  in  fact, 
and  let  English  pictures  be  full  to  the  brim 
of  English  things.  The  point,  however,  is 
the  same  that  is  made  to  aspirant  writers: 
you  can't  write  about  boring  people  bor- 
ingly.  If  there  is  a  rhythm  to  English  faces 
and  voices  and  things,  as  of  course  there  is, 
let  this  rhythm  be  brought  out,  let  it  be 
emphasized  and  selected  and  encouraged 
so  that  it  becomes  the  rhythm  of  the 
whole  picture,  as  pictures  are  capable  of 
conveying  rhythms.  Korda  may  merely 
have  imported  a  pulse  that  is  essentially 
American.  But  at  least  he  sent  the  English 
scurrying  about  looking  for  one  of  their 
own. 

As  for  movies  elsewhere,  I  find  little 
significant  development  within  the  last 
couple  of  years.  Germany,  whose  F.  W. 
Murnau  brought  the  silent  picture  to  its 
final  perfection  in  The  Last  Laugh,  has 
now  become  completely  silent  itself. 
And  much  the  same  may  be  said  of  Italy, 
whose  film  production  under  Mussolini 
amounts  to  nothing  in  the  international 
market. 

Russia  and  France  remain.  In  the  former 
country  a  standard  was  set  many  years 
ago.  Eisenstein's  Potemkin  was,  and  re- 
mains, a  high-water  mark  in  the  entire 
Russian  output.  For  action  suited  to  story, 
for  continuity  and  unity,  for  singleness  of 
eflPect,  it  is  perhaps  the  most  nearly  perfect 
movie  that  was  ever  made.  Since  that 
time,  however,  Soviet  films  have  had  their 
ups  and  downs.  Another  high  was  again 
reached  about  five  years  ago  with  The 


^93^ 


LETTERS  AND  THE  ARTS 


[443]    '"^^*y 


Road  to  Life,  but  since  then,  with  several 
exceptions,  their  pictures  have  too  often 
erred  in  the  direction  of  over-decoration 
where  there  should  have  been  movement 
in  terms  of  character,  idea,  substance. 
The  exceptions,  although  hardly  in  the 
same  class  with  the  above-mentioned,  are 
Chapayev  and  We  Are  From  Kronstadt. 
The  latter,  incidentally,  is  in  many 
respects  an  effort  to  reproduce  the  success 
of  Potemkin  via  the  formula.  Also,  and 
quite  apart  from  anything  else,  Gulliver 
should  be  noted  as  a  curiously  successful 
example  of  what  can  be  done  with  puppets 
in  films. 

France  and  the  world  generally  found 
in  Rene  Clair  a  director  of  genuine  talent. 
Here  was  something  new,  a  personality, 
a  charm,  a  real  distinction.  But,  what  was 
infinitely  more,  these  qualities  were  con- 
veyed through  a  subtle  mastery  of  the 
whole  technique  of  the  film,  from  the 
initial  casting  down  to  the  last  fadeout. 
The  successes,  and  they  were  real  suc- 
cesses in  that  even  the  intellectuals  were 
pleased,  began  with  The  Italian  Straw 
Hat  (1928)  and  are  not  over  yet,  since  the 
recent  'The  Ghost  Goes  West,  although  pro- 
duced by  Korda  in  England,  bore  the 
finest  Clair  stamp. 

I   speak  of  Clair  here  because,  com- 


pared to  his  pictures,  the  rest  of  the 
French  output  lacks  either  the  imprint 
of  a  personality  or,  on  the  other  hand,  a 
distinctive  spirit  of  its  own.  Which  is  not 
to  say  that  competent  pictures  have  not 
been  made.  Poil  de  Garotte,  for  instance,  a 
few  years  back,  was  a  simple  pathetic  tale 
extremely  well  done. 

This  year,  however,  I  have  seen  only 
one  French  picture  of  indisputable  high 
merit:  Maria  Chapdelaine.  The  story,  as 
all  fine  stories  should  be,  is  plain.  But  here 
the  camera  was  taken  out  of  doors,  in  the 
north  country  of  Quebec  specifically,  and 
the  results  in  photography  are  superb. 
Against  this  powerful  visual  background, 
then,  the  tale  unfolds,  the  story  of  the 
well-known  novel.  Plenty  of  sobs — if  you 
will.  But  the  quality  of  the  picture  is  so 
obvious  that  many,  I  feel,  neglected  to 
reason  why.  I  therefore  propose.  First,  it 
stuck  religiously  to  the  folk.  Second,  it 
avoided  those  strokes  of  theater  which 
mar  the  American  adaptations.  And 
lastly,  it  used  nature  not  to  melodrama- 
tize  the  story,  but  to  explain  the  charac- 
ters. These  three  characteristics,  not  to 
mention  more,  made  Maria  Chapdelaine, 
if  not  an  epoch-maker,  at  least  a  first-rate 
piece  of  work. 

P.  S. 


-.^^^ 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


Through  Pink  Glasses  Darkly 

The  Rise  of  European  Liberalism.  By 
Harold  J.  Laski.  London:  George  Allen 
and  Unwin.  1936. 

(Keith  Feiling  in  the  Observer,  London) 

PRIVATE  WILLIS,  that  robust  expo- 
nent of  liberalism,  admitted  not  only 
that  he  'was  an  intellectual  chap,'  but  that 
'he  thought  of  things  that  would  astonish 
you.' 

To  what  is  astonishing  in  this  book  we 
shall  come  later.  First  let  it  be  said  that 
it  is  in  artistry  a  model;  fertile  in  idea, 
sincere  and  often  eloquent  in  expression, 
a  solid  stretch  of  fine  political  prose.  On 
the  other  hand  it  is  excessively  allusive, 
sparkling  with  familiar  allusion  to  per- 
sonages of  whom  most  of  us  have  never 
heard;  while  its  reasonableness  clothes  a 
hard,  dogmatic  core — so  much  so  that 
when,  as  very  frequently  happens,  Pro- 
fessor Laski  repeats  'it  is  hardly  too  much 
to  say,'  one  can  be  tolerably  certain  that 
it  is  too  much  by  half. 

His  title  is  a  little  delusive,  for  his 
material  is  almost  wholly  taken  from 
England  and  France,  nor  is  he  so  much 
interested  in  the  birth  of  liberalism  as  in 
seeing  that  it  is  given  speedy  death  and 
decent  burial.  He  has  had  his  predecessors: 
in  Catholics  who  have  dated  from  the 
Reformation  the  end  of  a  balanced  so- 
ciety, in  democrats  who  have  seen  in 
Protestantism  a  creed  only  for  the  rich, 
in  Tories  who  trace  back  to  the  Puritan 
the  destruction  of  the  State.  He  has  ab- 
sorbed them  all,  from  the  Levelers  and  the 
French  Leaguers  to  Marx,  to  Max  Weber 
or  the  critics  of  the  American  Supreme 
Court. 

Meaning  by  liberalism  not  just  a 
party  scheme  but  a  social  dialectic,  a 
continuous  epoch  of  the  human  mind,  he 
has  convinced  himself  that  it  deserved  to 


die,  and  that  its  doom  was  written  in  its 
beginning. 

'What  produced  liberalism  was  the 
emergence  of  a  new  economic  society  at 
the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages;'  as  a  doctrine 
it  was  'a  by-product  of  the  effort  of  the 
middle  class  to  win  its  place  in  the  sun;' 
'it  was  connected,  in  an  inescapable  way, 
with  the  ownership  of  property.'  First 
striking  down  the  Church  whose  august 
shadow  lay  across  its  path,  in  the  seven- 
teenth century  this  middle  class  began  to 
depose  the  State,  its  old  partner,  and  in 
the  eighteenth  converted  its  universal 
principle  into  a  particular  armor  for  those 
with  great  possessions.  Not  general  well- 
being,  but  the  individual's  material  wealth 
increasingly  swayed  the  rulers  of  every 
progressive  State  from  Elizabeth  to  the 
great  War.  To  secure  their  result,  they 
brandished  the  name  of  'liberty,'  de- 
vised the  philosophy  of  the  contract, 
turned  Christianity  itself  into  a  police 
constable,  swept  away  all  restrictions  of 
birth  or  creed.  Toleration  was  thus  but  a 
secondary  product  of  their  business  sense, 
while  their  'liberty'  was  restricted  to 
those  with  property  to  defend. 

'England  in  the  seventeenth  century  is 
the  triumph  of  bourgeois  virtue.'  As  the 
next  wore  on,  utility  became  a  religion, 
success  a  gospel,  and  'the  nexus  between 
master  and  man  is  purely  economic' 
Though  the  bourgeois  was  himself  free,  it 
was  'a  necessary  outcome'  of  economic 
liberalism  to  rivet  chains  upon  the  worker; 
for,  'given  the  nature  of  the  liberal  State, 
all  questions  had  ultimately  to  be  referred 
to  the  essential  motive  upon  which  the 
liberal  State  was  built — the  motive  of 
profit  making.'  And  therefore  it  must  fall 
— '  prisoner  of  the  end  it  had  been  destined 
to  serve,'  and  blind  to  the  truth  that  its 
principle  was  moribund. 

So,  after  many  flashes  of  illustration 
from  great  and  obscure  names,  ends  the 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[445] 


argument,  on  a  somber  note  of  'a  long 
period  of  winter,'  with  only  the  vaguest 
glimmer  of  a  future  spring.  Whoever 
reads  may  well  feel  its  power,  even  if 
unable  to  admit  either  premises  or  con- 
clusion. 

It  is  not  the  historian's  duty,  yet,  to 
discuss  Professor  Laski's  reading  of  our 
own  day;  whether  the  disputable  view 
that  Italian  Fascism  was  brought  about 
by  the  owners  of  economic  power,  or  the 
claim  that  taxable  capacity  has  been 
exhausted  under  the  profit-making  system 
— that  is,  if  compared  with  any  other.  Nor 
need  he  show  any  jealous  ardor  to  defend 
the  social  outlook  of  Cobdenites  or 
Utilitarians. 

Very  different  must  his  reflections  be 
upon  the  method  whereby  Professor 
Laski  has  huddled  four  centuries  into  one 
narrow  bed,  stretching  their  limbs  at  will, 
walling  them  off  from  what  has  gone  be- 
fore. So  Hooker  must  be  made  almost 
wholly  rational  and  utilitarian;  gone  are 
the  first  four  centuries,  sunk  is  the  orbis 
terrarum.  As  for  Burke,  'the  central  clue' 
to  his  anti-democracy  lies  in  his  economic 
teaching.  No  sense  of  a  relation  between 
property  and  power  enlightened  the 
democrats  who  clamored  for  Parliamen- 
tary reform  and  attacked  sinecures. 
Cromwell  headed  a  'middle-class  rebel- 
lion' against  the  Stuarts;  the  class  which 
included  half  the  Peerage  and  the  Colonel 
Prides.  It  was  on  the  question  of  property 
that  Presbyterians  and  Independents  fell 
asunder,  and  the  Restoration  was  'a  com- 
bination of  men  of  property  in  all  classes 
against  a  social  revolution  which  they 
vaguely  felt  to  be  threatening.'  Again,  the 
spoil  of  the  monasteries  did  nothing  for 
the  common  welfare;  dare  we  mention  the 
British  Navy  and  six  bishoprics?  Eliza- 
beth's Government  aimed  no  longer  at 
'the  good  life  but  the  attainment  of 
wealth.' 

DESPITE,  then,  separate  passages  of 
excellent  analysis,  the  theme,  as  a  whole, 
has   involved   conclusions   which   are   at 


conflict  with  all  the  evidence,  short- 
circuitings,  inversions,  paradoxes.  We 
read,  for  instance,  that  the  liberal  State 
'accepted,  after  a  century  and  a  half  of 
bitter  struggle,  the  economic  necessity  of 
religious  toleration;'  was  it,  indeed,  the 
hard-faced  business  man  who  asked  that 
boon?  Or  that  the  bourgeoisie  adapted 
'first  religion,  then  culture  to  its  pur- 
poses— the  State  was  the  last  of  its  con- 
quests;' a  curious  order  for  an  unspiritual 
tribe,  and  one  which  Elizabethan  bur- 
gesses would  have  hardly  endorsed. 

If  neither  religion  nor  race,  neither 
nationality  nor  law  existed,  there  would  be 
much  to  be  said  for  the  thesis,  but  they 
will  keep  breaking  in.  Professor  Laski 
himself  admits  'a  grave  anachronism'  in 
Weber  and  his  disciples,  who  have  iden- 
tified the  triumph  of  capitalism  with  the 
arrival  of  the  Protestants.  But  he  refutes 
them  by  emptying  the  liberal  philosophy 
of  any  real  religious  content. 

But  was  the  ethic  of  private  property 
the  origin  and  the  continuous  motive  of 
liberalism?  Surely  not,  whether  we  take 
that  word  in  its  narrow  or  a  broader 
sense,  and  we  do  history  wrong,  being  so 
majestical,  to  depict  it  as  an  unending 
means  test.  Those  who  first  resisted  the 
new  State  did  so  in  the  name  of  the  spirit; 
their  successors  continued  to  resist  in  the 
name  of  law. 

And  here  emerges  the  fallacy  of  cutting 
history  into  economic  categories.  For  to 
derive  liberalism,  in  any  sense,  simply 
from  Renaissance  and  Reformation  is  to 
cut  its  genealogy  in  half,  to  cut  ofi^  the 
medieval  Church  and  the  medieval  law, 
which  had  accepted,  under  different  sanc- 
tions doubtless,  and  continued  to  protect, 
the  rights  of  all  owners  of  the  means  of 
production.  What  but  property  explains 
the  intense  individualism  at  the  heart  of 
the  medieval  village,  or  what  else  the 
history  of  medieval  Flanders?  'Take  but 
degree  away,'  and  you  can  cut  your  his- 
tory what  lengths  you  like.  Individualism, 
of  course,  there  was  implicit  in  liberalism, 
but,   as   a  motive,   neither   isolated   nor 


[446] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


unique.  What  'bourgeois  virtue'  cannot 
be  found  in  the  Old  Testament;  what 
private  property  had  to  do  with  liberalism 
in  Spain;  how  monasteries  survived  in 
hundreds  in  the  France  of  Voltaire;  or 
what  is  the  fate  of  minorities  when  prop- 
erty disappears — such  questions  and  a 
thousand  like  them  leap  to  the  eye, 
defying  Professor  Laski's  strait  formula. 
A  last  plea.  Could  he  not  use  his  great 
influence  to  banish  the  word  *  tempo '  from 
our  political  language,  to  drive  the  thing 
into  a  corner  and  hit  it  on  its  horrid  head 
until  it  dies? 

[Harold  Laski's  The  Rise  of  European 
Liberalism  will  be  published  in  the 
United  States  by  Harper  and  Brothers^ 
New  Tork.] 

The  New  Celine 

MoRT  A  Credit.  By  Louis  Ferdinand  Ce- 
line. Paris:  Deno'el  et  Steele.  1936. 
(Ramon  Fernandez  in  Marianne,  Paris) 

TF  THE  critic  had  the  right  to  imitate 
the  style  of  the  author  he  is  reviewing, 
I  should  take  this  occasion  to  cry:  'There's 
a  chap  for  you,  this  Celine!  He's  a  hot 
number,  Ferdinand  is!'  Then  I  should 
immodestly  try  to  keep  this  imitation  up 
to  the  end  of  the  article;  and  I  should  be 
wrong.  Nothing  seems  easier  than  Mr. 
Celine's  style:  but  actually  nothing  is 
harder,  for  its  eflPects  are  achieved  through 
a  sort  of  incantation,  a  state  of  mental 
agitation  and  improvization  somewhat 
similar  to  that  of  a  whirling  dervish.  In 
short  I  hold  that  Mr.  Celine's  style  is  one 
of  the  most  significant  of  our  times,  and 
the  proof  that  it  is  a  true  style  and  not  a 
veneer  of  affectation  lies  in  the  fact  that 
one  could  not  analyze  it  clearly  except  by 
analyzing  the  author's  trend  of  thought. 

But  first  of  all  I  ought  to  say  something 
about  the  subject  of  Death  on  Credit.  To 
tell  the  truth,  it  is  a  universal  subject,  or 
rather  it  is  the  universe  as  seen  in  one 
man's  mind — and  not  a  commonplace 
mind  at  that.  In  his  Voyage  au  Bout  de  la 


Nuit,  Mr.  Celine  displayed  a  certain 
amount  of  timidity.  He  remained  half- 
concealed  behind  his  hero,  Bardamu,  who 
was  in  a  way  his  astral  body.  In  Death  on 
Credit  everything  leads  one  to  believe 
that  the  author  is  telling  his  own  story, 
that  he  is  bequeathing  his  own  memories 
to  posterity.  But  these  memories,  if  I  may 
say  so,  are  symbolic.  Bardamu,  become 
Ferdinand, — little  Ferdinand, — is  pre- 
sented to  us  as  a  true  Parisian  brat,  a  brat 
whose  pious  papa  leads  him  by  the  hand, 
while  his  mama  cries  after  him,  'Mind 
your  pants!*  It  is  the  sort  of  brat  Poulbot 
would  paint  if  Poulbot  had  no  pity:  a 
sullen,  mangy,  jostled  brat  who  goes 
through  life  as  if  in  a  runaway  bus,  a  child 
constantly  cuffed  around  without  ever 
really  knowing  why. 

This  brat  lives  with  his  parents  on  the 
Beresinas  Road — another  'End  of  the 
Night;'  a  sort  of  cesspool  where  a  small 
group  of  petit-bourgeois  shopkeepers  stag- 
nates— the  sort  who  work  hard  to  better 
themselves,  have  had  some  education, 
and  still  have  some  self-respect.  Ferdi- 
nand's father  is  employed  in  an  insurance 
company,  while  his  mother  keeps  an  an- 
tique shop — a  moth-eaten  combination  of 
a  stationery  store  and  the  Flea  Market. 
Need  I  describe  the  verve  with  which  all 
this  is  depicted,  or  the  various  episodes 
which  confirm  my  opinion  (expressed 
three  years  ago  in  this  same  column)  that 
Celine  is  the  only  genuine  picaresque 
writer  of  our  times? 

I  must  say  that  the  first  impression  the 
book  makes  is  quite  dreadful  and  dis- 
gusting. Made  confident  byhis  great  suc- 
cess, Mr.  Celine  throws  himself  whole- 
heartedly into  obscenity.  He  succeeds  in 
investing  every  word  of  every  sentence 
with  an  odor  the  nature  of  which  you  can 
readily  guess.  When  I  think  that  Zola, 
poor  Zola,  used  to  be  called  nauseating! 
Why,  by  the  side  of  Celine  Zola  is  nothing 
but  a  Madame  de  Segur!  He  smells  of 
orange  blossoms! 

But  this  is  only  the  first  impression. 
Soon  one  comes  to  understand  that  this 


/pj6 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[447] 


license  is  part  of  a  subtle  artifice;  that  it  is 
in  reality  the  most  intelligent  use  of  the 
realistic  and  naturalistic  method.  Instead 
of  approaching  the  worst,  the  hidden,  the 
'hard  to  express,'  with  a  prudent  ' by  your 
leave,'  as  the  naturalists  of  the  past  used 
to  do,  Mr.  Celine,  on  the  contrary,  is  sus- 
tained by  this  forbidden  stuff.  The  full 
contents  of  the  slop-pail  is  emptied  in 
your  face — all  is  said  at  the  very  begin- 
ning. After  a  few  pages,  one  finally  gets 
the  rhythm  and  falls  under  the  spell  of  the 
incantation-like  style,  and  one  becomes 
oblivious  to  the  shocking  words  and  hears 
only  the  tones  in  which  they  are  said. 
And  what  tones! 

That  is  why  I  regret  the  fact  that  Mr. 
Celine's  publishers  have  left  blank  spaces 
in  the  body  of  the  text  for  certain  words 
and  phrases  which  they  decided  were 
likely  to  prove  particularly  offensive  to 
the  reader.  But  either  one  is  offended  once 
and  for  all  or  else  one  is  not  offended  at 
all!  Either  one  reads  to  the  end  or  one 
closes  the  book!  These  unfortunate  blank 
spaces  remind  one  of  the  prudish  books 
which  used  to  be  given  to  young  ladies. 
Mr.  Celine's  readers  deserve  better  than 
that. 

MR.  CELINE'S  method  consists  of  letting 
himself  be  carried  by,  or,  as  he  puts  it, 
'riding,'  creative  impetus  to  the  point  of 
semi-delirium,  when  a  vision  bursts  upon 
him,  and  the  words  sear  the  paper.  Some- 
times he  is  successful;  sometimes  the  exal- 
tation degenerates,  and  then  the  vision 
digresses  into  a  laborious  sort  of  literary 
fantasy  which  scarcely  holds  one's  atten- 
tion. 

But  mostly  he  succeeds.  One  cannot 
describe  everything,  but  I  recommend  al- 
most at  random  the  marvelous  account 
of  the  crossing  of  the  Manche — a  bur- 
lesque, fantastic  symphony  of  sea-sick- 
ness, with  details.  Here  the  author  blos- 
soms out  royally,  reaching  Rabelaisian 
heights.  There  is  also  a  first-class  de- 
scription of  Ferdinand's  father's  homicidal 
rage  when,  to  stop  himself  from  killing  a 


hateful  neighbor,  he  locks  himself  into  the 
cellar  and  shoots  at  the  barrels.  But  there 
are  also  pages  which  are  strangely  touch- 
ing and  grave,  notably  the  scene  where  the 
author's  grandmother  dies: — 

'Something  rasped  at  the  back  of  her 
throat  ...  It  wouldn't  stop  ...  All 
the  same  she  managed  to  do  it  .  .  .  In  the 
softest  possible  voice  .  .  .  'Work  hard, 
my  little  Ferdinand,'  she  whispered  .  .  . 
I  was  not  afraid  of  her  .  .  .  Deep  down, 
we  understood  one  another  .  .  .  And 
then  .  .  .  Well,  after  all,  I  have  worked 
hard  .  .  .  And  it's  nobody's  business.' 

Compare  this  scene  with  the  death  of 
Marcel  Proust's  grandmother,  and  judge 
for  yourself  which  of  them  has  the  more 
delicacy,  tenderness  and  humanity. 

For  you  can  never  put  your  finger  on 
this  Ferdinand.  At  the  very  moment  when 
you  are  ready  to  accept  him  as  a  lost  child, 
an  anarchist  spewing  out  his  hatred  for 
the  'well-to-do,'  you  perceive  behind  this 
facade  something  serious  and  steadfast 
— a  sort  of  wisdom — befouled,  terrible, 
but  still  wisdom.  Doubtless  what  he  tells 
us  is  this:  'True  bitterness  comes  from 
youth  submerged,  defenseless.'  But  he 
possesses  something  stronger  than  that 
bitterness:  a  taste  for  work  well  done, 
and  for  truth. 


A  German  Family  Chronicle 

Theodor  Chindler:  Roman  einer 
Deutschen  Familie.  By  Bernard  von 
Brentano.  Zurich:  Verlag  Oprecht.  igjS. 

(Armin  Kesser  in  the  Neue  Ziircher  Zeitung,  Zurich) 

A^E  CANNOT  begrudge  the  German 
emigre  writers  the  use  they  make  of 
the  ancient  right  of  poets  to  'go  where 
fancy  dictates.'  They  grew  up  with  the 
idea  of  a  super-national  realm  of  the 
human  spirit  firmly  fixed  in  their  minds. 
Many  of  them  are  inclined  to  roam 
through  the  wide  past,  and  to  sit  down  at 
strange  tables,  there  to  seek  the  effective- 
ness they  have  lost  at  home.  It  is  here  that 
the  historical  novel,  the  search  for  reasons 


[448] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


to  explain  one's  own  defeat,  belongs. 
Strangely  enough  there  is  a  corresponding 
movement  on  the  other  side:  the  same 
methods  of  historical  analogy  and  por- 
traiture which  some  of  the  emigres  find 
necessary  for  the  unmasking  and  critical 
illumination  of  contemporary  events — 
these  same  methods  in  the  lands  of  dic- 
tatorship serve  to  legitimize  and  confirm 
the  new  statehood,  to  clothe  it  in  an  ade- 
quate costume.  Perhaps  this  is  the  time  to 
discuss  anew  the  problems  of  history. 
Where  does  the  truth  lie,  and  what  do  the 
historical  trends  of  our  epoch  mean  ? 

The  significant  work  here  reviewed  de- 
serves to  be  called  a  '  historical  novel '  only 
in  a  limited  sense.  Like  many  other  emigre 
writers,  its  author  seems  to  have  asked 
himself  the  questions:  What  happened  to 
my  fatherland?  What  hit  me?  Where  did 
it  come  from?  He  has  not  found  the  an- 
swer in  the  remote  and  colorful  past,  but 
has  fixed  his  gaze  on  a  point  from  which 
one  would  like  to  look  away:  the  scene  of 
defeat,  Germany.  Brentano  has  written  a 
novel  about  a  Catholic  deputy  who,  in  the 
confused  times  from  the  outbreak  of  the 
War  to  the  November  revolution,  attains 
a  Ministerial  post  in  a  south  German 
State.  The  description  evolves  from  a 
simple  human  relationship,  that  of  parents 
to  their  children,  from  marital  strife,  from 
the  attitude  of  brothers  and  sisters  to 
each  other. 

As  the  scene  constantly  expands,  lar- 
ger and  larger  human  groups  come  into 
play:  politicians  and  soldiers,  barrack 
youths  in  the  school  and  at  the  front, 
desperate  petty  bourgeois,  and  the  dis- 
turbed masses  of  the  great  city.  What 
is  isolated  and  private  is,  as  it  were,  ex- 
tended, by  means  of  an  extraordinarily 
artful  method,  into  a  lever  with  which 
the  author  mobilizes  the  entire  nation. 

Theodor  Chindler  is  a  politician  of 
south  German  Catholic  stamp,  inwardly 
complex,  shrewd  and  sharp  in  his  criticism 
of  conditions  which  seemingly  lie  beyond 
his  power.  In  matters  of  faith,  however, 
and  Catholic  party  interests,  he  is  humble, 


pliable  and  inclined  to  submission.  In 
him  Brentano  has  created  the  classic 
type  of  the  German  in  opposition.  Chind- 
ler's  wavering  figure  personifies  an  ever- 
present  factor  in  Germany  history — albeit 
a  negative  one;  the  thin  ice  of  dictatorship 
must  not  deceive  us:  the  type  reappears 
wherever  the  strength  of  the  individual  is 
set  against  prevailing  stupidity,  with  its 
imposing  machinery.  This  man  is  chained 
to  a  woman  whom  he  now  hates,  now 
admires  for  her  stubbornness  and  slyness. 
Elizabeth  Chindler  fulfils, — not  to  say 
'celebrates,' — with  the  tenacity  of  in- 
stinct, her  necessary  part  in  her  husband's 
political  career;  for  she  is  the  devout  head 
of  the  family,  annointed  with  the  oil  of 
ancient  ecclesiastical  wisdom.  It  must 
have  required  the  most  intimate  knowl- 
edge of  Catholic  domesticity  to  portray 
such  a  figure,  and  it  is  difficult  to  find  in 
recent  literature  a  similarly  plastic  por- 
trayal, of  a  wife  and  mother.  At  some  dis- 
tance there  follow  the  Chindlers  of  the 
second  generation:  the  sons  Ernst  and 
Karl,  and  Leopold,  the  youngest;  Mar- 
garet, and  the  daughter-in-law  Lilli 
Chindler. 

THE  general  events  which  change  the 
structure  of  the  nation  reach  into  the 
private  destinies  of  these  people  and 
attack  the  old  order  as  though  by  acid. 
Love  teaches  Margaret  how  to  think. 
She  becomes  involved  in  the  revolutionary 
struggles  that  preceded  the  November 
uprising,  is  arrested  and  placed  in  solitary 
confinement,  and  brings  strife  and  trouble 
to  the  house  of  Chindler.  Th»  fight  for  her 
liberation,  the  inhuman  and  yet  socially 
correct  attitude  of  mother  toward  daugh- 
ter ('Once  you  start  slipping,  there's  no 
stopping.') — :these  go  to  make  up  one  of 
the  boldest  and  most  exciting  chapters  in 
the  book. 

Among  the  younger  set  it  is  especially 
Lilli  Chindler  who  attracts  us.  The  author 
has  endowed  her  with  all  the  advantages 
of  wealth,  beauty  and  intelligence.  She 
has  a  way  of  giving  voice  to  frightening 


193^ 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[449I 


thoughts,  leaving  others  to  take  the  con- 
sequences. Here  is  something  we  have 
long  wished  for — the  picture  of  a  woman 
as  the  complement  of  the  demoralized 
male.  Seen  through  ordinary  bourgeois 
eyes  Lilli  Chindler  is  a  charming  libertine. 
But  seen  from  the  psychological  aspect  she 
is  more;  here  is  a  personality  which  is  in 
constant  flux;  she  belongs  to  those  who 
'spin  out'  the  times. 

But  we  must  not  forget  the  other  figures 
in  the  book:  the  thoughtful  Ernst  Chind- 
ler, who,  ground  down  by  the  War  and 
unable  to  choose  between  two  schemes  of 
disorder,  seeks  in  vain  to  regain  the  old- 
fashioned  honor  his  wife's  adultery  has 
shattered;  Koch,  the  revolutionary,  and 
the  least  successful  of  the  author's  charac- 
terizations because  he  is  made  the 
interpreter  of  events,  the  man  with  the 
pointer.  How  lovable  and  German  in  the 
best  sense  Ernst  Chindler's  friend  von  der 
Mahrwitz  appears! 

THERE  were  good  reasons  why  a  person 
of  poetic  and  political  temperament  like 
Brentano  should  have  written  a  German 
novel.  His  extensive  knowledge  of  the 
country  and  its  history  enables  him  to 
make  a  for  the  most  part  successful  com- 
bination of  the  historical  and  imaginary. 
This  'family  novel'  not  only  gives  the 
personal  history  of  a  group  of  people  con- 
nected by  family  ties;  its  perspective 
broadens  toward  the  political  side.  The 
book  is  separated  from  Buddenbrooks  by  a 
generation.  In  the  interim  the  methods  of 
the  social  sciences  have  influenced  and 
changed  the  form  of  the  novel,  setting  it 
oflF  from  the  'naturalistic  chronicle.' 

Brentano  has  not  always  succeeded 
perfectly  in  fusing  into  an  artistic  unit  the 
lives  of  his  characters  and  the  events  of 
history.  One  example  where  complete 
success  has  been  achieved  is  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  Battle  of  the  Champagne.  On 
the  French  side  two  troop  columns  meet 
at  an  acute  angle,  congest  the  crossroads, 
hinder  their  own  advance,  and  thus  enable 
the    Germans    to    check    the    offensive. 


'There  were  too  many.  That's  why  the 
attack  didn't  succeed,'  Ernst  Chindler 
says  of  the  event.  'Had  there  been  fewer, 
the  French  would  have  overrun  our  bat- 
teries in  ten  minutes.  What  is  the  conclu- 
sion ?  Man  in  the  mass  is  of  no  value  unless 
he  has  enough  room  to  remain  an  indi- 
vidual.' 

The  epic  structure  of  the  novel  displays 
weaknesses  whenever  the  author's  creative 
abilities  prove  inadequate  to  express  his 
political  energy.  We  might  call  it  'epic 
impatience'  when,  toward  the  end,  factual 
reports  and  journalistic  reflections  take 
the  place  of  calm,  sovereign  presentation. 
The  generals,  politicians  and  bishops, 
Falkenhayn,  Hertling  and  Rathenau,  are 
not  seen  from  the  perspective  of  the  obedi- 
ent subject,  nor  through  the  eye  of  the 
opposition,  dissatisfied  on  principle;  they 
are  presented,  evaluated  and  criticized  as 
citizens  and  servants  of  the  people.  This 
attitude  alone  would  distinguish  the  novel 
from  all  the  other  quasi-sociological  prod- 
ucts of  the  young  (and  mostly  Left) 
German  literature. 

Is  the  book,  then,  a  pessimistic  one?  I 
should  like  to  deny  this,  for  the  judgment 
is  one  which  springs  from  an  inflated  idea 
of  what  is  humanly  attainable.  With  this 
novel  Brentano  has  done  much  to  charac- 
terize contemporary  conditions,  namely 
by  showing  their  roots  in  the  past.  His 
criticism  of  the  German  military  dictator- 
ship, of  the  terror  imposed  by  political 
party  leadership,  points  in  the  direction 
from  which  there  later  came  so  much  that 
was  bad  and  so  much  that  was  difficult  to 
understand. 

A  final  word  on  Brentano's  language, 
which  is  clear  and  full  of  passionate 
simplicity — a  simplicity  and  transparency 
which  tolerate  neither  phrases  nor  senti- 
mentality. Thus  the  few  images  the  author 
uses  are  much  more  out  of  place  than  they 
would  be  were  the  language  more  lyrical. 
Brentano's  book  puts  tradition  on  trial, 
and  Germany  as  well.  Morally  and  na- 
tionally it  is  an  accomplishment  of 
immeasurable  strength. 


[450] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


Mr.  Garnett  Places  A  Bet 

A  House  of  Women.  By  H.  E.  Bates. 
London:  Cape.  1^36. 


(David  Garnett  in  the  New  Statesman  and 
Nation^  London) 


J  REMEMBER  as  a  child  reading  of 
some  occasion  when  a  bookmaker  was 
torn  to  pieces  by  an  angry  crowd  and  when 
other  bookmakers  were  taken  into  custody 
by  the  police,  and  though  I  believed  that  a 
bookmaker  was  the  same  thing  as  a  pub- 
lisher, I  was  not  very  much  surprised. 
From  what  I  had  heard  drop  from  my 
father's  lips  about  publishers,  they  prob- 
ably deserved  all  they  got.  To  be  sure  I 
could  not  imagine  my  father's  extremely 
respectable  employers,  Mr.  Gerald  Duck- 
worth and  Mr.  Milsted,  in  any  such  pre- 
dicament, but  I  had  always  been  told  that 
they  were  exceptions  to  the  general  rule. 
The  distinction  between  betting  on  horses 
and  publishing  books  was  afterwards  ex- 
plained, but,  owing  to  my  first  mistake, 
the  two  trades  still  remain  associated  in 
my  mind.  I  know  that  really  they  are  un- 
connected, yet  I  still  unconsciously  tend 
to  couple  them  together  and  to  think  of 
each  trade  in  the  terms  of  the  other. 

In  one  particular  branch,  however,  I 
have  come  to  realize  a  very  great  distinc- 
tion. The  reviewer  and  the  racing  tipster, 
though  they  both  make  a  pretense  of  using 
exceptional  gifts  to  fulfil  the  same  func- 
tion, now  serve  opposite  ends.  The  tipster 
pretends  to  tell  you  which  is  the  best 
horse  and  which  will  win;  the  reviewer 
gets  his  reputation  for  intelligence  and 
brilliance  by  pointing  out  the  incurable 
defects  of  the  gee-gees  that  'also  ran.' 
We  all  like  to  make  merry  at  the  expense 
of  some  booby  who  has  written  a  bad  book. 
There  is  no  simple  pleasure  to  be  got  from 
being  told  a  book  is  good  and  that  one 
ought  to  read  it.  And  to  be  told  that  an 
author  is  very  good  indeed,  that  one  would 
do  well  to  read  all  his  books,  is  a  very 
serious  matter.  Before  even  listening  to 
such  advice  the  reader  seeks  for  a  way  out. 
He  purses  up  his  lips,  shakes  his  head  and 


taps  his  forehead  and  says  to  himself: 
'This  Johnny  is  always  talking  about 
masterpieces  and  works  of  art.  Rather 
unbalanced,  poor  fellow.  He  has  no  judg- 
ment at  all.' 

A  HOUSE  OF  WOMEN,  by  H.  E.  Bates, 
is  the  best  novel  that  he  has  so  far  written; 
indeed  it  is  the  first  of  his  novels  which  I 
should  rank  as  a  finished  work  of  art 
above  the  best  of  his  short  stories.  This 
means  that  it  is  very  good  indeed:  a  novel 
of  the  very  front  rank,  which  one  will  be 
sure  to  reread  in  ten  and  again  perhaps  in 
twenty  years'  time.  Bates  is  a  prolific 
writer  who  writes  easily;  sometimes  too 
easily;  and  many  of  his  sketches,  like  many 
of  Chekhov's,  are  quite  trivial.  He  has 
also  an  astonishingly  sensitive  ear  for  the 
style  of  other  men.  In  his  best  stories,  an 
echo  of  Turgenev,  Chekhov,  Tolstoi, 
Stephen  Crane,  or  even  of  Waley's  Trans- 
lations from  the  Chinese  has  frequently 
sounded,  as  though  a  ghostly  presence 
had  passed  like  a  breath  of  wind,  ruffling 
the  midland  cornfields  and  the  waters 
of  the  Nene,  The  effect  is  as  though  you 
had  asked  at  the  dairy  door  for  a  glass 
of  milk  warm  from  the  cow,  and  the 
farmer's  daughter  had  suddenly  revealed 
by  a  stray  word  that  she  had  just  been 
reading  Kubla  Khan.  It  gives  one  a  thrill 
of  shared  pleasure  and  of  intimate  under- 
standing. 

Such  sensibility  to  the  work  of  others  is 
a  distinguishing  mark  of  the  true  artist  in 
his  youth.  Every  great  painter,  or  great 
poet,  reveals,  I  think,  in  his  early  work  the 
influence,  not  of  a  formulated  tradition, 
but  of  the  ever-sounding  voices  of  the 
dead  painters  and  poets  who  first  showed 
him  the 

bow  or  brooch  or  braid  or  brace,  lace  latch 

or  catch  or  key  to  keep 
Back   beauty,    keep    it,    beauty,    beauty, 

beauty  .  .  .  from  vanishing  away. 

The  secret  which,  if  we  do  not  believe  in  a 
miraculous  Golden  Echo,  belongs  only  to 
poets  and  artists. 


193^ 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[451 


An  intense  feeling  for  natural  beauty, 
for  every  blade  of  grass  and  every  sound 
in  the  dew-soaked  May  morning,  for  the 
enchanted  dreams  of  childhood,  was  the 
feature  of  Bates's  early  work.  It  was 
saturated  with  impressions,  and  the 
reader  sometimes  felt  as  though  he  were 
looking  at  things  through  a  quivering 
mirage:  there  was  a  difficulty  about  keep- 
ing them  in  focus.  This  fault  (together 
with  many  others)  showed  itself  in  Bates's 
first  book.  The  Two  Sisters^  and  it  persisted 
in  that  vastly  better  novel,  Catharine 
Foster,  and  in  stories  like  The  Woman 
Who  Had  Imagination,  though  there  is  per- 
fect solidity  about  the  whole  setting  of 
that  story. 

In  Charlotte's^^  Row,  Bates  showed  a 
harder,  more  realistic  side.  He  was  writing 
not  of  the  emotions  of  youth  but  of  his 
home  town,  without  softening  or  idealizing 
anything.  But  just  because  of  that  he  was 
ill  at  ease  with  his  subject;  he  longed  to 
get  away  from  his  characters  as  he  himself 
had  always  longed  to  get  out  of  the  streets 
into  woods  and  cornfields  that  hang  over 
the  valley  of  bootmakers.  In  The  Mill  (a 
story  in  the  best  volume  of  his  stories,  Cut 
and  Come  Again)  every  trace  of  hampering 
adolescent  hypersensibility  had  vanished. 
The  story  is  clear,  peculiarly  grim  and 
horrible,  but  without  a  single  touch  of 
exaggeration,  or  of  love  of  the  horrible. 
It  is  one  of  the  great  short  stories  in 
English.  The  same  grimness,  the  same 
perfectly  clear  focusing  and  the  same 
absence  of  exaggeration  mark  A  House  of 
Women. 

The  setting  of  the  novel  has  a  good  deal 
in  common  with  The  Fallow  Land  and 
The  Poacher,  but  in  clarity  and  grimness 
it  is  more  like  The  Mill.  Fine  as  those 
novels  were,  the  advance  here  is  enormous. 
What  I  think  has  happened  is  this.  Most 
novelists  write  partly  from  memory  and 
partly  from  imagination,  and  Bates  is  a 
writer  whose  memory  is  particularly 
richly  stocked  with  impressions  of  child- 
hood. In  his  earlier  novels  he  has  taken 
remembered  characters  and  woven  them 


into  a  story  full  of  new  situations.  But 
they  were  always  liable  to  reveal  the  fact 
of  their  transplantation;  at  certain  mo- 
ments, even,  they  somehow  'slipped'  and 
unity  was  destroyed. 

Something  of  this  kind  I  remember 
happened  in  The  Poacher.  There  was  a 
sort  of  timelessness,  a  feeling  that  however 
long  the  characters  lived  they  never 
changed  the  year  in  which  they  were 
living,  or  the  superficial  habits  of  their 
lives,  which  was  because  all  the  characters 
were  taken  from  Bates's  memories  of  real 
people  when  he  was  a  boy.  In  A  House  of 
Women  Bates  probably  started  with  his 
memories  also,  but  the  characters  have 
come  alive  in  a  quite  different  way.  In- 
stead of  being  inserted  into  the  story,  their 
development  rules  the  book,  and  makes 
it  what  it  is. 

ROSIE  PERKINS,  the  daughter  of  a 
scoundrelly  old  publican,  takes  charge  of 
the  book  just  as  she  takes  charge  of  the 
farm  after  she  has  married  Tom  and  as  she 
runs  it  while  he  is  away  at  the  war  and 
after  he  returns  a  cripple.  The  jealousy  of 
Tom's  family  is  told  at  the  start: — 

'Frankie  rubbed  his  hand  backwards 
and  forwards,  feeling  the  young  mous- 
tache. It  was  growing  nicely;  the  fine 
young  hairs  prickly  as  the  new  thorns  on  a 
raspberry  cane.  Tom  had  a  good  strong 
moustache,  light  brown,  thickening.  And 
looking  from  the  sky  to  Tom,  Frankie 
could  see  Tom  caressing  his  moustache 
too,  and  a  little  flicker  of  jealousy  went 
through  him  .  .  .  when  there  were  nei- 
ther binders  nor  crops  of  barley  nor  any- 
thing else  beyond  their  own  world  for 
them  to  envy,  they  were  jealous  of  and 
among  themselves,  Frankie  jealous  of 
Tom's  moustache,  the  girls  jealous  of  each 
other,  the  mother  jealous  for  each  of  them 
in  turn  against  the  other.' 

Rosie  gets  the  full  force  of  it,  and  no 
wonder:  she  has  a  magnificent  figure,  an 
illegitimate  child,  and  she  says  'blimey* 
every  time  she  opens  her  mouth.  Tom's 
sisters  and  aged  mother,  growing  childish, 


[452] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


watch  her  every  movement  with  the 
eternal,  implacable  hate  of  three  starved 
cats  watching  a  robust  bull-terrier  licking 
its  chops.  And  she  triumphs  over  them 
and  survives  them  all.  Even  Tom  can't 
kill  her,  though  he  comes  too  near  doing 
it  for  the  reader's  comfort. 

Incidentally  a  great  part  of  the  book  is 
written  in  the  exact  language  of  the 
characters.  A  House  of  Women  is  a  novel 
with  the  power  and  the  solidity  of  writing 
of  D.  H.  Lawrence  at  his  best.  In  spite  of 
these  merits  I  venture  to  tip  it  as  a  winner. 

Whitish  Bard  and  Red 
Reviewer 

La  Fabrique  des  hommes  nouveaux. 
By  Alia  Rachmanova.  Translated  from 
German  into  French  by  H.  Block.  Paris: 
Plon.  1^36. 

(Ilya    Ehrenbourg    in    the    Literatumaia    Gazeta, 
Moscow) 

f^ERR  ROSENBERG  prays  to  the  an- 
cient German  gods,  drenched  with 
beer  and  blood,  gods  of  currycomb  and 
axe.  The  Young  Japanese  pray  to  the 
gods  of  their  ancestors,  and,  disappointed 
because  they  cannot  rip  ours,  rip  their  own 
bellies.  Old  man  Araki  leads  general 
prayers  for  travelers  bound  for  Mongolia 
by  land  or  sea.  As  for  the  Holy  Father,  he 
of  course  patronizes  the  Roman  Catholic 
God. 

All  of  them  pray  for  the  destruction 
of  godless  Moscow,  and  surely  only 
inexcusable  absentmindedness  on  the  part 
of  the  gods  can  account  for  the  fact  that 
Moscow  still  exists  and  that  the  citizens 
of  the  Soviets  are  still  able  to  talk  about 
such  irrelevant  subjects  as  the  raising  of 
livestock. 

The  best  educated  of  all  the  gods  is  the 
Roman  Catholic  one.  His  is  an  old  reliable 
firm,  without  any  fireworks,  but  dealing  in 
tried  and  trusted  wares:  the  Pope's  slipper, 
indulgences,  and  the  hard-earned  wisdom 
of  Jesuit  fathers. 

The  Roman  Catholic  God's  Vicar  on 
this  sinful  earth,  the  sinless  Holy  Father, 


said  to  his  cardinals:  'You've  got  to  get  to 
work,  boys!'  Accordingly  a  contest  for  the 
writing  of  the  best  anti-Bolshevist  novel 
was  announced.  A  literary  jury  was  set  up 
to  read  the  manuscripts.  It  included  the 
author  of  religious-detective  stories,  G.  K. 
Chesterton,  and  the  author  of  religious- 
fashionable  novels,  Henri  Bordeaux.  Other 
members  of  the  jury  were  Baroness  Han- 
del-Mazzetti,  Vicomte  Henri  Davignon, 
and  the  freshly-ordained  Father  Maklakov 
.  .  .  'father'  by  virtue  of  his  clerical  rank 
— in  private  life  he  is  the  son  of  a  Tsarist 
Minister.  This  happy  brigade  looked 
through  one  hundred  and  nineteen  master- 
pieces in  various  languages.  One  manu- 
script was  written  in  Portuguese;  Pere 
Maklakov  must  have  had  the  help  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  in  reading  //. 

The  Russian  emigres  were  greatly 
agitated.  Of  course  every  one  of  them  is  an 
idealist;  but  even  idealists  must  live.  The 
Holy  Fathers  promised  not  only  salvation 
in  the  other  world  but  also  a  goodly  sum 
of  money  in  cash  to  be  given  in  this:  50, 
20,  and  10  thousand  francs  for  the  first, 
second,  and  third  prizes  respectively. 
Twenty-five  Russian  emigre  shock  work- 
ers went  hopefully  to  work. 

The  jury  gave  the  first  prize  to  a  certain 
Alia  Rachmanova,  who  wrote  a  novel 
called  The  Factory  of  New  Men.  In 
congratulating  the  happy  author  recently. 
Cardinal  Alfred  Baudrillart  called  her  'a 
well  known,  almost  a  famous  Russian 
authoress.'  The  word '  almost '  is,  of  course, 
merely  a  sign  of  the  Cardinal's  modesty — 
for  who  has  not  heard  of  Alia  ?  To  be  sure. 
Alia,  who  is  a  truly  Russian  writer,  for 
some  reason  writes  in  German.  Probably 
post-Revolution  Russian  has  become  irk- 
some to  her.  Besides,  look  at  the  'almost 
famous'  Goebbels — he  too  writes  his 
novels  in  German. 

Paul  the  Apostle  wrote:  'It  is  better  to 
marry  than  to  burn.'  Unfortunately,  the 
Holy  Fathers  are  forbidden  marriage.  But 
there  is  no  question  that  they  burn. 
Indeed,  the  virtuous  Alia's  manuscript 
must  have  caused  them  much  burning: 


I  1936 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[453] 


there  are  two  rapes  in  the  first  eight  pages 
of  the  novel.  The  Chairman  of  the  District 
Executive  Committee,  Comrade  Vladi- 
mirov,  attacks  his  secretary  Tanya,  and  a 
band  of  Red  Army  soldiers  attack  her 
friend  Nyurka.  All  this  during  the  first 
Five  Year  Plan — a  fact  which  does  not 
prevent  the  soldiers  from  discussing  the 
matter  with  both  kolkhozniks  and  nepmen. 
Well,  historical  accuracy  is  not  important. 
The  important  thing  is  that  Alia  accurately 
describes  the  sweet  disorder  of  the  young 
ladies'  dress — knowing  full  well  that  not 
one  Cardinal's  heart  will  be  able  to 
withstand  such  a  picture. 

TANYA'S  troubles  begin  when  she  sees 
the  same  dissolute  band  of  'Red  Guards- 
men '  killing  fish  with  stones.  This  strange 
sport  causes  her  to  lose  all  self-control. 
She  cries:  'Stop,  soldiers  of  the  revolu- 
tion! Why  do  you  kill  innocent  little  fish?' 
The  'Red  Guardsmen'  laugh  shamelessly. 
Tanya  forthwith  goes  to  the  District 
Executive  Committee.  There  is  a  lot  of 
noise  there,  as  the  cellars  are  chuck-full  of 
martyrs  groaning  loudly.  It  is  there  that 
Vladimirov  takes  advantage  of  the  oppor- 
tunity afforded  by  the  din  to  have  his  will 
with  Tanya.  As  Alia  Rachmanova  enthu- 
siastically writes:  'Her  strength  melted 
before  his  ardent  look.' 

Vladimirov  has  created  a  'Factory  of 
New  Men:'  a  GPU  colony.  His  life  is  not 
an  easy  one:  for  example,  his  housekeeper. 
Pasha,  refuses  to  mend  his  socks,  on  the 
grounds  of  'industrial  overloading.'  He 
himself  is  very  busy.  In  the  first  place,  he 
has  to  read  Andreev's  Savva^  since  it  is  the 
'ABC  of  Communism!'  {sic!)  Then  he 
must  send  to  that  cellar  we  have  men- 
tioned before  a  Communist,  Petrenko, 
because  the  latter  has  named  his  daughter 
Mary  instead  of  Bastille — obviously  an 
indirect  hint  at  the  immaculate  concep- 
tion. 

Vladimirov  wants  to  marry  Tanya.  But, 
being  of  bourgeois  origin,  Tanya  believes 
in  God,  and  does  not  wish  to  be  Vladi- 
mirov's  bride.  Suffering  the  tortures  of  the 


damned,  Vladimirov  goes  to  consult  a 
gypsy  by  the  name  of  Nastia.  There  he 
finds  an  ikon  of  St.  Simeon.  His  own  name 
is  also  Sinieon.  This  mysterious  coin- 
cidence causes  him  to  indulge  in  various 
profound  reflections  on  the  Trinity. 

In  that  same  'Factory  of  New  Men' 
works  a  Dr.  Krasnov,  who  preaches  con- 
tinence. These  counter-revolutionary  tend- 
encies move  a  certain  Politruk  (political 
preceptor)  to  anger  (he  has  been  married 
seven  times  himself).  The  doctor  is  des- 
patched to  the  fatal  cellar.  Another  in- 
dividual in  the  colony  has  outdone  even  the 
Politruk — he  has  been  married  twenty- 
three  times.  In  spite  of  this  fact,  he  is  not 
invited  to  the  oktiabrization  (christening) 
of  his  own  son,  little  Avanguard. 

Cut  back  to  Tanya:  she  has  married 
Vladimirov,  and  is  already  listening  to  the 
'stirrings  of  a  tiny  being  in  her  womb.' 
The  child  is  born.  She  calls  him  'my  dear 
little  gray  rabbit.'  This  greatly  puzzles  the 
Chairman  of  the  Executive  Committee, 
Vladimirov.  He  asks  himself:  'Why  a 
rabbit  ? '  He  consults  a  textbook  of  Marxist 
psychology,  but  finds  no  answer  to  the 
fatal  question. 

Vladimirov  tells  his  wife  that  he  is 
living  with  the  woman  tchekist  Mironova: 
'I  am  not  a  bourgeois  and  do  not  wish  to 
hide  anything  from  you.'  Tanya  slips  him 
the  biography  of  St.  Simeon,  his  name- 
sake. Vladimirov  learns  that  this  saint  was 
once  rich,  but  later  divided  all  his  earthly 
goods  among  widows  and  orphans.  This 
information  upsets  all  his  scientific  theo- 
ries. He  asks  himself:  can  a  bourgeois  be  an 
honest  man?  The  book  scatters  all  his 
doubts,  telling  him  with  praiseworthy 
accuracy  that  St.  Simeon  died  on  Septem- 
ber 12,  1642. 

In  spite  of  these  lofty  reflections, 
Vladimirov  still  behaves  like  a  hardened 
revolutionary.  He  commands  his  wife  to 
change  the  bedclothes,  as  he  expects  a 
visit  from  Comrade  Mironova.  The  wife 
meekly  obeys,  leaving  the  two  together. 
At  last  Vladimirov  sees  the  light  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church.  Needless  to  say, 


[454] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


the  bad  Politruk^  who  has  just  consum- 
mated his  eighth  marriage,  immediately 
arrests  him  for  this  deviation  from  the 
party  line. 

I  figure  that  Alia  Rachmirova  got  1,200 
francs  from  the  Holy  Fathers  for  each 
description  of  the  carnal  act  in  her  book. 
Not  bad,  considering  the  depression  and 
the  habitual  close-fistedness  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  God. 

It  really  is  a  shame.  He  has  to  mobilize 
against  the  Soviet  Union  not  only  the 
seraphic  and  cherubic  hordes  but  also  a 
little  pet  like  our  Alia.  First  they  bom- 
barded us  with  anathemas,  then  with 
philosophical  treatises,  and  now  with  dirty 
stories.  And  Moscow  still  goes  on ! 

Oh,  Holy  Father,  Holy  Father,  you 
could  have  used  your  money  to  much 
better  purpose ! 

Conversation  Peace 

Good  Talk:  A  Study  of  the  Art  of 
Conversation.  By  Esme  Wingfield- 
Stratjord.  London:  Lovat  Dickson,  igjd. 
(G.  B.  Stern  in  the  Sunday  3'imes,  London) 

J  MUST  ask  pardon  of  Mr.  Wingfield- 
Stratford  for  calling  this  'Conversation 
Peace.'  Rightly,  he  is  intolerant  of  puns. 
Yet  he  has  much  to  say  of  the  grace  and 
value  of  talk  towards  promoting  a  more 
peaceful  civilization  than  the  present; 
today,  talk  and  war  are  still  closely  allied; 
and  every  dog  understands  'only  too  well 
the  remarks  of  his  neighbor  behind  the 
palings,  things  that  an  Airedale  and  a 
gentleman  can  by  no  means  pass  over  in 
silence.' 

The  author  ransacks  the  ages  to  prove 
his  point,  from  the  ape-man  first  learning 
to  make  coherent  sounds,  through  the 
Egypt  of  Ptah  Hotep  (whose  name  one 
vaguely  associates  with  the  wrong  side 
of  a  bath-mat)  and  the  Golden  Age  in 
Greece;  through  the  Renaissance  and  the 
French  salons;  through  the  period  when 
fox-hunting  and  the  worship  of  muscle 
ruled  in  England,  right  down  to  the  pres- 


ent Machine  Age,  when  conversation  is 
again  in  a  bad  way.  For,  he  says,  'Good 
conversation  is  good  manners  made  audi- 
ble— another  variation  on  the  theme 
that  talk  is  life.'  And:  'This,  then,  is  the 
first  and  indispensable  requirement  of 
the  conversational  art,  that  we  get  back 
to  a  right  sense  of  values.'  And  a  bold 
peroration:  'If,  therefore,  we  cease  to 
cultivate  the  gift  of  speech  for  its  own 
sake,  we  have  forfeited  our  human  birth- 
right of  living  well,  and  resigned  ourselves 
to  such  an  animal  contentment  with  un- 
adorned life  as  to  constitute  the  great  and 
final  surrender,  the  declaration  of  human 
bankruptcy.' 

He  does  not  merely  fling  down  these 
assertions;  he  surrounds  them  and  props 
them  up  by  every  possible  analogy  and 
evidence  from  history  and  literature.  Allu- 
sion clusters  so  thickly  round  his  subject 
that  we  are  reminded  of  the  old  port  in 
the  anecdote,  which  had  been  left  so  long 
in  the  cellar  that  the  cask  had  rotted  away 
and  the  port  was  found  to  be  upheld  in  its 
own  crust. 

One  conversationalist  does  not  make  a 
conversation;  on  the  other  hand,  seven 
conversationalists  can  easily  wreck  it.  If 
I  have  a  criticism  to  make  of  Mr.  Wing- 
field-Stratford's  excellent  book,  I  should 
say  that  he  argues  too  little  in  praise  of 
duologue  (why  is  there  no  English  for 
tete-^-tete?)^  which  under  favorable  con- 
ditions reveals  the  art  of  conversation 
at  its  most  perfect.  These  conditions  are, 
primarily,  that  you  should  only  have  con- 
versation with  your  peers.  You  have  to 
be  able  to  trust  to  the  presence  of  mind 
(a  literal  requirement)  in  your  companion; 
for  you  forfeit  all  pleasure  in  talk,  if  it 
degenerates  into  laborious  and  painfully 
tolerant  explanation  of  what  we  had 
meant  five  minutes  ago.  (You  can  always 
recognize  that  you  have  neglected  this 
important  rule  to  keep  to  the  company 
of  your  peers  when  later  you  hear  one 
of  your  happier  phrases,  local  to  the  topic 
and  the  moment,  picked  up  and  used  in 
admiration  and  in  the  wrong  place.) 


/pjd 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[455] 


( 


You  cannot  throw  a  remark  Into  a 
stone-cold  frying-pan,  and  then  expect 
it  to  sizzle  and  dance  and  perform  the 
same  enchanting  responses  as  little  sau- 
sages flung  into  boiling  fat.  In  more 
numerous  company  talk  is  in  perpetual 
danger  of  being  unlawfully  annexed  not 
by  the  wittiest,  but  by  the  most  confident. 
We  all  know  the  strange  depression  that 
is  apt  to  settle  over  the  rest  of  us  after 
the  first  forty  minutes  of  listening  to  an 
eloquent  monologue. 

I  should  stress  among  further  requisites 
for  good  conversation  the  mental  flexibility 
of  an  acrobat  and  the  power  of  a  Russian 
ballerina  to  conquer  the  law  of  gravity. 
One  of  Jane  Austen's  heroines  was  repri- 
manded for  showing  too  much  optimism 
in  her  demands: — 

'"My  idea  of  good  company,  Mr.  El- 
liot, is  the  company  of  clever,  well- 
informed  people  who  have  a  great  deal  of 
conversation." 

'"You  are  mistaken,"  said  he  gently, 
"that  is  not  good  company;  that  is  the 
best."' 

The  best  of  good  company  need  not  be 
a  friend,  but  a  good-tempered  enemy 
(only  temporarily  an  enemy),  compounded 
in  equal  parts  of  the  quality  of  steel  and 
the  quality  of  mercy.  Then  the  fur  flies; 
then  the  fun  begins;  the  bracing  snap  in 
the  air,  the  tingle,  the  joy  in  conflict;  then 
your  subconscious  yields  up  treasure  after 
treasure,  requiring  no  audience,  nor  the 
aid  of  what  Mr.  Wingfield-Stratford  calls 
'Bacchus  Lubricator.'  Then  will  arise  a 
joy  which  is  too  elusive  to  be  transcribed 
on  to  the  written  page,  too  fugitive  to  be 
related  afterwards  with  any  enviable 
effect  on  those  who  have  not  been  so  lucky 
as  to  hear  it.  Most  of  us  have  suffered 
from  the  flatness  of  listening  to  compla- 
cent records  of  verbal  victory  punctuated 
with:  'So  /  said.  .  .  .  And  then  he  said. 
.  .  .  Well,  so  then  I  said.  ...  I  forget 
what  he  said  to  that,  but  when  I  said 
what  I  just  told  you  I'd  said,  he  had 
nothing  to  say  at  all!'  Or,  equally  futile: 
'Do  you  know,  I  said  something  rather 


good  last  week,'  followed  by  a  paralyzed 
silence  after  the  'something  good'  has 
been  produced,  dead,  on  a  plate. 

The  author  of  Good  T^alk  has  much 
to  say  on  the  segregation  of  the  sexes. 
Men,  when  alone,  talk  thus;  women,  when 
alone,  thus;  and  mixed  talk  is  a  different 
matter  again,  like  mixed  bathing. 

'Talk  that  is  confined  to  one  sex,'  says 
Mr.  Wingfield-Stratford,  'lacks  the  sym- 
pathetic intimacy  that  makes  it  fully 
creative.  .  .  .  There  Is  an  invisible  armor 
that  man  puts  on  against  man  and  woman 
against  woman.' 

The  Athenians  apparently  solved  the 
problem  in  a  way  that  later  centuries  have 
made  taboo;  and  even  then  did  not  quite 
solve  it.  The  Victorians  assumed  as  a 
matter  of  course  that  conversation  among 
males  was  brutal,  and  among  ladles  left 
to  themselves  merely  insipid;  whereas 
mixed  conversation  was  carefully  adapted 
to  suit  whatever  false  conception  the  male 
may  have  had  of  female  modesty,  the 
female  of  male  approbation  of  modesty. 
None  of  these  inhibitions  applies  to  men 
and  women  of  the  twentieth  century. 

Good  conversation  is  essentially  an 
adult  accomplishment.  Children  brag  and 
exaggerate:  a  race  of  little  Cyranos,  little 
d'Artagnans,  little  Munchausens.  They 
must  grow  up  before  they  can  learn  to 
converse  with  the  light-hearted  mellow 
touch  of  Touchstone:  'He  uses  his  folly 
like  a  stalking-horse,  and  under  the 
presentation  of  that,  he  shoots  his 
wit.'  Among  adults,  however,  there  are 
various  schools  of  conversation,  all  ad- 
mirable; the  school  of  swift  flashing  rep- 
artee, and  the  school  that  fastidiously 
selects  the  exact  moment  for  a  passado 
and  places  it  with  precision;  the  school 
hardly  able  to  speak  for  chuckling  at  its 
own  humor  (we  are  not  amused  by  this 
school),  and  the  opposite  sadder  school 
of  Grimaldi,  which  sees  nothing  funny  in 
Grimaldi.  There  is  Talk  Ruthless  and 
Talk  Chivalrous;  Talk  Mellifluous  and 
Talk  Suggestive;  Talk  Academic  and 
Talk  Anecdotal. 


[456] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


There  is  also  Talk  Epigrammatic;  but 
that,  I  have  reason  to  know,  is  completely 
out  of  period;  for  in  this  vein  I  remarked 
recently:  'You  were  born  with  a  mental 
reservation  in  your  mouth  instead  of 
a  silver  spoon' — and  joyfully  my  oppo- 
nent carved  my  self-esteem  into  a  thou- 
sand slices,  by  an  interruption  to  the  effect 
that  round  about  1908  (but  not  later 
than  1909)  he  had  so  abundantly  lit- 
tered a  grateful  country  with  just  this 
type  of  epigram  as  to  make  quintuplets 
look  silly. 

We  find  ourselves  warmly  agreeing  with 
Mr.  Wingfield-Stratford  in  his  criticisms, 
enlightened,  succinct,  of  the  conversation 
of  various  famous  wits:  of  Whistler, 
'He  never  talked  to  please,  always  to 
win;'  of  the  adolescent  'quarterstaff 
work'  of  Benedick  and  Beatrice  '.  .  .  in 
the  best  private-school  tradition;'  of  Dr. 
Johnson,  'the  most  unmannerly  of  his 
recorded  outbursts  were  against  what  he 
resented  as  bad  manners  in  other  people;' 
of,  deadliest  of  all,  'the  great  semi-literate 
majority  of  hard-riding,  hard-drinking, 
and  hard-swearing  gentlemen  whom  Hor- 
ace Walpole  lumped  together  under  the 
expressive  name  of  Beefs.' 


Mr.  Wingfield-Stratford  displays  also  a 
delightful  sense  of  humor  in  his  chapter 
on  the  Ape  Man  and  on  the  Cave  Bore, 
who,  'unless  he  happened  to  be  as  for- 
midable physically  as  mentally,  could 
hardly  have  avoided  the  outer  silence  of  a 
prehistoric  Coventry.'  Of  Taboos  and  the 
Greek  Hetaira,  of  Jabberwocky  and  Eu- 
phuism he  likewise  has  much  to  tell  us. 
I  do  not  recall  that  he  mentions  the  wis- 
dom and  gaiety  presented  in  dialogue 
form  by  Thomas  Love  Peacock,  Hazlitt, 
or  George  Moore;  and  the  writers  of  styl- 
ized but  seemingly  naturalistic  dialogue: 
Saki,  Evelyn  Waugh,  Noel  Coward. 

The  true  conversationalist  should  be 
unexpected  and  potential.  He  should 
magically  inspire  you  to  believe  yourself 
an  inspired  person,  and  leave  you  in  such 
exultant  state  of  mind  that,  long  after  the 
lights  are  out  and  the  guests  have  gone 
home,  you  cannot  but  continue,  smiling  a 
little,  to  make  your  points  and  invent  their 
counterpoints.  We  hear  too  much  conver- 
sation about  books;  it  is  a  happy  notion 
to  have  given  us  the  opposite:  a  book 
about  conversations,  of  which  a  copy 
should  be  placed  in  every  Trappist  mon- 
astery. 


OUR  OWN  BOOKSHELF 


We  Europeans  :  A  Survey  of  '  Racial  '  Prob- 
lems. By  Julian  Huxley  and  A.  C.  Haddon; 
with  a  contribution  by  A.  M.  Carr-Saunders. 
New  Tork:  Harper  and  Brothers.  igj6.  246 
pages.  $2.^0. 

"DELIEF  in  purity  of  race,  involving  belief 
in  the  superiority  of  one  race  over  another, 
has  been  a  persistent  delusion  of  mankind. 
Extraordinary  as  it  may  seem,  the  supersti- 
tion has  persisted  in  the  face  of  accumulating 
scientific  evidence  to  the  contrary.  If  Ameri- 
cans feel  themselves  exempt  from  a  prejudice 
which  they  see  glaringly  displayed  in  Nazi 
declarations  of  the  Aryan  purity  of  the  German 
people,  they  should  remember  that  a  belief  in 
the  superiority  of  the  Nordic  stock  in  America 
over  the  Slavic,  the  Mediterranean,  and  the 
Negroid  has  long  been  an  implicit  attitude 
of  our  social  life,  and  has  received  open  sanc- 
tion in  the  writings  of  Madison  Grant  and 
others.  It  lies  behind  the  popular  imperialist 
conception  of  the  'white  man's  burden'  among 
English-speaking  peoples. 

Professors  Huxley  and  Haddon  have  per- 
formed the  valuable  work  of  collecting  and  pre- 
senting in  a  clear  popular  form  the  vast  amount 
of  scientific  research  that  has  been  done  re- 
garding this  theory  of  racial  purity.  The  simple 
truth  is  that  no  such  thing  as  a  pure  race  ex- 
ists. The  development  of  primitive  man,  as 
investigated  by  the  anthropologists,  the  migra- 
tions of  the  early  races,  the  biological  laws  of 
heredity,  even  the  statistics  showing  the  extent 
of  illegitimacy  at  the  present  time — evidence 
from  widely  separated  investigations  unites 
to  show  that  any  given  individual  today  is  of 
a  very  mixed  racial  inheritance.  According  to 
Huxley  and  Haddon,  the  so-called  racial  divi- 
sions are  generally  statements  of  social  and 
cultural  differences,  and,  even  so,  more  often 
of  social  ideals  than  social  realities:  the  Teu- 
tonic race  is  defined  by  Hitler  as  tall,  blond, 
slender,  and  manly;  yet  there  is  not  a  Nazi 
leader  who  conforms  to  all  the  qualifications. 

Huxley  and  Haddon  are  nevertheless  too 
honest  as  scientists  to  find  nothing  but  error 
in  the  theory  of  racial  distinctions.  Obviously 
a  Frenchman  and  an  Englishman  possess  cer- 
tain qualities  that  distinguish  them  alike  from 
a  Negro  or  an  Oriental.  The  authors  would 


therefore  substitute  for  racial  distinctions 
'ethnic  groups'  based  upon  purely  physical 
characteristics,  with  no  implications  of  essen- 
tial cultural  or  intellectual  superiority.  They 
say:  'We  can  thus  distinguish  three  major 
groupings  of  mankind:  (i)  Black  woolly  hair, 
dark  brown  or  black  skin,  and  a  broad  nose. 
(2)  Wavy  or  curly  hair  of  any  color  from  black 
to  flaxen,  dark  brown  to  white  skin,  and  typi- 
cally a  medium  or  narrow  nose  with  usually 
a  high  bridge.  (3)  Straight  lank  dark  hair, 
yellowish  skin,  nose  with  a  tendency  to  be 
broad  and  low  bridged.' 

Huxley  and  Haddon  find  that  the  dark- 
skinned  people  usually  have  long  heads  and 
inhabit  tropical  climates;  that  the  yellow- 
ski^ined  usually  have  broad  heads  and  inhabit 
the  Orient;  and  that  the  light-skinned  have 
medium  heads  and  are  found  in  the  rest  of  the 
world.  Then  they  add  that  their  tables  form 
only  an  approximation,  since  'there  is  an 
enormous  number  of  exceptions  even  to  this 
primary  arrangement,  and  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  overlap  of  the  classificatory  charac- 
ters.' 

The  conclusion  can  only  be  that  primitive 
man  has  developed  not  into  distinct  races,  but 
through  them  into  mixtures  of  extraordinary 
intricacy.  Any  approach  to  his  problems 
through  blood  or  race  becomes  impractical 
and,  for  practical,  social  or  political  questions, 
delusive.  Professors  Huxley  and  Haddon  have 
written  the  authoritative  handbook  for  the 
lay  reader  who  has  an  intellectual  curiosity 
about  the  definition  of  'race.' 

— Edwin  Berry  Burgum 

Mercantilism.  By  Eli  F.  Heckscher.  Author- 
ized translation  by  Mendel  Shapiro.  New 
Tork:  Macmillan  Company^  ^935-  2  volumes: 
472,  419  pages.  $iS.OO. 

pROFESSOR  HECKSCHER,  a  Swedish 
scholar,  has  written  the  leading  history  of 
mercantilism,  which  can  be  described  simply 
as  the  state  policy  and  economic  doctrine 
that  ruled  in  Europe  during  the  period  of  the 
dominance  of  merchant  capitalism.  In  short,  it 
lies  between  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages  and 
the  dawn  of  modern  industrial  and  finance 
capitalism.  Wisely,  the  author  has  placed  his 


[458] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


7«/y 


emphasis  upon  the  role  of  the  state  in  clearing 
the  way  and  unifying  the  opportunities  for  the 
rising  middle  class,  so  that  his  first  volume 
traces  in  detail  the  methods  employed  in 
western  European  countries  to  further  in- 
ternal trade,  advance  industry  and  safeguard 
foreign  commerce  and  business  organization. 
Unfortunately  for  the  American  reader,  the 
author  fails  to  include  a  discussion  of  colonial 
policy,  so  that  next  to  no  explanation  is 
afforded  of  the  reasons  for  the  American  War 
of  Independence. 

The  second  volume  is  an  elaborate  presen- 
tation of  mercantilism  as  economic  doctrine, 
and  those  readers  who  know  Adam  Smith  will 
find  much  here  to  interest  them.  The  author 
follows  the  ramifications  of  the  theory  into 
many  bypaths,  avoiding,  except  for  brief 
mention,  the  well-trodden  road  of  monetary 
ideas.  His  discussions  of  mercantilism  as  a 
system  of  protection  and  as  a  conception  of 
society  are  illuminating.  Professor  Heckscher 
is  hostile  to  Marxism  and  therefore  consciously 
avoids  creating  links  between  class  forces  and 
the  employment  of  the  state  for  the  purpose  of 
seizing  and  holding  economic  power.  For  this 
reason  he  fails  to  make  clear  the  historical 
roles  of  the  English  and  French  Revolutions. 
Nevertheless  this  is  a  vastly  erudite  book,  and 
those  who  seek  understanding  of  the  principal 
political  movements  of  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries  will  find  that  it  throws 
light  into  many  dark  places. 

— Louis  M.  Hacker 

Under  the  Axe  of  Fascism.  By  Gaetano 
Sahemini.  New  Tork:  The  Viking  Press. 
1936.  402  pages.  $3.00. 

TN  The  Fascist  Dictatorship  in  Italy  (New 
•*•  York:  Henry  Holt  and  Company.  1927) 
Professor  Salvemini  gathered,  before  they 
were  suppressed,  all  the  documents  concerning 
the  political  history  of  Fascism.  The  present 
volume,  while  a  continuation  of  the  first, 
deals  mainly  with  the  economic  history  of 
Fascism:  the  corporative  State.  The  reader  is 
amazed  by  the  vast  amount  of  first-hand 
documented  information  patiently  collected, 
largely  from  Fascist  sources.  The  author 
makes  no  statement  without  advancing  the 
corroborating  document;  there  is  no  hearsay 
to  this  method  of  writing  history.  He  quotes 
Fascist  legislation.  Fascist  historians,  speeches 
and  interviews  for  foreign  consumption;  he 


reports  statements  of  Anglo-Saxon  historians, 
prelates  of  the  Church,  educators  and  journal- 
ists in  praise  of  the  '  Paradise  of  class  coopera- 
tion.' 

But  theirs  are  mere  words  and  he  is  not 
satisfied  with  words;  he  is  interested  in  con- 
crete facts:  What  has  the  corporative  State 
done  to  protect  workers'  rights?  How  far  have 
wages  been  cut?  Have  employers  respected 
labor  contracts?  What  is  the  living  standard  of 
the  Italian  worker  today  as  compared  with  the 
pre-Fascist  and  pre-corporative  period?  Whom 
have  the  Labor  Court  sentences  benefited? 
Is  class  collaboration  possible  under  the  Fascist 
dictatorship?  This  is  the  most  absorbing  and 
amazing  part  of  the  study.  Salvemini  leaves  no 
stone  unturned;  he  wades  through  pay-bills, 
labor  contracts,  articles  and  letters  to  the 
editors  of  small  town  papers,  statistics  of  all 
sorts  and  Fascist  publications  whose  authors, 
not  being  humanly  capable  of  lying  consist- 
ently and  unanimously,  let  gleams  of  truth 
filter  through  from  time  to  time. 

His  findings  disclose  that  class  cooperation 
exists  only  in  theory.  Italian  labor,  under  the 
corporative  State,  has  been  submitted  to  wage 
cuts  of  from  54  to  70  per  cent,  whereas  in  some 
industries  dividends  have  soared  as  high  as 
500  per  cent.  Employees  work  from  ten  to 
fourteen  hours  a  day,  often  without  extra  pay. 
In  Lombardy,  the  richest  Italian  region,  chil- 
dren are  set  to  work  before  they  are  six  years 
old;  in  the  sulphur  mines  of  Sicily  children 
from  eleven  to  fourteen  years  are  employed. 
Always  on  the  evidence  of  Fascist  documents, 
the  author  debunks  the  'battles'  against  un- 
employment, beggars,  illiteracy,  tuberculosis 
so  completely  that  when  the  curtain  is  entirely 
raised  on  the  corporative  State,  the  reader 
finds  himself  before  an  empty  stage. 

MiCHELE  CaNTARELLA 

Soviet  Union  1935.  By  J.  Stalin,  V.  Molotov, 
L.  Kaganovicb  and  others.  New  Tork:  Inter- 
national Publishers,  igjd.  440  pages.  $1.25. 

This  Soviet  World.  By  Anna  Louise  Strong. 
New  York:  Henry  Holt  and  Company,  igj6. 
JOT  pages.  $2.00. 

OTH  these  books  are  as  fresh  and  contem- 
porary as  the  multi-colored  tiles  of  the 
Moscow  subway,  which  they  both  describe. 
They  shine  with  the  reflected  glory  of  a  First 
Five-Year  Plan  substantially  achieved,  and 
they  describe  in  no  less  glowing  and  heroic 


B 


193^ 


OUR  OWN  BOOKSHELF 


I459] 


language  the  approaching  finish  of  a  second 
plan  in  which  the  austere  virtue  of  self-sacri- 
fice is  strongly  tinctured  with  a  very  unascetic 
pride  and  confidence. 

They  are  both  success  stories  of  a  Bolshevik 
model.  As  recklessly  and  unblushingly  as  the 
speeches  of  Daniel  Webster  and  the  travel 
diaries  of  foreigners  like  Sir  Charles  Lyell  de- 
scribed an  earlier  America,  these  books  list 
the  bewildering  wonders  and  hopes  of  a  new 
country  and  a  new  society.  The  refreshing 
understatement  in  the  style  of  early  Bolshevist 
tracts,  as  of  early  Russian  motion  pictures, 
has  disappeared  with  the  loosening  of  the  belt. 
Compared  to  Lenin's  naked,  underwritten 
speeches,  the  words  of  Stalin,  Kaganovich, 
and  Tukhachevski  are  proud,  fulsome,  and  a 
little  drunk. 

More  than  this,  both  books  begin  to  answer 
for  the  first  time  the  question  left  in  the  minds 
of  intelligent  westerners  by  even  the  most  elo- 
quent and  sharply  moving  of  earlier  Bolshevik 
literature:  what  will  this  new  life  look  like 
and  feel  like  after  its  heroic  age  of  sacrifice 
and  hardship  is  completed .''  Here  are  no  archi- 
tect's blueprints  of  a  new  way  of  living.  But 
there  is  here,  in  the  jumble  of  wordy  exultation 
and  lyrical  promises,  a  fairly  clear  picture  of 
what,  barring  war,  most  Russians  think  they 
will  have  and  enjoy  of  their  long-awaited  good 
life  within  their  present  generation. 

It  is  an  impressive  picture.  No  one,  for 
example,  could  read  Miss  Strong's  carefully 
considered  discussion  of  dictatorship  in  the 
Soviet  Union  and  what  it  entails  in  self-criti- 
cism, worker  responsibility,  and  widespread 
participation  in  the  making  of  policy,  and  fall 
into  the  still  common  error  of  finding  more 
than  surface  resemblance  in  the  political  ideas 
of  Communism  and  Fascism.  Similarly,  Molo- 
tov's  speech  before  the  Seventh  Congress  of 
Soviets  on  democracy  and  the  new  electoral 
laws  should  be  compulsory  reading  for  the 
writers  of  editorials  in  American  newspapers 
on  the  true  significance  of  rights  and  liberties. 

Like  most  accounts  of  the  Soviet  Union  by 
foreigners  who  have  lived  there  and  know  their 
way  around,  Miss  Strong's  book  suffers  from 
a  basic  uncertainty  as  to  the  language,  in 
both  words  and  ideas,  of  her  public.  For 
a  middle-class  American,  still  confused  as  to 
all  but  the  location  of  the  Soviet  Union,  it  is 
wordy,  lacks  bite,  and  reads  too  much  like 
promotional  literature  for  a  travel  agency. 
But  for  other  readers,  and  especially  for  work- 


ers (few  of  whom  will  have  $2.00  with  which  to 
buy  the  book),  it  is  full  of  wisdom  and  clear, 
simple  reasoning  on  points  that  are  important. 
There  is  no  such  confusion  as  to  the  public 
to  which  the  Soviet  speeches  have  been  di- 
rected. The  longest-winded  of  them  snap  and 
crackle  with  the  excitement  of  a  meeting  of 
industrial  workers  in  Moscow.  Orjonikidze 
interrupts  a  report  on  the  achievements  of 
Soviet  metallurgy  to  lace  into  his  audience  for 
poor  quality.  Someone  answers  him  from  the 
floor,  and  for  three  pages  the  speech  must  be 
printed  in  fast,  give-and-take  dialogue.  Even 
the  ubiquitous  insert  '  {Prolonged  applause) ' 
with  which  all  of  Stalin's  speeches  are  punc- 
tuated looks  plausible  in  print.  If  this  is  win- 
dow dressing,  it  must  be  an  industry  large 
enough  to  justify  even  the  wildest  Soviet 
claims  for  the  modernization  of  their  country. 
— ^Joseph  Barnes 


The  American  Army  in  France  (1917-1919). 
By  James  G.  Harbord.  Boston:  Little^  Brown 
and  Company.  igjS.  6j2  pages.  $^.00. 

TOURING  his  more  than  thirty  years  of 
service  with  the  armed  forces  of  the 
United  States  Major  General  Harbord  gave 
constant  and  ample  evidence  of  his  military 
ability  and  efficiency.  From  1917  to  1919  he 
was,  successively  and  successfully,  Pershing's 
Chief  of  Staff,  Commander  of  the  Marine 
Brigade  and  the  Second  Division,  and  Com- 
mander of  the  Services  of  Supply.  Now,  in  his 
retirement,  he  may  rightly  claim  laurels  as  a 
writer  of  considerable  charm  and  as  a  military 
historian.  Subject  to  comparison  with  so  many 
other  memoirs  and  books  on  every  phase  of 
World  War  activity,  General  Harbord's  con- 
tribution is  distinguished  by  a  freshness  of 
treatment  and  approach,  a  wealth  of  interest- 
ing factual  material,  and  an  eminent  fairness 
of  outlook  and  judgment.  It  is  an  outstanding 
account  of  the  part  played  by  the  military 
might  of  the  United  States  in  the  greatest  war. 
One  of  the  most  useful  features  of  the  volume 
under  review  is  the  abundance  of  character  and 
biographical  sketches.  In  respect  of  General 
Pershing,  there  is  a  definite  approach  to  hero- 
worship.  Among  the  general  officers  of  the 
Allied  armies,  Douglas  Haig  and  Philippe 
Retain  receive  especially  high  praise.  Luden- 
dorff  is  frequently  quoted  with  approval  and 
respect.  For  the  politician  in  war  there  is  little 
but  blame  and  scoffing. 


[460] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


7«/y 


In  this  book,  as  in  so  many  others,  the  reader 
is  made  aware  of  the  tremendous  handicaps 
imposed  upon  military  leaders  whenever  their 
plans  must  take  into  consideration  not  merely 
the  strategic  and  tactical  factors  in  any  situa- 
tion, but  the  political  bargainings,  Napoleon 
complexes,  and  personal  ambitions  of  civilian 
cabinet  officers,  especially  Prime  Ministers. 
*It  is  perhaps  not  too  much  to  say,'  according 
to  General  Harbord, '  that  every  major  military 
operation  undertaken  by  the  Allies  after  the 
signature  of  the  Secret  Treaties  was  decided 
after  deliberation  as  to  its  effect  on  the  pro- 
spective interest  each  had  in  carrying  out 
those  treaties.' 

Here  as  in  General  Pershing's  volumes  there 
is  constant  emphasis  on  the  differences  of 
opinion  between  the  Allied  leaders  and  the 
American  Commander  on  the  method  of  train- 
ing of  our  troops  and  their  possible  absorption 
in  French  and  British  units.  Pershing  insisted 
on  training  for  open  warfare  and  extolled  the 
value  of  the  rifle.  He  opposed  the  Allied  system 
of  'permanently  exchanging  "dirty  looks" 
with  an  enemy  in  another  trench  but  a  few 
yards  away.'  Eventually,  of  course,  Pershing's 
view  triumphed,  as  did  also  his  conception 
regarding  the  necessity  for  the  creation  and 
maintenance  of  an  integral  American  army. 
'The  true  statement  of  the  issue  that  all 
through  the  War  affected  the  relations  between 
General  Pershing  and  the  Allied  Governments 
and  their  military  chieftains,  except  Haig  and 
P^tain,  is  that  the  American  Commander 
thought  of  his  country  as  an  entity  in  the 
World  War;  the  Allies  thought  generally  of 
Americans  only  as  pawns  to  be  incorporated 
and  played  in  Allied  units.  In  such  circum- 
stances disagreements  and  misunderstandings 
were  inevitable.  Certainly  no  American  today 
doubts  the  wisdom  of  General  Pershing's  in- 
sistence on  carrying  out  his  orders  from  the 
War  Department  to  organize  and  fight  an 
integral  American  Army.' 

Of  especial  interest  to  the  general  reader  are 
the  sections  devoted  to  matters  ordinarily 
overlooked  in  other  books  on  our  part  in  the 
war.  Thus  there  is  an  interesting  discussion  of 
the  question  of  military  decorations.  General 
Harbord  believes  that  Pershing  was  less  sym- 
pathetic in  this  regard  than  he  might  have 
been,  with  the  result  that,  after  nearly  twenty 
years,  '  the  War  Department  is  still  bedeviled 
for  awards  of  decorations.'  A  chapter  entitled 
'The  Clouds  Gather'  contains  a  wealth  of 


incident  extending  all  the  way  from  the  sug- 
gestion made  by  an  organization  called  the 
Purple  Cross  that  an  embalming  officer  be 
attached  to  each  Division  Staff,  to  the  prob- 
lem of  securing  proper  transportation  and 
communication  facilities  in  France  according 
to  American  standards.  The  system  of  pro- 
motions and  demotions  is  analyzed,  the  r61e 
of  the  press  is  commented  upon,  and  Secre- 
tary Baker's  visits  to  France  are  described. 

Elsewhere  are  discussed  the  tremendous 
problems  of  the  Services  of  Supply,  whose 
'responsibility  and  accomplishments  .  .  .  com- 
prised, generally,  the  procurement,  forwarding, 
storage,  care  and  salvage  of  vast  quantities 
of  supplies  of  all  kinds;  immense  projects  of 
construction  of  roads,  docks,  railroads,  build- 
ings, etc.;  the  hospitalization  necessary  for  an 
army  of  two  million  men;  the  transportation 
of  men,  animals,  and  supplies  by  rail,  by  ships 
and  by  inland  waterways;  the  operation  of 
the  largest  telegraph  business  in  military  his- 
tory and  a  complete  and  efficient  telephone 
system;  replacements,  reclassification,  accord- 
ing to  aptitude,  of  many  hundreds  of  officers 
and  men;  the  establishment  of  leave  areas  and 
of  welfare  and  entertainment  projects;  the 
liquidation  of  our  affairs  with  France;  and  the 
final  embarkation  of  troops  for  America,  pop- 
ularly known  as  "getting  the  boys  home."' 

Although  generally  avoiding  the  topic  of 
politics,  General  Harbord  does  make  some 
interesting  observations  regarding  Woodrow 
Wilson's  share  in  bringing  about  a  change  in 
the  German  form  of  government.  'President 
Wilson,'  he  says,  'mercilessly  drove  a  wedge 
between  the  Kaiser  and  his  countrymen.  No 
other  man  is  so  completely  responsible  for 
the  Revolution  and  the  overthrow  of  the  Ger- 
man Empire  as  Woodrow  Wilson.'  Certainly 
this  is  an  important  and  a  keen  observation. 
The  Germans  were  virtually  forced,  by  out- 
siders, into  a  democratic  form  of  government 
which  (recent  events  should  be  proof  sufficient 
of  this)  the  German  nation  as  a  whole  ap- 
parently did  not  want, 

— Walter  Consuelo  Langsam 

GE^fERAL  Smuts.  Volume  One.  By  Sarah  Ger- 
trude Millin.  Boston:  Little^  Brown,  and  Com- 
pany. 1936.366  pages.  $3.30. 

\/fRS.  MILLIN  knew  that  she  ventured 
^^  into  difficulties  by  undertaking  to  tell  the 
story  of  General  Smuts.  She  says  at  one  point 


193^ 


OUR  OWN  BOOKSHELF 


[461: 


that  Smuts  is  an  'inexplicable  man  to  South 
Africans;'  at  another,  that  supporters  and 
opponents  alike  were  equally  puzzled  by 
something  in  him  'outside  precedent.'  Cate- 
gories will  not  contain  a  man  who  venerated 
(the  word  was  used  by  Smuts)  men  like  Gandhi 
and  Woodrow  Wilson  and  those  others  'who 
can  do  what  they  think  right  in  the  teeth  of  a 
nation's  opposition.'  To  get  at  the  facts  of 
Smuts's  life,  Mrs.  Millin  has  relied  on  books, 
documents,  friends  and  enemies  of  the  General, 
Mrs.  Smuts,  and  General  Smuts  himself,  who 
revised  the  'facts'  but  not  the  'opinions'  of 
the  book  before  its  publication. 

The  career  of  Smuts  is  a  thrilling  one, 
whether  it  is  viewed  as  the  life  of  one  who  over- 
came the  handicaps  of  poverty,  or  of  one  who 
led  in  the  making  of  South  Africa,  or  of  one 
who  fought  England  in  the  Boer  War  and  de- 
fended her  as  adviser  and  soldier  in  the  World 
War.  His  life  was  nearly  as  much  devoted  to 
creative  thinking  in  philosophy  as  it  was  to 
political  and  military  activity. 

The  book  is  marred  a  bit  by  Mrs.  Millin's 
anti-German  point  of  view  in  those  sections 
dealing  with  the  World  War.  The  picture  of 
Smuts  is  not  at  all  times  perfectly  clear,  being 
blurred  frequently  by  the  interposition  of  Mrs. 
Millin's  opinions  between  the  reader  and  the 
subject.  The  likelihood,  however,  is  that  any 
portrait  of  so  enigmatic  a  person  as  Smuts  will 
always  require  a  bit  of  retouching  by  a  person 
of  such  intuition  as  Mrs.  Millin. 

— ^Harry  R.  Rudin 

Imperial  Hearst:  A  Social  Biography.  By 
Ferdinand  Lundberg.  With  a  Preface  by  Dr. 
Charles  A.  Beard.  New  Tork:  Equinox  Co- 
operative Press.  igjS.  ^06  pages.  $2.J^. 

Hearst,  Lord  of  San  Simeon:  An  Unau- 
thorized Biography.  By  Oliver  Carlson 
and  Ernest  Sutherland  Bates.  New  Tork: 
Viking  Press.  iQjd.  jj2  pages.  $j.oo. 

TITITHIN  a  few  weeks  of  each  other  two 
^^  unauthorized  biographies  of  William 
Randolph  Hearst  have  appeared,  both  seeking, 
through  the  recitation  of  facts  gathered  from 
innumerable  public  documents,  to  destroy  his 
influence  upon  national  affairs. 

Mr.  Lundberg's  volume  attempts  primarily 
to  show  the  correspondence  between  the  Hearst 
editorial  policies,  through  their  many  shifts 
and  turns,  and  Hearst's  general  financial  in- 
terests and  connections.  Imperial  Hearst,  as  is 


proper  in  a  'social  biography,'  develops  its 
subject  as  an  institution  participating  in 
national  and  world  events,  rather  than  as  a 
personality.  The  biographers  of  the  Lord  of 
San  Simeon,  on  the  other  hand,  give  greater 
emphasis  to  factors  of  personal  temperament, 
dealing  at  times  with  evidences  of  a  less 
tangible  character  which  are  subject  to  many 
possible  interpretations. 

Both  volumes  cover  Hearst's  incursions 
into  politics  and  the  swift  changes  in  the 
policies  of  his  papers.  Where  the  'Lord  of  San 
Simeon '  is  pictured  as  an  impulsive  liberal  who 
moved  at  last  to  the  extreme  Fascist  Right, 
'Imperial  Hearst'  flirted  with  trade  unions 
with  the  clear  purpose  of  building  newspaper 
circulation.  As  partial  evidence  for  this,  Mr. 
Lundberg  notes  that  the  liberalism,  stage  by 
stage,  was  coincident  with  the  most  se  vere 
anti-labor  policies  in  the  enterprises  under 
Hearst  control. 

Of  major  importance  is  the  analysis  in  the 
Lundberg  book  of  Hearst's  financial  position 
and  interests.  A  strong  case  is  developed  to 
show  close  association  between  the  Hearst 
enterprises  and  the  National  City  Bank  and 
affiliated  financial  interests.  The  inference  is 
drawn  that  Hearst's  editorial  policy  expresses, 
not  the  whims  of  an  individual,  but  the  in- 
terests of  a  financial  coalition.  Large  owner- 
ship in  the  'inflation'  industries,  such  as  gold 
mining,  is  noted  in  connection  with  Hearst's 
campaign  for  devaluation.  And  Mr.  Lundberg 
develops  an  interesting,  although  certainly 
incomplete,  theory  as  to  the  reason  for 
Hearst's  consistent  anti-British  bias:  British 
security  holders  threatened  Hearst's  Peruvian 
copper  domain. 

All  in  all,  Mr.  Lundberg  has  discovered  and 
woven  into  a  consistent  pattern  a  tremendous 
amount  of  research  material,  tracing  the  de- 
velopment of  an  institution  exercising  con- 
tinued influence  over  domestic  and  inter- 
national politics. 

— David  Hyde 

Powerful  America:  Our  Place  in  a  Re- 
arming World.  By  Eugene  J.  Toung.  New 
Tork:  Frederick  A.  Stokes  Company,  1936. 
375  pages-  $3-oo. 

"LTAVING  served   as   telegraph   and  cable 

editor  of  the  New  Tork  'Times  and  World 

for  more  than  thirty  years,  Eugene  Young 

now  sees  the  United  States  on  the  brink  of  the 


[462] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


most  crucial  decisions  it  has  ever  had  to  reach 
in  the  field  of  foreign  policy.  To  indicate  what 
has  brought  about  this  state  of  affairs,  he  de- 
votes the  first  third  of  his  book  to  the  post- 
War  struggle  between  France  and  Britain, 
with  Britain  trying  to  make  first  the  League 
and  then  the  United  States  underwrite  its 
Empire,  while  France  organized  a  rival  system 
of  alliances.  Mr.  Young  then  sketches  a  short 
history  of  American  foreign  policy  and  shows 
that  both  the  Monroe  Doctrine  and  the  Open 
Door  originated  in  Downing  Street.  He  goes  on 
to  define  the  present  issue  as  the  Open  World 
(Imperialism)  versus  the  Closed  World  (Na- 
tionalism) and  surveys  the  positions  of  the 
seven  Great  Powers.  Except  for  his  anti-Soviet 
bias,  which  leads  him  to  commit  several  egre- 
gious howlers — he  calls  Lenin  a  'peasant' — 
and  his  insistence  on  using  the  word  'realistic' 
instead  of  the  word  'Anglophile'  to  describe 
his  own  judgments,  his  survey  of  the  world  is  a 
model  of  clarity,  scholarship,  and  good  sense. 
But  best  of  all  he  has  a  point  of  view.  Mr. 
Young  argues  from  beginning  to  end  that  the 
United  States  should  take  advantage  of  the 
balance  of  world  power  that  it  holds  to  embark 
on  a  policy  of  thumping  imperialism  in  col- 
laboration with  France  and  England.  This, 
rather  than  H ell-Bent  for  Election,  should  be- 
come the  handbook  of  the  American  Liberty 
League. 

— QuiNCY  Howe 

Seven  Plays.  By  Ernst  Toller.  Together  with 
Mary  Baker  Eddy  iy  Ernst  Toller  and 
Hermann  Kesten.  New  Tork:  Liverigbt 
Publishing  Company.  igj6. 4J4  pages.  $2.^0. 

PRIMARILY  Toller  is  a  lyric  poet,  and  the 
function  of  the  lyric  poet  is  to  give  expression 
to  the  emotions  of  the  individual.  But  Toller  is 
also  a  Socialist,  and  the  function  of  the  Socialist 
is  to  point  out  and  solve  the  problems  of 
society.  On  these  two  elements,  sometimes 
blended,  sometimes  in  conflict,  his  plays  are 
built  to  indict  a  world  which  denies  the  dignity 
of  the  individual  and  the  worker. 

Toller's  first  play.  Transfiguration,  reflects 
the  poet  who  as  artist  and  Jew  is  doubly 


foreign  in  his  homeland.  The  war  seems  a  path 
toward  unity  but  betrays  him  and  he  discovers 
that  'if  it  comes  to  that,  none  of  us  has  got  a 
country.  We're  just  like  a  lot  of  whores.'  His 
fatherland  is  irrevocably  lost,  but  he  has  found 
humanity  instead,  and  the  way  is  clear  toward 
Socialism. 

After  this  came  the  Bavarian  Soviet  in 
which  Toller  was  one  of  the  leaders,  and  the 
later  plays  are  written  from  the  Socialist  point 
of  view,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  worker. 
In  Transfiguration  Toller  as  a  poet  had  decried 
the  mechanization  of  modern  society.  In  his 
later  plays  he  continues  to  write  against 
mechanization,  but  now  because  it  denies 
craftsmanship  and  individuality  to  the  worker. 
The  Machine-fVreckers,  describing  the  rebellion 
of  the  English  Luddites  at  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  is  a  historical  account  of 
the  resentment  of  workers  against  the  introduc- 
tion of  machinery  into  industry.  As  a  Social- 
ist, however.  Toller  recognizes  that  the  machine 
is  an  integral  part  of  modern  society,  that 
resentment  against  it  is  not  only  useless  but 
unjustified.  Opposition  should  be  directed 
instead  against  the  abuse  of  mechanization 
which  makes  man  servant  rather  than  master 
of  the  machine. 

On  the  plane  of  the  personal  and  human. 
Toller's  most  moving  play  is  Hinkemann,  the 
tragedy  of  a  man  who  returns  from  the  war 
with  his  manhood  destroyed  and  his  life  ruined. 
Party  and  politics  are  only  words  to  him  and 
they  leave  him  unmoved,  for  they  cannot 
touch  his  tragedy,  which  is  personal,  not  social. 
In  the  introduction  to  Seven  Plays  Toller 
writes:  '.  .  .  only  unnecessary  suffering  can 
be  vanquished,  the  suffering  which  arises  out 
of  the  unreason  of  humanity,  out  of  an  in- 
adequate social  system.  There  must  always 
remain  a  residue  of  suffering,  the  lonely  suffer- 
ing imposed  upon  mankind  by  life  and  death. 
And  only  this  residue  is  necess5ry  and  inevi- 
table, is  the  tragic  element  of  life  and  of  life's 
symbolizer,  art.'  The  poet  in  Toller  recognizes 
the  tragic  residue  of  necessary  and  inevitable 
suffering,  but  .the  Socialist  in  him  wishes  to 
make  all  unnecessary  suffering  impossible. 
— ^Joseph  Kresh 


AMERICA  AND  THE  LEAGUE 


A  Symposium — III 


In  THE  month  which  has  gone  by  since 
we  sent  to  the  printer  the  second  instal- 
ment of  our  symposium  on  the  League  of 
Nations  and  American  neutrality,  Europe 
has  been  marking  time.  Italy  has  con- 
tinued to  consolidate  her  gains  in  Ethi- 
opia; Germany  has  proceeded  quietly  to 
fortify  the  Rhineland;  Sir  Samuel  Hoare 
has  returned  to  the  British  Cabinet;  and 
Leon  Blum  and  his  cabinet  of  Socialists 
and  Radical  Socialists  have  assumed  the 
Government  of  France. 

But  the  international  situation  has  re- 
mained unchanged.  At  this  writing,  at 
least,  sanctions  are  still  in  force,  and  there 
is  reason  to  believe  that,  despite  Italy's 
successful  prosecution  of  her  war  of  ag- 
gression, they  are  not  without  their  dele- 
terious effect  on  her  economic  system. 
Nevertheless  it  now  seems  possible  to  say 
with  some  finality  that  in  the  East  African 
crisis  the  'collective  system,'  in  the  form 
given  it  by  French  duplicity 'and  British 
timidity,  has  failed. 

Precisely  for  this  reason,  the  questions 
which  The  Living  Age  addressed  to  cer- 
tain members  of  its  Advisory  Council  two 
months  ago  become  more  urgent  every 
day.  They  were: — 

I.  Do  you  believe  that  the  United 
States  should  or  should  not  become  a 
member  of  the  League  of  Nations  or  co- 
operate in  its  sanctions? 

1.  What  do  you  believe  to  be  the  wisest 
neutrality  policy  for  the  United  States? 

Now  that  the  prestige  of  the  League  has 
suffered  so  severe  a  blow,  and  Germany, 
England,  Italy,  France,  Russia,  Japan 
and  the  United  States  are  all  feverishly 
preparing  for  the  next  war  they  apparently 
consider  inevitable,  there  is  not  a  moment 
to  be  lost  in  solving  the  problems  these 
questions  raise. 

ONE  of  the  longest  and  most  carefully 


considered  of  the  many  replies  that  our 
questionnaire  called  forth  was  that  from 
Dr.  Malbone  W.  Graham,  professor  of 
political  science  at  the  University  of 
California,  member  of  the  European  Con- 
ference of  the  American  Professors  of  In- 
ternational Law  and  Relations,  and  author 
of  a  number  of  books,  including  the  League 
of  Nations  and  the  Recognition  of  States. 
Writing  as  an  authority  on  the  subjects 
with  which  he  deals  Dr.  Graham  says:  — 

History  will  look  back  on  March,  1935,  and 
March,  1936,  as  months  of  outstanding  crises, 
replete  with  incidents  testing  to  its  capacity 
the  world's  machinery  for  peaceful  accommo- 
dation. The  crises  were,  however,  differently 
solved:  in  1935,  by  the  achieving  of  the 
'Stresa  front'  of  the  major  western  European 
Powers;  in  1936,  by  a  failure  to  attain  unanim- 
ity and  the  consequent  revival  of  bilateral 
negotiations,  by  a  falling  back  upon  military 
consultations  instead  of  diplomatic  agree- 
ments. The  essential  difference  is  that,  in  the 
year  between,  the  world  has  reverted  to  a  pre- 
vious behavior  pattern.  The  computing  of  the 
nature  of  the  pattern  abandoned,  of  the  be- 
havior toward  which  we  tend  to  revert,  and 
the  reasons  for  such  a  reversion  are  the  most 
significant  tasks  in  any  analysis  of  the  present 
crisis. 

The  fundamental  political  principles  upon 
which  the  peace  settlement  at  the  close  of  the 
World  War  was  based,  I  think  it  will  generally 
be  agreed,  were  three :  the  peace  was  one  based 
upon  the  principles  of  self-determination,  the 
concert  of  power  and  the  attainment  of  col- 
lective security.  On  the  foundation  of  the  right 
of  small,  or  backward,  nations  to  live  their  own 
lives  in  their  own  way,  the  map  of  Europe  and 
a  fair  part  of  the  Levantine  world  was  remade. 
The  pattern  of  self-determination  laid  down 
by  the  peace  treaties  was  further  amplified  by 
the  conception  of  minority  guaranties  applic- 
able where  natural  rights,  in  their  integral  as- 
sertion, came  face  to  face  with  the  concrete 
problems  of  administration  in  multi-national 
states.  If  today  we  see  the  peace  structure  of 
Europe  shaken,  it  is  because  the  principle  of 


[4641 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


July 


self-determination  has  been  frontally  as- 
saulted, and  because  the  system  of  minority 
guaranties  has  proved  incapable  of  withstand- 
ing the  tireless  beating  upon  it  of  the  tides  of 
integral  nationalism. 

The  second  principle  of  the  peace  settlement 
was  that  of  solidarity,  transformed  from  an 
abstract  political  principle  into  a  series  of 
functioning  institutions,  of  which  the  League 
of  Nations  is  the  principal  embodiment.  Col- 
lectively taken,  they  were  intended  to  be  the 
agencies  for  performing  the  world's  social  secu- 
rity services.  The  exfoliation  of  these  institu- 
tions, their  spread  to  ever  widening  reaches  of 
political  activity,  their  penetration  into  the 
subsoil  of  international  economic  life  were  ex- 
pectations upon  whose  fulfilment  the  concep- 
tion of  a  peaceful  and  reordered  world  was 
politically  posited. 

The  third  pediment  of  the  peace  was  the  con- 
ception of  collective  security,  involving  the 
application  of  sanctions  by  the  international 
community  to  any  potentially  recalcitrant 
state.  A  corollary  of  the  organizational  forms 
just  referred  to,  and  a  guaranty  of  the  terri- 
torial settlement,  it  was  posited  on  the  reduc- 
tion of  national  armaments  to  the  lowest  point 
consistent  with  internal  security  and  the  im- 
plementing of  the  sanctions  system.  Looked 
at  in  retrospect,  the  Kellogg  Pact  may  be 
viewed  as  marking  the  high  point  in  the  ideo- 
logical development  of  the  collective  system, 
as  the  highest  evidence  of  common  reliance 
upon  the  renunciation  of  war  as  a  means  of 
national  self-advancement.  But  difficulty  came 
from  the  fact  that  the  new  political  interna- 
tionalism was  not  followed  by  comparable 
action  in  the  economic  sphere.  This  failure  to 
attain  economic  integration  under  the  aegis  of 
the  League  of  Nations  was  the  fundamental 
cause  of  the  disaster  to  Briand's  proposed 
European  Union;  it  foreshadowed  the  wither- 
ing away  of  the  vitality  of  the  organizational 
forms  established  in  1919.  International 
solidarity  could  not  exist  in  vacuo. 

The  present  crisis,  I  have  come  to  believe,  is 
attributable  to  the  fundamental  denial,  in  three 
separate  and  distinct  ways,  of  the  three  funda- 
mental postulates  of  the  peace  of  1919.  There 
has  been  assault  on  the  principle  of  self- 
determination  by  the  revival  of  imperialism; 
attack  on  the  principle  of  solidarity  by  a  re- 
turn to  the  balance  of  power;  repudiation  of 
the  principle  of  collective  security  by  the  resur- 
rection of  neutrality.  The  first  is  writ  large  in 


Manchuria  and  East  Africa;  the  second  ap- 
pears in  the  reversion  to  the  alliance  system; 
the  third  is  the  historic  corollary  of  the  other 
two. 

A  primary  consequence  of  the  disappear- 
ance, in  some  quarters,  of  regard  for  the  prin- 
ciple of  national  sovereignty  and  the  integrity 
of  frontiers  has  been  the  insecurity  of  small 
States.  In  the  presence  of  violation  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  self-determination  by  the  conquest  and 
subjugation  of  other  peoples  the  entire  political 
structure  feels  itself  shaken.  Simultaneously, 
there  has  been  a  whittling  down,  almost  to  the 
vanishing  point  in  some  instances,  of  the  sys- 
tem of  minority  guaranties. 

The  breakdown  in  solidarity  has  also  given 
rise  to  a  series  of  military  alliances,  although 
they  are  formally  declared  to  be  within  the 
cadre  of  the  Covenant.  In  the  immediate  f)ost- 
War  years,  when  they  merely  meant  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  mechanism  of  close  diplo- 
matic collaboration,  they  were  not  particularly 
significant.  But  with  the  failure  of  disarma- 
ment, there  has  been  a  drift  to  pacts  of  mutual 
assistance  which  savor  strongly  of  the  pre-War 
alliance  pattern,  modified,  as  regards  proce- 
dural formalities,  by  regard  for  the  phrase- 
ology, if  not  the  spirit,  of  the  League.  The 
Franco-Soviet  Pact  strongly  resembles  the 
Alliance  Franco-Russe;  the  Mediterranean 
pacts  meet  much  the  same  naval  needs  as  were 
safeguarded  elsewhere,  in  pre-League  days,  by 
the  Anglo-Japanese  Alliance.  The  changes  are 
in  formality,  in  procedural  niceties,  in  the 
methodolc^y  of  implementation;  but  that  they 
subserve  the  same  purposes  as  pre-War  alli- 
ances seems  beyond  doubt. 

The  revival  of  the  alliance  pattern  may  be 
seen,  when  stripped  of  the  Genevan  ideology, 
to  mark  the  reversion  of  the  Europe  which  was 
intended  to  become  one  body,  to  the  tradi- 
tional balance  of  power.  Military  coalitions  of 
approximately  equal  strength  in  war  potentials 
may  be  in  the  forming,  and  the  abandonment 
of  the  'Stresa  front'  betokens  the  breakdown 
of  the  last  collaborative  efforts  of  an  even 
pseudo-united  Europe  in  the  face  of  renewed 
aggression.  Small  wonder  that  appeal  is  made 
to  the  old,  time-honored  formula  and  charac- 
teristic pattern  of  neutrality  by  a  baffled  and 
unsettled  public  opinion! 

In  proportion  as  Europe,  or  the  world  of 
Eurasia,  returns  to  the  system  of  armed 
rivalry,  the  conception  of  neutrality,  albeit  in 
somewhat   changed   form,   reappears  on   the 


^936 


AMERICA  AND  THE  LEAGUE 


[465] 


world  scene.  And  just  because  neutrality  has 
been  the  fundamental  response  of  the  United 
States  ever  since  1793  to  the  situation  of  an 
unstable  equilibrium  in  the  world  scene,  the 
resurrection  of  neutrality  from  the  oblivion 
in  which  it  was  left  following  the  World  War 
becomes  an  understandable  phenomenon. 
Under  the  circumstances  the  recrudescence 
J  of  American  neutrality  should  be  regarded  as 

a  reaction,  more  instructive  than  rational,  to 
the  recurrence  of  the  menaces  which,  for  a 
century  before  1793,  involved  America  in  wars 
that  were  not  of  her  own  making.  Whether  to 
'*  meet  the  present  situation  by  a  reversion  to 

;  the  historic  pattern  of  neutrality,  or  to  take 

refuge  in  the  collective  system  from  which, 
since  191 9,  it  has,  in  general,  remained  aloof, 
is,  for  the  American  public,  a  very  real 
dilemma. 

LET  us  first  consider  the  alternative  of  the 
collective  system.  The  relation  of  the  United 
States  to  it  is  admittedly  amorphous,  and  de- 
serves prompt  clarification.  Certainly  the 
establishing  of  formal  diplomatic  representa- 
tion at  Geneva,  by  accrediting  a  plenipoten- 
tiary directly  to  the  League,  would  make  for 
better  liaison.  Continued,  fruitful  cooperation, 
in  and  outside  of  conferences,  on  technical, 
administrative  and  non-political  matters  may 
be  expected  to  continue,  but  formal  assump- 
tion of  League  membership   by  the  United 

f  States   at   the  present   time  would   be  very 

largely  a  liability,  without  appreciable  advan- 
tages to  this  Government,  and  without  mate- 
rial influence  on  the  general  world  situation. 

Perhaps  the  last  historical  moment  at  which 
American  membership  might  have  possessed 
constructive  values  was  at  the  end  of  the 
main  session  of  the  Disarmament  Conference 
in  1932;  events  since  then,  alike  in  Europe, 
Africa  and  the  Far  East,  have  so  deadlocked 

I  the  situation,  and  forcibly  altered  the  bases  of 

legality  as  to  make  American  membership  in 
the  League  of  Nations  at  this  time  devoid  of 
substance  or  meaning  except,  perhaps,  as  a 
purely  altruistic  gesture. 

The  formal  relation  of  the  United  States  to 

I         sanctions  and  the  desirability  of  cooperation 
in  their  enforcement  is,  in  my  opinion,  con- 

l-         tingent  on  the  purpose  of  sanctions  on  the  one 

'.  hand,  and  the  nature  and  scope  on  the  other. 

If  sanctions  are  to  be  concerted  to  deter  or 
check  aggression,  in  the  objective  sense  of  open 
attack  on  territory,  as  was  obviously  the  case 


in  the  East  African  War,  there  would  appear 
to  be  substantial  consensus  on  their  desirabil- 
ity, the  only  point  for  debate  being  that  of 
adequacy  of  means  to  ends. 

But  sanctions  as  discussed  in  relation  to  the 
Rhineland  crisis  appear  in  a  totally  different 
frame  of  reference — as  instruments  for  the  en- 
forcement of  an  obsolescent  system  of  legality, 
quite  separate  from  the  question  of  territorial 
integrity,  and  in  connection  with  matters 
which  can  only  by  a  flight  of  the  imagination 
be  said  to  involve  'existing  political  inde- 
pendence.' In  consequence,  sanctions  appear 
more  as  instrumentalities  for  the  preservation 
of  existing  relations  of  power  than  as  means  for 
frustrating  aggression. 

It  is  one  thing  to  consider  sanctions  as  a 
weapon  against  conquest;  it  is  quite  another  to 
envisage  them  as  means  for  refrigerating  the 
relationships  of  power.  That  is  why  there  is  no 
feigning,  no  insincerity  on  the  part  of  Britain 
in  demanding  and  continuing  sanctions  against 
Italy,  but  also  why  there  is  such  diffidence,  if 
not  outspoken  hostility,  about  their  use  as  a 
means  for  perpetuating — even  in  the  vacuum 
of  nominal  equality  at  Locarno — the  relation- 
ships of  power  established  by  the  sword  at 
Versailles. 

It  is  not  far  wide  of  the  mark  to  say  that 
American  public  opinion,  which  was  not  un- 
sympathetic (outside  of  Italian-American  cir- 
cles) to  the  imposition  of  sanctions  on  Italy,  is 
irrevocably  opposed  to  their  use,  in  any  con- 
tingency, as  instruments  for  the  play  of  power- 
politics.  In  the  light  of  the  foregoing  interpre- 
tation, it  must  be  clear  that  any  hope  of 
American  cooperation  in  sanctions  depends 
upon  their  application  as  deterrents  of  aggres- 
sion and  not  as  auxiliaries  of  power-politics. 
Until  such  a  decisive  clarification  takes  place, 
the  prospect  of  actively  associating  the  United 
States  with  the  sanctions  system  is  exceedingly 
remote. 

THE  return  of  the  United  States  to  the  pat- 
tern of  neutrality  was  actuated  in  the  first  in- 
stance by  the  recurrence  of  imperialistic  war, 
such  as  called  into  play  the  existing  series  of 
sanctions.  But  American  neutrality  no  longer 
operates,  as  it  did  in  1914,  side  by  side  with 
identic  neutrality  governed  by  comparable  in- 
ternational usage  and  law;  it  finds  itself  faced 
at  every  turn  by  the  consequences  of  the  sanc- 
tions system  as  applied  to  unquestioned  ag- 
gression. That  neutrality  would  almost  cer- 


[466] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


-July 


tainly  come  into  force  if  conflict  arose  in  Europe 
over  power-politics,  seems  equally  obvious. 

American  neutrality  policy  thus  becomes,  in 
the  last  analysis,  contingent  on  the  fate  of  the 
sanctions  system.  It  is  clear  that  the  old  neu- 
trality of  1914-1917  has  passed  away  without 
fully  engendering  a  substitute.  The  new  neu- 
trality is  still  in  the  making,  being  caught  in 
the  vortex  of  two  competing  ideological  sys- 
tems, neither  of  which  will  permit  it  to  return 
to  its  historic  mold.  The  question  is  basically 
whether,  in  departing  from  the  irresponsible 
neutrality  of  laissez-faire,  now  known  to  be 
untenable,  the  United  States  will  swing  over 
integrally,  or  only  to  a  degree,  to  one  or  the 
other  of  the  two  antithetical  systems  facing  it 
— the  neutrality  of  autarchy  or  the  neutrality 
of  solidarity.  Both  of  these  alternatives  deserve 
brief  comment. 

The  neutrality  of  autarchy  builds  on  the 
fundamental  assumption  that  in  time  of  war, 
as  war  is  at  present  conducted,  all  nations, 
including  neutrals,  must  be  self-sufficient;  that 
neutrals,  to  be  truly  such,  must  withdraw, 
both  economically  and  militarily,  from  the 
struggle,  immuring  themselves  within  their 
own  territorial  jurisdiction  and  behind  their 
own  economic  bastions.  This  type  of  neutral- 
ity posits  its  success  in  remaining  aloof  from 
the  struggle  on  the  existence  of  rival  autarchies 
in  both  belligerent  and  other  neutral  states. 
In  this  it  accepts  existing  or  future  economic 
strictures  on  commerce  as  the  realistic  foun- 
dation of  a  strongly  nationalist  policy,  and 
considers  the  political  internationalism  em- 
bodied in  the  League  system  inadequate  for 
the  maintenance  of  a  firmly  abstentive 
neutrality.  It  discards  the  legal  criteria  pains- 
takingly elaborated  under  the  collective  sys- 
tem, and  proceeds  on  the  basis  of  inflexibly 
edicted  national  legislation. 

By  contrast  the  neutrality  of  solidarity, 
posited  on  efi^ective  international  economic  col- 
laboration in  sanctions,  makes  use  of  all  the 
machinery  of  political  internationalism — the 
substitution  of  juridical  procedures  for  de- 
termining aggression,  and  the  implementing  of 
differential  sanctions — to  bring  about  a  com- 
mon-front policy  which,  without  going  so  far 
as  war,  nevertheless  establishes  a  series  of 
economic,  coercive  measures,  chiefly  of  a 
negative  character — all  ramifications  of  a  sys- 
tem of  studied  non-intercourse  with  the  ag- 
gressor and  considerable  economic  aid  to  the 
attacked. 


Because  the  neutrality  of  autarchy  proceeds 
chiefly  by  embargoes,  it  coincides,  as  regards 
the  aggressor,  with  the  system  of  non-inter- 
course exacted  by  the  neutrality  of  solidarity, 
and  may  actually  considerably  augment  its 
efficacy.  Here  a  parallelism  of  procedure  pro- 
duces a  parallelism  of  effect,  but  serves  to  pour 
upon  the  autarchic  neutral  the  vials  of  the  ag- 
gressor's wrath.  When  subjected  to  embargoes 
by  both  groups,  an  aggressor-belligerent  loses 
the  capacity  for  balanced  judgment  and  ob- 
jective political  analysis. 

I  CONCLUDE,  therefore,  that  an  autarchic 
neutral  proceeding,  pari  passu,  with  neutrals 
acting  solidarily  against  an  aggressor,  in  the 
enactment  of  rigorous  embargoes,  but  not  bene- 
fitting by  promises  of  mutual  economic  help, 
will  be  subjected  to  practically  equal  risks 
without  any  compensating  advantages.  But 
sanctions,  in  their  purely  fragmentary  char- 
acter as  thus  far  invoked,  appear  signally  in- 
adequate to  bring  about  either  a  shortening  or 
circumscribing  of  an  existing  war.  Only  a 
bloodless  system  of  sanctions  consisting  in  ab- 
solute non-intercourse  and  the  cutting  oflF  of  all 
external  supplies  to  an  aggressor  can  possess 
really  deterrent  effects.  That  the  neutrality  of 
solidarity  was  intended  to  accomplish  this, 
the  genesis  of  Article  16  of  the  Covenant  clearly 
indicates.  That,  at  long  last,  rigorous  autarchic 
neutrality  would  accomplish  a  like  result,  but 
at  infinite  cost  to  the  neutral  practicing  it, 
seems  equally  clear. 

The  principal  trouble  with  both  the  alterna- 
tives to  the  outmoded  neutrality  of  laissez- 
faire  is  that  they  cut  athwart  the  traditional 
greed  by  which  the  neutrals  of  the  past  three 
centuries  have  exploited  the  dire  necessities  of 
the  opposing  belligerents.  How  to  justify  the 
economic  sacrifices  imposed  by  the  newer 
types  of  neutrality  to  the  average  neutral 
citizen,  accustomed  to  being  pecalator-at-large 
in  a  moment  of  historic  opportunity,  remains  a 
crucial  problem  for  the  Governments  electing 
either  of  the  new  types  of  neutrality.  That 
sacrifices  for  peace  under  either  system  may 
have  meaning  to  neutral  countries,  those  sacri- 
fices must  be  effective. 

At  the  present  moment,  both  the  neutrals  of 
Autarchy  and  those  professing  Solidarity  ap- 
pear to  be  stranded  in  the  valley  of  indecision 
without  being  able,  by  the  measures  hitherto 
adopted,  to  shorten,  circumscribe  or  stop  a  war. 
Only  as  sanctions  or  embargoes  touch  and  cope 


/pjd 


AMERICA  AND  THE  LEAGUE 


[467] 


with  the  deeper  and  more  vital  questions  of 
essential  war  materials  will  they  possess  any 
deterrent  value  for  an  aggressor,  or  really 
effect  economic  non-participation  by  neutrals 
operating  outside  of  the  sanctions  system.  A 
far-reaching  system  of  collective  sanctions 
will  never  be  frustrated  by  autarchic  neutrals. 
Only  such  neutrals  as  may  insist,  in  the 
changed  economy  of  1936,  on  asserting  a  right 
to  trade  with  an  aggressor-belligerent — as 
though  the  world's  calendar  were  still  19 14 — 
can  imperil  the  potential  efficacy  open  to  the 
sanctions  system,  if  those  who  are  its  nominal 
adherents  care  fully  to  invoke  it  against  an 
aggressor. 

ANOTHER  interesting  expression  of 
opinion  comes  from  Dr.  A.  Guyot  Cam- 
eron, of  Princeton,  N.  J.  Dr.  Cameron  has 
been  both  an  educator  and  a  journalist, 
having  taught  French  at  Princeton  Uni- 
versity and  later  serving  on  the  staff  of  the 
Wall  Street  Journal.  He  writes: — 

If  doubt  could  have  existed  as  to  the  unde- 
sirability  of  United  States'  membership  in  the 
League  of  Nations,  such  doubt  now  vanishes 
under  the  facts  of  the  last  few  months.  The 
world  has  seen  a  play  of  coercions;  double- 
crossings;  political  perfidies  now  amplified  into 
renewed  breakings  of  treaties  by  those  who 
have  criticized  the  falsities  of  others;  secret 
arrangements  while  pretending  to  loyalties  to 
plighted  political  faith;  underminings  of  allies 
and  a  long  chapter  of  violated  international 
ethics.  Why  join  such  a  combination  with  all 
the  complications  that  go  with  definite  part- 
nership in  that  chaos,  congeries  and  danger? 

Since  the  United  States,  torn  between  smug 
complacency  at  its  supposed  topographical 
isolation  and  assertion  of  its  independence 
were  all  the  rest  of  the  world  to  be  on  fire  with 
what  threatens  to  be  a  universal  war  of  so- 
called  civilization,  is  unable  to  evolve  even  a 
neutrality  which  is  not  a  farce,  how  think 
that  inclusion  in  the  turmoil  of  League  of  Na- 
tions impotencies  and  cross-purposes  would 
either  be  of  advantage  to  this  country  or  solve 
the  issues  at  stake  League-wise?  That  game  the 
United  States  tried  once — at  the  Peace  Con- 
ference. And  whatever  statements  of  wounded 
pride  or  of  fanatical  partisanship  may  super- 
ficially obscure  the  actualities,  history  knows 
that  our  participation  was  a  personal  and  a 
political  and  a  pecuniary  failure.  It  is  true  that 


we  might  learn.  If  we  do  so,  let  us  apply  inde- 
pendently our  acquired  diplomacy  and  states- 
manship and  power.  Even  for  that  we  are  not 
yet  ready — in  many  ways.  Yet  readiness  is 
with  every  month  increasing  in  necessity. 

It  might  be  well  for  the  United  States  public 
to  review  a  few  things — particularly  those  it 
ignores  or  fails  to  weigh.  We  are  undoubtedly 
a  fundamentally  Anglo-Saxon  and  Germano- 
philic  nation.  In  this,  we  fail  profitably  to  recall 
the  Celtic  and  Latinic  percentages  of  non- 
Anglo-Saxon  raciality  in  our  national  com- 
position and  the  enormous  contributions  of 
Hebraic  numbers  and  efficiencies. 

History  is  repeating  itself  and  with  increas- 
ing rapidity.  And  so  will  the  history  of  1914  in 
its  facts  and  in  its  sequences.  What,  however, 
apart  from  the  'Me-too'  following  of  Great 
Britain  policies — as  increasingly  evidenced  by 
historical  proofs  constantly  coming  to  light  in 
the  stories  of  our  later  diplomacies  (if  they  be 
that) — has  been  our  attitude  in  recent  years 
towards  what  may  be  called  the  Latinic? 

What  difference  does  this  attitude  make? 
To  the  average  'American'  no  difference.  To 
the  effect  upon  our  psychology — apart  from 
the  question  of  truth  and  of  decency — much 
difference.  To  the  complications  that  may  en- 
sue when  quick  decisions  may  be  needed,  still 
greater  difference.  To  the  fundamental  prop- 
ositions of  the  near  future,  infinite  difference. 
What  is  the  paramount  question  internation- 
ally today  as  possible  solution  of  threatening 
future?  The  friendship  of  France  and  of  Great 
Britain.  What  is  the  British  policy?  As  for 
years  since  the  War:  to  play  the  game  of  and 
for  Germany.  What  about  the  United  States? 
'Me-too,  England!'  Until  we  reform  our  so- 
called  diplomacy  we  are  endangering  our  own 
as  well  as  universal  safety. 

LET  us  look  at  a  very  few  facts — by  no  means 
minor  but  indices  of  our  national  spirit.  What 
is  internationally  basic?  Adolf  Hitler  has 
stated  it:  'Inasmuch  as  France,  deadly  enemy 
of  our  people,  strangles  and  robs  us  of  our 
power,  we  must  at  all  cost  take  upon  ourselves 
the  consequences  which  the  destruction  of  the 
French  hegemony  in  Europe  involves.  But 
much  as  we  recognize  the  necessity  of  a  reck- 
oning with  France,  it  will  have  meaning  only 
if  it  assures  us  security  in  the  west  for  the  ex- 
tension of  our  territory  in  the  east.'  Etc.,  etc. 
Is  there  indication  of  change  in  the  spirit  and 
the  threat?  None  worth  anything.  But  Great 


[468] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


Britain  works  actively  as  Hitler  agent  and  in 
every  way  undermines  the  legal  and  signed 
phases  of  Locarno  as  it  did  for  the  Versailles 
treaty  when  a  year  ago  it  made  secret  naval 
arrangements  with  Hitler  without  notifying 
its  Versailles  'Allies.' 

And  the  United  States? 

One  has  only  to  recall  the  furious  fulmina- 
tions  against  France  of  General  Henry  T. 
Allen,  commander  of  the  American  army  of 
occupation,  in  that  extraordinary  chapter  of 
attacks  which  broke  the  rule  of  non-participa- 
tion by  Army  men  in  difficult  and  delicate 
diplomatic  or  official  positions,  and  which 
finds  echo  in  the  non-political  action  by  Army 
and  Navy  officers  from  views  to  votes.  But 
very  shortly  after  renewed  pro-Germanic  and 
anti-French  (in  particular)  predictions  and 
promulgations  by  General  Allen,  the  French 
completely  withdrew  their  Army  from  the 
Rhineland,  years  before  their  rightful  military 
tenure  therein,  under  treaty  provisions,  ex- 
pired. And  the  famous  prophecies  as  to  French 
and  future  action  toppled  ignominiously  into 
the  limbo  of  distorted  and  discredited  prog- 
nostications and  partisanships. 

Again,  France,  through  M.  Briand,  proposes 
to  the  United  States  a  treaty  for  peace  and  of 
international  value.  For  a  year  France  can  get 
no  answer  to  its  proposition.  Then  suddenly 
comes  forth  an  enlargement  of  the  French 
plan,  to  eventuate  in  what  is  called  (by  most) 
the  Kellogg-Briand  pact.  But  note  that  Calvin 
Coolidge,  with  scrupulous  intellectual  honesty 
and  his  characteristic  integrity  of  statement, 
called  it  (as  in  his  last  Decoration  Day  ad- 
dress): the  Briand-Kellogg  pact  (has  any  one 
changed  his  statement?).  Note,  also,  that 
English  statesmen  refer  to  the  pact  as  the 
Briand-Kellogg  pact.  Well,  what  difference 
does  it  make?  Think  it  over.  Quite  apart  from 
the  delicacies,  social  or  diplomatic  or  ethical, 
of  political  history. 

Again,  a  few  years  ago,  a  wild  wail  comes 
from  Germany:  'Save  us!  or  economically  we 
perish.  AND,  if  we  do,  we  pull  the  interna- 
tional house  down  with  us.'  President  Hinden- 
burg  appeals  to  President  Hoover.  Was  there 
any  doubt  as  to  what  the  United  States  would 
do?  None.  The  moratorium!  With  what  re- 
sults? For  Germany:  repudiation;  rearming; 
and  economic  restoration.  Billions  spent 
covertly  and  overtly  for  armamenting.  For  the 


other  nations,  which  had  accepted  Germany's 
promises  of  reparations, — no  recoveries  of  the 
sums  involved,  apart  from  certain  payments 
and  in  kind.  For  the  United  States:  the  im- 
possibility of  payments  to  the  United  States, 
payments  dependent  upon  the  reception  by 
others  of  the  reparations  due.  Result?  bitter 
deblaterating  against  France,  which  was  the 
first  nation  that  had  the  moral  courage  (one 
speaks  only  of  the  fact  and  not  of  the  prin- 
ciples involved)  to  say:  'We  can  not  pay  as  we 
have  been  cheated  out  of  our  income  to  do  so.' 
Recall  the  volumes  of  vituperation  against 
France.  But  when  England  or  Great  Britain 
and  every  other  nation  (save  Finland  and  now 
partially  Greece)  did  as  France  had  done — oh! 
well,  that  is  England,  etc.  Gray  horse  of 
another  color. 

Now  once  more  the  German  cry:  'Sanc- 
tions? Unthinkable!  You  will  ruin  us — and  if 
you  do,  we  will  ruin  you  who  have  poured 
monies  into  our  laps!  In  the  meanwhile  we 
arm;  we  break  new  "scraps  of  paper;"  we 
seize  and  violate  territories  under  the  police 
guard  of  international  promise  and  protection; 
we  demand  preposterous  favors  and  threaten 
you  in  the  bargain.  And  we  dare  you  to  do  any- 
thing about  it.  And  we  apply'  as  to  Belgium 
'excuse  that  can  not  hold  there,  even  were  it 
applicable  to  France,'  which  it  is  not,  'and 
insist  that  France  be  treated  like  ourselves, 
convicted  anew  of  faithlessness.' 

It  is  not  a  question  of  naming  one  nation. 
It  is  a  case  of  whether  any  nation  can  'get 
away*  with  it.  Peace!  Peace!  And  there  is  no 
peace!  France  was  right  as  to  19 14.  France  is 
right  today.  The  world  will  bitterly  rue — and 
before  long — blatant  condoning  of  intolerable 
violations  of  the  accepted  creeds  of  inter- 
national relationships.  These  creeds  remain 
the  only  insurance  against  dangers  that  will 
subvert  the  world.  To  allow  the  pastures  of 
peace  to  be  ravaged  unmolested  by  packs  of 
wolves  will  destroy  every  eflfort-making  to 
raise  crops  that  will  bring  peace,  prosperity 
and  safety  to  one's  own  and  to  other  nations; 
that  will  foster  international  amities.  It  will 
not  do  to  disregard  the  cry:  'The  Philistines 
are  upon  us!  Resist  and  now!' 

Wake  up,  United  States,  and  think  ahead! 
But  no  League  of  Nations!  Sanctions,  if  we 
wish!  No  neutralities.  And  no  dominating 
Anglo-Saxon-Teutonisms  for  us. 


WITH  THE  ORGANIZATIONS 


iHE  Institute  of  Public  Affairs  of  the 
University  of  Virginia  (University,  Va.) 
announces  the  appointment  of  a  Sponsors' 
Committee  on  Finance  to  stabilize  the 
Institute's  budget  over  the  next  five  years 
— 1936  to  1940,  inclusive — 'as  a  suitable 
testimonial  to  the  services  of  the  Institute 
to  the  country,'  All  those  who  are  in 
sympathy  with  the  Institute's  objectives 
are  invited  to  become  members.  The 
following  classes  of  membership  are  avail- 
able: Patron — $i,cxx).oo;  Life  Member — 
$250.00;  Sustaining  Member — ^loo.oo; 
Annual  Member — $10.00. 

CONTINUING  its  work  of  studying 
Central  and  South  American  affairs 
from  the  Catholic  point  of  view,  the 
Catholic  Association  for  International 
Peace  (13 12  Massachusetts  Avenue,  N.W., 
Washington,  D.  C.)  has  recently  pub- 
lished An  Introduction  to  Mexico. 

THE  American  Russian  Institute  for 
Cultural  Relations  with  the  Soviet  Union 
(56  West  45th  Street,  New  York,  N.  Y.) 
has  recently  published  a  pamphlet  by 
Osip  Beskin  entitled  'The  Place  of  Art  in 
the  Soviet  Union.  Copies  of  the  pamphlet 
may  be  obtained  for  25  cents. 

ACCORDING  to  the  Joint  Committee 
for  the  Defense  of  the  Brazilian  People 
(Room  534,  156  Fifth  Avenue,  New 
York,  N.  Y.),  the  more  than  47,000,000 
inhabitants  of  Brazil  are  now  being 
denied  all  the  civil  and  democratic  rights 
which  the  Brazilian  constitution  guar- 
antees them.  The  Vargas  dictatorship 
carries  out  this  repression  under  the  cloak 
of  martial  law.  The  Committee  states 
that  the  number  of  political  prisoners  in 
Brazil  has  now  passed  17,000  and  Presi- 
dent Vargas's  Minister  of  Labor  is  con- 
ducting a  systematic  campaign  to  exterm- 


inate the  labor  unions.  Readers  of  The 
Living  Age  are  invited  to  support  the 
work  of  the  Committee  with  their  con- 
tributions. They  may  also  be  interested  in 
subscribing  to  the  Committee's  weekly 
news  letter.  Not  in  the  Headlines^  the  price 
of  which  is  50  cents  for  four  months. 

THE  Foreign  Policy  Association  (8  West 
40  Street,  New  York,  N.  Y.)  has  recently 
published  a  report  on  T'he  Nazification  of 
Danzig^  by  Mildred  S.  Wertheimer,  con- 
taining some  very  important  facts  which 
have  not  yet  reached  the  American  press. 
Despite  efforts  of  the  League  of  Nations 
and  the  League  High  Commissioner  in 
Danzig,  the  report  says,  the  Free  City  has 
become  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a 
miniature  Nazi  State  since  Hitler's  acces- 
sion to  power  in  Germany.  The  Nazis 
have  introduced  what  amounts  to  con- 
scription in  the  Free  City,  and  a  growing 
Nazi  terror  exists  there. 

THE  first  issue  of  a  magazine  called 
Yiddish  has  made  its  appearance.  Accord- 
ing to  the  publisher,  Yiddish  is  the  only 
magazine  devoted  to  translations  of  con- 
temporary Yiddish  literature  into  Eng- 
lish. Subscriptions,  at  $2.00  per  year,  may 
be  sent  to  60  East  4th  Street,  New  York, 
N.Y. 

IN  THE  May,  1936,  issue  oi  International 
Conciliation^  the  monthly  publication  of 
the  Carnegie  Endowment  for  Interna- 
tional Peace  (405  West  117th  Street, 
New  York,  N.  Y.)  there  is  a  scholarly 
report  by  Manley  O.  Hudson  on  'The 
Chaco  Arms  Embargo.  Dr.  Hudson  is  a 
member  of  the  Permanent  Court  of  Arbi- 
tration at  the  Hague  and  Bemis  Pro- 
fessor of  International  Law  at  the  Harvard 
Law  School.  The  price  of  a  single  issue  of 
International  Conciliation  is  five  cents. 


[47o] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


THE  GUIDE  POST 

{Continued) 

many  a  newspaper  and  magazine  article 
recently,  but  few  of  the  discussions  have 
been  as  vivid  or  as  penetrating  as  that  of 
Mrs.  Edgar  Dugdale's,  which  we  reprint 
from  the  Manchester  Guardian.  Mrs.  Dug- 
dale  has  visited  Palestine  three  times, 
most  recently  during  the  height  of  the 
troubles  this  spring.  On  the  basis  of  her 
observations  she  places  a  considerable 
measure  of  responsibility  for  the  conflict 
between  the  Arabs  and  the  Jews  squarely 
on  the  doorstep  of  the  British  Adminis- 
tration, [p.  419] 

IN  SPAIN,  as  in  France,  a  moderate  So- 
cialist Government  is  in  power,  and 
among  its  many  tasks  is  the  completion 
of  the  much-needed  and  long  overdue 
agrarian  reforms  which  were  begun  in 
1932-33  and  for  the  most  part  undone  in 
1934-35.  Professor  Bonorko  of  Madrid 
describes  the  progress  made  since  March. 
[P-  423] 

SURROUNDED  as  she  is  by  unfriendly 
neighbors,  and  exposed  on  all  sides  to  at- 
tack, Czechoslovakia  naturally  devotes  a 
good  deal  of  thought  to  the  problems  of 
defense.  From  the  Zurich  weekly  fVelt- 
woche  we  translate  a  specimen  of  that 
thought — a  Prague  correspondent's  views 
on  the  strategy  Czechoslovakia  should 
pursue  in  the  next  European  war.  [p.  426] 

THIS  month's  short  story,  by  a  young 
French  author,  Pierre  Galinier,  relates  an 
adventure  in  French  Indo-China.  [p.  429] 

Coming  Down  ro  Earth  is  a  young 

girl's  account  of  what  it  feels  like  to  jump 
from  airplanes.  The  author,  Lyubov  Berlin, 
was  considered  one  of  the  best  women 
parachute  jumpers  in  the  U.  S.  S.  R.  [p.  437] 

THE   'Persons  and   Personages'  of  the 


month  are  Leon  Blum,  the  new  Socialist 
Premier  of  France  [p.  407];  Ibn  Saud, 
King  of  Saudi  Arabia  [p.  410];  and  the 
late  A.  E.  Housman  as  seen  through  the 
eyes  of  a  friend  [p.  4I4]. 

OUR  foreign  reviewers  this  month  include 
the  English  novelists  G.  B.  Stern  and 
David  Garnett;  Keith  Feiling,  historian 
and  *  Research  Student '  at  Christ  Church, 
Oxford;  Ramon  Fernandez,  a  well-known 
French  critic;  Armin  Kesser,  son  of  the 
German  novelist  Hermann  Kesser  and 
himself  a  writer  and  critic;  and  Ilya 
Ehrenbourg,  one  of  the  Soviet  Union's 
most  widely  read  authors. 

OUR  own  reviewers  include  Edwin  Barry 
Burgum,  a  member  of  the  faculty  of  New 
York  University;  Louis  Hacker,  of  Co- 
lumbia University;  Joseph  Barnes,  of  the 
Herald  Tribune  staff;  Michele  Cantarella, 
an  Italian  exile  now  teaching  at  Smith 
College;  Walter  Consuelo  Langsam,  his- 
torian, author  of  The  World  Since  1914; 
Harry  Rudin,  instructor  in  history  at 
Yale;  Quincy  Howe,  contributing  editor 
of  The  Living  Age;  and  Joseph  Kresh, 
translator  and  free-lance  writer. 

OWING  to  hurried  last-minute  resetting 
of  type,  a  number  of  errors  crept  into  the 
article  by  Francis  Delaisi  we  translated 
in  the  May  Living  Age  {fVho  Pays  the 
PipeTy  pp.  196-204)  and  made  nonsense  of 
some  of  the  figures  in  it.  The  third  para- 
graph of  that  article  should  have  read: '  It 
is  estimated  that  the  total  value  of  her 
liquid  assets  is  450  billion  francs.  Of  this 
310  billions  are  invested  in  rentes  and 
other  obligations  of  the  State  administered 
by  public  servants,  including  58  billions 
deposited  in  18  million  savings  accounts. 
The  rest,  about  140  billions  .  .  .'  etc. 
And  the  fourth  paragraph  should  have 
begun  'Of  this  capital  approximately  one- 
third  belongs  to  the  rich;  the  other  two- 
thirds  are  distributed  among  more  than 
four  million  small  holders  .  .  .' 


THE    LIVING    AGE 


CONTENTS 

for  An  gusty  1936 


Articles 

Steeltown,  France A.  Habaru  480 

Three  from  the  East 

I.  Bureyastroy  and  Biro-Bidjan 487 

II.  Japan  Looks  South  . Professor  Tadao  Yanaihara  491 

III.  The  Sky-Blue  Circle Kunikos  494 

Second  Thoughts  on  Housman 

I.  A  Note  on  the  Poetry  of  A.  E.  Housman Cyril  Connolly  499 

II.  Housman's  Scholarship CM.  Bowra  502 

The  Nature  of  Fascism Nicholas  Chiaramonte  515 

Tales  of  the  Gaels 

I.  'Poteen'  (A  Story) A.  R.  Lindt  523 

II.  The  Corpse  (A  Story) Malin  Bruce  526 

Departments 

The  World  Over 471 

Persons  and  Personages 

Leon  Degrelle,  Belgium's  ENFANT  'TERRIBLE Arved  Arenstam  505 

Prince  Paul  of  Yugoslavia Pierre  Lyautey  509 

Romeo  at  Home C.  A.  L.  512 

Letters  and  the  Arts 

The  Art  of  Displeasing Raymond  Mortimer  529 

Picasso's  Mind Clive  Bell  532 

None  So  Blind Andre  Lhote  534 

Cezanne  at  the  Orangerie Jacques  Mathey  ^^^i. 

Books  Abroad 537 

Our  Own  Bookshelf 548 

America  and  the  League 553 

With  the  Organizations 557 

Index i 

The  Living  Age.  Published  monthly.  Publication  office,  10  Ferry  Street,  Concord,  N.  H.  Editorial  and  general  offices,  63  Park 
Row,  New  York  City.  50c  a  copy.  $0.00  a  year.  Canada,  $6.50.  Foreign,  $7.00.  Entered  aa  second-class  matter  at  the  Post  Office  at 
Concord,  N.  H.,  under  the  Act  of  Congress,  March  3,  1879.  Copyright,  1936,  by  The  Living  Age  Corporation,  New  York,  New  York. 

The  Living  Age  was  established  by  E.  Littell,  in  Boston,  Massachusetts,  May,  1844.  It  was  first  known  as  Littell's  Living  Age,  suc- 
ceeding Littell's  Museum  of  Foreign  Literature,  which  had  been  previously  published  in  Philadelphia  for  more  than  twenty  years.  In  a 
prepublication  announcement  of  Littell's  Living  Age,  in  1844,  Mr.  Littell  said: '  The  steamship  has  brought  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa 
into  our  neighborhood ;  and  will  greatly  multiply  our  connections,  as  Merchants,  Travelers,  and  Politicians,  with  all  parts  of  the  world : 
so  that  much  more  than  ever,  it  now  becomes  every  intelligent  American  to  be  informed  of  the  condition  and  changes  of  foreign  countries.' 

Subscribers  are  requested  to  send  notices  of  changes  of  address  three  weeks  before  they  are  to  take  effect.  Failure  to  send  such  notices 
will  result  in  the  incorrect  forwEirding  of  the  next  copy  and  delay  in  its  receipt.  Old  and  new  addresses  must  both  be  given. 


THE  GUIDE  POST 


IN  THE  Commonwealth  of  Pennsyl- 
vania and  the  industrial  sections  of  Ohio, 
Indiana  and  Michigan  there  are  not  a  few 
towns  in  which  everything  is  owned  by  the 
'company,'  from  the  factories  and  mines 
down  to  the  houses  in  which  the  workers 
live.  In  such  towns  men,  women  and  chil- 
dren are  the  almost  completely  helpless 
subjects  of  the  owners;  the  workers  are 
herded  into  'company  unions'  or  'em- 
ployee representation  plans'  ruled  by  the 
factory  management;  their  wives  have  no 
alternative  but  to  buy  at  the  company- 
owned  stores;  their  families  must  live  in 
the  company-owned  houses  or  none  at  all; 
they  can  scarcely  call  their  souls  their  own. 
Various  attempts  have  been  made  to 
break  this  'rule  of  the  bosses,'  but  so  far 
none  has  met  with  much  success;  cam- 
paigns to  unionize  these  areas  have  been 
ruthlessly  fought;  and  State  and  Federal 
Governments  have  either  pursued  a 
'hands  off'  policy  or  have  intervened,  in 
times  of  crisis,  to  help  the  owners  maintain 
and  strengthen  their  power. 

Intelligent  and  alert  Americans  have 
long  known  of  these  conditions;  but  only 
the  specialist  in  industrial  relations  real- 
izes that  almost  precisely  the  same  con- 
ditions exist  in  Europe,  even  mfree  Europe 
— in  France,  for  instance.  It  is  for  that 
reason  that  we  take  particular  pleasure 
in  presenting  this  month  a  translation  of 
an  article  on  the  Duchy  of  the  de  Wendels, 
which  appeared  in  a  recent  number  of 
Lumiere,  a  Left-wing  weekly  published 
in  Paris.  The  de  Wendel  family  is  one  of 
the  oldest  and  most  powerful  of  the  French 
industrial  group;  it  owns  and  manages 
a  vast  aggregate  of  factories,  steel  mills 
and  mines  in  Alsace  and  Lorraine.  In  his 
article  Mr.  Habaru  shows  how  completely 
and  how  autocratically  the  de  Wendels 
rule  their  domain  [p.  480].  If  a  bill  which 
Premier  Leon  Blum  recently  introduced 
into  the  French  Chamber  of  Deputies  is 


passed,  this  and  many  other  similar 
'domains'  will  be  nationalized. 

THREE  from  the  East  is  a  group  of  three 
articles  from  three  Oriental  sources.  The 
first,  by  a  Harbin  correspondent  of  the 
China  Weekly  Review,  describes  Soviet  ac- 
tivities in  Eastern  Siberia,  where,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  Japan's  attention  seems 
now  to  be  centered  on  China  and  the 
South  Seas,  the  Communist  Government 
is  pressing  forward  developments  which 
will  prove  of  great  strategic  importance 
in  case  of  war.  [p.  487] 

PROFESSOR  Tadao  Yanaihara  is  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Faculty  of  the  Imperial  Uni- 
versity at  Tokyo.  The  article  by  him 
which  we  reprint,  in  translation,  from  the 
Japanese  monthly  Kaizo  contains  a  num- 
ber of  sensational  revelations  about  Jap- 
anese expansion  in  the  Pacific  Islands; 
and  the  fact  that  the  author  protests  the 
innocence  of  Japan's  intentions  in  that 
quarter,  and  insists  that  the  expansion 
will  be  carried  out  by  purely  economic 
measures,  does  not  decrease  in  the  slight- 
est the  significance  of  the  moves  he  reveals 
— especially  to  Americans.  For  'the  flag 
follows  trade.'  [p.  491] 

'  THE  gangs  of  New  York  have  had  their 
historians,'  says  the  author  of  The  Sky- 
Blue  Circle.  'The  gangs  of  Chicago  are 
still  front  page  news  whenever  anything 
happens  in  that  city  of  meat  packers. 
But  it  still  remains  for  somebody  to  write 
the  story  of  the  gangs  of  Shanghai.'  What 
'Kunikos'  gives  us  is  a  chapter  from  that 
story,  [p.  494] 

LAST  month  we  reprinted  from  the  New 
Statesman  and  Nation  a  piece  on  A.  E. 
Housman  by  Percy  Withers,  who,  as  a 
friend  of  the  poet,  was  able  to  write  an 
(^Continued  on  page  S5^) 


THE    LIVING    AGE 

Founded  by  E.  Littell 

In  1844 


August^  igj6  Volume  j^o^  Number  44^9 

The  World  Over 


ILNGLAND'S  PREPARATIONS  for  war  have  encountered  an  un- 
expected obstacle:  Englishmen  decline  to  join  the  army.  Recent  figures 
show  that  the  regular  army  is  9,000  men  under  strength.  From  the 
present  peacetime  basis  of  190,985  men,  26,000  will  retire  next  March. 
The  Territorials  (militia)  lack  45,000  men;  the  shortage  in  London  alone 
amounts  to  7,000.  The  first  anti-aircraft  division  falls  10,000  below 
establishment.  Even  the  Royal  Air  Force  finds  difficulty  enlisting 
enough  pilots  to  man  the  large  number  of  new  planes.  Secretary  of  State 
for  War  A.  DuflF-Cooper  complains  that  'instancing  only  the  aircraft 
units  which  would  be  engaged  in  the  defense  of  London,  they  are  more 
than  50  per  cent  short  of  their  full  strength.' 

This  was  the  situation  which  provoked  the  Minister's  famous  speech 
insisting  that  it  was  necessary  to  'scare  people  to  death'  with  warnings 
of  the  war  menace  in  Europe.  Newspapers  discuss  conscription  quite 
openly  and  Ministers  refer  to  the  subject  guardedly  in  their  speeches. 
Sir  Thomas  Inskip,  Coordinating  Minister  of  Defense,  addressed  the 
British  Legion  as  follows:  'If  the  Government  does  not  resort  to  con- 
scription for  providing  the  nation  with  the  forces  necessary  to  defend 
it  and  to  carry  out  the  responsibilities  which  it  has  incurred  to  other 
nations,  there  will  have  to  be  some  other  way  of  providing  the  forces 
which  may  be  necessary.' 

But  Mr.  Baldwin,  who  promised  not  to  introduce  conscription  in 
peace-time,  hesitates.  As  a  result,  employers  have  been  mobilized  in  a 


[472]  THE  LIVING  AGE  August 

campaign  to  get  the  boys  into  khaki,  or  at  least  into  the  Territorials. 
Heads  of  prominent  industrial  firms,  under  direction  of  the  Govern- 
ment, have  encouraged  their  employees  to  join  this  body,  promising 
vacations  with  pay  and  other  premiums.  The  managing  director  of 
Smith's  English  Clocks  at  Cricklewood,  for  instance,  urged  his  men  to 
enlist.  He  pointed  out  that  all  fares  to  drills  and  camps  are  paid,  clothing 
provided  free,  and  an  annual  bounty  up  to  £5  awarded.  'If  the  appeal 
for  the  Territorials  fails,'  Mr.  Smith  warned,  *a  form  of  conscription  is 
inevitable.'  The  Left-wing  press  and  labor  organizations  have  firmly 
opposed  this  recruiting  campaign.  Borough  councils,  among  them  the 
London  County  Council,  have  refused  to  cooperate.  As  a  result,  the 
campaign  has  met  with  little  success. 

ENGLAND'S  DIFFICULTY— Ireland's  opportunity.  This,  at  least, 
provides  the  readiest  explanation  of  President  De  Valera's  surprising 
speech  in  which  he  tendered  some  olive  leaves  to  the  'Sassenach' 
simultaneously  with  his  cracking  down  on  the  Irish  Republican  Army. 
To  England,  engaged  in  a  vast  preparedness  program,  tnis  should  mean 
much.  For  Ireland  is  of  more  than  purely  military  importance  to  Britain. 
The  new  industrial  Irish  Free  State,  with  its  factories  operating  on  low 
costs  with  cheap  peasant  labor,  constitutes  an  excellent  annex  to  the 
British  industrial  mobilization  plan.  For  some  time  British  ordnance 
officers  have  been  trying  to  distribute  armament  factories  in  various 
parts  of  the  United  Kingdom,  as  a  precaution  against  air  bombardment. 
To  De  Valera,  the  politician,  success  or  failure  of  his  move  may  play 
an  important  part  in  his  next  electoral  campaign.  Accumulated  dis- 
content against  the  Anglo-Irish  trade  war  and  an  industrial  revival 
that  has  absorbed  only  a  part  of  the  unemployed  threaten  his  chances. 
More  factories  would  spell  less  opposition  in  industrial  centers.  Also, 
he  may  lead  the  British  into  a  settlement  of  the  still  unsatisfactory  status 
of  Ireland's  independence.  A  columnist  in  Reynolds  News  illuminates 
this  situation  and  offers  some  forecasts: — 

I  was  able  to  reveal  exclusively,  some  three  months  ago,  the  Irish  Free  State 
plans,  since  officially  declared,  for  the  building  of  a  munitions  factory  on  the 
Shannon.  Now  I  learn  that  two  more  plants  are  under  consideration,  the  sites  to 
be  in  the  Cork  district.  Kynoch's  old  factory  there,  closed  down  after  the  war, 
may  possibly  be  rebuilt. 

Extraordinary  interest  attaches  to  this  move^  which  is  a  vital  factor  in  the  secret 
negotiations  between  the  British  Government  and  the  Irish  Free  State  towards  a 
complete  and  permanent  settlement.  'The  output  of  the  munitions  factories  must 
obviously  be  absorbed  by  Great  Britain.  With  an  army  of  only  Sfioo  it  would  not 
pay  the  Free  State  to  be  self-supporting  in  armaments. 

Meanwhile,  the  strongest  pressure  is  being  exerted  on  the  Northern  Govern- 
ment to  agree  to  a  United  Ireland,  and  some  sensational  developments  may  be 


( 


igs6  THE  WORLD  OVER  [473] 

expected  before  the  autumn.  Curiously,  one  of  the  best  cards  in  the  agricultural 
South's  hand  against  the  die-hards  of  the  industrial  North  is  cheap  electrical 
power.  Ulster  industrialists  badly  want  to  tap  the  Shannon  'juice,'  at  a  low  rate. 


BUT  FACTORIES  and  pacts  do  not  tell  the  whole  story.  Over  a  year 
ago,  rumors  that  the  German  Lufthansa  planned  an  air  line  to  Dublin 
stirred  England  to  action.  A  famous  British  firm  sent  an  airplane  circus 
on  a  junket  throughout  the  Free  State  and  negotiations  with  Mansion 
House  followed.  Now,  for  the  first  time,  England  and  the  Free  State 
are  linked  by  a  passenger  air  line.  Two  services  run  from  Dublin,  one  to 
Liverpool  via  the  Isle  of  Man,  the  other  directly  to  Bristol.  The  arrange- 
ment is  maintained  on  a  reciprocal  basis,  an  Irish  and  English  company 
working  harmoniously  together.  But  the  joint  effort  fails,  rather  curi- 
ously, to  give  real  'service.'  For  the  plane  leaves  Dublin  at  9  o'clock  in 
the  morning  and  passengers  arrive  in  London  [by  train  from  Bristol] 
about  two  in  the  afternoon.  Thus  no  business  can  be  done  in  DubHn 
before  departure  and  not  much  in  London  after  arrival.  It  therefore 
offers  little  advantage  over  the  overnight  rail  and  steamship  route.  The 
Sunday  Times  suggests  the  real  reason.  'They  [the  services]  are  the  out- 
come of  long  negotiation  to  safeguard  national  rights  and  prestige  .  .  . 
The  whole  plan  seems  to  have  in  view  developments  that  may  arise  in 
the  case  of  war.'  

THE  VISIT  TO  LONDON  of  Mr.  Oswald  Pirow,  Minister  of  Defense 
of  the  South  African  Government,  introduced  on  the  world  stage  a 
figure  who  may  profoundly  alter  the  role  of  this  part  of  the  British  Em- 
pire and  quite  probably  will  have  much  to  say  if  the  mandated  terri- 
tories in  Africa  ever  change  hands.  The  Spectator  regards  him  as  the 
natural  successor  to  the  aging  Smuts  and  Hertzog  (now  Premier).  He  is 
young,  aggressive,  and  typical  of  that  wing  of  the  Boer  element  which 
firmly  believes  that  it  is  as  vital  for  the  Empire  to  include  South  Africa 
as  it  is  for  South  Africa  to  enjoy  the  protection  of  British  sea  power. 
The  Admiralty  can  well  appreciate  this  view  now  that  the  Suez  route 
to  India  must  be  regarded  as  permanently  endangered  by  the  power  of 
Italy.  London-Capetown-Bombay  provides  a  good  alternative.  Sir 
Samuel  Hoare,  new  Lord  of  the  Admiralty,  can  well  see  the  point  that 
Mr.  Pirow  makes,  namely,  that  Simonstown  should  be  heavily  fortified 
and  converted  into  a  great  naval  base,  the  Singapore  of  South  Africa. 
Such  a  plan  possesses  great  attractions  for  South  Africa,  which  is 
not  as  remote  as  it  used  to  be  before  the  advent  of  the  airplane  and 
Mussolini.  Also,  as  the  writer  in  the  Spectator  archly  remarks,  *  A  covet- 
ous Asiatic  power,  if  there  is  such  a  thing,  could  make  the  native  policy 
of  South  Africa  a  casus  belli  without  much  call  on  its  ingenuity.' 


[4741  THE  LIVING  AGE  August 

Indeed,  the  handful  of  white  inhabitants,  Boers  and  British,  feel 
distinctly  uncomfortable  among  the  great  mass  of  the  colored  popula- 
tion. This  condition  has  found  expression  in  recent  legislation  dis- 
franchising the  natives.  South  African  leaders  beheve  in  taking  the 
offensive  and  asserting  the  dominance  of  the  white  race  in  Africa. 
General  Hertzog  announced  on  June  1 1  that  the  Union  of  South  Africa 
will  take  over  the  native  protectorates,  Swaziland,  Basutoland  and 
Bechuanaland,  heretofore  under  Crown  administration.  The  South 
African  Government  is  already  interested  in  the  mandates  and  has  staked 
out  a  claim  to  one  of  these,  Southwest  Africa.  The  Southwest  Africa 
Commission  (composed  of  two  Boers  and  one  Britisher)  recently  pub- 
lished a  very  interesting  report.  The  report  shows  that  this  former  Ger- 
man colony,  now  a  mandate  under  the  Versailles  treaty,  suffers  from 
typical  Nazi  intrigues.  German  inhabitants  have  been  intimidated  by 
Nazi  cells  and  there  has  been  *  abolition  of  freedom  of  speech  and  even 
of  personal  conduct  for  a  large  number  of  Germans  who  are  subjects  of 
the  Union.' 

In  conclusion,  the  report  declares  that  no  legal  obstacle  exists  to  pre- 
vent the  territory  from  being  governed  as  a  province  of  the  Union  of 
South  Africa,  subject  to  the  provisions  of  the  mandate.  One  need  not 
wonder  that  Mr.  Pirow  solicits  the  establishment  of  an  arms  factory  in 
his  land  and  the  stationing  of  battleships  at  Simonstown. 

His  conference  ended,  Mr.  Pirow  left  for  home.  The  results  of  the 
negotiations,  though  not  yet  made  public,  may  well  make  history. 

THE  WAVE  OF  STRIKES  which  has  broken  widely,  but  by  no  means 
violently,  over  France  resulted  from  a  number  of  factors,  the  least  of 
which  was  revolutionary  activity  for  the  overthrow  of  capitalism.  The 
workers  did  not  'occupy,'  nor  seek  to  operate,  the  factories  as  the  Italian 
workers  did  preceding  the  advent  of  Mussolini.  They  simply  resorted  to 
the  *  stay-in'  strike,  a  method  employed  by  regular  trade-unions  in  both 
England  and  the  United  States.  Also,  leaders  of  the  Communist  party 
endeavored  to  get  the  men  back  to  work  as  soon  as  they  tactfully  could. 
The  real  force  behind  the  movement  arose  from  a  very  natural  demand 
for  better  wages  and  working  conditions,  which  had  suffered  from  the 
protracted  depression.  Next  in  importance,  certain  conditions  in  the 
existing  trade-union  situation  helped.  For  instance,  the  recent  amal- 
gamation of  the  Confederation  Generale  du  Travail  (Socialist)  and  the 
Confederation  Generale  du  Travail  Unitaire  (Communist)  removed  a 
hindrance  which  formerly  prevented  effective  union  policy.  In  years 
past,  these  two  organizations  customarily  fought  each  other  rather 
than  the  employer. 

Also,  many  of  the  recent  strikes  took  place  in  factories  where  no 


ig36  THE  WORLD  OVER  [475] 

union  existed.  In  such  cases,  absence  of  union  discipline  unduly  pro- 
longed trouble.  Provocation  by  Fascist  elements  undoubtedly  played  a 
part.  The  Manchester  Guardian  correspondent  noted  that  the  Croix  de 
Feu  incited  workers  to  'stay  in'  even  after  the  employers  had  offered 
reasonable  agreements.  All  in  all,  the  foreign  press  must  assume  re- 
sponsibility for  much  exaggeration  and  distortion  of  the  facts  about  the 
real  nature  of  the  strikes.  Even  the  conservative  Paris-Soir  com- 
plained : — 

In  their  zeal  to  provide  information  to  their  readers,  some  of  the  foreign 
papers  went  too  far.  For  instance,  a  certain  journal  across  the  Atlantic  gave  the 
surprising  news  that  the  plant  of  this  newspaper  had  been  burnt  by  the  strikers. 
Also  a  sheet  down  on  the  Danube  announced  seriously  that  no  more  cats  were  to 
be  seen  on  the  streets  of  Paris:  they  were  ail  kept  indoors  in  preparation  for  a 
food  shortage — 'just  as  under  the  Commune.* 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  all  this  labor  trouble  may  force  revolution  in 
quite  another  sector — the  currency.  Increased  labor  costs  in  French 
industry,  already  injured  in  its  foreign  markets  by  adherence  to  the  gold 
standard,  have  inspired  French  industrialists  and  business  interests  to 
a  strong  demand  for  devaluation.  Premier  Blum  has  been  resisting  this 
out  of  a  healthy  respect  for  the  petit  rentier  element  in  the  Front 
Populaire,  and  for  labor,  which  fears  a  rise  in  the  cost  of  living  following 
such  devaluation.  However,  many  of  Blum's  statements  on  the  subject 
contain  hints  that  perhaps  circumstances  may  force  his  hand.  Certainly 
big  business  is  fighting  strongly  for  devaluation. 

Paul  Reynaud,  outstanding  exponent  of  devaluation  and  regarded 
by  many  as  the  real  leader  of  the  Opposition  in  the  Chamber,  directs 
this  struggle.  Why  Mr.  Reynaud  protests  so  strongly  may  be  gathered 
from  an  analysis  of  his  private  interests  published  in  Bourse  et  Repub- 
lique,  a  journal  particularly  concerned  with  the  maneuvers  of  the 
'financial  oligarchy.'  According  to  this  paper. 

He  is  President  of  the  board  of  directors  and  representative  of  the  majority 
stockholders  of  a  large  firm  in  Mexico,  Las  Fabricas  Universales.  This  enter- 
prise takes  its  receipts  in  silver  pesos,  but  owes  its  creditors  in  gold  francs.  Las 
Fabricas  Universales  is  closely  connected  with  A.  Reynaud  &  Cie.,  in  which 
Reynaud  was  until  recently  director  and  in  which  he  is  at  present  represented  by 
his  mother.  In  November,  1933,  this  firm  had  to  call  in  its  creditors  and  reveal  its 
insolvency.  It  is  easy  to  understand  why  Reynaud  wishes  to  free  himself  from 
debt. 

Of  course,  much  of  French  industry  struggles  under  a  load  of  heavy 
bond  issues  and  would  consequently  welcome  devaluation. 

THE  BELGIAN  STRIKES,  quickly  following  the  French,  represent 
more  than  a  mere  hours-and-wages  dispute.  They  mark  the  beginning 


[476]  THE  LIVING  AGE  August 

of  a  pre-Front  Populaire  stage  in  Belgian  politics.  The  Front  Populaire 
in  France  first  arose  to  meet  the  menace  of  the  Fascist  Colonel  de  La 
Rocque  and  his  Croix  de  Feu.  Now  the  Colonel  has  a  counterpart  in 
Leon  Degrelle,  leader  of  the  Fascist  Rexists.  But  Degrelle  impetuously 
starts  where  the  French  'Fiihrer'  left  off.  Unlike  de  La  Rocque  he  makes 
no  attempt  to  conceal  the  fact  that  he  is  a  Fascist.  He  confessedly 
admires  Hitler  and  follows  his  technique  closely.  Thus  he  cultivates  the 
petty  bourgeoisie  and  workers,  and  assails  bankers  and  great  industrial- 
ists. To  seize  power,  he  will  employ  two  methods,  propaganda  and  terror. 
The  Socialist  party,  the  largest  in  the  Chamber,  has  so  far  made  no 
effective  move  to  meet  this  danger.  The  party  still  pursues  the  policy  of 
cooperating  with  the  middle-class  Catholic  party,  as  the  Radicals  in 
France  joined  the  Laval  coalition  government.  But  strikes  and  agitation 
in  its  Left  wing  reinforce  the  demand  for  a  People's  Front  against 
Fascism.  This,  according  to  the  Neue  Weltbiibne^  is  Belgium's  only 
salvation : — 

In  France,  the  proportionately  weaker  Socialist  party  has  taken  the  political 
leadership;  by  beating  Fascism  it  has  come  to  power.  Why  has  Leon  Blum 
achieved  success?  Because  of  his  adaptability.  The  clever  concentration  of 
power  in  unity  and  the  Front  Populaire  made  possible  his  offensive.  To  be  sure, 
political  powers  are  differendy  constituted  in  Belgium;  there  is  neither  a  Radical 
nor  a  strong  Communist  party;  Belgium  has  no  run-off  elections,  which  favored 
the  French  parties  of  the  Left.  Nevertheless,  it  is  clear  from  all  this  that  the  man 
who  is  renovating  Socialist  politics  in  western  Europe  in  the  most  practical  way 
is  not  Henri  de  Man  but  Leon  Blum.  If  de  Brouck^re  and  Pierard  now  want  the 
policy  of  unity  and  the  Front  Populaire,  it  is  because  the  French  method  is  demon- 
strably better  than  a  narrow  nationalistic  one.  Leon  Blum's  method  appears  to 
possess  a  universal  value  for  the  present  labor  movement  in  Europe. 


WHAT  THE  PEOPLE'S  FRONT  in  Spain  has  done  since  its  victory 
last  February  disappoints  conservative  Cassandras  and  Communist 
wishful-thinkers  equally.  Instead  of  the  predicted  overthrow  of  the 
capitalist  system,  Spain  seems  to  have  chosen,  for  the  moment^  the  path 
of  reform.  The  Left  bourgeois  Republicans  still  run  the  Government  and 
their  leader,  Manuel  Azana,  while  elevated  to  the  less  decisive  position 
of  President,  still  keeps  his  hand  on  the  reins  through  his  friend  Casares 
Quiroga,  the  new  Premier.  Louis  Fischer  had  an  interview  with  Azana, 
and,  writing  in  the  London  Reynolds  News,  describes  Azana's  plans: — 

The  Bank  of  Spain,  now  a  private  institution,  governed  by  a  desire  for  profit, 
would  be  placed  more  directly  under  Government  control  in  order  that  it  might 
serve  a  new  social  purpose.  It  would  not  be  nationalized,  however.  'During 
1936,'  said  Azaiia,  'the  State  would  spend  one  hundred  million  pesetas  to  facilitate 
land  reform.  Next  year  more  money  would  be  available.  In  September  of  this 
year,  the  peasants  who  had  received  land  would  be  given  between  four  and  ten 


igS^  THE  WORLD  OVER  [477] 

thousand  pesetas  per  household  for  the  purchase  of  necessary  cattle  and  equip- 
ment.' 

Then  Azana  made  a  surprising  declaration.  'The  kernel  of  our  land  reform,'  he 
asserted,  '  is  the  restitution  of  land  to  the  villages  on  a  collective  basis.  Centuries 
ago  collectives  were  the  tradition  of  the  Spanish  villages.  .  .  .'  'Might  not  these 
changes  on  the  land,'  I  ventured,  'if  unaccompanied  by  State  ownership  of  indus- 
tries, strengthen  the  capitalist  regime  in  the  cities  by  creating  a  richer  peas- 
ant market  for  industrial  commodities?'  'Yes,'  he  frankly  replied,  'They  will 
strengthen  the  urban  bourgeoisie,  but  that  bourgeoisie  is  not  anti-republican  .  .  . 
What  I  strive  for  is  a  very  Left  Republic  with  some  Socialist  innovations.' 

Mr.  Fischer  gathered  expressions  of  opinion  from  other  personalities, 
also.  According  to  these,  Azana's  plans  may  have  to  be  altered. 

The  consensus  of  unbiased  opinion,  even  of  anti-Socialist  opinion,  however,  is 
that,  in  the  end,  the  bourgeoisie  will  have  to  yield  to  the  Socialists.  A  prominent 
foreign  diplomat  said  to  me  only  today:  'In  five  years  Spain  will  be  a  wholly 
Socialist  state.'  The  Socialists  and  Communists  would  differ  with  him  on  one 
point:  they  are  convinced  it  will  not  take  five  years.  Nevertheless  they  refuse  to  be 
committed  on  how  soon  it  will  be.  *  A  year  or  two'  is  as  precise  as  most  of  them  are 
willing  to  be  for  the  moment. 

THE  SOUTH  CHINA  theater  of  the  Sino-Japanese  struggle  offers 
some  puzzling  problems  to  political  observers.  Of  course,  the  sudden 
activity  on  the  part  of  the  Cantonese  Government  has  been  inspired 
by  the  new  Drang  nach  Suden  of  the  Japanese.  For  the  Japanese  from 
their  neighboring  possession  of  Formosa  have  directed  a  campaign  of 
penetration  into  Fukien  province,  adjacent  to  Cantonese  territory,  in  a 
manner  reminiscent  of  Manchuria.  Yet  at  the  same  time  relations 
between  Canton  and  Nanking  become  hostile.  Cantonese  troops  march 
north  with  much  flourishing  of  both  anti-Japanese  and  anti-Nanking 
trumpets.  Nanking  forces  march  south  just  as  belligerently,  stopping 
the  Cantonese  in  their  tracks.  Will  North  and  South  keep  the  peace  by 
reaching  an  agreement,  as  they  have  in  the  past?  Or  will  they  plunge 
China  into  civil  war?  Has  Japanese  intrigue  brought  this  situation 
about  in  order  to  divide  and  rule?  The  Economist  offers  an  answer: — 

It  looks  as  though  the  flux  in  the  political  relations  between  Canton  and  the 
Yangtze  Basin  might  at  last  be  brought  to  an  issue  by  the  slow  but  sure  process 
of  railway  construction.  It  is  now  reported  that,  some  four  months  hence,  the 
through  route  between  Hankow  and  Canton  will  be  opened  at  last,  with  the 
completion  of  the  missing  link  on  the  watershed.  There  is  also  a  project  for  pro- 
longing the  Shanghai-Hangchow  Railway  south  westward  until  it  joins  the 
Hankow-Canton  Railway  at  a  point  south  of  Changsha. 

If  these  two  railway  developments  soon  coincide,  there  will  be  some  prospect 
at  last  of  politically  consolidating  all  that  is  left  of  an  independent  China  under 
a  single  Government,  which,  without  being  plagued  by  Chinese  rivals,  will  be 
able  to  focus  against  Japan  all  the  still  surviving  forces  of  Chinese  resistance.  A 


[478]  THE  LIVING  AGE  August 

united  South  Chinese  Government  in  all  probability  would  not  establish  its 
capital  in  Nanking  or  Canton,  exposed  as  both  of  them  are  to  Japanese  attack. 
It  would  be  more  likely  to  seek  a  safer  seat  at  some  point  in  the  interior  which 
had  been  opened  up  by  the  improvement  in  the  South  China  railway  system. 

Such  a  development  would,  of  course,  anger  Japan.  Indeed,  Mr. 
Arita,  the  Japanese  Foreign  Minister,  apparently  had  this  in  mind 
during  a  recent  conversation  with  Sir  Frederick  Leith-Ross  in  Tokyo, 
reported  by  the  London  Times  correspondent.  The  roving  envoy  of  the 
British  government  suggested  that  the  revival  of  Chinese  trade  might 
be  beneficial  to  Japan.  He  received  the  reply  that  Nanking  can  expect 
no  economic  assistance  from  Japan  so  long  as  she  remains  politically 
hostile.  'In  regard,'  wrote  the  Times  correspondent,  *to  certain  railway 
plans  which  Sir  Frederick  Leith-Ross  considered  financially  sound,  Mr. 
Arita  pointed  out  that  railways  in  China  had  political  as  well  as  eco- 
nomic aspects.' 

Perhaps  Sir  Frederick's  opinion  of  the  'soundness'  of  these  railways 
may  call  forth  financial  support  from  London,  or  New  York.  In  any 
case,  since  the  Japanese  are  so  keenly  aware  of  the  importance  of  these 
new  lines,  the  next  four  months  may  find  Japanese  military  activity 
and  intrigue  racing  with  the  railway  construction  crews. 

THE  PROPELLING  POWER  behind  Japan  in  her  renewal  of  foreign 
adventure  exists,  as  usual,  in  unfavorable  business  conditions  at  home. 
During  the  first  quarter  of  this  year,  Japanese  exports  of  all  kinds  of 
cotton  piece  goods  amounted  only  to  636,000,000  yards,  compared  with 
714,000,000  yards  during  the  corresponding  quarter  of  1935.  Silk  tissues, 
pottery,  paper  and  caustic  soda  also  showed  a  decrease.  Rayon  and 
toys  barely  kept  to  their  former  level.  Raw  silk,  machinery,  miscel- 
laneous iron  products  and  tinned  foods  were  about  the  only  groups 
which  showed  an  increase.  The  total  of  this  first  quarter's  export  trade 
showed  a  diminutive  rise  from  561  (1935)  to  584  million  yen  (1936). 
Meanwhile  imports  increased  from  711  million  yen  to  773  million.  This 
unfavorable  balance  continues  to  grow.  During  the  period  frorn  January 
I  to  May  20  of  this  year  the  import  excess  amounted  to  268  million  yen 
as  against  194  million  last  year.  The  Statist  surveys  this  situation: — 

In  order  to  import  roughly  30  per  cent  more  than  in  1932  of  raw  materials 
and  other  goods  needed  from  abroad,  Japan  had  to  increase  the  volume  of  her  own 
exports  of  manufactured  articles  by  more  than  53  per  cent.  A  growing  proportion 
of  her  imports  consisted  of  raw  materials  in  their  crudest  state,  while  in  her  total 
exports  highly  finished  manufactured  articles  came  to  play  an  increasingly 
important  role.  It  seems  therefore  that  as  far  as  intrinsic  values  are  concerned 
the  expansion  in  the  turnover  of  Japan's  foreign  trade  must  involve  a  certain 
national  loss.  The  reason  is  that  as  an  importer  Japan  has  to  put  up  with  world 
prices  which  she  can  hardly  influence,  while  as  an  exporter  she  tries  to  sustain  or 


/pj^  THE  WORLD  OVER  [479] 

even  further  extend  the  value  of  her  total  shipments  by  forcing  down  her  own 
prices  and  so  disproportionately  increasing  the  volume  of  her  exports. 

Meanwhile  the  domestic  market  for  her  goods  has  suffered.  For  the 
Japanese  are  struggling  with  a  higher  cost  of  living.  Index  figures  of 
livmg  costs  rose  7.6  per  cent  in  the  last  12  months,  amounting  to  18 
per  cent  more  than  when  Japan  left  the  gold  standard.  Wage  rates  in 
the  last  year  fell  1.5  per  cent  and  are  now  11.4  per  cent  less  than  in  1932. 
Continuation  of  this  condition  can  only  result  in  further  depression. 
One  alternative,  of  course,  is  inflation,  and  the  new  Japanese  Govern- 
ment, which  came  into  power  following  the  military  rebellion,  includes  a 
new  Minister  of  Finance  who  professes  to  be  much  less  orthodox  than 
his  predecessors.  But  the  big  business  interests  strongly  resist  this  and 
even  the  Government  itself  hesitates.  It  is  not  difficult  to  see,  therefore, 
why  another  diversion  in  the  foreign  field  finds  heavy  backing  among 
both  military  and  Government. 

JAPAN'S  LACK  of  raw  materials  undoubtedly  provides  an  incentive 
for  foreign  conquest  second  only  to  the  need  for  markets,  and  partly 
explains  the  absorption  of  Manchuria  and  North  China.  For  China, 
including  Manchuria,  possesses  a  coal  reserve  of  2,330  tons  per  person, 
against  Japan's  reserve  of  150  tons  per  person,  and  an  iron  reserve  of  2 
tons  per  person  against  i^  tons  in  Japan.  Chinese  coal-fields  are  scat- 
tered all  over  the  country,  but  iron  is  found  principally  in  Manchuria 
and  North  China,  along  the  Yangtze  and  northwest  of  Peiping.  The 
great  iron  mountain  of  Anshan,  for  instance,  constitutes  perhaps  the 
greatest  prize  in  the  rich  booty  of  Manchuria. 

If  iron  played  a  part  in  drawing  Japan  into  the  north,  certain  non- 
ferrous  minerals  may  have  an  influence  on  recent  Japanese  maneuvering 
in  the  south.  Japan  suffers  from  a  serious  shortage  of  tin,  tungsten  and 
antimony.  Tin,  necessary  for  canning  purposes,  exists  in  large  quantities 
in  Yunnan  province.  Rich  deposits  of  tungsten,  used  for  hardening  steel 
and  for  the  high-speed  tools  of  modern  mass-production  processes,  exist 
in  Kiangsi,  Hunan,  Kwangtung  and  Kwangsi  provinces.  Approximately 
90  per  cent  of  the  world's  antimony,  employed  for  hardening  lead  in 
shrapnel  bullets  and  in  percussion  caps  of  shells  and  charges,  comes  from 
Hunan.  All  these  provinces  lie  in  the  southern  area  now  threatened  by 
Japanese  influence  in  Fukien. 


In  this  study  of  the  domain  of  one  of 
the  most  powerful  steel  and  munitions 
families  in  France  we  see  how  indus- 
trial   feudalism    maintains    its    sway. 


Steeltown,  France 


By  A.  Habaru 

Translated  from  Lumih-e, 
Paris  Radical  Weekly 


B 


►Y  THE  side  of  the  road  which  leads 
from  Metz  to  Hayange  the  Wendel 
Chateau  turns  its  stately  back  upon 
the  houses  of  the  workers.  The  passer- 
by can  see  only  the  walls  of  the  park, 
a  chapel  of  yellow  stone,  and  a  neg- 
lected farm  building.  But  right  by  the 
gate,  where  a  uniformed  guard  keeps 
watch,  a  small  tower  springs  out  of  the 
shrubbery.  It  offers  its  white  walls 
complacently  to  the  curious  eye  of  the 
stranger,  its  small  turret  with  brand- 
new  slate  tiles,  and,  cut  in  the  stone  in 
large  characters,  a  date:  1767. 

This  little  tower,  so  devoutly  re- 
stored, is  the  dovecote  of  the  manor. 
But  no  silvery  wings  flash  in  the  sun; 
there  is  no  cooing  in  the  shrubbery,  no 
sudden,  silken  whir  of  flying  wings 
brushing  against  the  roof — all  this  is 
gone.  The  empty  dovecote  never  opens 
its  windows.  It  is  there  merely  to  re- 
mind the  passer-by  that  the  Wendels 
have  enjoyed  seignorial  rights  for  two 
centuries.  Under  the  old  regime  the 
building  of  a  dovecote  was  a  privilege 
reserved  for  the  seigneurs  only.  It  flat- 


ters Mr.  Humbert  de  Wendel's  pride 
to  keep  this  visible  symbol  of  his  rank 
and  title  at  the  side  of  the  road  where 
his  workers  can  see  it  on  their  way  to 
and  from  the  factory. 

Nevertheless,  his  ancestors  were 
once  upon  a  time  mere  commoners, 
baring  their  swords  in  the  service  of 
the  Dukes  of  Lorraine.  Coming  origi- 
nally from  Coblenz — where  there  lived 
an  executioner  by  the  same  name — 
Christian  Wendel  attached  himself 
around  1660  to  the  powerful  house  of 
Lavaux,  whose  estates  were  situated 
between  Rodange  and  Longlaville 
near  Longwy.  His  father,  a_ colonel  in 
a  regiment  of  Cravates,  and  he  him- 
self, a  cavalry  lieutenant  in  the  army 
of  Charles  IV,  profited  by  the  wars 
which  ended,  in  the  French  annexa- 
tion of  Lorraine.  Although  they  grew 
rich  in  mercenary  warfare,  they  ad- 
vanced not  a  whit  from  their  com- 
moners' class:  we  see  their  descendant, 
Martin  Wendel,  a  steward  in  the 
household  of  the  Lords  of  Ottange. 

The  administration  of  the  manor 


STEELTOWN,  FRANCE 


[481] 


I 


must  have  proved  lucrative,  for  in 
1704  Martin  Wendel  bought  the 
Hayange  iron  works.  At  that  time, 
when  iron-forging  was  an  art  to  which 
the  Dukes  of  Lorraine  accorded  great 
honors,  the  right  of  'forging'  soon 
brought  patents  of  nobihty  in  its  wake. 
Martin  Wendel,  who  in  1705  had  ac- 
quired the  manor  of  Hayange,  re- 
ceived with  his  patents  of  nobility  the 
right  to  build  the  symbolic  dovecote. 
His  son,  Charles,  built  other  factories 
at  Homburg  and  at  Kreuzwald.  By 
the  time  the  Revolution  came,  his 
widow,  Madame  d'Hayange,  and  their 
son,  Frangois  (who  founded  the  Creu- 
sot  works,  the  Indret  cannon  casting 
foundries  and  the  weapon  casting 
works  at  Charleville  and  Tulle,  and 
who  was  also  proprietor  of  the  Pier- 
rart,  Berchiwe  and  Roussel  foundries) 
found  themselves  at  the  head  of  the 
most  important  centralized  industry 
of  their  time. 

In  a  pamphlet  which  was  distributed 
among  the  members  of  the  factory 
staff,  as  well  as  in  another  more  ex- 
pensive brochure,  the  house  of  Wendel 
asserts  that  it  has  never  made,  and  is 
not  now  engaged  in  making,  cannons. 
Nevertheless,  in  1788  the  lady  of 
Hayange  addressed  to  the  Marshal  de 
Segur  a  note  in  which  she  made  repre- 
sentations to  the  effect  'that  for  more 
than  a  century  the  foundries  of  Hay- 
ange, of  which  she  was  an  owner,  have 
been  engaged  in  furnishing  the  artil- 
lery with  shells,  bullets,  gun-carriages 
for  mortars,  gun-caps  and  cast-iron 
cannon  balls.'  An  historian.  Dr.  Alfred 
Weyhmann,  writes  that  'military  sup- 
plies produced  by  the  Hayange  foun- 
dries brought  their  owners  great 
prestige,  which  they  could  otherwise 
never  have  hoped  to  attain — to  be 
sure,  prestige  of  a  somewhat  sinister 


character,  but  also  possessing  remark- 
able historical  interest.' 

While  Madame  d'Hayange  was  mar- 
shaling her  factories  in  the  service  of 
the  Revolutionary  armies,  her  sons 
were  fighting  in  the  foreign  armies. 
Thus  they  defended  their  recently  ac- 
quired aristocracy  and  the  feudal 
privileges  already  enjoyed  by  their 
iron  industry  against  the  onslaughts 
of  the  Republic. 

The  Revolution  did  not  confiscate 
the  Wendel  factories  immediately. 
Madame  de  Hayange,  who  now  bore 
the  name  of  Citizeness  Wendel,  took 
for  a  time  an  active  part  in  the  super- 
vision of  the  factories,  which  were 
placed  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
War  Department.  Finally  the  factories 
were  put  up  for  auction  and  sold  for 
16,000,000  francs.  The  buyer  having 
become  bankrupt,  the  Wendels  re- 
bought  them  for  220,000  francs.  At 
that  time  they  were  already  employ- 
ing several  hundred  workers. 


II 


It  was  still  the  time  of  wood-fed 
furnaces  and  of  hydraulic  power.  Soon 
coke  was  to  replace  wood  in  the  shafts 
of  the  blast  furnaces.  Francois  de 
Wendel,  a  great  industrial  figure,  ac- 
quired, while  abroad,  some  new  tech- 
nical knowledge,  particularly  in  the 
technique  of  puddling.  He  bought  the 
Moyeuvre  foundries,  as  well  as  the 
Forest  of  Styring  near  Forbach.  Under 
the  forest  there  were  coal  deposits 
containing  just  the  sort  of  pit  coal  that 
the  Wendels  had  vainly  sought  in  the 
Thionville  vicinity  when  they  needed 
it  so  badly  for  manufacturing  cast- 
iron  cannon  balls.  By  insuring  ample 
reserves  of  wood  for  himself,  the  mas- 
ter of  the  iron  works  at  the  same  time 


[482] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


laid  in  reserves  of  combustible  miner- 
als. When  the  first  coal  pits  replaced 
those  smoking  heaps  of  charcoal  that 
used  to  be  scattered  in  the  forest,  the 
Wendels  possessed,  along  with  the 
best  industrial  equipment  of  that 
time,  all  the  raw  materials  they  needed. 

The  prodigious  advance  in  the  met- 
allurgical industry  towards  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century  made  the 
fortune  of  this  family  enterprise.  Then, 
unexpectedly,  came  the  war,  and  the 
annexation  of  Alsace-Lorraine.  Hay- 
ange,  Moyeuvre,  Styring-Wendel  and 
Petite-Rosselle  passed  over  to  Ger- 
many. The  Wendels  had  to  choose  be- 
tween the  two  fatherlands;  they  chose 
both.  A  German  company  called  Les 
Petits-Fils  de  Francois  de  Wendel  et 
Cie.  continued  to  exploit  the  older 
factories.  A  French  society  of  Wendel 
and  Company  built  the  Joeuf  factory 
on  the  border.  Soon  the  two  companies 
succeeded  in  an  operation  which  in- 
creased their  industrial  power  tenfold 
in  a  few  years.  They  bought  the 
monopoly  of  the  Thomas  patent  for 
Alsace-Lorraine  and  the  Meurthe-et- 
Moselle  plants. 

The  application  of  the  Bessemer 
process  after  1856  had  ushered  in  the 
era  of  steel.  But  it  was  impossible  to 
use  the  Bessemer  furnace  for  refining 
the  molten  iron  extracted  from  the 
phosphorous  iron  ore  of  Lorraine  and 
Meurthe-et-Moselle.  The  steel  busi- 
ness thrived;  but  the  factories  built  on 
the  Lorraine  iron  ore  deposits  could 
not  use  the  new  equipment.  Their 
future  was  thus  endangered. 

They  tried  to  find  a  means  of  mak- 
ing the  Bessemer  furnace  immune  to 
phosphorus.  In  London  an  insignifi- 
cant employee  of  the  Tower  Court, 
whose  great  passion  was  chemistry, 
lost  his  health  in  an  effort  to  solve  this 


difficult  problem.  After  ten  years 
solved  it.  But  he  was  ill,  and  on  th( 
point  of  starvation.  A  director  of  th< 
Stenay  works,  Mr.  Taskin,  offered  hii 
fifty  pounds  for  the  license  to  use  th< 
process  in  the  east  of  France.  Sidney 
Thomas  accepted,  and  was  paid  1250 
francs;  the  next  day  Robert  de  Wendel 
bought  the  monopoly  of  the  process  to 
use  in  the  Meurthe-et-Moselle  works, 
paying  8,000  francs  for  it.  At  the  same 
time  his  brother,  Henri  de  Wendel, 
bought  up  the  monopoly  rights  for 
Alsace-Lorraine.  Thus  the  house  of 
Wendel  was  in  a  position  not  only  to 
improve  its  methods  of  production 
considerably,  but  also  to  hinder  the 
establishment  and  development  of 
any  competing  companies.  Until  1895 
the  monopoly  which  the  house  of 
Wendel  enjoyed  in  Lorraine  allowed 
it  to  keep  down  the  competing  Ger- 
man companies,  which  could  not  use 
the  Thomas  process.  In  Meurthe-et- 
Moselle  Mr.  Robert  de  W^endel  ceded 
the  Thomas  license  to  the  Longwy 
steel  works  at  the  price  at  which  he 
bought  it,  plus  certain  royalties;  he 
also  entered  the  administrative  coun- 
sel of  that  society,  which  was  to  be- 
come one  of  the  most  important  in  the 
country. 

During  all  this  time  poor  Sidney 
Thomas,  wasted  by  illness,  vainly 
tried  to  improve  his  health.  He  died  in 
1885  at  thirty-five  years  of 'age.  One 
can  see  his  neglected  grave  in  the  Passy 
cemetery.  Over  it  stands  a  simple 
cross  covered  with  ivy  and  bearing  this 
inscription:  'He  fought  a  good  fight.' 
Yes,  but  he  lived  in  misery,  and  with- 
out the  sum  of  three  million  francs 
which  Siemens  paid  him  at  the  end  of 
his  life,  he  would  have  died  in  poverty. 

The  house  of  Wendel  owes  its  whole 
prodigious  fortune  today  to  a  poor 


193^ 


STEELTOWN,  FRANCE 


[483I 


English  chemist,  the  fiftieth  anniver- 
sary of  whose  death  it  neglected  to 
celebrate  last  year.  The  seigneurs  of 
Hayange,  by  divine  right  lords  of  iron 
industries,  are  grateful  only  to  the 
Lord.  They  did  not  erect  any  monu- 
ment to  the  memory  of  Sidney 
Thomas,  but  instead  they  built,  on  the 
most  conspicuous  spot  in  their  manor, 
a  beautiful  church  whose  stained-glass 
windows  gleam  resplendently  in  the 
sun. 

The  workers  were  constrained  to 
participate  in  this  pious  sign  of  their 
patron's  gratitude.  Two  windows  of 
the  Hayange  church  bear  the  following 
inscription:  'Gift  of  the  Steel  Work- 
ers,' and  'Gift  of  the  Miners.'  And  in 
the  choir,  on  both  sides  of  the  altar, 
where  all  the  churches  in  the  world 
usually  depict  religious  scenes,  one 
may  see  the  Wendel  family,  the  noble 
ladies,  dressed  in  the  costumes  of 
feudal  times,  teaching  the  Lord's 
Prayer  to  their  children,  dressed  as 
pages.  The  lords  of  the  manor  are  not 
there.  Only  a  discreetly  drawn  land- 
scape with  factories  in  the  background 
hints  at  their  temporal  activities. 
Every  Sunday  the  faithful  of  the  Hay- 
ange parish  prostrate  themselves  be- 
fore the  Wendel  family,  just  as  the 
parishioners  of  Creusot  bow  before 
Mr.  Henri  Schneider,  who  is  seen  en- 
tering Paradise  with  his  drooping 
mustaches  and  his  blacksmith's  ham- 


mer. 


Ill 


From  a  hill  overlooking  the  valley  of 
Fentsch,  Our  Lady  of  Hayange  be- 
stows her  benediction  upon  the  indus- 
trial city  below  her.  Gently  she  con- 
templates the  factories,  the  chateau 
and  the  colony  where  the  men  who 
work  for  the  House  of  Wendel  live. 


Her  two  hands  outstretched,  she  em- 
braces them  all  in  a  single  blessing. 

The  city  of  Hayange  lives  and  works 
under  the  protection  of  the  Virgin. 
The  blazing  stained-glass  window  in 
the  church  choir  perpetuates  for  all 
eternity  the  piety  of  the  praying  and 
psalm-singing  Wendels.  When,  on  the 
conclusion  of  fifty  years  of  honorable 
service,  Mr.  Albert  Bosmant,  the  di- 
rector of  the  Joeuf  factory,  was  feted 
by  the  Wendel  company,  that  faithful 
servant  did  not  forget  to  render  due 
homage  to  the  Church.  *I  don't  want 
to  forget,'  he  said  in  his  address,  *  the 
representatives  of  the  clergy,  with 
whom  I  have  been  on  the  best  of  terms 
throughout  my  long  career.  I  have  al- 
ways had  the  greatest  respect  for 
them,  for  they  teach  us  a  great  moral 
lesson,  one  which  we  ought  to  remem- 
ber and  uphold,  no  matter  what  we  do. 
This  lesson  has  been  the  mainstay  of 
the  House  of  Wendel  from  the  very 
first  days  of  its  existence — a  factor 
which  has  had  a  lot  to  do  with  its 
present  stability.' 

At  Joeuf,  at  Moyeuvre,  at  Hayange, 
the  Lord  reigns  on  the  right  hand  of 
the  Messrs.  de  Wendel.  He  has  his 
quarters  like  the  members  of  the  fac- 
tory staflF.  He  is  provided  with  well- 
paid  officiating  ministers.  The  king- 
dom of  the  Wendels  is  the  kingdom  of 
the  Lord. 

But  not  even  the  Lord  God  himself 
is  allowed  to  join  a  union! 

One  day  a  priest  from  the  Orne  val- 
ley presented  himself  at  the  Hayange 
mansion  at  the  head  of  a  Young  Chris- 
tian workers'  delegation.  The  priest 
and  the  young  Catholic  workers  were 
going  to  ask  Mr.  Humbert  de  Wen- 
del's  permission  to  organize  a  Chris- 
tian workers'  union.  The  priest  re- 
ferred to  the  moral  lesson  so  highly 


[484] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


praised  by  director  Bosmant,  and,  to 
convince  the  pious  lords  of  the  steel- 
works still  further,  quoted  a  bit  from 
the  Encyclical. 

The  response  was  short  and  brutal. 
Rerum  Novarum  and  ^uadragesimo 
notwithstanding,  the  House  of  Wen- 
del,  which  builds  churches  and  pays 
salaries  to  various  priests  and  vicars, 
would  not  permit  a  union — not  even  a 
Christian  union.  Besides,  the  Lord 
does  not  know  the  first  thing  about 
social  and  economic  questions!  Let 
him  look  after  the  immortal  souls 
which  the  House  of  Wendel  supplies 
Him  with  by  the  million.  On  Sunday 
mornings  at  Moyeuvre  and  Joeuf,  the 
company  spies  point  the  way  to  the 
church,  which  is  always  full.  The 
House  pays,  and  provides  living  quar- 
ters for,  the  French,  Italian  and  Polish 
priests,  not  to  mention  the  nuns  and 
various  religious  societies.  Right  across 
the  way  from  the  Government  schools 
it  builds  its  Catholic  schools,  which 
the  Concordat  allows  to  be  supported 
by  the  State  in  Moselle. 


IV 


Thus  from  his  childhood  on  the  son 
of  a  worker  or  a  paid  employee  who 
was  born  on  the  land  of  the  Lords  of 
Hayange  is  caught  in  toils  of  moral 
and  physical  subjugation  to  the  fac- 
tory. He  gets  his  milk  from  a  feeding 
bottle  dispensed  by  the  bosses  at  the 
public  nursery.  His  swaddling-clothes 
come  from  the  layette  given  the  loyal 
subjects  on  request.  His  whooping 
cough  and  scarlet  fever  are  treated  by 
a  factory  doctor.  He  owes  his  games 
and  his  holidays  to  the  children's 
groups  which  are  organized  in  the  fac- 
tory. He  learns  his  French  history  and 
his  morals  in  factory  schools — for  it 


takes  courage  to  send  a  child  to  those 
provided  by  the  Government.  Later  on 
he  will  engage  in  sports  on  the  factory 
grounds,  because  there  is  no  other 
place  available,  and  in  the  factory 
clubs,  because  there  are  no  independ- 
ent clubs.  Before  he  is  hired  by  the 
factory,  he  must  pledge  absolute  loy- 
alty to  the  House.  In  order  to  stay  on 
he  must  be  docile,  avoid  Left  meet- 
ings, attend  the  meetings  of  the  Right, 
and  if  necessary  even  join  a  section  of 
the  Croix  de  Feu  or  the  Fascist 
Leagues.  At  the  least  show  of  inde- 
pendence, the  worker  is  forced  into  the 
hardest  and  worst  paid  jobs.  If  the  of- 
fense is  repeated,  he  is  discharged  and 
blacklisted  by  all  the  factories  of  that 
region.  Organized  espionage  pene- 
trates even  into  private  houses:  one 
distrusts  one's  neighbor,  one  does  not 
dare  to  speak  out  even  in  one's  own 
house.  At  Joeuf  they  made  the  school 
children  vote  on  the  eve  of  the  elec- 
tions in  order  to  find  out  the  political 
convictions  of  their  parents!!! 

The  Wendels  have  eyes  that  see  all, 
ears  that  hear  all.  If  Branly,  Marconi 
or  Lee  de  Forest  were  to  invent  a  ma- 
chine for  detecting  men's  thoughts, 
the  Wendels  would  immediately  ob- 
tain the  rights  to  it.  But  the  machine 
has  not  yet  been  invented:  that  is  why 
Deputy  Beron  got  a  majority  vote  in 
Hayange. 

It  is  not  only  the  wage  workers  in 
the  factory  who  feel  the  Wendels'  hand 
heavy  upon  them.  Their  control  ex- 
tends to  a  part  of  local  trade,  to  the 
local  administration,  and  to  the  neigh- 
boring mayoralties.  At  Joeuf,  the 
police,  the  tax  collectors,  the  police 
commissioner  live  in  houses  belonging 
to  the  factory.  At  Hayange  the  police 
department,  the  tax  collector,  the 
Registry  officials  are  also  housed  at  the 


193^ 


STEELTOWN,  FRANCE 


[485] 


expense  of  the  factory.  The  officials, 
the  teachers,  the  salesmen  are  given 
the  use  of  a  complimentary  card  to  the 
Bursar's  Office — provided  they  are 
not  suspected  of  harboring  radical 
views.  Thus  insidiously  does  the  factory 
extend  its  domination  even  to  those 
who  should  be  in  a  position  to  escape 
it  completely. 

When  the  Mayor  of  Hayange  is  not 
directly  connected  with  the  factory  in 
the  capacity  of  employee  or  a  sales- 
man, the  Comite  des  Forges  or  the 
Comptoir  Siderurgique  see  to  it  that 
he  has  a  considerable  commercial 
backing.  In  1929  the  Mayors  of  vil- 
lages nearby  fell  victims  to  a  curious 
mishap.  The  then  Mayor  of  Knutange, 
upon  being  accused  by  Beron  of  having 
accepted  18,000  francs  from  the  House 
of  Wendel,  cried:  'I  had  the  right  to 
take  it!  'The  others  have  been  getting 
the  same  sum  for  two  years!'  I  don't 
know  how  'the  others'  justified  them- 
selves after  this  outburst.  I  do  know, 
however,  that  Mr.  Mercier  did  not 
long  keep  his  office  as  Mayor  of 
Knutange. 

Masters  of  the  men  around  them, 
masters  of  the  local  administration, 
are  the  Wendels  living  in  quiet  con- 
tentment? No,  for  they  still  do  not 
own  the  minds  of  their  people,  and 
every  four  years,  in  the  privacy  of  a 
voting  booth,  those  people  assert 
themselves  in  an  anonymous  revolt. 
One  of  the  turners  in  the  plating  plant, 
a  clear-eyed,  vigorous  man  with  a 
strong  will  of  his  own,  became  promi- 
nent among  his  fellow  workers.  The 
Wendels  fired  him  from  the  factory, 
and  thus  initiated  him  into  the  work- 
ers' secret  fraternity.  Beron  could  not 
find  a  hall  in  which  to  address  the 
voters;  nobody  dared  to  greet  him  on 
the  street;  but  Beron  was  elected!  A 


Communist  deputy  yesterday  and  a 
deputy  for  the  Popular  Front  today, 
Beron  is  known  in  this  region  above  all 
as  the  man  who  has  dared  to  oppose 
the  Wendels. 

Schneider  managed  to  defeat  Paul 
Faure;  the  Wendels  cannot  rid  them- 
selves of  Beron.  And  so,  to  protect 
himself  against  the  dangers  inherent 
in  universal  suffrage,  de  Wendel  mar- 
shals around  him  his  Fascist  forces. 


At  Joeuf,  at  Moyeuvre,  at  Hayange, 
the  Francistes  and  the  Croix  de  Feu 
are  playing  the  bosses'  game.  It  was 
Emmanuel  Mitry,  Francois  Wendel's 
son-in-law,  who  first  founded  the 
Croix  de  Feu  movement  that  has 
sprung  up  in  the  Hayange  city  govern- 
ment. Mr.  de  Mitry  keeps  the  factory 
books.  They  are  in  good  hands,  for 
this  Lord  of  the  Bottange  manor,  who 
counts  the  flowers  in  his  parks  because 
he  is  afraid  that  his  gardeners  might 
steal  some,  has  gained  the  reputation 
of  a  skinflint.  But  he  spares  no  ex- 
pense when  it  comes  to  subsidizing 
these  militant  organizations,  which 
may  one  day  precipitate  a  civil  war. 
Padovani,  the  director  of  the  factory 
railroad  line,  who  is  also  the  son-in-law 
of  Humbert  de  Wendel's  secretary,  is 
Hayange's  FiXhrer.  In  certain  jobs 
constant  pressure  has  been  put  on  the 
workers  and  employees  to  get  them  to 
join  the  Croix  de  Feu.  If  anybody 
pleads  inability  to  pay  the  dues  be- 
cause of  the  high  cost  of  living,  they 
offer  to  pay  them  for  him.  Padovani's 
group  is  one  of  the  most  active  in 
France.  In  his  addresses  this  director 
of  the  factory  railway  service  makes 
vehement  attacks  on  the  misdeeds  of 
*  super-capitaHsm.' 


[486] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


After  having  shown  some  promise, 
Bucard's  Francistes  now  seem  to  have 
been  left  to  their  own  devices,  and  are 
disbanding.  At  Joeuf  some  leaders  still 
continue  to  recruit  members  into  the 
ranks  of  the  Solidarite  Frangaise.  The 
Italian  workers,  of  whom  there  are 
many  in  the  mines,  have  been  corralled 
into  various  Fascist  organizations.  At 
Joeuf,  where  de  Wendel  houses  an 
Italian  priest  and  supports  an  Italian 
school,  sisters  of  the  charitable  orders 
at  one  time  took  to  seeking  out  the 
orphans  of  those  killed  in  the  Ethio- 
pian war.  Hayange  has  seen  proces- 
sions of  black  shirts  in  its  streets. 
The  miners  of  the  Wendel  firm  have 
been  forced  to  pledge  their  allegiance 
to  the  native  land  of  Fascism,  and 
those  who  could  not  be  induced  by 
bribery  were  prevailed  upon  through 
fear  of  losing  their  jobs.  Hayange  also 
has  its  Italian  priest  and  teachers,  all 
Fascist  agents.  On  June  2nd  a  great 
military  Fascist  demonstration  took 
place  in  the  hall  of  the  Italian  mission. 
Mayor  Mohnen  and  the  director  of  the 
Daussy  factories  took  part  in  a  festival 
given  for  the  benefit  of  the  Italian  Red 
Cross;  the  next  day  one  of  the  Duce's 
agents  solemnly  read  Mussolini's  ad- 
dress of  May  9th,  in  which  he  pro- 
claimed the  birth  of  the  Fascist 
Empire. 

VI 

When  I  visited  Joeuf  last  month,  I 
stopped  to  ask  directions  of  a  house- 
wife. We  were  both  going  the  same 
way;  she  came  along  with  me.  We 
walked  through  a  colony  of  houses 
which  were  all  alike,  each  one  with  a 
tiny  garden  around  it.  With  a  wide 
gesture    the    woman    indicated    the 


church,  the  school,  the  recreation  hall 
and  all  the  symmetrical  streets. 

'All  this  is  theirs,'  she  said  simply. 
Then  she  added,  'It's  just  like  in  old 
times,  in  the  times  of  the  feudal 
lords  .  .  .' 

France  had  just  gone  to  the  polls.  A 
few  days  earlier  the  workers  of  Joeuf 
had  dared  to  carry  Phillippe  Serre  to 
victory.  A  change  was  already  ap- 
parent; this  woman  was  not  afraid  to 
voice  to  a  total  stranger  her  recogni- 
tion of  the  oppressive  feudal  atmos- 
phere which  reigns  in  the  Wendel 
domains. 

The  victory  of  the  Popular  Front 
has  dealt  the  first  blow  against  the 
domination  of  the  Lords  of  Hayange 
and  Joeuf.  This  particular  defeat  is 
one  of  the  telling  effects  of  the  great 
tidal  wave  which  has  raised  the  prole- 
tariat of  the  whole  country  to  the  top. 
The  Wendels,  who  had  no  use  for 
unions,  were  forced  to  recognize  the 
workers'  right  to  organize;  they  are 
now  carrying  on  negotiations  with  the 
Confederation  Generale  du  Travail 
(General  Federation  of  Labor)  and 
assenting  to  collective  bargaining. 
Certainly,  at  the  first  opportunity 
they  have  they  will  do  all  in  their 
power  to  restore  the  former  state  of 
things.  They  still  have  their  weapons 
for  psychological  domination  of  that 
whole  region.  For  the  moment,  they 
bow  before  the  inevitable;  and  a  kind 
of  revolution  is  now  in  process  at 
Moselle  and  Meurthe-et-Moselle.  As 
Jouhaux  recently  said,  'This  region, 
which  up  to  now  has  been  completely 
enslaved,  has  suddenly  regained  its 
freedom.'  The  Wendels  must  not  be 
allowed  to  take  that  freedom  away 
again. 


The  first  of  these  articles  describes 
developments  in  Eastern  Siberia;  in  the 
second  we  listen  in  while  a  Japanese 
reveals  his  nation's  plans  for  expan- 
sion in  the  South  Seas;  from  the  third 
we  learn   a  Shanghai  gang's  history. 


Three  from 
the  East 


I.    BUREYASTROY  AND  BiRO-BlDJAN 

By  A  Harbin  Correspondent 
From  the  China  Weekly  Review,  Shanghai  English-Language  Weekly 


JTEW  persons  seem  to  have  any  idea 
of  Bureyastroy;  yet  the  successful 
completion  of  this  Soviet  project  is 
bound  to  have  a  tremendous  effect  on 
the  political  situation  of  the  Far  East, 
immensely  contributing  to  the  security 
of  the  Soviet  Far  East,  at  present 
menaced  by  Japanese  aggression.  Bu- 
reyastroy is  the  name  given  to  a  series 
of  ambitious  plans  of  the  Soviet  Gov- 
ernment to  develop  and  industrialize 
a  vast  region  lying  between  the  upper 
reaches  of  the  Bureya  River,  flowing 
into  the  Amur  some  distance  below 
Taheiho,  and  the  middle  course  of  the 
Amur  itself  at  a  place  where  it  turns 
northward  before  it  empties  into  the 
Gulf  of  Tartary. 

There  are  probably  only  a  few  re- 
gions so  desolate  and  dreary  as  the 


upper  reaches  of  the  Bureya  River. 
It  is  a  sea  of  rugged  mountains  and 
tangled  woods,  with  no  population 
worth  speaking  of;  yet  it  turns  out  to 
be  a  veritable  storehouse  of  various 
natural  resources,  so  that  the  Soviet 
Government  appears  to  be  ready  to 
develop  it  ahead  of  all  regions  in  the 
Far  East.  In  this  respect,  the  impor- 
tance attached  to  Bureyastroy  comes 
only  second  to  that  of  Dnieprostroy 
and  Kuznetskstroy,  the  two  giant 
projects  now  fully  occupying  the  at- 
tention of  the  Kremlin  and  the  Soviet 
public. 

It  seems  to  be  correct  to  state  that, 
judging  by  present  indications,  as  soon 
as  the  Dnieprostroy  and  Kuznetskstroy 
projects  are  completed,  the  Soviet 
Government  will  throw  the  full  weight 


[488] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


of  its  energy  and  resources  to  the  de- 
velopment of  Bureyastroy,  converting 
that  desolate  wilderness  into  a  bus- 
tling industrial  center.  In  that  case  the 
attainment  of  the  Soviet  ideal — to 
convert  the  Soviet  Far  East  into  a 
self-contained  region — will  have  been 
accomplished,  relieving  the  anxiety 
now  hanging  heavily  on  the  minds  of 
Soviet  leaders  lest  the  Soviet  Far  East 
be  cut  off  from  the  rest  of  Siberia. 

It  is  said  that,  unlike  Magnitogorsk 
and  Kuznetsk,  the  two  great  industrial 
centers  in  Western  Siberia,  Bureya- 
stroy is  admirably  suited  for  the  es- 
tablishment of  heavy  industry.  As  is 
known,  Magnitogorsk,  while  having 
abundant  deposits  of  iron  of  the  high- 
est possible  quality,  has  no  coal;  hence 
its  iron  ore  has  to  be  hauled  the  whole 
distance  from  the  Urals  to  Kuznetsk- 
stroy,  in  the  Yenisei  region,  where  it  is 
smelted  and  converted  into  a  variety 
of  finished  products.  In  the  case  of 
Bureyastroy  it  is  said  that  iron  and 
coal  deposits  so  intermingle  that  they 
can  be  utilized  on  the  spot  by  iron  and 
steel  works  to  be  built  there  soon. 

A.  I.  Kozlov,  writing  on  coal  re- 
sources of  the  Bureya  region  in  the 
Memoirs  of  the  Far  Eastern  Depart- 
ment of  the  Academy  of  Sciences  of 
the  U.  S.  S.  R.  (Vladivostok,  1932), 
stated  that  the  coal-bearing  strata 
extend  for  about  6,000  square  kilo- 
meters on  both  sides  of  the  Bureya, 
the  southern  limit  of  them  lying  about 
250-300  kilometers  from  the  Amur.  The 
richness  of  coal  veins  may  be  judged 
from  the  fact  that  only  between  the 
Umalta  River  and  Chekunda,  a  small 
trading  post  on  the  Bureya,  there  were 
discovered  as  many  as  twenty-five  open 
places  from  0.3  meters  to  4  meters  in 
thickness. 

On    the   left   side   of  the    Bureya 


twenty-five  veins  of  similar  thickness 
were  found.  Here,  60  kilometers  from 
the  mouth  of  the  Urgala  River,  the 
coal-bearing  area  extends  for  four 
square  kilometers,  with  the  thickness 
varying  from  0.8  to  3  meters.  The  coal 
of  this  region  is  stated  to  be  of  the 
best  quality,  coking  at  the  lowest 
possible  temperature.  Another  impor- 
tant coal-field,  with  a  little  poorer 
quality  of  coal,  was  discovered  12 
kilometers  above  the  mouth  of  the 
Niman,  also  on  the  left  side  of  the 
Bureya.  Its  thickness  is  computed 
from  0.55  to  6  meters. 

A  rough  estimate  of  coal  and  iron 
deposits  of  the  whole  area  of  Bureya- 
stroy puts  them  at  150  billion  tons 
and  2  billion  tons  respectively,  all 
deposits  practically  intermingling  with 
each  other  and  at  places  easily  ac- 
cessible from  the  railroad  or  the 
Bureya,  which  is  navigable  up  to 
Chekunda. 

There  is  no  authentic  report  as  to 
what  has  been  done  in  the  way  of 
materializing  the  Bureyastroy  plan 
beyond  the  fact  that  the  region  is 
being  traversed  by  the  Baikalo-Amur 
Railroad  (B.A.M.)  now  under  con- 
struction. It  appears  that  the  railway 
touches  the  headwaters  of  the  Bureya 
River,  a  little  over  the  estuary  of  the 
Niman,  thence  heading  straight  to- 
ward Komsomolsk,  a  great  industrial 
and  military  center  on  the  Amur, 
some  100  kilometers  below  Khaba- 
rovsk. The  B.A.M.  Railway  will  have 
a  branch  line,  430  kilometers  long,  con- 
necting it  with  the  present  Amur  Rail- 
way at  Birakan  station,  a  center  of  the 
Jewish  colonization  of  Biro-Bidjan. 
The  line  will  branch  off  from  Ust- 
Niman,  the  future  coal-mining  and 
iron-making  center  of  the  region,  and 
traverse   a   wild   country,   which   at 


193^ 


THREE  FROM  THE  EAST 


[489] 


present  has  practically  no  population. 
It  is  stated  that  the  survey  of  the  pro- 
posed route  of  this  branch  line  has 
been  completed  and  that  its  construc- 
tion has  already  been  started,  involv- 
ing the  expenditure  of  200  million 
rubles.  One  report  has  it  that  the  con- 
struction of  the  line  is  being  done  by 
convict  labor,  the  Soviets  having  al- 
legedly put  13,000  laborers  previously 
working  on  the  double-tracking  of  the 
Amur  Railroad  to  that  task. 

Included  in  the  scheme  of  develop- 
ing the  Bureya  region  is  the  proposed 
construction  of  another  branch  line  of 
the  B.A.M.  Railway,  or  rather  of  an 
entirely  independent  railway,  which 
would  connect  Bochkarevo,  a  station 
to  the  east  of  Blagoveshchensk  and  a 
principal  air-base  of  the  Red  Army  in 


the  region,  with  Nikolayevsk-on-the- 
Amur,  traversing  Bureyastroy  in  its 
northern  section.  The  line  will  touch 
important  gold-fields  along  theSelimji, 
Kerbi  and  Amgun  Rivers  and  will 
have  tremendous  influence  for  the 
opening  up  of  that  backwood  country, 
especially  the  Lower  Amur  region, 
at  present  hampered  by  the  absence 
of  rapid  means  of  transportation.  A 
survey  of  the  route  was  started  as 
long  as  four  years  ago,  but  it  is  not 
known  whether  the  actual  construc- 
tion has  been  started  or  not. 


II 


In  direct  connection  with  Bureya- 
stroy, but  forming  a  different  phase 
of  Soviet  activities  in  the  Amur  basin, 


6la^crvesh< 


EASTERN 
SIBERI 


Scale  of  Mi  lea 


[490] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


stands  the  colonization  of  Biro-Bidjan, 
a  region  specially  assigned  to  the  set- 
tlement of  Jewish  farmers.  This  region 
lies  on  the  Russian  side  of  the  Amur, 
between  the  mouths  of  the  Bureya 
and  the  Tunguska  Rivers,  the  last  one 
flowing  into  the  Amur  opposite  Khaba- 
rovsk. The  boundaries  of  this  territory 
appear  to  be  ill-defined,  especially  in 
the  north,  where  it  is  contiguous  to 
Bureyastroy.  According  to  Professor 
Charles  Kung-tze,  who  knows  Biro- 
Bidjan  thoroughly,  having  been  con- 
nected with  it  since  1928,  the  region 
is  roughly  equal  to  Switzerland,  oc- 
cupying an  area  of  about  4  million 
hectares,  or  is  considerably  bigger 
than  Belgium.  He  says  that  in  respect 
to  climatic  conditions  the  region  is 
admirably  suited  for  industrial  farm- 
ing, with  enough  moisture  and  warmth 
in  the  summer  to  ensure  the  abundant 
growth  of  all  grains.  In  climate  Biro- 
Bidjan  does  not  differ  from  North 
Manchuria,  from  which  it  is  divided 
only  by  the  Amur. 

According  to  all  current  reports, 
Biro-Bidjan  is  forging  ahead  as  a  farm- 
ing region  where  all  field-work  is  done 
by  machines,  eliminating  as  far  as 
possible  human  or  animal  labor.  With 
that  end  in  view,  the  Government  has 
constructed  a  number  of  tractor  sta- 
tions and  agricultural  machinery  de- 
pots, supplying  the  collective  and 
state  farms  with  all  necessary  imple- 
ments. In  1933,  all  these  farms  culti- 
vated 30,000  *ga*  of  land,  raising 
mostly  wheat,  oats,  and  soya  beans. 
Considerable  attention  is  being  de- 
voted to  the  draining  of  swamps,  for 
which  the  Exchequer  has  spent  over 
2,000,000  rubles. 

As  a  farming  region,  Biro-Bidjan  is 
playing  an  important  role  as  the  sup- 
plier of  the  Far  Eastern  Red  Army 


with  provisions.  Outstanding  in  this 
respect  are  the  Voroshilov  and  Budeny 
collective  farms  in  the  Ekaterino- 
Nikolsk  district,  both  combining 
hundreds  of  farming  communities. 
Amongst  other  things,  the  Budeny 
collective  farm  specializes  in  rice- 
cultivation,  which  is  quite  a  new 
venture  in  the  Soviet  Far  East. 

Apart  from  developing  Biro-Bidjan 
as  a  farming  center,  the  Government  is 
rapidly  converting  it  into  an  industrial 
center.  In  recent  years,  the  following 
enterprises  have  been  opened  and  are 
now  throwing  their  products  on  the 
domestic  market,  viz.:  i.  a  sawmill  at 
Tunguska,  capitalized  at  3,000,000 
rubles;  2.  a  lime-works  at  Londoko 
station,  capitalized  at  1,000,000  ru- 
bles; 3.  a  sawmill  turning  out  standard 
size  bungalows,  capitalized  at  3,600,- 
000  rubles,  and  4.  a  tailoring  work- 
shop, capitalized  at  500,000  rubles. 

The  description  of  Soviet  activities 
in  the  Middle  Amur  would  be  incom- 
plete without  saying  something  of 
Komsomolsk,  a  new  industrial  center 
that  sprang  up  on  the  Amur,  some 
100  kilometers  to  the  north  of  Khaba- 
rovsk. It  is  a  town  of  some  50,000  in- 
habitants, mostly  operatives  of  the 
huge  dockyard,  airplane  works  and 
arsenal,  situated  in  and  around  Kom- 
somolsk. 

On  the  right  bank  of  the  river, 
opposite  Komsomolsk,  is  a  cement 
factory,  completed  in  1935.  From 
there,  a  railway  is  being  built  to 
Sovetskaya  Gavan,  on  the  Sea  of 
Japan.  Concerning  the  dockyard  it  is 
stated  that  it  occupies  an  area  of  one 
square  kilometer  and  that  it  is  en- 
gaged in  the  construction  of  sub- 
marines and  destroyers  for  the  Soviet 
Navy  in  the  Sea  of  Japan  as  well  as  in 
the  Amur  River.  Besides,  it  is  stated 


^93^ 


THREE  FROM  THE  EAST 


[491: 


that  Komsomolsk  is  the  principal  base 
of  the  Soviet  Amur  River  flotilla,  at 
present  consisting  of  some  thirty 
craft. 

Some  doubt  exists,  however,  regard- 
ing the  advisability  of  developing  the 
country  immediately  adjacent  to  the 
frontier,  especially  Biro-Bidjan,  which 
is  divided  from  Manchuria  only  by  the 
Amur,  and  as  such  seems  to  be  open 


to  attacks  in  case  of  war  involving 
the  Soviet  Union.  Judging  by  a  section 
of  opinion  prevailing  in  certain  circles 
of  Harbin,  which  appear  to  have  an  ax 
to  grind  against  the  Jews  generally,  it 
seems  to  be  certain  that,  if  Biro-Bidjan 
is  taken  away  from  the  Soviet  Red 
Army,  we  shall  hear  of  some  grand 
pogrom  far  exceeding  all  others  ever 
recorded  by  history. 


II.  Japan  Looks  South 

By  Professor  Tadao  Yanaihara 
Translated  from  the  Kaizo,  Tokyo  Topical  Monthly 


R 


ELATIONS  between  Japan  and 
the  South  Seas  are  so  inseparable  both 
geographically  and  historically  that  as 
long  as  our  population  and  industrial 
power  continue  to  grow,  our  influence 
in  that  part  of  the  world  will  continue 
to  increase  as  a  matter  of  course.  The 
nation's  geographical  position  is  highly 
advantageous  to  her  advance  in  all 
directions :  to  Karafuto  and  the  Kurile 
Islands  in  the  north;  to  the  South 
Seas  through  Formosa  and  the  Luchu 
Islands;  to  Manchukuo  through  Korea 
in  the  west,  and  to  the  Islands  of 
Oceania  and  New  Guinea  through  the 
Bonins.  Geographically,  the  prospects 
for  national  expansion  are  bright. 

This  country  was  far  behind  the 
nations  of  Europe  in  achieving  na- 
tional unification  and  capitalistic  de- 
velopment, and  as  a  result  it  suc- 
ceeded in  taking  possession  only  of 
the  Kurile  Islands  and  Hokkaido  to 
the  north  and  the  Bonin  and  Luchu 
Islands  to  the  south  during  the  final 
years  of  the  Tokugawa  Shogunate 
and  the  early  part  of  the  Meiji  era. 
Fortunately  the  Sino-Japanese  War 
brought  a  turning  point  in  our  overseas 


development,  for  by  the  Shimonoseki 
Treaty  of  1895,  which  ended  the  con- 
flict, China's  influence  was  effectively 
excluded  from  Korea,  and  the  Liao- 
tung  Peninsula  and  Formosa  were 
ceded  to  Japan. 

Even  at  that  time  we  recognized  the 
necessity  of  attaining  further  develop- 
ment on  the  continent  and  in  the 
South  Seas,  with  the  Liaotung  Penin- 
sula and  Formosa  as  bases,  as  is  made 
clear  by  the  announcement  of  estab- 
lishment of  the  Bank  of  Formosa, 
which  says:  'The  objectives  of  the 
Bank  of  Formosa  are  to  develop  the 
natural  resources  in  Formosa  for  the 
purpose  of  economic  improvement,  to 
extend  its  business  into  South  China 
and  the  South  Seas,  and  to  give  finan- 
cial aid  to  trade  enterprises  with  those 
countries.' 

After  the  Russo-Japanese  War, 
Japan  recovered  the  Liaotung  Penin- 
sula, which  she  had  been  forced  to  re- 
turn to  China  because  of  the  tripartite 
interference  of  France,  Germany  and 
Russia,  and  at  the  same  time  she  ac- 
quired South  Sakhahn  and  the  South 
Manchuria  Railway  Zone,  while  Korea 


[492] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


became  a  protectorate  that  was  to  be 
annexed  in  1907  {sic).  Unfortunately, 
however,  the  Russo-Japanese  War 
brought  no  opportunity  to  advance 
into  the  South  Seas. 

The  Great  War  marked  the  begin- 
ning of  Japan's  expansion  southward, 
with  the  Mandated  Islands  as  its  base. 
Our  trade  with  and  investment  in 
that  territory  made  remarkable  ad- 
vancement, and  in  191 5  the  South 
Seas  Society  was  organized  through 
the  cooperative  efforts  of  officials 
and  civilians.  This  trade  has  regis- 
tered particularly  heavy  gains  since 
1932. 

It  must  be  kept  in  mind,  however, 
that  our  development  in  Oceania  has 
been  due  not  so  much  to  military 
operations  of  the  Imperial  Navy  as  to 
economic  causes,  such  as  improve- 
ment in  the  technique  and  productive 
capacity  of  our  industries  and  the  low 
exchange  value  of  the  yen.  This  is  in 
contrast  to  the  case  of  Manchukuo, 
where  economic  progress  may  be 
viewed  as  an  outcome  of  military  oper- 
ations by  the  Imperial  Army. 

Manchukuo's  value  as  a  source  of 
raw  materials  and  a  market  for  our 
commodities  is  not  as  great  as  was  ex- 
pected: no  matter  how  much  money 
is  invested,  poor  resources  cannot  be 
profitably  exploited,  and  it  cannot  be 
safely  asserted  that  Manchukuo's  re- 
sources are  bountiful.  It  is  not  only 
inadvisable  but  virtually  impossible 
for  us  to  import  all  our  necessary  re- 
sources from  the  new  State.  Moreover, 
because  the  Navy  has  no  direct  con- 
nection with  the  work  of  development 
there,  some  apprehension  exists  that 
the  continental  situation  will  add  only 
to  the  Army's  prestige  and  at  the 
expense  of  the  Navy's,  and  it  is  not 
surprising  that  the  Navy  is  insisting 


upon  southward  expansion  as  one  of 
the  national  policies. 

These  economic  and  military  causes 
have  combined  to  create  a  strong  de- 
mand for  harmonization  of  our  con- 
tinental and  oceanic  policies  and  in- 
sistence that  careful  consideration  be 
given  to  over-emphasis  of  the  conti- 
nental policy.  The  Imperial  Navy,  nat- 
urally enough,  is  strongly  advocating 
an  overseas  program,  and  it  is  believed 
to  expect  a  great  deal  in  this  direction 
from  the  regular  conferences  that  are 
being  held  by  the  War  Minister,  the 
Foreign  Minister,  and  the  Navy  Min- 
ister. 

II 

The  Navy  intends  to  have  control 
of  a  section  of  the  western  Pacific 
stretching  from  the  Sea  of  Okhotsk  to 
the  South  Seas  for  the  purposes  of 
strengthening  the  national  defense  and 
promoting  the  tendency  toward  over- 
seas expansion.  To  this  end  it  is  also 
necessary  that  neighborly  relations  be 
established  with  those  countries  sur- 
rounding the  Pacific,  that  complicated 
trade  relations  be  adjusted,  that  ad- 
ministrative organs  of  Formosa  and 
the  South  Sea  Islands  be  improved, 
and  that  measures  be  applied  to  en- 
courage trade  with  those  countries, 
the  shipping  and  fishing  industries, 
and  overseas  emigration.  By  these  pol- 
icies alone  can  we  exalt  the  national 
prestige  of  'expanding  Japan.'  The 
bills  for  establishment  of  the  Formosa 
Development  Company  and  the  South 
Development  Company  as  well  as  the 
Marine  Service  Control  Bill,  all  of 
which  have  been  submitted  to  the 
recent  extraordinary  Diet  session, 
probably  are  intended  to  assist  the 
southward  expansion. 

The  two  projected  companies,  to  be 


193^ 


THREE  FROM  THE  EAST 


[493] 


established  in  accordance  with  special 
laws,  will  be  of  a  semi-official  nature, 
similar  to  the  Oriental  Development 
Company  in  Korea.  The  Formosa  De- 
velopment concern  will  be  capitalized 
at  30,000,000  yen,  half  of  which  will  be 
furnished  by  private  investors.  In  lieu 
of  the  other  half,  the  Government- 
General  of  Formosa  will  provide  cul- 
tivated land  and  arable  property  in- 
vestment with  an  appraised  value  of 
15,000,000  yen.  Sufficient  preference 
will  be  extended  to  the  company  to 
guarantee  an  annual  dividend  of  6 
per  cent  to  the  civilian  shareholders, 
while  the  Government's  stock  will 
either  pay  no  dividends  or  lower  rates. 
The  company's  chief  source  of  revenue 
may  be  rents  from  Government  lands, 
estimated  at  1,000,000  yen  a  year.  As  a 
whole,  the  object  of  establishing  the 
concern  seems  to  be  to  invite  invest- 
ment by  civilians  and  protect  it  with 
the  resources  of  the  Government- 
General. 

The  South  Development  Company 
will  be  capitalized  at  200,000,000  yen, 
toward  which  the  South  Seas  Office 
will  furnish  the  Angaur  phosphate 
rock  mine  as  an  investment  in  prop- 
erty with  an  appraised  value  of  10,- 
000,000  yen.  Half  of  the  shares  will  be 
held  by  private  investors,  and  the 
same  preferences  will  be  extended  as  in 
the  case  of  the  Formosa  Development 
Company.  Since  the  profit  of  the  An- 
gaur phosphate  mine  is  estimated  at 
500,000  yen  to  600,000  yen  annually, 
it  seems  clear  that  the  South  Seas  Of- 
fice is  inviting  private  investment  at 
the  expense  of  its  official  interests.  The 
main  purpose  of  this  company  is  the 
economic  development  of  the  South 
Sea  Islands,  but  it  is  reported  that  the 
concern  will  also  protect  and  develop 
deep-sea  fisheries  in  that  region  and 


take  over  the  rights  in  Dutch  New 
Guinea  now  held  by  the  South  Seas 
Industrial  Development  Company. 

It  is  also  reported  that  the  South 
Seas  Industrial  Company  will  offer  to 
the  new  concern  not  only  its  phos- 
phate rock  mine  on  Parao  Island  and 
its  affiliated  company,  the  South  Seas 
Fisheries  Company,  but  also  other 
enterprises  which  are  not  developing 
as  well  as  was  expected.  As  a  6  per 
cent  dividend  will  be  guaranteed  on 
its  investments  in  property,  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  new  firm  may  prove 
highly  convenient  for  South  Seas  In- 
dustrial Development.  The  two  new 
concerns  are  intended  chiefly  to  ac- 
complish economic  development  within 
our  own  territory,  that  is  in  Formosa 
and  the  South  Sea  Mandated  Islands, 
and  any  similar  enterprise  outside  of 
the  Empire  is  left  to  the  future.  Al- 
though there  is  some  doubt  whether 
they  will  actually  succeed  in  exploiting 
new  resources  or  cultivating  new  mar- 
kets in  Formosa  and  the  southern  is- 
lands, where  development  work  has 
already  made  considerable  progress, 
nevertheless  the  projected  organiza- 
tion of  the  two  companies  is  impor- 
tant in  view  of  the  current  political 
situation,  which  reflects  the  emphasis 
placed  on  the  southward  movement 
in  reaction  to  the  over-stressing  of 
the  continental  policy. 


Ill 


One  fact  must  always  be  remem- 
bered in  connection  with  our  southern 
expansion;  it  is  economic  in  its  nature, 
and  our  naval  power  has  no  direct  in- 
fluence upon  it.  The  whole  history  of 
our  South  Seas  policy  demonstrates 
that  it  is  our  intention  to  expand  only 
by  peaceful  means  and  not  by  military 


[494] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


weight.  The  Navy  Office,  in  advocat- 
ing the  movement,  intends  only  to 
protect  the  peaceful  activities  of  Jap- 
anese nationals;  it  is  unthinkable  that 
there  is  any  intention  of  carrying  out 
the  South  Seas  policy  by  military  op- 
erations. A  purely  economic  expansion 
such  as  this,  however,  is  entirely  justi- 
fiable from  the  standpoints  of  world 
peace  and  the  current  financial  situa- 
tion of  this  country. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  Dutch  East  Indies  and 
the  Commonwealth  Government  of 
Australia,  inspired  by  groundless  fears 
of  Japan's  oceanic  policy,  have  closed 
their  doors  to  Japanese  capital,  com- 
modities and  immigrants.  They  do  not 
intend  to  develop  their  natural  re- 
sources themselves,  nor  will  they 
permit  Japan  to  do  so,  and  thus  the 
exploitation  of  the  great  southern  re- 
gions, which  would  play  an  important 
part  in  world  economy,  is  left  neg- 
lected. The  main  reason  for  this  is 
doubdess  that  Australia  and  the  Dutch 
East  Indies  are  forever  seeing  terri- 
torial designs  in  our  southward  policy. 

Therefore,  in  order  to  carry  out  suc- 
cessfully her  justified  expansion  to  the 
south,  Japan  should  declare  to  the 


world  that  she  has  no  territorial  de- 
signs, refrain  from  all  speech  and  ac- 
tion likely  to  incite  the  feelings  of 
other  nations,  place  a  high  value  on 
world  peace  and  international  justice 
in  order  to  regain  the  world-wide  honor 
formerly  extended  because  of  her  love 
of  peace,  and  try  by  every  possible 
means  to  eradicate  Japanophobia  from 
the  minds  of  her  neighbors  in  the 
south. 

The  writer  takes  this  occasion  to  ex- 
press the  strong  hope  that,  on  the 
other  hand,  those  neighbor  States  in 
the  South  Seas  will  abandon  their 
chauvinist  policies,  remove  discrim- 
inatory restrictions  against  Japanese 
goods,  investments  and  immigrants, 
and  cooperate  with  us  in  the  work  of 
developing  the  South  Sea  territories. 
Military  invasion  of  'less  fortunate 
nations'  is  not  the  only  detriment  to 
peace:  there  is  also  the  monopoliza- 
tion of  natural  resources  by  'those 
that  have  among  the  Powers.'  The  na- 
tions in  both  categories  should  coop- 
erate one  with  the  other  for  the  sake 
of  both  world  peace  and  world  econ- 
omy. This  collaboration  is  the  very 
foundation  of  a  positive  South  Seas 
policy. 


III.  The  Sky-Blue  Circle 
By  KuNiKos 

From  the  North-China  Herald,  Shanghai  English-Language  Weekly 


M. 


.ORE  than  two  hundred  years 
ago  certain  Miao  tribes  in  Kwangtung 
rose  in  rebellion  against  the  Chinese 
Emperor  then  on  the  throne.  General 
after  general  was  sent  south  from 
Peiping  to  suppress  the  rebels,  but  all 
failed.  The  Emperor  then  decided  to 
give  a  large  reward  to  anyone  who 


could  succeed  where  the  generals  had 
been  defeated;  and  there  came  a  Bud- 
dhist monk,  Lo  Tsu  by  name,  who 
routed  the  rebels  and  restored  the  im- 
perial authority  by  means  of  Buddhist 
incantations.  Not  a  shot  was  fired.  It 
appeared  that  all  that  was  necessary 
for  a  large  part  of  the  empire  to  be 


193^ 


THREE  FROM  THE  EAST 


[495] 


restored  to  its  former  allegiance  was 
Lo  Tsu  with  his  incantations.  Lo  Tsu 
returned  to  the  capital  of  the  empire 
to  claim  his  reward  and  a  grateful 
Emperor  conferred  upon  him  a  dis- 
tinguished Buddhist  name,  stopping 
short  of  handing  over  any  of  the  im- 
perial reserves  of  bullion.  This  nom- 
inal promotion  seems,  however,  to 
have  satisfied  Lo  Tsu,  who  returned 
to  the  regions  of  his  incantatory  vic- 
tory, and  practiced  the  Buddhist  rites 
with  such  assiduity  that  he  attracted 
to  himself  three  disciples  who  were 
destined  to  make  his  name — and  in- 
cidentally their  own — notorious  in 
Chinese  history  for  the  part  their  fol- 
lowers play  today  in  the  opium  and 
other  drug  rackets  all  over  the  Yangtze 
Valley. 

The  names  of  the  three  disciples 
were  Wang,  Chien,  and  Pan;  but  they 
were  not  well  received  by  their  patron. 
Upon  their  request  for  tuition  under 
his  able  guidance,  Lo  Tsu  returned  to 
the  Yangtze,  which  he  crossed  in  a 
small  boat  of  reeds.  Going  to  Hang- 
chow,  he  crawled  into  a  narrow  cave 
and  left  his  supporters  outside.  Ac- 
cording to  the  official  account  of  this 
exploit,  the  mouth  of  the  cave  was 
so  narrow  that  only  a  person  who 
could  take  upon  himself  the  appear- 
ance and  agility  of  a  serpent  could 
enter  it.  And  thus  Messrs.  Wang, 
Chien,  and  Pan  were  left  to  regard 
the  pit-like  opening  in  something 
akin  to  consternation,  deprived  by 
the  eccentricities  of  their  chosen 
teacher  of  the  privilege  of  sitting  at 
his  feet. 

They  were  not  downhearted  by  the 
disappearance  of  their  leader,  how- 
ever, calculating  very  nicely  that  he 
must  come  out  of  the  hole  sooner  or 
later.   So  they  camped  opposite  the 


opening  of  the  cave  and  possessed  their 
souls  in  patience.  They  had  not  been 
there  more  than  a  few  days  before  a 
beautiful  young  boy  came  out  of  the 
hole  and  gave  them  a  message.  He 
said:  'Did  you  come  to  ask  for  lessons 
from  the  reverend  priest?  I  come  to 
you  from  him  to  promise  to  give  you 
lessons  only  if  you  can  wait  for  him 
to  come  out  with  your  waists  in  red 
snow  and  booted  to  the  knees  in 
reeds.' 

To  the  average  person  these  con- 
ditions would  have  been  quite  enough. 
Red  snow!  Knee-boots  of  reeds!  But 
the  three  disciples  were  not  average 
persons,  and  they  decided  to  wait  out- 
side the  hole  until  their  chosen  mentor 
turned  up. 

It  happened  that  the  winter  sea- 
son that  year  was  particularly  se- 
vere, and  the  three  of  them  found 
themselves  before  long  kneeling  in  a 
condition  of  semi-coma  in  deep  snow 
which  completely  obscured  the  hole 
down  which  their  reverend  professor 
had  disappeared.  One  of  the  three 
became  sufficiently  galvanized  by  the 
weather  conditions  to  go  forth  and 
gather  some  rice  stalks  to  protect 
himself  and  his  companions  from  the 
blizzard.  These  rice  stalks  the  three 
then  laid  over  their  heads  as  a  kind  of 
thatch  covering. 

This  proved  very  agreeable  for  the 
three,  but  they  had  omitted  to  take 
into  their  calculations  that  the  birds 
would  be  unable  to  find  anything  to 
eat  while  snow  covered  the  ground. 
These  birds  discovered  that  the  rice 
stalks  had  some  seeds  of  rice  still  at- 
tached to  them,  and  they  therefore 
perched  on  the  heads  of  the  three  dis- 
ciples and  pecked  at  the  seeds.  The 
heads  of  the  three  disciples  suffered 
through  the  pecking,  and  their  blood 


[496] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


flowed  down  and  encarmined  the  snow 
round  their  knees.  Red  snow!  Coming 
out  of  their  trance,  the  three  noted  the 
red  snow  and  rose  up  to  rejoice.  They 
then  saw  that  reeds  had  grown  up 
around  them  and  that  they  were 
knee-deep  in  them.  Knee-boots  of 
reeds!  In  the  middle  of  the  rejoicing 
over  the  fulfilment  of  Lo  Tsu's  con- 
ditions, Lo  Tsu  himself  appeared 
and  said:  'Come  to  me,  you  three; 
you  are  now  my  disciples.* 


II 


After  three  months'  special  coach- 
ing in  Buddhist  incantations,  the  three 
monks  were  despatched  by  their 
teacher  into  the  Grand  Canal  region 
to  suppress  the  activities  of  river 
gangs  who  were  robbing  the  boats  that 
carried  the  rice  of  the  peasants  to 
Peiping  for  tribute.  This  was  a  very 
important  task,  for  along  the  winding 
length  of  the  Grand  Canal — then  the 
principal  thoroughfare  linking  the 
north  with  the  Yangtze  Valley — there 
were  bandits  and  gangsters  who  levied 
much  resented  tolls  on  the  grain  and 
bullion  being  sent  to  satisfy  the  de- 
mands of  a  foreign  dynasty,  the 
Manchus. 

To  check  this  robbery  the  three 
monks  founded  a  society  called  the 
Kiang  Yin  Su  Pang  and  provided  it 
with  i,999>^  boats, — the  half  boat  is 
correct, — which  they  manned  with 
1,326  men.  The  Kiang  Yin  Su  Pang 
was  divided  into  three  groups — the 
group  headed  by  Wang,  which  was 
considered  the  senior  group;  that 
headed  by  Chien,  which  was  called 
the  No.  2  Group;  and  that  headed  by 
Pan,  which  was  called  the  No.  3 
Group.  Out  of  these  three  groups  arose 
the  Sky-Blue  Circle,  or  Ching  Pang, 


which  is  so  powerful  in  Shanghai  and 
the  Yangtze  Valley  today. 

Following  an  old  Chinese  custom, 
the  senior  members  of  the  society 
were  permitted  to  adopt  certain  dis- 
tinguished surnames,  and  these  names 
afterwards  became  the  names  of  differ- 
ent 'degrees'  within  the  society.  The 
leading  surname  was  Yuan.  The  others 
were  Ming,  Hsing,  Li,  Ta,  Tung,  Wu, 
Chao,  Pu,  Men,  Kai,  Fang,  Wang, 
Hsiang,  Yi,  Hsing,  Li,  Ta,  Tung,  Wu, 
Chao,  Pu,  Fa,  Hsuan,  and  Miao.  The 
combination  of  these  twenty-four  char- 
acters can  be  translated  to  read:  'A 
complete  and  clear  mind  realizes  that 
an  open  door  for  everyone  is  the  only 
thing  the  universe  depends  upon.  This 
is  the  essence  of  the  Buddhist  doctrine 
embodied  by  Lo  Tsu.'  The  surname 
of  Yuan  was  adopted  by  the  Wang 
group,  which  thereby  became  the 
senior  group  of  the  society. 

There  seems  to  be  very  little  doubt 
that  the  three  groups  within  the  so- 
ciety did  not  get  along  well  together 
during  the  first  years  of  the  society's 
existence,  and  there  seem  to  have  been 
bitterly  waged  feuds  among  them, 
which  resulted  eventually  in  the  vir- 
tual elimination  of  the  Wang  and 
Chien  factions  and  the  supremacy  of 
the  Pan  group.  Most  of  the  members 
of  the  society  today  owe  their  al- 
legiance to  this  latter  group,  while  the 
other  two  are  practically  extinct. 

It  is  probably  a  polite  fiction  on  the 
part  of  the  society  to  say  that  they 
were  ever  supported  by  the  Manchu 
dynasty.  It  is  true  that  the  original 
character  for  their  name,  Cbing,  was 
the  same  as  that  used  by  the  Ching 
dynasty;  but  with  the  growth  of  the 
revolutionary  movement,  the  charac- 
ter degenerated  into  the  present  one, 
which  means  sky-blue  or  green. 


1936 


THREE  FROM  THE  EAST 


[497] 


Also  it  is  a  fiction  that  the  society 
ever  engaged  in  suppressing  smug- 
gling. There  seems  to  be  very  little 
doubt  that  the  first  members  were 
from  among  the  revenue  guards  that 
accompanied  the  tribute  boats  up  the 
Grand  Canal  and  that  they  carried  all 
sorts  of  contraband  on  these  privileged 
ships  and  did  a  nefarious  trade  in  spite 
of  Government  regulations.  In  fact, 
they  were  men  paid  to  prevent  smug- 
gling who  did  a  very  profitable  smug- 
gling business  of  their  own. 

With  the  shift  of  important  cargo 
movements  from  the  Grand  Canal  to 
the  Yangtze  and  sea  routes,  the  op- 
erations of  the  Sky-Blue  Circle  under- 
went a  change,  and  from  being  a 
smuggling  fraternity  in  north  Kiangsu, 
they  became  an  important  factor  in 
Shanghai's  trade,  legitimate  and  il- 
legitimate. It  is  hardly  an  exaggeration 
to  say  that  nearly  every  form  of  legiti- 
mate trade  in  Shanghai  today  pays  a 
contribution  of  some  sort  or  other  to 
the  Sky-Blue  Circle,  whether  they 
know  it  or  not. 

Like  most  Chinese  secret  societies 
the  principles  underlying  the  Sky- 
Blue  Circle  are  admirable.  It  is  the 
abuses  that  come  with  almost  un- 
limited power  that  have  brought  the 
society  and  its  leaders  into  disrepute. 
In  the  main,  the  principles  are  those 
of  a  mutual  aid  society,  protecting 
members  against  sudden  poverty, 
looking  after  the  relicts  of  members, 
seeing  them  through  sicknesses,  and 
generally  guarding  against  the  slings 
and  arrows  of  outrageous  fortune.  The 
secrecy  of  the  organization  and  the 
complete  oaths  of  obedience  that  are 
required  from  members  make  abuses 
a  simple  matter.  And  it  is  these  abuses, 
though  they  have  brought  wealth  and 
power  to  the  leaders,  that  have  made 


the  name  of  the  society  to  stink  in  the 
nostrils  of  all  decent  persons. 

The  respectable  members  of  the  so- 
ciety can  be  divided  into  two  sections: 
those  who  pay  fees  for  what  is  tanta- 
mount to  protection,  and  those  who 
subscribe  for  the  insurance  and  other 
benefits  to  be  derived  for  their  fam- 
ilies. As  to  the  others — the  least  said, 
soonest  mended.  Their  income  is  made 
from  a  variety  of  sources.  Chief  is, 
of  course,  opium  and  opium  deriva- 
tives, in  which  category  falls  heroin, 
which  is  now  agitating  the  League 
of  Nations  and  the  Shanghai  authori- 
ties. 

Almost  equally  important,  however, 
is  the  protection  afforded  to  smugglers. 
It  is  said  that  in  Shanghai  anything 
can  be  smuggled  provided  the  smug- 
gler has  received  the  sanction  of  the 
powers-that-be  in  the  Sky-Blue  Circle. 
Once  the  smuggler  has  paid  his  fee  to 
the  leaders  of  this  gang,  his  cargo  is 
safe.  Occasionally  the  Customs  man- 
age to  seize  the  cargo,  in  which  case 
the  smuggler  has  to  be  the  loser.  But 
should  the  cargo  fall  into  other  hands, 
it  is  quickly  recovered.  Stolen  cargo, 
provided  the  requisite  fee  is  paid  to 
the  gang  heads,  can  be  back  in  its 
owner's  hands  within  two  hours  of  the 
theft.  If  no  fee  is  paid,  the  owner  can 
sing  for  his  lost  goods.  He  might  just 
as  well  sing  as  do  anything  else,  as  he 
will  not  get  his  property  back  without 
payment. 

Ill 

Other  sources  of  profit  to  the  society 
are  protection  to  houses  of  ill  fame; 
the  purchase  of  peasant  girls  and  their 
importation  into  Shanghai  for  pur- 
poses of  prostitution;  the  import  and 
purveyance  of  arms  to  robbers  and 
kidnappers;  the  financing  of  kidnap- 


[498] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


pings;  the  control  of  labor  disputes 
brought  about  by  the  control  of  the 
labor  unions;  ho  wet  lotteries  and  other 
gambling  rackets;  to  mention  only  a 
few.  The  ramifications  of  the  society 
are  so  widespread  and  wander  into  so 
many  Government  and  police  depart- 
ments that  it  is  seldom  that  the  au- 
thorities can  successfully  take  action 
against  them.  In  most  instances  the 
members  of  the  society  are  warned 
well  in  advance,  and  when  the  raid  is 
made,  nothing  incriminating  is  to  be 
found. 

So  powerful  has  the  society  become 
that  it  is  not  always  necessary  for  its 
members  to  be  actively  engaged  in 
smuggling  and  other  illicit  activities 
themselves;  they  can  sit  back  and  take 
fees  from  the  men  who  run  the  risks 
of  these  illegal  operations  in  the  pre- 
tense of  protecting  them  from  prosecu- 


tion, x^nd  it  often  happens  that  offi- 
cials of  the  society  pay  calls  upon  the 
leaders  of  lesser  gangs  and  extract 
from  them  what  is  known  as  tseng-yi 
or  farewell  money,  a  type  of  blackmail 
which  is  always  paid  since  refusal  to 
pay  will  bring  into  play  the  full  force 
of  the  Sky-Blue  Circle's  gunmen. 

The  gangs  of  New  York  have  had 
their  historians.  The  gangs  of  Chicago 
are  still  front  page  news  whenever  any- 
thing happens  in  that  city  of  meat 
packers.  But  it  still  remains  for  some- 
body to  write  the  story  of  the  gangs  of 
Shanghai.  What  Chicago  is  just  dis- 
covering in  the  way  of  racketeering 
and  *hi-jacking'  the  gangsters  of 
Shanghai  absorbed  with  their  mother's 
milk.  A  title  suggested  for  the  great 
work  that  remains  to  be  written  about 
this  city  might  be  The  City  That 
Taught  Chicago  Racketeering. 


Welcome  to  Ramsgate 

*I  am  one  of  those  people  who  think  the  trippers  have  as  much 
right  to  the  sea  as  anyone  else,'  said  the  Mayor.  *  I  do  not  forget 
that  these  men  from  the  East  End  of  London  and  other  places  were 
ready  when  the  call  came  in  1914  and  were  amongst  the  first  who 
were  prepared  to  give  their  lives  for  their  country.  If  that  call 
comes  again,  they  will  again  respond.  We  want  them  to  be  in  good 
health,  so  that  when  the  time  comes  again  they  are  ready  to  an- 
swer the  call.  For  that  reason  I  welcome  them.* 

— The  Mayor  of  Ramsgate,  as  reported  in  the 
Advertiser  and  Echo,  London 


Irritated  by  the  eulogies  published 
at  his  death,  two  Englishmen,  a  critic 
and  a  scholar,  take  Housman  to  pieces. 


Second  Thoughts 
on  Housman 


I.  A  Note  on  the  Poetry  of  A.  E.  Housman 
By  Cyril  Connolly 

From  the  New  Statesman  and  Nation^  London  Independent  Weekly  of  the  Left 


Tk 


.HE  obituaries  of  Professor  Hous- 
man have  given  us  the  picture  of  a 
fascinating  personality,  and  have  made 
real  to  an  unscholarly  public  the 
labors  of  an  unrivaled  scholar.  But  in 
this  respect  they  seem  to  me  mislead- 
ing: that  they  all  defer  to  him  as  a 
fine  lyric  poet,  the  equal  of  Gray, 
according  to  one,  acclaimed  as  the 
greatest  living  poet  by  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh,  according  to  another.  Now 
there  are  so  few  people  who  care  about 
poetry  in  England,  and  fewer  still 
who  are  critical  of  it,  that  one  is 
tempted  at  first  to  make  no  comment. 
If  people  think  that,  let  them  say  so, 
one  feels,  and  one  even  derives  a 
certain  satisfaction  from  their  opinion. 
But  in  case  there  are  still  a  few  wav- 
erers,  and  in  case  one  can  be  of  some 
small  comfort  to  those  whose  ideas 
about  poetry  are  the  opposite  of  Pro- 
fessor Housman's,  and  whose  success 
also  varies  inversely  to  that  of  the 
Shropshire  Bard,  I  have  made  a  few 
notes  on  his  lyrics  that  may  be  of  use 
to  them. 


The  unanimous  verdict  of  the 
Housman  admirers  is  that  he  is  es- 
sentially a  classical  poet.  Master  of  the 
Latin  language,  he  has  introduced 
into  English  poetry  the  economy,  the 
precision,  the  severity  of  that  terse 
and  lucid  tongue.  His  verses  are  highly 
finished,  deeply  pagan;  they  stand 
outside  the  ordinary  current  of  mod- 
ern poetry,  the  inheritors  not  of  the 
romantic  age,  but  of  the  poignancy 
and  stateliness,  the  epigraphic  quality 
of  the  poems  of  Catullus,  Horace,  and 
Virgil,  or  the  flowers  of  the  Greek 
Anthology.  This  impression  is  height- 
ened by  the  smallness  of  Professor 
Housman's  output  and  the  years  de- 
voted to  finishing  and  polishing,  and, 
not  least,  by  the  stern  and  cryptic 
hints  in  the  prefaces,  with  their  allu- 
sions to  profound  emotions  rigidly 
controlled,  to  a  creative  impulse  ruth- 
lessly disciplined  and  checked. 

This  theory  seems  to  have  hood- 
winked all  his  admirers;  their  awe  of 
Housman  as  a  scholar  has  blinded 
them  to  his  imperfections  as  a  poet. 


ISoo] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


just  as  the  pessimism  and  Platonism 
of  Dean  Inge  have  sanctified  his  opin- 
ion on  topics  which,  in  other  hands, 
might  suggest  silly  season  journalism. 
The  truth  is  that  many  of  Housman's 
poems  are  of  a  triteness  of  technique 
equaled  only  by  the  banality  of  the 
thought,  others  are  slovenly,  and  a 
quantity  are  derivative;  not  from  the 
classics,  but  from  Heine,  or  from  the 
popular  trends — imperialism,  place- 
nostalgia,  games,  beer — of  the  poetry 
of  his  time.  'The  Shropshire  Lad  in- 
cludes some  poems  that  are  unworthy 
of  Kipling  with  others  that  are  un- 
worthy of  Belloc,  without  the  excuse 
of  over-production  and  economic  ne- 
cessity which  those  writers  could  have 
urged.  Horace  produced,  in  the  Odes 
and  Carmen  Saeculare,  a  hundred-and- 
four  poems;  Housman,  not  I  think 
without  intention,  confined  himself  to 
the  same  number.  Yet  a  moment's 
silent  comparison  should  settle  his 
position  once  and  for  all.  To  quote 
single  lines,  to  measure  a  poet  by  his 
mistakes  is  sometimes  unfair;  in  the 
case  of  a  writer  with  such  a  minute 
output  it  seems  justified.  Here  are  a 
few  from  The  Shropshire  Lad^  a  book 
in  which,  incidentally,  the  word  *Iad' 
(one  of  the  most  vapid  in  the  lan- 
guage) occurs  sixty-seven  times  in 
sixty-three  poems. 

Each  quotation  is  from  a  separate 
poem. 

{a)  Because  'tis  fifty  years  tonight 
That  God  has  saved  the  ^ueen. 

{b)   Clay  lies  still,  but  blood's  a  rover; 
Breath's  a   ware  that  will  not 

keep. 
Up  lad:  ,  .  . 

{c)   I  will  go  where  I  am  wanted,  Jor 
the  sergeant  does  not  mind; 
He  may  be  sick  to  see  me  but  he 
treats  me  very  kind. 


(d)   The  goal  stands  up,  the  keeper 

Stands  up  to  keep  the  goal  .  .   . 
(<?)    And  since  to  look  at  things  in 
bloom 
Fifty  springs  are  little  room. 
(/)  You  and  I  must  keep  from  shame 
In  London  streets  the  Shropshire 
name; 
(g)    They  put  arsenic  in  his  meat 
And  stared  aghast  to  watch  him 

eat. 
They  poured  strychnine  in  his 

cup 
And  shook  to  see  him  drink  it  up. 
These  are  some  of  the  verses  that 
could  not  be  entrusted  to  anthologies 
because,  we  are  told,  of  the  author's 
fears  that  they  would  suflFer  through 
incorrect  punctuation,  {a),  {b)  and  {c) 
suggest  Kipling,  {d)  Newbolt,  {e)  and 
(/)  are  typical  of  Georgian  poetry,  and 
is)  suggests  Belloc. 

So  much  for  a  few  of  the  bad  poems. 
Let  us  now  examine  the  better  ones. 
There  are  two  themes  in  Housman: 
man's  mortality,  which  intensifies  for 
him  the  beauty  of  nature,  and  man's 
rebellion  against  his  lot.  On  his  treat- 
ment of  these  themes  his  reputation 
for  classicism  subsists.  But  his  presen- 
tation of  both  is  hopelessly  romantic 
and  sentimental;  the  sentiment  of  his 
poems  in  fact  is  that  of  Omar  Khay- 
yam, which  perhaps  accounts  for  their 
popularity;  he  takes  over,  the  pagan 
concept  of  death  and  oblivion  as  the 
natural  end  of  life  and  even  as  a  not 
inappropriate  end  of  youth,  and  lards 
it  with  a  purely  Christian  self-pity, 
and  a  romantic  indulgence  in  the 
pathetic  fallacy. 

By  the  same  treatment  his  hero 
becomes  a  picturesque  outlaw,  raising 
his  pint-pot  in  defiance  of  the  laws  of 
God  and  man,  running  away  to  enlist, 
with  the  tacit  approval  of  his  pawky 


1936 


SECOND  THOUGHTS  ON  HOUSMAN 


[501] 


Shropshire  scoutmaster,  and  suitably 
mourned  by  him  when  he  makes  his 
final  escape  from  society  on  the  gal- 
lows. In  the  last  few  poems  it  is  his 
own  mortality  that  he  mourns,  not 
that  of  his  patrol,  but  here  again  his 
use  of  rhythm  is  peculiarly  sentimen- 
tal and  artful,  as 
for  she  and  I  were  long  acquainted 
and  I  knew  all  her  ways 
or 

well  went  the  dances 
at  evening  to  the  flute 
or  in  his  metrically  morbid  experi- 
ments in  the  five-line  stanza.  It  must 
be  remembered,  also,  that  classical 
poetry  is  essentially  aristocratic;  such 
writers  as  Gray  or  Horace  address 
themselves  to  their  own  friends  and 
would  be  incapable  of  using  Maurice, 
Terence,  and  the  other  rustics  as  any- 
thing but  the  material  for  a  few  gen- 
eral images. 

The  boast  oj  heraldry,  the  pomp  of  power 
And  all  that  beauty,  all  that  wealth  e  'er 

gave. 
Awaits  alike  the  inevitable  hour: 
'The  paths  of  glory  lead  but  to  the  grave. 
That  is  classical  in  spirit. 

Too  full  already  is  the  grave 
of  fellows  that  were  good  and  brave 
and  died  because  they  were. 
is  not. 

There  are  about  half-a-dozen  im- 
portant poems  of  Housman  of  which 
I  think  only  the  astronomical  one 
{Last  Poems,  ;^6)  is  a  success.  Two 
were  given  us  at  school  to  turn  into 
Latin  verses: — 

Into  my  heart  an  air  that  kills 
From  yon  far  country  blows. 

was  one,  which  would  suggest  only  a 
miasma  to  a  Roman,  while  one  has  to 


put  it  beside  'There  is  a  land  of  pure 
delight'  to  realize  its  imperfection  in 
English,  and 

With  rue  my  heart  is  laden 
For  golden  friends  I  had. 
For  many  a  rose-lipt  maiden 
And  many  a  lightfoot  lad. 
By  brooks  too  broad  for  leaping 
The  lightfoot  boys  are  laid; 
The  rose-lipt  girls  are  sleeping 
In  fields  where  roses  fade. 

This,  I  have  been  told,  is  the  purest 
expression  in  English  poetry  of  the 
spirit  of  the  Greek  anthology,  one  of 
the  few  things  that  might  actually 
have  been  written  by  a  Greek.  Yet  the 
first  line  is  Pre-Raphaelite;  'golden 
friends'  could  not  go  straight  into  a 
classical  language,  'lightfoot  lad'  is 
arch  and  insipid.  The  antithesis  in  the 
last  two  lines  is  obscure.  Once  again 
it  is  a  poem  in  which  not  a  pagan  is 
talking,  but  someone  looking  back  at 
paganism  from  a  Christian  stand- 
point, just  as  the  feelings  of  an  animal 
are  not  the  same  as  the  feelings  of  an 
animal  as  imagined  by  a  human  being. 
The  other  important  verses  are  in 
Last  Poems.  There  is  the  bombastic 
epigram  on  the  army  of  mercenaries, 
again  with  its  adolescent  anti-God 
gibe,  and  the  poem  which  in  texture 
seems  most  Horatian  of  all: — ■ 

The  chestnut  casts  his  flambeaux,  and 
the  flowers 
Stream  from  the  hawthorn  on  the  wind 
away. 
The  doors  clap  to,  the  pane  is  blind  with 
showers. 
Pass  me  the  can,  lad;  there's  an  end 
of  May. 

The  first  verse,  indeed,  except  for  that 
plebeian  '  can,'  has  an  authentic  Tha- 
liarchus  quality;  but  at  once  he  is  oflF 


[502] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


again  on  his  denunciations  of  the 
Master  Potter:  'Whatever  brute  and 
blackguard  made  the  world  .  .  .' 
Even  the  famous  last  stanza: — 

'The  troubles  of  our  proud  and  angry  dust 
Are  from  eternity  and  shall  not  fail. 
Bear  them  we  can^  and  if  we  can  we 

must. 
Shoulder  the  sky^  my  lad,  and  drink 

your  ale. 

suffers  from  the  two  'pass  the  cans' 
that  have  preceded  it,  and  from  the 
insincerity  of  pretending  that  drinking 
ale  is  a  stoical  gesture  identical  with 
shouldering  the  sky  instead  of  with 
escaping  from  it.  The  poem  does, 
however,  reveal  Housman  at  his  poeti- 
cal best — as  a  first-rate  rhetorician. 
The  pity  is  that  he  should  nearly  al- 
ways have  sacrificed  rhetoric  in  quest 
of  simplicity.  Unfortunately  his  cri- 
terion of  poetry  was,  as  he  explained, 
the  solar  plexus,  an  organ  which  is 
seldom  the  same  in  two  people,  which 
writes  poetry  at  midnight  and  burns 
it  at  midday,  which  experiences  the 
sudden  chill,  the  hint  of  tears,  as 
easily  at  a  bad  film  as  at  a  good  verse. 
Rhetoric  is  safer. 

The  Waste  Land  appeared  at  the 


same  time  as  Last  Poems,  and  the 
Phlebas  episode  may  be  compared,  as 
something  genuinely  classical,  with 
them.  The  fate  which  Housman's 
poems  deserve,  of  course,  is  to  be  set 
to  music  by  English  composers  and 
sung  by  English  singers,  and  it  has 
already  overtaken  them.  He  will  live 
as  long  as  the  B.B.C.  does.  Otherwise 
his  effect  by  temporarily  killing  the 
place-name  lyric  was  to  render  more 
severe  and  guarded  the  poetry  of  the 
Pylon  school.  His  own  farewell  to  the 
Muse  reveals  him  at  his  weakest,  with 
his  peculiar  use  of  'poetical'  words: — 

To-morrow i  more's  the  pity ^ 
Away  we  both  must  hie. 
To  air  the  ditty y 
And  to  earth  L 

This  is  not  on  a  level  with  Gray:  it 
contains  one  cliche,  and  two  pedan- 
tries ('hie'  and  'ditty'),  nor  does  it 
bear  any  resemblance  to  a  classical 
farewell,  such  as  Horace's 

Vivere  si  recte  nescis,  decede  peritis. 
Lusisti  satis  J  edisti  satis  atque  bibisti: 
Tempus  abire  tibi  est,  ne  potum  largius 

aequo 
Rideat  et  pulset  lasciva  decentius  aetas. 


II.  Housman's  Scholarship 

By  C.  M.  BowRA 
From  the  Spectator^  London  Conservative  Weekly 


T« 


.HE  death  of  A.  E.  Housman  has 
started  a  lively  debate  on  the 
merits,  or  faults,  of  his  poetry.  But 
scholarship  was  his  chief  concern,  and 
for  it  he  has  received  nothing  but 
praise.  He  deserves  better.  Praise  so 
perfunctory  shows  a  lack  of  interest, 
and  Housman  was  a  stranger  phenom- 


enon as  a  scholar  than  as  a  poet.  By 
the  time  of  his  death  he  had  won  a 
peculiar  eminence  in  the  world  of 
learning.  In  early  years  he  had  been 
the  bad  boy  of  scholarship,  •who  made 
fun  of  his  elders  and  embarrassed 
scholars  by  what  were  thought  deplor- 
able exhibitions  of  bad  taste.  But  he 


193^ 


SECOND  THOUGHTS  ON  HOUSMAN 


[503] 


grew  old,  and  age  brought,  as  it  will  in 
England,  respect.  The  rowdy  of  yester- 
day became  the  sage.  His  paradoxes 
were  accepted  as  dogmas;  his  casual 
sayings  were  circulated  with  hushed 
reverence,  and  he  became  a  figure  of 
legend.  Even  the  Germans  knew  of 
him. 

Housman  concerned  himself  with 
only  a  small  department  of  classical 
scholarship.  In  a  long  life  he  edited 
three  Latin  poets,  Manilius,  Juvenal, 
and  Lucan,  and  in  editing  them  he 
confined  his  energies  to  establishing 
what  he  thought  to  be  the  correct  text. 
Whatever  his  tastes  in  reading  may 
have  been,  in  writing  he  showed  him- 
self singularly  unsympathetic  to  many 
branches  of  classical  learning.  For 
literary  criticism  he  displayed  an  open 
contempt.  The  descent  of  manuscripts 
left  him  cold,  and  he  said  that  'tjber- 
lieferungsgeschichte  is  a  longer  and 
nobler  name  than  fudge.'  He  did  not 
even  claim  to  admire  the  poets  whom 
he  edited,  but  called  Manilius  *  a  fifth- 
rate  author.' 

But  though  he  was  narrow,  he  was 
extremely  strong.  In  his  chosen  field 
he  was  a  master.  It  is  impossible  to 
read  anything  that  he  wrote  without 
admiring  not  only  his  untiring  indus- 
try and  remarkable  organization  of 
knowledge  but  his  piercing  intelligence 
and  matchless  resource  in  devising 
solutions  for  difliculties.  With  new 
discoveries  his  interpretation  was  al- 
most final  in  its  acuteness  and  its 
mastery  of  all  relevant  evidence,  so 
that,  when  he  was  confronted  with 
hitherto  unknown  lines  in  the  Oxford 
manuscript  of  Juvenal,  he  illustrated 
and  explained  them  with  an  array  of 
detail  which  requires  neither  supple- 
ment nor  correction.  He  had  a  vast 
knowledge  of  classical  literature,  and 


he  knew  Latin  as  few  can  ever  have 
known  it.  So,  even  if  his  solutions  were 
sometimes  wrong,  he  had  always 
excellent  reasons  for  them. 

Housman,  however,  impressed  oth- 
ers less  by  his  actual  performance, 
which  could  be  properly  appreciated 
only  by  a  few  experts,  than  by  his  per- 
sonality. On  every  word  that  he  wrote 
he  left  a  unique  imprint.  This  was 
partly  a  feat  of  style.  His  bold,  clear, 
and  resonant  sentences  stay  in  the 
memory  as  do  those  of  no  other 
scholar.  But  it  is  much  more  a  triumph 
of  personality.  He  had  an  extraordi- 
nary confidence  in  himself  and  a  pas- 
sionate belief  in  the  importance  of  his 
subject.  He  felt  that  he  was  right,  and 
that  others  were  often  wrong.  Nor  was 
he  content  to  leave  them  alone.  He 
persecuted  them  for  their  errors  and 
hunted  their  heresies  with  a  deadly 
fanaticism.  If  the  dead  displeased  him, 
he  said  so,  as  of  an  earlier  editor  of 
Manilius:  'If  a  man  will  comprehend 
the  richness  and  variety  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  inspire  his  mind  with  a  due 
measure  of  wonder  and  of  awe,  he 
must  contemplate  the  human  intellect 
not  only  on  its  heights  of  genius  but 
in  its  abysses  of  ineptitude;  and  it 
might  be  fruitlessly  debated  to  the  end 
of  time  whether  Richard  Bentley  or 
Elias  Stoeber  was  the  more  marvellous 
work  of  the  Creator:  Elias  Stoeber, 
whose  reprint  of  Bentley's  text,  with  a 
commentary  intended  to  confute  it, 
saw  the  light  in  1767  at  Strasbourg,  a 
city  still  famous  for  its  geese.' 

But  Housman's  real  concern  was 
with  the  living.  He  saw  them  as  the 
victims  of  detestable  errors  due  to 
intellectual  and  moral  defects.  He  at- 
tacked them  with  an  anger  which 
passed  into  a  poisonous  wit.  In  this 
mood  he  wrote:  'I  imagine  that  Mr. 


[504] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


Biicheler,  when  he  first  perused  Mr. 
Sudhaus'  edition  of  the  Aetna,  must 
have  felt  something  like  Sin  wTien  she 
gave  birth  to  Death,'  or  'He  believes 
that  the  text  of  ancient  authors  is 
generally  sound,  not  because  he  has 
acquainted  himself  with  the  elements 
of  the  problem,  but  because  he  would 
feel  uncomfortable  if  he  did  not  believe 
it;  just  as  he  believes,  on  the  same 
cogent  evidence,  that  he  is  a  fine  fel- 
low, and  that  he  will  rise  again  from 
the  dead.'  Those  who  read  this  in  1903 
felt  that  a  wild,  angry  demon  had 
come  into  the  quiet  house  of  scholar- 
ship. 

Housman  was  sure  of  himself,  and 
he  was  not  joking  when  he  said:  'Pos- 
terity should  titter  a  good  deal  at  the 
solemn  coxcombries  of  the  age  which 
I  have  had  to  live  through.'  He  was 
equally  sure  that  most  of  his  fellow 
scholars  were  not  only  fools  but 
knaves.  Hard  as  he  was  on  stupidity, 
he  was  even  harder  on  what  he  be- 
lieved to  be  dishonesty,  laziness, 
sycophancy,  and  conceit.  Against 
these  failings,  real  or  imagined,  he 
thundered  in  Olympian  anger. 

He  had  a  peculiar  gift  for  making 
the  mistakes  of  editors  look  like  vile 
sins.  When  someone  attributed  an 
unmetrical  line  to  Propertius,  Hous- 
man wrote:  'This  is  the  mood  in  which 
Tereus  ravished  Philomela:  concu- 
piscence concentrated  on  its  object 
and  indiflferent  to  all  beside.'  An  editor 
of  Lucilius  who  complained  of  rash- 
ness in  the  work  of  some  others  be- 
came an  example  of  the  hypocritical 
inconsistency  of  our  ethical  notions: 
'Just  as  murder  is  murder  no  longer 
if  perpetrated  by  white  men  on  black 
men  or  by  patriots  on  kings;  just  as 
immorality  exists  in  the  relations  be- 
tween   the   sexes   and   nowhere   else 


throughout  the  whole  field  of  human 
conduct;  so  a  conjecture  is  audacious 
when  it  is  based  on  the  letters  pre- 
served in  a  MS.,  and  ceases  to  be 
audacious,  ceases  even  to  be  called  a 
conjecture,  when,  like  these  conjec- 
tural supplements  of  Mr.  Marx's,  it  is 
based  on  nothing  at  all.' 

The  folly  of  editors  made  him  reflect 
with  bitter  irony  on  the  corruption  of 
truth  which  it  entailed:  'In  Associa- 
tion football  you  must  not  use  your 
hands,  and  similarly  in  textual  criti- 
cisms you  must  not  use  your  brains. 
Since  we  cannot  make  fools  behave 
like  wise  men,  we  will  insist  that  wise 
men  should  behave  like  fools;  by  this 
means  only  can  we  redress  the  injus- 
tice of  nature  and  anticipate  the 
equality  of  the  grave.'  In  the  small 
world  of  scholarship  faults  of  intellect 
or  character  took  on  for  Housman  a 
cosmic  significance,  and  he  cursed 
them  with  the  virulence  of  a  Hebrew 
prophet. 

There  is  wit  in  these  curses,  but 
there  is  no  fun.  Housman  meant  what 
he  said.  He  stood  for  an  ideal  of  im- 
peccable scholarship,  and  anything 
with  which  he  disagreed  was  a  sin 
against  it.  His  anger  blasted  many 
worthy  scholars.  In  his  own  sphere  he 
neither  tolerated  rivals  nor  admitted 
compromise.  The  truth  obsessed  him, 
and  he  was  convinced  that  he  was 
more  usually  in  possession  of  it  than 
anyone  else.  He  can  hardly  be  said  to 
have  furthered  the  general  study  of 
Latin  in  England.  His  standards  were 
too  high,  his  tastes  too  narrow,  for 
others  to  share  them.  But  he  satisfied 
himself.  His  work  was  the  expression 
of  his  belief:  'The  tree  of  knowledge 
will  remain  for  ever,  as  it  was  in  the 
beginning,  a  tree  to  be  desired  to 
make  one  wise.' 


Persons  and  Personages 

Leon  Degrelle,  Belgium's  Enfant  1'errible 
By  Arved  Arenstam 

Translated  from  the  Pester  Lloyd,  Budapest  German-Language  Daily 

XvEX  vaincra!  Rex  will  win!'  From  the  moment  the  traveler  crossed 
the  Belgian  frontier,  this  slogan  pursued  him,  and  he  could  escape  its 
magic  only  by  leaving  Belgium  behind  him.  For  weeks  and  months 
preceding  election  day  the  entire  people  were  literally  tyrannized  by  this 
battle  cry:  one  saw  it  printed  in  giant  letters,  was  forced  to  listen  to  it 
everywhere;  from  time  to  time  somebody  would  shout  the  two  words 
directly  into  one's  ears.  ...  It  was  possible  to  be  sitting  quietly  and 
unsuspectingly  in  a  cafe  on  the  Place  de  la  Monnaie  when  suddenly  a  few 
young  men  would  enter,  look  all  around  the  place  as  if  for  a  seat,  and 
then  immediately  rush  out  of  the  cafe  shouting  *Rex  will  win!' 

Rex  did  win.  Naturally  the  victory  is  not  complete;  but  a  beginning 
has  been  made;  the  foundation  is  laid,  and  the  Rex  movement  has  now 
emerged  from  a  stage  which  one  was  all  too  easily  inclined  to  regard  as 
the  game  of  young  men  playing  at  politics.  That  the  movement  has 
become  serious  overnight,  this  fact  could  be  gathered  from  the  grave 
faces  of  the  old  leaders  of  all  the  parties.  The  aged  Vandervelde,  certainly 
an  old  fighter,  and  one  who  is  not  easily  impressed,  stood  excited  in 
the  hall  of  the  Maison  du  Peuple  the  evening  of  election  day,  giving 
orders  as  to  how  this  movement  should  be  met.  *A  union  of  all  anti- 
Fascist  forces  must  be  formed  at  once,'  he  said,  *  for  otherwise  it  might  be 
too  late.' 

The  same  excitement  was  prevalent  among  the  Liberals,  and,  above 
all,  in  the  circles  of  the  Catholic  party,  which  lost  sixteen  seats  to  Rex. 
For  it  was  the  Catholics  who  nurtured  at  their  bosom  young  Leon 
Degrelle,  who  has  now  become  the  most  talked  of  man,  the  man  of  the 
hour,  in  Belgium;  and  now  they  see  with  horror  that  they  harbored  a 
serpent. 

Son  of  a  former  Catholic  deputy,  Degrelle  is  a  handsome,  elegant 
young  man,  who  studied  in  Louvain  and  made  quite  a  name  for  himself 
as  a  talented  roving  reporter.  A  newspaper  sent  him  abroad;  his  longest 
trip  took  him  to  Mexico,  where  he  arrived  in  the  midst  of  the  revolu- 
tionary upheaval,  and  whence  he  wrote  thrilling  dispatches.  These 
dispatches  were  conspicuous  for  an  unusual  sharpness  of  style,  and  they 
were  avidly  read.  President  Calles  did  not  please  the  young  Belgian 


[5o6]  THE  LIVING  AGE  August 

reporter,  who  abused  him  in  his  articles  in  such  a  vicious,  unmerciful  and 
provocative  manner  that  everybody  agreed  a  great  pamphleteer  was  in 
the  making. 

When  he  returned  to  Brussels,  the  young  man  began  to  get  interested 
in  domestic  politics,  and  he  wrote  political  articles  on  the  subject.  Every- 
thing, of  course,  within  the  framework  of  the  Catholic  party;  it  was  there 
that  he  belonged,  and  its  national  and  anti-Marxist  tendencies  agreed 
entirely  with  his  Weltanschauung.  The  party  elders  let  him  have  his  way; 
perhaps  they  found  the  young  man  too  pungent;  but  they  were  of  the 
opinion  that  youth  must  have  its  fling,  and  furthermore  they  thought  it 
quite  useful  to  tell  the  Liberals  and  the  Socialists  the  truth  a  little  more 
bluntly  than  had  been  the  practice  in  the  old  CathoHc  tradition  up  to 
that  time. 

The  young  men  especially  were  attracted  by  the  poisonous  articles 
of  Degrelle.  They  ran  after  the  young  journalist,  provided  him  with 
material,  and  offered  him  their  support.  Degrelle  organized  these  young 
people  and  spoke  to  them.  He  has  unusual  oratorical  talent,  and  the 
crowds  increased  so  rapidly  that  the  halls  were  not  large  enough  to 
hold  his  admirers.  The  party  leaders  became  a  little  worried.  Doesn't  our 
young  friend  makeahttle  too  much  todo  about  himself?  Arguments  arose 
and  became  keener  and  keener. 

ONE  day  Degrelle  showed  up  at  party  headquarters  and  demanded 
that  his  name,  the  name  of  Leon  Degrelle,  should  be  the  first  one  on  the 
lists  of  the  Catholic  party  for  the  parliamentary  elections  of  May  24th. 
The  party  leader  almost  dropped  dead. 

'What,  the  first  name  on  the  list?  But,  dear  Leon,  you  are  almost  a 
child!  We  have  followed  your  zealous  activities  with  interest;  we  appre- 
ciate your  idealism — but  to  run  for  parliament!  It  seems  a  little  too  soon 
for  that.  For  that  you  need  experience,  a  reputation  with  the  people, 
and  that  is  not  so  simple.  Dear  Leon,  you  will  certainly  become  a  deputy 
some  time,  but  until  that  day  you  will  have  to  do  a  lot  of  work,  make 
great  efforts  and,  above  all,  tone  down  a  little.  .  .  .*  The  elders  had 
hardly  finished  when  Degrelle  impatiently  thumped  the  table  and 
demanded  an  answer  point-blank:  Was  the  party  willing  to  nominate 
him  as  its  first  candidate  for  parliament,  yes  or  no?  Frightened  to  death, 
the  party  leaders  finally  agreed  to  give  Degrelle  fourth  place,  because 
they  saw  that  nothing  could  be  done  with  the  boy.  Thereupon  Degrelle 
slammed  the  door  and  disappeared.  The  break  with  the  Catholics  had 
been  made.  He  founded  a  new  party,  or,  more  accurately,  a  movement, 
which  he  named  Rex.  Originally  the  name  of  Christ,  Rex  had  been 
chosen  to  accentuate  the  Catholic  character  of  the  movement,  but  then  it 
simply  became  Rex  and  Rex  no  longer  mean  t  Christ,  but  Degrelle  himself. 


igs6  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [507] 

Leon  Degrelle,  who  is  only  twenty-eight  years  old,  then  started  the 
fight  on  his  own — and  against  everybody.  His  chief  indignation  was 
directed  against  the  Catholic  Party,  which  had  insulted  him  because  it 
had  refused  to  take  him  seriously.  He  started  a  campaign  of  startling 
dimensions,  which  certainly  outdid  the  beginnings  of  the  Hitler  move- 
ment. He  spoke  a  language  nobody  had  so  far  heard  in  Belgium.  He  was 
abusive,  and  used  the  most  insulting  expressions.  The  result  was  a  storm 
of  libel  suits. 

But  that  did  not  last  long.  The  young  man  knew  too  many  party 
secrets,  had  seen  and  heard  too  much,  and  testified  to  everything  in 
court.  Then  the  others  began  to  keep  silent  and  let  him  rant,  for  fear 
that  it  might  become  worse,  and  because  everybody,  even  the  whitest 
sheep,  was  afraid  of  this  enfant  terrible. 

AN  INTELLIGENT,  alert  person,  Leon  Degrelle  looked  around  the 
country.  He  saw  that  stronger  than  all  the  three  great  parties  put  together 
was  the  mass  of  the  malcontents,  who  used  to  say,  when  the  conversation 
turned  to  the  elections:  *Hang  it  all,  nothing  will  come  of  it  anyway.  One 
man  is  as  good  as  another.  Haven't  the  Liberals,  the  Catholics  and  the 
Socialists  been  in  power  already?  And  what  has  come  of  it?'  Degrelle 
began  to  gather  this  mass  of  discontented  and  resigned  people  together. 
The  result  of  the  elections  shows  to  what  extent  he  succeeded.  Nobody  in 
Belgium  took  the  Rex  movement  seriously.  People  laughed  a  good  deal 
about  the  young  man;  many  found  him  quite  amusing;  others  thought 
that  he  had  never  had  enough  spanking  from  his  papa,  and  that  it 
was  high  time  for  the  Government  to  do  something  about  him.  But 
the  Belgian  Constitution  gives  every  citizen  the  right  of  free  speech 
and  political  organization;  as  long  as  it  was  desired  to  remain  with- 
in the  framework  of  legality,  no  weapon  could  be  found  to  use  against 
him. 

Youthful  enthusiasm  supported  the  Rexists;  but  what,  despite  cer- 
tain funds,  was  lacking  was — money.  In  this  respect  the  young  people's 
prospects  were  dark — until  something  happened  to  help  them.  An 
enormous  scandal  had  arisen  about  the  millionaire  politician  Sap,  and 
Degrelle  grasped  at  this  case  for  propaganda  purposes,  as  the  whole 
party  system  was  compromised  by  it.  In  a  few  days  there  was  a  super- 
abundance of  money,  because  Sap's  opponents,  partly  for  revenge  and 
partly  for  fear,  turned  to  Degrelle. 

Now  the  campaign  really  was  ready  to  start,  and  its  popularity  as- 
sumed enormous  proportions.  The  greatest  and  best  known  Belgian 
journalist,  Pierre  Daye,  who  is  enormously  rich  by  birth,  attached  him- 
self to  the  movement,  and  is  at  present  second  only  to  Degrelle  in 
importance  in  it.  The  pamphlet  became  Degrelle's  main  weapon.  He 


[5o8]  THE  LIVING  AGE  August 

attacked  everybody,  insulted  everybody,  abused  everybody,  sparing 
only  the  person  of  the  King.  He  himself  declared  that  it  did  not  make 
the  slightest  difference  to  him  whether  his  contentions  were  correct  or 
not;  what  mattered  was  merely  the  purpose.  His  slogan  is  that  every- 
thing is  polluted  and  filthy,  that  the  purification  has  to  be  undertaken 
from  the  bottom  up.  The  contradictions  in  Degrelle's  speeches  and 
articles  are  glaring  and  would  have  ruined  any  other  politician  forever. 
With  him  the  effect  was  the  opposite — he  merely  became  the  more 
interesting. 

He  founded  a  newspaper,  which  appears  in  thirty-two  pages  and  costs 
75  Belgian  centimes  {1^2  cents).  It  pubhshed  a  political  article  about 
foreign  affairs  which  concluded  with  the  sentence:  *"Down  with 
France,"  that  is  the  cry  of  the  hour!'  When  this  produced  a  storm  of 
indignation  all  over  Belgium,  Degrelle  declared  nonchalantly  the  next 
day  that  he  had  not  the  faintest  idea  how  the  article  got  into  the  paper, 
and  that  he  was  France's  best  friend.  In  the  conflict  between  the  Wal- 
loons and  the  Flemish  he  takes  the  side  of  the  Flemish  today  and  that  of 
the  Walloons  tomorrow.  One  day  he  said  he  was  against  parliamenta- 
rianism;  the  next  he  was  for  it,  or  otherwise  he  would  not  let  his  followers 
enter  parliament.  He  himself  did  not  accept  a  seat. 

DEGRELLE  is  able  to  give  very  intelligent  interviews  to  the  foreign  press, 
but  if  he  wants  to,  he  issues  statements  that  make  one  doubt  his  sanity. 
In  a  statement  given  to  a  French  politician  he  said,  for  instance:  'My 
weapons  are  propaganda  and  terror.  I  use  terroristic  measures,  and 
everybody  is  afraid  of  me.  Already  wives  are  advising  their  husbands 
not  to  fight  me  but  to  keep  silent.  In  two  or  three  years  I  shall  have  the 
power,  and  then  my  terror  will  really  start.  Heads  will  roll  at  once.  What 
can  really  happen  to  me?  The  bishops  are  going  to  curse  me — let  them. 
I  have  so  much  material  on  certain  Cardinals  that  they  will  be  extremely 
cautious  about  taking  steps  against  me.  Hitler  has  offered  me  money;  I 
have  refused  because  I  do  not  need  money.  But  I  am  going  to  make  an 
honest  peace  with  him.  You  know,  there  are  moments  where  one  has  to 
let  the  fury  of  the  mob  run  free.  Hurry  up  with  that  in  France.  What  you 
need  in  France  is  a  man  like  me.  De  La  Rocque  started  out  quite  promis- 
ingly, but  now  he  does  nothing,  just  nothing.  Follow  my  example 
quickly,  for  if  you  do  not  follow  my  advice,  I  shall  show  France,  when  I 
have  the  power!' 

In  contrast  to  this  fantastic  hogwash  there  are  a  number  of  interviews 
in  which  Leon  Degrelle  has  explained  the  progress  of  his  movement  in 
a  clear  and  logical  manner,  and  in  which  he  develops  an  intrinsically 
sound  program,  in  opposition  to  party  racketeering  and  exaggerated 
parliamentarianism.  This  contrast  makes  it  difficult  to  form  an  objective 


193^  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [509] 

picture  of  the  man.  The  Rex  movement  has  won  twenty- two  seats;  in 
the  former  parliament  it  did  not  have  a  single  one. 

Degrelle  himself  is  the  sportsman  type,  tanned,  healthy,  amiable.  All 
who  know  him  maintain  that  he  is  charming  in  every  respect.  The  hearts 
of  young  girls  are  supposed  to  beat  faster  when  they  hear  his  name;  for 
the  young  men  playing  at  politics  he  is  already  a  demigod.  In  Brussels, 
all  over  Belgium,  every  second  word  that  one  hears  is  Degrelle^  Degrelle 
.  .  .  He  has  become  the  man  of  the  hour !  Now  that  his  followers  have 
entered  parliament,  he  has  sworn  to  sabotage  it,  because  he  wants  to 
force  new  elections. 

We  shall  soon  see  whether  he  is  a  poHtical  genius  or  an  adventurer. 
Whichever  he  may  be,  one  will  have  to  get  accustomed  to  the  name  of 
Leon  Degrelle. 


Prince  Paul  of  Yugoslavia 

By  Pierre  Lyautey 
Translated  from  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  Paris  Conservative  Bi-Monthly 

i\  SIMPLE  villa.  An  officer,  wearing  a  saber  at  his  side,  leads  you  to 
the  entrance.  You  enter  a  white-walled  salon.  The  setting  is  the  same, 
be  it  at  Bohim,  which  nestles  between  its  double  row  of  pines,  or  at  Bel- 
grade by  the  Danube.  The  Prince  is  there,  in  a  simple  lounge  suit — a 
sign  of  Serbian  simplicity.  He  approaches  you  with  a  rapid,  determined 
step,  and  he  always  has  some  charming,  spontaneous,  personal  word  to 
say  to  you. 

He  has  improved  much  in  the  past  few  months.  Last  fall  I  found  him 
ailing,  and  got  the  impression  that  he  enjoyed  it.  Now  I  see  him  in  full 
health,  and  I  think  that  he  likes  active  life.  He  has  filled  out  well.  Is  it 
the  effect  of  power?  A  few  years  ago  he  was  pale.  Today  his  appearance 
impresses  even  the  Serbs,  who  are  strapping  fellows.  The  Karageorgevich 
blood  runs  swift  in  his  veins.  He  looks  you  straight  in  the  face — ^not  from 
under  lowered  eyeHds,  not  with  one  of  those  distant  expressions  so  often 
abused  by  politicians;  his  fine  eyes  look  at  you  without  seeking  to  pry 
into  your  soul;  they  inspire  confidence  in  you.  Yet  sometimes  his  ex- 
pression changes  from  an  active  to  a  dreamy  one.  One  moment  it  is  alert 
and  decisive.  Then  a  Slavic  reverie  seems  to  invade  it,  and  the  Prince, 
who  has  been  walking  to  and  fro  (he  generally  prefers  to  be  on  his  feet), 
stops  to  muse  an  instant  over  the  magnificent  and  austere  landscape  at 
the  junction  of  the  Danube  and  the  Save. 

His  face  is  one  of  the  handsomest  in  Europe.  A  lofty  forehead,  a  self- 
willed  chin — the  features  are  as  regular  as  a  Greek  god's.  The  whole 


ISio]  THE  LIVING  AGE  Jugust 

impression  is  one  of  virility.  His  voice  has  a  perfect  timbre.  His  French 
is  that  of  the  He  de  France — nothing  Slavic  about  it. 

If  you  ask  him  to,  he  does  you  the  honor  of  showing  you  the  master- 
pieces in  his  collection,  and  you  realize  that  each  picture  corresponds  to  a 
stage  in  his  development.  A  Poussin  has  been  chosen  for  its  powerful 
masses  of  leafage  and  shadow.  It  has  a  vigor  which  would  interest  a 
Serb,  and  is  almost  surprising  in  a  painting  of  the  French  School.  Beyond 
it,  there  is  a  Breughel.  It  has  taken  years  of  hunting  to  find  these  master- 
pieces. They  were  not  picked  up  in  chance  sales.  Each  one  of  them  repre- 
sents persistent  curiosity. 

The  political  situation  is  very  delicate  this  morning.  But  there  is  no 
trace  or  preoccupation  in  his  bearing.  Perfect  self-control — absolute 
composure.  One  could  talk  with  him  for  two  hours  about  the  Renaissance 
or  tne  symbolists  without  the  slightest  suspicion  that  anything  was 
going  wrong  in  Belgrade. 

When  Prince  Paul  wishes  to  charm  you,  his  attentions  strike  just  the 
right  note.  They  please  without  jarring.  He  wins  you  over  without 
disquieting  you.  Most  statesmen  can  cleverly  disguise  their  trickery,  so 
that  one  does  not  get  wind  of  it  until  later.  Here  we  have  an  attractive 
straightforwardness. 

HE  LOVES  France  instinctively.  When  he  says  *  I  love  France,'  he  wants 
to  explain  why.  In  the  last  five  years  he  has  taken  his  son  to  see  Versailles 
no  less  than  half  a  dozen  times.  He  perhaps  knows  our  Versailles  better 
than  most  people  do.  In  his  hbrary  he  has  all  the  French  authors:  those 
of  the  19th  and  20th  centuries  are  among  his  favorites. 

Knowing  his  passion  for  modern  art,  one  may  say  that  there  is  noth- 
ing retrospective  about  his  love  for  Versailles.  It  is  merely  one  of  the 
many  enchanting  experiences  he  has  had  in  France.  The  courtyard  and 
the  gardens  of  his  house,  on  a  mountain  overlooking  Belgrade,  are  rem- 
iniscent of  Versailles.  His  garden  has  been  laid  out  with  circumspection; 
it  is  a  cautious  construction  in  the  spirit  of  Cartesian  France. 

Is  he  well-informed?  Yes.  A  poet?  Yes,  still.  He  is  inclined  to  see  the 
tragic  side  of  life.  It  does  not  surprise  him.  When  he  ransacks  his  mem- 
ory, it  is  sure  to  be  for  something  sad.  A  good  Frenchman  would  go  mad 
doing  this.  For  him,  that  is  the  way  hfe  is.  In  this  attitude  I  see  reflected 
the  anguish  latent  in  every  Serb. 

He  analyzes  for  me  his  love  for  France.  He  tells  me  he  loves  France 
for  the  same  reasons  he  loves  his  own  country.  He  likes  the  same  qual- 
ities in  the  French  as  in  the  Serbs.  He  defines  this  similarity  admirably: 
the  same  capacity  for  steady  work;  courage  to  the  point  of  heroism; 
loyalty  bordering  on  chivalry. 

He  has  a  profound  admiration  for  his  country.  Statesmen  are  often 


/pj<5  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [511] 

pleased  to  ridicule  their  compatriots  before  strangers.  He,  on  the  con- 
trary, does  not  disclose  his  friendliness  to  you  until  he  feels  that  you,  in 
return,  like  his  country:  'I  know  that  you  like  us.'  When  in  his  youth 
he  went  to  the  Belgrade  Lycee — not  all  his  studies  were  carried  on  in 
England — it  was  only  his  prowess  and  not  his  rank  that  placed  him  at 
the  head  of  his  class.  And  so  democratic  are  the  Serbs  that  his  professors 
used  to  call  him  simply  Paul  Karageorgevich. 

AT  THIS  critical  time  in  Yugoslavia  Prince  Paul  has  made  his  own 
decisions.  They  say  that  he  is  a  liberal.  I  believe  this  to  be  true;  but  his 
liberalism  is  not  a  result  of  idealism.  King  Alexander,  whose  friend  he 
was,  wanted  to  abandon  dictatorships  and  go  back  to  constitutional 
monarchy.  Thus  Prince  Paul  is  following  a  tradition. 

They  also  say  that  his  hfe  abroad,  his  travels,  his  artistic  tastes  have 
sapped  his  taste  for  authority.  What  a  mistake !  I  have  only  to  remember 
one  occasion  in  September  when  he  was  ill  and  yet  on  the  sixth  of  that 
same  month  was  present  to  review  the  traditional  parade  of  the  Guards 
— on  horseback,  for  a  Karageorgevich  must  always  be  mounted  on  such 
occasions ! 

Princess  Olga,  his  wife,  also  likes  life  and  movement.  She  likes  ski- 
ing and  horseback  riding  because  she  likes  speed.  She  knows  how  to 
recognize  intrigue  and  stratagem  in  people.  There  is  nothing  artificial, 
nothing  studied  about  her.  But  she  has  a  charming  gift  of  feminine 
intuition. 

As  we  know.  King  Alexander  named  three  regents:  he  did  wisely  in 
making  Prince  Paul  first  among  them.  Yugoslavia  needs  a  leader;  her 
people  would  not  understand  divided  power.  There  must  be  a  chief  to 
represent  authority,  to  receive  ambassadors,  to  appoint  and  support  the 
Government.  The  Prince-Regent  understood  this  at  once.  His  attentions 
to  the  Queen  Mother  and  to  the  King  are  charming;  he  puts  all  his  au- 
thority at  their  disposal. 

If  his  President  of  the  Council  is  attacked  he  will  not  beat  about  the 
bush;  in  a  political  crisis  he  is  ready  to  give  you  his  complete  support. 
And  if  he  grants  Yugoslavia  constitutional  government,  it  is  because  he 
understands  that  his  country  has  reached  the  point  where  all  its  vital 
forces  should  be  expanded. 

Is  it  surprising,  then,  that  he  charms  Yugoslavia  more  and  more  each 
year?  Thanks  to  him,  his  country,  which  London  despised  almost  from 
its  birth,  is  enabled  to  reenter  the  company  of  European  nations.  Eng- 
land looks  at  Yugoslavia  with  different  eyes  now.  Prince  Paul's  charm 
and  authority  are  a  product  of  the  Slavic  south,  the  birthplace  of  soldiers, 
artists,  men  who  draw  the  world's  attention  to  themselves:  the  new  men 
of  Belgrade. 


[512]  THE  LIVING  AGE  August 


Romeo  at  Home 
By  C.  A.  L. 

From  the  Observer,  London  Independent  Conservative  Sunday  Newspaper 

If  you  want  to  talk  to  Leslie  Howard,  screen  star  of  ne  Scarlet 
Pimpernel  and  the  newly-finished  Romeo  and  Juliet,  and  stage  Hamlet  of 
the  coming  New  York  season,  you  must  go  down  into  the  leafier  lanes  of 
Surrey  to  find  him.  If  you  have  to  take  local  bearings — and  you  may,  for 
this  is  one  of  the  little  villages  that  are  still  inconsequentially  buried  at 
the  end  of  nowhere — it  is  wiser  not  to  ask  for  the  house  of  Mr.  Howard, 
the  actor.  They  only  know  two  actors  thereabouts.  One  is  '  a  Mr.  Charles 
Haughton,'  who  lives  some  way  off,  on  a  hill,  and  the  other  is  Mr.  Sydney 
Howard,  the  comedian. 

Leslie  Howard  is  simply  known  locally  as  the  mad  fellow  with  the 
polo  ponies.  He  has  sixteen  of  them,  six  recently  brought  over  from 
America  with  a  Californian  polo-player  and  a  Texan  cowboy  to  train 
them.  When  I  arrived  the  lane  outside  his  house  was  blocked  by  boys 
with  delivery  bicycles,  women  in  aprons,  an  ice-cream  cart,  a  couple  of 
tradesmen's  vans,  half  a  dozen  snorting  horses,  and  a  snaky  dark  motor- 
car, with  a  left-hand  drive,  standing  negligently  across  the  road,  while 
the  whole  Howard  household  turned  out  to  catch  a  brown  mare  that 
had  gone  berserk. 

Mr.  Howard  himself,  looking  oddly  improbable  in  light  sweater  and 
leather  chaps,  sat  his  horse  in  silence  and  watched  while  the  Texan,  with 
professional  *Ho  yo!'  and  *Ho,  girl!'  tried  to  rope  the  brown  mare.  Mr. 
Howard  was  worried.  The  other  horses  were  getting  too  excited.  There 
was  a  mare  in  the  next  field  with  a  young  foal,  tossing  her  head  nervously, 
neighing  and  cantering. 

When  the  brown  mare  was  finally  caught  and  saddled  Leslie  Howard 
disappeared.  He  has  a  way  of  silently  disappearing.  He  does  ft  on  the 
studio  lot,  and  is  usually  discovered  at  last,  far  away,  reading,  or  asleep 
in  somebody's  car.  All  his  comings  and  goings  have  a  kind  of  appealing 
inconsequence.  You  somehow  expect  his  talk  to  be  equally  inconsequen- 
tial, and  it  is  one  of  his  characteristic  anomalies  that  when  he  does  talk 
about  work  he  talks  with  complete  authority. 

I  found  that  with  surprise  on  the  day  of  my  visit.  When  at  last  he 
reappeared  from  the  paddock  and  dropped  into  a  chair  beside  me  in 
the  sunny  garden,  he  was  suddenly  and  practically  a  man  of  the  theater, 
an  actor  of  experience  and  precision.  Where  I  had  anticipated  vagueness, 
he  was  definite.  He  talked  with  certitude,  and  about  things  he  knew. 


ig36  PERSONS  AND  PERSONAGES  [513] 

We  began,  naturally,  with  Romeo  and  Juliet^  the  film  he  has  just 
finished  in  Hollywood  with  Norma  Shearer.  'Would  the  public  like  it 
better  than  A  Midsummer  Nigbfs  Dream}'  I  asked. 

*I  don't  know  what  they're  going  to  say  about  Romeo.  It's  very  fine, 
a  beautifully  produced  picture;  much  more  Shakespearean  than  the 
Dream.  But  then  I  think  the  Dream  is  one  of  the  worst  Shakespearean 
plays,  anyway.  Fantasy  is  always  bad  to  act,  and  Shakespearean  comedy 
isn't  understood  nowadays,  and  when  you  have  both  together  you're 
headed  for  trouble.  Now,  Romeo  is  the  ideal  Shakespearean  play  for  the 
screen.  It's  a  great  show  and  a  great  romance,  and  the  screen  is  always 
supposed  to  be  the  most  romantic  of  mediums.' 

*  Somebody  told  me,'  I  said,  *  that  Thalberg  used  five  hundred  pigeons 
and  a  herd  of  goats  for  the  scene  in  the  square.  Doesn't  that  sort  of  thing 
upset  Shakespeare  a  little?' 

'Of  course,  Hollywood's  cardinal  sin  is  over-elaboration  and  extrava- 
gance; but  so  long  as  film  producers  are  going  to  do  everything  realisti- 
cally .  .  .' 

'Need  they?' 

*  Certainly  not,  but  they  have  done  it  with  such  elaboration  and  for  so 
long  that  it's  going  to  be  a  bit  hard  to  break  the  habit  now.  With  Romeo, 
in  particular,  the  whole  canvas  is  so  rich  by  nature  that  if  you're  going 
to  treat  it  realistically,  you  might  as  well  be  lavish — let  your  square  in 
Verona  be  a  square  in  Verona,  turn  your  feuds  loose  in  it,  have  great 
masses  and  a  sense  of  busy  life — 500  pigeons  if  you  want  them — and 
beautiful  dances,  pavanes  and  passacaglias.  The  whole  film  is  a  curious 
combination  of  magnitude  and  intimacy.  You  see,  that  thing  about  back- 
ground— on  the  stage,  as  you  say,  an  enormous  background  would 
smother  the  play.  But  on  the  screen  you  can  take  the  background  right 
away  at  any  moment  and  it  becomes  an  intimate  study  of  two  people  .  .  . 

*  For  instance,  the  farewell  scene  after  their  night  together.  The  room 
in  half  darkness,  Juliet  still  lying  on  the  bed,  Romeo  turning  towards  the 
window,  and  the  bird's  song  outside — the  intimacy  of  that  scene  is  per- 
fectly amazing.  By  the  way,  we  learnt  that  there's  one  kind  of  Shakes- 
pearean line  that  is  wonderful  on  the  screen — the  quiet,  philosophic  line, 
and  particularly  the  soliloquies.  You  can  play  them  as  low  as  you  like, 
whisper  them,  and  the  effect  is  right.  On  the  stage  you  always  lose  a 
little  because  you  have  to  speak  them  sharply.' 

I  asked  him  if  he  thought  Romeo  a  good  actor's  part,  and  he  told  me, 
terrible. 

*  I  always  thought  it  was  a  perfectly  deadly  part,  except  in  the  later 
scenes,  where  Romeo  was  something  more  than  just  a  man  in  love.  A  man 
in  love  is  a  stupid  thing — he  bores  you  stiff,  in  real  life  or  anywhere  else; 
but  a  woman  in  love  is  fascinating — she  has  a  kind  of  aura.  Shakespeare 


[514]  THE  LIVING  AGE 

was  obviously  fascinated  by  Juliet,  and  it  was  the  woman  he  enriched. 
Romeo  acquires  something  in  the  later  scenes,  when  he  becomes  the 
victim  of  a  political  feud,  and  in  his  tragic  moments  he's  rather  interest- 
ing— a  kind  of  adolescent  Hamlet.  But  in  the  early  parts  of  the  play  he's 
an  awful  bore.  That's  where  the  film  script  is  so  good.  It  cuts  those  early 
scenes  ruthlessly. 

'  I  really  took  the  part,*  he  added,  *  because  they  sent  me  this  wonder- 
ful script  to  read.  I  had  turned  Romeo  down  half-a-dozen  times,  but  now 
he  seemed  interesting  to  me  for  the  first  time  in  my  life.  No  more  of  the 
Rosaline  business.  He  jumps  in  quickly,  without  any  mooning  about. 
Some  of  the  wordless  sequences,  too,  are  quite  electrifying.  The  scene 
where  Romeo  is  looking  for  Tybalt  to  kill  him,  after  "Thy  beauty  hath 
made  me  effeminate."  Suddenly  galvanized,  he  picks  up  the  sword  Mer- 
cutio  has  dropped,  rushes  through  the  alleys  where  the  life  of  the  town  is 
going  on,  women  shopping,  builders  working,  and  spies  him  in  a  wine 
booth  drinking  with  the  rest  of  the  Capulet  gang.  He  stops  dead  and 
shouts  the  man's  name  "Tybalt!" — and  by  that  time  the  audience  is  on 
its  toes,  ready  for  anything.  That's  a  scene  you  can  only  do  in  pictures, 
and  they've  done  it  beautifully.' 

*So  in  the  end  you  came  to  like  Romeo?* 

*It  was  a  very  good  experience  for  me,  anyway.  I'm  doing  Hamlet  in 
the  theater  this  autumn,  and  I  thought  I'd  better  see  what  sort  of 
Shakespearean  actor  I  should  make.  The  screen  isn't  really  an  actor's 
medium  at  all,  though,*  he  added.  'It's  a  very  fascinating  medium  for 
producer  and  director.  People  like  Korda  and  Thalberg  get  the  best  thing 
out  of  pictures.  Quite  frankly,  if  I  had  to  go  on  year  after  year  acting  in 
one  picture  after  another,  without  any  control  over  the  direction  .  .  .* 

There  was  a  whinny  from  the  paddock.  Leslie  Howard  tried  hard  to 
ignore  it. 

'That's  Sally,*  he  said,  smiling.  *She*s  jealous  of  the  new  mares — 
thinks  they're  going  to  hurt  her  baby.  Mm — what  was  I  saying?  Yes! 
If  you  can  control  your  own  pictures,  it  becomes  interesting  .  _.  .* 

Another  whinny,  more  excited. 

Mr.  Howard  got  up.  'Funny  things,  horses,'  he  was  saying  as  he 
drifted  away.  The  interview  was  over.  He  was  gone. 


A  young  Italian  who  was  a  Fascist  a 
few  years  ago  now  sets  down  his  views 
on  the  institution  of  Fascism  today. 


The  Nature 
of  Fascism 


I 


DO  NOT  know  whether  the  word 
Fascism  has  as  precise  a  meaning  as  its 
general  use  would  lead  one  to  believe. 
But  at  the  same  time  it  cannot  be  said 
that  the/«r/  of  Fascism  lacks  a  clearly 
defined  meaning.  The  discrepancy  be- 
tween the  word  and  the  fact  indicates 
a  fundamental  confusion,  a  confusion 
which  has  its  roots  in  the  following  sit- 
uation :  the  word  Fascism  does  not  ex- 
press one  single  idea;  on  the  contrary, 
it  is  essentially  ambiguous.  National- 
ism and  Sociahsm;  *  anti-bourgeoisie' 
and  restoration  of  the  bourgeois  mo- 
rality; Catholicism  and  the  exaltation 
of  war;  dictatorship  and  democracy — 
Fascism  claims  to  be  all  these  things  at 
the  same  time,  and  tries  to  reconcile 
them  in  action. 

A  friend  of  mine,  an  Italian  philos- 
opher, once  said  to  me,  'Imagine  that 
such  words  as  Communism^  democracy 
or  nationalism  had  disappeared  from 
the  dictionary.  One  could  always  find 
synonyms  to  express  the  same  ideas. 
But  if  the  word  Fascism  were  to  dis- 
appear, one  would  become  hopelessly 


By  Nicholas  Chiaramonte 

Translated  from  Europe, 
Paris  Literary  and  Political  Monthly- 


entangled  in  the  most  confused  and 
contradictory  attempts  at  definition.' 

This  is  very  true  and  very  signifi- 
cant. If  you  apply  it  in  turn  to  the  offi- 
cial surface  of  the  phenomenon  of 
Fascism  and  to  the  social  reality  of 
which  it  claims  to  be  the  absolute  ex- 
pression, it  would  not  be  an  exaggera- 
tion to  say  that  the  term  Fascism  has 
ended  by  having  only  one  clear  func- 
tion, namely,  to  designate  one  of  the 
prominent  sources  of  today's  world 
confusion.  And  as  for  the  present-day 
world,  it  is  well  on  the  way  toward  go- 
ing down  into  history  as  the  epoch  of 
the  most  thorough  confusion  of  tongues 
since  the  Tower  of  Babel.  In  practice, 
however.  Fascism  is  a  fact  which  does 
not  in  itself  lead  to  ambiguities.  On  the 
contrary  it  belongs  to  a  category  which 
imposes  a  definite  choice  upon  man — a 
choice  the  nature  of  which  you  can 
find  summed  up  in  Pascal's  words: 
*  Power  is  easily  recognized,  and  brooks 
no  dispute.' 

Speaking  from  personal  experience, 
I  should  say  that  this  fact  was  made 


[5i6] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


clear  to  me  at  a  definite  moment — at 
the  age  of  fifteen,  when  I  became  a 
Fascist.  I  ought  to  say  that  in  Italy  at 
that  time  it  was  very  difficult  for  a  boy 
who  belonged  by  birth  and  education 
to  the  middle  classes  not  to  be  a  Fas- 
cist. Fascism  had  on  its  side  a  poet  of 
magnificent  words  and  gestures — 
d'Annunzio;  and  a  demagogue  of  the 
first  order  who  was  also  a  journalist 
wielding  a  sardonic,  savage  pen — Mus- 
solini; while  on  the  other  side  there 
were  only  'serious'  men,  and  you 
could  hear  nothing  but  sermons  calling 
for  the  exercise  of  cold  reason  and  util- 
itarian calculation.  I  was  a  Fascist 
then,  and  I  walked  the  streets  of  Rome 
with  gangs  of  boys  of  my  own  age, 
shouting,  singing,  and  baiting  the  Gov- 
ernment. My  father  did  not  like  this 
particularly,  but  that  only  served  to 
swell  my  lyrical  fervor. 

I  stopped  being  a  Fascist  and  ceased 
these  enthusiastic  promenades  at  an- 
other definite  moment:  when  I  learned 
that  to  practice  Fascism  meant  to 
slaughter  in  their  beds  peasants  of  the 
Po  Valley,  of  Tuscany  and  Apulia — 
men  who  were  guilty  only  of  not  know- 
ing enough  to  appreciate  the  beauty  of 
d'Annunzian  periods;  and  when  with 
my  own  eyes  I  saw  eight  men  attack 
one  poor  devil  who  had  refused  to 
shout  *  Viva  Italia^'  and  beat  him  with 
blackjacks  until  he  was  covered  with 
blood.  There  was  nothing  moral  in  my 
reaction.  It  was  simply  that  I  did  not 
find  this  particularly  heroic. 

The  party  organs  exalted  these  acts 
as  glorious  landmarks  in  the  work  of 
freeing  Italy  from  the  'Bolshevik 
peril.'  Later,  in  1932,  at  the  Exposition 
of  the  Fascist  Revolution,  I  saw,  beau- 
tifully arranged  in  show  cases,  revolv- 
ers and  blackjacks  neatly  labeled 
'Martyr  So-and-So's  Revolver,'  'Mar- 


tyr So-and-So's  Blackjack,'  etc.  I 
must  say  that  my  veneration  for  that 
type  of  martyr  was  not  particularly  in- 
creased by  this  exposition,  for  I  recog- 
nized in  it  a  procedure  with  which  I 
had  been  familiar  for  some  time,  and 
which  consisted  of  giving  sonorous 
names  to  facts  which  were  in  them- 
selves shameful. 

Thus  one  could  say  that  the  doubts 
which  gather  around  Fascism  the 
more  one  learns  about  it  come  essen- 
tially from  this  simple  fact:  that  it 
seems  to  have  a  vital  interest  in  calling 
things  otherwise  than  by  their  sim- 
plest names.  It  begins  by  stipulating 
that  a  crime  is  not  a  crime  but  a  'nec- 
essary,' and  even  a  'heroic,'  'moment 
in  history,'  and  ends  by  designating 
by  the  word  'unanimity'  the  visible 
political  result  of  its  excellent  police 
organization. 

To  take  the  anti-Semitic  persecu- 
tions in  Germany  as  an  example:  what 
I  find  intolerable  in  them  is  not  so 
much  the  ferocious  explosion  of  ac- 
cumulated resentment;  the  danger  lies 
in  the  fact  that  they  try  to  justify  this 
resentment,  and  to  avoid  responsibil- 
ity for  it,  by  the  racial  theory.  For 
even  at  its  most  ferocious,  passion  is  a 
human  thing,  and  an  attempt  can  al- 
ways be  made  to  control  it.  At  its 
worst,  it  runs  its  course  until  it  is 
glutted.  But  an  absurd  theory  crystal- 
izes  this  ferocity  into  a  system,  thereby 
shutting  out  all  possibility  of  discus- 
sion. A  wall  arises  which  cannot  be 
scaled.  It  is  customary  to  exalt  it  by 
calling  it  mystic.  More  exactly,  it 
marks  the  limit  beyond  which  harm 
done  by  stupidity  cannot  be  mended. 

I  do  not  wish  to  indulge  in  polemics; 
I  merely  wish  to  emphasize  a  fact  which 
seems  to  me  to  be  of  prime  importance 
in  understanding  Fascism.  This  fact 


193^ 


THE  NATURE  OF  FASCISM 


[517] 


consists  in  the  shift  of  meaning  which, 
by  simplifying  progressively  the  con- 
cepts of  reality,  arbitrarily  reduces  it 
to  a  dead  level  and  ends  by  divorcing 
consciousness  from  its  fundamental 
characteristic,  which  is  that  conscious- 
ness is  made  up  of  distinct  objects  and 
actions  all  of  which  have  their  signifi- 
cance and  their  proper  consequences. 
It  is  this  phenomenon  which  makes 
for  the  totalitarian  spirit  of  Fascism, 
whose  most  elementary  function  is  to 
impose  an  appearance  of  uniformity 
upon  confused  and  complex  reality. 
For  that  reason,  one  must  pierce  this 
totalitarian  shell  of  Fascism  and  see 
what  goes  on  behind  it:  that  is  to  say, 
one  must  keep  in  view  the  distinctions 
and  diversities  of  real,  complex  life, 
which  otherwise  one  runs  the  risk  of 
losing  sight  of  completely.  This  is  a 
prime  necessity,  and  we  must  not  be 
accused  of  prejudice  if,  in  yielding  to 
it,  we  cause  the  shell  to  crumble. 


II 


This  work  of  rehabilitating  reality 
can  be  carried  on  successfully  in  re- 
gard to  Fascism  only  if  we  begin  with 
the  simplest  facts.  We  must  not  admit 
the  general  meaning  of  the  term  a  pri- 
ori^ but  should  rather  seek  to  account 
for  the  specific  characteristics  inherent 
in  all  forms  of  the  phenomenon,  as  in 
the  Italian  and  the  German  versions. 
In  this  connection  I  shall  confine  my- 
self to  emphasizing  the  difference  be- 
tween the  Fascist  and  the  Nazi  myths 
(or  pseudo-myths)  on  which  both 
movements  are  based:  Julius  Caesar 
and  Wotan,  ancient  Rome  and  ancient 
Germany.  This  very  contrast  breeds 
certain  specific  consequences.  In  Ger- 
many, National  Socialism  has  been  an 
atavistic  return  to  anti-Europeanism. 


As  soon  as  they  decided  upon  the  ne- 
cessity of  going  back  to  'purely 
Germanic'  ideals — as  contrasted  with 
corrupt  and  bastard  Europe — the  Ger- 
mans, with  the  perilous  thoroughness 
which  is  typical  of  their  mentality,  re- 
verted boldly  and  openly  to  the  ideals 
of  pure  barbarism :  the  Forest  of  Teuto- 
burg,  the  world  of  the  Niebelungen. 
With  Blomberg  on  one  side  and  Wotan 
on  the  other,  the  tribal  spirit,  armed 
by  modern  technical  science,  ran 
amuck. 

The  myth  of  Rome  and  its  imperial 
power  began  by  evoking  boundless 
boredom — of  the  kind  we  have  all 
known  in  school,  when  our  heads  were 
being  stuffed  with  civic  virtue  as  prac- 
ticed by  the  Cincinnati  and  Reguli.  In 
short,  the  Roman  myth  only  suc- 
ceeded in  producing  rhetorical  spec- 
tacles, with  augurs  gravely  exchanging 
winks  in  the  background. 

The  saddest  thing  about  this  Roman 
myth  was  that  the  whole  of  Europe 
was  infected  by  it.  It  is  true  that  the 
European  humanists  saw  in  Rome  an 
agency  for  the  diffusion  of  Hellenic 
culture  rather  than  the  brutality  of 
the  proconsuls  and  the  Zusammen- 
marschieren  of  the  legions.  Thus  Mus- 
solini's 'Romanness,'  particularly  when 
contrasted  with  Hitler's  'Germanism,' 
was  found  to  be  quite  western,  quite 
European,  and  a  noble  tradition  withal. 
Tacitus  was  forgotten  for  the  history 
manual  in  the  primary  school  style. 
People  allowed  themselves  to  be  taken 
in  by  the  antique  gestures,  and  could 
not  see  the  sinister  specter  behind  the 
buffoonery.  Or,  rather,  they  saw  it  but 
did  not  take  it  to  heart.  For  there  was 
an  urgent  need  for  a  'good  European' 
to  guarantee  that  uncertain  thing,  Eu- 
ropean equilibrium.  Be  he  a  charlatan 
or  a  Caesar,  they  thought,  his  milita- 


[5i8] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


rized  nation  could  be  a  very  convenient 
weapon  if  its  services  were  assured. 
Besides,  everyone  was  dreaming  of 
Fascism  in  true  Roman  style,  full  of 
nobility  and  wisdom. 

Now  they  begin  to  perceive  that 
they  were  wrong  to  think  that  the 
'Roman'  would  be  less  trouble  than 
the  'Teuton,'  that  the  Latin  Saturna- 
lias would  prove  more  innocuous  than 
the  Northern  Walpurgisnacht.  Musso- 
lini was  not  the  man  to  counterbalance 
the  German  peril.  Doubtless  Italy  as  a 
factor  could  have  been  of  value  from 
the  point  of  view  of  disinterested  hu- 
manism, but,  leaving  aside  the  prickly 
question  of  whether,  as  things  are  now, 
disinterested  humanism  is  not  an 
empty  dream,  it  should  have  been  ap- 
parent from  the  first  that  Italy  under 
martial  law  was  not  in  a  position  to 
help  maintain  order  and  balance.  On 
the  contrary,  that  simple  fact  in  itself 
would  be  sufficient  to  make  her  a  defi- 
nite factor  of  disorder  and  disequilib- 
rium. (Of  course  it  is  possible,  particu- 
larly in  our  present  situation,  that  the 
Governments  saw  supreme  order  and 
supreme  guaranty  of  balance  in  just 
that  state  of  martial  law.) 


Ill 


Ever  since  the  Middle  Ages,  Italy 
has  had  what  I  might  call  a  'substan- 
tial' concept  of  freedom.  For  an  Ital- 
ian, liberty  was  identical  with  hfe — 
with  the  vital  and  organic,  as  well  as 
the  intellectual,  functions.  To  exist 
meant  to  exist  in  freedom.  The  coun- 
terpart of  this  theory  is  the  conviction 
that  no  constraint  can  deprive  one  of 
this  freedom.  Thus  you  arrive  at  the 
conclusion  that  in  order  to  live  one  has 
to  adapt  oneself  to  restrictions  which 
in  themselves  take  away  any  reason 


for  existence.  D.  H.  Lawrence  has  a 
passage  about  Italians  which  seems  to 
me  a  good  illustration  of  this  idea: 
'The  Italian  is  really  rooted  in  sub- 
stance, not  in  dreams,  ideas  or  ideals, 
but  physically  self-centered,  like  a 
tree.  .  .  .  The  rather  fantastic  side  of 
their  nature  sometimes  makes  them 
want  to  be  angels  or  winged  lions  or 
soaring  eagles,  and  then  they  are  often 
ridiculous,  though  occasionally  sub- 
lime. .  .  .  But  the  people  itself  is  of 
the  earth,  wholesomely  and  soundly, 
and  unless  perverted,  will  remain  so.' 

There  is  another  idea  that  Itahans 
have  always  understood  as  naturally 
and  surely  as  liberty:  universaHsm. 
One  remembers  Dante's  proud  reply 
when  he  was  offered  the  opportunity 
of  returning  to  Florence  (from  which 
he  had  been  banished)  upon  payment 
of  a  sum  of  money:  'This  is  not  a  fit- 
ting way  to  go  back  to  one's  country. 
If  another  could  be  found  which  has 
no  dishonor  in  it,  I  would  accept  it. 
But  if  there  is  no  other,  I  shall  never 
go  back  to  Florence.  What!  Can  I  not 
see  the  sun  wherever  I  am?  Can  I  not 
meditate  upon  sweet  verities  under 
any  sky?' 

UniversaHsm  in  Italy  is  not  confined 
to  intellectuals:  it  can  be  found  in  its 
simplest  and  most  spontaneous  form 
deeply  rooted  in  the  common  people. 
Both  in  the  medieval  republics  and  in 
the  far  countries  where  their  vital 
needs  took  them,  the  Italian  people 
remained  the  most  cosmopolitan  and 
the  most  immune  to  that  mental  in- 
fection called  xenophobia.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  today  it  is  no  longer  mer- 
chants, bankers  or  artists  who  do 
most  of  the  travehng  to  far  countries, 
but  peasants  from  the  South,  masons, 
artisans,  workers — a  great  wave  of 
proletarian  emigration.  It  is  to  their 


I93(> 


THE  NATURE  OF  FASCISM 


[519] 


interest  that  the  world  be  kept  open. 
They  are  naturally  free  traders,  if  one 
may  say  so,  while  the  higher  industrial 
bourgeoisie  is  naturally  protectionist 
and  nationahst.  Domination  by  the 
nationalist  bourgeoisie  was  necessary 
to  make  the  Italian  people  xenopho- 
bian.  Thus  Fascism,  with  its  catastro- 
phic concept  of  the  totalitarian  state, 
introduced  intolerance  into  Italy. 

The  Italians  have  always  been,  and 
still  remain  at  heart,  a  factious  people: 
their  most  violent  civil  wars  coincide 
with  the  apogee  of  Italian  civilization. 
Yet  Italians  have  never  been  fanatics. 
One  of  the  reasons  why  the  Reforma- 
tion did  not  spread  in  Italy  must  have 
been  a  conviction  that  it  was  not 
worth  while  to  rid  oneself  of  the  Church 
only  to  fall  into  the  clutches  of  moral 
rigorism.  The  Florentine  of  the  thir- 
teenth century,  at  once  impassioned 
and  skeptical,  could  never  have  under- 
stood why  the  motives  of  his  private 
quarrels  should  be  elevated  into  a 
question  of  universal  significance.  And 
to  renounce  these  struggles  (which, 
nevertheless,  he  would  never  cease  to 
regard  as  calamities)  merely  to  permit 
the  establishment  of  an  absolute  power 
— he  would  have  found  such  a  course 
completely  incomprehensible.  If  such 
an  absolute  power  succeeds  in  being 
established,  all  the  worse!  But  in  this 
case  there  is  no  question  of  order,  of 
society,  but  merely  of  force.  So  an 
Italian  would  have  reasoned  at  a  time 
when  he  believed  that  civilization  was 
the  blossoming  of  human  lives  and 
creative  forms — and  gave  ample  proof 
of  his  contention. 

But  the  bourgeois  came,  and  was 
bound,  in  conformity  with  his  vision  of 
human  destiny,  to  cleave  to  his  con- 
cept of  civilization  as  a  policeman,  a 
station-master:  then  the  totalitarian 


order  could  at  last  be  idealized  and 
presented  as  the  supreme  expression  of 
human  life.  It  is  true,  however,  that 
the  people  still  continue  to  hold  to  the 
classical  concept,  and  to  consider  ab- 
solute power  as  an  act  of  coercion  to 
which  one  must  submit  with  resigna- 
tion in  anticipation  of  better  times  to 
come. 

IV 

For  the  fact  is  that  totalitarianism 
in  Italy  is  completely  incongruous  and 
unrelated  to  the  nature  of  society.  It 
can  achieve  a  surface  uniformity;  but 
among  the  masses  it  cannot  command 
anything  more  than  a  superficial  en- 
thusiasm, behind  which  lies  a  funda- 
mental passivity — even  Mussolini  feels 
this  when  he  is  not  himself  on  the 
scene.  In  this  lies  its  essential  differ- 
ence from  Germany.  Germany  is  the 
home  of  that  model  and  prototype  of 
the  totalitarian  State:  Prussia.  Such 
an  order  of  society  is  regarded  as  some- 
thing essential,  something  to  be  proud 
of.  One  adapts  oneself  to  it  with 
optimism,  if  not  with  enthusiasm: 
'  Bejehl  ist  BeJehV  While  in  Italy  obedi- 
ence always  takes  the  form  of  resigna- 
tion to  the  evil  that  cannot  be  helped, 
and  no  matter  how  much  the  *  Warrior 
Nation'  may  be  exalted,  the  people 
always  interpret  it,  very  accurately,  as 
'compulsory  military  service.'  The 
songs  one  hears  most  frequently  in  the 
barracks  deal  with  the  day  when  the 
soldier  will  regain  his  freedom.  In  Ger- 
many, on  the  contrary,  military  serv- 
ice is  performed  with  pride  and  satis- 
faction. As  the  Fiihrer  said  quite 
recently:  'Every  German  considers  it 
a  hardship  not  to  be  allowed  to  serve 
his  country.' 

I  do  not  mean  that  Germany  is  con- 
demned by  a  decree  of  fate  to  endless 


[52o] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


Zusammenmarschieren  and  totalita- 
rianism. God  forbid!  I  merely  wish  to 
say  that  such  things  are  in  the  Ger- 
man tradition.  But  even  in  that  same 
German  tradition  there  exists  a  typi- 
cal conflict  between  Fichte  and  Hegel, 
a  conflict  which  breaks  out  in  what- 
ever form  it  can,  even  in  National  So- 
cialism: Fichte  regards  the  nation  as 
above  all  a  'free  society,'  while  for 
Hegel  there  is  no  real  life  outside  the 
will  of  the  State  and  deliberate  sub- 
mission to  those  forms  of  government 
which  the  Weltgeist  assumes  in  the 
course  of  history. 

On  the  other  hand,  to  be  accurate 
one  must  admit  that  a  totalitarian 
form,  if  not,  actually,  a  totalitarian 
State,  existed  in  Italy  long  before 
Fascism.  But  it  was  called  the  Catho- 
lic Church.  In  order  to  dominate,  the 
Church  had  to  adopt  Jesuitical  meth- 
ods and  limit  itself  to  demanding 
merely  superficial  stupidity.  And  it  is 
the  Church  which,  from  the  eighteenth 
century  on,  possessed  the  effective  po- 
litical power  in  Italy.  In  spite  of  all 
their  eflPorts  to  rid  themselves  of  her 
domination,  princes  and  Governments 
always  ended  by  resorting  to  com- 
promises— and  it  was  never  difficult  to 
meet  the  Church  upon  this  ground.  To 
resolve  any  seeming  paradox  in  the 
idea  I  have  just  expressed,  one  needs 
only  to  remember  the  power  acquired 
'in  one  morning'  by  the  Italian  Cath- 
olic Party,  which  was  formed  directly 
after  the  War  (when  the  Vatican 
thought  it  well  that  the  Catholics 
should  take  part  in  their  country's  po- 
litical life),  and  the  decisive  role  that 
its  actions  played  in  the  coming  of 
Fascism. 

There  are  two  important  points  to 
be  considered  in  this  connection.  One 
is,  to  what  extent  had  Fascism  to  defer 


to  the  influence  of  the  Church  in  the 
traditional  field  of  clerical  control,  and 
how  far  had  the  Church,  in  its  turn,  to 
compromise  with  Fascism?  The  other, 
and  much  more  impressive,  is  that 
Italian  Fascism,  with  all  its  Nie- 
tzscheanism  and  pragmatism,  was,  in 
the  final  analysis,  nothing  more  than  a 
manifestation  of  the  CathoHc  Church 
— a  fact  which  confirms  the  ancient 
theory  that,  in  Italy,  whenever  one 
has  any  truck  with  that  organization 
one  ends  by  becoming  its  tool. 


In  order  to  illustrate  Fascism  it 
might  be  useful  to  give  a  few  doctrinal 
quotations.  In  the  course  of  an  address 
to  his  followers,  delivered  in  Septem- 
ber, 1920,  the  following  phrase  escaped 
Mussolini's  lips:  'As  for  me,  I  do  not 
take  much  stock  in  these  ideals  [pac- 
ifist ideals],  but  I  do  not  exclude  them 
because  /  exclude  nothing'  This  is  a 
statement  of  capital  importance:  the 
whole  philosophy  of  Italian  Fascism  is 
based  upon  it — that  philosophy  which 
thinks  nothing  of  accepting  into  its 
ranks  men  of  the  most  diverse  political 
opinions,  provided  only  that  they  re- 
nounce them  henceforth  to  follow  the 
true  path,  which  finds  all  doctrines 
good  as  means  to  an  end.  It  sums  up 
the  Duce's  famous  Macbiavellism, 
which  consists  in  guaranteeing  the 
capitalists  their  dividends  at  the  same 
time  as  he  proclaims  the  end  of  capi- 
talism; believing  the  League  of  Na- 
tions to  be  a  hypocritical  piece  of  dem- 
ocratic twaddle,  and  demanding  at  the 
same  time  a  place  at  the  Geneva  table, 
with  all  the  honors  due  to  the  'gentle- 
men of  the  League' — except  in  a  case 
like  Ethiopia's,  when  he  takes  care  to 
show  this  worm-eaten  institution  how 


193^ 


THE  NATURE  OF  FASCISM 


[521: 


useless  it  is  to  try  to  bar  his  way  with 
their  prattle  about  precedents.  For, 
you  see,  he  excludes  nothing,  and  he  is 
sincerely  pained  that  others  are  not  as 
intelligent  as  he  is  in  this  respect:  it 
would  be  so  much  more  practical  for 
everyone!  He  is  so  firmly  entrenched 
in  this  attitude  that  quite  naturally 
and  in  complete  sincerity  he  cannot  ex- 
plain any  opposing  one  except  by  sup- 
posing a  coalition  of  sordid  interests. 
Since  he  excludes  nothing,  he  is  bound 
to  be  on  the  right  side.  (I  may  say  in 
passing  that  Hitler  could  never  en- 
dorse so  catholic  a  proposition.  On  the 
contrary,  being  a  good  fanatic,  he  be- 
lieves that  his  German  god  is  with  him 
just  because  he  is  so  ready  to  exclude 
everything.  One  must  add  that  the 
two  points  of  view  produce  identical 
results.) 

To  analyze  the  importance  attached 
to  the  philosophical  side  of  Mussolini's 
system,  we  quote  another  phrase  from 
the  year  1921.  'During  the  two  months 
which  remain  before  the  National 
Assembly  meets,  I  should  like  to  see  us 
create  the  philosophy  of  Italian  Fas- 
cism.' The  result  of  this  pious  wish 
could  have  been  foreseen:  a  bevy  of 
sycophants  set  zealously  to  work  to 
manufacture  a  fine  philosophy  for  the 
Duce.  Every  highschool  professor, 
every  young  whippersnapper  elevated 
to  the  rank  of  'official  thinker,'  every 
literary  light  in  bad  with  the  Academy 
had  his  own  philosophy  of  Fascism. 
The  advantage  to  the  regime  in  having 
a  number  of  systems  available  for 
purposes  of  propaganda  was,  by  and 
large,  slight,  since  the  strength  of  the 
regime  depends  upon  more  substantial 
factors  than  these  secretions  of  dis- 
eased brains.  But,  as  might  have  been 
expected,  the  effects  upon  Italian  cul- 
ture were  discouraging — in  conformity 


with  the  old  economic  law  that  'bad 
money  drives  out  good.'  Apart  from 
the  question  of  culture  in  relation  to 
the  general  morale,  the  state  of  mind 
necessary  for  justifications  made  to 
order  is,  by  its  very  nature,  a  state  of 
indifference  to  truth.  And  such  indif- 
ference is  the  most  terrible  of  the 
scourges  that  ravage  our  society. 


VI 


The  basic  verity  of  the  Fascist  sys- 
tem was  officially  voiced  by  its  founder 
in  the  Doctrine  of  Fascism  in  1932: 
'Individuals  are  first  and  foremost  the 
State.'  The  formula  is  quite  nonsensi- 
cal, as  it  is  the  destiny  of  all  the  Hege- 
lian formulas  imported  into  Italy  to 
become;  but  the  idea  that  underlies  it 
is  very  clear.  It  means  that  life  is  no 
longer  a  personal  matter  but  one  of 
organization.  In  other  words,  the  first 
and  ultimate  object  of  thought  is  no 
longer  nature  and  humanity  but  the 
established  power  and  its  mechanism; 
for  it  is  upon  that  power  alone  that  the 
meaning  and  the  value  of  our  life  de- 
pend, and  therefore  it  alone  may  de- 
cide which  concept  of  the  world  should 
be  adopted. 

Needless  to  say  the  most  diverse 
concepts  of  the  world  succeed  each 
other  with  bewildering  suddenness  and 
nonchalance  in  Mussolini's  universe; 
today  one  may  be  obliged  to  view  the 
world  in  the  light  of  Anglophobia,  anti- 
Socialism  and  Colonial  Imperialism, 
whereas  yesterday  one  viewed  it  in  the 
light  of  Gallophobia,  Hitlerism  and 
the  'Five  Year  Plan'  for  reclaiming 
the  Pontine  Marshes — all  this  without 
precluding  whatever  world-vision  the 
God-State  in  its  visible  reincarnation 
may  put  out  tomorrow.  These  shifts  of 
values,  which  succeed  each  other  ad 


[522] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


infinitum^  naturally  produce  upon  the 
masses  an  impression  of  dizziness.  The 
persons  whose  interests  are  bound  up 
with  the  regime  in  one  way  or  another 
find  that  this  is  what  is  called  'living 
dangerously '  (which  is  only  too  true) ; 
the  majority  lose  all  sense  of  direction 
and  resign  themselves  to  waiting  sub- 
missively for  whatever  comes  along; 
while,  with  impotent  despair,  the 
small  minority  of  those  who  have 
somehow  succeeded  in  keeping  their 
balance  see  the  abysses  opening  be- 
neath everyone's  feet. 

But  the  strange  definition  of  the  in- 
dividual which  we  have  just  quoted 
implies  more  than  a  monopoly  of  the 
Weltanschauung;  it  also  means  that  we 
must  give  account  of  our  actions,  not 
to  human  beings  like  ourselves,  but  to 
the  political  bureaus,  and  that  it  is 
they  who  set  the  limits  to  our  personal 
moral  life.  In  the  final  analysis,  it 
stresses  the  importance,  not  of  man's 
destiny,  but  of  police  regulation.  Con- 
sequently the  element  which  in  hu- 
manity is  productive  of  contempla- 
tion, joy,  Rembrandt,  Beethoven, 
Athens,  Florence,  does  not  exist  in  its 
own  right  but  must  be  subordinated  to 
Government  control,  which  means,  be 
condemned  to  suicide.  And,  not  to  for- 
get the  details,  the  spectacle  that  is 
the  world  has  no  legitimate  beauty  un- 
less it  is  viewed  as  part  of  a  grand  pa- 
rade or — supreme  completeness ! — a 
bombardment! 

All  this  is  an  accurate  description  of 
the  nightmare  that  is  Fascism.  Yet 
this  nightmare  is  not  a  fantasy;  it  is 
not    the    perfectly    rationalized    and 


mechanized  world  that  Aldous  Hux- 
ley has  described  for  us  in  his  Brave 
New  World;  nor  is  it  that  subterranean 
region,  inhabited  by  a  race  of  men 
drained  of  all  will  by  the  magnetic 
powers  of  their  ruler,  which  Joseph 
O'Neil  has  imagined  in  his  Land  Under 
England.  The  world  in  question  is 
quite  real  and  normal.  I  am  tempted  to 
say  that  it  is  normal  by  definition,  for 
the  only  actions  which  the  totalitarian 
discipline  allows,  and  therefore  en- 
courages, are  'normal'  actions,  those 
deeds  '  without  infamy  or  glory '  which 
Dante  judged  unworthy  even  of  in- 
fernal torments. 

There  is  one  decisive  test,  which  is 
indicated  in  Augustine's  words:  'Ubi 
magniiudoy  ibi  Veritas — where  there  is 
greatness,  there  is  truth.'  Well,  there 
is  no  greatness  in  Fascism.  This  is  so 
not  only  because  heroism  is  only  pos- 
sible against,  and  martyrdom  by,  it — 
a  decisive  circumstance,  which  seems 
to  dog  all  forms  of  Fascism  like  a 
Nemesis.  It  is  true  mostly  because 
Fascism  in  practice  will  never  succeed 
in  being  anything  but  a  bourgeois  ex- 
istence organized  and  made  obliga- 
tory. Hence  its  own  peculiar  madness. 
For  an  obligatory,  organized  bourgeois 
existence  is  nothing  more  than  life  in 
the  barracks.  Military  discipline  as  an 
end  unto  itself  is  not  an  ideal  of  life; 
and  even  less  is  it  material  for-heroism. 
In  the  best  case  it  is  hardened  medi- 
ocrity. The  Ministers  of  Propaganda 
too  often  flaunt  as  'heroic  sacrifices' 
and  'horror  of  the  comfortable  life' 
the  simple  fact  that  they  accept  what 
cannot  be  avoided. 


Tales  of 
the  Gaels 


Here  are  two  stories  about  the  modern 
Gaels;  in  both  there  is  the  weird  and 
ghostly  atmosphere  which  is  so  charac- 
teristic   a    feature    of    Celtic    letters. 


I.  *Poteen' 
By  A.  R.  LiNDT 

Translated  from  the  'Neue  Ziircber  Zeitungy  Zurich  German-Language  Daily 


Wb 


HISKY  was  the  drink  of  the 
people  in  England  and  Ireland.  If  the 
baby  cried  too  heartbreakingly  at 
night,  the  father  would  tenderly  feed 
it  a  spoonful  of  whisky.  But  in  its 
concern  for  the  physical  and  spiritual 
welfare  of  its  citizens,  the  State  inter- 
vened and  imposed  a  high  tax  on  the 
golden  fluid.  In  England  a  bottle  of 
whisky  costs  12s.  6d.  In  Ireland  they 
thought  it  necessary  to  raise  the  price 
to  1 6s.:  the  Irishman  clung  more  stub- 
bornly to  his  favorite  drink  than  did 
the  Englishman. 

Even  the  thirstiest  Irish  peasant 
can  no  longer  afford  whisky  now.  Is  he 
to  renounce  alcohol?  Beer  is  too  weak 
and  does  not  count.  But  Ireland  has 
something  else  to  ofi^er:  a  drink  dis- 
tilled from  barley,  as  clear  as  water, 
and  stronger  than  whisky — real  'fire- 
water.' The  peasants  call  it  poteen — 
'little  pot.'  Poteen  is  prohibited  in  Ire- 
land, and  there  is  a  heavy  fine  for 


distiUing  or  even  drinking  it.  The 
police,  however,  are  only  permitted  to 
intervene  when  they  catch  a  culprit 
in  the  act. 

SEAN  and  I  were  returning  from  a 
fishing  trip. 

'Let's  have  a  glass  of  beer,'  said 
Sean. 

Now  it  so  happens  that  the  bar- 
rooms in  Ireland,  as  in  England,  are 
closed  at  certain  hours  of  the  day  by 
police  regulations.  We  had  had  poor 
luck  at  fishing,  and  now  our  luck  failed 
us  again,  for  it  just  happened  to  be 
past  closing  time. 

'Never  mind,'  said  Sean.  He  passed 
the  locked  door  of  the  pub  and  went 
around  the  house  until  he  came  to  a 
second  entrance.  This  one  was  locked 
too.  Softly  he  began  to  tap  against  the 
wood,  in  a  peculiar  rhythm — 'to  let 
the  innkeeper  know  we  are  customers 
and  not  the  police.'  Reluctantly  the 


[5^4] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


lock  was  pushed  back,  and  the  dis- 
trustful face  of  the  innkeeper  ap- 
peared in  the  crack  of  the  door.  A 
subdued  greeting  followed.  While  the 
innkeeper  was  locking  the  door  be- 
hind us,  Sean  pushed  me  into  the  dark 
tavern.  We  were  not  the  first  guests. 
A  peasant  was  already  standing  at  the 
bar.  He  greeted  Sean  with  a  wink. 
As  soon  as  each  of  us  had  paid  for 
a  round,  Sean  gave  a  shudder,  and 
whispered: — 

'The  beer  is  flat.  To  hell  with  it.' 

'There  are  better  things  than  beer,* 
Eamon  whispered  back. 

The  innkeeper  cleared  away  the 
bottles  carefully,  to  avoid  a  tinkle. 

'Who  is  that?'  Eamon  asked  after 
a  while,  pointing  toward  me. 

'A  stranger — a  friend  of  mine,' 
Sean  answered  under  his  breath. 

'Safe?' 

'Safe!' 

Eamon  looked  at  me  searchingly 
from  head  to  foot. 

'Let's  go,'  he  whispered  finally. 

First  the  innkeeper  stuck  his  head 
out  of  the  back  door. 

'The  air  is  clear.' 

We  strode  out  into  the  twilight. 

A  foggy,  dew-like  drizzle  engulfed 
us.  Shreds  of  cloud  licked  at  the  sea, 
swallowed  up  the  islands,  hung  heav- 
ily about  the  barren  mountains. 

'We  are  in  luck,'  Eamon  said.  'A 
constable  won't  be  able  to  see  the 
smoke  of  the  fire  even  from  close  up.' 

'The  spirits  of  the  mountain  are 
with  you,'  Sean  answered. 

In  front  of  us  a  rabbit  scampered 
ofl^.  'A  pity  we  don't  have  a  gun,'  I 
said. 

'You  would  dare  to  shoot  a  rabbit? ' 
Eamon  asked  with  astonishment. 

'Why  not?  Roast  rabbit  tastes 
good.' 


Eamon  looked  at  me  disapprov- 
ingly. 

'Don't  you  know  that  the  penitent 
souls  of  the  dead  go  on  living  in 
rabbits?' 

We  left  the  highway,  stumbled 
over  stony  pastures  in  the  darkness, 
frightened  a  few  black  cows  and 
finally  came  to  a  mighty  granite  rock. 
Eamon  looked  back,  held  his  breath, 
and  listened.  No  one  was  following  us. 
He  stepped  behind  the  rock.  Three 
men  suddenly  sprang  up  before  us. 

'Hello,  Mike.  Hello,  Seamus.  Hello, 
Paddy,'  Eamon  said  in  a  low  voice. 

*  The  boatisready,' Paddy  whispered. 

Five  of  us  strode  along  together, 
Seamus  lagging  a  little  behind  to  form 
the  rear-guard.  The  fog  became  denser. 
I  almost  walked  into  the  water  that 
lay  suddenly  before  us,  black  and 
smooth.  It  must  have  been  a  moun- 
tain lake;  steep  banks  rose  into  the 
deep  clouds  all  around.  As  soon  as 
Seamus  got  abreast  of  us,  Paddy  dis- 
appeared into  the  fog.  We  waited  si- 
lently. I  wanted  to  light  a  cigarette, 
but  Eamon  stopped  me. 

'No,  not  now.  The  light  might  give 
us  away!' 

We  heard  oars  splashing,  and  a 
broad  shadow,  magnified  like  a  ghost 
by  the  fog,  glided  toward  us.  We  got 
into  the  boat,  which  was  steered  by 
Paddy.  Eamon  looked  back,  watch- 
fully trying  to  penetrate  the  darkness. 
From  our  slouch  hats  moisture  dropped 
heavily. 

The  boat  scraped  bottom.  We 
waded  ashore.  For  a  moment  a  sudden 
gust  of  wind  blew  away  the  shredded 
clouds;  the  lake  shone  brightly  in  the 
moonlight,  closely  lined  by  rugged 
mountains.  We  stood  on  a  little  moor, 
with  flowering  heather  shining  pal- 
lidly. Peat,  heaped  in  piles,  resembled 


193^ 


TALES  OF  THE  GAELS 


\^^S\ 


strangely  twisted  figures.  Silently  the 
men  arranged  a  hearth  of  stones  and 
brought  dry  pieces  of  peat.  Eamon 
and  his  companions  went  back  to  the 
boat.  Sean  and  I  waited. 

*Now  they  are  going  for  the  kettle, 
which  is  buried  somewhere  in  the 
moor,'  Sean  said. 

The  men  returned;  they  carried  the 
distilling  utensils  ashore  and  fixed 
them  over  the  hearth.  As  soon  as  the 
fog  banks  had  again  made  the  lake 
invisible,  Eamon  Ht  the  fire.  As, 
around  us,  the  misty  landscape  sunk 
into  the  darkness,  the  peat  began  to 
glow,  flames  licked  up,  light  crawled 
along  the  men's  shoes,  illuminated  the 
deeply  furrowed  faces,  and  made  the 
red  beards  glow  like  fire. 

'God  bless  your  work,'  Sean  said. 
He  leaned  toward  me  and  whispered 
in  my  ear: — 

'You  ought  to  say  that,  too,  for 
otherwise  we  might  think  you  want  to 
spoil  Eamon's  work  with  the  evil 
eye!' 

From  the  kettle  a  sweetish  smell 
began  to  emerge.  Slowly  it  began  to 
bubble.  Slowly  the  first  drops  fell 
from  the  coiled  pipe  into  the  trough. 
Eamon  caught  a  few  of  them  in  his 
glass,  held  them  against  the  fire  like 
precious  wine,  so  that  the  colorless 
liquid  shone  like  blood.  He  snifl^ed  at 
the  glass,  and  smacked  his  lips  as  he 
tasted  the  whisky. 

'Thank  God  it  came  off  all  right,' 
he  said  solemnly.  The  glass  passed 
from  mouth  to  mouth.  The  smell  of 
the  fusel  oil  settled  over  us.  The  flick- 
ering flames  grew  brighter.  The  wind 
began  to  stir  the  lake. 

'It  was  on  such  a  night  as  this,' 
Paddy,  the  boatsman,  said,  'that  I 
saw  Billy,  Padraic's  son.' 

*  Billy,  who  was  drowned  last  spring 


on  his  way  back  from  the  islands.^' 
Eamon  asked. 

'I  saw  him  and  his  boat.  I  was  sub- 
stituting that  night  for  the  flood-gate 
guard  down  at  the  bay.  The  flood- 
gates were  closed.  I  heard  the  rustle 
of  a  boat  racing  toward  me  with  the 
wind.  I  saw  the  brown,  patched  sails, 
for  though  it  wasn't  a  moonlight 
night,  the  stars  were  shining  brightly. 
At  the  tiller  sat  a  man.  Quickly  I  tried 
to  pull  up  the  gate;  I  could  not  work 
the  lock. 

'"Stop!"  I  shouted  at  the  fisher- 
man. He  did  not  move;  he  did  not 
drop  his  sails;  he  did  not  pull  the  rud- 
der round.  With  a  full  wind  in  his 
sails,  he  shot  toward  the  iron  gates. 
Already  I  could  hear  the  splintering 
of  wood,  the  groaning  of  iron,  and  the 
death  cry  of  the  man.  But  the  boat 
went  right  through  the  gate,  just  as 
the  wind  blows  through  the  fishing 
nets.  I  recognized  the  cap  of  the 
fisherman,  a  white  captain's  cap.  Only 
Bill  wore  such  a  cap.  God  have  mercy 
on  his  soul!' 

'God  have  mercy  on  his  soul!'  the 
others  repeated. 

They  got  up  because  the  last  drops 
had  flowed  out  of  the  coil.  Eamon 
grasped  a  wooden  measuring  cup, 
dipped  it  into  the  trough,  and  placed 
it,  filled  to  the  brim  with  poteen,  on 
top  of  the  rock  near  the  lake.  I  looked 
at  him  questioningly. 

'We  poteen  distillers  always  do  this. 
My  father  has  done  it  and  my  grand- 
father before  him.  We  know  that  the 
spirits  of  the  earth  and  of  the  sea  like  a 
good  drop.  It  is  for  them  that  we  set 
up  the  full  cup.  Tomorrow  I  shall  look 
for  it  again;  it  is  always  empty.  If  it 
is  overturned,  I  shall  know  that  the 
spirits  have  drunk  enough.  If  it  stands 
upright,  I  shall  refill  it.  If  we  should 


[S^6] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


ever  neglect  this  offering  to  the  spirits, 
the  poteen  would  fail.' 

The  men  carried  the  full  trough  into 
the  boat  and  hid  it  afterwards  at  a 
secret  place  in  the  moor.  The  rain  was 
lashing  our  faces  hard;  the  mountain 
lake  seemed  as  though  stirred  up  by- 
ghostlike  powers.  On  the  highway 
Sean  and  I  took  leave  of  the  others. 


'Wait,'  Eamon  said.  'One  never 
knows  when  one  is  going  to  run  into  a 
constable.  A  constable  has  a  good  nose 
for  poteen.' 

He  pulled  an  onion  out  of  his  pocket, 
cut  it  in  thin  slices. 

'Chew  that,'  he  said.  'You  will 
be  smelling  of  onion  then  instead  of 
poteen.' 


II.  The  Corpse 
By  Maun  Bruce 

From  the  Adelpbi,  London  Literary  and  Political  Monthly 


I 


IMPORTANT  business  had  delayed 
for  more  than  a  week  my  friend's 
return  from  the  city,  and  I,  his  guest, 
was  alone  in  the  old  harled  house. 
From  the  window  of  the  drawing  room 
I  watched  rooks  flying  over  to  the 
beech  trees  on  the  hill  and  dusk  fol- 
lowing behind  them  as  if  it  was  an 
emanation  from  their  bodies. 

I  wished  I  had  not  told  Susan,  the 
hodden-gray  housekeeper,  that  she 
could  stay  overnight  in  the  village  to 
which  she  had  gone  to  visit  her  sister. 
I  was  hungry,  and  the  idea  of  foraging 
in  the  dim  cupboards  of  the  down- 
stairs regions  and  of  preparing  a  meal 
for  myself,  which  had  seemed  to  me 
in  the  bright  afternoon  to  promise 
relief  from  the  monotony  of  existence, 
no  longer  appealed  to  me. 

The  bleating  of  a  snipe,  like  a  voice 
from  the  land  which  lies  beyond 
thought  and  time,  mourned  across  the 
silence.  I  shivered  and  rose  to  close 
the  window.  As  I  swung  the  sneck  into 
place,  a  knock  sounded  on  the  front 
door,  not  loud  but  continuing  in- 
sistently, like  the  knocking  of  a  corn- 
crake's cry  on  the  doors  of  summer 
half-light. 


The  feeling  of  eeriness  which  had 
descended  upon  my  spirit  with  the 
coming  of  twilight  increased  as  I  went 
across  the  hall  to  the  door.  On  the 
step  stood  a  thin,  ragged  boy  of  about 
fourteen  years  of  age,  who  looked  at 
me  with  an  expression  of  such  mingled 
surprise  and  relief  that  I  could  not 
help  wondering  if  a  human  being  was 
not  the  last  thing  he  had  expected  to 
see.  He  spoke  a  mumble  of  words,  the 
only  one  of  which  I  distinguished  was 
corpse. 

'Corpse.^'  I  said.  'What  corpse.^' 

'My  faither.  My  mother  says  if  ye 
come  ower  the  noo  ye  can  see  the 
corpse.' 

I  had  not  known  there  was  a  dead 
man  in  the  neighborhood,  and  anyway 
I  had  not  the  slightest  desire  to  see  one 
that  night. 

'Mr.  Mungall  is  not  at  home,'  I 
said,  hoping  to  get  rid  of  the  boy. 

But  he  merely  stared  dully  at  me 
and  repeated:  'My  mother  says  if  ye 
come  ower  the  noo  ye  can  see  the 
corpse.' 

'Where  do  you  live?'  I  asked. 

He  pointed  between  the  rhododen- 
drons on  the  frost-rimmed  lawn    to 


1936 


TALES  OF  THE  GAELS 


[527] 


where  a  light  burned  palely  in  the 
haughs,  then  ran  off  so  soundlessly 
that  my  attention  was  drawn  to  his 
feet,  which,  I  saw  with  shivering  hor- 
ror, were  completely  bare.  Compared 
with  this  condition  of  the  living 
death  seemed  pleasant,  even  desirable. 

JMungall  doubtless  had  known  the 
deceased  well.  Maybe  it  was  expected 
that  he  should  go  to  view  the  remains; 
maybe  failure  to  do  so  would  bring 
discredit  upon  him.  I  had  promised  to 
see  to  things  in  his  absence  .  .  .  But 
this  .  .  .  !  I  wondered  if  I  could  not 
pass  the  matter  off  as  a  grisly  joke;  but 
even  while  I  considered  it,  I  knew  that 
I  would  not  feel  at  ease  until  I  had 
paid  a  call  at  the  house  on  the  haughs. 

As  I  crossed  the  fields,  darkness  lay 
like  a  whipped  dog  along  the  hedge- 
bottoms.  The  cottage  stood  with  its 
back  to  the  river,  which  washed  with 
a  faint  slapping  sigh  the  lichened  walls. 
I  knocked  loudly  on  the  door,  which 
was  quickly  opened  by  a  tall  gaunt 
woman,  who  asked  me  would  I  mind 
going  into  the  kitchen  just  a  minute: 
'It's  a'  reel-rail,  but  a  body  canna 
keep  the  place  tidy  wi'  the  bairns  on 
the  go,'  she  said  with  a  sort  of  defi- 
ance, as  if  I  had  been  finding  fault. 

There  were  five  or  six  children,  the 
youngest  little  more  than  a  baby, 
crowded  in  the  narrow  apartment, 
who  gazed  at  me  boldly  or  shyly 
according  to  their  nature — except  one 
girl  who,  forced  by  her  mother  to  give 
me  her  seat,  looked  at  me  with  intense 
hatred.  The  mother  whispered  some- 
thing to  her,  and  she  went  out  imme- 
diately. When  the  woman  turned  to- 
ward me  again,  I  saw  that  she  was 
with  child.  I  stared  at  her  feeling 
again  the  same  shivering  horror  that 
had  gripped  me  at  sight  of  the  boy's 
naked  feet,  and  could  find  nothing  to 


say.  Then  suddenly  a  racking  cough 
sounded  from  one  of  the  two  set-in 
beds,  and  I  saw  lying  there  a  boy 
with  cheeks  the  color  of  forced 
rhubarb, 

'That's  Dave,  he's  been  ill  for 
months  noo.  If  it's  no'  ane  o'  the 
weans  that's  badly  it's  anither.  It's 
this  hoose,  ye  can  never  warm  it, 
whit  wi'  the  stane  floor  and  the  river 
saw  near  haun'.' 

'What  does  the  doctor  say  about 
him.?' 

'He's  never  seen  him.  The  doctors 
chairge  sic  a  fee  for  comin'  sae  faur 
frae  the  village.' 

The  sound  of  the  outer  door  shut- 
ting was  a  signal  for  which  apparently 
she  had  been  waiting.  Rising,  she 
said: '  If  ye  come  ben  noo,  ye'll  see  the 
corpse.' 

I  followed  her  across  the  shadow- 
crowded  lobby.  She  opened  the  door 
of  the  room,  then,  emitting  a  startled 
cry,  tried  to  shut  it  again,  to  prevent 
my  seeing  what  was  beyond.  She  was 
too  late,  however.  The  girl  was  mov- 
ing about  the  room  with  a  lighted 
piece  of  brown  paper  in  her  hand.  At 
the  window  stood  the  boy  whose 
message  had  brought  me  to  the  house, 
and  whose  opening  and  closing  of  the 
door  on  his  return  home  had  misled 
the  woman  into  thinking  that  the  girl 
had  given  the  '  all-clear '  signal. 

Her  embarrassment  embarrassed 
me  also. 

'It's  to  get  rid  o'  the  smell  frae 
the  midden  and  the  closet.  They're 
faur  ower  near  and  the  hoose  is  never 
clear  o'  the  stink.  In  the  summer  it's 
fair  terrible,'  she  said  nervously. 

The  girl  and  boy  left  the  room  in 
silence.  The  woman  picked  up  the 
candle,  which  was  the  sole  illumina- 
tion, and  held  it  high  above  her  head. 


[528] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


Behind  the  door,  on  top  of  a  large 
varnished  kist,  was  a  black  coffin.  I 
saw  the  dull  yellow  shine  of  the  brass 
tablet  inscribed  with  the  deceased's 
name  and  age. 

'He  was  born  ower  the  way  at 
Bindra,'  said  the  woman,  'and  hardly 
was  oot  o'  sicht  o't  a'  his  days.  It  was 
there  that  I  met  him,  I  mind  the  day 
fine.  We  were  thinnin'  neeps,  me  and 
some  o'  the  auld  weemin  bodies  frae 
the  cottages,  doon  by  the  waterside, 
my  first  day  in  the  fields.  He  had  been 
to  the  city  wi'  the  milk-cairt  and  it 
was  weel  on  afore  he  cam'  to  gie's  a 
haun'.  We  wer  jist  beginnin*  a  new 
drill,  working  up  hill  frae  the  water 
when  he  cam'  throu'  the  yett.  The 
way  the  grun'  lay  we  lost  sicht  o'  him 
the  meenit  he  reached  the  heid  rig, 
but  we  kent  he  wad  wark  doonhill  and 
we  wad  get  his  news  when  we  met. 
Whether  he  had  miscQonted  the  drills, 
or  whether  it  was  dune  on  purpose  I 
dinna  ken,  but  when  we  got  to  the  tap 
o*  the  rise  was  he  no'  workin'  on  my 
dreel!  I  was  a'  flustered  but  he  jist 
lauched  and  said  "We'd  better  begin 
thegither  again  at  the  fit."  And  that 
was  whit  we  did.  He  aye  contrived  it 
so  that  we  were  gaun  in  the  opposite 
direction  frae  the  ithers.  They  chaffed 
us  unmercifu',  and  some  o'  the  weemin 
had  gey  coorse  tongues,  but  we  never 
heeded.  I  was  happy  to  be  at  his  side, 
and  when  he  askit  me  to  be  his  lass 
and  his  love,  I  wasna  loth.  We  got  on 
fine  thegither  a'  they  years,  though 
God  kens  it  was  a  struggle  gey  often 
to  mak'  ends  meet.  I  wad  hae  likit  to 
hae  got  a  better  coffin  for  him,  but 
this  was  a'  I  could  afford.' 

She  bent  over  and  touched  the 
coffin  lovingly  with  her  fingers,  and 
suddenly  in  the  flickering  light  they 


seemed  pallid  and  strange  as  if  death 
was  flowing  into  them  from  the  wood. 

I  felt  I  could  not  look  upon  the 
dead  man's  face.  I  turned  my  eyes 
away  and  saw  that  the  paper  was 
hanging  from  the  walls  like  decaying 
tapestry.  The  roof  and  walls  were 
stained  a  jaundiced  yellow  where  the 
rain  had  been  seeping  through.  The 
odor  of  death  mingled  with  the  smell 
of  the  dry  closet  and  midden  filled 
my  nostrils  and  I  felt  I  wanted  to  be 
sick. 

I  was  aware  of  the  woman's  eyes 
fixed  on  me.  She  was  expecting  me  to 
make  some  remark,  and  I  was  troubled 
lest  I  should  not  say  the  desired  thing. 
A  beetle  disturbed  by  the  light 
crawled  along  the  wall  like  an  evil 
thought.  I  watched  it  in  silence. 

The  woman  began  to  weep  quietly, 
saying,  *I  was  terrible  pleased  he 
wasna  disfigured  when  the  thresher 
killed  him.  He  was  prood  o'  his  guid 
looks,  aye  lauched  when  I  teased  him 
aboot  it.  But  he  lauched  at  a*  thing — 
win',  weet,  and  woe.' 

She  went  nearer  to  the  coffin,  and 
held  the  candle  close  to  the  dead  face 
in  order  that  I  should  perceive  the 
truth  of  her  words.  I  moved  to  her 
side,  shuddering,  expecting  to  see 
laughter  mocking  death  on  the  rigid 
countenance.  I  heard  the  painful 
coughing  of  the  sick  boy>  and  the 
querulous  crying  of  the  baby.  The 
dank  air  chilled  me  to  the  bone. 

The  face  was  without  expression, 
however.  As  I  looked,  it  seemed  to 
acquire  the  color  and  texture  of  clay, 
to  be  disintegrating  among  the  shad- 
ows cast  by  the  candle. 

'The  funeral's  the  morn  at  two,' 
said  the  woman.  'It  was  rale  nice  o' 
ye  to  come  and  show  him  yer  respects.' 


LETTERS  AND  THE  ARTS 


The  Art  of  Displeasing 

By  Raymond  Mortimer 

From  the  Listener,  London 

Surrealism  has  reached  London— 
a  little  latej  it  is  true,  a  little  dowdy  and 
seedy  and  down  at  heel  and  generally  en- 
feebled. It  began  in  Paris  with  a  small 
band  of  brothers  who  united  to  bid  de- 
fiance to  the  public,  to  civilization,  to 
reason,  to  the  universe;  and  some  have 
died,  and  others  have  grown  up,  and  al- 
most all  have  quarreled.  But  germs  can 
renew  their  virulence  in  a  fresh  environ- 
ment, and  surrealism,  which  in  Paris  is 
decrepit,  may  yet  become  fashionable  in 
London.  In  a  modified  form,  I  am  sure. 
For  somehow  I  do  not  see  our  young  lit- 
erary sparks  spitting  in  the  face  of  clergy- 
men, as  was  the  courageous  custom  of  the 
founders  of  the  movement.  Blasphemy 
and  obscenity,  again,  have  hitherto  been 
a  duty  for  all  good  surrealists,  but  one 
may  wonder  whether  many  of  them  will 
perform  this  duty  in  England,  where  it 
entails  a  heavy  fine  or  a  visit  to  gaol.  To 
the  watered  surrealism  that  we  are  likely 
to  have  here,  the  most  bourgeois  of  us 
can  offer,  I  think,  a  mild  welcome.  The 
aesthetic  climate  of  this  country  always 
inclines  to  be  stuffy  and  relaxing.  Perhaps 
this  breeze  from  France  will  animate  our 
stagnant  atmosphere,  invigorate  some 
writers  and  painters,  fertilize  some  im- 
aginations, and  grow  a  few  needed  orchids 
to  vary  the  herbaceous  monotony  of  our 
hardy  perennials. 

To  understand  surrealism  you  must 
look  at  its  origins.  During  the  post-War, 
pre-slump  years,  Paris  had  become  the 
playground  of  the  world.  Would-be  writers 
and  painters  with  a  lot  of  'artistic  tem- 
perament' and  very  little  talent  crammed 
the  cafes,  chattering  in  every  language 
from  Chinese  to  Peruvian.  Drink,  drugs, 


sexuality  in  its  most  psychopathic  forms 
were  the  ostentatious  relaxations,  often 
indeed  the  principal  occupations,  of  this 
heterogeneous  mob.  The  presence  of 
painters  like  Picasso  and  Matisse,  of 
writers  like  Gide,  of  poetic  wits  like  Coc- 
teau,  had  attracted  every  young  foreigner, 
American,  Scandinavian  or  Asiatic,  who 
had  artistic  ambitions,  and  a  large  enough 
allowance  of  money  (or  good  looks)  to 
provide  him  or  herself  with  food  and  drink. 
The  atmosphere  was  feverish,  men  of 
genius  were  making  extraordinary  ex- 
periments in  the  various  arts,  and  men 
without  even  a  little  talent  were  imitating 
them. 

Suddenly,  as  a  product  of,  and  as  a  reac- 
tion against,  this  Bohemianism,  appeared 
surrealism.  Here  was  a  gesture  more  de- 
fiant than  any,  a  more  violent  attempt  to 
surprise  and  shock,  a  movement  which 
styled  itself  a  revolution.  Communism 
was  indeed  one  of  its  battle-cries,  because 
France  was  a  bourgeois  country.  If  sur- 
realists were  allowed  in  Russia,  they  would 
presumably  be  Czarists,  for  the  essence 
of  the  movement  is  revolution  for  revolu- 
tion's sake.  The  exploitation  of  the  un- 
conscious was  the  technique  recommended 
to  writers  and  painters,  automatic  writ- 
ing, as  it  were,  and  automatic  drawing. 
(Without  Freud's  doctrines  and  Picasso's 
practice,  surrealism  could  not  have  hap- 
pened.) Predecessors  for  the  movement 
were  found  in  Lautreamont,  Rimbaud, 
the  Marquis  de  Sade,  and  Lewis  Carroll. 
The  surrealist  writers  sought  the  furthest- 
fetched  images,  the  most  unlikely  con- 
catenations of  words.  The  painters  either 
married  on  their  canvases  the  most  un- 
likely objects,  seeking  to  create  a  world 
as  remote  as  possible  from  the  actual,  or 
evolved  from  their  subconscious  curious 
forms  not  to  be  found  in  nature,  but  dis- 
quieting from  some  obscure  suggestive- 
ness.  Surprise  and  disquietude  are  indeed 


[53o] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


the  states  of  mind  which  it  is  the  special 
object  of  the  surrealists  to  excite. 

The  movement  was  launched  by  a 
group  several  of  whom  possessed  remark- 
able talent.  Some  of  the  most  gifted  of  the 
post-War  generation  leapt  upon  this  oc- 
casion to  display  their  disillusionment, 
and  their  contempt  for  the  Philistine, 
frivolous,  bourgeois  society  in  which  they 
felt  themselves  strangers.  Breton,  Aragon, 
Eluard,  Soupault,  Delteil  are  all  gifted 
writers.  And  among  the  painters  more  or 
less  affiliated  at  one  time  to  the  group  were 
Chirico,  Masson  and  Mir6.  Picasso  com- 
manded the  admiration  of  the  surrealists, 
and  though  he  never  joined  them,  did  not 
refuse  their  homage.  Later  the  group  was 
reinforced  by  Salvador  Dali,  a  Spanish 
painter  who  is  now  one  of  the  most  active 
and  orthodox  surrealists.  In  another  Span- 
iard, Bunuel,  the  movement  found  a  bril- 
liant film  director.  For  some  years  the 
surrealists  maintained  themselves  suc- 
cessfully in  the  limelight. 

But  a  movement  determined  so  largely 
by  hatred  contains  the  seed  of  its  own 
disintegration.  Quarrels,  heresies,  schisms 
have  divided  the  original  group.  Aragon, 
who  was  Breton's  ablest  lieutenant,  took 
his  Communism  too  seriously,  and  re- 
signed or  was  expelled.  One  would  have 
to  take  daily  trunk-calls  to  Paris  to  know 
who  is  and  who  is  not  accepted  as  a  good 
surrealist  by  the '  Curia '  of  the  movement. 
And  after  all  what  is  interesting  in  sur- 
realism is  not  the  history  of  the  prep- 
school  squabbles  and  sendings  to  Coven- 
try among  its  exponents  but  the  state  of 
mind  which  it  represents,  and  the  methods 
by  which  these  are  expressed.  Breton  and 
his  band  were  the  first  to  articulate  and 
codify  emotions  and  techniques  which  are 
a  part  of  our  Zeitgeist — a  symptom,  if 
you  like,  of  the  death-agony  of  capitalism; 
a  consequence,  if  you  prefer  it,  of  a  sud- 
den alteration  in  human  consciousness; 
or  again  merely  a  manifestation  of  the 
European  appetite  for  some  new  thing. 

In  the  visual  arts  surrealism  represents 
above  all  a  return  to  the  subject.  For  the 


last  twenty-five  years  critics  have  been 
emphasizing  the  supreme  importance  in 
sculpture  and  painting  of  the  purely 
plastic  elements,  composition  and  texture 
— what  has  been  called  '  significant  form.* 
The  subject  of  a  picture — whether  it  repre- 
sented Aphrodite  or  a  dead  fish  or  nothing 
recognizable — has  been  dismissed  as  com- 
paratively unimportant.  And  while  the 
poetic  and  dramatic  qualities  in  a  picture 
are  often  more  important  than  the  more 
ascetic  critics  have  allowed,  they  are  cer- 
tainly not  indispensable.  And,  if  the  for- 
mal elements  are  lacking,  the  'story'  a 
picture  tells  very  quickly  ceases  to  in- 
terest. It  may  be  amusing  to  visit  once  the 
Guildhall  Art  Gallery,  where  there  is  a 
rich  collection  of  Nineteenth  Century 
Royal  Academy  anecdotes,  but  no  one 
could  return  there  again  and  again,  as  to 
the  National  Gallery  or  the  French  rooms 
at  the  Tate,  with  ever  increasing  satis- 
faction. Similarly  the  interest  excited  by  a 
surrealist  picture  very  quickly  evaporates. 
The  first  sight  of  it  may  successfully  give 
you  the  shock  of  surprise  or  disgust  which 
the  artist  has  sought  to  produce.  But  you 
cannot  go  on  being  surprised,  and  you 
probably  do  not  want  to  go  on  being  dis- 
gusted. 

There  is  in  the  surrealist  show  at  the 
New  Burlington  Galleries  a  picture  by  Mr. 
Magritte  that  represents  very  realistically 
a  pair  of  boots,  which  develop  towards  the 
toes  into  human  feet  with  almost  photo- 
graphic toe-nails.  This  picture  really  is  the 
modern  equivalent  of  those  favorite  Vic- 
torian pictures  of  boots  with  kittens  climb- 
ing out  of  them.  The  sentiment  is  differ- 
ent, and  we  are  expected  to  exclaim  'How 
amusing!'  or  'How  horrid!'  instead  of 
'How  sweet!',  but  the  surrealist  painting 
is  quite  as  undistinguished  as  the  Millais 
or  whatever  it  was;  and  consequently  it 
equally  rapidly  becomes  boring. 

Most  of  the  exhibits  in  the  surrealist 
show  have  nothing  to  recommend  them 
except  this  ability  to  surprise — for  about 
one  minute.  And  the  more  they  approxi- 
mate to  automatic  drawings,  the  more 


193^ 


LETTERS  AND  THE  ARTS 


[531] 


tiresome  they  become.  For  the  subcon- 
cious  is  the  least  interesting  part  of  a 
human  being — analysis  brings  to  light 
always  the  same  monotonous  old  impulses 
of  lust  and  anxiety  and  hatred.  The 
(Edipus  complex  is  interesting  in  its 
varied  effects  on  action  and  on  the  con- 
sciousness, but  in  itself  it  seems  as  de- 
pressingly  uniform  as  the  tibia  or  the  gall- 
bladder. 

Luckily  the  organizers  of  the  exhibition 
have  thrown  their  net  very  wide,  and  there 
are  a  number  of  admirably-organized  pic- 
tures which  are  only  incidentally,  if  at  all, 
surrealist.  The  splendid  recent  Picassos 
have  a  ferocity  which  no  doubt  com- 
mends them  to  the  faithful,  but  first  and 
foremost  they  are  just  very  good  paint- 
ings, the  works  of  a  man  with  such  inven- 
tive genius  that  he  could  found  a  new 
school  every  year.  The  Paul  Klees  are 
ravishing;  his  sensibility  to  texture  places 
him  among  the  most  charming  painters 
alive.  The  early  Chiricos  again  are  good 
examples  of  romantic  painting:  his  curious 
and  personal  imagination  has  greatly  in- 
fluenced the  surrealist  writers  and  his 
works  have  the  approved  dream-like 
quality,  but  they  are  dreams  organized 
by  the  consciousness.  (You  have  only  to 
compare  them  with  Mr.  Oelze's  pictures, 
which  have  the  genuine  subconscious  or 
automatic  quality,  and  which  are  conse- 
quently aesthetically  meaningless.)  Miro  is 
a  natural  decorator  of  remarkable  taste, 
and  his  adherence  to  surrealism  probably 
makes  his  work  neither  better  nor  worse. 

The  truth  is,  of  course,  that  a  theory  is 
valuable  only  in  so  far  as  it  stimulates  a 
painter.  Whether  a  man  claims  to  be  a 
pre-Raphaelite,  an  impressionist,  a  cubist 
or  a  surrealist,  all  that  matters  is  his  talent 
— you  can  paint  magnificently  or  abomi- 
nably under  any  of  these  titles.  Mr.  Dali 
is  the  most  fashionable  of  the  thorough- 
going surrealists,  and  in  his  case  I  fancy 
that  his  theories  positively  obscure  his 
talent.  His  pictures  are  frequently  as  silly 
as  those  of  Bocklin,  the  painter  of  l!be 
Island  of  the  Dead.  But  some  of  his  straight- 


forward drawings,  where  he  forgets  the 
importance  of  being  paranoiac,  suggest 
that  he  could  paint  well  if  he  did  not  pre- 
fer to  paint  unpleasantly.  But  most  of  the 
exhibits  are  feeble;  to  sham  madness  evi- 
dently needs  a  lot  of  imagination. 

Several  English  artists  exhibit.  Messrs. 
Roland  Penrose  and  Burra  are  true  sur- 
realists, and  attain  their  aim  of  rousing 
surprise  and  disquietude.  Mr.  Paul  Nash, 
on  the  other  hand,  sends  extremely  charm- 
ing pictures,  in  which  he  has  felicitously 
enlivened  sound  formal  elements  with 
fantasy.  Mr.  Julian  Trevelyan's  works  are 
uncommonly  tasteful,  rather  in  the  Klee 
manner.  Mr.  Henry  Moore,  as  we  know, 
is  an  admirable  sculptor,  but  his  abstract 
carvings  do  not  strike  me  as  in  the  least 
surrealist.  The  exhibition  includes  a  selec- 
tion of  savage  art  and  of  natural  objects,* 
showing  that  the  cannibal  and  Dame  Na- 
ture alike  have  their  surrealistic  moods. 

In  so  far  as  surrealism  encourages  free- 
dom of  imagination  in  the  visual  arts,  it  is 
surely  all  to  the  good.  We  have  had  too 
many  pictures  of  apples  and  napkins 
painted  merely  because  the  genius  of 
Cezanne  turned  everything  it  touched  to 
majestic  poetry.  If  a  man  cannot  paint  a 
good  picture,  he  had  better  paint  an  odd 
or  amusing  one.  (Best  of  all,  though,  let 
him  stop  painting.)  The  Royal  Academy 
is  not  worse  today  than  it  was  fifty  years 
ago,  but  it  is  duller,  because  there  are 
fewer  anecdotes.  Surrealism  is  indeed  a 
return  to  the  Royal  Academy  tradition, 
though  no  doubt  Mr.  Breton  and  Sir  Wil- 
liam Llewellyn  will  alike  indignantly  deny 
the  fact.  What  is  new  in  surrealism  is  that 
the  subject  is  chosen  for  its  oddity  or  its 
unpleasantness  instead  of  for  its  prettiness 
or  sentimentality.  And  the  exploration  of 
the  subconscious  has  revealed  an  easy, 
though  perhaps  not  very  varied,  supply  of 
odd  and  unpleasant  images. 

The  First  Post-Impressionist  Exhibition 
infuriated  the  public,  because  it  could  not 
believe  that  the  pictures  of  Cezanne,  van 
Gogh  and  Matisse  were  anything  but  ugly. 
And  the  wiser  critics  insisted  that  they 


[53^] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


were  beautiful.  No  one  needs  to  be  in- 
furiated on  these  grounds  by  the  present 
show.  The  man  in  the  street  will  agree 
that  these  works  are  horrid.  And  that  is 
what  he  is  wanted  to  think. 

Picasso's  Mind 

By  Clive  Bell 

From  the  New  Statesman  and  Nation,  London 

IT  WOULD  be  interesting,  but  will  never 
be  possible,  to  know  how  much  money  has 
been  made  out  of  Picasso.  That  this  is  not 
intended  as  an  insult  to  anyone  will  be 
clear  to  those  who  remark  that  at  this  very 
moment  I  am  making  money  out  of  him 
myself.  Indeed,  I  was  not  thinking  so 
much  of  dealers  and  dealing  amateurs  as 
of  writers,  manufacturers  and  the  big 
shops.  The  weight  of  'Picasso  literature' 
in  French,  English,  German  and,  I  am 
told,  Japanese  is  positively  crushing;  while 
one  has  only  to  look  into  the  windows  of 
Le  Printemps  or  La  Samaritaine  to  see 
what  the  fabricators  of  cheap  finery  owe 
to  the  inventor  of  cubism.  Whether  Pi- 
casso is  the  greatest  visual  artist  alive  is 
an  open  question;  that  he  is  the  most 
influential  is  past  question. 

Something  like  a  recognition  of  this  was 
celebrated,  more  or  less  accidentally, 
about  three  months  ago;  and  for  a  fort- 
night at  the  end  of  February  and  begin- 
ning of  March,  until  Herr  Hitler  gave  us 
something  else  to  talk  about,  all  Paris  was 
talking  of  Picasso.  There  was  the  great 
exhibition  of  twenty  new  paintings  chez 
Paul  Rosenberg;  there  was  a  show  of 
smaller  but  hardly  less  exciting  works 
chez  Pierre  Colle — from  which,  by  the 
way,  comes  a  part  of  the  remarkable  col- 
lection now  on  view  at  the  Zwemmer  Gal- 
lery; there  were  important  pictures  at  the 
Spanish  exhibition;  and  Cahiers  d' Art 
produced  a  special  number,  devoted  to 
Picasso  I93c^i935,  in  which,  for  the  first 
time,  the  public  was  given  a  sample  of  the 
painter's  poetry. 

It  is  customary  when  a  great  artist  in 


one  medium  tries  his  luck  in  another  not 
to  take  him  seriously.  On  this  occasion 
custom  must  be  dishonored.  The  poems 
of  Picasso  will  have  to  be  taken  seriously, 
if  for  no  other  reason,  because  they  throw 
light  on  his  painting;  also  it  is  only  as 
throwing  light  on  his  painting  that  an 
'art  critic'  is  entitled  to  discuss  them.  To 
me  it  seems  that  even  these  fragments 
published  in  Cahiers  d' Art  will  help  any- 
one who  needs  help — and  who  does  not  ? — 
to  follow,  through  Picasso's  visual  con- 
structions, the  workings  of  Picasso's 
mind.  Often  in  the  poems,  which  are  essen- 
tially visual,  the  connection  of  ideas,  or, 
better,  of  ideas  of  images,  is  more  easily 
apprehended  than  in  the  paintings  and 
drawings. 

Picasso,  one  realizes,  whether  one  likes 
it  or  not,  Picasso,  the  most  visual  of  poets, 
is  a  literary  painter.  He  always  was:  again 
and  again  his  pictures  express  an  emotion 
that  did  not  come  to  him  through  the  eyes 
alone.  Matisse,  by  comparison,  is  aesthetic 
purity  itself;  and  that  may  account  to 
some  extent  for  the  wider  influence  of 
Picasso.  Notoriously  his  pictures  of  the 
blue  period  are  so  charged  with  a  troubling 
and  oppressive  pathos  that  they  have 
been  called,  not  unfairly,  I  think,  senti- 
mental. And  though  the  immediate  con- 
tent of  all  his  work,  about  which  I  shall 
have  something  to  say  presently,  is  an 
association  of  visual  ideas  set  in  train  as 
a  rule  by  a  visual  fact — the  stump  of  a 
cigarette  or  a  naked  body — behind  lie  cer- 
tain emotional  preoccupations  from  which 
the  artist  has  never  freed  himself  and 
perhaps  has  never  wished  to  free  himself. 

Always  he  is  aware,  not  exactly  of 
human  misery,  but  of  the  misery  of  being 
human.  Always  he  is  aware  of  women. 
Lust  and  disgust,  women's  bodies,  wom- 
en's ways,  and  what  Dryden  elegantly 
calls  'the  feat  of  love'  are  to  this  artist 
sometimes  visions  of  delight,  sometimes 
nightmares,  negligible  never.  To  deny  the 
importance,  for  better  or  for  worse,  to  the 
art  of  Picasso  of  femininity  is,  it  seems  to 
me,  about  as  sensible  as  to  believe  that 


1936 


LETTERS  AND  THE  ARTS 


\szz\ 


Shakespeare's    sonnets     were     academic 
exercises. 

It  goes  without  saying  that,  in  his  visual 
art,  it  is  not  the  ideas,  but  the  connection 
of  ideas  that  matters.  This  is  equally  true 
of  what  he  writes;  just  as  it  is  true  of  what 
Mallarme  or  Eliot  write.  Picasso  is  a  poet 
— a  modern  poet.  Peacockians  will  re- 
member how  Mr.  Flosky,  Peacock's  cari- 
cature of  Coleridge,  snubs  the  pathetic 
Mr.  Listless  when  he  complains  that  he 
does  not  see  the  connection  of  his  (Mr. 
Flosky's)  ideas:  T  should  be  sorry  if  you 
could;  I  pity  the  man  who  can  see  the 
connection  of  his  own  ideas.  Still  more  do  I 
pity  him  the  connection  of  whose  ideas 
any  other  person  can  see.'  Picasso,  on  the 
contrary,  is  not  only  willing  that  you 
should  see  the  connection  of  his;  he  seems 
to  suggest  that  if  you  do  not,  you  will 
miss  the  full  significance  of  his  art. 

The  task  he  sets  is  not  simple:  happily 
in  Cahiers  d'Art  we  find  one  of  those  ex- 
amples, too  rarely  found  in  works  of 
aesthetic  exegesis,  which,  themselves  easily 
understood,  help  us  to  understand  things 
more  difficult.  Picasso  wrote  this  line: — 

Le  cygne  sur  le  lac  fait  le  scorpion  a 
sa  maniere  .  .  . 
A  friend  asked  him  what  he  had  in  mind. 
The  artist  picked  up  a  pen  and  scribbled 
on  the  back  of  an  envelope  a  swan  float- 
ing on  sleek  water  which  reflects  exactly 
the  bird's  long  sickle-shaped  neck.  Anyone 
who  will  make  the  experiment  for  himself 
will  perceive  that  he  has  designed  the 
image  of  a  scorpion  in  the  swan's  manner. 

Let  us  apply  the  method  here  suggested 
to  a  more  difficult  case:  'Z,^  ial^ac  enveloppe 
en  son  suaire  a  cote  des  deux  banderilles 
roses  expire  ses  dessins  modernistes  sur  le 
cadavre  du  cheval  sur  la  cendre  ecrit  sa 
derniere  volonte  au  feu  de  son  oeil.''  In  all 
humility,  with  apologies  to  the  author  and 
cautions  to  those  who  need  them,  this  I 
paraphrase  thus:  'The  tobacco  swathed 
in  its  winding-sheet,  a  rose  banderilla  on 
either  side,  dies,  and  dying  writes  its 
"modernistic  "  drawings  on  the  body  of  the 
horse,  on  the  ash  writes  its  last  will  with 


the  fire  of  its  eye.'  This  is  Picasso's  sense, 
expressed  verbally,  of  what  was  suggested 
by  a  cigarette  smouldering  to  its  end  in,  I 
surmise,  one  of  those  Bon  Marche  ashtrays 
with  the  picture  of  a  horse  on  the  bottom 
— a  tray  full  of  ash  and  stumps,  two  of 
which  may  have  been  belipsticked.  This  is 
what  he  saw  with  imagination's  eye.  Does 
it  not  make  us  see  a  still-life  by  Picasso? 
And,  the  words  read,  the  connections 
grasped,  do  we  not  half  divine  by  what 
strange  but  controlled  processes  of  im- 
agination the  master  arrives  at  some  of  his 
beautiful,  expressive,  patently  logical  yet 
barely  intelligible  combinations  of  forms? 

Whether  a  visitor  to  the  Zwemmer 
Gallery  will  feel  inclined  to  worry  himself 
with  speculations  of  this  sort  is  another 
matter.  Here  is  so  much  easy  and  accessi- 
ble beauty  to  be  enjoyed  for  the  looking 
that  probably  he  will  not.  Here  is  a  de- 
lightful and  representative  exhibition  of 
Picasso's"  work  from  1908,  the  date  of  a 
particularly  attractive  picture  in  the  cub- 
ist manner,  to  the  May  of  last  year,  since 
when  he  has  not  painted,  unless  it  be  true 
that  he  started  again  a  few  weeks  ago. 

The  big  Peintre  et  Modele  (1934)  is  for 
me  the  clou  of  the  show.  I  doubt  whether 
Picasso  ever  used  paint  more  deliciously: 
look  at  the  right-hand  top  corner,  where 
signature  and  date  are  wrought  into  a  pat- 
tern that  reminds  one  of  a  bouquet  carried 
by  one  of  Renoir's  young  ladies.  Indeed, 
throughout  this  surprising  composition  the 
paint  is  of  an  excitement  and  lyricism 
unusual  with  Picasso.  Arlequin,  another 
big  picture,  dating  from  about  the  end  of 
the  war,  seems  austere  by  comparison.  It 
is  hardly  less  beautiful.  But  the  other  big 
picture,  Les  Deux  Femmes,  really  needs  a 
larger  room  in  which  to  be  shown. 

It  is  when  we  are  looking  at  the  smaller 
works,  the  pen  and  ink  drawings  touched 
in  with  colored  washes,  for  instance,  that 
we  realize  the  marvelous  certainty  of  the 
master.  Modify  in  any  of  these  one  small 
patch  of  watercolor,  and  the  work  is 
changed  completely.  This  Picasso  has 
chosen  to  demonstrate  in  a  series  of  etch- 


[534] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


ings  over  colored  applications,  or  rather  of 
one  etching  variously  treated,  which  Mr. 
Zwemmer  holds  in  reserve.  By  changing 
the  dominant  colored  shape — a  change 
which  necessitates  in  strictest  logic  a  new 
combination  of  shapes  and  colors — the 
artist  has  created  out  of  a  single  pattern  a 
series  of  totally  distinct  little  master- 
pieces. Picasso,  in  fact,  has  brought  the 
mastery  of  his  art  to  such  perfection  that 
the  coherence  of  a  design  and  the  im- 
aginative import  of  a  whole  work  can  be 
made  to  depend  on  the  placing  of  a  patch; 
and  he  knows  just  where  to  place  it,  and 
he  knows  just  what  the  effect  of  his  plac- 
ing, both  on  design  and  sentiment,  will  be. 

Of  the  light  and  airy  series  of  colored 
drawings.  Zephyr  is  the  most  obviously 
charming:  it  is  a  work  of  fanciful  gaiety  in 
which  the  touch  of  surprise  is  given  not, 
as  in  some,  by  an  unexpected  tone,  nor 
yet,  as  in  others,  by  a  convincing  deforma- 
tion, but  by  a  breath  of  surrealism. 

What  impresses  one  most,  however,  is 
what  impresses  most  in  all  exhibitions  of 
Picasso's  work  that  cover  a  number  of 
years:  the  inventiveness  of  the  man.  If  any 
modern  painter  has  'exhausted  worlds 
and  then  imagin'd  new,'  it  is  he.  His 
innumerable  imitators  must  lead  a  breath- 
less life  of  it. 

And  this  brings  me  back  to  where  I 
began :  Picasso  is  one  of  the  most  accom- 
plished technicians  alive,  but  the  miracle 
is  not  what  he  does  with  his  fingers,  but 
what  goes  on  in  his  head.  It  is  clear  that 
what  he  gets  out  of  Hfe  is  different  from 
what  anyone  else  gets;  clearly  it  is  strange, 
intense,  disquieting  and  various.  Because 
he  can  externalize  some  part  of  his  experi- 
ence— for  I  feel  sure  that  he  has  never 
said  all  that  he  has  to  say — he  has  affected 
us  all  in  all  sorts  of  odd  ways.  He  has 
affected  our  habits  of  seeing,  still  more  has 
he  affected  our  notions  about  what  we  see. 
And  that  is  why  anyone  who  proposes  to 
give  an  account  of  the  minds  that  have 
influenced  our  age,  the  minds  of  Freud 
and  Einstein,  of  Marx  and  Pareto,  will 
have  to  explore  the  mind  of  Picasso. 


None  So  Blind 

By  Andre  Lhote 

Translated  from  the  Nouvelle  Revue  Franfaise,  Paris 

1  WISH  the  men  of  letters  and  the  pro- 
fessional thinkers  who  like  to  talk  about 
painting  would  enlighten  me  upon  one 
exciting  subject,  which  is  beyond  my 
understanding.  The  subject  in  question  is 
Claude  Monet,  the  dismaying  exhibition 
of  whose  paintings  is  at  present  taking 
the  place  of  Picasso's  at  Paul  Rosenberg's. 

As  soon  as  any  three  of  Monet's  can- 
vases are  assembled,  you  feel  the  same 
boredom  that  you  have  experienced  before 
such  paintings  as  those  of  the  Thames,  of 
the  water  lilies,  of  the  Rouen  Cathedral, 
and  of  the  hayricks:  two  of  the  three 
leave  you  indifferent,  and  the  extraordi- 
nary qualities  of  the  third  make  your  dis- 
appointment seem  cruel  and  inexplicable. 

If  I  were  to  obey  my  usual  impulse,  I 
should  say:  'All  this  is  because  Monet  had 
no  brains.  All  he  had  was  a  hand,  or, 
rather,  an  eye  commanding  an  extraordi- 
narily nimble  hand.  He  is  just  the  type  of 
painter  the  poets  and  novelists  in  general 
like  to  imagine — they  who  are  so  jealous 
of  their  intellectual  prerogatives  that  it 
hurts  them  to  see  them  bestowed  upon  a 
mere  artisan.  Monet  shows  clearer  than 
anybody  else  that  the  most  prodigious 
gifts  may  come  to  nothing  if  a  philosophi- 
cal mind  does  not  go  with  them.* 

That  is  what  I  should  write  if  I  were  to 
obey  my  first  impulse.  But  I  could  prob- 
ably express  myself  to  better  purpose. 
The  genius  whose  discoveries  have  be- 
gotten a  century  of  painting — and  what  a 
century! — has  a  right  to  more  thoughtful 
and  generous  comment.  You  feel  that  you 
are  being  guilty  and  ungrateful  if  you 
yawn  before  the  works  of  a  man  without 
whom  there  would  have  been  no  Cezanne, 
no  Renoir,  no  Seurat,  not  even  Gauguin, 
in  the  form  in  which  we  know  them  today 
— not  to  mention  the  fauves,  Matisse 
and  Bonnard. 

As  it  happens,  a  canvas  by  the  last 


193^ 


LETTERS  AND  THE  ARTS 


\SZ^\ 


mentioned  painter  can  now  be  seen  on 
show  in  the  Bernheim  Jeune  Galleries — a 
painting  in  tones  which  are  the  most  diffi- 
cult to  handle:  cadmiums  and  violets.  It  is 
a  dazzling  canvas,  full  of  realism  (it  seems, 
of  the  most  direct  and  facile  realism:  a 
great  splash  of  sunlight  falling  on  a  table 
standing  out  of  doors,  a  young  woman 
sitting  at  it,  doing  some  indeterminate 
kind  of  needlework)  and  poetry — a  per- 
fect, admirable  painting.  In  this  marvel, 
there  is  not  a  single  conjunction  of  tones 
that  was  not  foreseen  and  predetermined 
in  Claude  Monet's  experience.  And  yet 
the  Bonnard  enchanted  and  the  Monets 
bored  me.  Is  there  not  something  moving, 
something  to  think  about,  in  this  downfall 
of  an  idol  after  its  prodigious  reign? 

Of  course,  I  grant  that  every  genius,  if 
he  is  a  painter,  cannot  grow  otherwise 
than  by  a  profoundly  sensual,  almost  ani- 
mal, process:  that  of  choosing,  from  the 
symphony  of  natural  subjects  around 
him,  one,  a  predominating  element  to 
which  he  pays  the  most  attention,  while 
merely  indicating  the  others.  I  can  con- 
ceive that  the  wholly  physical  act  through 
which  Monet  perceived  the  subtlest  color 
values,  ignoring  all  solid  form  (to  such  a 
degree  that  he  would  disintegrate  archi- 
tectural structures  of  London  and  Rouen 
and  impart  to  them  a  kind  of  celestial  un- 
substantiality) — that  this  process  was  an 
exhaustive,  tyrannical  and  intolerant  one. 
I  even  concede  that  no  set  of  senses  in  this 
world  could  assimilate  with  equal  inten- 
sity both  the  substance  and  the  impression 
of  any  given  object,  that  the  prism  and  the 
compass  are  irreconcilable  foes  (though  at 
one  time  Seurat  brought  them,  miracu- 
lously, together).  But  what  I  cannot 
possibly  understand  is  that  this  powerful 
recording  machine  which  was  Monet 
should  consistently  have  recorded  only 
the  least  plastic,  the  least  ambitious,  the 
least  human  spectacles,  passing  anticli- 
mactically  from  the  Vetheuil  hills  to  the 
hayricks  huddled  in  the  misty  valleys, 
from  the  ridiculous  huts  on  the  snowy 
mountainside  to  the  reflections  glimpsed 


in  slumbering  waters  among  shapeless 
bunches  of  water  lilies. 

If  it  is  only  a  question  of  accurate 
stenciling — a  superior  kind,  to  be  sure,  in 
which  there  is  a  natural  place  for  all  the 
poetic  thrills — why  should  the  pattern 
chosen  be  the  most  inhuman,  the  least 
universal.?  In  his  wanderings  from  the 
Manche  to  the  Mediterranean  this  man 
had  come  across  perfect  landscapes,  where 
villages,  rivers,  woody  groves,  flocks, 
peasants,  mountains  and  clouds  combined 
to  create  an  absolute,  closed,  complete,  re- 
capitulatory universe — a  universe  which, 
like  that  of  the  two  great  landscape  paint- 
ers Breughel  and  Poussin,  recalls  all  pos- 
sible fatherlands,  all  possible  human 
suff^erings  and  joys.  And  yet  this  painter, 
by  reason  of  his  marvelous  eye  and  hand 
the  greatest  of  the  century,  disdained  these 
lovely  pages,  which  were  already  written 
and  only  needed  to  be  copied  before  being 
put  into  museums  for  all  eternity:  he  di- 
rected his  thoughtless  though  determined 
steps  to  the  Giverny  Lake,  which  accord- 
ingly became  the  witness  of  the  terrible, 
and  self-imposed,  death  of  the  artist  in 
him.  What  can  be  the  meaning  of  this 
voluntary  artistic  death,  this  lamentable 
rejection  of  all  lyricism  and  greatness? 
Is  it  possible  that  great  inventors  exhaust 
their  talents  in  the  creation  of  a  new  per- 
spective, leaving  to  others  the  task  of 
utilizing  their  discoveries?  Can  our  era 
produce  only  mutilated  geniuses  ? 

The  question  stands  before  us.  Let  writ- 
ers who  are  aware  of  the  mystery  of 
graphic  representation  help  me  to  shed 
some  light  upon  it. 

Cezanne  at  the  Orangerie 

By  Jacques  Mathey 

Translated  from  the  Crapouillot,  Paris 

IT  SEEMS  strange  that  Cezanne  was  not 
understood  until  his  declining  days,  but  it 
is  perhaps  even  stranger  that  today  he  is 
understood  by  everybody.  It  is  true  that 
in  the  museum,  among  the  canvases  of  his 


[536] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


contemporaries,  the  yellow  and  slate- 
colored  mosaics  of  his  famous  apples  and 
the  grand  rose-  and  blue-colored  contours 
of  his  Moni  Sainte-Victoire  impress  us 
with  their  novelty;  and  our  present-day 
public,  absorbed  as  it  is  with  the  person- 
ality of  the  painter,  tends  to  neglect  the 
universal  meaning  of  his  language. 

If  the  timid,  arrogant,  and  sulky  bour- 
geois from  Aix,  who  was  so  downcast 
at  not  being  received  at  the  Salon  de 
Bouguereau,  but  so  determined  not  to 
'let  it  get  him,'  has  discovered  a  hitherto 
unknown  way  of  expressing  nature,  still 
his  work  lacks  that  human  quality,  that, 
in  a  sense,  literary  value  which  enriches 
the  work  of  such  geniuses  of  painting  as 
Michelangelo  or  Delacroix.  The  expression 
of  a  face,  the  substance  of  a  tree  do  not 
interest  Cezanne.  In  this  he  is  at  opposite 
poles  from  the  omniscience  of  a  da  Vinci 
and  the  masters  of  the  Renaissance.  At 
times  his  failures  and  shortcomings  are 
such  that,  except  for  painters  and  col- 
lectors, the  general  public  has  difficulty  in 
enjoying  his  work. 

The  acquaintances  who  posed  for  him, 
and  from  whom  he  demanded  absolute 
immobility  and  silence  for  interminable 
sittings,  have  drooping  hands  and  mouths: 
their  opaque  eyes  lack  that  spot  of  light, 
that  'open  window'  through  which,  in 
Lenain  and  Latour,  we  glimpse  the  spirit 
within.  Completely  absorbed  in  his  color 
researches,  he  paints  his  characters  as  he 
would  paint  a  log.  His  Gustave  Geofroy  is 
dull,  his  Card  Players  fixed  upon  their 
cards  for  all  eternity,  and  his  Jeune 
Italienne^  which  has  a  Veronese-like  move- 
ment, is  a  surprising  exception.  We  have 
here  the  spectacle  of  the  great  instinct  of  a 
pure  painter  served  by  an  intelligence 
equipped  with  blinders. 

In  his  youth  Cezanne  was  attracted  by 
Courbet  and  Manet;  his  still  lives,  painted 
in  a  black  Spanish  mood,  overflow  with 
brimming  temperament.  One  may  say 
that  this  touch  was  as  yet  unknown  in 
French  painting.  Then  he  followed  Pis- 
sarro's  impressionism.  The  latter's  spots  of 


color  become  under  Cezanne's  brush 
square  strokes  which  are  applied  on  top 
of  one  another  and  give  the  impression 
of  beautiful  enamel.  The  Maison  du 
Pendu  brims  over  with  sunny  potency. 
Back  at  Aix,  and  isolated  from  the  world, 
he  plunges  into  an  exhausting  pursuit:  he 
has  the  capacity  of  achieving  greatness, 
but,  first  and  foremost,  he  devotes  himself 
to  a  search  for  'light  and  logic'  During 
his  interminable  sittings,  every  brush 
stroke  is  the  result  of  long  reflection.  He 
is  full  of  theories.  He  no  longer  sees  lines 
as  anything  but  conjunctions  of  colored 
spots.  For  that  reason  his  drawings  are 
made  of  broken  lines,  of  minute,  tentative 
strokes.  'The  contours  elude  me,'  he  says. 
He  writes  to  the  painter  Bernard:  'The 
color  sensations  prevent  me  from  following 
the  contours  of  the  object  when  the  points 
of  contact  are  tenuous  and  delicate:  the 
result  is  that  my  picture  is  incomplete 
.  .  .  The  planes  topple  one  on  top  of  the 
other;  I  am  forced  to  outline  my  contours 
with  black — a  fault  which  I  must  fight 
with  all  my  strength.' 

The  portrait  of  VoUard,  a  total  failure, 
is  a  good  example  of  the  master's  sad 
struggle.  It  took  one-hundred-and-ten 
sittings,  and  still  Cezanne  was  pleased  only 
with  the  rendering  of  the  shirt. 

His  work  has  been  compared  to  that  of 
El  Greco,  whose  colors  are  so  unusual. 
El  Greco's  art  is  touched  with  madness, 
but  his  technique  is  that  of  a  complete 
painter.  He  has  the  ease  of  the  great — 
because  a  great  spirit  guides  his  hand; 
his  distortions  are  imposed  by  logic;  he 
stirs  us  as  much  as  Cezanne  does,  but 
reaches  the  more  distant  regions  of  the 
heart. 

Cezanne  had  an  enormous  influence  on 
the  painters  of  the  last  thirty  years — at 
times  a  good  influence,  but  bad  for  those 
who  followed  it  without  discernment. 
Have  I  insisted  too  much  upon  his  im- 
perfections? I  see  that  I  have  not  yet 
praised  the  miracles  that  have  come  from 
his  brush;  but  then  you  can  find  his  praises 
everywhere. 


BOOKS   ABROAD 


The  Wrong  End  of  the  Stick 

Left  Wings  Over  Europe.  By  Wyndham 

Lewis.  London:  Jonathan  Cape.  1936. 

(Harold  Nicolson  in  the  Daily  'Telegraph,  London) 

T  HAVE  often  wonBered  why  the  British 
public  (so  patient  and  so  level-headed 
in  most  of  the  problems  of  life)  should  be 
both  gullible  and  impulsive  in  regard  to 
foreign  affairs.  In  internal  matters  they 
instinctively  search  for  the  truth  (and 
find  it)  at  a  middle  point  between  the  ex- 
tremes of  partisan  opinion.  They  grasp  the 
stick  firmly  by  its  center,  and  the  name  of 
that  center  is  'average  common  sense.' 
In  dealing  with  foreign  affairs  they  dis- 
card common  sense;  on  almost  every  occa- 
sion they  get  hold  of  the  stick  by  its  wrong 
end.  This  nervous  habit  on  their  part  is 
much  encouraged  by  some  of  our  in- 
tellectuals. 

Mr.  Wyndham  Lewis,  in  spite  of  the 
abundant  energy  of  his  mind,  is  an  in- 
tellectual. He  is,  moreover,  a  person  who 
dislikes  sentimentalism  and  honestly  de- 
sires to  induce  his  countrymen  to  think 
less  incorrectly.  The  fact  that  he  has  an 
emotional  bias  in  favor  of  Hitler  and 
Mussolini  does  not  detract  from  the  value 
of  his  judgments;  it  provides  him  with  a 
point  of  view.  What  is  so  embarrassing 
about  Mr.  Lewis  is  his  lack  of  even  aver- 
age trustfulness;  he  is  quite  determined  to 
see  and  to  suggest  mysteries  where  no 
mysteries  exist;  he  routs  after  the  hidden 
hand  even  as  the  pigs  of  Perigord  (if  he 
will  forgive  me  the  analogy)  search  pas- 
sionately for  truffles:  with  the  result  that 
he  not  only  fails  to  see  the  wood  for  the 
trees  but  that,  in  his  passionate  subter- 
ranean burrowings,  he  ignores  the  trees 
themse'ves. 

Five  years  ago  he  wrote  a  book  about 
Hitler  which,  although  interesting  and  full 
of  information,  was  unwise.  Today  he 
publishes    a   study   of  European  affairs 


which,  although  breathlessly  provocative, 
is  equally  liable  to  give  the  ordinary  reader 
an  inaccurate  impression.  His  book  is 
called  Left  Wings  over  Europe. 

Mr.  Lewis's  theory,  if  I  interpret  it  cor- 
rectly, is  as  follows.  The  British  public, 
since  the  war,  have  become  internationally 
minded.  They  imagine,  in  their  innocence, 
that  internationalism,  as  symbolized  by 
the  League  of  Nations  and  Collective 
Security,  means  peace.  They  are  mis- 
guided in  this  assumption.  The  League  of 
Nations,  if  I  understand  Mr.  Lewis  rightly, 
is  a  centralized,  all-powerful  internation- 
alist oligarchy  which  is  at  present  being 
used  by  Mr.  Litvinov  in  order  to  make 
Europe  safe  for  Communism.  The  British 
public  and  their  Government,  in  abandon- 
ing the  old  theory  of  decentralized  sover- 
eign States,  are  losing  control  of  their 
own  destinies.  Unless  we  at  once  repudiate 
internationalism,  we  shall  be  led  by  Mos- 
cow and  Geneva  to  encircle  Germany  and 
Italy  and  thus  to  provoke  a  second 
European  war. 

Now  this,  as  I  said,  is  a  point  of  view. 
As  a  corrective  to  vague  optimism  it  may 
even  be  a  suggestive  point  of  view.  But  if 
such  an  argument  is  to  convince  any 
reasonable  person  it  should  be  handled 
calmly,  persuasively  and  simply.  Mr. 
Lewis  is  never  calm;  he  is  vociferous  rather 
than  persuasive;  and  the  intricacy  of  his 
reasoning  will  entangle  even  the  most  alert 
and  patient  reader.  I  cannot  understand, 
moreover,  what  type  of  audience  Mr. 
Lewis  has  in  mind.  The  ordinary  reader 
would  be  lost  from  the  outset  in  the  cata- 
ract of  his  insinuations;  the  informed 
reader  will  observe  from  the  outset  that 
many  of  these  insinuations  are  fantas- 
tically untrue.  His  knowledge  will  alarm 
the  amateur,  whereas  the  expert  will  be 
alienated  by  his  ignorance.  Mr.  Lewis,  to 
that  extent,  falls  resoundingly  between 
two  stools. 


[538] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


The  fundamental  error  which  Mr.  Lewis 
commits  is  that  he  under-estimates  the 
part  played  by  'principle'  in  foreign  policy 
and  over-estimates  the  part  played  by 
'intention.'  It  seems  never  to  occur  to 
him,  for  instance,  that  the  sanctity  of 
international  treaties  is  a  'principle'  and 
that  in  certain  circumstances  this  principle 
determines  policy.  In  thus  ignoring  one  of 
the  main  causes  of  policy  he  concentrates 
too  exclusively  upon  its  results;  and  since 
the  results  of  policy  are  by  themselves 
often  inexplicable,  he  seeks  for  such  ex- 
planations in  hidden  motives  or  intentions. 

Let  me  take  an  instance  of  this  strange 
process  of  reasoning.  Mr.  Lewis  examines 
the  Abyssinian  question.  He  starts  by 
making  the  flesh  creep.  'We  have,'  he 
writes,  'undoubtedly  entered  a  very  dark 
epoch  in  the  history  of  international  di- 
plomacy. Abyssinia  is  not  the  only 
mystery.'  He  then  proceeds  to  find  a 
'key*  to  the  mystery.  Is  it  oil?  Is  it  Lake 
Tana.?  Is  it  the  Eastern  Mediterranean? 
He  decides  that  it  is  none  of  these  things. 
Is  it  principle?  'The  purely  moralistic 
aspect  of  the  dispute,'  he  writes,  *.  .  . 
can  be  dismissed  from  our  minds.'  Is  it 
national  egoism  in  any  form?  Again  Mr. 
Lewis  answers  in  the  negative.  'The 
British  Government  may,'  he  writes,  'be 
acquitted  absolutely  of  having  had  in 
mind  the  selfish  (the  national)  interest  of 
England.'  What,  then,  is  the  key  to  the 
mystery?  Mr.  Lewis  is  determined  to 
'tear  aside  the  veil.'  And  what,  when  he 
has  rent  this  covering,  is  his  surprising 
disclosure?  It  is  that  our  Abyssinian 
policy  was  'a  dress  rehearsal  for  the 
world  war;'  in  other  words,  we  were 
delivering  a  preliminary  attack  on  Hitler 
through  Rome. 

This  is  an  admirable  example  of  the 
false  conclusions  which  even  honest  and 
intelligent  people  can  reach  when  they 
search  for  the  recondite.  There  is  in  fact 
no  'mystery'  about  our  Abyssinian  policy 
or  its  failure.  We  are  a  pacifist  but  very 
vulnerable  Empire  having  no  desire  for 
aggression  but  deeply  preoccupied  with 


defense.  We  believed  that  under  the 
League  of  Nations  system  we  could 
achieve  collective  security  without  placing 
too  great  a  burden  in  terms  of  armament 
and  self-sacrifice  upon  our  own  people. 
We  wished,  in  other  words,  to  establish 
the  rule  of  law  as  embodied  in  the  Cov- 
enant. That  Covenant  was  flagrantly 
defied  by  Italy,  and  we  endeavored  to 
enforce  it.  We  failed  to  do  so,  partly  owing 
to  our  own  aerial  and  naval  weakness, 
partly  owing  to  French  hesitations,  but 
mainly  owing  to  the  unexpectedly  rapid 
success  of  the  Italian  armies.  Had  we  suc- 
ceeded, the  authority  of  the  League  would 
have  been  much  enhanced  and  to  that 
extent  it  could  have  acted  as  a  deterrent  to 
all  aggression,  including  the  possible 
aggression  of  Germany.  As  we  failed,  we 
must  take  stock  of  the  whole  situation 
and  revise  our  bases  of  security.  Surely 
there  can  be  no  'mystery'  in  so  simple  a 
process  of  trial  and  error? 

Mr.  Lewis,  none  the  less,  is  convinced 
that  Mr.  Baldwin  is  'darkly  conspiring 
with  France  and  Russia'  against  poor, 
weak,  innocent  Germany.  I  should  ask 
him  this  question:  'Is  there  anything 
which  Germany  possesses  which  any 
other  Power  desires  to  take  from  her?' 
And  this  question:  'Is  there  anything 
which  other  Powers  possess  which  Ger- 
many today  wishes  to  acquire?'  The 
answer  to  the  first  question  must  be 
'No,'  and  to  the  second  question  'Yes.' 
Mr.  Lewis  himself  exludes  from  our  argu- 
ment any  'moralistic'  motives  such  as  fair 
treatment  or  conciliation.  Therefore,  why 
should  he  seek  for  a  'conspiracy'  in  the 
perfectly  natural  (although  perhaps  un- 
civilized) desire  of  the  defensive  countries 
to  protect  thernselves  against  the  aggres- 
sive countries? 

Mr.  Lewis,  in  this  provocative  book, 
rushes  about  breathlessly  dragging  red 
herrings  across  the  path  of  reason.  But  if 
we  are  to  reach  enlightenment,  we  must 
avoid  grubbing  in  the  dark  for  mysteries. 
The  simple  and  obvious  elements  of  our 
problem    are    in    themselves    formidable 


/pjd 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[539] 


enough.  Let  us  not  complicate  the  great 
task  of  authority,  conciliation,  and  order 
by  seeking  for  mysteries  or  hidden  hands. 

Race,  Spirit  and  Soul 

Rasse,  Geist  und  Seele.  Von  Br.  phil.  et 
med.  Lothar  Gottlieb  Tirala.  Munich: 
T.  F.  Lehmanns  Verlag.  1936. 

(Aldous  Huxley  in  the  New  Statesman  and 
Nation,  London) 

TT  IS  easy  to  laugh  at  Nazi  books  about 

the  Nordic  race.  Indeed  it  is  often  im- 
possible not  to  laugh;  for  they  contain 
passages  funnier  than  anything  that  has 
appeared  in  German  since  Wilhelm  Busch 
wrote  Die  fromme  Helene.  It  is  easy,  I 
repeat,  to  laugh.  It  is  also  easy  to  yawn. 
For,  alas!  all  is  not  comedy  in  this  volu- 
minous literature.  Much  of  it,  on  the 
contrary,  is  intolerably  tedious.  The 
ludicrous  passages  are  like  the  longed-for 
raisins  in  a  vast  suet  pudding  of  pseudo- 
philosophic  'profundity.'  But,  comic 
or  dull,  these  Nazi  books  on  race  deserve 
to  be  taken  most  seriously  and  read  with 
scrupulous  care.  They  are  probably  the 
most  dangerously  significant  books  being 
written  at  the  present  time. 

Professor  Tirala's  Rasse,  Geist  und 
Seele  is  a  recent  specimen  of  this  literature. 
Compared  with  some  which  have  appeared 
in  recent  years,  the  book  is  almost  sober. 
The  Professor  expresses  himself,  if  not 
exactly  like  a  man  of  science,  at  least 
like  a  not  too  intemperate  theologian. 
By  not  protesting  too  extravagantly 
much  he  increases  the  persuasiveness  of 
what  he  says. 

Here  is  the  grand  biological  generaliza- 
tion on  which  the  whole  argument  of  his 
book,  and  indeed  the  whole  Nazi  theory  of 
race,  is  based.  It  is  'a  well-grounded  view 
that  it  is  highly  probable  that  different 
human  races  originated  independently  of 
one  another  and  that  they  evolved  out  of 
different  species  of  ape-men.  The  so-called 
main  races  of  mankind  are  not  races,  but 
species.' 

Unfortunately,  these  species  have  failed 


to  keep  themselves  pure.  But  Nature,  it 
would  seem,  always  'makes  an  effort, 
after  the  mixing  of  two  races,  to  revert  to 
the  dominant  tendencies  of  each.'  She  also 
does  her  best  to  eliminate  all  those  indi- 
viduals who  lack  racial  unity.  Hence  'the 
strong  tendency  to  suicide  of  Jewish- 
Aryan  bastards.'  (One  might  have  sup- 
posed that,  in  modern  Germany,  there 
were  other,  less  mystical  reasons  for  this 
idiosyncrasy.)  'The  purity  of  a  people's 
race  must  not  be  sought  only  in  the  past; 
it  is  also  a  task  for  the  future.'  It  is  the 
duty  of  a  race-conscious  Government  to 
get  rid  of  the  racial  impurities  existing 
among  its  subjects. 

How  the  process  of  race  purification 
should  be  carried  out  is  not  described  in 
any  detail.  Animal  breeders  know  of  only 
one  way  of  purifying  a  mixed  race  (and 
Professor  Tirala  sadly  admits  that  the 
Nordic  race  is  mixed).  Brothers  and  sisters 
must  be  mated.  Those  pairs  possessing 
latent  defects  or  traces  of  alien  blood  will 
tend  to  produce  children  of  defective  or 
alien  type.  Such  children  must  either  be 
killed  or  sterilized  and  only  those  who 
seem  to  belong  to  the  pure  stock  allowed 
to  propagate.  If  the  Germans  really  want 
to  become  pure  Nordics,  they  must  system- 
atically practice  incest,  infanticide  and 
castration.  In  ten  or  twenty  generations 
they  should  see  some  interesting  results. 

From  the  general  and  biological  we  pass 
to  the  particular  and  the  sociological. 
Speaking  of  crime.  Professor  Tirala  affirms 
that  'seventy  per  cent  of  all  punished 
criminals  are  incapable  of  improvement.' 
This  is  due  to  the  fact  that  most  criminals 
belong  to  non-Nordic  stocks.  'The  more 
purely  Teutonic  {reinrassig-germanisch) 
a  stock,  the  rarer  the  criminal.'  (It  is 
regrettable  that  the  author  should  give  no 
definition  of  crime.  Among  peoples  of 
reinrassig-germanisch  descent  the  mur- 
dering of  political  rivals  and  the  system- 
atic oppression  of  defenseless  minorities 
are  presumably  non-criminal  activities.) 

From  crime  we  pass  to  law.  'Equal 
rights  and  equal  views  of  the  law  exist 


[54o] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


just  as  little  as  do  equal  peoples  and 
races.'  Law  is  defined  as  'the  inborn  rule 
of  the  ordered  attitude  of  the  members  of 
a  people  {V oiks genos sen)  towards  one  an- 
other and  towards  their  own  State.' 

'In  this  definition,'  writes  Professor 
Tirala,  'I  have  expressly  avoided  all 
thought  of  international  law  and  legal 
relations  with  foreigners;  for  by  deriva- 
tion law  is  valid  only  among  the  members 
of  a  people.  It  is  only  later  that  the  law  of 
foreigners  and  of  nations  develops.  Law 
has  a  high  biological  duty,  a  purpose 
which  lies  beyond  the  law  itself;  and  this 
highest  purpose  is  the  strengthening  of 
the  people  and  of  everything  that  will 
advance  its  life.'  The  Professor  concludes 
his  discussion  of  law  with  these  words: 
'We  shall  reject  the  law  of  international 
chaos  and  win  again  race-biological, 
deepened,  German-Teutonic  law  {das  ras- 
senbiologisch  vertiefte  deutscb-germanische 
Recht): 

In  the  section  on  science  Professor 
Tirala  speaks  of  the  'remarkable  attempt 
of  Einstein  and  his  Viennese  Circle  to 
destroy  the  clarity  of  Nordic  thought  by  a 
surfeit  of  mathematics  and  to  undermine 
the  simple  foundations  of  our  thought 
...  I  need  hardly  say  that  this  attempt 
will  come  to  nothing;  for  not  a  single 
significant  scientific  discovery  has  come 
from  this  Circle.'  As  Einstein's  Viennese 
Circle  is  composed  of  Jews,  this  is  only 
natural.  For  'science  is  a  mode  of  thought 
invented  and  built  up  by  men  of  Nordic 
race.' 

WE  COME  next  to  philosophy.  'Liberal- 
istic  thinkers'  used  to  try  to  persuade  us 
'that  philosophy,  ethics,  religion  and 
Weltanschauung  were  the  product  of 
universal  reason.  This  is  a  great  and 
decisive  error;  for  it  supposes  that  i.  all 
men  are  equal  in  structure  and  in  the 
constitution  of  their  reason  and  2.  that 
Weltanschauung  derives  from  understand- 
ing and  reason.'  Whereas  'the  voice  of 
blood  and  race  operates  down  to  the  last 
refinements  of  thought  and  exercises  a 


decisive    influence    on    the    direction    of 
thought.' 

Professor  Tirala's  ethic,  like  that  of  all 
extreme  nationalists  and  race-ists,  is  based 
on  the  axiom  that  the  real  is  the  ideal — 
that  what  ought  to  be  is  merely  that 
which  is,  only  a  bit  more  so.  Passions  and 
prejudices  notoriously  prevent  men  from 
thinking  clearly  and  acting  justly.  For  the 
last  two  or  three  thousand  years  moralists 
and  philosophers  have  told  us  that  we 
ought  to  make  efforts  to  overcome  our 
passions  and  discount  our  prejudices. 
Modern  nationalists  are  of  an  opposite 
opinion.  The  attempt  to  replace  passion 
and  prejudice  by  reason  is  absurd  and 
even  wicked;  for  each  nation's  passions  and 
prejudices  are  in  reality  its  own  peculiar 
brand  of  reason.  In  this  matter  all  nation- 
alists are  followers  of  Hegel,  whose  doc- 
trine that  the  historical  is  the  rational  is  (as 
Dr.  Albert  Schweitzer  insisted  in  last 
year's  Hibbert  Lectures)  completely  sub- 
versive of  any  system  of  comprehensive 
or  comprehensible  ethics. 

Dr.  Goebbels  is  content  to  say  that  'a 
Jew  for  me  is  an  object  of  physical  disgust. 
Christ  cannot  possibly  have  been  a  Jew. 
I  do  not  have  to  prove  that  scientifically. 
It  is  a  fact.'  Officially,  however,  the  Nazi 
transvaluation  of  ethical  and  social  values 
is  supposed  to  rest  on  something  solider 
than  a  visceral  intuition.  Science,  it  is 
alleged,  demonstrates  the  primary  im- 
portance of  'blood'  and  can  prove  the 
superiority  of  the  Nordic  race.  Indirectly, 
therefore,  science  justifies  Nordic  politi- 
cians in  their  persecution  of- Jews  and 
affirms  that  Nordic  philosophers  are  right 
to  think  with  their  guts  rather  than  with 
their  intellect.  Nazism  is  a  religion  that 
purports  to  be  based  on  scientifically 
established  facts. 

This  being  so,  it  is  the  business  of  scien- 
tists to  examine  its  claims.  And  in  fact 
many  individual  scientists  have  under- 
taken such  an  examination.  But  indi- 
viduals, however  distinguished,  can  be 
ignored.  Besides,  the  questions  raised  by 
Nazi  claims  are  so  numerous  that  no  single 


193^ 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[541] 


man  can  adequately  deal  with  all  of  them. 
The  problem  of  race  is  as  much  a  problem 
for  historians  and  psychologists  as  for 
geneticists.  Anything  like  a  definite  and 
authoritative  solution  of  it  must  be  co- 
operative. 

Also,  to  carry  conviction,  it  should  be 
official  and  international.  The  race  theory 
claims  to  be  scientific.  It  is  surely,  then, 
the  business  of  science,  as  organized  in 
the  universities,  academies  and  learned 
societies  of  the  civilized  world,  to  investi- 
gate this  claim. 

The  Master  of  Balliol 
Turns  the  Tables 

From  Hegel  to  Marx.  By  Sidney  Hook. 
London:  Gollancz.  1936. 

(A.  D.  Lindsay  in  the  Observer,  London) 

PROFESSOR  Sidney  Hook  is  the  author 
of  a  book,  'Toward  the  Understanding 
of  Karl  Marx,  which,  as  the  quotation 
from  Professor  Laski  printed  on  the 
jacket  of  this  volume  quite  rightly  says, 
is  the  best  introduction  of  Marxism  now 
available  in  English. 

That  is  one  reason  for  welcoming  an- 
other book  on  Marx  by  the  same  author. 
Further,  this  new  book  sets  out  to  do 
something  that  badly  wanted  doing — to 
show  the  steps  by  which  Marx,  from  being 
a  Hegelian,  became  a  Marxian,  and,  in  his 
own  words,  turned  the  philosophy  of 
Hegel  '  right  side  up.' 

It  is  an  odd  story,  not  at  all  exclusively 
concerned  with  Socialism.  The  Hegelian 
Left  engaged  the  orthodoxy  of  Hegel  all 
along  the  line.  Who  would  expect  to  find 
in  a  book  on  Marx  an  account  of  the 
theories  of  the  'Tubingen'  school  on  the 
synoptic  problem,  or  of  Strauss's  Life  of 
Jesus?  Professor  Hook  has  read  all  these 
people,  Strauss,  Bauer,  Ruge,  Stirner, 
Hess,  and  Feuerbach,  and  Marx's  con- 
tinuing controversy  with  them.  He  shows 
how  Marxism  was  gradually  shaped  in 
this  controversy  as  Marx  dealt  faithfully 
with  '  right  hand  defections  and  left  hand 


extremes.'  That  undoubtedly  does  help 
to  the  understanding  of  Marxism. 

Nevertheless,  I  found  the  book  disap- 
pointing. That  is  not  altogether  Professor 
Hook's  fault.  The  more  I  read  about  them 
the  more  I  get  the  impression  that  these 
Hegelians  of  the  Left  did  not  really,  as 
thinkers,  amount  to  much.  No  doubt,  if 
you  start  by  assuming  that  the  philosophy 
of  Karl  Marx  was  the  last  word  of  human 
wisdom,  then  those  who  contributed  to 
producing  that  last  word  are  of  great 
importance.  You  will  then  rewrite  the 
history  of  philosophy  and  put  the  Hegel- 
ians of  the  Left  in  the  place  now  occupied 
by  Schopenhauer. 

I  may  as  well  confess  that  though  I 
think  that  Karl  Marx  was  a  great  man,  I 
do  not  think  he  was  a  great  philosopher. 
I  can't  think,  after  reading  Professor 
Hook,  that  Marx  was  really  interested  in 
philosophic  questions  at  all,  except  in  so 
far  as  they  were  good  or  bad  sticks  with 
which  to  beat  bourgeois  dogs.  In  the  sad 
certainty  of  being  accused  of  the  unspeak- 
able crime  of  'patronizing  Karl  Marx,'  I 
am  forced  to  suspect,  as  a  result  of  reading 
Professor  Hook,  that  these  Hegelians  of 
the  Left,  including  Karl  Marx,  did  not 
understand  Hegel.  They  understood  well 
enough  that  he  was  a  disgraceful  old  re- 
actionary and  that  he  had  to  be  fought, 
and  they  tried  with  considerable  success 
to  fight  him  with  his  own  weapons.  But 
that  is  not  the  same  thing  as  understand- 
ing his  philosophy. 

But  my  real  quarrel  with  Professor 
Hook  goes  deeper  than  a  quarrel  about 
the  intrinsic  importance  of  those  people. 
He  says  quite  rightly  that  we  can  only 
understand  why  Karl  Marx  said  some  of 
the  things  he  does  say  when  we  under- 
stand whom  he  was  fighting  and  why  he 
was  fighting  them.  He  explains  very  in- 
terestingly that  Marx's  criterion  for  a 
philosophy  which  he  was  prepared  to 
accept  was  that  it  must  be  a  genuinely 
revolutionary  doctrine.  'The  purpose  of 
his  own  social  theories  was  to  provide  that 
knowledge    of   social    tendencies    which 


[542] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


would  most  effectively  liberate  revolu- 
tionary action.'  Marx  seems  all  through 
to  have  asked  himself  what  must  men 
believe  if  they  are  going  to  be  prepared  to 
make  a  revolution.  He  wanted  a  doctrine 
simple,  downright,  and  without  qualifica- 
tions. 

I  am  sure  that  historically  Professor 
Hook  is  quite  right  in  showing  why  on 
this  general  principle  Marx  had  no  use 
for  Kant,  why  he  had  to  turn  Hegel  upside 
down,  why  he  quarreled  with  the  various 
Hegelians  of  the  Left.  These  philosophies 
he  rejected  would  not  do  as  fighting  creeds 
for  the  proletariat. 

But  whereas  most  people  would  say 
that  this  explained  why  so  great  a  man  as 
Karl  Marx  should  fall  into  such  error. 
Professor  Hook  seems  to  hold,  and,  in- 
deed, argues  the  point,  that  the  fact  that 
this  philosophy  was  produced  under  such 
conditions  and  with  such  motives  is  a 
ground  in  itself  for  supposing  it  to  be  true. 
Most  people  would  hold  the  opposite, 
would  say  that  if  you  want  a  doctrine  to 
work  for  practical  political  purposes,  it 
must  have  a  mixture  of  error,  or  myth,  or 
propaganda  in  it.  It  must  usually,  of 
course,  have  some  support  in  reality,  but 
it  can  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  'nicely 
calculated.'  It  has  to  be  far  simpler  than 
the  facts.  But  the  Marxian  cannot  accept 
the  distinction  thus  implied  between  Marx 
as  an  apocalyptic  prophet  and  Marx  as  the 
scientific  historian  or  economist.  The 
Marxians  have  always  wanted  to  have  it 
both  ways,  to  maintain  that  Marxianism 
is  both  an  effective  revolutionary  doctrine 
and  scientific  truth.  But  they  have  to  deal, 
as  Professor  Hook  allows,  with  this  simple 
logical  difficulty.  Marx  discredited  previ- 
ous philosophies  by  maintaining  that  they 
were  the  ideological  reflection  of  social 
circumstances.  But  if  this  theory  is  uni- 
versally true,  and  the  Marxian  argument 
implies  that  it  is,  then  Marxianism  is  itself 
the  ideological  reflection  of  social  circum- 
stances and  equally  discredited.  What  is 
more  to  the  point — the  Marxian  doctrine 
that  philosophic  doctrines  are  the  ideolog- 


ical reflection  of  social  circumstances — 
is  itself  only  an  ideological  reflection 
of  social  circumstances  and  itself  discred- 
ited. 

If  the  Marxian  is  to  hold  consistently 
to  this  'ideological  reflection'  theory,  he 
must  agree  that  all  this  vast  output  of 
Marxian  controversial  literature  is  only  an 
elaborate  way  of  putting  out  the  tongue 
and  saying  'Ba!  you're  a  bourgeois,'  and 
the  only  answer  to  it  is,  obviously,  'Ba! 
You're  a  proletarian.'  As  arguments,  one 
is  as  good  as  another  because  the  whole 
point  of  the  theory  is  that  arguments  are 
not  to  be  considered  as  arguments,  only, 
I  suppose,  as  mutual  objurgations  pre- 
liminary to  fighting  in  the  manner  tradi- 
tionally ascribed  to  Chinese  warriors. 

Karl  Marx  himself,  as  Professor  Hook 
notices,  did  not  act  up  to  his  own  theory. 
He  remained  enough  of  a  philosopher  to 
argue  against  his  opponents'  theories  and 
in  defense  of  his  own  on  rational  grounds, 
by  appeal  to  history  and  reason.  But,  says 
Professor  Hook,  'the  grounds  on  which 
Marx  rejected  alternative  theories  are  not 
always  strictly  logical,  particularly  where 
a  normative  point  of  view,  that  is,  the 
affirmation  of  a  value  judgment,  is  con- 
cerned.' The  Professor  goes  on  to  explain 
that  Marx  developed  a  highly  superior 
theory  of  truth  which  'transcends  the 
coherence  and  the  correspondence  the- 
ories.' When  we  have  this  wonderful  doc- 
trine expounded  to  us,  it  appears  as  a 
form  of  higher  pragmatism,  which  says 
that  the  objective  truth  of  a  social  theory 
depends  upon  the  success  of  men  in  realiz- 
ing it.  Professor  Hook  quotes  a  thesis  of 
Marx's  in  his  controversy  with  Feuer- 
bach:  'The  question  whether  human 
thought  can  achieve  objective  truth  is  not 
a  question  of  theory  but  a  practical  ques- 
tion. In  practice  man  must  prove  the 
truth,  i.e.,  the  reality,  power,  and  this- 
sidedness  of  his  thought.  The  dispute 
concerning  the  reality  or  unreality  of 
thought — which  is  isolated  from  practice 
— is  a  purely  scholastic  question.' 

He  admits  that  Marx  did  not  work  out 


193^ 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[543] 


all  the  implications  of  this  new  theory  of 
truth,  but  he  clearly  regards  it  as  of  great 
importance,  and  he  seems  to  imply  that  it 
provides  a  higher  justification  of  Marx's 
peculiar  method. 

The  ordinary  view  of  Marx  is  that 
he  was  a  remarkable  combination  of 
scientific  intelligence  and  revolutionary 
passion,  that  he  permitted,  sometimes  de- 
liberately, his  revolutionary  passion  to 
pervert  his  scientific  mind,  and  that  we 
therefore  may  expect  to  find  a  good  deal  of 
exaggeration  and  over-simplification  in 
what  he  has  to  say.  Professor  Hook  seems 
to  hold  that,  once  we  grasp  this  new 
theory  of  the  nature  of  truth,  we  shall 
abandon  such  prejudices,  and  see  that  to 
hold  a  theory  because  it  will  be  effective 
in  action  is  in  the  highest  degree  scien- 
tific. 

I  have  done  my  best  to  understand  this 
new  revelation,  but  I  cannot  see  that  it  is 
anything  but  a  mixture  of  muddled  think- 
ing and  pretentious  nonsense.  It  builds  on 
the  fact  that  in  the  natural  sciences  you 
start  with  an  hypothesis  which  you  can 
test  in  experiment — that  is,  in  action. 
Your  theory  may  therefore  be  described 
as  directed  towards  action.  It  is  only 
proved  true  or  false  in  the  action — that  is, 
in  the  experiment.  This  is  applied  con- 
fusedly to  social  theories.  You  start  with 
a  theory,  say  about  classes,  and  seek  to 
change  the  conditions  so  as  to  make  it 
true.  But  the  basic  assumption  of  the 
scientific  process  is  that  though,  of  course, 
in  experiment  you  change  something,  you 
do  not  alter  the  facts  which  your  hypoth- 
esis declared  to  be  so-and-so.  You  seek  by 
experiment  to  prove  that  your  hypothesis 
is  and  has  always  been  true.  This  new 
doctrine  suggests  that  you  lay  down  an 
hypothesis  which  is  not  true  when  you 
make  it,  which  you  proceed  to  make  true 
by  changing  the  facts. 

It  would  appear  from  this  to  follow 
that  if,  in  order  to  produce  revolutionary 
action,  say  against  the  Jews,  you  accuse 
Jews  of  horrible  atrocities  and  thereby 
make  men  hate  them,  you  thus  scientif- 


ically prove  that  they  are  hateful;  that  if 
you  go  on,  still  in  the  interest  of  scientific 
truth,  to  torture  them  in  concentration 
camps  till  they  are  maddened  by  persecu- 
tion, that  proves  that  you  were  justified 
in  calling  them  mad.  This  is  an  old  story. 
'  Cet  animal  est  bien  mechant:  quand  on 
Fattaque,  il  se  defend.' 

I  choose  this  example  deliberately  be- 
cause it  seems  to  me  that  what  is  sauce 
for  the  Marxian  goose  is  also  sauce  for  the 
Nazi  gander,  and  that  if  Professor  Hook 
would  consider  his  theory  as  it  is  exempli- 
fied in  Hitler  rather  than  as  it  is  exempli- 
fied in  Marx,  he  would  like  it  less,  and  he 
might  be  reminded  that  in  this  present 
evil  world  lies  are  often  as  powerful  as 
truth  and  yet  remain  lies. 

When  we  confuse  realization  of  vision 
with  unveiling  of  truth  the  confusion  is 
dangerous.  For  good  visions  and  bad  vi- 
sions both  may  be  realized.  Their  value 
and  their  relation  and  truth  must  be 
tested  otherwise  than  by  our  power  of 
giving  them  effect. 

[Sidney  Hook's  From  Hegel  to  Marx  will 
be  published  in  the  United  States  by  The 
John  Day  Company,  New  Tork.] 


Mr.  Huxley  Among  the 
Philistines 

Eyeless  in  Gaza.  By  Aldous   Huxley. 
London:  Chatto  and  Windus.  ipj6. 
(John  Sparrow  in  the  Spectator,  London) 

'T^WO  things  are  remarkable  in  Mr.  Hux- 
ley's  new  book:  the  method  and  the 
moral.  The  method  is  what  first  strikes 
the  reader  with  surprise;  the  time-scheme 
is  confused  in  a  bewildering  fashion;  for 
ten  pages  we  are  in  1933,  then  for  half-a- 
dozen  in  1902;  thence  we  jump  to  1926; 
after  twenty  pages  we  find  ourselves  in 
191 2,  and  a  little  later  we  are  back  where 
we  started. 

'The  cinema,'  say  Mr.  Huxley's  pub- 
lishers, 'has  accustomed  people  to  the 
use  of  similar  methods.'  The  cinema,  it 


[544] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


is  true,  telescopes,  it  omits,  it  speeds 
time  up  and  slows  it  down,  and  gives 
a  bird's-eye  view,  as  it  were,  of  si- 
multaneous happenings — but  it  does  not 
turn  topsy-turvy  the  series  of  events  in 
time,  as  does  Mr.  Huxley  in  this  book. 
The  only  machine  that  does  that  is  the 
human  mind,  in  its  efforts  to  remember 
and  in  its  subconscious  re-creation  of  the 
past. 

Mr.  Huxley  has  not  used  a  psycholog- 
ical method  of  presentment;  he  writes  as 
an  impersonal  narrator,  recording  from 
outside  the  happening  of  events.  The  re- 
sult is  a  book  which  is  at  a  first  reading 
considerably  more  puzzling  than  The 
fFaveSy  and  irritating  as  The  fVaves  is  not, 
because  the  feature  which  causes  the  dif- 
ficulty has  no  obvious  artistic  justification. 
So  skilfully,  however,  has  Mr.  Huxley 
used  his  method  that,  as  one  reads  on,  one 
instinctively  recognizes  and  coordinates 
these  different  strata,  and  on  a  second 
reading  everything  falls  more  or  less  nat- 
urally into  its  place.  In  this  respect,  the 
book  is  a  tour  deforce:  the  thing  is  done  so 
well  that  really  it  is  almost  as  satisfactory 
as  if  it  had  not  been  done  at  all. 

The  method,  none  the  less,  has  its  ad- 
vantages. Indeed,  something  of  the  sort 
is  necessitated  by  the  absence  of  a  con- 
tinuous plot  and  by  the  nature  of  the  task 
which  Mr.  Huxley  has  set  himself.  For 
his  aim  is  not  to  tell  a  story;  it  is  to  preach 
a  sermon.  And  his  collection  of  snapshots 
of  the  pre- War  and  the  post-War  world  is 
presented  to  us  simply  in  order  to  make 
that  sermon  more  effective.  We  do  not 
feel  that  interest  which  attaches  to  events 
which  play  their  part  in  the  development 
or  the  interplay  of  character.  Mr.  Huxley 
simply  takes  a  piece  of  the  life  lived  by  his 
chief  figures  at  their  private  school  in 
1902,  cuts  it  into  slices,  and  scatters  it 
through  the  book,  interlarded  with  slices 
from  their  lives  in  1912-14,  in  1926,  in 
1933.  Each  of  these  slices  indicates  the 
squalor  of  the  treadmill  to  which  the  hero, 
Anthony  Beavis,  and  his  contemporaries 
are  condemned. 


Mr.  Huxley  is  an  adept  at  this  kind  of 
picture,  and  we  do  not  wonder  at  the  im- 
pulse which  finally  drives  Anthony  away 
from  the  London  world  made  familiar  to 
us  in  Point  Counter  Point  and  Antic  Hay^ 
to  Mexico.  It  is  in  Mexico  that  he  meets 
Dr.  Miller;  and  Dr.  Miller  is  in  some  ways 
the  most  important  figure  in  the  book.  It 
is  Dr.  Miller  who  introduces  the  moral; 
and  the  moral  is  the  other  remarkable 
thing  about  Eyeless  in  Gaza. 

Not  that  it  is  remarkable  that  a  novel 
of  Mr.  Huxley's  should  contain  a  moral; 
it  would  be  a  much  stranger  thing  if  it  did 
not.  For  Mr.  Huxley  is  at  heart  a  Puritan, 
and  in  almost  every  book  that  he  has 
written  it  has  become  more  evident  that 
his  fundamental  purpose  as  an  artist  is 
satiric.  But  his  satire  hitherto  has  been 
conveyed  mainly  by  means  of  the  reflec- 
tions of  some  detached,  some  balanced, 
intellectual,  who  does  not  commit  himself 
doctrinally  any  further  than  is  involved 
by  putting  a  record  on  the  gramophone 
and  declaring,  amid  the  hopeless  and  aim- 
less debauchery  of  his  contemporaries,  his 
faith  in  the  Seventh  Symphony. 

Now  Mr.  Huxley  has  discovered  that 
the  serene  temples  of  the  intellect,  from 
which  he  used  to  look  down  smiling,  not 
without  pity,  upon  the  blind  and  desper- 
ate struggles  of  humanity,  are  open  them- 
selves to  a  most  insidious  assault.  For 
there  has  broken  out,  as  is  well  known, 
among  the  intellectuals  of  today,  as  there 
did  among  their  mid-nineteenth  century 
predecessors,  a  serious  epidemic  of  re- 
ligious doubt.  History  is  beginning  to 
repeat  itself,  with  the  diflFerence  that  our 
intellectuals  are  discovering  that  they 
have  found,  not  lost,  their  faith.  In  Eyeless 
in  Gaza  Mr.  Huxley  for  the  first  time 
frankly  abandons  a  detached  and  intel- 
lectual standpoint:  Dr.  Miller  preaches 
the  Way  and  the  Life;  Anthony  Beavis  is 
his  evangelist.  Their  Gospel  does  not  fit 
exactly  into  the  dogmas  of  any  recognized 
religion:  it  is  compounded  of  a  little  Chris- 
tianity, a  good  deal  of  Buddhism,  no  butch- 
er's meat,  a  minimum  of  eggs,  and  Love. 


193^ 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[545] 


Love  gains,  but  force  subdues.  'That 
sallow  skin,'  says  Dr.  Miller,  'and  the 
irony,  the  scepticism,  the  what's  the  good 
of  it  all  attitude!  Negative  really.  Every- 
thing you  think  is  negative  .  .  .  How 
can  you  expect  to  think  in  anything  but  a 
negative  way,  when  you've  got  chronic 
intestinal  poisoning?'  As  for  prayer.  Dr. 
Miller  has  never  really  liked  it:  'I've  ob- 
served it  clinically,'  he  says,  'and  it  seems 
to  have  much  the  same  effect  upon  people 
as  butcher's  meat.  Prayer  makes  you 
more  yourself,  more  separate.  Just  as  a 
rumpsteak  does.'  Self  is  the  enemy,  for  it 
leads  to  hatred,  to  division,  and  to  war. 

So  Anthony  becomes  an  Active  Pacifist, 
and  we  leave  him  at  the  end  of  the  book 
(at  the  end,  according  to  the  time-series; 
according  to  the  page-series,  throughout 
it)  going  up  and  down  the  country  ad- 
dressing Dr.  Miller's  meetings,  preaching 
against  Fascism  and  Communism,  against 
hatred  and  butcher's  meat;  in  favor  of 
love,  and  compassion,  and  a  proper  diet, 
and,  above  all,  unity:  'Unity  beyond  the 
turmoil  of  separations  and  divisions. 
Goodness  beyond  the  possibility  of  evil.' 
In  these  passages  from  Mr.  Huxley's  book 
there  is  no  trace  of  irony;  no  touch  of  the 
'distaste,  the  intellectual  scorn'  which  his 
hero  reprehends,  and  it  appears  that  the 
writer  himself  is  speaking. 

It  is  in  the  moral,  therefore,  that  the 
explanation  of  the  method  is  to  be  sought. 
The  topsy-turvy  jumble  of  pictures  re- 
flects the  shapelessness,  the  aimlessness  of 
a  life  which  Dr.  Miller  has  not  sanctified 
with  purpose,  while  the  pictures  them- 
selves are  made  horrible  in  order  to  show 
the  true  nature  of  the  hell  from  which  Dr. 
Miller  offers  us  deliverance. 

Indeed,  the  horror  of  Mr.  Huxley's  de- 
scriptive passages  deserves  to  be  recorded 
as  the  third  remarkable  feature  of  the 
book.  There  is  a  serious  danger  that  Eye- 
less in  Gaza  may  fail  in  its  evangelistic 
aim  because  those  of  its  readers  who  have 
not  the  very  strongest  stomachs  will  put 
it  aside  in  disgust  before  they  realize  the 
seriousness   of  its   purpose.    'Writing   is 


dirty  work,'  as  a  distinguished  contempo- 
rary writer  has  assured  us;  and  Mr.  Hux- 
ley himself  in  this  book  reminds  us  of  the 
adage  that  a  dirty  mind  is  a  perpetual 
feast.  There  are  those  who  after  reading 
a  very  little  of  this  book  may  be  inclined 
to  exclaim  that  Mr.  Huxley  knows  his  job, 
and  that  enough  is  to  them  as  good  as  that 
particular  kind  of  feast;  for  the  glimpses 
which  Mr.  Huxley  affords,  with  that  sug- 
gestiveness  of  imagery  and  significance  of 
detail  of  which  he  is  a  master,  into  the 
private  school,  the  public  lavatory,  the 
concentration  camp,  and  into  many  a 
bedroom,  are  an  advance  (if  that  is  the 
right  word)  on  anything  that  he  has  done 
before.  But  they  are  all  in  a  good  cause, 
for  they  serve  to  point  the  more  vividly 
Dr.  Miller's  moral. 

At  the  moment,  then,  it  seems  that  Dr. 
Miller  (true  to  his  doctrine  of  unity  and 
the  avoidance  of  all  hatred)  has  persuaded 
Mr.  Huxley  that  the  best  way  to  vanquish 
the  Philistines  is  to  join  them,  and  he  and 
Mr.  Huxley  are  safe  together  in  a  region 
where  they  cannot  be  touched  by  the 
intellectual  scorn  of  Mr.  Huxley's  own 
earlier  books.  One  is  left  regretting  that 
Dr.  Miller  and  Mr.  Cardan  can  never 
meet — and  wondering  where  Dr.  Miller 
will  next  lead  the  author  of  his  being. 

[Aldous  Huxley's  Eyeless  in  Gaza  has 
been  published  in  the  United  States  by 
Harper  and  Brothers^  New  York.] 

Bread  and  Wine 

Brot    und    Wein.    By    Ignazio    Silone. 
Translated  by   Adolf  Saagers.   Zurich: 
Verlag  Oprecht.  igj6. 
(Leo  Lania  in  the  Neues  T'agebucby  Paris) 

'M'O  NOVEL,  no  poem,  no  drama  of 
value  has  penetrated  beyond  the 
Italian  borders  during  the  fourteen-year- 
old  era  of  Fascism.  Translations  from  the 
Italian  are  no  longer  in  demand.  Mari- 
netti,  exponent  of  a  childish  futurism,  and 
Pitigrilli,  the  mouthpiece  of  superficial 
boulevard  erotics,  have  taken  the  place  of 


[546] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


Gracia  Deledda.  Even  D'Annunzio  has 
become  silent  and  old  Pirandello  is  living 
on  the  remnants  of  his  former  celebrity. 

Today  the  sole  Italian  writer  of  interna- 
tional rank  is  Ignazio  Silone,  a  revolution- 
ary emigrant.  His  first  novel,  Fontemara, 
has  been  translated  into  twenty  languages 
and  has  had  a  well-deserved  success 
throughout  the  world.  Now  a  new  work 
by  Silone  has  been  published  entitled 
Bread  and  Wine. 

Bread  and  Wine  is  less  a  novel  than  a 
report,  less  the  formulation  of  a  problem 
than  a  travel  book.  An  anti-Fascist  emi- 
grant, Pietro  Spina,  returns  to  his  home- 
land after  many  years  of  exile.  Disguised 
as  a  priest,  he  lives  in  the  Abruzzi  and  in 
Rome  under  the  name  of  Don  Paolo 
Spada.  He  meets  his  childhood  compan- 
ions and  teacher  and  settles  down  in  a 
secluded,  solitary  mountain  village,  there 
to  rebuild  among  the  Cafoni^  the  poor 
peasants,  and  the  city  workers  the  shat- 
tered fragments  of  the  Socialist  party 
organization. 

Silone  tells  about  the  unbelievable  dif- 
ficulties and  dangers  of  this  illegal  work; 
he  describes  how  the  peasants,  the  offi- 
cials, the  teachers,  the  workers  and  intel- 
lectuals think  and  act.  He  lets  them  talk; 
and  from  dozens  of  individual  destinies 
and  hundreds  of  remarks  there  evolves  a 
comprehensive  and  plastic  picture  of  pres- 
ent-day Italy.  With  a  few  strokes  the 
author  delineates  men  and  situations. 
The  way  he  maintains  the  objective  tone 
of  the  report  is  brilliant,  and  his  gift  of 
observation  admirable.  Moreover  he  has 
a  sense  of  humor  all  his  own,  a  bitter  hu- 
mor which  tempers  his  scorn  and  indigna- 
tion with  a  deep  sense  of  sympathy  and 
compassion. 

Fontemara  was  more  rounded  in  com- 
position. In  the  new  novel  Silone  neglects 
the  plot.  He  does  not  build  up  his  story; 
it  is  but  the  thread  on  which  he  loosely 
strings  episodes  and  encounters.  Thus  the 
hero  remains  colorless:  his  character  does 
not  develop.  The  secondary  figures  stand 
out  much  more  vividly.  But  this  fault  is 


counter-balanced  by  the  journalistic  merits 
of  the  book.  From  first  page  to  last  one 
never  gets  the  impression  that  a  single 
detail,  a  single  conversation  has  been 
invented. 

The  highlight  of  the  work  is  the  chapter 
which  describes  the  mobilization  festivity 
in  the  small  Abruzzi  village.  Here  all 
Silone's  talents  are  found  together.  The 
report  assumes  artistic  dimensions:  a 
ghostlike  vision  of  the  superstition  and 
the  hysteria  of  masses  intoxicated  by 
propaganda.  In  their  realism,  these  pages 
remind  one  of  the  best  chapters  in  Zola's 
novels,  in  their  color  of  the  unforgettable 
pilgrimage  scenes  in  D'Annunzio's  Tri- 
umph of  Death. 

In  contrast  to  the  German  writers  who 
are  trying  to  give  creative  form  to  the 
Third  Reich,  Silone  has  the  advantage 
that  his  'new'  Italy  is  already  fifteen  years 
old.  Not  only  does  he  himself  gain  a  proper 
perspective  of  the  happenings  he  de- 
scribes, but  the  reader  is  placed  in  a  purer, 
more  intellectual  relation  to  the  work 
than  is  possible  with  books  which  treat 
analogous  German  problems  and  which, 
so  to  say,  are  still  too  much  concerned 
with  daily  politics.  Silone  has  taken  ad- 
vantage of  this  fact  and  has  thus  created 
a  book  which,  despite  its  timeliness,  is 
ageless. 

Julian  Green,  American 

MiNuiT.  By  Julian  Green.  Paris:  Plon. 
1936. 

(Marcel  Arland  in  the  NouvelU  Revue  Frartfaise, 
Paris) 

TN  HIS  latest  novels,  Julian  Green  has 
refined  his  work  instead  of  enlarging 
its  scope.  Hence  the  resistance  with  which 
it  meets — less,  however,  among  the  gen- 
eral public  than  among  the  critics.  It 
should  be  recognized  that,  essentially,  the 
task  Mr.  Green  sets  himself  is  not  to 
paint  provincial  customs  nor  to  develop  a 
psychological  conflict,  nor  even  to  write 
a  careful  character  study.  The  world  he 
conjures  up  may  seem  strange;  his  plots, 


^93^ 


BOOKS  ABROAD 


[547] 


slow  and  brusque,  patiently  woven  and 
suddenly  flippantly  dismissed,  would  not 
in  themselves  satisfy  a  reader;  it  is  hard 
to  remember  his  characters.  But  the  secret 
of  his  books,  their  meaning,  lie  in  their 
strange  world  vision,  their  poetic  atmos- 
phere— for  Julian  Green  is  a  poet. 

The  very  first  pages  of  Midnight  create 
the  atmosphere  for  you.  On  a  winter  eve- 
ning a  carriage  is  rolling  along  between 
plowed  fields,  breasting  an  icy  wind.  A 
broad,  stubborn  back  is  all  that  can  be 
seen  of  the  driver.  There  are  two  women  in 
the  carriage;  one  is  bitter,  exasperated, 
ridiculous.  The  other,  a  young  woman, 
leaves  the  carriage  and  ascends  the  hill;  a 
train  passes  in  the  valley;  she  waves  her 
handkerchief  and,  receiving  no  response, 
kills  herself.  Who  are  these  characters? 
They  are  the  only  characters  in  his  books; 
the  supernumerary,  indiff^erent  and  blind, 
a  fit  instrument  of  doom;  the  monstrous 
puppet,  half-comical,  half-odious,  signify- 
ing meanness,  jealousy,  cruelty,  stupid- 
ity; and  finally  the  heroine — dream  and 
passion,  gentleness  and  fatal  infatuation. 
And  what  is  the  meaning  of  these  fields, 
this  winter  night,  the  mould  in  which  all 
of  Mr.  Green's  characters  are  imprisoned, 
in  which  they  stifle,  and  from  which  they 
cannot  escape  except  by  imagination  or 
murder,  this  journey  across  the  bog  and 
swamp,  the  handkerchief  whipping  in  the 
wind,  the  plunging  knife?  What  but  the 
hallucination  to  which  all  of  Mr.  Green's 
dramas  revert  again  and  again  ? 

The  dead  woman  leaves  a  daughter  be- 
hind her.  We  see  this  child,  Elizabeth, 
with  her  three  aunts,  three  grotesque 
figures,  as  sinister  as  Mr.  Green  could 
make  them.  It  is  a  winter  night,  icy  be- 
neath a  brilliant  moon;  the  dead  woman 
lies  in  her  room;  the  child,  beside  one  of 
her  aunts,  cannot  sleep;  she  runs  away, 
wanders  through  the  city,  and  finally  at- 
taches herself  to  the  first  person  she 
meets,  who  adopts  her.  This  is  the  first 
episode.  The  second  moves  even  more 
swiftly:  a  few  years  later,  at  twilight, 
Elizabeth  hears  a  knife-grinder's  song  in 


the  dusk  and  again  runs  away  to  follow 
it. 

If  by  this  time  the  reader  has  been  ex- 
pecting Mr.  Green  to  hesitate  before 
baffling  him  completely,  he  will  be  disap- 
pointed when  he  comes  to  the  third  epi- 
sode. Here  both  the  scenery  and  the 
characters  become  unreal.  Perhaps  that  is 
an  exaggeration;  as  a  matter  of  fact,  ev- 
erything here  is  logical,  consistent,  de- 
scribed in  detail — but  in  a  peculiar  fashion 
as  if  in  a  half-dream.  Everything  seems  to 
hover  on  the  margin  of  reality,  to  hint  at 
a  more  profound  reality. 

This  Midnighty  with  its  pallid  shadows, 
has  a  funereal  aspect  which  is  one  of  Mr. 
Green's  most  typical  characteristics.  Its 
counterpart  can  be  perhaps  found  today 
only  in  certain  English  novels,  like  Lewis's 
The  Monk.  Of  purer  lines  and  finer  grain 
than  these.  Midnight  resembles  them  in 
that  it  has  a  sense  of  cruelty  which  is  al- 
most always  latent  but  which  once  or 
twice  breaks  through  the  surface,  mixed 
with  a  kind  of 'angelic'  eroticism. 

This  sense  of  cruelty  is  apparent,  too, 
in  the  ferocity  with  which  Mr.  Green 
forces  his  characters  to  the  very  limits  of 
their  endurance.  They  are  always  victims, 
whether  they  submit  to  a  doom  which 
they  themselves  do  not  understand  or 
invite  and  anticipate  it.  Behind  their  ac- 
tions, throughout  their  adventures,  they 
seem  in  the  uttermost  depths  of  their 
souls  to  be  torn  between  the  horror  and 
the  fascination  of  their  fate. 

These  'secret  places  of  the  heart*  are 
Mr.  Green's  domain.  Like  a  true  poet  he 
evokes  a  hidden,  mysterious  life,  not  pre- 
cisely because  he  likes  the  calm  and  silence 
of  it,  but  because  he  can  thus  conjure  up 
its  enchantments,  its  terrors,  its  tempta- 
tions, and  those  figures  which  are  solemnly 
grouped  around  the  most  mysterious  of 
them  all,  one  of  whose  many  names  is 
death. 

[Julian  Green's  Minuit  will  be  published 
in  the  United  States  by  Harper  and 
Brothers^  New  Tork.] 


OUR  OWN  BOOKSHELF 


World  Politics  and  Personal  Insecurity. 
By  Harold  D.  Lasswell  New  York:  Whittlesey 
House.  i<p35. 307  pages.  $3.00. 
Propaganda:   Its   Psychology   and   Tech- 
nique. By  Leonard  W.  Doob.  New  York: 
Henry  Holt  and  Company.  1^35.  424  pages. 
$3.00. 
Propaganda  and  the  News  or  What  Makes 
You  Think  So?  By  Will  Irwin.  New  York: 
Whittlesey  House.  1936. 32^  pages.  $2.7^. 
British  Propaganda  at  Home  and  in  the 
United   States    from    1914   to   1917.   By 
James  Duane  Squires.  Cambridge:  Harvard 
University  Press.  {Harvard  Historical  Mono- 
graphs, VI.)  1935.  113  pages.  $1.00. 
Propaganda  and  Promotional  Activities: 
An  Annotated  Bibliography.  By  Harold 
D.   Lasswell,   Ralph  D.   Casey   and  Bruce 
Lannes  Smith.  Minneapolis:  The  University 
of  Minnesota  Press.  1935.  450  pages.  $3.50. 
ALTHOUGH  the  most  ambitious  attempt  in 
•^^  recent  times  to  work  out  a  systematic 
philosophy  of  propaganda,  Lasswell's  latest 
treatise  is  certain  to  prove  a  disappointment 
to  professional  students  of  world  affairs,  who 
have  long  esteemed  him  as  the  outstanding 
authority  on  the  role  of  symbolic  and  psycho- 
logical factors  in  politics.  Departing  sharply 
from   the   customary   manner  of  studies  on 
propaganda,  Lasswell  faces  the  future  rather 
than  the  past.  He  works  in  the  spirit  of  a 
'political  psychiatrist'  interested  mainly  in  the 
therapy  of  those  social  and  personal  anxieties 
which  are  generated  by  maladjustments  in  the 
economic  substructure.  Propaganda,  or  'the 
manipulation  of  collective  attitudes  through 
symbols,'  is  understood  to  be  a  necessary  out- 
growth of  social  conflict  and  an  indispensable 
weapon  in  political  action. 

Lasswell  views  the  movement  of  history  as  a 
succession  of  revolutionary  waves  which  are 
quickly  confined  to  their  place  of  origin  through 
the  failure  of  the  innovation  to  take  root  in 
other  countries  or  the  violent  rejection  of  the 
new  pattern  by  older  established  groups.  Com- 
munism and  Italian  and  German  Fascism  rep- 
resent to  him  the  rise  to  power  of  different 
strata  of  the  petty  bourgeoisie  at  the  expense 
of  the  aristocracy  and  plutocracy:  the  former 
being  the  emergence  of  a  skilled  '61ite'  com- 
posed of  renegades  from  the  older  middle  class 


elements  and  accessions  from  the  proletariat, 
'who  learn  how  to  elude  toil  by  cultivating 
oratorical  skill,  literary  ability,  and  administra- 
tive technique;'  the  latter  two,  the  assertion 
of  the  established  middle  class  group's  un- 
willingness to  defer  to  a  middle  class  '61ite' 
of  proletarian  origin  or  affiliation. 

There  is  still  time  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic 
to  head  off  the  tragic  consequences  of  this 
split  in  the  middle  class.  The  recourse  to 
violence  and  Fascism  can  be  avoided  in  Amer- 
ica if  the  petty  bourgeoisie  (Lasswell  prefers 
the  phrase  'middle-income  skill  group'  for 
purposes  of  propaganda)  can  be  effectively 
stimulated  to  self-consciousness  and  made  to 
unite  about  a  'consistent  policy,  a  rallying 
name,  and  an  invigorating  myth  of  its  historic 
mission.'  To  help  this  movement  to  fruition, 
Lasswell  works  out  a  neat  symbolism  and  a 
skeleton  political  program  ('ruthless  use  of 
income  tax  to  eliminate  incomes  above  a 
modest  figure;  separation  of  deposit  from  the 
investing  function  by  the  elimination  of  com- 
mercial banking;  non-inflationary  monetary 
policy  by  the  Government.'). 

Although  Lasswell  pays  effusive  lip  service 
to  Marx,  he  fails  completely  to  appreciate  the 
full  force  of  that  thinker's  analysis  of  cap- 
italism and  the  class  struggle.  Some  of  his  con- 
fusions stem  from  his  too  facile  acceptance  of 
the  more  recent  concept  of  the  'elite,'  popu- 
larized by  Pareto  and  numerous  Fascist  theo- 
reticians, which  shifts  the  emphasis  from  the 
mode  and  social  relations  of  production  to  a 
shadowy  schema  of  strife  for  'safety,  income, 
and  deference.'  Nor  does  he  offer  adequate 
justification  for  the  application  of  the  psy- 
chiatric method  to  politics  as  against  alterna- 
tive approaches.  Why  center  the  ihterest  on 
ineffective  hygiene  of  anxieties  and  neuroses, 
rather  than  on  mass  poverty,  ignorance,  dis- 
ease, economic  slavery?  Why  not  stress  the 
contradictions  of  the  economic  set-up,  its  lack 
of  efficiency  as  a  going  concern,  the  debauchery 
of  equity,  art,  science,  indeed  of  all  culture, 
which  is  inevitable  in  capitalist  society? 

In  short,  the  book  is  an  over-elaborate 
hodge-podge  of  brilliant  insights,  astute  scien- 
tific analysis,  and  eccentric  vagary,  verging  on 
fantasy  in  the  analysis  of  recent  drifts  and  the 
formulation  of  positive  political  goals. 


OUR  OWN  BOOKSHELF 


[549] 


Doob's  volume  is  more  pedestrian  and  sober. 
His  orientation  is  that  of  the  victim  rather 
than  the  actor  in  the  present  and  future  battle 
of  words  and  appeals.  His  hope  is  that  his  dis- 
cussion of  the  psychology  and  technique  of 
propaganda  will  enable  people  to  see  through 
much  propaganda,  particularly  the  propa- 
ganda of  Fascism,  which  he  believes  to  be 
imminent  in  America.  He  lays  down  eight 
principles  of  propaganda,  providing  ample 
illustrations  from  current  materials.  He  con- 
cludes by  asking  what  propaganda  we  ought 
to  accept  and  act  upon,  offering  admittedly 
nebulous  suggestions  about  the  need  of  con- 
sulting experts,  from  whom  alone  we  may  ob- 
tain a  rational  scheme  of  values  for  society. 

Irwin's  book  is  an  interesting  example  of 
what  Doob  calls  'concealed  propaganda,'  a 
subtle  plea  for  Herbert  Hoover  in  the  guise  of  a 
chatty  history  of  the  evolution  of  the  press, 
publicity,  radio,  and  the  New  Deal.  It  is  amus- 
ing to  see  such  an  old  hand  at  propaganda 
seriously  professing  to  be  troubled  by  the  pos- 
sible throttling  of  free  speech  in  America,  and 
the  threatened  suspension  of  the  First  Amend- 
ment, 'still  the  Palladium  of  our  Liberties.' 
The  activities  of  Wellington  House,  an  impor- 
tant but  little  known  branch  of  the  British 
propaganda  machine  in  the  World  War,  are 
carefully  traced  in  Squires'  useful  dissertation, 
while  the  bibliography  by  Lasswell  and  asso- 
ciates covers  almost  every  conceivable  facet  of 
the  subject  of  propaganda.  It  is  in  more  than 
one  sense  the  best  contribution  to  the  study  of 
this  problem  that  has  so  far  been  made  in 
America. 

— Benjamin  N.  Nelson 

Parnell's  Faithful  Few.  By  Margaret 
Leamy.  With  a  Preface  by  Thomas  F.  Wood- 
lock.  New  Tork:  T'ke  Macmillan  Company. 
^93^'  235  pages.  $2.50. 

'npHE  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century 
"■■  produced  no  more  interesting  figure  in 
European  statecraft  than  Charles  Stewart 
Parnell,  the  uncrowned  king  of  Ireland.  As 
romantic  as  any  of  the  ancient  heroes  of  the 
Gael,  he  completely  captured  the  imagination 
of  the  people  of  Ireland.  Had  he  succeeded  in 
settling  the  Ulster  question  there  would  have 
been  no  Irish  problem  to  bedevil  England  as 
she  entered  into  the  critical  period  of  her  naval 
race  with  Germany.  He  failed  only  because,  at 
the  moment  when  he  grasped  victory  in  his 


hands,  the  people  of  Ireland  turned  against 
him.  The  cause  of  this  sudden  shift  in  public 
sentiment  in  Ireland  was  the  scandal  of  his  rela- 
tionship with  Mrs.  O'Shea,  the  daughter  of  an 
English  clergyman.  Sir  John  Page  Wood. 

The  changed  mores  of  our  day  make  it  diffi- 
cult for  us  to  believe  in  the  immorality  of  a 
man  who  falls  in  love  with  a  woman  who  has 
for  many  years  been  brutally  ill-treated  and 
neglected  by  her  husband.  But  other  British 
statesmen  felt  the  stigma  of  a  divorce  proceed- 
ing in  those  high  days  of  Victoria's  reign,  no- 
tably Sir  Charles  Dilke,  and  were  forced  to 
retire,  only  to  return  to  public  life  after  the 
storm  had  blown  over.  Unfortunately  for  the 
peace  of  Europe,  Parnell  was  no  reed  but  an 
oak.  It  was  not  in  his  nature  to  withdraw  be- 
fore threats.  At  the  beginning,  his  intuition 
was  unquestionably  right,  and  the  great  mass 
of  the  public  in  Ireland  believed  that  the  scan- 
dal was  merely  another  English  plot  similar  to 
the  famous  'Pigott  Forgeries.'  Parnell  was  well 
aware  that  Gladstone  had  thorough  knowledge 
of  his  relationship  with  Mrs.  O'Shea  and  had, 
in  fact,  used  her  as  an  intermediary  on  certain 
occasions.  So  he  thought  it  scarcely  possible 
for  even  the  conscience  of  the  great  leader  of 
non-conformist  England  to  be  shocked  at  that 
stage  of  the  game.  But  the  evil  fates  that  have 
always  followed  the  great  leaders  of  Ireland 
were  not  to  be  evaded. 

On  the  1 8th  of  November,  1890,  Parnell's 
followers  held  a  great  meeting  at  Dublin.  It 
was  presided  over  by  the  Lord  Mayor  and  at- 
tended by  such  prominent  leaders  as  John 
Redman,  Swift-McNeil,  T.  D.  Sullivan  and 
others.  At  it  a  resolution  was  unanimously 
passed  to '  stand  by  Parnell  despite  proceedings 
in  the  Divorce  Court.'  But  some  of  his  friends 
advised  Parnell  to  retire  until  the  storm  had 
blown  over;  Cecil  Rhodes  sent  him  a  three 
word  telegram  which,  if  he  had  followed  it, 
would  have  saved  his  leadership:  'Resign, 
marry,  return.  Rhodes.'  Within  ten  days  the 
tide  had  turned.  On  December  3rd  a  meeting 
of  the  Archbishop  and  Bishop  of  Ireland  de- 
termined openly  to  oppose  Parnell,  and  on 
December  6th,  in  that  famous  meeting  in 
Committee  Room  15,  a  majority  of  the  party 
left  him. 

It  is  impossible  here  to  tell  more  of  these 
last  months,  but  Mrs.  Leamy  has  shown  us 
how  the  people  of  Ireland  and  their  leaders 
felt  in  this  crisis — the  passions  and  jealousies, 
bigotries  and  stupidities  that  led  to  the  be- 


[550] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


trayal  of  their  leader.  Her  book  is  a  sympa- 
thetic study  of  the  great  leader's  last  days. 
She  is  the  widow  of  Parnell's  'faithful  follower' 
Edmund  Leamy,  poet,  editor,  and  author  of 
some  of  the  most  charming  fairy  tales  which 
have  ever  been  written  in  English.  Her  book 
fills  many  of  the  gaps  in  our  knowledge. 

But  more  valuable  even  than  the  feelings  of 
a  small  group  of  Parnell's  intimate  friends  as 
we  see  them  in  this  book  was  the  fact  that  this 
cold,  austere  Saxon  was,  in  the  minds  of  the 
Irish  peasants,  the  last  of  their  great  tribal 
chieftains,  that  he  was  O'Neil  and  O'Donald 
again.  With  no  thought  of  self,  he  had  devoted 
himself  to  all  the  clans  of  Erin,  and  while  they 
gave  him  the  same  devotion  their  cause  was 
safe.  Again  the  Catholic  Church,  as  so  many 
times  before  in  the  history  of  Ireland,  had  set 
itself  against  the  best  interests  of  national 
unity. 

Parnell  was  right  that  day  in  Galway  in  1886 
when  he  turned  dramatically  to  the  crowd  be- 
fore his  hotel  and  said:  '.  .  .  Destroy  me 
and  you  take  away  that  Parliament  .  .  .  De- 
stroy me  and  there  will  arise  a  shout  from  all 
the  enemies  of  Ireland  .  .  .  Ireland  no  longe.' 
has  a  leader.' 

— John  Burke 

Bankers,  Statesmen  and  Economists.  By 
Paul  Einzig.  London:  Macmillan  and  Com- 
pany. 1933.  252  pages.  $3.50. 

The  Exchange  Clearing  System.  By  Paul 
Einzig.  London:  Macmillan  and  Company. 
1935-  220  pages.  $3.50. 

World  Finance,  1914-1935.  By  Paul  Einzig. 
New  Tork:  The  Macmillan  Company.  1935. 
382  pages.  $3.00. 

/^CCASIONAL  papers  seldom  make  a  sat- 
^""^  isfactory  book;  but  Dr.  Einzig's  collection 
has  at  least  the  merit  of  a  definite  point  of  view. 
He  is  a  leading  exponent  of  the  'unorthodox' 
school  of  finance,  which  opposes  any  attempt 
to  restore  the  free  gold  standard  and  is  willing 
to  put  up  with  a  good  deal  of  instability  rather 
than  risk  an  early  stabilization  on  the  old  lines. 
He  is  a  'planner'  as  regards  both  trade  and 
currency — and  therefore  takes  a  more  favor- 
able view  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  economics  than 
could  be  found  among  financiers  of  the  United 
States.  His  essays  deal  with  the  leading  events 
and  personalities  of  the  depression;  and  while 
some  of  them  are  already  out-of-^ate,  they 
provide  the  specialist  with  an  interesting  series 


of  footnotes  to  history.  That  is  about  as  much 
as  can  be  said  for  them. 

In  the  second  of  the  above  volumes.  Dr. 
Einzig  sets  forth  his  position  on  international 
currency  stabilization  in  extenso.  For  the  non- 
expert it  will  suffice  to  say  that  his  thesis  is 
based  on  a  denial  that  free  multilateral  trade 
and  exchange  will  or  can  ever  produce  a  suffi- 
cient degree  of  stability.  He  therefore  favors  for 
permanent  retention  the  system  of  controlled 
exchange  clearing  that  is  already  embodied  in 
some  hundred-and-fifty  international  clearing 
agreements.  The  principle  is  that  importers, 
exporters,  and  others  having  dealings  in  foreign 
exchange  are  required  to  conduct  their  opera- 
tions through  an  official  central  agency,  which, 
in  cooperation  with  such  agencies  abroad,  off- 
sets and  balances  claims  between  the  countries. 
The  existence  of  such  institutions  makes  pos- 
sible a  direct  control  of  foreign  trade  by 
Governments,  through  licenses  or  exchange 
certificates;  and  critics  of  the  system,  looking 
at  Governments  as  they  are,  prefer  the  risks 
oilaissez /aire  to  the  possible  consequences  of 
such  control.  But  while  Dr.  Einzig  is  willing  to 
admit  the  inevitability  of  a  lot  of  red  tape,  he 
maintains  that  the  prospects  of  international 
trade  are  better  under  the  clearing  system  than 
they  could  ever  be  under  a  revamped  'auto- 
matic '  gold  standard. 

The  last  of  the  three  books — which  is  by 
far  the  best  for  the  general  reader — carries  the 
point  of  view  still  farther.  In  a  critical  survey 
of  the  entire  post-War  period.  Dr.  Einzig  de- 
velops the  thesis  that  the  increase  of  fictitious 
wealth  out  of  all  proportion  to  real  wealth 
demands  a  general  devaluation  of  currencies, 
varying  in  degree,  to  which  he  applies  the 
popular  euphemism  reflation.  He  favors  the 
retention  of  gold  parities  only  on  the  under- 
standing that  the  monetary  authorities  shall 
change  them  whenever  heavy  aad  persistent 
pressure  renders  it  expedient;  and  such  pari- 
ties, he  adds,  could  only  be  determined  after  a 
'drastic  devaluation  of  the  major  currencies.' 

Nor  will  this  alone  bring  even  internal  sta- 
bility; complete  economic  planning  is  the  ulti- 
mate solution.  'It  is  only  if  a  central  authority 
keeps  a  tight  grip  on  production  and  distribu- 
tion that  monetary  expansion  can  lead  to  a 
permanent  increase  of  human  welfare.'  To 
leave  no  room  for  doubt,  the  book  jacket  em- 
phasizes the  need  for  'sacrificing  a  large  part 
of  our  economic  freedom. ' 

While  there  will  be  many  who  concur  in  Dr. 


193^ 


OUR  OWN  BOOKSHELF 


[551] 


Einzig's  assault  on  laissez  /aire  and  liberal 
capitalism,  the  question  whether  other  kinds  of 
freedom  can  survive  while  economic  freedom 
is  given  up  is  one  that  no  reader  can  avoid. 
Dr.  Einzig  does  not  bother  about  it.  His  con- 
cern stops  with  the  economic  criteria.  But 
granting  that  they  cannot  be  violated  with 
impunity,  there  remains  the  uncomfortable  re- 
flection that  stability  too  widely  extended 
bears  a  nasty  resemblance  to  rigor  mortis. 
— William  Orton 


A  Place  in  the  Sun.  By  Grover  Clark.  New 
Tork:  The  Macmillan  Company.  1936.  224 
pages.  $2.50. 

The  Balance  Sheets  of  Imperialism.  By 
Grover  Clark.  New  Tork:  Columbia  Univer- 
sity Press.  igj6.  136  pages.  $2.75. 

TN  THESE  two  significant  volumes  Grover 
Clark  has  done  for  imperialism  what  Sir 
Norman  Angeil  did  years  ago  for  war.  The 
first  volume  contains  the  detailed  arguments, 
and  the  second  the  necessary  statistical  data, 
to  prove  beyond  all  doubt  that  imperialism 
as  such  does  not  pay.  The  proof  consists 
in  refuting  the  three  principal  reasons  usually 
given  to  justify  the  seizure  of  colonies:  that 
they  provide  an  outlet  for  surplus  popula- 
tion; that  they  result  in  increased  trade;  that 
they  provide  access  to  raw  materials  that 
bring  profits  in  time  of  peace  and  greater  secur- 
ity in  time  of  war.  The  conclusions  are  made 
perfectly  clear.  Colonies  attract  far  fewer 
emigrants  than  do  other  regions;  the  few 
thousands  living  in  the  colonies  solve  no  prob- 
lem of  excess  population.  In  the  case  of 
Germany  and  Italy  it  is  shown  that  the  total 
trade  of  their  colonies  was  less  than  their  cost! 
In  respect  of  raw  materials  it  is  pointed  out 
that  for  most  countries  access  becomes  im- 
possible in  times  of  war  and  that  in  times  of 
peace  more  raw  materials  are  purchased  else- 
where than  are  produced  in  the  colonies. 
'When  the  balance  sheets  are  added  up,  all  the 
final  figures  on  imperialism  must  be  written 
in  red.' 

It  is  an  open  question  whether  the  three  ar- 
guments advanced  to  justify  colonial  ventures 
were  sincerely  meant  or  whether  they  func- 
tioned as  mere  slogans  whereby  interested 
traders  won  national  support  for  their  private 
economic  enterprises.  Are  not  these  three 
reasons  very  much  like  those  questionable  and 
insincere  arguments  which  are  used  for  the 


tariff?  Granted  that  nations  as  such  lost  by  the 
possession  of  colonies,  it  becomes  pertinent  to 
ask  whether  individual  traders  made  any 
profits  or  not.  Although  the  main  thesis  is  not 
directly  affected  by  the  matter,  it  would  be  of 
interest  to  students  to  know  how  large  a  part 
of  the  colonial  deficit  is  ascribable  to  expendi- 
tures made  in  behalf  of  the  natives.  This  issue 
is  touched  upon  for  the  reason  that  if  Mr. 
Clark's  conclusions  had  proved  that  money 
was  made  in  colonies,  some  critics  would  be 
sure  to  point  out  that  the  money  was  made  at 
the  natives'  expense. 

Although  Mr.  Clark  is  obviously  suggesting 
to  Japan,  Italy,  and  Germany  that  they 
should  not  seek  colonies,  he  does  not  pursue 
his  own  logic  to  the  point  of  recommending 
that  all  imperialistic  nations  surrender  their 
colonial  liabilities.  Curiously,  he  feels  that 
some  colonial  system  must  be  maintained.  He 
favors  a  system  under  such  rigid  international 
control  that  complete  economic  equality  in 
these  areas  is  assured  to  all  nations.  No  light, 
however,  is  thrown  on  the  serious  predicament 
of  those  countries  whose  lack  of  gold  makes  it 
impossible  for  them  to  purchase  necessary  raw 
material  even  under  such  ideal  conditions. 
— ^Harry  R.  Rudin 


I  Was  a  Soviet  Worker.  By  Andrew  Smith, 
supplemented  by  Maria  Smith.  With  an  ap- 
pendix of  photographs  and  documents.  New 
Tork:  E.  P.  Button  ^  Co.,  Inc.  1936.  2p8 
pages.  $3.00. 


B' 


'  OTH  the  name  and  the  record  of  Andrew 
Smith  have  been  sufficiently  exposed  to 
discredit  his  entire  'line'  on  the  Soviet  Union. 
The  present  volume  contains,  in  a  much  ex- 
panded form,  material  similar  to  that  published 
in  Abraham  Cahan's  reactionary  paper,  the 
Jewish  Daily  Forward,  and  subsequently  also 
in  the  Hearst  press.  That  Mr.  Smith  is  known 
to  have  received  payment  for  his  articles  from 
the  Hearst  organization  will  'place'  him  for 
those  who,  like  Professor  Charles  A.  Beard, 
believe  that  no  self-respecting  American  would 
touch  Hearst  with  a  ten-foot  pole.  It  is  sug- 
gested that  those  who  like  to  know  'both 
sides'  of  a  question,  read  Mr.  Smith's  emo- 
tional and  intemperate  volume  in  connection 
with  the  magnificent  two-volume  work  on 
Soviet  Communism  by  Sidney  and  Beatrice 
Webb. 

H.W. 


[J52] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


Days  of  Wrath.  By  Andre  Malraux.  Trans- 
lated by  Haakon  M.  Chevalier.  With  a  fore- 
word by  Waldo  Frank.  New  Tork:  Random 
House.  igj6.  174  pages.  $1.75. 

'T^O  THE  keener  minds  and  creative  spirits 
of  our  day,  no  single  experience  of  modern 
times  has  caused  so  much  fear  for  the  future  of 
art  and  society  as  has  the  advent  of  Fascism  in 
Germany.  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that 
the  Malraux  who  wrote  in  La  Condition 
Humaine  the  story  of  the  Chinese  revolution- 
ary uprisings  should  be  impelled  by  the  tragedy 
across  the  Rhine  to  place  his  remarkable  liter- 
ary genius  at  the  service  of  his  '  German  com- 
rades'  (to  whom,  in  fact,  the  book  is  dedi- 
cated) in  order  *  to  make  known  what  they  had 
suffered  and  what  they  had  upheld.* 

Days  of  Wrath  is  less  a  novel  than  an  epic 
poem  in  prose,  portraying  the  struggle  of  the 
Communists  and  underground  oppositionists 
against  the  National  Socialist  dictatorship. 
Kassner  the  Communist  is,  indeed,  the  symbol 
of  those  unsung  martyrs  in  the  battle  for  a 
society  cleansed  of  oppression  and  injustice. 
He  is  imprisoned  by  the  Nazis  as  a  suspicious 
character,  although  his  jailers  are  unaware  of 
his  identity  as  one  of  the  intellectual  leaders 
and  organizers  of  the  Communists.  While  in 
prison  for  nine  days  he  is  mercilessly  beaten 
and,  lying  in  a  dark  cell,  hears  the  dungeon 
resound  with  the  screams  and  moanings  of  his 
tortured  fellow-prisoners.  His  almost  crazed 
mind  wanders  back  to  the  'days  of  wrath' 
which  have  been  his  past:  to  his  participation 
in  the  revolutionary  movements  in  Russia  and 
in  China;  and  to  his  dream  of  a  glorious  future 
for  the  shackled  masses  of  mankind. 

Finally,  as  he  is  about  to  attempt  suicide, 
he  hears  a  knocking  on  the  stone;  and,  after 
puzzling  out  the  code,  realizes  that  it  is  a 
fellow-prisoner  tapping  out  the  message: 
'Comrade,  take  courage.*  But  the  tapping  is 
interrupted  by  the  sound  of  guards  entering 
the  cell  of  the  unknown  comrade,  and  by  his 
cries  as  he  is  pummeled  into  unconsciousness. 


Kassner  '.  .  .  deprived  of  brotherhood  as  he 
had  been  of  dreams  and  hope  .  .  .  waited  in  the 
silence  which  hung  over  the  desires  of  hun- 
dreds of  men  in  that  black  termite's  nest  .  .  . 
For  as  many  hours,  as  many  days  as  were 
needed,  he  would  prepare  what  could  be  told 
to  the  darkness  .  .  . ' 

Finally,  he  is  led  out  of  the  cell  and  given  his 
freedom:  some  fellow-prisoner  had  pretended 
to  be  Kassner  so  as  to  save  him  whose  leader- 
ship of  the  movement  was  so  necessary.  He 
escapes  by  airplane  to  Prague,  where  he  rejoins 
his  wife  and  child.  But  his  joy  at  freedom  is 
tempered  by  a  new  realization  of  his  responsi- 
bility to  those  who,  in  the  Germany  he  had 
fled,  were  working  out  the  obscure  destiny  of  a 
blood-stained  earth.  So  he  returns  to  take  up 
the  struggle,  for  'what  was  man's  freedom  but 
the  knowledge  and  manipulation  of  his  fate?* 
— Melvin  M.  Fagen 

Salar  the  Salmon.  By  Henry  Williamson. 
Boston:  Little^  Brown^  and  Company.  {An 
Atlantic  Monthly  Press  Publication.)  igj6. 
301  pages.  $2.50. 

"^ATURALIST  and  master  of  words,  Henry 
•^^  Williamson  brings  his  artistry  and  the 
clear  light  of  his  knowledge  and  understanding 
to  the  salmon  and  its  life  history.  He  shows  us, 
too,  the  teeming  life  of  the  river  and  the  sea, 
and  something  of  the  fishermen  and  poachers 
who  live  by  the  river's  banks  and  get  their 
living  from  its  waters.  Out  of  the  story  of  the 
salmon  and  its  voyaging  from  fresh  water  to 
ocean  and  its  return  to  the  river  he  has  made  a 
richly  detailed,  poetic,  and  deeply  interesting 
narrative. 

Coming  to  its  end  regretfully,  we  think 
vaguely  of  all  the  host  of  disheartening  men 
and  women  in  all  the  novels  we  have  read 
in  the  last  year  or  so,  and  yearn  jo  meet  in- 
stead other  engaging  fish  within  the  covers  of 
books,  and  far,  far  fewer  wishy-washy,  dull, 
ridiculous,  and  unpleasant  people. 

— ^Henry  Bennett 


AMERICA  AND  THE  LEAGUE 


A  Symposium — IV 


IHE  following  contribution  to  the  Sym- 
posium is  by  Walter  Francis  Frear,  who 
has  had  a  long  and  distinguished  career  in 
Hawaii,  where  he  served  as  a  Justice  of 
the  Supreme  Court  and  later,  for  six  years, 
as  Governor.  Mr.  Frear  writes: — 

Practically  all  will  agree  that  the  United 
States  should  continue  cooperation  with  the 
League  in  its  splendid  humanitarian  non- 
political  activities;  but  as  to  'joining,'  which 
implies  political  action,  particularly  with  ref- 
erence to  war  and  peace,  the  prospect  has 
never  been  so  remote,  and  with  reason,  not- 
withstanding continued  ardent  advocacy  by 
many  whose  opinions  are  entitled  to  great 
respect. 

At  the  outset,  when  we  were  still  some- 
what flushed  with  the  idea  that  the  War 
had  been  a  war  to  end  war  and  to  make  the 
world  safe  for  democracy,  the  prospect  was 
fair,  at  least  with  precautionary  reservations, 
and  possibly  would  have  been  realized  but  for 
President  Wilson's  unwillingness  to  pursue  an 
obviously  more  politic  course. 

But  what  disillusionment!  Suspicion,  dis- 
trust, fear,  hate,  armament  orgy,  economic 
isolation,  debt  repudiation,  jettison  of  democ- 
racy, disregard  of  fundamental  human  rights, 
treaty  violation,  international  brigandage — a 
considerable  reversion  to  the  law  of  the  jungle. 

True,  the  League  has  proved  eflfective  in 
adjusting  a  number  of  minor  international  dis- 
putes or  conflicts,  but  accumulating  evidence 
has  produced  growing  conviction  that,  after 
all,  it  is  too  little  a  body  animated  by  high 
purposes  in  the  long-range  interests  of  all, 
great  and  small,  and  too  much  a  body  to  be 
controlled  and  utilized  or  ignored,  singly  or  in 
combinations,  by  its  more  powerful  members 
in  their  own  more  or  less  short-range  respective 
interests — the  old  poker  game.  Not  but  that 
its  members  have  differed  much  in  predisposi- 
tion and  outlook.  As  a  working  aggregate, 
however,  for  major  purposes  it  has  been  a  sad 
disappointment. 

It  is  possible,  of  course,  that  entry  of  the 
United  States  into  the  League  would  improve 
matters;  but  would  the  venture  be  worth  the 


risk.?  Mindful  of  our  illusion  upon  entry  into 
the  War,  the  enormous  sacrifice,  the  futility, 
except  that  it  seemed  preferable  that  the 
Allies  should  win,  and  the  deluge  of  aftermath, 
would  it  not  be  sounder  at  least  to  defer  entry 
until  there  is  fairly  convincing  proof  of  con- 
version to  a  different  attitude  and  courage  for 
the  right  and  the  spirit  of  neighborliness? 
After  all,  is  not  the  League  practically  a  Euro- 
pean league  as  to  political  matters,  and,  so  far 
as  European  war  and  peace  and  questions  aris- 
ing out  of  the  narrow  nationalism  of  European 
states  are  concerned,  why  should  the  United 
States  become  involved  as  a  party  with  all  the 
responsibilities  and  dangers?  Should  it  not 
rather  avoid  undue  risk  and  sacrifice  as  a 
partner  and  yet  cooperate  to  the  extent  that 
seems  practicable  and  advisable? 

Perhaps  we  should  not  judge  the  European 
nations  too  harshly  under  their  difficult  cir- 
cumstances— especially  bearing  in  mind  the 
self-seeking  organized  minority  pressure  groups 
of  our  own  country.  It  may  be,  moreover  (and 
there  are  encouraging  indications),  that  in  spite 
of  some  appearances  to  the  contrary,  all  things 
are  working  together  for  good,  and  that,  before 
the  terrifying  lesson  of  the  Great  War  shall 
have  been  forgotten  and  under  the  compelling 
force  of  more  recent  experiences,  there  will 
emerge,  if  not  something  in  the  nature  of  a 
United  States  of  Europe,  a  modified  League  or 
at  least  a  more  neighborly  cooperative  concert, 
particularly  as  to  economic,  monetary  and 
military  pohcies. 

As  to  cooperation  in  League  sanctions:  con- 
ceding for  purposes  of  argument  that,  notwith- 
standing size,  resources,  location  and  supposed 
enlightenment,  we  should  not  as  a  nation  as- 
sume an  altruistic  big-brother  attitude,  it 
should  go  without  saying  that  ordinarily  it  is  to 
the  interests  of  the  United  States  not  only  to 
keep  out  of  war  but  that  war  should  be  pre- 
vented or  shortened  or  kept  from  spreading. 
War,  especially  if  either  belligerent  is  a  major 
power,  cannot  but  be  detrimental  and  may  be 
dangerous  to  other  powers  under  present  con- 
ditions of  world  solidarity  and  methods  of  war- 
fare. Aside  from  patent  economic  and  other 
repercussions,  there  may  be  even  more  serious 


[554] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


August 


effects,  such  as  a  set-back  to  the  movement  for 
the  outlawry  of  war  and  the  preservation  of  the 
sanctity  of  treaties. 

Here,  for  instance,  is  a  nation,  say  Italy,  one 
of  more  than  fifty  under  the  Covenant  and  one 
of  more  than  sixty  under  the  Pact  of  Paris — 
substantially  all  the  nations  of  the  world.  In 
violation  of  its  solemn  obligations  under  both 
instruments  and  in  defiance  of  world  opinion, 
it  wages  a  war  of  conquest  against  a  fellow 
party  to  both  agreements.  The  other  parties 
to  the  Covenant  endeavor  to  restrain  it  by 
sanctions.  We  are  a  party  to  the  Pact.  The 
parties  (other  than  the  offender)  to  both  in- 
struments are  in  general  accord  as  to  the  viola- 
tion. Under  these  circumstances,  would  it  not 
be  the  part  of  wisdom,  if  not  of  moral  duty  as  a 
member  of  the  family  of  nations  and  a  party  to 
the  Pact,  to  extend  our  neutrality  policy  suffi- 
ciently to  cooperate  in  the  sanctions  to  the 
extent  that  we  concur  in  the  judgment  of  the 
League  as  to  their  scope,  within  proper  limits 
from  our  standpoint,  and  thus  avoid  as  far  as 
may  be  either  aiding  the  aggressor  or  obstruct- 
ing the  efforts  of  the  League  to  peace? 

The  temporary  Neutrality  Resolution  of 
August,  1935,  since  extended  with  additions, 
was,  in  fact,  as  far  as  it  went,  whatever  the  in- 
tention, cooperative  with  the  League  sanctions, 
and  to  broaden  its  scope  so  as  to  cooperate 
more  fully  would  be  only  a  matter  of  degree. 
The  President,  when  he  signed  the  Resolution, 
said:  'The  policy  of  the  Government  is  defi- 
nitely committed  to  the  maintenance  of  peace 
and  the  avoidance  of  any  entanglements  which 
would  lead  us  into  conflict.  At  the  same  time 
it  is  the  policy  of  the  Government  by  every 
peaceful  means  and  without  entanglement  to 
cooperate  with  other  similarly  minded  Govern- 
ments to  promote  peace.'  (Italics  ours.) 

The  view  has  been  widely  entertained  that 
whatever  neutrality  policy  we  might  adopt 
should  be  made  applicable  impartially  to  both 
belligerents.  There  is  nothing  in  international 
law  that  requires  this.  It  is  purely  a  question  of 
policy.  The  non-discriminatory  view  seems  to 
be  in  part  a  hold-over  from  the  old  idea  of 
'neutrality'  and,  in  part,  a  corollary  of  the 
ultra  'isolationist'  concept. 

A  Neutrality  Resolution  introduced  last 
August  by  the  Chairman  of  the  House  Com- 
mittee on  Foreign  Affairs  at  the  instance  of  the 
Administration  proposed  to  give  the  President 
discriminatory  power,  so  that  he  might  dis- 
tinguish between  the  assailant  and  the  victim 


and  aid  rather  than  obstruct  the  efficacy  of  the 
League  sanctions.  The  majority  did  not  ac- 
quiesce, but  only  as  a  matter  of  policy  and 
without  time  for  adequate  consideration.  The 
not-adopted  but  much  discussed  and  widely 
approved  Capper  Resolution  of  February, 
1929,  designed  to  implement  the  Pact  of  Paris, 
was  aimed  against  the  violator  alone.  The 
suggested  Re-draft  of  the  Neutrality  Resolution 
of  last  year,  prepared  by  a  committee  of  the 
National  Peace  Conference,  was  likewise  based 
on  the  obligations  of  the  Pact  of  Paris.  This 
provided  that  if  the  President  should  find  that 
one  or  more  of  the  belligerent  countries  was 
attacked  in  controvention  of  the  Pact,  and 
a  majority  of  the  other  non-belligerent  parties 
to  the  Pact  concurred  in  the  finding,  he  might, 
with  the  consent  of  the  Congress,  revoke  the 
embargoes  as  to  such  country  or  countries — as 
the  League  did  with  reference  to  Ethiopia. 
The  members  of  the  Conference  were  unable  to 
agree  'whether  embargoes  should  be  applied 
impartially  against  belligerents  in  all  situations 
or  whether  under  certain  circumstances  such 
embargoes  should  be  lifted  against  the  nation 
attacked  in  violation  of  the  Pact.' 

If,  as  is  unquestioned,  we  may  rightfully 
embargo  against  both  belligerents,  lifting  the 
embargo  against  the  victim  would  not  give  the 
aggressor  a  just  or  legal  claim  that  we  should 
do  the  same  as  to  it.  While  its  feelings  might 
be  a  little  more  hurt,  it  would  be  in  the  em- 
barrassing position  of  asking  us  to  overlook  its 
breach  of  obligation  to  us  under  the  Pact;  and 
the  feelings  that  other  nations  might  have  if 
we  obstructed  their  efforts  to  peace  are  not  to 
be  ignored.  To  distinguish  between  the  wrong- 
doer and  the  wronged,  so  far  as  we  may  right- 
fully act  at  all,  would  not  only  be  technically 
lawful  and  conducive  to  world  peace  but 
would  comport  with  our  sense  of  justice  and 
be  more  satisfying  to  our  conscience  and  self- 
respect. 

It  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  this  could 
be  dangerous.  The  aggressor,  Italy,  for  in- 
stance, has  no  right  to  demand  that  we  have 
any  particular  intercourse  with  it;  we  would 
have  the  moral  support  of  the  rest  of  the 
world;  and  it  would  be  suicidal  for  Italy  to 
attack  us.  If  in  any  case  it  could  be  dangerous, 
a  sufficient  safeguard  would  be  the  requirement 
of  a  finding  by  the  President,  with  the  con- 
currence of  the  other  parties  to  the  Pact  on  the 
question  of  violation,  and  action  by  the  Presi- 
dent only  with  the  consent  of  the  Congress  on 


193^ 


AMERICA  AND  THE  LEAGUE 


[555] 


the  question  of  embargoes.  The  opposite  policy 
might  be  more  detrimental,  as  well  as  less  con- 
scionable,  even  if  neither  policy  were  dangerous 
from  the  standpoint  of  involvement  in  war. 

As  to  neutrality  in  general,  a  most  notable 
thing  has  happened  in  the  last  two  years  or  so, 
nothing  less  than  a  right-about-face  in  our 
traditional  policy — from  insistence  on  rights 
to  yielding  them.  Insistence  on  the  'freedom 
of  the  seas'  and  our  right  to  trade  with  bel- 
ligerents drew  us  into  the  war  of  1 812  and  the 
World  War.  We  now  seem  to  have  resolved: 
'Never  again.'  The  basis  of  the  new  policy,  in 
the  words  of  its  leading  exponent,  Charles 
Warren,  is  that  'the  right  of  the  nation  to  keep 
out  of  war  is  greater  than  the  right  of  a  citizen 
to  engage  in  trade  which  might  implicate  the 
nation  in  war.'  As  Admiral  Sims  has  said,  'It 
is  a  choice  of  profits  or  peace.' 

Hence,  we  now  say  to  our  people:  'Do  not 
trade  at  all  with  a  belligerent  in  certain  things 
and,  while  we  do  not  forbid  you  to  trade  in 
other  things,  yet,  if  you  do,  it  will  be  at  your 
own  risk.'  This  is  part  of  the  price  of  peace. 

This  policy  was  pursued  by  the  Congress  in 
its  Neutrality  Resolution  of  a  year  ago  as  far 
as  it  went.  It  forbade  the  export,  to  or  for  the 
use  of  belligerents,  of  '  arms,  ammunitions,  or 
implements  of  war'  and  the  carriage  thereof  in 
American  vessels;  also  the  traveling  of  Ameri- 
can citizens  on  belligerent  vessels  except  at 
their  own  risk.  The  President  went  further  and 
accompanied  his  Proclamation  under  the  Reso- 
lution by  the  statement  that  'any  of  our  people 
who  voluntarily  engage  in  transactions  of  any 
character  with  either  of  the  belligerents  do  so 
at  their  own  risk.'  (Italics  ours.)  In  extending 
the  Resolution  this  year  the  Congress  added  a 
ban  on  loans  and  credits  and  made  an  exemp- 
tion in  favor  of  American  republics  at  war  with 
non-American  powers.  A  promising  new  era 
has  dawned  in  our  neutrality  policy. 

THERE  is  need,  however,  that  the  Congress 
should  work  out  a  more  comprehensive  perma- 
nent program.  Just  how  far  we  should  go  in 
embargoing  trade  may  be  a  question.  We  are 
under  no  obligation  to  embargo  at  all,  but  our 
people,  if  they  should  trade  in  contraband, 
would  do  so  at  their  own  risk  even  in  the  ab- 
sence of  Governmental  declaration — and  under 
changing  conditions  of  warfare  the  list  of  con- 
traband is  ever  being  extended — incidentally 
giving  rise  to  uncertainties  and  disputes.  The 
Neutrality  Resolution  referred  to  is  limited  to 


'arms,  ammunitions,  or  implements  of  war' 
and  is  mandatory  as  to  these  and  against  both 
belligerents.  It  needs  broadening.  Even  if  left 
mandatory  as  to  these  items  and  both  bel- 
ligerents it  should  be  extended  permissively  to 
'  basic '  or  '  key '  war  materials  such  as  oil,  coal, 
iron,  steel,  copper,  etc.,  essential  to  conducting 
modern  warfare — perhaps  with  some  limita- 
tions on  the  exercise  of  judgment  by  the  Presi- 
dent. Logic  would  seem  to  call  for  such  exten- 
sion— whether  with  reference  to  keeping  out  of 
war  or  preventing  or  shortening  a  war  or  keep- 
ing it  from  spreading.  Why  ban  munitions  but 
furnish  the  materials  for  making  them.''  As  to 
all  trade  not  banned,  the  principle  of  the  Presi- 
dent's statement  above  quoted,  that  'trade 
shall  be  at  the  trader's  risk,'  should  be  in- 
corporated into  the  law. 

The  law  should  be  flexible.  As  the  President 
has  said,  'it  is  a  fact  that  no  Congress  and  no 
executive  can  foresee  all  possible  future  situa- 
tions. History  is  filled  with  unforeseeable  situa- 
tions that  call  for  some  flexibility  of  action.  It 
is  conceivable  that  situations  may  arise  in 
which  the  wholly  inflexible  provisions  of  this 
Act  (the  Neutrality  Resolution)  might  have 
exactly  the  opposite  efi^ect  from  that  which  was 
intended.  In  other  words,  the  inflexible  pro- 
visions might  drag  us  into  war  instead  of  keep- 
ing us  out.'  There  may  be  such  various  circum- 
stances at  the  outset  and  these  may  change 
during  the  war.  Are  the  respective  belligerents 
sea  powers  or  not.-*  where  are  they.''  what  are 
their  sizes?  what  are  their  relative  strengths? 
how  far  relatively  are  the  raw  materials  and 
manufactured  articles  produced  in  the  bel- 
ligerent countries  in  our  country  and  in  other 
countries?  how  far  will  other  nations  coop- 
erate? how  far  will  the  embargoes  disrupt  our 
own  economic  structure?  how  far  will  they 
divert  our  normal  trade  to  our  competitors? 
how  will  they  affect  the  respective  belligerents? 
how  enforcible  practically  will  they  be,  as,  for 
instance,  where  there  is  likelihood  of  attempted 
shipments  through  another  neutral?  are  other 
powers  likely  to  be  drawn  in?  etc.,  etc.  The 
broader  the  scope  of  the  permissible  embargoes, 
the  greater  the  need  of  flexibility.  Besides 
adaptability  to  the  situation,  a  material  advan- 
tage of  flexibility  is  that  it  would  keep  a  pos- 
sible aggressor  in  the  dark  as  to  what  it  might 
expect,  and  at  the  same  time  it  would  afford 
opportunity  to  negotiate — perhaps  with  the  re- 
sult even  of  preventing  the  contemplated  war. 

In  any  event,  opposition  must  be  expected 


[556] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


from  the  would-be  profiteers.  There  were  pro- 
tests against  the  President's  announcement 
that  trade  would  be  at  the  trader's  risk.  The 
answer  of  course  is  that  it  is  more  important 
that  the  nation  be  kept  out  of  war  than  that 
some  of  its  nationals  should  make  extraordi- 
nary profits  out  of  the  necessities  of  the  bel- 
ligerents. To  avoid  undue  distress  to  normal 
trade,  either  that  may  be  allowed  to  continue 
on  designated  quotas,  or,  if  the  situation  would 
not  permit  of  that,  those  who  suflFer  unduly 
may  be  compensated.  If  restriction  of  trade  in 
any  articles  to  pre-war  quotas  should  be 
deemed  necessary  or  sufficient,  it  should  have 
authorization  by  law.  Statistics  show  that 
'moral  suasion,'  attempted  by  the  President 
in  the  case  of  Italy,  is  inadequate.  In  any  case 
the  nation's  interests  should  come  first,  and 
compensation  to  those  on  whom  the  burden 
specially  falls  would  not  only  be  just  but  be 
small  as  compared  with  the  cost  of  war. 

The  legislation  should  be  enacted  in  advance, 
without  reference  to  any  impending  conflict,  so 
that  it  may  be  considered  on  its  merits  on 
broad  principles.  If  left  for  each  case,  not  only 
might  the  Congress  not  be  in  session  or  there 
might  be  too  hasty  action,  but  also  there 
would  be  greater  danger  of  opposition  from 
interested  groups — interested  in  prospects  for 
profits  or  avoidance  of  losses  or  moved  by 
racial  or  emotional  prejudices.  The  activities 
of  American-Italian  organizations  last  year, 
when  the  Neutrality  Resolution  was  under 
consideration,  will  be  recalled. 

Of  course,  'neutrality,'  which,  like  'sanc- 
tions,' if  not  a  misnomer,  is  liable  to  miscon- 
ception, has  to  do  with  much  besides  trade  and 
financial  transactions  by  our  people  with  bel- 
ligerents. It  embraces  the  whole  policy  of  a 
neutral  as  such,  covering  such  other  matters 
as  our  treatment  of  a  belligerent's  warships, 
armed  or  unarmed  commercial  vessels,  sub- 
marines, aircraft,  etc.,  in  or  desirous  of  entering 
our  country,  supplying  them  on  the  high  seas, 
recruiting  of  their  nationals,  enlistment  by  our 
nationals,  use  of  our  flag  for  deceptive  pur- 
poses, internment,  radio  control,  etc.,  etc. 
These  are  already  covered  in  part  by  the 
Neutrality  Resolution  and  previous  legislation. 
They,  as  well  as  the  large  subject  of  inherent 
difficulties  of  practical  operation,  need  not  be 
gone  into  here. 

The  main  point  is  that  comprehensive  legis- 
lation should  be  worked  out  by  competent 


unbiased  minds  with  a  view  both  to  keeping  us 
out  of  war  and  to  promoting  world  peace;  not 
with  the  idea  of  aiding  some  of  our  people  in 
making  profits,  or  of  carrying  chips  on  our 
shoulders,  or  of  crawling,  like  a  hermit  crab, 
into  our  shell. 

ANOTHER  reply  comes  from  Charles  J. 
Connick,  Boston's  well-known  designer 
and  worker  in  stained  and  leaded  glass. 
Mr.  Connick's  emphasis  is  somewhat 
different: — 

I  have  always  looked  upon  the  League  of 
Nations  as  a  brave  new  effort  in  the  right  di- 
rection, and  I  recall  with  something  like  humil- 
iation the  political  jugglery  and  ballyhoo 
that  brought  about  its  first  defeat  at  Wash- 
ington. 

Useless  as  it  is  to  speculate  about  what  might 
have  happened  had  the  United  States  joined 
the  League  of  Nations  then,  it  is  certainly  safe 
to  say  that  the  situation  in  the  world  would  be 
no  worse  than  it  is  today. 

Even  those  of  us  who  say  that  we  are  safely 
out  of  that  terrible  mess  in  Europe  must  pause 
at  times  to  speculate  as  to  just  how  safe  we 
really  can  be  in  the  event  of  another  European 
war. 

Can  we  avoid  taking  sides,  and  can  we  resist 
the  forces  of  hysteria  that  had  their  way  with 
us  in  1 91 7-1 8? 

Whatever  the  answers  to  these  questions 
may  be,  I  am  heartily  of  the  opinion  that  every 
encouraging  answer  would  touch  somehow  or 
other  the  circle  of  influence  we  associate  with 
the  League  of  Nations.  That  influence,  I  know, 
has  been  toward  good  will  and  good  sense  more 
often  than  it  has  been  toward  destruction  and 
despair. 

I  am  not  deceived  by  its  well-advertised 
failures,  for  I  know  that  it  has  succeeded  in 
helpful  efforts,  not  so  well  advertised  through- 
out the  world.  But  more  important  than  its 
actual  achievements  is  the  League's  position 
among  forces  that  are  frankly  and  enthusias- 
tically opposed  to  the  Christian  ideals  of  its 
founders. 

The  pagan  world  is  awake  and  agog — fully 
intent  upon  testing  Christian  ideals  with  all 
the  power  it  commands.  Is  the  Christian  world 
equal  to  such  a  test  without  some  sort  of  a 
working  and  workable  unit  like  the  League  of 
Nations?  I  wonder! 


WITH  THE  ORGANIZATIONS 


IHE  National  Council  for  Prevention  of 
War,  Washington,  D.  C,  is  concentrating 
its  efforts  during  these  pre-election  months 
on  putting  'peace  people  in  power.' 
Through  its  departments,  which  reach 
organized  labor,  the  great  farm  groups, 
women's  organizations,  Church  members, 
and  young  voters,  the  Council  is  stressing 
the  importance  of  electing  to  Congress 
candidates  who  will  work  for  and  vote  for  a 
peace  program. 

The  Council's  six-point  program  in- 
cludes a  national  defense  policy  based  on 
defense  of  our  soil  from  invasion,  not  of 
our  interests  abroad;  easing  of  interna- 
tional tensions  through  reciprocal  trade 
agreements  and  stabilization  of  currencies; 
stronger  neutrality  legislation  including 
embargoes  on  basic  war  materials;  inter- 
national cooperation  in  the  settlement  of 
disputes  by  peaceful  means  in  accordance 
with  the  principles  of  the  Kellogg  Pact; 
nationalization  of  the  munitions  industry 
and  taxing  the  profits  out  of  war;  watchful 
maintenance  of  the  constitutional  guar- 
antees of  freedom  of  speech,  press  and 
assembly. 

The  Council  urges  that  peace  groups  in 
every  congressional  district  learn  how  the 
candidates  stand  on  each  of  these  issues, 
and  that  votes  be  cast  for  or  against 
them  on  the  basis  of  their  peace-war  views. 
In  its  literature  the  Council  points  out 
that  the  prevention  of  war  is  really  the 
only  campaign  issue,  for  it  believes  that 
only  in  an  atmosphere  of  peace  can  social 
security,  relief  for  farmers,  and  alleviation 
of  unemployment  be  achieved. 

IN  RESPONSE  to  our  request  for  infor- 
mation about  the  War  Resisters  League, 
Miss  Jessie  Wallace  Hughan,  American 
secretary  of  that  organization,  has  sent  us 
a  long  statement,  from  which  we  take  the 
following: — 

'"Practical"  statesmen  have  tried,  and 


failed  [to  end  war];  but  the  war  resistance 
movement  places  its  faith  neither  in 
statesmen  nor  in  Governments,  but  in 
peoples.  Not  only  is  it  perfectly  obvious 
that  wars  will  cease  when  men  refuse  to 
fight,  that  it  is  not  the  rulers  who  make 
war,  but  the  men  behind  the  guns  and  the 
women  and  non-combatants  who  make 
and  transport  the  guns  and  furnish  the 
sinews  of  war.  Something  else  is  also  true. 
History  has  convinced  us  that  there  is 
only  one  power  which  can  prevent  Gov- 
ernments from  declaring  war,  and  that  is 
the  knowledge  that  men  and  supplies  will 
not  be  forthcoming. 

'The  American  War  Resisters  League  is 
affiliated  with  the  War  Resisters  Inter- 
national, which  has  organized  sections  in 
thirty  different  countries,  and  is  strongest 
in  Great  Britain.  Its  members  are  men  and 
women  who  have  signed  the  following 
declaration:  "War  is  a  crime  against 
humanity.  I  therefore  am  determined  not 
to  support  any  kind  of  war,  international 
or  civil,  and  to  strive  for  the  removal  of 
all  the  causes  of  war." 

'War  resistance,  however,  means  more 
than  conscientious  objection.  It  means  a 
world-wide  strike  against  every  kind  of 
war^  a  strike  in  which  tens  of  thousands 
have  already  enlisted,  and  which,  when  it 
reaches  the  hundred  thousands,  will  see 
victory  in  sight  .  .  .  Since  the  goal  of 
war  resistance  ...  is  not  the  mere 
hampering  of  war,  but  its  prevention,  it  is 
of  the  utmost  importance  that  the  strength 
of  the  opposition  be  made  known  before- 
hand. Every  year  the  mounting  number  of 
war  resisters'  enrollments  is  reported  to 
our  Government;  and  every  man  or 
woman  who  has  determined  upon  refusal 
to  support  war  is  urged  to  add  strength  to 
the  movement  by  sending  in  his  or  her 
signed  declaration.  Blanks  may  be  ob- 
tained from  the  Secretary,  Jessie  Wallace 
Hughan,  171  West  12th  St.,  New  York.' 


[558] 


THE  LIVING  AGE 


THE  GUIDE  POST 

{Continued) 

intimate  and  revealing  account  of  his  char- 
acter. This  month  we  reproduce  from  the 
same  source  a  quite  different  piece  on 
Housman  by  Cyril  Connolly,  a  young 
English  critic  and  novelist  [p.  499].  Mr. 
Connolly's  attempt  to  belittle  and  make 
fun  of  Housman's  verse  brought  the  New 
Statesman  a  'large  and  learned  corre- 
spondence.' Those  of  our  readers  who 
take  an  interest  in  acrimonious  literary 
controversies  will  enjoy  reading  the  letters 
in  the  New  Statesman's  pages. 

WHILE  Mr.  Connolly  would  reject  the 
greater  part  of  Housman's  poetical  output 
as  cheap  sentimentality,  Cecil  Maurice 
Bowra  thinks  that  the  principal  failing 
of  Housman's  scholarship  is  the  exacting 
standards  he  set  in  it.  Mr.  Bowra  is  a  Fel- 
low of  Wadham  College,  Oxford,  co-editor 
of  the  Oxford  Book  of  Greek  Ferse,  and  au- 
thor of  several  books  on  Greek  literature. 
His  appraisal  of  Housman  as  a  scholar 
comes  from  the  London  Spectator,  [p.  502] 

THE  Nature  of  Fascism  is  an  attempt  to 
analyze  and  appraise  the  Italian  brand 
of  that  well-nigh  ubiquitous  movement; 
it  is  especially  interesting  for  the  reason 
that  it  was  written  by  a  man  who  was 
a  practising  Fascist  himself  only  a  short 
time  ago.  Nicholas  Chiaramonte  is  a 
young  Italian  journalist  and  critic;  he  has 
contributed  criticisms  and  reviews  to 
L'lta/ia  Letteraria,  Rome  literary  weekly, 
and  has  made  a  name  for  himself  with  his 
critiques  of  Giovanni  Papini.  In  The  Na- 
ture of  Fascism  he  tells  why  he  renounced 
both  Fascism  and  Italy,  [p.  515] 

THE  two  short  stories  which  we  have 
grouped  under  the  title  Ta/es  of  the  Gaels 
come  respectively  from  the  Neue  Ziircher 
Zeitung,  the  Zurich  German-language 
daily,  and  the  Adelphi,  Mr.  John  Middle- 
ton-Murry's  London  monthly.  The  first 
[p.  523]  describes  a  bootlegging  excursion 


in  Ireland,  the  second  [p.  526]  a  wake  in 
Scotland.  In  both  one  finds  the  weird  and 
ghostly  atmosphere  which  runs  like  a 
continuous  thread  through  the  whole  of 
Celtic  literature,  from  the  Tain  to  the 
poetry  of  William  Butler  Yeats. 

THE  Personages  of  the  month  are  Leon 
Degrelle,  the  young  Fascist  leader  who 
made  such  spectacular  gains  in  the  recent 
Belgian  elections  [p.  505];  Prince  Paul, 
Regent  of  Yugoslavia  and  uncle  of  the 
schoolboy  King  [p.  509];  and  Leslie 
Howard,  the  English  movie  star,  as  he 
is  at  home  {p.  512]. 

THIS  month's  reviewers  of  Books  Abroad 
are  the  Hon.  Harold  Nicolson,  member 
of  the  British  Parliament,  indefatigable 
critic  and  book  reviewer,  and  the  author 
of  Peacemaking,  Some  People,  and  a  biog- 
raphy of  his  father.  Lord  Carnock;  Aldous 
Huxley,  the  English  novelist,  whose  latest 
novel.  Eyeless  in  Gaza,  has  just  been  pub- 
lished; A.  D.  Lindsay,  the  Master  of 
Balliol  College,  Oxford,  and  Vice-Chan- 
cellor  of  the  University;  John  Sparrow, 
author  of  Sense  and  Poetry  and  critic  of 
the  Spectator;  Leo  Lania,  a  German  emigre 
whose  Moscow  Buys  appeared  in  a  recent 
issue  of  The  Living  Age;  and  Marcel 
Arland,  French  novelist  and  essayist. 

OUR  own  reviewers  include  Benjamin  N. 
Nelson,  Instructor  in  Mediaeval  and 
Renaissance  History  at  City  College  in 
New  York;  William  Orton,  professor  of 
economics  at  Smith  College;  Harry  R. 
Rudin,  instructor  in  history  at  Yale; 
John  Burke,  who  writes  that  he  is  'run- 
ning for  State  Senator  in  a  hopelessly 
Democratic  district'  of  Connecticut; 
Melvin  M.  Fagen,  formerly  secretary  to 
James  G.  McDonald,  League  of  Nations 
Commissioner  for  Refugees  from  Nazi 
Germany,  and  now  associated  with  the 
American  Jewish  Committee;  and  Henry 
Bennett,  whose  translation  of  a  story  by 
Pierre  Galinier  appeared  in  the  July 
Living  Age. 


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