Regarding the new system of local self-government, I may say briefly that I was very favorably impressed by the results. The first time I followed, as an attentive spectator, the proceedings of a Provincial Assembly, I was fairly astonished. It was in 1870—only nine years after the beginning of the great reforms—and already the local affairs were being discussed, on a footing of perfect equality, by noble landed proprietors in fashionable European costume and emancipated serfs in sheepskins. Some of the peasants were very able, unpretentious speakers, and in one respect they had an advantage over some of their former masters—they knew thoroughly what they were talking about. While the frock-coated young gentlemen who had finished their education in a university or agricultural college were often inclined to deal in scientific abstractions, their humble colleagues, who had come direct from the plow, confined themselves to thoroughly practical remarks, and usually exercised a very beneficial influence on the discussions.

The favorable impressions which I received from this Provincial Assembly were subsequently confirmed by wider experience, especially when I worked regularly during a Winter in the head office of the local administration of the Novgorod province. The chief defect of the new institutions seemed to me to be the very pardonable habit of attempting too much, without duly estimating the available resources. This illustrates a very important national characteristic—intense impatience to obtain gigantic results in an incredibly short space of time. Unlike the English, who crawl cautiously along the rugged path of progress, looking attentively to the right and to the left, and seeking to avoid obstacles and circumvent opposition by conciliation and compromise, the Russian dashes boldly into the unknown, keeping his eye fixed on the distant goal and striving to follow a beeline, regardless of obstacles and pitfalls. The natural consequence is that his moments of sanguine enthusiasm are frequently followed by hours of depression bordering on despair, when he is inclined to attribute his failure to some malign influence rather than to his own recklessness. When in this depressed mood the more violent natures are apt to have recourse to extreme measures.

By bearing in mind this national peculiarity the reader will more easily understand the strange events which followed close on the heels of the great reforms which I have just mentioned. Alexander II. was preparing to advance further along the path on which he had entered so successfully, when his reforming ardor was suddenly cooled by alarming symptoms of a widespread revolutionary agitation. Many members of the young generation, male and female, had imbibed the most advanced political and socialist theories of France and Germany, and they imagined that, by putting these into practice, Russia might advance by a single bound far beyond the more conservative nations and set an example for imitation to the future generations of humanity! The less violent of these enthusiasts, recognizing that a certain amount of preparatory work was necessary, undertook a campaign of propaganda among the lower classes, as factory workers in the towns and school teachers in the villages. The more violent, on the contrary, considered that a quicker and more efficient method of attaining the desired object was the destruction of autocracy by revolvers and bombs, and several attempts were accordingly made on the lives of the Czar and his advisers. For more than ten years, undismayed by these revolutionary manifestations, Alexander II. clung to his ideas of reform, but at last, in 1881, on the eve of issuing a decree for the convocation of a National Assembly, he fell a victim to the bomb throwers.

The practical result of all this was that for the next quarter of a century no great reforms were initiated, but those already effected were consolidated, and some progress was made in a quiet, unostentatious way, especially in the sphere of economic development.

A new period of reform began after the Japanese war, and this time the reform current took the direction of parliamentary institutions. At last, after much waiting, the political aspirations of the educated classes were partially realized, so that Russia has now a Chamber of Deputies, called the Imperial Duma, freely elected by the people, and an upper house, called the Imperial Council, whose members are selected partly by election and partly by nomination.

What strikes a stranger on first entering the Duma is the variety of costumes, showing plainly that all classes of the population are represented. There are landed proprietors not unlike English country squires; long-haired priests in ecclesiastical robes; workingmen from the factories and peasants from the villages in their Sunday clothes; one or two Cossacks in uniform; Mussulmans from the Eastern provinces in semi-Oriental attire. The various nationalities seem to live happily together—Great Russians, Little Russians, Poles, Lithuanians, Russo-Germans, Circassians, Tartars, &c. Almost as numerous as the nationalities are the recognized political parties—Conservatives, Nationalists, Liberals, Radicals, Labor Members, Social Democrats, and Socialists. Great liberty of speech is allowed, but the President has generally no difficulty in keeping order.

Thus, to all appearance, the Duma seems exactly what was required to complete the edifice of self-government founded fifty years ago; but we must not suppose that a Constitution not yet ten years old can be as strong and efficient as a Constitution which has gradually emerged from centuries of political struggle. In other words, the Russian Duma differs in many respects from the British House of Commons. One fundamental difference may be cited by way of example. In England, as all the world knows, the Cabinet is practically chosen by the party which happens to be predominant for the moment, and as soon as it fails to command a majority it must resign; whereas in Russia, as in Germany, the Cabinet is nominated by the Emperor. This is, of course, a very important difference, and all to our advantage, but it is not so great in practice as in theory. The Czar, though free theoretically to choose his Ministers as he pleases, must choose such men as can obtain a working majority in the Assembly; otherwise, the whole parliamentary machinery comes to a standstill. Such a deadlock actually occurred in the First Duma. Smarting under the humiliation of the Japanese war, attributing the defeats to the incurable incapacity of the Supreme Government, and believing that the old system had become too weak to withstand a vigorous assault, the majority of the Deputies resolved to abolish at once the autocratic power and replace it by ultra-democratic institutions. They accordingly adopted, from the very first day of the session, an attitude of irreconcilable hostility to the Cabinet, refused to listen to Ministerial explanations, abstained from all useful legislative work, and carried their strategy of obstruction so far that the Government had to take refuge in a dissolution.

For this unfortunate result, which tended to retard the natural growth of constitutional freedom in Russia, the Government was severely blamed by many of its critics, but I venture to think that a large share of the responsibility must be attributed to the unreasonable impatience of the Deputies and their supporters. In defense of this opinion I might adduce many strong arguments, but I confine myself to citing a significant little incident from my personal experience. Happening to meet at dinner one evening immediately after the dissolution an old friend who had played a leading part in the policy of obstruction, I took the liberty of remarking to him that he and his party appeared to me to have committed a strategical mistake. If they had shown themselves ready to co-operate with the Government in resisting the dangerous revolutionary movement and favoring moderate reforms, they might have made for themselves, in the course of nine or ten years, a very influential position in the parliamentary system, and might have greatly advanced the cause of democracy which they had at heart. Here my friend interrupted me with the exclamation: "Nine or ten years? We can't wait so long as that!"

The Second Duma was shipwrecked, like its predecessor, through youthful impatience. Among the Deputies there was a small group of Social Democrats who attempted to prepare a military insurrection, and when the conspiracy was discovered there was great reason to fear that the Government might adopt a reactionary policy; but it happily confined itself to some changes in the suffrage regulations and a dissolution of the Chamber, followed by a general election. Since that time the parliamentary machinery has worked much more smoothly. The Duma has learned the truth of the old adage that half a loaf is better than no bread, and on many important subjects, such as the preparation of the annual budget, it now co-operates loyally with the Ministers. In this way it gets its half loaf, and the country benefits by the new-born spirit of compromise.

Before going further, perhaps I ought to warn my readers that I am often reproached by my Russian friends with taking too favorable a view of the Duma and of many other things in Russia. To this I usually reply by taking those friends to task for their habitual pessimism in criticising themselves and their institutions. Naturally inclined to idealism, and not possessing sufficient hereditary experience to correct this tendency, they compare their institutions with ideals which nowhere exist in the real world, and consequently they condemn them very severely. The impartial foreigner who wishes to form a true estimate of these institutions must always take this into account. In spite of the impassioned philippics to which I have listened hundreds of times from my Russian friends, I am strongly of opinion that the Russian people have made in recent years considerable progress in their political education, and that they will continue to do so in the future.

But how is genuine national progress possible so long as the great mass of the population are grossly ignorant, conservative, and superstitious? Here again we must beware of adopting current exaggerations. To begin with the peasantry, who are by far the most numerous class, we must admit that they are very far from being well educated, but they are keen to learn and they gladly send their children to the village schools, which have been greatly increased and improved in recent years. Another source of education is the army. Since the introduction of universal military service every unlettered recruit must learn to read and write. A third educational agency is the peculiar village organization. As every head of a family has a house of his own and a share of the communal land, he is a miniature farmer; and, unlike agricultural laborers, who need not look much ahead beyond the weekly pay day, he must make his agricultural and domestic arrangements for an entire year, under pain of incurring starvation or falling into the clutches of the usurer. This is in itself a sort of practical education. Then he has to attend regularly the meetings of the village assembly, at which all communal affairs are discussed and decided. To this I must add that he is by no means obstinately conservative. Habitually cautious, he may be slow to change his traditional habits and methods of cultivation, but he does change them when he sees, by the experience of his neighbors, that new methods are more profitable than old ones. Ask any dealer in improved implements and machines how many he has sold to peasants in a single year. Or ask any director of a peasant land bank how many thousand peasants within the area of his activity are purchasing land outside the communal limits and farming on their own account. If you desire any further information on this subject, ask any liberal-minded landed proprietor who takes an interest in the prosperity of his humble neighbors to describe to you the small credit societies and similar associations which have recently sprung up in his neighborhood. Nor is it only in agricultural affairs that the peasants have manifested a progressive spirit. If you should happen to pass through the industrial districts around Moscow, you will see many gigantic factories, which employ thousands of hands. Incredible as it may seem, not a few of these were founded by unlettered peasants, whose sons and grandsons have become millionaires.

Let us now go up a step in the social scale and inquire whether those born in the mercantile class are as progressive as the peasantry. Formerly they were regarded, and not without reason, as extremely conservative, and certainly they used to show little sympathy with education or culture; but in recent years their character has been profoundly modified by the ever-increasing influx of foreign capital and foreign enterprise. The upper ranks at least are now being Europeanized in the best sense of the term, not only in their methods of doing business, but also in many other respects. Their homes are becoming more comfortable and elegant according to modern ideas, refinement is gradually permeating their daily life, and the sons of not a few of them are being sent abroad to complete their education in universities or technical colleges.

Compared with the peasantry and the mercantile community, the clergy as a class do not show signs of great progress, but I must do them the justice to say that they do not obstruct. Toward science and culture the Russian Church has always maintained an attitude of neutrality, and it has rarely troubled the adherents of other confessions by aggressive missionary propaganda, while among its own flock it has systematically fostered a spirit of humility and resignation to the Divine will. This helps to explain the wonderful tolerance habitually shown by all classes toward people of another faith. I remember once asking a common laborer what he thought of the Mussulman Tartars among whom he happened to be living, and his reply, given with evident sincerity, was: "Not a bad sort of people." "And what about their religion?" I inquired. "Not at all a bad sort of faith; you see, they received it, like the color of their skins, from God." He assumed, of course, in his simple piety, that whatever comes from God must be good.

Why, then, it may be asked, is this tolerance not extended to the Jews? They complain, and apparently not without reason, that they are subject to certain disabilities and exposed to persecution in Russia. Thereby hangs a tale! Peter the Great would not allow Jews to settle in his dominions on the ground that his single-minded, ignorant subjects could not compete with a naturally clever race endowed with a marvelous talent for money-making. Under his successors, by the annexation of Poland, several millions of Polish Jews became Russian subjects; but the policy of exclusion, so far as Russia proper is concerned, has been maintained down to the present day, so that, throughout the purely Russian provinces, Jews are not yet allowed to settle in the villages. If you ask the reason, you will probably be told that if a single Jew were allowed to live in a village, all the Orthodox inhabitants would soon be deeply in debt to him. In some respects, however, the old regulations have been relaxed. A certain proportion of Jewish students are admitted to the universities and higher schools, and such of them as pass their examinations may settle in the towns and freely exercise their professions. As a matter of fact, a considerable proportion of the most capable barristers, physicians, bankers, &c., in Petrograd, Moscow, and other cities are Jews by race and religion, and I have never heard of any of them being persecuted. Anti-Semitic feeling, so far as it exists, has nothing to do with religious beliefs. It is confined to such people as the trader who suffers from the competition of Jewish rivals, or the peasant who finds that the money-lender, from whom he has borrowed at a high rate of interest, exacts rigorously the fulfillment of the contract. The pillaging of Jewish shops and houses which occurred some years ago in certain towns of the southwestern provinces and was graphically described in the English press was due to pecuniary rather than religious enmity, and was organized by political intriguers.

In order to complete my cursory review of the various social classes from the point of view of social and political progress, I must say something of the nobility and gentry; but I need not say much, because their general character is pretty well known in Western Europe. They are well educated, highly cultured, remarkably open-minded, most anxious to acquaint themselves with the latest ideas in science, literature, and art, and very fond of studying the most advanced foreign theories of social and political development, with a view to applying them to their own country. Thus it may safely be asserted that they are unquestionably progressive. They are, in fact, more disposed to rush forward regardless of consequences than to lag behind in the race, so that their impatience has sometimes to be restrained in the sphere of politics by the Government. This brings us face to face with the important question as to how far the Government and the Supreme Ruler are favorable to national progress and enlightenment.

The antiquated idea that Czars are always heartless tyrants who devote much of their time to sending troublesome subjects to Siberia is now happily pretty well exploded, but the average Englishman is still reluctant to admit that an avowedly autocratic Government may be, in certain circumstances, a useful institution. There is no doubt, however, that in the gigantic work of raising Russia to her present level of civilization the Czars have played a most important part. As for the present Czar, he has followed, in a humane spirit, the best traditions of his ancestors. Any one who has had opportunities of studying closely his character and aims, and who knows the difficulties with which he has had to contend, can hardly fail to regard him with sympathy and admiration. Among the qualities which should commend him to Englishmen are his scrupulous honesty and genuine truthfulness. Of these—were I not restrained by fear of committing a breach of confidence—I might give some interesting illustrations.

As a ruler Nicholas II. habitually takes a keen, sympathetic interest in the material and moral progress of his country, and is ever ready to listen attentively and patiently to those who are presumably competent to offer sound advice on the subject. At the same time he is very prudent in action, and this happy combination of zeal and caution, which distinguishes him from his too impetuous countrymen, has been signally displayed in recent years. During the revolutionary agitation which followed close on the disastrous Japanese war, when the impetuous would-be reformers wished to overturn the whole existing fabric of administration, and the timid counselors recommended vigorous retrograde measures, he wisely steered a middle course, which has resulted in the creation of a moderate form of parliamentary institutions. That seems to indicate that Nicholas II. has something of the typical Englishman's love of compromise.

So much for the first of the two reasons commonly adduced to prove that Russia is an undesirable ally. I trust I have said enough to show that the idea of her being the great modern stronghold of barbarism, ignorance, and tyrannical government is very far from the truth. Now I come to the second reason—that she has repeatedly threatened our interests in the past and is sure to threaten them in the future because she has an insatiable territorial appetite.

That Russia has a formidable territorial appetite cannot be denied, but it ill becomes us Britishers to reproach her on that score, because, if we may judge by results, our own territorial appetite is at least equally formidable. Like her, we began our national life with a very modest amount of territory, and now the British Empire is considerably larger than the Empire of the Czars. According to recent trustworthy statistics, the former contains over 13,000,000 square miles, and the latter less than 8,500,000. To this I may add that the motives and methods of annexation have a strong family resemblance. Both of us have been urged forward partly by rapidly increasing population and partly by national ambition; and both of us have systematically added to our dominions, partly by colonization and partly by conquest. As examples of colonizing expansion we may take Siberia and Australia, and as examples of expansion by conquest we may point to Russian Central Asia and British India.

Fortunately for the peace of the world, the two spheres of expansion long lay wide apart. The Russians, as a continental nation hemmed in by no natural frontiers, naturally overflowed into adjacent thinly peopled territory and spread out very much as a drop of oil spreads out on soft paper; while we, being islanders with an adventurous seafaring population, chose our fields of colonization and conquest in various distant regions of the globe. Thus, until comparatively recent times, we had no occasion to come into conflict with our rivals, or, to speak more accurately, the two nations were not rivals at all. Now, it is true, we have approached within striking distance of each other, and there is some danger of our coming into hostile contact. Of this danger and the possibility of averting it I shall speak presently, but meanwhile I must make a little digression in order to anticipate an objection that may be made to the foregoing remarks.

Some conscientious inquirer, while admitting that there is a certain resemblance between British and Russian territorial expansion, may reasonably point to some important differences in the results. The expansion of England, he may say, has resulted in spreading over the world the benefits of civilization and freedom; her more important colonies have grown into self-governing sister nations, who are showing their loyalty and affection for the mother country by rushing to her assistance in the present crisis; at the same time her great Indian dependency and her Crown Colonies, which do not yet enjoy complete self-government, are likewise showing their sympathetic appreciation of the blessings conferred on them by the central power.

In comparison with all this, what has Russia to show? Not so much, I confess, but she has effected considerable improvements in the annexed territories. The great plains to the north of the Black Sea, which were formerly the home of nomadic, predatory tribes, have been brought under cultivation; the tents of the nomads have been replaced by thriving villages, flaming blast furnaces, great foundries, and fine towns, such as Odessa, Taganrog and Rostoff; the Crimea, whose inhabitants once lived mainly by marauding expeditions and the slave trade, is now a peaceful and prosperous province; in the Caucasus, which was long the scene of constant tribal warfare and where the well-to-do inhabitants were not ashamed to sell their young, beautiful daughters to the Pashas of Constantinople, permanent order has been everywhere established and many abuses suppressed; in Siberia, which was little better than a wilderness, there are now thousands of prosperous farmers, railways and river steamboats have been constructed, and the mineral resources are being rapidly developed; thanks to the improvement of communications in that part of the empire, Peking is now well within a fortnight of Petrograd. Even in Central Asia there is evidence of improvement; the Russian military administration, with all its defects, is better than the native rule which preceded it. Such was, at least, the impression which I received in semi-Russianized territories like Bokhara and Samarcand. Thus, while we may be justly proud of our achievements in imperial consolidation and progress, we may well regard with sympathy the efforts of our rival in the same direction.

Apologizing for this little digression, I proceed now to consider very briefly the danger of future conflict between the two great empires which have come within striking distance of each other.

This danger, as it seems to me, though serious enough, is not so great as is commonly supposed. We have many interests in common, as our present alliance proves, and there are only two localities in which a future conflict is to be apprehended. These are Constantinople and our Indian frontier.

Napoleon is reported to have said that the nation which occupies Constantinople must dominate the world. The present occupants have proved that this dictum is, to say the least, an exaggeration, but there is no doubt that if Russia possessed the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, her power, for defensive and offensive purposes, would be greatly increased, and she might seriously threaten our line of communications with India through the Suez Canal. This danger, however, is very remote. So many great powers are interested in preventing her from obtaining such a commanding position in the Mediterranean, that if she made any aggressive movement in that direction she would certainly find herself confronted by a very formidable European coalition.

An attack on our Indian frontier is likewise, I venture to think, a very improbable contingency. There may possibly be in Russia some political dreamers who imagine, in their idle hours, that it would be a grand thing to conquer India, with its teeming millions of inhabitants, and appropriate the countless wealth which it is falsely supposed to possess; but I have never met or heard of any serious Russian politician capable of advocating such a hazardous enterprise. Certainly there is no immediate danger. When the European struggle in which we are now engaged is brought to an end, the nations who are taking part in it will husband their resources for many years before launching into any wild adventures. Moreover, our position in our great Eastern dependency has never previously been so secure as it is now. The Government has long been taking precautionary measures against possible troubles on the frontier, and in the interior of the country the great mass of the inhabitants are prosperous and contented. Hindus and Mahommedans alike are learning to appreciate the benefits of British rule, as is shown by the fact that in the present crisis the native Princes are generously placing all the available resources of their States at the disposal of the Central Government.

An additional security against danger in that quarter is afforded by the character of the present Czar. His natural disposition is not at all of the adventurous type, and he will doubtless profit by past experience. He will not soon forget how he inadvertently drifted into the Japanese conflict because he let himself be persuaded by ill-informed counselors that a war with Japan was altogether out of the question. We can hardly suppose that he will listen to such counselors a second time. Moreover, he showed on one memorable occasion that he was animated with friendly sentiments toward England. The incident has hitherto been kept secret, but may now be divulged. During the South African war a hint came to him from a foreign potentate that the moment had arrived for clipping England's wings and that Russia might play a useful part in the operation by making a military demonstration on the Afghan frontier. To this suggestion the Czar turned a deaf ear. I am well aware that in semi-official conversation the foreign potentate in question has represented the incident in a very different light, but recent experience has taught us to be chary of accepting literally any diplomatic assurances coming from that quarter.

On this subject of possible future conflicts with Russia and of the best means of averting them, I have a great deal more to say, but I have now reached the limits of the space at my disposal, not to mention the patience of my readers, I confine myself, therefore, to a single additional remark. The conflicting interests of the two great empires are not so irreconcilable as they are often represented, and the chances of solving the difficult problem by mutually satisfactory compromises may be greatly increased by cultivating friendly relations with the power which was formerly our rival and is now happily our ally.



Confiscation of German Patents

[From Russkia Vedomosti, No. 235, Oct. 12 (25), 1914; No. 273, Nov. 27 (Dec. 10), 1914.]

The conference of the representatives of industry at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry decided that it is desirable that the Government should confiscate the patents granted to Austrian and German subjects for inventions which may be of special interest for the State, provided, however, that the patent holders should be reimbursed after the end of the war.

The conference found it impossible to abolish the trade marks of German and Austrian subjects, for this would hurt the Russian consumer, who could be then easily cheated by false labels.

Two conflicting opinions prevailed in the conference. The one held that the commercial treaties between Russia and Germany (and Austria) have left the question of patents out of consideration, while the other pointed out that the commercial treaties had granted to German subjects equal rights and privileges with Russians as regards patents.

The decision seems to be a compromise between the two.

A delegation of the Moscow Merchants' Association, consisting of Messrs. N.N. Shustov, I.G. Volkov, and A.D. Liamin, will soon go to Petrograd to petition the Ministers of Finance, Commerce and Industry and of the Interior for measures against German "oppression." The delegation intends to ask for the revocation of all privileges (franchises) and patents granted to Austrian, German, and Turkish subjects and for the granting to the Moscow merchants of the right to admit foreigners to the Merchants' Association only at its own discretion.

Finally, the delegation intends to discuss with the Ministers the special fund created recently at the State Bank for the settlement of payments to foreign merchants belonging to the warring nations. With this fund Russian merchants are depositing money for their matured notes. Thus the payment for foreign goods is now better guaranteed than before. The German merchants are taking advantage of this arrangement, offering their goods to Russian consumers through their agents and branch houses and commercial agents located in neutral countries. Therefore the new arrangement helps rather than hurts the German trade in Russia.



A Russian Income Tax

Proposed by the Ministry of Finance.

[From Russkia Vedomosti, No. 225, Oct. 1 (14), 1914.]

In the long list of new Russian taxes the income tax is the most interesting. It is still only a drafted bill. The Government hesitates to press it. Perhaps the Duma will take some steps to make this bill a law. Its main provisions are as follows:

All annual incomes of 1,000 rubles ($500) and above are to be assessed at a progressive rate ranging from 1-1/2 per cent. on 1,000 rubles to the maximum of 8 per cent. on incomes of 200,000 rubles ($100,000) and above. All persons engaged actively in the present war shall be exempt from this tax.

All persons freed from military service within the last four years are to pay an additional tax equal to 50 per cent. of their income tax, provided the incomes of the parents whose sons have been freed reach 2,000 rubles ($1,000).

All persons freed from military service having incomes below 1,000 rubles ($500) are to pay a uniform tax of 6 rubles ($3). A special war tax is to be levied in provinces where the whole population or certain groups of the population are freed from military service.

Note: For a poor country like Russia the minimum exempt from taxation is very high. The large number of able-bodied men in war would cut into this tax considerably. It has been figured out that the special 6-ruble tax on those freed from the military service would yield about 13,000,000 rubles ($6,500,000). The total revenue from this tax would hardly reach 50,000,000 rubles. Commenting upon this bill, critics have proposed to reduce the minimum exempt from taxation from 1,000 rubles ($500) to 750 rubles ($375) and to cut out the special 6-ruble war tax.



PING PONG.

By BEATRICE BARRY.

Faith, hear our soldier boys a-sighin' 'Cause Major General John O'Ryan Won't let 'em dance! The hard-wood floors he's goin' to rip— They may not hesitate or dip; I'm told that he was heard to say They're 'sposed to work and not to play Ping Pong! Ping Pong! Ping Pong!

No more about a slender waist Shall arm in uniform be placed. He looks askance At signs of happiness and mirth; Soldiers were put upon the earth To sweat and dig in hard dirt floors, And so prepare 'emselves for war's— Ping Pong! Ping Pong! Ping Pong!

I cannot say—I do not know Whether the boys would have it so; But if by chance We should engage in carnage grim, And harm, alas! should come to him— Would they feel sorrow then, or bliss, The while they heard the bullets hiss Ping Pong, Ping Pong, Ping Pong?



Tools of the Russian Juggernaut

By M.J. Bonn.

Prof. Bonn is Professor of Political Economy at the University of Munich and German Visiting Professor to the University of California. The following article by him was published on Aug. 8, 1914, in the first week of war.

As long as hostile censors muzzle truth there is no use in discussing the European military situation. Where the ingenuity of American newspaper men has failed it would be presumptuous for any one to try. But the question, Why are we at war? can be answered fairly well by anybody conversant with the facts of the European situation.

We are not at war because the Emperor, as war lord, has sent out word to his legions to begin a war of world-wide aggression, carrying into its vortex intellectual Germany, notwithstanding all her peaceful aspirations.

I may fairly claim to be a representative of that intellectual Germany which comes in now for a good deal of sympathy, but I must own that intellectual Germany, as far as I know about her, thoroughly approves of the Emperor's present policy.

She approves of it not on the principle merely "Right or wrong, my country"; she does so because she knows that war has become inevitable, and that we must face that ordeal when we are ready for it, not at the moment most agreeable to our enemies. If intellectual Germany wants to develop the moral and intellectual qualities of the German people she can do so only if there is peace—real peace—not endangered by the fear of some sudden and treacherous aggression.

We approve of the war because we realize that such a peace was no longer possible. Some of our critics are trying to show that we wanted a war, as we wanted the colonial empire of France.

We have, indeed, refused the demand made by England as the price for her neutrality—that we should not be allowed to take any part of France's colonial domains, even in case of complete victory.

We refused this stipulation, not because we were after those colonies, but because a so-called neutral power tried to impose conditions upon us she would never have dreamed of asking from France.

If we were hankering after conquest we would have made war long ago. We would have done so during the Morocco crisis, when Russia had not yet recovered from the Japanese war; when Turkey was still a mighty empire, ready to take our side, overawing the Balkan States and threatening Russia; when Rumania was our ally and when France, trying to swallow up the independent States of Morocco, but put herself morally in the wrong.

We refrained from war not because England supported France. The developments of the last week have shown that we are ready to face England, too, when needs must be. We decided for peace because we were convinced that no amount of colonial aggrandizement could compensate us for the dangers and horrors of a big European war.

Our diplomatic methods during those days may have been brusque and annoying, but our aim was peace. Though we are held up continually as the disturber of European peace, driven on by a mad desire for territorial aggrandizement, we are the only big European nation which has not increased her territory during the last twenty-five years.

Russia tried to steal the Far East and is now going half shares with England in Persia. England annexed the Boer republics and is playing with Russia for the Persian States.

France has taken Morocco; Italy, Tripoli; Austria-Hungary has formally annexed Bosnia.

Even little Servia, who is praised just now as the most just and God-fearing nation, has succeeded in wresting a large part of Macedonia, inhabited by Bulgarians, from her Bulgarian allies.

The only conquest we went in for was an exchange of a strip of West Africa, which we got from France as a kind of hush money, for her Morocco policy, England, Italy, and Spain having taken their payment in advance.

We have led no war of aggression for new territories, and we are held up to moral contempt by all those nations who have taken their shares.

We went to war because we had to keep faith with Austria. We do not and we did not approve of every step our ally has taken. But our idea of a faithful alliance is not that you can chuck your partner whenever he has made a mistake, but that you must stick to him through good and evil.

You may upbraid him privately if you dislike his methods; you may give him a fair warning, but as long as your bargain exists you must stick to it.

And our alliance with Austria is not a mere piece of political strategy, not an unholy alliance like that of republican France with despotic Russia or Anglo-Saxon England with Mongol Japan.

Our States have a common history. We are, as far as the Austrian Germans are concerned—about a third of the population of Austria—the same people. We have, and that is perhaps the most decisive point in the alliance, nearly the same position on the surface of the globe.

We are both inland empires situated in the centre of Europe, surrounded by many different nations, all of whom may bear some grudge against us.

As long as our joint frontiers are safe we can stand back to back and face calmly any unnatural confederation like the present one.

We concluded the alliance with Austria because we wanted to safeguard ourselves against foreign attack; it has turned out the alliance has involved us in war. We might have avoided the war at present if we had broken faith with our ally.

It would not have been difficult for us to find some legal quibbles, like those which Italy, following a policy of very sober national egotism, is now earnestly exclaiming to all the world.

If we had done so we should have been knaves, but we should have been fools as well. For surely nobody can believe that the forces antagonistic to Germany would have ceased to act if we had left Austria in the lurch.

Neither France nor Russia nor England would have changed their policy. They might, moreover, have tried to make Austria join in some future conspiracy against us.

There are three main causes to which the war is due:

1. The French have never forgotten their defeat in 1870 and 1871. They have always been thirsting for revenge.

2. We are at war because Russia thinks she has a mission on behalf of the Slavic world; she feels that mission can only be fulfilled by smashing Germany, the bulwark of Western idea.

3. We are at war because England has returned to her old political ideals. She means to enforce anew the balance of power and she wants to cut down Germany to that normal dead-level which alone, she thinks, is consistent with her own security.

As far as our antagonism to France is concerned, we have always looked upon it as a regrettable fact which time, perhaps, might do away with. We are just enough to understand that a country like France, with a glorious past, a gallant spirit and an undaunted courage, cannot forget the blow we dealt her forty-three years ago.

We think we have been right in retaking from her Alsace-Lorraine, belonging originally to the German Empire. But we look with a kind of envy upon her who succeeded in denationalizing the people of those provinces to such a degree that we have not yet been able to make them Germans once more.

We have always regretted that the two most civilized nations in Continental Europe should be rent asunder by an unforgotten past.

We hoped that the creation of a wonderful African empire might in the long run soothe French national feeling. We should have been always willing to come to an understanding on the existing state of affairs, but though there have been lucky statesmen in France who tried such a policy, public opinion was too strong for them. French people preferred to sacrifice the main ideas on which their republican government is based and made an alliance with Russia.

Religious, national, and political oppression in Russia against Pole, Jew, and Finn, against workingman and intellectual, is propped up by the help of liberal thinking France, whose conservatism threw a Western glamour over Russian ill-deeds.

We have regretted more than words can say it that France has annihilated herself as a power for the moral improvement of the universe by making herself a tool of the Russian Juggernaut.

We read in the papers today that after a small frontier engagement in Alsace-Lorraine the signs of mourning were taken off from the statues representing Alsatian towns on Parisian squares.

We know in our innermost hearts that they will have to be attached for a long time to come to those three emblems of human progress for which France is supposed to stand, liberty, fraternity, equality, if our arms are not successful.

We realize that the gallant spirit of the French people has furnished the mainspring which has made this war possible.

We honor her for her courage. For we know well enough that it is she alone among the partners who runs real risks. We know that she is not moved by sordid motives. But as we know her unforgiving attitude, as we knew that she was helping Russia and egging her on against us; that she was instigating Britain and Belgium as well as Serb and Rumanian, we had to take her attitude as what it was; as the firm policy of a patriotic and passionate people, waiting for the moment when they could wipe out the memory of 1870, putting nationality to the front, sacrificing their own ideals of humanity.

Would France have given up this attitude if we had not stood by our Austrian ally? Would she have broken her word to her Russian friend if we had been a little more conciliatory?

I think we would commit a libel on French honor and on French patriotism if we assumed that any step on our part could have prevented her from trying to redress the state of affairs produced by the events of 1871.



Fate of the Jews in Poland

By Georg Brandes.

[From The Day, Nov. 29, 1914.]

Georg Brandes, Denmark's critic and man of letters, has lived in many European countries and spent the year 1886-87 in Russian Poland. His books on "Impressions of Poland" and "Impressions of Russia" show his interest in the political and social conditions of the Russian Empire.

The war raging in and out of Europe does not give the experienced much reason to hope. The immense mischief daily caused by it is certain enough. The benefits which are believed to be the result of it and of which the various nations dream differently are so uncertain that they cannot possibly be reckoned upon. Before those whose sympathy was with the deep national misfortune of the Polish people, there rose the image of the reunion and emancipation of this tripartited people under extensive autonomy, and most probably under the protection and supremacy of a great power.

For the present we are far away from that goal. Poles are compelled by necessity to fight in the Prussian, Austrian and Russian armies, against each other. Not the smallest attempt at emancipation has been made either in Prussian Posen or in the Russian "Kingdom" or in Austrian Galicia. We might even say that the dismemberment at present is going deeper than ever, as it is now cleaving the minds as well.

The only indication of a future union is the manifesto of the Grand Duke Nikolai, the Russian Field Marshal, to the Poles, issued in the middle of August. It began: "Poles, the hour has struck in which the holy dream of your fathers and grandfathers may be fulfilled. Let the borders cutting asunder the Polish people be effaced; let them unite under the sceptre of the Czar. Under this sceptre Poland will regenerate, free in religion, language, and autonomy."

And it ended in the following way: "The dawn of a new life is beginning for you. In this dawn let the sign of the cross, the symbol of the sufferings and the resurrection of the people, shine."

How clearly this manifesto, with its surprising love of liberty, its pious reference to the cross, bore the stamp of having been enforced by circumstances, and how accustomed one had become to disregard promises from the Russian Government of full constitutional liberty and the like, as those given before had not meant very much either in Finland or in Russia itself. Still the manifesto, as a sign of the time, was well apt to make an impression on the great masses who had always heard the authorities stamp as criminal plots, as high treason, what was now suddenly called from the supreme place "the holy dream of the forefathers."

The purpose of the proclamation was probably, above all, to prevent a revolt in Russian Poland the moment hostile troops invaded it. On the Austrian Poles the manifesto seems to have failed to produce its effect. As these Poles enjoy full autonomy in Galicia, and for a century have witnessed the severity and cruelty with which their kinsmen in Russian Poland have been oppressed, they received the proclamation with loud vows of faithfulness to the house of Hapsburg; nay, all the sokol societies which in time of peace (keeping a decision in view) had trained their members in games and the use of arms, placed themselves as Polish legions at the disposal of the Government against the Russians. But that was not all. The Ruthenian inhabitants of Galicia, one-half the population of the country, founded a League for the Release of Ukraine and flooded Europe from the 25th of August with notifications and descriptions hostile to Russia. The founders did not withhold their names. They are D. Donzow, W. Doroschenko, M. Melenewsky, A. Skoropyss-Joltuchowsky, N. Zalizniak and A. Zuk.

And it has very soon proved that, in spite of the proclamation of the independence of Poland, the Czar, at any rate, includes East Galicia in Poland as little as the inhabitants are regarded or treated as Poles or Ruthenians. The Russians were hardly in Lemberg, before this town and the whole of East Galicia were called in the orders of the day old Russian land and the inhabitants described as Russians, whom their brothers had now come to set free.

What impression the imperial manifesto made in Posen can scarcely be proved, as each hostile remark against Prussia would have been punished as high treason.

The German Emperor has, however, no less than the Russian Czar, been courting the favor of the Poles and trying to win them through promises. One month after the issue of the Czar's manifesto, a proclamation from von Morgen, the German Lieutenant General, was displayed in the Governments of Lomza and Warsaw. In this the following sentences are to be found: "Arise and drive away with me those Russian barbarians who made you slaves; drive them out of your beautiful country, which shall now regain her political and religious liberty. That is the will of my mighty and gracious King." Knowing the passion with which the Poles have hitherto been driven away from their soil and persecuted because of their language, we learn from this proclamation that the German Government has felt the necessity of outbidding the Czar.

As far as may be seen, the Czar's manifesto made very little impression on the intellectual in Russian Poland, who, of course, received it with much suspicion. The masses in Russian, as in Austrian, Poland have for some time stood passionately against each other, hurling accusations of treason to the holy cause of their native country, until a new party has now been formed which is politically most unripe, but for that very reason has an enormous extension. Its password is this: "We do not want to hear of Russia or of Austria; we only want one thing: the Polish State without guardianship from any side." In other words, we want the quite impossible. Political oppression for almost one and one-half centuries brings its own punishment to a people. In such a people political skill too easily becomes local patriotism, or it remains in the state of innocence.

Of what use is it to begin singing: Polonia fara de se? That Poland cannot become free by itself is evident to anybody who has any political idea.

Still I am inclined to say, never mind the forms which the Polish independence and thirst of liberty are taking: they seem to pass like a purifying storm through all Polish minds. Many times before this has a glorious future risen before the Poles—1812, when Napoleon began the second Polish campaign; 1830, when the Poles were buoyed up by the sympathy of Europe; 1848 and 1863. But hardly has a change of established conditions appeared so possible and painful barriers so near the point of falling, as in this great and dreadful crisis.

He who for a generation has been busy with Polish and Russian affairs can therefore, without much difficulty, imagine how many young Polish hearts are now beating and burning with hope, expectation and the most noble aspirations.

Nevertheless, the state of affairs in Russian Poland is at present more desperate than it has ever been before, during war and revolt; and this is not due to the pressure of the conditions or the horror of the situation, but is due to the Poles themselves, to the overstimulation of the national feeling which sends forth its breath of madness all over Europe and now whirls round in Polish brains to drive out magnanimity and humanity, not to speak of reason, which, on the whole, has no jubilee in Europe in the year 1914.

I dare truthfully say that for no other people have I felt the enthusiasm that I have felt for the Poles. I have revealed this feeling at a time when they were not the order of the day, and only very few shared my sentiments. I pronounced this feeling long ago, but it had slight effect in drawing the attention of the Poles to my writings about them or in winning their thanks. The Poles did not discover my book about them till ten years after it had appeared, and when it had been by chance translated into German. To write in Danish is as a rule to write in water.

It would be very ungrateful of me, on this occasion, when I am obliged to use sharp words to the Poles, not to remember the indescribable affection and kindness they have shown me in Russian Poland as well as in Austrian Poland. Among them I have found quite incomparable friends.

For a long time I have therefore refused to say an unkind, not to mention an offensive word. As far back as in 1898 I refused so absolutely to make myself the advocate of the Ruthenians against them that the Ruthenian leaders became my bitter enemies, who never tired of attacking me, and I was mute as a fish when Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson, not long before his death, upon application of the Ruthenians, attacked the Poles, fortunately for them with such unreasonable exaggerations that the attacks did no harm. (Bjoernson maintained that the Pole as such was the devil himself as the Middle Ages had imagined him.) I knew better than Bjoernson what might be said against electioneering and pressure on electors in Galicia, but I remained silent because I considered it unworthy to attack a people which was in such a difficult position and which was able to defend many minor injustices committed by it as self-defense. I considered it especially impossible for me to attack the Poles to whom I was bound by honor and toward whom I bore the warmest, most sincere sympathy.

It is therefore with no light heart that I write these lines.

Denial of the rights of man to Jewish subjects belongs to the nature of Russia. Now and then Europe has been startled when an uncommon massacre of innocent Jews has taken place, as in Kishineff, but all have known and know that Russia stows her Jewish population together in the Polish outskirts of the realm, stows them together so tightly that they can neither live nor die, denies them the liberty of moving, the liberty of studying, even the right of school—and university—education beyond a certain (too small) percentage. Only such Jews who hold a university degree are allowed to live in the capitals of the Empire. No young Jewish woman is allowed to take up her abode near the universities in Petrograd or Moscow, unless she has been enrolled as a prostitute, and it has happened that the police have made their appearance and accused her of forgery, complaining that she did not carry on her profession, but was reading scientific books instead. If a man is, for instance, a doctor of medicine, he may take up his abode in Moscow; in case he is married his wife may live there with him. But if the couple has a two-year-old child, the mother is not allowed to take it with her into the railway carriage and let it live with her in the capital. For the child has no right to live there. If this right is wanted a detailed petition must be sent in to the Governor General, in whose power it is to grant or refuse it.

In a few of the cases where plunder and murder of a Jewish population in Russia have taken place, the outrages have partly been excused, or at any rate explained, through the almost incomprehensible ignorance of the peasants. Russia's most famous political economist, who at the same time is a great estate owner, has told me himself that when the elections to the First Duma took place he was informed that each of the peasants on his estate had voted for himself. He asked them, surprised, what they meant, and explained to them that in this way none of them could be elected; but they answered with the question, "Does not each Deputy get so many rubles a day? Yes. And do you think that we should let so much money go to another if we, perhaps, might get it ourselves?"

The same prominent estate owner told me that one day he asked some of his peasants if they really had partaken in a Pogrom which had taken place in the neighboring parish—he could not believe it, as they looked so good-natured. To his astonishment they answered yes, and when he asked them about the reason they replied: "You know it very well." They then explained that they had killed these Jews because the Jews had killed their Saviour. He: "But that was so long ago and it was not they who did it and it did not happen in this country." To which they, again astonished, exclaimed: "Was it long ago? We thought it was last week." It appeared that they had understood from the priest's explanation that the crucifixion had taken place then and there.

Under such conditions one is not surprised by any outrage. But to see the hatred of the Jews spread in Russian Poland, where people understand how to read and write, that must surely fill one with wonder. The great number of Jews in the old Polish Kingdom originated in the days of Casimir the Great (1309-1370), who out of love for his concubine, Esther, opened his country to the Jews and made conditions favorable for them. Since then the number has increased, as the Czars locked up all their Jewish subjects there. So they have been living separated and with a special dress like the Jews of Denmark at the time of Holberg. They have, however, felt and suffered as Polish patriots. As early as 1794 a regiment of Jewish volunteers fought under Kosciusko; their Colonel fell in 1809. In 1830 the shallow Polish national Government refused the Jews' petition to be allowed to enter the army. As they then ventured to apply for admission to the Polish public schools Nicholas I. punished them, allowing 36,000 families to be carried away to the steppes of South Russia, where the regulation for the enlistment of children overtook them. All their small boys from the age of 6 years were sent to Archangel in Cossack custody to be trained as sailors. They died in multitudes on the way.

The evils which befell all the inhabitants of Poland regardless of their creed for some time suppressed the hatred of the Jews which is always lurking in the masses. The great men of Poland checked its development. Adam Mickiewicz, Poland's greatest author, went so far that in his chief work, Poland's national epic, "Pan Tadeusz" (1834) he makes a Jewish innkeeper one of the most sympathetic leading characters. He is introduced in the fourth canto as a genius in music, the great master of the national instrument, the cymbal; and Mickiewicz makes the culmination of his poem the moment when Jankiel before Dombrowski himself plays the Dombrowski marche, symbolical of the whole history of Poland from 1791-1812, the year in which the poem takes place, the Napoleon year.

In the year 1860 the equalization of the Jews with the Catholics was a reality in Warsaw, and when, in February, 1861, at two large public places in Warsaw, the Russians had shot on the kneeling masses singing the national anthem, ("Zdymem pozarow,") the Jews felt impelled to show their national feeling through an unmistakable manifestation.

In masses they accompanied their rabbis into the Catholic churches just as the Christians in crowds entered the synagogues to sing the same hymn.

This last feature, the processions of the two creeds into each other's churches singing the same song, made such an impression on Henrik Ibsen, the great Scandinavian poet, that again and again he returned in his conversations to this as one of the greatest and most beautiful experiences he had ever had.

And now under the whirlstorm of madness which nationalism has driven across Europe, all this is lost; nay, from a religious reconciliation it has been turned into flaming hatred between the races.

II.

In 1912 the election of a Deputy to the Duma was to take place in Warsaw. The population of the town consists of between seven and eight hundred thousand. As among them there are 300,000 Jews, the majority of the electors, it was in the power of that majority to elect a Jewish Deputy. Because of their Polish national feeling, however, they gave up this right, as they wanted Warsaw, as the capital of the Kingdom of Poland, to be represented by a man who not only in spirit, but also by race, was a Pole. Of the Polish committee they only demanded that the party concerned be no enemy to the Jews. It proved, however, that the committee in its arrogance would not deal with them at all and proposed Kucharschewski, a pronounced anti-Semitic candidate and a man who publicly declared that he desired the election to the Duma only to work for the extermination of the Jews of Poland. By the way, it is strange to notice how the word "exterminate," which thirty years ago in the days of Bismarck and Eduard von Hartmann as Ausrotten was subject to the curse and condemnation of the Poles, has now come to honor, and how easily it passes their lips.

As the Jews, of course, could not vote on such a man, they urgently asked the committee to propose another candidate not inimical to them. This reasonable request was refused with coarseness and Kucharschewski's candidacy maintained. Because of that the Jews were obliged to look about for another candidate of Polish family who was fit for the position and was not hostile to them. In spite of numerous applications, they did not succeed in finding such a man; at the last moment, when all attempts had failed, Jagello, the Social Democrat, declared himself willing to accept the candidacy of the Jews.

The only thing in his favor was the fact that he was of pure Polish blood. As their leading men all belong to the higher middle class, they did not share his views. But the state of affairs forced them to support him. Lord Beaconsfield used to maintain that the natural disposition of the Jewish race was conservative, but foolish politics, instead of encouraging the conservative instincts of the race, forced it to cast its lot with the most extreme elements of the opposition. It has proved true here.

Jagello was elected.

The leading men in Russian Poland, who, as a matter of fact, through the whole new century, had fought against the Jews, although secretly, for fear they should forfeit the sympathy of the intellectual aristocracy of Europe, used this electoral victory of the Jews, which had been forced upon them, to throw off the mask and openly act as their passionate enemies. The so-called co-operative movement developed during the last twelve years, and in itself nothing but a fight against the Jewish commerce, under a different name, now changed into a systematic and cruelly effected boycotting of the Jewish population. In private as in public life, the openly pronounced password was: not to buy from Jews, not to associate with Jews.

At the head of this movement marched the intelligence of Poland, among others some of its most famous authors, avowed free thinkers as Nemojewski, nay, as Alexander Swientochowski. Literary life presents many changes, metamorphoses, which in thoroughness are not very much inferior to those of Ovid. A good deal is necessary to make one who for one-half century has witnessed the want of character among writers feel even the slightest surprise. But I should willingly have sworn that I should never have lived to see Alexander Swientochowski a nationalist, he the most uncompromising adversary of nationalism, who endured a good deal for his conviction, to see the poet of "Chawa Rubin" an anti-Semitic chief. Not only does all that Alexander Swientochowski wrote rise against him, but also the words, the powerful words, which issued from his mouth in his palmy days.

The whole Polish press placed itself at the disposal of this movement. Young Polish louts were posted outside the Jewish shops and ill-treated the Christian women and children who wanted to buy there. By means of the well-known Dumowski a new paper, Dwa Groszi, was started, which simply urged pogroms. It soon came to bloody struggles. Polish undergraduates killed an old Jew in the Sliska Street in Warsaw. In the little town of Welun peasants poured naphtha on the house of a Jew and put fire to it, burning a large family. Similar acts occurred in several other places, until the Russian Government stopped this pogrom movement in order to prevent the Polish nationalism from getting stronger.

The Polish priests in the villages incited the people from the pulpit to boycotting of and war against the Jews. After the sentence in the Beilis action the Polish newspapers were almost alone in publishing on circulars the information that Beilis had been acquitted, but that the existence of religious murder had been satisfactorily proved. Nay, the free thinker, Nemojewski, wrote a book, in which he maintained the monstrous lie that Jewish religious murders are facts, and traveled all over the country with an agitatorial lecture to the same purpose.

Under these circumstances, the Jews in Russian Poland turned to the few men whose names were so esteemed or whose characters were so unimpeachable that their words could not be unheeded.

Ladislas Mickiewicz, the excellent son of the great Mickiewicz, who had passed his whole life in Paris, first as a publisher and translator of the works of his father, and then as a Polish patriotic author, convened, together with some other prominent men, a great meeting at Warsaw to restore the inner peace. In vain he begged and besought his countrymen, who had enemies enough otherwise, not to act as enemies of the Jews, who had always been their friends. No Polish newspaper gave any report of his speech.

All this took place before the war. The provisional result was the economic destruction of the Russian-Polish Jews. But now during the war the glow of the bloody hatred of the Jews has blazed out in far stronger flames and the Russian Government has as yet done nothing to subdue or quench the fire.

During the mobilization several Polish newspapers, for instance, The Glos Lubelski, brought the alarming news in heavy type: "In England great pogroms against the Jews. The English Government does not check them." The paper was conscious of the lie. But the question was to set an example to follow.

When the lack of gold and silver began to be felt the Polish newspapers accused the Jews of hiding the valuable metals. On closer examination, it was found that many non-Jewish business people (for instance, Ignaschewski in Lublin, a very rich Pole) were withholding whole bags full of gold and silver coins, for which they were punished rather severely; but this was not proved against a single Jew.

Furthermore, the Jews were, among other things, accused of having smuggled in a coffin 1,500,000 rubles in gold into Germany; and the protest against the accusation entered by the representatives and ministers of the Jewish congregation at Warsaw was printed in Russian papers, but not in a single Polish one.

All these things were preparations for pogroms; but many others were made. The anti-Semites printed a proclamation in Yiddish in which the Jews were called upon to revolt against Russia; they took care that this proclamation was put into the pockets of the unsuspecting Jews in the streets of the different towns; those who had distributed the papers denounced the party concerned to the police. Everybody upon whom the proclamation was found was shot.

At last the Jews were, as in the Middle Ages, both in word and writing accused of having poisoned the wells. If some Cossacks or other Russian soldiers died, the Poles accused the Jews of having caused their death.

The chief accusation was, however, the accusation of espionage, which obtained general credence and was used both when Austrian troops came to some town or village and when Russian troops expelled the Austrians. The result was the same. A suitable number of Jews were conscientiously shot by the Russians as well as by the Austrians. There are, however, lists of those who really have been unmasked as spies. A Potocki was among them, and had to pay for it with his life; but no Jewish name is found on these lists.

The accusation is, however, always believed, as the Jew has, for about two thousand years, been characterized as Judas.

The legend about Judas may without exaggeration be described as one of the most foolish legends of antiquity; that it has been believed is one proof among thousands of the indescribable simplicity of mankind. Few legends carry like it the stamp of lie on their faces and few legends have millennium after millennium caused so many evils and horrors. It has tortured and murdered by hundred thousands.

According to the supposition the story is impossible. The supposition is that a man in possession of superhuman attributes, a god or a demi-god, day after day goes about and speaks in the open air in a town and its neighborhood. So little does he make a secret of his doings that a short time before he had made his entry at broad daylight, welcomed with exultation by the whole population. He is known by each and all, by each woman and each child. So little does he want to hide that he walks about accompanied by his disciples, preaching day and night, sleeping among them. And to think it should be necessary to buy one of his disciples to denounce him and deliver him, to betray him, and that—for the sake of the effect—with a kiss! Indeed if he had hidden in some cellar, then there would be some meaning in it; but as things are, those who seek him need only ask: which of you is Jesus? He would not have tried to deny his name.

Judas is then not only quite superfluous, but an absurdity, the origin of which is to be found in the desire to place the black traitor opposite the white hero of light and in the hatred of Jews arising among the first Gentile Christians, who later made the world forget that not only this straw-doll, Judas, but also Jesus and all the Apostles, all the Disciples and all the evangelists were Jews.

Nevertheless, in the conception of the rude masses this Judas—as he was called—has become the Jew, the typical Jew, the traitor, and the spy.

Still as late as in the last decennium of the last century, Capt. Alfred Dreyfus fell a victim to this old foolish legend.

And now it is again rehashed against the Jews in Russian Poland.

The pogroms have, by virtue of these Judas accusations and the many other dreadful accusations, spread all over Russian Poland and there they are spreading more and more, while Galicia as well as Posen has proved susceptible to the incitations which have not failed. Many hundreds of innocent people have fallen victims to them.

Here are a few instances from many:

In the town of Bechava, conquered by the Austrians, the Polish leaders, among whom was a very well-known estate owner, applied to the Austrian commandant, accusing the Jews of secret connection with the Russian Army. In consequence of this the Austrians killed a 67-year-old man called Wallstein, and his 17-year-old son. When, after a short time, the Austrians were driven away, the same estate owner accused the Jews of the town to the Russian commandant of being in communication with the Austrians, having delivered to them all provisions for the purpose of depriving the Russians of them. In consequence of his accusation, many Jews were shot and their houses burned down.

In the towns of Janow and Krasnik the Jews were accused of having put out mines to destroy the Russians. The Jews, and among them many children, were hanged on the telegraph poles, and the two towns destroyed.

The town of Samosch was conquered by the Austrian Sokol troops, those beautiful slender people whom you do not forget when once you have seen them train in the capital of Galicia. When they were driven away from the Russian Army the Poles accused the Jews of the town of having been the accomplices of the Austrians. Twelve Jews were arrested. When they denied the charge they were sentenced to death. Five of them had been already hanged, when in the middle of the execution a Russian priest, carrying an image of the Virgin in his hand, appeared and with his hand on this image took the oath that the Jews were innocent and that the accusation was all an outcome of Polish hatred of the Jews. He proved that the Poles of the town themselves had supported the Austrians and that even a telephone connection with Lemberg could be found. The seven Jews were then set free; five had already been hanged.

In the town of Jusefow, the Jews were accused of having poisoned the wells through which hundreds of Cossacks had lost their lives. Seventy-eight Jews were killed, many women were ravished, and houses and shops plundered.

Similar events happened and still happen daily by hundreds. Greater or smaller pogroms with murder, rape, and plunder have thus taken place in the districts of Warsaw, Random, Petrikow, and Kelts.

Only a few Russian Governors, such as Korff, in Warsaw; Kelepowski, in Lublin, and the Governors of Wilna, Petrikow, and Grodno have spoken, although too late, against the pogroms, but neither the Government nor the Poles take these warnings seriously.

Eyewitnesses have told me about Jewish soldiers in the different lazarets who have turned mad, not through the unavoidable horrors of the war, but because of the pogroms they have witnessed in the towns they have passed. They mistake those they have seen murdered for their own relations; they imagine they see their own mothers, sisters, or beloved ones in that plight. They are always raving about the same thing.

The pursuit of the Jews by the Russian-Polish anti-Semites is the more invidious under these circumstances, as 300,000 Jewish soldiers, among them many volunteers, are serving in the Russian Army, and as the self-sacrifice of the army and the Red Cross hitherto has been immeasurable. In the great congregations are special hospitals for Russian soldiers—regardless of their creed—founded by Jews and with Jewish money. Not a few Jewish soldiers have already won the highest military distinctions, nay, a few of them have even received them from Mr. Rennenkampf, the Commander in Chief himself, who used to be a zealous anti-Semite, as the Russian Court on the whole is passionately anti-Semitic. The manifesto from the Czar To my dear Jewish subjects, which has been printed in the French newspapers, has never been anything but a fabrication.

While the usual accusation against the Jews in Russian Poland was that of sympathizing with the Russians—for which they have no special reason—Mr. A. Warinski, who in Russia is classed among the black ones, also called the true Russians—in "Politiken" has made the charge against them that the German attempts of gaining the Poles "have only had the effect desired on the Russian and Polish Jews, as these elements, because of psychological relation with the Prussians, feel disposed to place themselves at the side of Germany." This accusation and the arguments for it might express the culmination. The Jew shall and must be Judas. If it cannot be accomplished in one way the opposite way is tried. Mr. Warinski does not say one word about how many Jews have gone into the war as volunteers out of pure enthusiasm for Poland. They have not been able to believe, as I for my part cannot believe, that the last outcrop of nationalism in Russian Poland is more than a temporary epidemic.

How could Russian Poles in the long run be unfaithful to the only powers they have been able to appeal to, the only powers which took an interest in them? How can they who are fighting for their liberty after so many years' ill-treatment be willing to seize an opportunity to ill-treat the only people who (to its misfortune) is in their power, the only people who have suffered far more and twenty times as long as they themselves; and the only ones who are too strong to be destroyed through any ill-treatment? How can the Poles, who were at times ruined as a State through the treachery of their own men, want to fling out the accusation of treason against a tribe which has never betrayed itself and which even in the deepest abasement never betrayed the only Slavic tribe who in the Middle Ages gave a refuge to its children?

I suppose that the Poles will maintain against this appeal to them that I, whom the Ruthenians could never bring to make any attack on them, am now, because of my descent, speaking in favor of a matter, which is very unpleasant to them. My personal descent has so little influenced my proceedings and way of thinking that during the whole of my public life I have been subject to continual attacks in national Jewish periodicals and newspapers as the man who denied community of descent and supposed community of faith.

This Spring during my stay in America I was continually attacked in the American Jewish papers as the callous denier of the Jews. It was nonsense, as is most of that which appears in print, but it proves at least that it is not on behalf of my blood but on behalf of my mind that I speak on this occasion. My sympathy is not with the Jews as Jews, but as the suppressed and ill-treated.

I am the man who a generation ago wrote: "We love Poland, not in the same way that we love Germany or France or England, but as we love liberty. For what is to love Poland but to love liberty, to feel a deep sympathy with misfortune and to admire courage and combative enthusiasm? Poland is the symbol of all that which the supreme among mankind have loved and for which they have fought."

These were my words and hitherto I have adhered to them.

Shall I have to feel ashamed of having written them, now that Poland's future is being decided?

GEORG BRANDES.



Commercial Treaties After the War

By P. Maslov.

[From Russkia Vedomosti, No. 207, Sept. 10, (23,) 1914.]

For reasons beyond my control,[2] I am unable as a member of the Free Economic Association[3] to participate in the discussion of the methods of raising money by taxation for the war expenditures. The political group to which I belong may not give full expression to its views. What follows is my personal opinion shared by several men.

[Footnote 2: Mr. Maslov, who is a well-known Russian economist, was arrested shortly after the beginning of the war on suspicion of not being loyal enough.—Translator.]

[Footnote 3: The Russian Free Economic Association is one of the oldest scientific bodies of Russia. It considers at its meetings proposed taxation and various questions of economic policy. It is but natural that the proposed new taxes should have provoked ardent discussion in this association. How the war taxes should be levied (direct versus indirect taxation) and who shall be the taxpayers, were among the chief topics discussed at its recent meetings.—Translator.]

The attack by Germany is not only a menace to the democracy of France and Belgium, it not only threatens a political dictatorship by the Prussian nobility over Europe, but is a danger of far greater magnitude than these. For the first time Europe is in peril of having her commercial treaties determined by the sword. Up to this time even the smaller countries have been saved from such a violent course, and European capital has been obliged to restrict itself to the oppression of Asiatic countries. Now for the first time—in case of a German victory—Europe stands in danger of having her commercial arrangements forced upon her by an iron hand, and is threatened with being turned into a German colony. For in the case of a German victory no power in Europe will be able to withstand Germany. And Germany will deal without ceremony even with Austria.

On the other hand, in case of German defeat, the foremost capitalistic country, Great Britain, may not menace Europe for two reasons: First, Great Britain holds to the policy of free trade; second—and this is the main point—she cannot support with armed force her policy as against her allies.

In the meantime the danger indicated above threatens economically backward Russia; her agricultural population may be ruined, her industries may be destroyed. An unprecedented situation has arisen for Russia. All the social classes of the empire are deeply interested in the repulse of the armies of the Kaiser. The working class is just as much interested in the existence of Russian industries as are the employers. The peasants are in no lesser degree interested in the development of agriculture; the killing of industries and agriculture like that committed by England in Ireland centuries ago is a gloomy prospect for all classes of society. If France and Belgium are threatened with a political oppression then Russia is threatened with an even more terrible economic subjugation. Such is the situation.

The poorest classes of the people are taking part in this fight with what they have, with their blood. It is but natural that they should expect that the material burdens of the war will fall not upon their shoulders, but upon big business.

It seems to me that in discussing the sinews of war the Free Economic Association has not considered fully the psychology of the masses. And yet this psychology has a decisive influence upon the war, and is bound to be unfavorable to the war, if the masses of the people feel that the financial burdens of the war are to be placed upon the weakest shoulders.

Considering that at the present moment our supreme duty is to repel the German invasion at all costs, I think that this duty will be better performed by putting the economic burden of the war upon the shoulders of the well-to-do classes, for we have to reckon not only with the taxpaying capacity of the mass of the people, but also with their psychology.

I regard it as a great mistake that the important problem of the most economical methods of spending money raised by taxation has not been considered.

P. MASLOV.



THE WOMAN'S PART.

By MAZIE V. CARUTHERS.

Beside my ruined cottage, desolate, The children cowering 'round me, mute from fright, With tearless eyes and brooding heart, I wait, Watching through all the long, the weary night. God of the homeless, look from Heaven and see! Out of the deeps, a woman calls on Thee!

My little ones, they cry all day for bread, And, 'neath the shelter of my meagre breast, Stirs one unborn, who must e'er long be fed— Another babe to hunger with the rest. Madonna Mary, hear a mother's moan! Pity the travail I must bear alone!

The tasseled corn would plenteous harvest yield, But all the crops are rotting in the sun. Where are the reapers? On some battlefield They fight for nought and die there, one by one! God's comfort be upon them where they lie, Sheep to war's shambles driven—who knows why? Death and destruction walk by day, by night, Men's blood is spilt and sacrificed in vain, While women wait for tidings of the fight Who may not even sepulchre their slain! They say "God's in His Heaven"—but, instead, 'Twould seem He is asleep—or, maybe, dead!



A PHOTOGRAPHIC REVIEW OF THE WAR

CONSISTING OF A CAREFULLY SELECTED SERIES OF THE BEST PICTURES OF THE WAR PRINTED IN ROTOGRAVURE



Patriotism and Endurance

By Cardinal D.J. Mercier, Archbishop of Malines.

[Copyright by Burns & Oates, Ltd., 28 Orchard Street, London. All rights reserved.]

Here is the celebrated Christmas pastoral letter of Cardinal Mercier, Archbishop of Malines. It is the first authentic translated copy of the now famous document to be received in America. The letter has caused a worldwide sensation because of its bold appeal to the Belgian people. Its publication resulted in the detention of the Cardinal by the Germans in his palace and a consequent protest by the Pope and throughout the whole Roman Catholic world.

The first reports of the arrest of the Cardinal were denied by the German authorities. Subsequently an official report made to the Pope stated that 15,000 copies of the pastoral letter were seized in Malines and destroyed, the printer being fined; that the Cardinal was detained in his palace during all Jan. 4; that he was prevented by German officers on Jan. 3 from presiding at a religious ceremony; that they subjected him to interrogations and demanded of him a retraction, which he refused to make. The English reprint of the Cardinal's letter is copyrighted by Burns & Oates, Ltd., 28 Orchard Street, London. THE NEW YORK TIMES CURRENT HISTORY reproduces it by permission.

My Very Dear Brethren: I cannot tell you how instant and how present thought of you has been to me throughout the months of suffering and of mourning through which we have passed. I had to leave you abruptly on the 20th of August in order to fulfill my last duty toward the beloved and venerated Pope whom we have lost, and in order to discharge an obligation of the conscience from which I could not dispense myself, in the election of the successor of Pius X., the Pontiff who now directs the Church under the title, full of promise and of hope, of Benedict XV.

It was in Rome itself that I received the tidings—stroke after stroke—of the partial destruction of the Cathedral Church of Louvain, next of the burning of the library and of the scientific installations of our great university and of the devastation of the city, and next of the wholesale shooting of citizens, and tortures inflicted upon women and children and upon unarmed and undefended men.

And, while I was still under the shock of these calamities, the telegraph brought us news of the bombardment of our beautiful metropolitan church, of the Church of Notre Dame au dela la Dyle, of the episcopal palace, and of a great part of our dear City of Malines.

Afar from my diocese, without means of communication with you, I was compelled to lock my grief within my own afflicted heart and to carry it, with the thought of you, which never left me, to the foot of the Crucifix.

I craved courage and light, and sought them in such thoughts as these: A disaster has visited the world, and our beloved little Belgium, a nation so faithful in the great mass of her population to God, so upright in her patriotism, so noble in her King and Government, is the first sufferer. She bleeds; her sons are stricken down within her fortresses and upon her fields, in defense of her rights and of her territory.

Soon there will not be one Belgian family not in mourning. Why all this sorrow, my God? Lord, Lord, hast Thou forsaken us? Then I looked upon the Crucifix. I looked upon Jesus, most gentle and humble Lamb of God, crushed, clothed in His blood as in a garment, and I thought I heard from His own mouth the words which the psalmist uttered in His name: "O God, my God, look upon me; why hast Thou forsaken me? O my God, I shall cry, and Thou wilt not hear."

And forthwith the murmur died upon my lips, and I remembered what our Divine Saviour said in His gospel: "The disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above his lord." The Christian is the servant of a God who became man in order to suffer and to die.

To rebel against pain, to revolt against Providence because it permits grief and bereavement, is to forget whence we came, the school in which we have been taught, the example that each of us carries graven in the name of a Christian, which each of us honors at his hearth, contemplates at the altar of his prayers, and of which he desires that his tomb, the place of his last sleep, shall bear the sign.

My dearest brethren, I shall return by and by to the providential law of suffering, but you will agree that since it has pleased a God-made man who was holy, innocent, without stain, to suffer and to die for us who are sinners, who are guilty, who are perhaps criminals, it ill becomes us to complain whatever we may be called upon to endure. The truth is that no disaster on earth, striking creatures only, is comparable with that which our sins provoked and whereof God Himself chose to be the blameless victim.

Having recalled to mind this fundamental truth, I find it easier to summon you to face what has befallen us and to speak to you simply and directly of what is your duty and of what may be your hope. That duty I shall express in two words—patriotism and endurance.

My dearest brethren, I desire to utter in your name and my own the gratitude of those whose age, vocation, and social conditions cause them to benefit by the heroism of others without bearing in it any active part.

When, immediately on my return from Rome, I went to Havre to greet our Belgian, French, and English wounded; when, later, at Malines, at Louvain, at Antwerp, it was given to me to take the hands of those brave men who carried a bullet in their flesh, a wound on their forehead, because they had marched to the attack of the enemy or borne the shock of his onslaught, it was a word of gratitude to them that rose to my lips. "O valiant friends," I said, "it was for us, it was for each one of us, it was for me, that you risked your lives and are now in pain. I am moved to tell you of my respect, of my thankfulness, to assure you that the whole nation knows how much she is in debt to you."

For in truth our soldiers are our saviors.

A first time, at Liege, they saved France; a second time, in Flanders, they arrested the advance of the enemy upon Calais. France and England know it; and Belgium stands before them both, and before the entire world, as a nation of heroes.

Never before in my whole life did I feel so proud to be a Belgian as when, on the platforms of French stations, and halting a while in Paris, and visiting London, I was witness of the enthusiastic admiration our allies feel for the heroism of our army. Our King is, in the esteem of all, at the very summit of the moral scale. He is doubtless the only man who does not recognize that fact, as, simple as the simplest of his soldiers, he stands in the trenches and puts new courage, by the serenity of his face, into the hearts of those of whom he requires that they shall not doubt of their country. The foremost duty of every Belgian citizen at this hour is gratitude to the army.

If any man had rescued you from shipwreck or from a fire, you would assuredly hold yourselves bound to him by a debt of everlasting thankfulness. But it is not one man, it is 250,000 men who fought, who suffered, who fell for you so that you might be free, so that Belgium might keep her independence, her dynasty, her patriotic unity; so that after the vicissitudes of battle she might rise nobler, purer, more erect, and more glorious than before.

Pray daily, my brethren, for these 250,000 and for their leaders to victory; pray for our brothers in arms; pray for the fallen; pray for those who are still engaged; pray for the recruits who are making ready for the fight to come.

In your name I send them the greeting of our fraternal sympathy and our assurance that not only do we pray for the success of their arms and for the eternal welfare of their souls, but that we also accept for their sake all the distress, whether physical or moral, that falls to our own share in the oppression that hourly besets us, and all that the future may have in store for us, in humiliation for a time, in anxiety, and in sorrow. In the day of final victory we shall all be in honor; it is just that today we should all be in grief.

To judge by certain rumors that have reached me, I gather that from districts that have had least to suffer some bitter words have arisen toward our God, words which, if spoken with cold calculation, would not be far from blasphemous.

Oh, all too easily do I understand how natural instinct rebels against the evils that have fallen upon Catholic Belgium. The spontaneous thought of mankind is ever that virtue should have its instantaneous crown and injustice its immediate retribution.

But the ways of God are not our ways, the Scripture tells us. Providence gives free course, for a time measured by Divine wisdom, to human passions and the conflict of desires. God, being eternal, is patient. The last word is the word of mercy, and it belongs to those who believe in love. "Why art thou sad, O my soul? and why dost thou disquiet me? Quare tristis es anima, et quare conturbas me?" Hope in God. Bless Him always. Is He not thy Saviour and thy God? Spera in Deo quoniam adhuc confitebor illi, salutare vultus mei et Deus meus.

When holy Job, whom God presented as an example of constancy to the generations to come, had been stricken, blow upon blow, by Satan, with the loss of his children, of his goods, of his health, his enemies approached him with provocations to discouragement; his wife urged upon him a blasphemy and a curse. "Dost thou still continue in thy simplicity? Curse God, and die." But the man of God was unshaken in his confidence. "And he said to her: Thou hast spoken like one of the foolish women: if we have received good things at the hand of God, why should we not receive evil? Dominus dedit, Dominus abstulit; sicut Domino placuit ita factum est. Sit nomen Domini benedictum." And experience proved that saintly one to be right. It pleased the Lord to recompense, even here below, His faithful servant. "The Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. And for his sake God pardoned his friends."

Better than any other man, perhaps, do I know what our unhappy country has undergone. Nor will any Belgian, I trust, doubt of what I suffer in my soul, as a citizen and as a Bishop, in sympathy with all this sorrow. These last four months have seemed to me age long. By thousands have our brave ones been mowed down. Wives, mothers are weeping for those they shall not see again; hearths are desolate; dire poverty spreads, anguish increases.

At Malines, at Antwerp the people of two great cities have been given over, the one for six hours, the other for thirty-four hours, to a continuous bombardment, to the throes of death.

I have traversed the greater part of the districts most terribly devastated in my diocese,[4] and the ruins I beheld, and the ashes, were more dreadful than I, prepared by the saddest of forebodings, could have imagined.

[Footnote 4: Duffel, Lierre, Berlaer Saint Rombaut, Konings-Hoyckt, Mortsel, Waelhem, Muysen, Wavre Sainte Caterine, Wavre Notre Dame, Sempst, Weerde, Eppeghen, Hofstade, Elewyt, Rymenam, Boort-Meerbeek, Wespelaer, Haecht, Werchter-Wackerzeel, Rotselaer, Tremeloo; Louvain and its suburban environs, Blauwput, Kessel-Loo, Boven-Loo, Linden, Herent, Thildonck, Bueken, Relst, Aerschot, Wesemael, Hersselt, Diest, Schaffen, Molenstede, Rillaer, Gelrode.]

Other parts of my diocese, which I have not had time to visit,[5] have in like manner been laid waste. Churches, schools, asylums, hospitals, convents in great numbers are in ruins. Entire villages have all but disappeared. At Werchter-Wackerzeel, for instance, out of 380 homes 130 remain. At Tremeloo two-thirds of the village are overthrown. At Bueken, out of 100 houses 20 are standing. At Schaffen, 189 houses out of 200 are destroyed; 11 still stand. At Louvain the third part of the buildings are down; 1,074 dwellings have disappeared. On the town land and in the suburbs 1,823 houses have been burned.

[Footnote 5: Haekendover, Roosbeek, Bautersem, Budingen, Neerlinder, Ottignies, Mousty, Wavre, Beyghem, Capelle-au-Bois, Humbeek, Nieuwenrode, Liezelo, Londerzeel, Heyndonck, Mariekerke, Weert, Blaesvelt.]

In this dear City of Louvain, perpetually in my thoughts, the magnificent Church of St. Peter will never recover its former splendor. The ancient College of St. Ives, the art schools, the consular and commercial schools of the university, the old markets, our rich library with its collections, its unique and unpublished manuscripts, its archives, its gallery of great portraits of illustrious rectors, chancellors, professors, dating from the time of its foundation, which preserved for masters and students alike a noble tradition, and were an incitement in their studies, all this accumulation of intellectual, of historic, and of artistic riches, the fruit of the labors of five centuries—all is in the dust.

Many a parish lost its pastor. There is now sounding in my ears the sorrowful voice of an old man, of whom I asked whether he had had mass on Sunday in his battered church. "It is two months," he said, "since we had a church." The parish priest and the curate had been interned in a concentration camp.

Thousands of Belgian citizens have in like manner been deported to the prisons of Germany, to Munsterlagen, to Celle, to Magdeburg. At Munsterlagen alone, 3,100 civil prisoners were numbered. History will tell of the physical and moral torments of their long martyrdom.

Hundreds of innocent men were shot. I possess no complete necrology; but I know that there were ninety-one shot at Aerschot and that there, under pain of death, their fellow-citizens were compelled to dig their graves. In the Louvain group of communes 176 persons, men and women, old men and sucklings, rich and poor, in health and sickness, were shot or burned.

In my diocese alone I know that thirteen priests or religious were put to death.[6]

[Footnote 6: Their brothers in religion or in the priesthood will wish to know their names. Here they are: Dupierreux of the Society of Jesus, Brothers Sebastian and Allard of the Congregation of the Josephites, Brother Candide of the Congregation of the Brothers of Mercy, Father Maximin, Capuchin, and Father Vincent, Conventual; Lombaerts, parish priest at Boven-Loo; Goris, parish priest at Autgaerden; Carette, professor at the Episcopal College of Louvain; de Clerck, parish priest at Bueken; Dergent, parish priest at Gelrode, and Wouters Jean, parish priest at Pont-Buule. We have reason to believe that the parish priest of Herent, van Bladel, an old man of 71, was also killed. Until now, however, his body has not been found.]