during the war, what punishment are these chattering egotists not worthy of in this hard-won time of peace?

One thing is certain. France is not coming out of the Ruhr at the mere bidding of England or of anyone else. It is useless to argue about the wisdom or the legality of the step she has taken; she is in, and she will stay there until she can march out with honour and some show of profit and security. If M. Poincaré decided to evacuate the Ruhr, he would be thrown out of office the same day by French opinion and a leader substituted who would guarantee to remain there until French honour was satisfied. Having taken the step and aroused so much controversy, the humiliation of admitting herself unequivocally in the wrong is too much to ask from any high-spirited nation. Moreover, it would be the gravest mistake conceivable in the interests of international peace, for it would encourage all those elements in the German mentality that found their outlet in the outrage of 1914 to rise again, and all the blood and treasure poured out during the war would have been wasted with the recrudescence of Deutschland uber alles' and the old militaristic spirit. Now France is in, she must stay there until she can leave with guarantees of reparations and security. Had we given France our promise to come straight to her aid if Germany attacked her (as in 1914), she would never probably have entered the Ruhr. We had this opportunity two or three years ago, but we backed out of such an agreement and refused to bind ourselves. It may not now be too late, and if the promise were given, it might go far in bringing about a settlement to the satisfaction of both countries. France undertook the Ruhr venture as a measure to ensure her security, anxious lest Germany were to escape so lightly that she would not realise that war does not pay. It may not have been a very lofty sentiment, but it is quite as elevated as our acknowledged desire for increasing trade returns. France will agree to nothing that does not grant her such security, and the ideal solution would be one which puts France in such a strong position that she need fear Germany no longer, at the same time containing nothing that would rankle in German memory as an injustice or an aggression and sow the seeds of another war of revenge.

Sooner or later a gamble must be made if there is to be an end to this present strife on the battle ground of Europe. Nations cannot build up their diplomacy on the foundation of fear any more than of force. We have made the gamble in South Africa, and it is not being unduly optimistic to say that it promises to be successful. France obtained what she wanted in the warAlsace-Lorraine, the wiping out of the defeat of 1870, and the abolition of the German military régime. If we promise her our help the moment she is attacked, she will be in a strong position

to make such a gamble for European peace, and by letting bygones be bygones she might come to live more amicably with her German neighbours. But it cannot be done without our aid, and as European peace is equally our own interest, it is our duty to give it. We must remain friendly with France. The friend of none becomes the enemy of all. If our help is not enough, then every effort must be made to strengthen the authority of the League of Nations that it may give France ample security against attack.

The damage done by the irresponsibles preaching hatred of Germany or disagreement with France, therefore, cannot be exaggerated. Both are fighting equally hard to put off the day of the establishment of friendly relations in Europe. To this end, the inclusion of Germany in the League of Nations could only have beneficent results. Germany is a dynamic force in world politics, and unless she become a vacuum, the necessity of recognising this will grow more insistent. In the ardour of victory and with the memory of her war guilt still fresh, it was understandable that she should at first be excluded. But now is the time for cooler counsels to prevail, and her permanent exclusion from the League savours too much of priggishness and sophistry.

By Germany becoming a member Geneva would be the forum from which to make economic and moral appeals to the world without loss of dignity, and her representations would be the more sincere inasmuch as she need not fear so much that such actions were being misconstrued as unconditional capitulation. Nations have their pride, just like individuals, and to ignore this and rely on unimaginative diplomatic shibboleths is to become lost in a maze of vicious circles. Just as it is unfair to ask France to withdraw summarily from the Ruhr, so Germany cannot be expected to make spontaneous and whole-hearted concessions so long as she is put in the position of a whining beggar. Nothing is gained by stripping anyone of his self-respect, and any Englishman will see this point if he puts himself in Germany's position.

Those who served in France will be the first to admit this, for it is they who make the least noise over the Ruhr affair. The leading jabberers on both sides are not the men who saw and suffered most. These are only anxious for a solution, and they feel the most keenly the vulgarity of all this controversy. They desire earnestly continued friendship with France, and they insist that Germany should pay, but their animosity against Germany is tempered with the knowledge that has been brought home to them of the fruits of hate, and bitter experience has taught them that high words too often lead to high deeds. High words sound well enough, but when they are translated into deeds they become all too sordid. Those who suffered most say the least, but they are watching the present situation a little critically and

begin to ask with a trace of bitterness if the only outcome of their five years of real service is to be undignified bickering and hysterical outpouring of irresponsible opinions.

In spite of the inconsequent clamour on both sides, the prospect has become brighter. Dr. Cuno has been replaced by Herr Stresemann, who is a democrat, a cultured student of history and literature, a shrewd economist and a business man. He appears

to be sincerely anxious that Germany should pay to her furthest limit, and has a scheme for accomplishing this which, he asserts, he will enforce on his people by the most drastic means if necessary. His Minister of Finance, Dr. Hilferding, a Viennese Jew, is a brilliant economist, a Socialist vehemently opposed to the Bolsheviks, and he has undertaken to carry out a programme of economic reform and re-establishment of German credit that will make the possibility of Germany shouldering her debts more probable. Nearly all the assistants of these two men are men of insight and experience and are opposed to the autocratic and arrogant German statesmen who have manifested militarism and dishonesty in the past. There is more promise of agreement with the present German Cabinet than with any we have hitherto seen.

On the French side M. Poincaré maintains his ground with unmoved insistence. There are many who find fault with him for this, but, as he undoubtedly represents the body of French opinion, he is the right man. It is far better that the opinion of the French should be voiced, their ambitions made public and their fears recognised than that they should be repressed and glossed over for the sake of patching up a temporary modus vivendi. We have seen enough of false paradises built over volcanoes, and it is an essential that M. Poincaré be moved against his judgment neither by threats nor by blandishments. It may make agreement more difficult to arrive at, but it will make it secure once attained, and any other kind of agreement is more dangerous and disturbing than an open breach. He is at least as anxious as ourselves for the preservation of the Entente.

On our side is Mr. Baldwin, a man of common-sense. His note, written in conjunction with Lord Curzon, cleared the air and laid the British cards on the table. Here and there the tone may have been a little self-righteous, a little blunt, but it defined the British position and by its plain speaking, eased with a desire to be courteous and sympathetic, paved the way to future discussion on ground made firm by the banishment of obscurantism and secret diplomacy.

These are the chief actors in the European drama. All things considered, it is difficult to see how any better could be chosen. Our leaders have shown by their disinclination to criticise until criticism became a dire necessity that they value Anglo-French

friendship. It is unfitting to speak here of sacrifices we have made to that end in watching the prospects of immediate reparations vanish, or of compromises over Allied debts, but it must not be overlooked that these sacrifices and compromises have been made. To put them on their lowest plane, they will have been worth while if they are going to help forward friendly feeling with our neighbours. At the same time, it must not be forgotten that we have shirked a defensive alliance with France. The more closely one studies the Ruhr negotiations, the more clearly it stands out that none is more ardent to find common ground of agreement than Mr. Baldwin, Lord Curzon and M. Poincaré, so far as the honour and interests of the two respective nations will allow.

In this qualifying sentence lies a great problem. No matter what policy is adopted, and even if our Government was composed of the wisest men who ever lived, it must be a long and difficult affair. It is the nation's part to wait quietly for a solution.

L. F. EASTERBROOK.

POSTSCRIPT. An excellent example of this international mischief-making is afforded by one of Mr. Lloyd George's hebdomadal outbursts. Writing in the daily press of September 15, he says:

M. Poincaré did not mind us quarrelling with Italy. Is it too unkind to say that it suits him? Whether it is or not, I am afraid it is true.

Such a statement may or may not have a foundation; Mr. Lloyd George produces neither fact nor argument to support it. But true or false, such utterances can do no possible good, only an immense amount of harm. It turns a vague possibility into a definite accusation and is calculated to poison the minds of the British public and sting M. Poincaré into justifiable wrath, with the result that agreement between France and England is made more difficult than ever. The obvious retort springs into the mind: 'Is it too unkind to say that this is what suits Mr. Lloyd George?' Unfortunately our foreign neighbours do not know him as well as we have learnt to know him, and so they still attribute a modicum of responsibility to the utterances of an ex-Prime Minister.

EARTHQUAKES IN JAPAN

THE first day of September in the present year of grace will be remembered for ever in the annals of the world as that on which occurred one of the greatest calamities recorded in history. The capital and the largest commercial and shipping port in the ancient empire of Japan, together with a wide area of the neighbouring country, experienced a series of earthquakes, the accumulated horrors of which transcend the powers of human imagination. Words become impotent when we attempt to describe them. There have been many great earthquakes nearer to our own shores in Naples in 1857 and 1883 and in Lisbon in 1755, while San Francisco, Lima and Valparaiso, on one side of the Pacific Ocean and Manilla on the other, have all in turn suffered heavily from these terrible visitations of Nature in her most awe-inspiring moods. But none in human history equals that which has fallen on the lovely islands of Japan, the brightest gems that are set in all the silver seas of the world. There Nature revels, both on sea and land, in the prodigal luxuriance of her own physical beauty, but she also exults in the physical terrors of flood, storm, and earthquake, and the greatest of all is earthquake. There is a long and gruesome record in Japan's history of the destruction on vast scales both of life and property, but, whatever these ravages were in the past all fade into insignificance when compared with that which has now practically destroyed the whole of one great city and the wealthiest and most populous districts of another. Both are modern cities, the growth, in their present forms, within sixty years, in the case of the port from nothing more than a cluster of fishermen's humble huts on a beach which bordered a wide, uncultivated swamp, the other, the capital, from what was certainly already a great city, ornamented with parks and stately castles, with palaces and temples, on which all the national artistic and architectural skill had been lavished, but with narrow, tortuous streets of one-storeyed houses of wood and paper, those of the well-to-do with solid and substantial wooden frames and heavy overhanging roofs of tiles, but those of the poorer classes consisting only of flim.sy cottages, with thatched or shingled roofs. Certain quarters were closely packed and densely