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HOLLAND

The great strike of the dockers at the Dutch ports which began Feb. 12 was drawing slowly to a close, its end accelerated by mutual charges of betrayal exchanged between the Communists and the Socialists. The former charged that the Socialist press did not properly support the strike, while the Socialists charged that the Communists had betrayed them to the Russian Bolsheviki, and caused them to lose many members through Soviet allurements. Meanwhile millions of tons of foodstuffs destined for famished Central Europe and millions of tons of German coal destined for France, as required by the Treaty of Versailles, were held up for weeks at the great ports of Rotterdam and Amsterdam, guarded by troops on shore and on the water by Dutch gunboats.

The first revelations of the true object of the strike, which, beginning with a wage grievance, soon developed into a combat for power over the shipowners and control of the Central Dockers' Bureau, came from the Socialist organ Het Volk; after encouraging the strike, this paper later denounced it as an attempt of the Lenin Government, through the Dutch Communists, to fasten a Soviet Government on Holland. It was charged that in the middle of January a Dutch engineer named Rutgers, an official of the Soviet Government of Russia, called a meeting of foreign Communist delegates at the Amsterdam house of the Dutch Communist leader, Wynkoop. Miss Sylvia Pankhurst is said to have represented British Communism, and a man named Frayne, American.

The Russian Soviet Government placed at the disposition of the conference a quantity of jewels, including diamonds and pearls worth $10,000,000, and Rutgers informed the conference that he could obtain another similar sum in order to finance each strike. It was argued that Lenin was determined to reach the countries outside of Russia through a successful strike at the ports which would cause such an embargo as to force Holland to seek relief through establishing a Soviet Government.

In order to make the strike more ef

fective the Independent Transport Workers' Union, which had delegates at the conference, united with the Socialist body known as the Modern Transport Workers' Labor Union and induced the latter to call the strike purely on economic grounds, denying that it had anything to do with political aims.

As Het Volk day after day reeled off the foregoing dismal story of the betrayal of Dutch labor the Handelsblad gave further details of the conspiracy, according to which the Soviet Government was to establish in Holland a central bureau from which strikes were to be directed and financed, whenever necessary, all over the world; and in every strike, whatever the cause, the strikers should demand peace with Russia which, it was acknowledged, was not only imperative to maintain the Soviet Government, but also necessary for the development of the world revolution.

HUNGARY

In Hungary, the "stormy petrel" of Central Europe, a plot to restore exEmperor Charles to the Magyar throne was frustrated on Feb. 14. The plan was to provide the ex-Emperor with a false passport bearing the name Kaspar Kovacs, to be issued by the Swiss Consul in Budapest. Charles was then to cross from Switzerland into Lichtenstein by boat over the Rhine, accompanied by four companions. From Lichtenstein he was to proceed to West Hungary and proclaim his return. But the Budapest Swiss Consul recognized the photograph on the passport as that of the exEmperor and promptly reported the matter to the authorities.

Rumania yielded to the demands of the Peace Conference by commencing on Feb. 1 to withdraw her forces at last from the front along the river Theiss to a line sixty to eighty miles east of the river. By the 27th this movement was completed, and the vacated territory was occupied by a Hungarian military detachment without conflict. Observers with the Hungarian force found the inhabitants in a poverty-stricken condition; the Rumanians had carried off seed, grain and agricultural machinery, as well as railway supplies.

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On March 1 the definite announcement was made from Budapest of the election of Admiral Nicholas Horthy as Regent or Protector of Hungary by a substantial majority of the National Assembly. His salary was fixed at 3,000,000 kronen a year. Admiral Horthy went to the Parliament Building to take the oath of office through flag-draped streets amid enthusiastic crowds. Addresses eulogized him as having I saved the nation from ruin." Correspondents, writing of him, declared that a

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ITALY

After negotiations lasting several days with party leaders Premier Nitti reorganized his Cabinet on March 13. The chief features in the new Government are the reappearance of Professor Luigi Luzzatti, the famous founder of the People's Banks, as Minister of the Treasury, and Signori Bonomi, Torre, Alessio and Raineri, who are more or less affiliated with the Catholic or Popular a political organization, would not allow its leader, Signor Meda, to accept a portfolio. The complete list is:

Party, which, however, as
new personality had
arisen among the rulers of European
States and characterized him as a pic-
turesque figure who might yet play a
prominent rôle because of the ends he
had in view. These ends were generally
believed to include the restoration of
former King Charles or his eldest son
Otto-a policy directly opposed to the
decision of the Peace Conference.
the 5th the new Protector issued a mani-
festo in which he said:

Premier and Minister of the Interior-F. S.
NITTI.

On

Extreme tendencies must be suppressed. Profiteering and corruption must cease and Christian morals be re-established. Amid an ocean of international unrest the Hungarian people is the first that is finding its way to consolidation. The new Hungary must supply proper economic and social conditions to each class and supplant vengeance and hatred with mutual understanding, in order that peace may return.

The eager desire of the Hungarians to bring to trial all members of the fallen Communist régime interned in Austria was responsible for an attempt to kidnap Bela Kun from a hospital near Vienna on the night of March 7. Ten armed men suddenly appeared at the hospital and bribed the watcher. The latter, however, gave warning to the police. The armed party took alarm and escaped before the police arrived.

London advices of March 12 stated that a new Hungarian Peace Treaty had been definitely agreed upon by the Supreme Council. It had been placed in the hands of the Drafting Committee, and was expected to be completed within a week. In this new treaty various economic concessions were granted, but the territorial clauses against which Hungary had protested so vigorously remained unchanged.

Vice President of the Council and Treasurer-
Prof. LUZZATTI.

Foreign Affairs-VITTORIO SCIALOIA.
War-IVANOE BONOMI.

Navy-Amm. SECHI.

Finance-CARLO SCIANZER.

Pardon and Justice-LUDOVICO MORTARA.
Public Instruction-ANDREA TORRE.
Public Works-GIUSEPPE DE NAVA.
Agriculture-ACHILLE VISOCCHI.
Industry and Commerce-DANTE

RARIS.

FER

Posts and Telegraphs-GIULIO ALESSIO.
Transportation-ROBERTO DI VITO.

Liberated Provinces-GIOVANNI RAINERI.

The general conservative nature of the new Government, which contains several experts in finance and industry, engendered the belief in the press of the Peninsula that Signor Nitti was determined to invite the support of the Catholics and parliamentary Socialists against the extremists with Bolshevist proclivities; at the same time fear was expressed that such a policy could not survive if Signor Giolitti, his defeatist and non-intervention policies of the war being forgotten, should attempt to seize the reins of power with the co-operation of the Catholics and the old Socialist leaders, Signori Treves and Turati. For Giolitti, although out of office since March, 1914, was said still to control sixty of the sixty-nine prefects of the provinces, and it is from the prefects, appointed as permanent State officials by the Minister of the Interior, that the Deputies take their orders, and not from their constituents. There were several signs of Socialist and Catholic unity on questions of trade, industrial, and social

union and measures for the betterment of the condition of the masses, but a wide difference of opinion prevailed as to how these reforms should be carried out.

Although the war rationing was revived in regard to several necessaries, the general financial condition showed

land and France show a lessened consumption of from 6 to 15 per cent. Allowing that, in view of Italy's relatively small consumption of coal, the reduction per 1,000 inhabitants would only amount to one-third of that in America, yet this would mean a saving of 160,000 tons, the cost of which works out at some hundred million lire. Both the coal and the money are well worth saving.

SPAIN AND PORTUGAL

From day to day it seemed likely that each resignation of the Allende-Salazar Cabinet would become permanent, but each time the King insisted that it re

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FRANCESCO NITTI Italian Premier

improvement, the deposits in the savings banks having doubled in the last year, and the present loan rising beyond all expectation. In anticipation of a tax on capital, notices were issued on Feb. 20 ordering every one, under pain of heavy penalties, to make a return of his entire capital, including investments in other countries, before March 31. Italy still waited feverishly for American and English coal and iron, especially the former. The well-known engineer, Luigi Luiggi, writing in the Giornale d'Italia on Feb. 25, urged the early adoption of "Summer time" in order to economize coal.

But

He stated that the figures from America show a saving of 12 tons for every 1,000 inhabitants, while the figures for Eng

LUIGI LUZZATTI Member of new Italian Cabinet

main in power, and so the fight against the Syndicalists continued.

Spain has had no fewer than eight new Governments with fifty ministerial changes in less than two years. Last year alone saw four changes in Cabinets with forty-four ministerial changes. Virtually every one of these changes was due to the military juntas or "Consultative Committees."

These juntas were originally formed to fight favoritism and. injustice in the army, the chief grievance of the members being that places on the General Staff

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were allotted to favorites of the Government of the day. One of the first actions of the juntas, which are presided over by the Colonels, the highest ranking officers who are allowed to join, was to decide that none of the members should allow their names to be placed in nomination for places on the General Staff.

the

The result would have been that after the death or retirement of the present members there would be no officers to form the staff. But twenty-three officers refused to be bound by this decision, with the result that they were haled before courts of honor and their resignations from the army insisted upon. Governments, under pressure from Liberal, Socialist and other progressive elements in the Cortes, have promised to revoke these decisions of the courts of honor, but found it difficult to do so, for the juntas threatened to withdraw their support from the Government; in other words, should an emergency arise such as a revolution or social war the army would be leaderless.

Thus the juntas became a political force, which opposed radical legislation and otherwise interfered in affairs of State. They are really a great fraternal society, the members of which accept orders only from the presiding Colonels in all affairs of the army, ignoring those of King, Generals and Government. To dissolve these juntas the Cortes must pass a bill to repeal the act which legalized them, and the moment that is done every infantry officer who obeys the orders of his junta must resign from the army. Sooner or later the new Cabinet must face a debate on the "military question." This has, since the intervention of the juntas in politics, each time led to the downfall of the Ministry.

King Alfonso's name has invariably been left out of the discussion, but it is said that the officers induced him to support the organization, and his action recently in attending a big banquet given at Toledo by the infantry officers has lent color to the report.

Portugal's policy of drift ended abruptly on March 6 when the Government was overthrown on account of opposition of the Labor members to a policy of coercion in order to end the strikes.

Thereupon Antonio Silva, former Minister of Public Works, took the Premiership and the portfolio of Foreign Affairs with these colleagues:

Minister of the Interior-Antonio Bautista.
Justice-Lorenzo Cardezo.
War-Julio Martins.
Navy-Victor Macedo.
Colonies-Dominiho Fria.
Commerce-Senhor Cunhaleale.
Agriculture-Juan Luis.

SWEDEN

The most remarkable event in the political annals of the age took place in Sweden, where with a King on the throne a Government entirely made up of Socialists began its work. On March 6 the Liberal-Socialist Eden Cabinet resigned and no Liberal group could be gathered which would have survived a vote in the second Chamber of the Riksdag, where the ratio of the Socialists over the Liberals was three to two. Four days later Hjalmar Branting, leader of the right wing, or parliamentary faction of the Socialists, offered the following slate, entirely made up of Socialists, to his Majesty, who accepted it, Branting himself registering as President of the Council:

Foreign Affairs-Baron Erik Kule Palmstierna (Baron Palmstierna was Minister of Marine in the late Cabinet).

Justice B. Oestern Unden, Professor, Minister without portfolio in the late Cabinet.

War-P. Albin Nansen, editor of SocialDemokraten, published by Mr. Branting. Marine-J. Bernhard Erikson, ironworker, member of the Second Chamber of the Riksdag.

Interior-C. E. Svenson, editor of Folket (The People), a radical organ, and member of the First Chamber of the Riksdag.

Finance-Fredrik Wilhelm Thorson, who occupied the same post in the late Cabinet. Education-Olof Olson, who retained the portfolio he held in the old Cabinet. Agriculture-0. Nilson, farmer, member of the Second Chamber.

Ministers Without Portfolios-Rickard J. Sandler, member of the First Chamber, and Thorsten Karl Victor Nothin, who is Solicitor for the Department of Finance.

Hjalmar Branting, who has the reputation of having kept his country from joining Germany in the war and the Russian Soviet Government after it, was a member of the old Liberal-Socialist Cabinet, but resigned on account of ill-health

in 1917. The crisis which led to the fall of the coalition arose through the impossibility of Liberals and Socialists-the latter had a majority in Parliament— conducting the business of the Government. From now on the left wing, or extreme Socialists, will constitute the Opposition. They are in full accord with the Third International of Lenin and Trotzky, while the right wing condemns the Soviets..

THE VATICAN

The bill introduced in the French Chamber of Deputies on March 11 to re-establish relations between the Government of the Republic and the Vatican excited much more interest in the latter's circles than it did in France, where even those who were instrumental twenty years ago in bringing about the Associations Law and the separation of the Church, with the abrogation of the Concordat, believed the bill was a good thing, as, in the words of M. Briand, "France should not hold aloof from the negotiations in which non-Catholic powers are participating in Rome."

The Vatican press has long held that the magnificent work done in the war by French priests should meet with recognition on the part of the French Government, which should no longer make them feel that their patriotism had not the sanction of Rome.

Besides, the Catholic majority in Alsace and Lorraine was in an anomalous situation-the Germans when they took possession in 1871 guaranteed it the Concordat, and now it found itself in France, where the Concordat had been repudiated.

In Vatican circles it was looked upon as a foregone conclusion that the bill in question would pass the French Parliament without opposition, as it had not only the support, but the enthusiastic advocacy of Premier Millerand, and French prelates writing to the Vatican even went so far as to state that the first French Ambassador to the Vatican had already been decided upon in the person of Jules Cambon, successively Ambassador at Washington and Berlin, whose brother Paul had held the post at London for many years.

Affairs in Asiatic Countries

JAPAN AND CHINA The dilemma forced upon Japan by the refusal of China to accept the direct negotiations regarding regarding Shanoffered through tung, Mr. Obata, the Japanese Ambassador to Peking, on Jan. 19, made the already strained situation still more acute. Of the two parties to the Shantung dispute it was the Chinese who had the advantage; their refusal to open negotiations regarding territory ceded under a treaty which they had refused to sign was strictly logical, while the Japanese, having pledged their word of honor to restore Kiao-Chau to Chinese sovereignty, were nonplussed by the refusal to negotiate, which they had not expected.

The announced intention of the Chinese Government to appeal to the League of Nations on the Shantung issue meant much more, according to the Japanese Chronicle, than a mere reopening of the

argument regarding the rights and wrongs of the settlement. The Japanese demand that the question of restoration be left to their national honor, this paper stated, was in reality a claim for recognition of the principle that in disputes between China and Japan no other power has any right of interference, and China's project to refer the dispute to the League of Nations amounted essentially to an attempt to challenge and defeat this principle before it was established in practice.

The Chinese held that the original Japanese proposal made no mention of the privileges that Japan was retaining, among which were listed a Japanese or foreign settlement at Tsingtao, Japanese ownership of docks and railways, mines and other concessions, and the building of barracks and hospitals at various places in Shantung. Thus the only proper course for Japan to follow, in

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