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ANTI-FRENCH DISTURBANCES AT FIUME.-Blame for Italy's disappointments at the Peace Conference has in some measure shifted from the United States to France. At Fiume on July 6 several French soldiers were attacked and shot at by Italian rioters, including Italian troops. According to an American eye-witness, the French, who have only about 600 troops in Fiume to the Italians' 20,000, in no way provoked the attack. The Paris Council of Five on July 8 appointed a committee to investigate recent troubles at Fiume and other Adriatic ports between Italian and other Allied soldiers of the forces of occupation. Major General Charles P. Summerall was appointed American member of the commission.

The Italian Bureau of Information in the United States on July 8 gave out a statement, afterward declared unauthorized by the Italian embassy, deploring Italy's exclusion from the Anglo-French American agreement, and pointing out the danger that the isolation of Italy might force her again with a rapprochement with the central powers.

TURKEY

NEGOTIATIONS WITH TURKEY POSTPONED.-The Council of Ten at Paris on July 17 gave a hearing to a Turkish delegation headed by Darad Perid Pasha, the Grand Vizier. In the meeting, which lasted an hour, the Grand Vizier pleaded that the Turkish people were not responsible for Turkey's participation in the war, and that the empire be permitted to remain intact in both Asia and Europe. On June 29 the Council sent a note to the Turkish mission thanking them for their statement, but informing them that, since the international questions raised could not be immediately decided, nothing would be gained by their longer stay in Paris. The Turkish delegation left Paris on July 3.

According to a report of July 13, Enver Pasha and other leaders of the old régime in Turkey had been captured, tried by court martial and sentenced to death.

HUNGARY

BLOODSHED IN VIENNA-According to a Vienna report of July 2, forty youths of the Budapest Military Academy and two officers were put to death by the Hungarian Soviet Government in reprisal against the uprising on June 26 of counter-revolutionary forces. Bela Kun issued a proclamation that blood shall flow henceforth, if necessary, to insure the protection of the proletariat."

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NO PARLEY WITH HUNGARIAN SOVIETS.-Paris, July 13 (Associated Press). The Allied and associated powers to-day joined in a wireless message to Bela Kun, the Hungarian Communist Foreign Minister, in declaring that they cannot enter into a discussion with him until he has carried out the conditions of the armistice.

The Supreme Council in Paris on Friday discussed with Marshal Foch and representatives of the Czecho and Jugo-Slavia governments the question of combined military action against the Hungarian Communist forces. The Hungarians have been slow in carrying out the terms of the armistice which resulted in the Czech, Roumanian and Jugo-Slovak armies stopping their advance on Budapest several weeks ago.

POLAND AND RUSSIA

POLAND AN INDEPENDENT STATE.-The text of a treaty signed by Poland and the Entente Powers appeared in the press of July 2. The treaty establishes Poland as an independent European state, under the guarantee of the League of Nations, and provides religious toleration, protection to Jewish citizens, and safeguards of the rights of minority peoples.

Paris, June 30.-In transmitting to the Polish Government the treaty which has since been signed by Poland with the Entente Powers and the United States, Premier Clemenceau, as President of the Peace Conference, addressed a letter to Premier Paderewski setting forth the reasons why the provisions of the document were considered necessary. Under the treaty Poland agreed to protect minorities against discrimination, to assume payment of such a share of the Russian debt as should be assigned to her by the Interallied Commission, and to support important international postal, railway, telegraphic, and other conventions incidental to the establishment of a national standing.

AMERICAN MISSION TO OMSK.-Washington, July 7.-Roland S. Morris, the American Ambassador to Japan, left Tokio to-day for Siberia, on an extended trip which will take him as far as Omsk, the seat of the Provisional Government headed by Admiral Kolchak, to report to President Wilson on the situation. It is understood that the according of full recognition of the Omsk Government in place of the present quasi-recognition that has already been granted by the Allied and associated governments will follow the report of Ambassador Morris, provided this is favorable.

Ambassador Morris will be met at Vladivostok by General William S. Graves, commander of the American forces in Siberia, who will accompany him to Omsk and will also make a report on conditions there and in the rest of Siberia.-N. Y. Times, 8/7.

INQUIRY ABOUT ALLEGED SECRET TREATY.-On July 16 the United States Senate adopted a resolution introduced by Senator Lodge requesting the President for any available information regarding a secret treaty said to have been negotiated between Japan and Germany in October, 1918, embodying a plan for Russian rehabilitation and promising Japan's indirect protection of German interests in the Versailles negotiations. In speaking of the alleged treaty, Senator Lodge stated that he had no evidence of its existence other than a press report from Budapest on June 20. This report, based on a wireless from Moscow, gave the terms of the agreement as follows:

I. Both parties undertake to lend a helping hand to the third treaty party (Russia) as soon as compatible with the world's political situation for the restoration of her internal order, international prestige, and power.

2. Japan undertakes the granting to Germany of advantages resulting from the most favored nation reciprocity clauses of the existing RussoJapanese treaty.

3. Japan undertakes to permit Germany to participate, in accordance with concessions embodied in this special treaty, in Japan's preferential treaty rights in China, the parties undertaking to exclude foreign powers (United States and Great Britain) from securing further concessions there.

4. Japan undertakes the safeguarding, indirectly, of Germany's interests in the forthcoming Peace Conference, striving for minimum territorial and material advantages to Germany.

66

REVIEW OF BOOKS

ON

SUBJECTS OF PROFESSIONAL INTEREST

The Whys and Wherefores of Navigation." By Gershom Bradford 2d, 159 pages, illustrated. (New York: D. Van Nostrand Company.)

This book, as the author states in the preface, is intended to be supplementary to the American Practical Navigator, Bowditch.

Nautical Astronomy and the celestial and the terrestrial elements used in navigation are explained clearly.

It is, of course, always possible to find some inaccuracies or real errors in a book of this class, but there are none in this book that are of any considerable proportions.

The chapter devoted to "Time," which, as it should be, is the longest chapter in the book, is a very good explanation of that bugbear of the beginners.

In the chapter on "Latitude," in explaining the ex-meridian sight, the author calls attention to the fact that the meridian altitude (obtained by adding the reduction) is the meridian altitude for the position of the ship at the time of the sight and he states that, with a 20-knot ship, the discrepancy in latitude, due to neglecting the run between sight and noon, can amount to three miles in the case of a 9-minute ex-meridian sight. Mention should have been made of the fact that the maximum altitude observed when watching for the sun to dip is not the correct meridian altitude when a ship is steering a northerly or southerly course. In the case of a 20-knot ship the discrepancy will amount to more than three miles. These two sources of error go hand in hand and as both are frequently neglected at sea, it would seem that one should not be mentioned without the other.

In the chapter on the moon the usual statement is made in regard to the unpopularity, among navigators, of the moon for sights. This prejudice against moon sights was well founded in the past, but now that Table 49, Bowditch, eliminates so much of the chance of error in altitude correction and the chronometer error can be accurately determined so frequently, there is no longer a good excuse for treating the moon with contempt. An additional paragraph mentioning Table 49, Bowditch, and the consequent increase of the value of the moon for navigational purposes would strengthen this chapter considerably.

For rule-o'-thumb navigators who really desire to know the "Whys and Wherefores" this book is very good. Its subject matter and its explanations are so clearly expressed that no great knowledge is necessary to understand it.

T. W.

Simple Rules and Problems in Navigation." By Charles H. Engle. Revised by Bradley Jones. 305 pages, I plate. (Published by E. P. Dutton and Company, New York City.)

The purpose of this book, as expressed in the preface, is very well served. "The purpose of this book is to lay before the student all the rules and problems of navigation used in every day work at sea, with short definitions of the theory of navigation, and other useful information that the young officer should know."

The book is intended for the Merchant Marine and especially for those students who have but little mathematical or technical knowledge. Most of the theory has been eliminated and hard and fast rules given for the various steps in solving problems.

In giving sample problems quite a number of each class are given with the solutions clearly worked out. In fact, these problems with their well explained solutions form one of the best features seen in any recent book on navigation.

A typical example of the complete and clear rules for the various problems and one that fully explains the methods of this book is as follows:

Latitude by Meridian Altitude of Star:

"The declination of a star having a very small annual change, it is only necessary to take out the minutes for the month, and the number of degrees on the side opposite the star used.

Declination is found on page 95, Nautical Almanac.

There is no Semi-diameter or Parallax for a star, so the meridian altitude is corrected as follows:

Index Error as per sign, if any.

Dip (Table 14) subtract.

Refraction (Table 20A) subtract.

Answer will be true altitude.

Subtract true altitude from 90°. Answer will be Zenith Distance, to be

named opposite name to star's bearing.

Under Zenith Distance put down declination and apply as follows:

Same names, add.

Different names, subtract less from greater.

Answer will be latitude,

Name the latitude as follows:

If added, will be named the same as the two of them.

If subtracted, will be named the same as greater of two."

Following this set of rules are no less than twelve problems clearly worked out.

Altogether this is a very good book for the use of the merchant marine officer.

T. W.

66

Comrades of the Mist and Other Rhymes of the Grand Fleet." By Lieut. Commander E. E. Wilson, U. S. N. $1.00 net. (New York: George Sully and Company.)

The title of this little book of verse is explained in the dedication, "to our 'Comrades of the Mist,' the officers and men of the British grand fleet," and the volume bears a warm tribute to the spirit of team-play between the British and American navies in the war. In particular it celebrates the entente cordiale that existed between the American battleship division under Rear Admiral Rodman and the other squadrons of the grand fleet.

Many of these verses appeared first in the publication of the Arkansas, the Arklight. Naturally, as the modest title, "Rhymes," suggests, these verses are not to be judged as poetry either in form or content. They are pleasant, jingly, little echoes of the life of the fleet during the war, snatches of the fun, the work, and the spirit of our officers and men. Those who knew those long months of waiting at Scapa Flow or Rosyth should find in this little book a welcome souvenir.

"The Freedom of the Seas." By Louise Fargo Brown. $2.00 net. (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1919.)

H. O. S.

262 pages.

This is a well informed popular account of the historical development of the law of nations relating to sea commerce in war and peace. The author announces that she will publish later a more fully documented and more extended study of the same subject in the period following 1713, and that another student has in preparation a treatment of the earlier period. These will fill a real need, for aside from heavy works on international law and histories of commerce, the only readily available book in this field is Professor T. W. Fuller's Sovereignty of the Sea, which however deals chiefly with national claims to fishing and other rights in adjacent waters.

In early days, when the Pope made his extraordinary division of the world's waters between Portugal and Spain, and when Venice, England, Denmark, and the Hanseatic League each claimed actual dominion over vast areas of contiguous sea, the phrase "Freedom of the seas" had an important significance in both war and peace. In recent times, however, it has had little or no peace-time meaning, save as it has been confused with free trade, or the opening of a nation's ports and colonies to foreigners. Its real significance is as a name for the question to what extent a belligerent may interfere with commerce between enemy and neutrals in time of war.

In the recent war it will be generally granted that control of enemy commerce by sea power was exercised with fewer restrictions and with more far-reaching results than ever before. The author is very glad that this was so, yet she seems to regret it as a precedent in international law, holding (like many other writers) that real progress would lie in the direction of making all commerce, save trade in actual munitions of war, immune. This view is mistaken. Little can be gained by trying to limit the scope of war so as to make it a sort of medieval contest between small regular forces. The whole trend of modern war is the other way.

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