shocking. The present supply of shipping is worse than alarming. I am afraid to go too deeply into the figures, for one might be charged with giving information of value to the enemy were one to tell the truth about the present supply of shipping.

To our Government belongs the responsibility for such a state of affairs. The Government cannot plead lack of power, for it has been made powerful by Congress beyond the dreams of any Government this country has ever known. It cannot plead lack of funds. It has been endowed with billions by a Congress that has levied unprecedented taxes, and by a people who have wholeheartedly supported such taxation by their cheerful acquiescence, and have added their emphatic support by the loaning of billions more to the Government. It cannot plead lack of warning, for this country watched the progress of the war for two years and three-quarters before it entered the war itself. And now, a year after entering the war, with all funds at its disposal that it has asked for, with ample power, and after full warning, the Government finds itself unable to place any considerable army beside the armies of our allies, and is even unable to persuade some of its own supporters that it really intends to use force without stint or limit."

For every achievement of this country since war was declared in April, 1917, the Government deserves credit. For the adoption of conscription, for the building of the cantonments, for the creation of a really democratic army that is really disciplined, for the creation of a morale that is beyond anything any American army ever before had and is probably unmatched in the army of any other country, for the rapid expansion of the Navy and its effective use in the submarine zone, and for other like achievements, it is to the Government that credit belongs. But where credit goes also should go blame for mistakes, negligence, failure. And, after all, what counts now is not the incidental achievements, but only victory. Without victory nothing else is of any use. And the failures, the negligence, the mistakes, are to-day imperiling victory. We cannot help those that are past, but the people of America can insist that they shall not be repeated, and can also insist that the men who have made the mistakes, who have been guilty of negligence, who have been responsible for the failures, shall be replaced by competent men.

This is what the American people owe to our allies of Britain and France who are standing with their back to the wall. This is what the American people owe to the weaker free peoples who have been struggling for their rights during these years against the Hun. This is what the American people owe to their soldiers who have already gone to the front, and to the men, the volunteers and the selected alike, who are to-day in training. This is what the American people owe to those thousands who have sacrificed their money, their home ties, their future, and have offered themselves for public service, and have labored and are laboring at their patriotic tasks. This is what the American people owe to themselves as a free people who love their liberty and who disdain to leave to others the task of defending it.

POLITICAL

SCHRECKLICHKEIT "

The world is learning that Germany has deliberately pursued a policy of Schrecklichkeit frightfulness-in order so to terrify neutral nations that they will not oppose her. The policy has failed in affecting belligerents already engaged in the war, but, unfortunately, it has had marked effect on some of the smaller neutrals.

Since the election of Mayor Hylan last November the opponents of the Fusion principle in municipal government have been pursuing a policy of political Schrecklichkeit in order to make private citizens afraid ever again to oppose the political machine. The District Attorney of New York County has been carrying on a so-called investigation of finances of the Fusion Committee which directed the campaign in behalf of ex-Mayor John Purroy Mitchel. As a result of that investigation a special grand jury has found an indictment against William Hamlin Childs, who was Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Fusion Committee, and was thus the recognized head of the Fusion movement. Mr. Childs has not been accused of or indicted for corruption or making money out of the campaign for himself or any of his associates. He is accused of failing to

mention names in two of the financial items of the report of his Committee. The facts are that the Committee employed exGovernor Sulzer as a speaker during the campaign, and paid him $5,000 for his services; that they also paid Mr. Mischa Appelbaum, the head of an organization known as the Humanitarian Cult, $6,500 for the services of his organization in arranging meetings and speeches in behalf of the Fusion movement. In the Committee's report these two sums of money were named, but they were grouped under the general head of "expenses for speakers, etc.," and ex-Governor Sulzer's name and that of the manager of the Humanitarian Cult were not made public. It may be added that Mr. Childs did not sign the report and did not even see it, that duty belonging to the department of the treasurer, but Mr. Childs had instructed that department that the report should be legal in every respect and that counsel should be cor.sulted in the manner of its preparation, and this was done. Further, there was no conceivable object which could have been accomplished by Mr. Childs in concealing the payments to Sulzer and Appelbaum, as it was several weeks after the election that the reports were filed and every one knew that both Sulzer and Appelbaum had been working hard for the election of Mr. Mitchel under the direction of the Fusion Committee. It has always been the policy of The Outlook to urge its readers never to try a case or to determine a verdict in advance of the orderly court proceedings which, under both law and equity, must be the final determination of an indictment like that now found against Mr. Childs and his associates. But it is a principle of equity as well as of common law that an indictment is merely a legal complaint, and that even an indicted man must be considered innocent until he is proved guilty. In this particular case there are circumstances which we think every citizen who is sincerely interested in good and honest government ought to know.

Mr. Childs is a prominent business man of New York City. engaged in large affairs and recognized everywhere as an exceedingly able executive. During the last four years he has spent his time and money freely and unselfishly in the cause of good government. In 1916 he organized the Roosevelt NonPartisan League, in support of Mr. Roosevelt for the Presidential nomination. When Mr. Hughes was nominated, he, with equal vigor and in accordance with the best traditions of Americanism, supported Mr. Hughes for election. He believed, as The Outlook believes, that Mayor John Purroy Mitchel furnished New York City the best administration it has ever had, and while Mr. Childs is a Republican of New England birth and tradition, he gave his aid to the Fusion movement and endeavored to elect Mr. Mitchel as a civic duty. He has not only never made a dollar out of his political work, but he has spent many thousands for the benefit of his fellowcitizens. He has never sought office or political emoluments of any kind, and has declined many suggestions leading in this direction. To single him out, as has been done, in a technical indictment is believed by his friends to be a form of punishment visited upon him by certain sinister political influences in New York City.

Among these sinister influences are the newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst. They have devoted much attention to the indictment, and have endeavored to make it appear that it is a result of corruption on the part of the Fusion Committee. Some one, certainly not disagreeably to Mr. Hearst, has sent portraits of Mr. Childs and the two associates who were indicted with him, broadcast throughout the State with flamboyant headlines describing, but very unfairly interpreting, the indictment. With these facts it should be observed that Mr. Hearst is believed by the best political judges to be laying his plans for the Democratic nomination for Governor of the State of New York next autumn. If by political Schrecklichkeit he can terrify those men who believe he is a menace not only to his State but to his country so that they will not oppose his nomination or election, he will be pursuing a policy which he has often pursued in the past. The Outlook believes that Mr. Hearst is such a menace, that even his nomination as a candidate for Governor of the State of New York would be a very profound danger.

Mr. James M. Beck is recognized throughout the Englishspeaking world as in a very special sense a representative of

We are to-night concerned with the efforts of pro-German sympathizers to weaken the purpose and sap the morale of the American people by a bastard pacifism.

This serpent must not only be "scotched," but stamped out altogether, if America is to be worthy of its great destiny.

The source and inspiration of this spirit is not far to seek. We need not concern ourselves with its minor rivulets and eddies. We must go to the fountain-head itself and dam up its pernicious influences.

Its chief source is to be found in the journalistic enterprises of one man, and his name is William Randolph Hearst. His power for evil is immeasurable. He is said to own seventeen newspapers and magazines, and, as he controls the policy of papers in Boston, New York, Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, the daily influence that he exerts is Nation-wide. No single influence is comparable with the Hearst influence in its potency for evil. His leading organ in this city claims a circulation of 450,000 copies, and, if so, it is altogether probable that it is daily read by a million people in the section to which it is tributary. His adherents do not greatly exaggerate when they claim for Mr. Hearst a daily audience of five millions of people. It is thus within Mr. Hearst's power to convey to these millions the subtle poison of insidiously disloyal utterances, and it may be said without exaggeration that the greatest menace to the part which America is destined to play in the struggle comes from the Hearst press.

Mr. Hearst's papers have justified the sinking of the Lusitania, have justified the German submarine. policy, and have opposed lending money or sending munitions to the Allies. In view of these facts, we think Mr. Hearst's opposition to Mr. Childs as the representative of the Fusion movement for good government in this city last autumn is an honor to Mr. Childs, an honor which we are glad to share by saying that Mr. Childs is a Director of The Outlook Company. In our association with him we have always found him actively interested in every reasonable movement for good government, and constantly supporting The Outlook in taking its stand, without fear of personal consequences or without seeking the favor of any political personages, in behalf of honesty, sincerity, truth, and human rights in all forms of government, local, National, or international.

"A little gray thing that lives in a cave."

66

you

Exactly!" The Literally-Minded Lady shot out the word as though there were saltpeter behind it. "I had it all pictured out," she went on, with something that was almost a wail. "I didn't think you were a little gray thing and I didn't think lived in a real cave. But I thought at least that you must live in some cabin in the mountains, like a man I once knew in New Hampshire; a young man, too, with a great curly red beard-" "I could raise the beard if you insist," interposed the Happy Eremite. "Only you wouldn't like it. There are two spots right under the corners of my mouth that refuse to grow whiskers, and the effect when I try is as where the moth doth corrupt.' "I don't insist on a beard," cried the Lady, a little petulantly. “And I never said that I did, though the idea of a hermit shaving every day is, you must admit, grotesque. But that isn't my grievance. You call yourself an eremite. In other words, you deceive me and a few hundred thousand other people who read The Outlook into believing that you are a shy, unworldly person who lives withdrawn from the busy affairs of men; and here you have a stucco house on a hill outside one of our busiest and most worldly cities in the United States, a

66

I don't see what the cook's name has to do with it," interposed the Happy Eremite, mildly.

"It hasn't anything to do with it, but-"

66

Besides," he added, with a wistful look, "she's gone." "Serves you right!" cried the Lady. "But that isn't the whole of your deception. You gave me to understand that you were shy—and here you are speechifying in movie theaters and orating at banquets, organizing farmers, running committees. Withdrawn from the affairs of men! Twice a week at least you're in the city for twelve hours or more gravely settling the affairs of the Nation with bankers and brokers and lawyers and editors and publishers. You an eremite? You're a fraud !"

The Happy Eremite received this lecture with befitting humility. "You do seem to have a case against me," he said, slowly. "That is the trouble with the Jekyll-and-Hyde business. Sooner or later one is always found out, and then the idealistic people are shocked because one is so much Hyde, and the plain, practical people are peeved because one is so much Jekyll. I thought I could get away with it-I suppose every criminal does --and let my Jekyll friends think I was all Jekyll, and my Hyde friends think I was all Hyde. I realized the necessity of getting away with it. No one really imagines that a man can sincerely be both." He paused. "You see, you don't."

66

What I object to," cried the Literally-Minded Lady," is your calling yourself an eremite when you are just common or garden variety of hustler,' always rushing from place to place, always busy, always undertaking more than you can really do well. You're not an eremite," she added, indignantly; "you're a pin

wheel."

The Lady's face was red. If the Happy Eremite had laughed, that might have eased the situation. But he did not laugh. He folded his hands between his knees and looked thoughtfully across his study to the spot where the leather-backed volumes of his Century Dictionary stood. He rose and drew forth Volume II-" D to Hoon."

"Here we are!" he exclaimed. " ·Eremite- -one who lives in a wilderness or in retirement.'

66

"That is an accurate description of you, now isn't it?" cried the Lady, with fine sarcasm. "Modern plumbing, furnace, electric light, automobile, and six committee meetings a week." Wait," said the Happy Eremite. "We're not done yet. 'Specifically, in church history, in the earlier period, a Christian who, to escape persecution, fled to a solitary place, and there led a life of contemplation and asceticism.' "He closed the book slowly and shoved it back in its place.

“Well?"" remarked the Lady, patiently. There was a pause. "You may be a Christian, though I have my doubts," she went on, not without asperity. "But as for persecution, I don't know what you are talking about."

He leaned forward, quite in earnest now, not joking at all. "Don't you see?"" he said, softly. "I'm not really a fraud. It's just that, inside this body that you see and that shaves every morning, somewhat to your distress, are two persons-the one loving action, the other loving dreams. The one loves to mix among men, to be a part of great movements, to work, to fight, to accomplish tangible things. The other likes to sit in a corner of the hills away somewhere, away from people, away from noise, forgetting the terrible present, losing himself in what seems to him the only real world, the world of the imagination, dipping in baths of beauty to cleanse himself from the smoke and dust of the common day.' The fellow who loves action is constantly trying to choke the fellow who loves dreams, to burn him at the stake in the hot fire of practical busy-ness. And so the dream fellow, to escape persecution,' just as the dictionary says, flees to a solitary place,' and there leads 'a life of contemplation and asceticism.' I lead a double life, you see. One half of me is a hustler, gunning for 'results' The other half of me is an eremite, sitting in the sun, just wondering about things."

6

"I see, I see," murmured the Literally-Minded Lady, and did not see at all. "Perhaps you are not a fraud. But the dictionary says something about asceticism."

"You don't know the servant problem in Mohican County," said the Happy Eremite.

A

ND now, girls, I want to say that I do not believe any normal or healthy girl can fail to have an immense and unresting curiosity about matters of sex, and I believe that when you are fourteen or fifteen years old (perhaps in some cases when you are even younger) your curiosity should be satisfied. . . . If you are prudish, please remember that the same God who made our souls and minds designed and created the functions of our bodies. To think that we can invent some story about our bodily functions that would be more refined and pure than what he has designed seems to me the height of blasphemy.

There are more decent men than bad ones. But you can be on your guard with every one, particularly if there is any question of love-making. Keep tight hold of your heart (if that organ in your case happens to be of the affectionate variety), no matter how lonely you may be and how much you may long for

affection.

A girl's boy friends are often, quite unconsciously of course, the cause of many an injury to a girl's health. . . . Mothers should really explain to their sons that once a month girls have to keep quiet. This knowledge only brings out the chivalry and sympathy that are deeply implanted in the nature of all nice boys.

Mothers should always give up their own pleasure for their child's welfare and their own welfare for their child's welfare, and sometimes, but not too often, their own pleasure for their child's pleasure, but never their own welfare for their child's pleasure.

Every generation has its own ideas about what is right and proper to do under all circumstances. Each generation adapts itself to the times in which it lives-to truth as it appears to it. Perhaps one of the most striking differences between the point of view of good people of this generation and the last is in regard to this matter of sacrifice. The modern generation does not seek sacrifice out; they do not feel that there is a virtue in the sacrifice itself unless the end to be obtained is worth the

sacrifice. But if the end is worth the sacrifice, modern people will meet this demand upon them just as proudly, as heroically. and as cheerfully as any of the old-time martyrs. The great war has proved this thousands of times.

Your husband should be your best friend. I say "friend" advisedly, although I believe that for the man you are going to marry you should feel a strong physical attraction, and that when you are with him you should feel no end of glamour, thrills, and other unfriendlike emotions. But unless in your mind's eye you can picture your future husband as your kindest, truest friend as well as the most fascinating companion, do not marry him.

A woman can nearly always visualize the future, and she has intuitions about character. Picture yourself ill in bed, your face drawn and haggard, all beauty gone. Then imagine the man you are thinking of as a husband as he comes into the room. Does his face light up with joy at the thought of your coming recovery, and with pity and tenderness for your suffering and weakness, or does he look repelled at the inevitable ugliness of your condition? . . . Children, the best gift life has to offer us, still prevent us from doing many of the things we long to do. The time and the money that you used to be able to devote to the making of clothes for yourself alone now must provide them for several people. The not very stimulating babble of the children now takes the place of the interesting talks and experiences of old days. With your mind's eye on the future, can you see your husband coming home filled with the desire to make life brighter for you, or does he look bored and rush to his lodge or club as soon as he can get away?

And can you see yourself as his best friend? He may be ill

and ugly; he may become dull and poky. Are you going to care enough for him to be his best friend? Will you stand by him in his hour of trouble or illness; will you be cheerful, brave, and intelligent if he loses all his money; will you help him to develop his best characteristics, not nag him about his bad ones? And will you care enough for him to make the effort not to get dull or dowdy even if you are overworked in the home? I do not mean to say that I advise you to make a slave of yourself for any husband, nor do I want him to be a slave to you. For instance, let us suppose that he is the one who has become "poky," while you still love society and fun outside the home. There will be four courses open to you. You can give up all your own wishes and spend every evening at your own fireside with him; you can make a row, sacrifice his tastes and drag him out with you every night; you can let him go his way staying at home with him half the time, and gently, tactfully while you go yours; or, best of all, you can compromise by persuading him to go out with you occasionally.

The relation between husband and wife, if it is a happy one at all, is the most happy one in the world. It is well worth a great deal of effort to make it as perfect as it is possible to be made.

We, the women of America, cannot deny the fact that somehow we have made domestic service the most disliked of all the business professions for women. The average young American girl of not exceptional natural ability and not much education would rather work in a factory at six dollars a week and pay her board out of that than do housework in a home where she gets all her living expenses and can show a profit of at least twenty dollars every month. It is a great pity. If domestic service could be standardized, humanized, and yet made more businesslike and consequently more attractive to girls who must support themselves, more of them would choose it as a means of livelihood, thereby saving the health of many an overworked mother and forcing the shops and factories to pay their women better wages in order to attract enough of them to carry on their work. If employers made domestic science popular, more girls would take a domestic science course in school, and the taxpayers would be more willing to pay for such courses. Women well trained for domestic work would be able, when finally married, to run a home better than the average factory girl, who hardly knows a bean from a potato, a sheet from a tablecloth.

After your profession, trade, or craft is mastered, so far as school can teach you to master it, you will have another lesson to learn if you are going to succeed out in the world—the lesson of submerging your own opinions and expressing those of your employer. For this reason it is important for you to find out all that you can about the man or woman who offers you a position before you accept it. . .

Competence is the first quality demanded, the habit of not bungling or hesitating but going straight to the point. Beyond idiosyncrasies. Probably they will seem silly to you, but he may this, an employer likes to have a certain respect paid to his be rather vain of them. The doubling or not doubling of a letter in some word may seem to him to be of sufficient importance to cause a wearisome recopying of a letter, while in the meantime the mail goes out. You should carry out these ideas amiably and without comment even to your co-workers. Criticism of your employer to your associates is in very poor taste.

The way to be good-looking physically is to be healthy, well developed, and amiable.

I think a look of intelligence is perhaps the best fundamental expression for a face. On that should be a layer of humor. On that a look of great kindness, and on top of that an expres

sion that suggests what, I believe, the modern girl calls "pep." The most unattractive expression is no expression at all-a kind of blank, cowlike appearance. Worry, bad temper, and discontent make very disagreeable lines on a face. The experience of genuine sorrow bravely borne only adds to the interest of a face on which are expressed intelligence, kindness, humor, and veracity.

Girls, have you ever stopped to think how much you consume? The almost constant time and thought of your parents, the services of friends, teachers, perhaps servants, tons of food, hundreds of articles of clothing, much space? What do you produce of equal value to what you consume? . . .

Unless you are singularly unfortunate, you ought to be able to produce a little more than you consume. Indeed, if the majority of people had not been doing that for the thousands, perhaps millions, of years the world has existed we should not be better off to-day than were our most remote ancestors.

You can be a producer in various ways, spiritual and physical. Unless you have a rare talent for one of the great arts, the best thing you can do for the world and for yourself is to marry and create children and that partly tangible, partly intangible thing called a home. If you do not marry, but still are supported by your father, you can be worth all you consume if you do gratuitous work for the benefit of the community. If you become that admirable person, the self-supporting woman, you can easily earn all you consume.

If you are going to marry on a small income, you will probably have to do a great deal of housework. Do you know how to cook, how to keep your house in order, how to systematize the housework so that it will not take all your time and strength? Do you know anything about buying, so that your money will go as far as possible, or anything about the utilization of the waste material of the household paper, rags, bottles, scraps of food? If your husband is well off, you should know, in addition to the things enumerated above, how to manage your servants so that they will do the work of the house satisfactorily and yet will be contented in your employ.

...

It never seems to me quite straight of a girl to marry and undertake to run a house when she knows nothing about it and does not even take an intelligent interest in doing it well. I have known people with plenty of money and a so-called good "education in whose houses, when you looked below the surface, dirt, confusion, and even vermin prevailed everywhere. When such a condition of affairs exists, it is always the wife's fault, unless she is a serious invalid.

...

I cannot deny that housework is very monotonous, but so is all work. Sometimes it is extremely uncongenial work to the women who have to perform it, but this much can be said in its favor: You are your own boss when you are doing it, and the more skill, science, and thrift you put into it the more interesting it is.

And now, you may say, how am I to learn all these useful things? If you live in or near a big city, you can attend a domestic science course in some school or college. In the smaller cities and villages such advantages may not exist. In that case I can only say that you must teach yourself. This you can do perfectly well if you will read, keep your eyes open, and develop your critical faculties.

For reading, subscribe to one or more of the women's magazines.

A good exercise (and an amusing one also) is to set yourself some imaginary problem in housekeeping. Allow yourself, let us say, $50 with which to furnish a room. With the aid of catalogues, which the great mail order houses and big city department stores will gladly furnish you, you can easily select in imagination furniture that will come within the price limits you have set yourself. And what shall this furniture be? Do you want to spend all your spare time dusting it? No. Well, then, choose things with flat surfaces, simple, straight lines. Simple, plain things are more restful to live with, anyway, than things of meaningless elaboration. Choose beforehand some definite color scheme, and try to follow that out in your selection of rug, hangings, and covers. If you have to economize in something, try to use good judgment as to where you will economize.

Women of independent means and leisure are making a won

derful record for themselves as unremunerated workers in the field of philanthropy and public service. ... Women, volunteers, still without the vote in most of our States, are toiling to promote better legislation in all our States and in the Nation. Women are active in village improvement work and have done wonders in the last few years to make our country places more sanitary and more beautiful..

I could fill a book if I were to record all the useful, civilizing things the unpaid woman is doing for the country.

...

If you should go to work while you are living at home, you ought to be able to lay up a good sum of money. . . There is a real fascination about seeing the figures in your bank book gradually getting bigger and bigger. After you have a couple of hundred dollars, let us say, in the bank, you can wisely begin to save up for a more lucrative investment.

Girls, I wish I could make you feel the real comfort of having a little income of your own-even if it is only ten dollars a year-that comes in regularly, rain or shine, sick or well. You can soon save it if you bend your mind to it.

look up to the intellect of the girls he is attentive to. He is not Nowadays the best type of man likes to admire and even afraid of the girl with a trained mind and a strong active character. All right-thinking girls want to be attractive to men, of course, but those of this generation will not make this desire the sole object of their lives; nor, for the sake of attaining this attractiveness, will they willingly sacrifice the expression of their own tastes and talents. Remember, too, that a well-trained mind is not inconsistent with good looks, pretty clothes, graceful dancing, and pleasing manners.

Even Mary Lyon, that great New England teacher of nearly one hundred years ago, when the shadow of the gloomy Puritan theology was still dark upon her section of the United States, said: God wants you to be happy; he made you to be happy." And, "You have no right to give up your happiness just because you are willing to do so."

66

If it is right for one person to work for the happiness of another person, it must be right for the latter to receive and enjoy this happiness.

Do not mistake pleasures or amusements for happiness; people who make them their object in life are the most bored, unhappy people in the world. Nevertheless, pleasure and amusements occupy a very important place in life.

With the modern self-starter and demountable rims any woman can run an automobile, as far as muscular strength is concerned. Her mind should work quickly and she should have decision of character. She should also have self-control enough to keep calm under trying or dangerous circumstances. If she has not these characteristics to start with, running an automobile will develop them. Perhaps it is unnecessary to say that they are characteristics which are useful not only in the auto but on many occasions of every-day life. It is said that many physicians recommend being an amateur chauffeur to nervous women who, if they once learn to conquer real dangers, will seldom worry about imaginary ones.

The old illogical idea that women were too frail to do anything out of doors, but were strong enough to bring ten children into the world, and do all the housework and dressmaking for this large family, does not receive much credence in these days.

A REQUEST

In The Outlook of February 27, 1918, we printed an editorial paragraph based on a letter from a lady living in a university town in the State of New York, in which she described the need in that town, even in school and university circles, of the right kind of information about France and the French people. We recommended certain books which ought to be read by intelligent men and women who want to know something about the real traits of our gallant allies. Unfortunately, we have lost the name and address of our correspondent, and we have received an interesting letter from a wellknown Frenchman living in France who desires, as a result of that editorial, to get into communication with this lady. If this paragraph should fall under her eye, will she kindly send us her name and address?

66

"W

66

HAT are the chances for an alliance between Japan and Germany?" I asked Count Masataka Terauchi, Premier of Japan.

That," he replied, " will depend entirely on how the present war may end. It is impossible to predict the changes which the conclusion of this war may bring. If the exigencies of international relationships demand it, Japan, being unable to maintain a position of total isolation, may be induced to seek an ally in Germany; but, as far as I can judge from the existing condition of affairs, I see no such danger. In other words, I believe that Japan's relations with the Entente Allies will continue unaltered after the present war."

This remarkably frank statement by the Premier of Japan is an accurate presentation of certain new possibilities which concern the Allies, and America in particular. These new possibilities have been created by the collapse of Russia. That collapse has ended the remoteness of Japan. If Russia does not get back to her feet, the Far East will be next door to Europe. If Russia does not recover, then over Russia's remains Germany and Japan are destined to meet. Will they meet as rivals or as friends?

Whether the world will see a strong Russia again "will depend entirely on how the present war may end." Whether such a Russia would be autocratic or democratic "will depend entirely on how the present war may end." And whether "the exigencies of international relationships" will demand a GermanoRusso-Japanese alliance if a strong Russia be saved, or a Germano-Japanese alliance if Russia be lost, "will depend entirely on how the present war may end," and on a few other questions with which America is greatly concerned, since they relate to her policy toward Japan.

Whether there is to be a German-Japanese alliance opposed to the French and Anglo-Saxons or not depends very largely on America. But I am anticipating.

With three or four weeks to pass between the writing and the publication of this, and with history being made at a gallop, such an article must be written with a historical perspective. Before this can be published Japan may have sent an army into Siberia. But whether Japan intervenes in Russia or not, the following interview with the Premier of Japan will have interest as interpreting the frame of mind of Japan's leaders toward a problem and during a crisis which will have a place in history, whatever the future may bring forth. The events of the winter of 1917-18 in the Far East have been of exceeding consequence. Since the first of the year Japan has been feverishly considering the new relationship which would arise between her and Germany if Russia should make peace and disintegrate. And since it became evident that the Bolsheviki were going to make peace, Japan has been on the point of undertaking armed intervention in Siberia.

Whether she does intervene or not, however, the effect gained by her restraint during the past month or two will not have been lost. The reaction in Russia toward Japanese intervention to-day or to-morrow would not be what it would have been yesterday. Japan and her allies have gained by her caution and patience; and that caution and forbearance have been largely Prime Minister Terauchi's.

That Japanese troops are not already well into Siberia as I write this is due mainly to three influences-the personality of Count Terauchi, the personality of Baron Goto, Minister for Home Affairs, and the opposition of the United States. Opposed to this alignment have been the forces favoring immediate intervention-Viscount Motono, the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs, the entire Japanese War Office, with most of the leading officers of the army and a good many of the navy, plus France, and to some extent England. France has been for itboth the public and the Government. The English Government, however, seems not to have finally committed itself, though a

large section of British public opinion has been favoring Japanese intervention.

For the past four or five weeks the conflict between these two opposing views has been a delicate and momentous thing to watch. At first it seemed that the sentiment for intervention was irresistible, but it began to wane, and lately the non-interventionists have seemed to be gaining. But of course these are not irrevocably non-interventionists at all. Count Terauchi, Baron Goto, and, as I understand it, the American Government have not come out against Japanese intervention finally; they have merely pleaded for present caution, arguing that the time is not yet ripe, that the situation in Russia, grave as it is, is not yet grave enough to justify the risks of military intervention by Japan in the territory of an ally.

That is what I mean when I say that, whether Japan does now intervene or not, the effect of her restraint during the past four or five weeks will not have been lost. In case she does intervene Japan will find that her moral position has been greatly strengthened by the fact that she has been patient, that she has proved to the world her forbearance with Russia-in short, that she has proved her disinterestedness in advance.

of

To the formation of Japan's present policy toward Russia a veritable hodgepodge of elements contributed. She was entirely unprepared herself for gauging the meaning of such a spree radicalism as Russia has been indulging in. Her statesmen had had intimate personal and political relations with Russians of the autocracy-men like Witte, Stolypin, and Sazonoff. But they knew none of the revolutionary group, and the reactionary Russian Ambassador, who has been held over in Tokyo from the days of Czardom, has not helped them to understand. Thus Japan has looked to her allies for interpretation of Russia, and has found them confused. France has looked at Russia almost entirely, it seems to me, from the standpoint of her own purely national interests. The French advocacy of Japanese intervention in Russia seems to have sprung from fear for the French investments in Russia, for surely France cannot believe that such a limited military expedition as Japan could send would appreciably relieve pressure on the western front. The warm democratic sympathy of Lafayette must be alive in France to-day, but it has been strangely inconspicuous in the attitude of France toward Russia.

England from the beginning has had a rather limited understanding of the Russian Revolution, yet England has seen Russia more clearly than France has. England has been too much inclined to accept the interpretation of Russia furnished by the British Tories and Imperialists. Lately, however, British Labor and the British Liberals have forced a saner view to the front. And England seems to have been a good deal influenced by President Wilson's judgment of events in Russia, which has been much more accurate than that of any other statesman, and remarkably accurate, considering the obstacle of distance and other difficult circumstances.

Then to the formation of Japan's policy toward Russia a number of conflicting internal currents are contributing. Japanese politics are the most difficult politics in the world to understand. I certainly do not pretend to understand them. But the present facts are that both the two major parties which contend for supremacy in the lower house of the Japanese Diet are opposed to intervention. Apparently their motive is a fear that intervention will increase the prestige of the present Ministry and lend it a new lease of life, whereas both the Seiyukai and Kenseikai parties are counting on an approaching dissolution of the Terauchi Ministry as a benefit to them. Similarly, elements in the bureaucracy opposed to Terauchi fear intervention. The Genro, or Elder Statesmen, are also urging the Government to go slow, but their advice is more likely to be based on a sincere judgment of what is best for the country. Moreover, Terauchi himself is inclined to avoid intervention,