ture of such an outfit, and experiments have shown that it is proof against revolver shots. A similar revolver-proof covering is that based on the invention of the Berlin tailor, Dove, who, at the close of the last century, produced something that at the time attracted universal attention in military circles. The so-called Schaumann armor uniform is made of thin steel plates of an elastic nature, back of which is another plate, in the composition of which aluminium is employed, and which is not elastic. The purpose is to break the force of the bullet in the first instance. Another invention deals with a uniform made up of metal rings and points with a view to deflecting the bullet. The most common means for bodily protection today is the breastplate. Some of these plates are intended merely to protect the heart or the lungs. The intention is to carry them in pockets under the military uniforms. It has been argued, however, with considerable justification, that in certain respects this intended protection may itself prove deadly to the soldier, since, if struck at an angle, it may add to the injury of the bearer. The use of protective shields on rifles has been much discussed. On the whole, it is a question whether any real benefits accrue from any of these methods, as to a great extent they hinder the movements of the soldier on the offensive; but the present war will at least demonstrate to what a degree modern military operations can depend on agencies that come down to us from an epoch when entirely different conditions obtained in warfare. 1 German Birth Rate in War Time In a general study of conditions in I F we do not count foreigners and defectives, there were in Germany on Jan. 1, 1915, including the army and fleet, 16,500,000 men and 17,000,000 women between the ages of 17 and 60. Not all of them belong to the producing classes. Among the number of those working for wages, and in service of every kind, including domestic service and the staffs of factories, and also those occupied in home industries, there were, between the ages of 17 and 60, 11,500,000 men, or 70 per cent. of the entire male population of those ages, and almost 5,000,000 women. The number of all those working for wages and in service is 13,435,000 men and 5,840,000 women, counting those below the age of 17 and above the age of 60. The diversion to the army of an immense number of men naturally low In August, ered the marriage rate. In Berlin in April, 1915, there were celebrated only 1,747 marriages, as against 2,996 in April, 1914. At the very beginning the war led to an extraordinary increase in the number of marriages. 1914, 5,793 couples were married in Berlin, as against 1,309 couples in August of the preceding year. But the increase was for the most part only apparent: many of those going to the war found it expedient to contract official marriages with their "unofficial wives" in order to secure for the latter the allowance from the Treasury which, at the beginning of the war, was paid only to official wives; later the Council of the Empire published a series of decrees in accordance with which the allowances were paid not only to the "unofficial wives" themselves but also to the illegitimate children of the "unofficial wives," even in cases when they were the offspring of unofficial husbands who did not go to the war. Thereafter marriages decreased. In the last four months of 1914 5,835 couples were married in Berlin, as against 8,265 in the same months of the preceding year. The same thing happened throughout the whole empire. The excess of births over deaths in 1902 for the whole of Germany amounted to 12.7 per 1,000 inhabitants; the births amounted to 29.1 and the deaths to 16.4 per 1,000. Parallel with the decrease in the death rate in Germany during the last fifteen years, the birth rate has decreased even more rapidly. In Prussia, for example, in the years from 1901 to 1913 the death rate for each 1,000 population fell from 21.7 to 15.8, while the birth rate fell from 37.4 to 29. The excess of births over deaths thus fell from 15.7 to 13.2. Thus the growth of the population began to slacken even before the war. Since the beginning of the war the diminution of the birth rate by twothirds, as a consequence of the transfer to the army of two-thirds of the mar riageable men, would in itself mean an Corking Up the Kiel Canal After a lucid exposition of the whole naval problem of the North Sea and the Baltic, Admiral Degouy develops in La Revue de Paris a striking plan, the first step of which is the bottling up of the German High Seas Flect in the Kiel Canal: A VERY interesting point: Several railway lines, four of which are important, and roads which require bridges, cross the Kiel Canal. We need not mention foot bridges and ferries for the ordinary roads. Now, as the German engineers themselves admit, the necessary engineering works, executed in a hurry and on ground far from solid, give only very insufficient grounds for security. Some of these works remain as they were before the broadening of the canal, (1912-14;) certain bridgeheads have subsided because of the removal of the lateral supports to which they owed their former stability. They admit in particular that the lack of stability of the Levensau Bridge constitutes a permanent menace to the navigation of the canal. In any case, and in a general way, the greater number of the railway and road bridges, being uncovered, could easily be destroyed by an aerial fleet. (These data are taken from the Russian Bourse Gazette, March 30, 1915.) Nor is this all; even the banks of the canal are, for a certain distance, so loosely built, because of the character of the sandy, clayey soil, which is further very damp, that landslides take place, and that it is necessary to interrupt or slacken the circulation as well in the canal itself as on the railway bridges which cross it. The same insecurity exists in the region of the lakes and the wide marshes east of Rendsburg. Infiltrations undermine the banks, too hurriedly executed when the canal was widened. * It is, therefore, not doubtful, and we have seen that this was the opinion of an eminent engineer a year ago, that a wellstudied, well-combined attack of an aerial fleet on the German ship canal could produce the most interesting re amination of the coast of Schleswig will make sufficiently clear to my readers what I cannot tell them. How could one fail to see that a vigorous blow by the English fleet could bring into our power, whenever we wish, isolated points at which it would be easy, after having rendered them impregnable, to organize an immense aviation field with all its dependent services? The distance of this base from the central section of the canal should hardly exceed 100 to 110 kilometers, (62 to 68 miles.) This condition is perfectly realizable. Japanese Menace to America In a pamphlet entitled "Japan's Place in the Sun," compiled from authoritative Japanese sources, Mr. Rea sums up the argument thus: THE HE United States is a nation anxious for peace at any price; she is a woman's country, and women love peace," are the words of Kazan Kayahara, the Maximilian Harden of Japan, in a recent number of The Third Empire, his own magazine, translated and reprinted in The Far East of Oct. 16, 1915, the last issue of the paper to arrive in America. Remembering the existence of the super-censorship imposed by the Japanese Foreign Office last September to prevent the publication of any article, comment, or news which may injure the relations of Japan with foreign nations; remembering the recent publication of a Japanese Bernhardi book in this country, which has called forth the unanimous condemnation of the leaders of Japanese thought as "the irresponsible utterances of a penny-a-liner, hack newspaper writer in Japan," let me close this series of articles with one more extract from The Far East of Oct. 24, 1914: "Tsugi-no Issen' ('The War to Come') is the title of a popular Japanese book published in Tokio early last Summer, since when several editions have been issued. The author's name is not given, but it is now generally known that he is a commander of the imperial navy with a reputation for literary work. The sale of the book was forbidden for some time by the Government authorities for reasons quite obvious, though it was later permitted to be published with revision. here and there. The following preface tells of the object of the writer in presenting the Japanese with a book which is somewhat sensational: cance. * * * "Is a war between Japan and America inevitable? That is the great question for the world to solve in the first half of the twentieth century, and for Japan a question of the utmost signifiI have witnessed the cruelty and misery of war with my own eyes, and again have read the far-reaching effects of war in the annals of past battles. I am not a whit behind others in the ardent desire for peace. But if the arrogance of the Americans toward the Japanese continues as in the near past, and if the deficiency of Japan's national defense is left as it is today, how can we expect the waves of the Pacific to remain calm and tranquil for many years to come? "Let us direct our attention to the sea only, and then no storm from Siberia is to be feared. Even if Japan remains in her island empire, what shall we do with the yearly increase of half a million of our population? Japan is now in a dilemma. Have you, my dear reader, an iron will and determination?'" No comment is necessary on the above. This is the utterance of an official of the Japanese Navy, and the book was passed by the censors and permitted circulation. Let us not forget that the German von Bernhardi derived his source of inspiration from the Japanese. Germany has drawn the sword to perform her mission in the world. Against whom is Japan sharpening the sword to enforce her concept of her divine mission? A Monroe Doctrine for Europe The Revue de Hongroie, Budapest, publishes this anti-English plan as a portion of a book by Maurice Révai on the same subject: TH HE only way to prevent another war such as the present is to rid Europe of the bacillus of the disease, to deprive the country which has caused almost all wars of the ability to interfere in the affairs of Europe. We have shown what an insuperable barrier there is between England and the peoples of the Continent from the political, social, and ethical viewpoints; that geographical situation, climatic factors, and historic traditions render change on this score absolutely impossible by preventing the English and the peoples of the Continent from having ideas in common on any subject whatsoever; that our interests differ totally from theirs, that our way of understanding life and our national aspirations are quite other than those of the English, and that, if the peoples of the Continent are capable of understanding and judging with equity the insular position of the English, the English are absolutely incapable of penetrating into the being of another people, of understanding and sympathizing with it. Since a solidarity of interests between the English people and those of the Continent cannot be imagined, it is very necessary that the latter recognize among themselves at least their common interests in opposition to England, that the Continent is a world in itself in which England has no place, that England has unduly played a continental rôle until now, that England exercises an illegitimate influence on the destinies of Europe, that this unnatural situation ought to be brought to an end, and that it is necessary that England cease to be a continental power. place of the old political system another ought to be substituted, and that will be the application to Europe of the Monroe Doctrine. In We desire to live at peace with England, and that is why we should apply in Europe the Monroe Doctrine and firmly declare, as do the Americans, that we wish to be "practically sovereigns on this continent." A Monroe Doctrine for Europe will start from the principle that England is an insular country outside this continent, that her conditions of existence are quite different, and that the possession of an immense colonial empire imposes on her tasks other than ours. England herself has recognized this truth, since she has always considered herself as not part of Europe, when it used to be a question of the European balance of power. She constantly kept apart from every grouping of the powers. A Europeon Monroe Doctrine will solve the greatest problem of the world war. Europe will be delivered from England's maritime hegemony and will thus gain freedom of navigation for all peoples. The first consequence will be that England will have to evacuate those portions of the European continent which she now occupies, to abandon Malta, Cyprus, Gibraltar, the isles of Lemnos and Tenedos, which she has, according to her custom, "provision"provisionally" occupied during the war. If the Central Empires succeed in liberating Egypt and with it the Suez Canal, then after the restitution of this country to its legitimate masters and the evacuation of the three naval bases above mentioned, the Mediterranean can be considered freed, and the freedom of the seas guaranteed in these parts to all peoples. The Suez Canal is the Achilles heel of the British Empire of today. It is the gate by which England communicates with India, her finest colony. From the standpoint of the commercial independence of the Continent it is of great importance that this base of her naval power should be taken from England and placed under the suzerainty of a State capable of guaranteeing the neutrality of the canal and the free passage of the ships of all nations. The conquest of the freedom of the seas is not specially a German scheme, but is in the interest of the whole of humanity. If we can hold her in check at Suez, England, for whom the canal is a vital interest, will no longer be able to close the Atlantic to us. The essential thing in this war is not to take territories more or less extensive, but to deliver the world from English tyranny. The Monroe Doctrine for Europe being in the interest of all the European States, it can become in the hands of the Central Empires not only a condition but also an instrument of peace. By its application England would not be represented at the congress or conference of powers desirous of peace. If the victorious group negotiates a separate peace with a State of the other group, the idea of a conference will naturally not be urged and in that case England will be negotiated with separately. But if a conference is decided on at which all the States interested would be represented, England ought none the less to be excluded in conformity with the new Monroe Doctrine, which does not permit England to take part in the discussion of political questions that concern only the continent. Besides, the participation of England at such a conference would compromise its success. A peace negotiated with the help of the diplomats and peace apostles of the United Kingdom would be a lame peace. To exclude England will be the first blow at English pride. This is all the more necessary since the statement of Mr. Bonar Law, the British Colonial Secretary, that in consideration of the services rendered by the "Dominions" during the war, it had been decided to give them a voice when the question of making peace arose. The "Dominions". are the British colonies that have their own government. England thus wants Canada, Newfoundland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa to decide the destinies of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria, and the other European States. It is indeed kind of Mr. Bonar Law not to have invited to the conference the Malays, Zulus, Somalis, Kanakas, and Papuans, who do not enjoy self-government. To keep England out of the peace negotiations is to make certain of success, for her allies of today will recognize at the end of the war, if they have not so far become aware of it, that England is much more dangerous as a friend and ally than as an enemy. |