distrust of Germany. To my own knowledge, Germany has been intriguing in South Africa for the last quarter of a century. There is no question that for many years Germany has had its eye upon South Africa as a desirable field of settlement for its subjects under the German and not the British flag. Now, the Boers are perfectly well acquainted with this fact and have no wish to exchange the beneficent rule of Britain for that of Potsdam, the King Log of George V for the King Stork of Kaiser Wilhelm.

DIVIDED COUNCILS IN BRITISH EMPIRE1

It is February, 1915; the war has lasted six months. The irritation in this country against England grows apace. Having the power on the ocean, her disregard of the rights of neutrals is keeping the United States poor.

Marvelous indeed is the reaction of American public sentiment within six months. Hands are across the sea, but they are now stretched forth to the invincible Germans and their Austrian allies. The change is noted among different classes and even in high circles. Public sentiment in America is steadily drifting and the drift is altogether against England. The moving picture men in New York and Chicago note the decline in the earlier enthusiasm of the audiences for the allies. Policemen who have been watching the crowds that surround the war bulletin boards have informed the writer that a clear majority of the watchers are not in sympathy with England. There are few calls for the erstwhile popular song, "'Tis a Long Way to Tipperary." The German bazar in the Seventy-first Regiment Armory, New York, in two weeks cleared $325,000, while the Prince of Wales Relief Fund, on the American side, is proving a complete failure. The circulation of the new journal, The Fatherland, has increased in three months from 30,000 to 120,000. The morning and evening Staats-Zeitung have doubled their sales. There is a notable increase in the receipts of the Irish-American journals. And the journals written in English which treat the German

1 From "The King, the Kaiser and Irish Freedom," by James K. McGuire. Copyright, 1915, by the Devin-Adair Company, and reprinted here by permission of the publishers.

side fairly find some consolation in the improvement of their circulation and advertising receipts. Not an Irish-American newspaper has been found to print the war letters of T. P. O'Connor, M.P., long a favorite with this class of readers. Numerous college professors have come out and, encouraged by numbers, are now engaged in defending Germany. The Teutonic publicists are in great demand from ocean to ocean. Our Irish guests who oppose Redmond continue to receive a warm welcome.

There remains not the least question that in the second month of the year 1915 a clear majority of the American people, quietly or openly, favors Germany against England, while feeling profoundly sorry for the state of Belgium and France.

The reasons for this extraordinary but certain change in American public sentiment is due to the following principal

reasons:

I. The discoveries that England poisoned the German news wells.

2.

The proof that the stories of German atrocities are false. 3. The feeling that England caused "hard times" by bottling up our commerce.

4. The evidence that the attempt to starve Germany, which failed, starves the United States.

5. Pride in the American flag and national sorrow over its humiliation on the ocean.

6. The degrading spectacle of British warships guarding and watching the entrance to American harbors.

7. The popular belief that the products of American farms and factory should be held as sacred on the sea as on the land. 8. That God owns the ocean-not England.

9. Admiration on the part of Americans for pluck, courage and skill; they feel Germany is the underdog, fighting against heavy odds.

10. Faith and confidence in the solid virtues and patriotism of our neighbors of German blood.

In addition, the growing belief in the United States is that Germany-Austria is steadily and surely winning the war.

The American public appreciates that the war dispatches dated Petrograd are mostly inventions or gross exaggerations and sent out to bolster up the cause of the allies. Again and again the communications dated Paris have been found to con

tain false news of victories and to give scarcely any reference to the failure of the French armies to make any notable advance in three months.

Contrasted with the inventions of London, Paris and Petrograd, the Berlin military and naval dispatches are models of brevity, clearness and modesty.

Observing Americans are contrasting the solidarity, harmony and common purpose of the people of Germany with the divided counsels, rebellions and mutinies which are observed in the British Empire. All Germans, whether in Germany or America, believe firmly in the justice of the German cause. In England several of the leading members of the cabinet resigned rather than endorse England's unjust declaration of war on Germany. The most long-standing friend of the United States in English public life is John Morley, the biographer of Gladstone. He withdrew from the British government along with Secretary Trevelyan and John Burns, the labor member from Battersea, London, who resigned as minister of public works, giving up a salary of $25,000 per annum. Notable protests were made by Keir Hardie, Ramsay McDonald and Lawrence Guinnell, of County Cork, Ireland, members of the British Parliament. The suppression of meetings and newspapers continues in Ireland. The country, as has been said, is really in a state of martial law. Vessels are inspected carefully in all Irish ports lest they may be found running rifles and machine guns.

There are seditions in Egypt that make the British hold on the Suez Canal insecure. In South Africa the rebellious Boers have united with the Germans and for four months have been able to hold the field. Private letters from India show that the British troops in that land will be required to crush various insurrections, and there is little likelihood of a very large number of Indian troops being sent to the continent. Recruiting in Canada among the Irish Nationalists is a complete failure. Letters from officers of the principal Irish societies contain the interesting information that scarcely 500 Irish Nationalists have enlisted from that country. Similar reports are now being verified and accepted as true from Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand. There is an insurrection in Morocco that has put the French Empire in North Africa into grave peril.

All in all, the British Empire and her French and Russian

allies are having many troubles, the effects of which are gradually impressing Americans. Advices from Italy as late as February, 1915, show that public sentiment is favorable to Germany, and there is no likelihood of Italy being drawn into the conflict to fight on the side of the allies. If British diplomacy should prevail on Roumania to espouse their cause, that country will be offset by Bulgaria, which is ready to strike. Persia has been delivered to Russia by England and has revolted.

Russia is facing a revolution in Finland, there is a widespread disaffection in Russian Poland, revolts are under way in the Mohammedan possessions of the Russian Empire, in Bokahra, Turkestan and Chiva. The oppressed Jews are opposed to war. The most sanguinary battles of the war are being fought in territory that has large Jewish population, so the world may see the extermination of most of the Jewish race in eastern Europe, where the majority of those unfortunate people live. A movement has been started in Afghanistan, to whose borders Russia is diverting troops, while the Turks have an army of 600,000 men assailing Russia in Trans-Caucasia. While the allies are numerically superior they are confronted with numerous internal and racial troubles which have increased the obstacles to their progress in both the eastern and western theaters of the war. These serious diversions at the end of the first act of the world's tragedy have been hidden from Ireland, but the news is gradually percolating through. The news has greatly interfered with the recruiting in Ireland, where conscription is threatened. Many young men, fearing a forced draft into the army are leaving the country.

ENGLAND CONTROLS WORLD NEWS1

England has controlled the news of the world for more than a century. It has been her greatest diplomatic weapon. It has probably gained more for her than her huge navy and her fine army. More than once it has saved her from serious loss.

Not one great event but has been seen for the rest of the world through English eyes or told to the rest of the world as England wished to tell it. The traditional racial characteristics

1 By Arthur Moore. Reprinted from the New York American, December 10, 1914.

of each of us were fitted upon us by England for all the world to learn by heart. And the myth of "British fair play" stands above all the characterizations we suffer under as the greatest masterpiece of them all.

Europe knows America and we misunderstand Europe through news bearing the London date. Negro burning, the Camorra, bull fights, the Dreyfus case, Russian Jew slaughters, pass to and fro as "news" through London.

Since the establishment of the Triple Entente London remade the French character for the world. On the date of the Entente's beginning, the myth of French decadence became the miracle of French renaissance. From the same moment the "bear that walks like a man" was transformed by Dr. Dillon and a host of lesser English into a simple Christian hero.

The menace of German militarism became known to the world curiously enough, about the time that the French became regenerate and the Russians finally "tucked in their shirts," that is, about the time of the formation of the Entente. From that date onward till the beginning of the war we heard more and more of this new menace that had taken the place of the Slav hordes as the world-wide bugaboo. And it was not from France, but from England, that the tales of this new terror

came.

When the great war broke upon the world we were already prepared to believe everything against the Germans, as we were ready to believe everything against the Russians when they were fighting the Japanese, allies of England.

Newspapers do not manufacture news. They can only collect it from the best available sources and present it to their readers in the most acceptable form. That the best available source of all international news is now, as it always has been, England, is the fault of no one. But it is a serious fact that ought to be realized fully and constantly by every man and woman who reads the newspapers in these times. Today almost all the important news is foreign news, and it is news about events that are changing the whole world. Never before has England's monopoly of international news been of so tremendous a value to England or so dangerous to the rest of the world.

One need not be pro-German to fear and to distrust the use to which England may put this tremendous power that she possesses; one need only be a little thoughtful. We may well