commandant set the verdict aside, summoning a new court to substitute a sentence of death. A woman of Colmar (Madame Blaise), was charged with warning the French commandant of a projected betrayal. She was acquitted for lack of evidence, but the German commandant (Gaede), annulled the decision, condemning her to ten years imprisonment because it was shown that whether guilty or not, "she was perfectly capable of committing the crime charged against her."

The usual brutalities were meted out for "seditious speech." Several journalists at Strassburg went to prison six months for the cry Vive la France. Others were similarly punished for Vive la belle France, and Vive la République as well as for singing the Marseillaise, itself an Alsatian protest against tyranny.

Similar punishments were given to some hundreds of people for leaving home without permission or for other infractions of military police regulations.

Punishments less severe, but equally insistent, were laid on those who wrote letters in French or who spoke it in public. All commercial letter-heads in French were destroyed. A citizen of Strassburg was sent to jail for eight days for writing his name Henri instead of Heinrich, and another for several months for calling himself Charles instead of Karl. In the prison at Strassburg, a newcomer was greeted in these words: "Do not weep, Madame, you will find here an excellent company, our house is the only one where one may speak French with impunity."

All these high-handed proceedings tend naturally to create counter-manifestations which led to still greater severity. A barber at Mühlhausen remarked, "No one dare speak in our country; we would better sew up our mouths." For this he went to jail for fifteen days. A milkman served a month for saying: "The Germans always speak of their victories, never of their defeats." A young woman spent a week in jail for waving her hand to French prisoners. Offenses of this kind led to the arrest and punishment of thousands of persons

A more important case was that of the Pastor Herzog of Waldersbach who declared that this was an "unjust war, provoked by Germany," omitting moreover to pray for the Emperor, in one of his services. For this he was imprisoned for a month.

Pastor Gerold of Strassburg, a man widely known and beloved, eighty years of age, was accused of giving money to wounded Frenchmen in the hospital. More than this, in a sermon he had uttered words "which wounded the German sentiments of a high functionary who was present." In substance, he had deplored the hard rule to which his people were subjected and prayed for the final triumph of justice. As punishment, he was imprisoned for a month.

In this connection, it may be well to remember that none of these acts are the work of lawless mobs, such as sometimes over-ride the law in more favored countries. The governmental machine in Germany reserves to itself all forms of tyranny, subject only to the still harsher rule of the military. The General Staff of the Army has always held civilian authority in contempt, and does not hesitate in the name of "military necesssity" to set aside any manifestation of leniency of which civil authority may sometimes be guilty.

In spite of "necessary discipline," the "lost brothers" of Alsace, being German, are today farther than ever from being fully Germanized.

The author of L'Epreuve thus sums up the case:

When a people whose whole history is made up of struggles for political and intellectual independence sees at one stroke its traditions and all its liberties stricken down before a pitiless dictatorship, it reacts with all its vigor against the violence. Strong with the clear vision of men and things inherited from its fathers, it looks unfalteringly towards the new hope which rises on the horizon. (L'Epreuve, p. 69.)

IX

It is

The question of Alsace-Lorraine is thus no longer a matter of the conflicting claims of two sovereign powers. a human problem, in which the people of Alsace and Lorraine on the one hand and the civilized world on the other

are primarily concerned. To leave these people in the clutches of the absolutist Germany of to-day, would be to restore fugitive slaves to their masters.

No such settlement can be made consistent with justice, and without justice Europe can have no lasting peace. The true aim of civilization is to secure freedom, order and justice, for with them peace will naturally follow, taking care of itself.

X

The Treaty of Frankfort in 1871 reduced 2,000,000 human beings to the status of a flock of sheep. The Treaty of Berlin in 1878, turned over 10,000,000 or more of Christianized people in Asia Minor and Macedonia to be hunted as vermin by a barbarian horde. By its consent to these achievements of monarchial order, Europe laid, broad and deep, the foundations for the world anarchy of today. "They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin."

CHINA'S PART IN THE WAR

By C. W. Bishop, Assistant Curator, Oriental Section, University Museum, Philadelphia

It is not the purpose in this paper to enumerate the contributions, important as they are, which China has already made to the progress of civilization; nor is it to suggest how she can best aid in that reconstruction of the world's social, political, and economic fabric which will have to be taken in hand immediately after the close of the war. The sole aim is to consider how China may most speedily and effectively bring to bear her enormous but hitherto latent strength upon the accomplishment of the one object that concerns any of us at the present moment-the winning of the war.

Too much time has been lost already. It was evident from the first that China must pursue in connection with the war one of two courses; she must either maintain her neutrality, or she must enter the conflict on the side of the Entente nations. In either case her resources were available for use by those nations.

Now, China, as everyone knows, is capable of producing in vast quantities the very things, cereals, coal, iron, cotton, and wool, for want of which our civilization is suffering so keenly, while internal transportation problems present no insuperable difficulties. As a necessary preliminary step, however, to the utilization of this source of strength, a carefully worked out and well concerted plan of action was essential in order to avoid injustice to any individual nation, whether China herself or any other. Here again, as has happened so often at various crises in the course of the war, lack of foresight, of cohesion and coördination, of singleness of purpose, have stood in the way, and nothing has been accomplished.

It is probably too late now to make any effective use of China's vast material wealth in connection with the war,

since at least two years must elapse before it could begin to make its influence felt; and it is scarcely conceivable that the war will not have reached its turning point, one way or the other, before that time.

China has, however, one asset, and that her most important one, the utilization of which to any extent requires no joint action on the part of the allied nations, which so far from demanding extensive and costly development work before it becomes available, is ready for instant use, and which is capable of exerting an effect of the utmost importance upon the fortunes of the war. This asset is her labor.

China has endured for millenniums as a thoroughly integrated social complex which no shock of foreign conquest or domestic disturbance could destroy or even seriously modify. For ages in this region of southeastern Asia there has been going on a somewhat slow but none the less steady evolutionary process which has resulted in the development of a type of mankind, forming something like a quarter of the total population of the globe, whose most salient characters are courage, industry, patience, physical energy, sound morality, respect for law, and a cheerful, optimistic outlook upon life generally. These are the qualities which experience has shown to be those best fitted for achieving success in the struggle for existence. The enduring character of Chinese civilization is the proof of that. That these qualities are also just the ones needed for the successful prosecution of the war is equally clear.

It appears not to be generally known in this country that this tremendous reservoir of man power is already being drawn upon on a comparatively large scale. In both England and France Chinese labor of a very high and efficient type is being utilized in a great variety of ways. This is done not merely to effect the release of additional men for the combatant force, but also to increase the actual production and transportation capacity. Already the number recruited for this purpose is nearing the quarter-million mark, if it has not passed it, and still these men are being rushed across by the thousands. There can scarcely be too many of them. Fortunately the supply is inexhaustible.