The man himself is, without doubt, a democrat and a liberal; but is he a monarchist or a republican? He is something better than a professional republican; he has the republican virtues of one of Plutarch's personages. With him, his country is first, that dear, unhappy, and guilty Russia whom he is bound to save from the German and the accomplices of Germany. He is the standard-bearer of the heroic and glorious Russia of the two first years of the war, that Russia which we loved so much, which gave, before

The Figaro, June 6

falling into the ditch of anarchy, so many unforgettable services to the sacred cause of the peoples.

But the Admiral is more than standard-bearer. The honor of being a standard-bearer and defender of the flag, even to the death, is given, in regiments, only to an officer, bravest among the brave and already famous for his energy and his courage. Nevertheless, there is no example of a standard-bearer being made a chief. A chief must have still other virtues. The Admiral is a chief.

WHEN a certain French General was given command in 1915 of the first of the Czecho-Slovak Legions, which were formed to fight on the side of the Allies, he is said to have asked, quite innocently, whether these troops were black or white. Nor are prominent Englishmen much wiser. At least, one member of the British War Cabinet was recently unaware of the difference between a Slovak and a Slovene, and a certain foolish weekly paper at one time demanded whether the war was to be continued indefinitely for the sake of the Czecho-Slovaks, of whom it admitted that it knew very little. It is of very great importance that Englishmen should now maintain a close contact with the new States which have arisen in Europe and keep themselves informed of the chief events taking place there.

One of the most serious problems in Czecho-Slovakia at present, as in many other European countries, is that of the currency. When an independent

government was set up, a flood of Austrian paper money was circulating in the country. The government has steadily resisted a temptation, to which many others have succumbed, and has issued no new paper money of its own. It has indeed gone a step further, and made preparations for a capital levy to be applied to the deflation of the currency. The mechanism of this plan is as follows: Last March, all currency notes had to be handed in to the banks by their holders in order to be stamped. No unstamped notes, except those of very small denominations, which it was not practicable to stamp, were to be subsequently recognized as legal tender. Of the currency notes handed in, half were at once stamped and returned to their holders. A charge of 1 per cent of the value of the notes was made by the government for stamping. The remaining half were retained for the time being by the banks as compulsory deposits, on which interest at the rate of

32 per cent per annum was to be credited to the depositors. In the case of those whose total holding of currency notes did not exceed 2,400 crowns, this compulsory deposit was repaid to them, if desired, after a fortnight. Many merchants and members of the wealthier classes handed in more than 300,000 crowns worth of notes, as there had been much hoarding of money during the war and few opportunities of investment, except in Austrian war loans, which had been boycotted on patriotic grounds. The value of stamped Czecho-Slovak notes has already appreciated in terms of Austrian notes, the present ratio being about 100 to 125.

The capital levy will be wholly applied to the destruction of paper currency. It will be based on the total value of individual property of all kinds, including houses, furniture, clothes, etc. Valuations are to be completed by June 10. They are being compiled by the individuals concerned, subject, of course, to check by the Government with penalties for under-estimates. Properties worth less than 20,000 crowns will be exempt, and the rest will be taxed on a graduated scale rising to a maximum of 30 per cent. The compulsory deposits of currency notes in the banks, together with accrued interest, will be accepted in payment, partial or complete, of the levy. It will be very interesting to watch the working of this scheme and the effects produced upon the general level of prices and the rates of foreign exchange.

The reserve of metal currency in Czecho-Slovakia is at present very small. It is largely composed of voluntary gifts of gold and silver jewelry and ornaments from patriotic citizens. Before the war the rate of exchange with Austria was about 24 crowns to the pound. Last March, the rate with Czecho-Slovakia was 100 crowns. This

has now come down to about 84 crowns. The present Minister of Finance, Rasin, is a man of great ability, and is engaged upon a scheme for thẹ complete reorganization of the country's public finance, in which sharply graduated taxes on incomes and inherited wealth will be prominent features. Legislation to break up large estates is also pending. Many of these belong to German Bohemian nobles, absentee landlords before the war, who used to spend most of the year in Vienna, only visiting their estates during the hunting season. They will probably live permanently outside CzechoSlovakia in the future. Peasant proprietorship is already widespread and firmly established. A law providing for a general eight-hour day, applying with some modifications to agriculture and even to domestic service, came into operation in January. This is one of the most ambitious pieces of legislation on hours of labor which any State has yet attempted.

The Government is opposed to any repudiation of the Austrian pre-war debt, and is willing to take over the liability for its fair share. But it objects to accepting responsibility for any part of the war debt, on the ground that the country was always opposed to the war, and that the Austrian Parliament, in which its representatives sat, was not consulted when war was declared. It objects also to contributing to any indemnity, which may be due from Austria-Hungary, for damage done in Italy, Serbia, and elsewhere, claiming rather that some indemnity is due to Czecho-Slovakia for the material losses of the country through Austro-Hungarian policy.

The present National Assembly at Prague contains representatives of political parties in the same proportions as were elected, on a basis of universal male franchise, to the Vienna Parlia

ment, together with a special delegation from Slovakia, which formed part of Hungary, where the franchise was very narrow and political intimidation prevented the election of more than two or three Slovaks. New elections will soon take place on a basis of universal male and female franchise and of proportional representation. Women already have votes, and are eligible for membership, on local authorities.

In the present Parliament, there are five main parties. (1) The Agrarians, who represent the peasant proprietors and the small towns, a somewhat conservative party, favoring agricultural protection and strongly nationalist. (2) The Clerical party, Catholics, whose strength is in the country districts, especially Moravia; a party of comparatively little influence. (3) The National party, the lineal descendants of the Independence party of 1848, called until recently the Bohemian State Rights Democratic party. This is the party of Masaryk, Kramar, and Rasin. It is a bourgeois party whose strength is chiefly in the towns. Its policy is moderate nationalism, but with a broader view than the Agrarians, and more radical domestic reforms. (4) The Social Democratic party, which is Marxist and International in spirit and inclined to sympathize with Bolshevist ideas of organization. On the staff of its paper, the Prava Lidu, is a Czech Bolshevik, who has recently returned from Russia. (5) The Czech Socialist party, revisionist and more sympathetic than the Social Democrats to national ideals. This party contains a number of middle-class 'intellectuals.' The Slovak delegation contains a Protestant Clerical section and some Socialists. Numerically, the Agrarians are the strongest and the Catholic Clericals the weakest single party. The present government is a coalition of the Na

tional party, the two Socialist parties, and the Agrarians, and also contains two Slovak representatives. The Socialists hold a number of the more important ministries.

The German representatives of Czech constituencies in the Vienna Parliament were urgently invited to attend the National Assembly at Prague, but refused, hoping that their constituencies would not be included in the Czecho-Slovak Republic. Now that this point has been decided against them, they are likely to come in. The German manufacturers are very much afraid of the spread of Bolshevism, and are beginning to think that there is less danger of this in Czecho-Slovakia than in Germany or German Austria. Now that independence has been secured, Germans are being treated with greater tolerance and it is generally recognized to be important that they should become contented citizens of the new State. To draw a good boundary line on principles of nationality in the disputed districts is a practical impossibility, owing to the great intermixture of Germans and Czechs. A further difficulty arises owing to the fact that the Czech population increases much more rapidly than the German, and is continually spreading into districts which hitherto have been predominantly German. This process has been graphically and impartially described by Signor Virginio Gayda in his Modern Austria, published before the war, and seems certain to continue in the future. Even in Vienna, the Czecho-Slovaks numbered more than 300,000 before the war. The new State will start with a population of some 12,000,000 or 13,000,000, and this is likely to increase steadily. Its area will be about equal to that of England and Wales.

There is no desire for a monarchy in Czecho-Slovakia. In the early stages

of the war, Allied support for a CzechoSlovak Republic was not obtainable, partly owing to the ignorance of Austrian questions and apathy toward the oppressed nationalities which then prevailed in many influential circles in England and France, and partly owing to the dislike of official Russia for the prospect of seeing a democratic and progressive Slav republic set up too near the frontier of the Tsardom.

Czecho-Slovakia has followed the example of the United States in electing an 'academic intellectual' to the

The New Statesman

highest office in the State. President Wilson is a popular hero in the country, his personal friendship with Masaryk being well known. The League of Nations idea is also strongly supported in the hope of securing the peaceful progress of the country and rendering conscription and speculative and hazardous alliances unnecessary. But the fulfillment of this hope pre-supposes the disarmament of Germany, German Austria, and Hungary, together with a practical system of international agreements and sanctions.

CAPITALISM is an evil, you say? Nevertheless, it is an evil that has permitted us to attain a high degree of material prosperity in Europe and in the other lands where it has attained the most complete development. It has assured the proletariat a certain degree of education and of culture and a modest share in the world's goods. But one man has three hundred millions. Another man has nothing. Then there is the anarchy of competition- the thirst for new markets. Contrasted with this the ideal of communism is like the life eternal, something which mortals find it hard to attain. The only thing is, can communism be made to work? Before we receive eternal life we must die. The process of attaining communism is very much like committing suicide by the nation. It is a leap into the dark, into uncertainty, perhaps chaos. What is

communism like? Who has seen it? Who can speak confidently about it? You may ask priests and wise men, and their answers seem merely scoffing at the questioner. Russia has started on that path. The result is too appalling for description, and we are kept ignorant of it only by the hermetical shutting off of that country, which makes it possible to impose the Bolshevist propaganda swindle vist propaganda swindle upon Western Europe. Hungary has followed in Russia's steps. The more backward a country the more readily, apparently, it yields to communism.

The Hungarians have made a Bolshevist revolution for national reasons. They do honor to internationalism from national motives. That is not policy. It is burlesque. What is not taken into account is that the burlesque ends in a tragedy.

But the Hungarian burlesque is

winning followers. A thrill is startling Germany. Vorwärts threatens the Entente with the possibility of our doing likewise. Even in other camps voices are being heard suggesting that we might purposely and with complete understanding of the facts adopt Bolshevism and ally ourselves with Russia and Hungary if the Entente is not more pliable. But is it possible for the leaders of the German trade union bureaucracy or the leaders of the German bourgeoisie to imagine that they, arm in arm with Trotzky and Radek, are going to precipitate their century into the dark ages? Yet it seems plausible to them. A German nationalist professor of political economy is advocating the plan and announces that he is in dead earnest in proposing Bolshevism. He bases his stand upon the traditional idealism of his party. The fatherland is the highest thing in the world, and to it the individual should sacrifice his property and life. 'If Bolshevism is the only means to preserve the German people from permanent slavery and misery we must select this means.' If Germany 'consciously brings about this doubtful, social, and political revolution' then the Bolshevist wave will sweep irresistibly over the other western countries. Even if that should not occur 'the advantage for Germany would be immense,' for the Entente cannot possibly extract billions of marks from a Bolshevist Germany. In other words, the professor says we are not doing a very good business. Let's go into bankruptcy. We thus show ourselves good German strategists; for if we are paupers the Entente cannot get anything out of us.

To be sure, according to our German-nationalist Professor Eltzbacher, if we adopt this measure we must adopt it with German honesty and thoroughness, and introduce the Soviet govern

ment and immediately socialize property without compensation 'to the utmost extent.'

"This would not endanger our economic existence for the latter cannot be more wholly ruined by Bolshevism than by having the Entente attach itself to us as a permanent vampire, as it now threatens to do.' Is not that the psychology of a wayward child from whom you have taken away some sweets and who stamps its feet and cries that it will punish us by not eating at all?

The only doubt that seems to dwell in Professor Eltzbacher's soul is lest our great accumulations of private capital might be dispersed. That, of course, would be a disaster. But in 1813 the Prussian people brought their gold and silver gladly to be used in the nation's service and fundamentally it is a matter of indifference whether a man loses his property slowly by having it squeezed out of him by the Entente or whether he loses it at a single stroke by confiscation.

You clasp your head in despair. How are we going to argue against Bolshevism? Whom are we going to try to convince, if a learned professor of political economy has so little comprehension of the truth? We are in the midst of the complete disintegration of our traditional conception of property morals. Who cares now about great fortunes? They can all go to the devil, for the people at large are benefited by the process. The only man who can oppose communism successfully to-day is a man who perceives that it is a catastrophe for the common people, and above all for the proletariat, irrespective of whether or not it is a national danger. The German national political economist does n't attach any importance to this. He writes: 'In a deeper sense the danger is not so