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since. It was the Revolution which brought him into national prominence, although his creditable service as a member of the Freiberg City Council had previously given him some local reputation. He is rated in Germany as belonging decidedly to the new generation, and as sincerely democratic and republican. A man of conciliatory and sympathetic temperament, he was hardly expected to show the firmness of character needed to guide the government through its recent crisis. However, the courage which he has exhibited since assuming office has considerably reassured the country on the latter point.

Whatever may be thought of Stinnes as a monopolist, his appearance on the scene is said to have worked like magic in restoring confidence and reviving industry. 'He arrives in Austria where furnaces have been standing idle for eighteen months, and immediately one blast furnace after another begins to blow.' Simultaneously, all Austrian industry takes on a new lease of life. The agricultural-machinery works which were badly wanting iron and steel are about to restart, and the sorely suffering districts of Serbia, Hungary, Rumania, and Upper Austria may again obtain machinery.

STINNES WAVES HIS WAND

RUMORS have been current for the last few months that Hugo Stinnes was acquiring mining properties in South and Central Europe. The Budapest correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, in confirming these reports, says that Stinnes realizes that the changes in Germany's western boundary which deprive it of its principal source of ore in that region, its precarious hold upon the Ruhr, and the high cost of over-seas ore while German merchant tonnage is reduced to its present diminutive proportions, make it essential for the prosperity of the German iron and steel industries that other sources of supply be tapped.

At first Stinnes's policy was to seek coöperation with France, but here he failed. He thereupon turned to the South and has acquired huge iron works, extensive coal measures, and control of an important section of the Styrian ore fields. These ores are, in respect to purity at least, much superior to those which Germany has just lost to France in Lorraine. He is negotiating also for similar properties in Slovakia and Hungary.

GEORGIA

Too little attention has been paid to the significance of the obscure events occurring in Georgia and Armenia. Both countries are normally radical, according to any standards known to Americans. The so-called Bolshevist invasion owed its success to support received within those countries. In other words, the former governments were dealing with a civil conflict as well as a foreign war. If Moscow succeeds in controlling these territories permanently, it will have reëstablished the old Caucasian military district as it existed under the empire, and will continue an immediate neighbor of Turkey. Just how far Moscow and Angora are cooperating remains unknown, but wellinformed Russians, hostile to the Bolsheviki, anticipate an extension of armed disorders in Eastern and Central Asia, as a result of recent events. The Caucasian mountaineers are not lovers of peace, nor are the other restless tribes who are falling increasingly under the direct influence of the militarist party at Moscow. Unless there is a general collapse of the Bolshevist rule, the sweep onward toward India may gain increasing headway.

THE FIUME ELECTION

Most people have been content to forget Fiume since the rather inglorious exit of d'Annunzio. However, some two thousand of his legionaries doffed their uniforms and remained in the city clothed in mufti. Under the rather lax conditions prevailing, they had little difficulty in complying with the formalities which made them citizens. At last, on April 25, elections were held to choose a new government in place of d'Annunzio's Consiglio Nazionale Itali

ano which had remained in office since

the Treaty of Rapallo. It was supposed that the ticket of this organization, with the rolls of voters swollen as they were with legionaries and fascisti from Italy proper, would easily win. This party proposed to defy the Treaty and to insist on annexation to Italy. An autonomist party, headed by Professor Zanallo, was in favor of carrying out the Treaty provisions. Although the legionaries and fascisti employed terrorist tactics, the unexpected happened, and as the election progressed it became evident that the autonomists were assured

of a sweeping victory. Thereupon the fascisti and their allies seized several of the ballot boxes and burned them. They are reported to have been led in this enterprise by the mayor. The autonomist, or pro-Treaty party, is said to include most of the responsible residents of Fiume, of both Italian and Yugoslav descent. These wish the town to remain neutral in order that commerce with Yugoslavia, upon which the commercial prosperity of the port depends, may be restored as soon as possible.

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ECUADOR IN THE DOLDRUMS

ACCORDING to the London Economist, Ecuador has been inundated since the Armistice with North American manufactures which the market is unable to absorb. The warehouses at Guayaquil

are filled to overflowing with consignments which the merchants have refused, under various pretexts, to accept. Their action is rather natural, because exchange has risen from two hundred to three hundred per cent, while retail prices have fallen off more than onehalf since these goods were ordered. Gold and silver have practically disappeared from circulation. The only way to relieve the situation, according to this authority is to consent to a heavy reduction in prices and an extension of credits for four to six months. Unpaid drafts representing several millions of

dollars have accumulated in the local banks with little prospect of cancellation owing to the ruinous rate of exchange. Eventually cacao-the chocolate bean, of which Ecuador furnishes one-fifth of the world supply is expected to recover from its present ruinous decline and to help to restore the trade balance of the country.

SIBERIAN NOTES

ACCORDING to the Vladivostok Daily News, Japan is already assuming economic proprietorship of the Siberian coast. It has recently promulgated an order placing the fisheries of Kamchatka practically in the hands of Japanese concessionaires. The Japanese authorities permit no Russians to enter Saghalin except with Japanese passes. Important timber concessions in Saghalin and the Maritime Province have been given by the Japan military authorities to their countrymen. However, the local Russian authorities are resisting these alleged usurpations of authority, and insist that there shall be no discrimination in favor of Japanese when concessions in the territory of the former empire are given. Friction over this question may help to explain the recent political troubles in Vladivostok and vicinity.

Chinese immigrants are pouring into Vladivostok from Chefoo. It is reported that about fifty thousand are already booked. There is much unemployment at the Siberian port, with little prospect of improvement. Presumably the new arrivals include many refugees forced out of China by the famine.

NAPOLEON ANECDOTES

THE one-hundredth anniversary of Napoleon's death has elicited a flood of anecdotes regarding him. Among these are the two following local traditions in Italy, for which we are indebted to Nuova Antologia:

The people of Umbria and Romagna believed that Napoleon clothed his French soldiers in red, his Italians in white, and his Germans in blue, adopt ing this distribution of the tricolor for psychological reasons. He had noted that the French, while brave and venturesome, had a repugnance for blood, and were easily discouraged when they detected it on themselves. Therefore, he clothed them in red, where the traces of their wounds were less observable. The Italians were precisely the opposite. They were infuriated and desired to retaliate as soon as they and their comrades were wounded, and fought the more savagely for that reason. Therefore, he gave them uniforms which made the blood of their wounds more visible. The Germans he found obstinate and phlegmatic, and fancied blue uniforms harmonized well with the calm blue of their eyes. The narrator remarks that this is a case where the proverb non è vero, ma è ben trovato applies.

The other legend, which is very common in Umbria, relates to the imprisonment of Pope Pius VII at Fontainebleau. Napoleon is said to have cuffed the ears of his distinguished prisoner,

because of the following conversation. The Pope showed Napoleon three bottles; one filled with red wine, one filled with water, and one empty.

'Do you know what these three bottles stand for?' he said to Napoleon. 'No.'

'Well, I'll tell you. The bottle of wine symbolizes the earth which you have filled with blood; the bottle of water symbolizes the earth which you have filled with tears; the empty bottle symbolizes the good you have done.'

'L'ESPRIT SYNDICALISTE'

Figaro publishes the following alleged authentic incident under the title, 'L'Esprit Syndicaliste.' A traveler hurrying to catch an early train stopped to make a very necessary purchase on the way. Luckily he found a shop open, and the salespeople already at their places. Rushing in, the wouldbe purchaser politely made his wishes known. The clerk replied: 'It is twenty-five minutes past eight.' 'I know it,' said the traveler, 'I want to take the train at half-past eight. Please hurry.' 'Impossible,' was the reply, 'we do not begin to sell until eightthirty.' 'Why?' 'Because that's the union hour,' replied the conscientious salesman. The traveler bowed and ran to catch his train. Perhaps he is still running.

Czechoslovakia and Rumania have concluded an economic and defensive treaty which definitely completes the circle of alliances constituting the Little Entente. By the signing of this treaty Rumania deprives of plausibility the rumor that it is seeking a union with Hungary. The project of uniting the latter countries under the Rumanian crown has been mooted recently in certain monarchist circles.

OF CULTURE

BY DR. FR. W. FOERSTER

[This article is a translation of a pamphlet which has recently been widely circulated in Germany and Switzerland. Its author is a well-known professor of pedagogy at the University of Munich, whose outspoken opposition to militarism during the war exposed him to persecution in his own country. He is now residing in Switzerland.]

To him, who in the modern life of nations has observed the powerful tendency toward separateness, the driving force of self-assertion and aggrandize ment; who has noted the passionate desire for the development of national individuality and its cultural and political forms of life; who has recognized the plastic strength behind this, and the elemental biological force which here asserts itself to him it will no doubt seem as if, opposed to these forces, the idea of a league of nations must be an impotent abstraction, having no vital force behind it, and therefore incapable of developing into a living and concrete reality.

But although the principle of national differentiation and individualization has for some time exclusively occupied the stage of the world's history, in order that it might develop richer varieties of types and break away from old and oppressive ideas of unity, nevertheless this principle, even from a purely biological standpoint, is neither the only nor the most vital principle. At least equally as forceful is the impulse toward mutual fulfillment and equalization. In fact it is in this urge toward fulfillment that the desire for growth of the living organism finds its proper realization.

Plato terms this impulse, which drives us to round out our individuality through association with opposite types, the spiritual Eros. He defines this spiritual Eros as the desire of poverty

for riches, the longing of the part for
the whole, the urge of the incomplete
toward completeness. Undoubtedly
there also exists, in this sense, a political
Eros, which fills a nation with love for
talents and endowments differing from
its own, because with the help of such
gifts it hopes to outgrow its own one-
sidedness. History has many examples
to prove the working of this political
Eros. It is certain that the Romans, at
the zenith of their power, were thus in-
fluenced by a love for Hellenic culture.
The expedient and practical Roman
statesman recognized that here was
something far above the calculating,
practical will—namely, the uncalcu-
lating, freely outpouring stream of the
humanities. He opened his whole soul
to this spiritual influence; in fact, he
made himself, as Mommsen clearly per-
ceived and stated, the conscious bearer
of this Hellenic culture. He ennobled
his architectonic powers by the assimi-
lation of the poetical and humanitarian
elements of the Greek soul. And it was
precisely this emerging from its na-
tional one-sidedness, this self-develop-
ment toward universality, that made of
Rome the world-conquering and world-
organizing force it became, and gave to
it a power of synthesis such as it could
never have won by the mere force of

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intimate cultural relations, for developing their own unformed and unclarified life by the adoption and selection of those things which come from a highly developed but formal civilization. Whoever wishes to visualize the impression which the Roman discipline of expression made upon the German soul need but recall the odes of Klopstock, in which rich Germanic dreams are clothed in clearest rhythm. Thanks to the standards of the Latin spirit, the profuseness of pictures and words is held in check, and there is a wondrous blending of restrained utterance with profound feeling. On the other hand, the Germanic individualism, with its unswerving search for truth, was an indispensable counterbalance for the architectonic man and his institutionalizing tendency. Pope Innocent dreamed that the Lateran might crumble if the 'Poverello' of Assisi did not brace it. This may in its broadest sense be construed as an allegory of the truth that the upholders of form constantly need the opposing balance of a strong personal, inner life, in order not to lose themselves in formalism.!

There undoubtedly exists between France and Germany, in spite of all 'inherited animosity,' a latent political Eros, which springs from the same difference of endowments from which their enmity arises. This difference of talents or gifts, and the necessity of cooperation arising because of the differentiation, was illustrated by the French chemist, Duhem, in the February, 1915, issue of the Revue des deux Mondes, when he wrote: 'One of these nations has in excess what is lacking in the other. French science finds its completion in the solid German testing of the hypotheses which French intuition offers.' When Renan, going still further, once said: 'At the moment when France and Germany become reconciled, the two halves of the human soul will again

have found each other,' he was expressing platonically the thought that the elementary need of opposite individualities for mutual complementation must some day overcome the tension arising from the historic conflicts of these two nations, so greatly dependent upon each other.

From time immemorial thoughtful Frenchmen have openly acknowledged that the Germanic nature is an indispensable counterbalance to l'esprit gaulois. The Alsatian, H. Lichtenberger, has even assigned this blending of France with the Germanic gifts of the Alsatians as the prime reason why France took the loss of Alsace so seriously. When Renan, in his letter to David Strauss, points out that 'France is necessary to the world as a counterinfluence against pedantry, rigorism and dogmatism,' this should remind us Germans of the liberal schooling which our German ponderosity once found in French grace and social customs. It was French influence which delivered us from the humanistic pedantry of the seventeenth century and ripened us for the culture of the Greeks, just as the Hellenic element once ennobled the Roman gravitas into humanitas.

In a lecture at the University of Berlin in May, 1914, the philosopher Boutroux remarked that the German and the French spirit were not contrary, but complementary. The French spirit took cognizance of the single man and the rights of man, the German spirit directed itself toward finding for the individual his due place within the whole. The two tendencies were destined to complete each other. This necessity for the mutual supplementation of the two spiritual directions cannot be over-emphasized. For the real reason of German isolation, and of the failure of the German principle of organization, even in its military application, lay in the one-sidedness with

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