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New conditions give us the opportunity we have long awaited to reduce the price of

THE LIVING AGE

to

$5.00

Readers of The Living Age may be interested to learn that on August 1, 1921, the price of the Atlantic Monthly and The House Beautiful are also being reduced so that the new prices of the three magazines, which are all under the management of The Atlantic Monthly Company, will be as follows:

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THE LIVING AGE

NUMBER 4022

AUGUST 6, 1921

A WEEK OF THE WORLD

PACIFIC QUESTIONS

THE London Outlook sums up as follows the present situation regarding Yap - which, of course, assumes a new aspect with the probable broadening of the issues to be discussed at the coming Washington Conference:

Some of us might be inclined to say to America, 'We recognized the rights you possessed in 1918. Your domestic policies are no concern of ours, but we really could not hold up the European settlement for years until you chose to have an election; Europe, Asia, and Africa would have fallen to pieces in the meantime. Your representatives in Paris consented to what was done, inspired much of it, fathered the mandate system; it is too late to scrap all our decisions because another party is in power that takes a different view from your then Executive, who negotiated the treaty and formed the League in conjunction with us. We are very sorry, but we must insist upon the status quo; and as for the island of Yap, you must settle that direct with Japan, who holds it by decision of the Supreme Council under the League.'

We might answer thus, and there would be much to be said for our position. But it would be awkward if America made reply: 'Very well, gentlemen. We helped to win your war, you have helped yourselves to what you wanted and denied us even the one tiny territorial concession we asked, the internationalization of Yap. We suppose we are unable to do anything about all

this, but you cannot expect us to regard you any longer as crusaders of Liberty who have a call upon our gratitude; suppose you settle up those demand notes of yours that we hold, for twelve milliards or so, and we shall try to forget our disappointment.' It would be very awkward if America said this. America has the legal right to do so; we could not pay; the very foundation of our being as the greatest of trading communities is our credit.

Commenting upon issues likely to be discussed at the coming Washington Conference, the London Economist says:

If the United States now the richest and potentially the strongest country in the world are determined to possess a navy at least as strong as ours, nothing that we can do will prevent them. If we are so foolish as to enter into naval rivalry with America, and build against America, we shall most certainly be outbuilt. In the meantime, both America and Great Britain will have wasted invaluable resources and worked up an inflammable mass of national ill-feeling. An understanding between the United States and Great Britain is easier to achieve than one between the United States and Japan, although it is clear that Japan is much more willing now than in the past to contemplate a limit to naval rivalry.

After emphasizing the fact that the proposed renewal of the alliance be

Copyright 1921, by The Living Age Co.

tween Japan and Great Britain is, next to the Irish trouble, the most formidable obstacle to Anglo-American friendship, it continues:

The Americans are firmly resolved to maintain the open door in China, or rather to reopen the door which Japan has partially closed. They are also determined that their cable communications with the Philippines shall not be subject to Japanese control. The cable island of Yap in the оссираtion of Japan may to us seem to be a very small scrap of rock to make a fuss about; yet this small scrap of rock may be the cause of a very big war. Japan cannot by herself for long resist the claims of America to uncontrolled cables and to the open door in China. If it be made plain that Great Britain will not support Japan against America, then it will be to the obvious interest of Japan to come to terms with America. .. At this moment the interests of the three maritime powers interests economic and political-are pushing them toward a naval understanding; it is a fortunate moment, which diplomacy should seize, if it has any capacity at all for constructive statesmanship.

The Tokyo correspondent of Vossische Zeitung discusses this all-absorbing topic of a possible conflict between America and Japan from a strictly technical and strategic point of view. He considers that the United States Navy Department is concentrating its attention upon 'aggressive weapons'; that is, wide radius units. He does not consider that American troops could make a landing in Japan in case of war. Neither do the Japanese believe that possible. However, an effective blockade would force Japan to capitulate much sooner than Germany did. The country could not exist for much more than a year without food from Asia. At present it is dependent upon America for steel; and although it is rapidly increasing the capacity of its furnaces in China and Manchuria, some years will elapse before this source of supply,

even were the sea-way kept open, will supply the requirements of a great war. Alaska, Kamchatka, and the Philippines may serve as bases against Japan; but they never can serve as bases against the United States. 'No power in the world can place the latter country in a position such as Germany, Great Britain, or Japan will have constantly to fear and guard against in case of war.' For this reason, he concludes, America, and not Japan, holds the decision of Pacific war or peace in her hands. Such a war will be fought in Asiatic waters; not in American waters. 'Domestic disorders and revolutions, so effectively used against us Germans, will in that eventuality also be used against the government of Japan.'

The London Morning Post prints the following rhymed review of J. O. P. Bland's last book on the Far East, which is published under the title, China, Japan, and Korea:

Of those who know China right through at first

hand

There are few to compare with John Otway P. Bland.

And his latest critique on the land of the China

man

Is published to-day. (One guinea net: Heinemann.)

His theme is well argued. His book is well writ

ten.

His opinion is this that the Chinese have bitten

A republican mouthful too large for their gizzards And, despite Putnam Weale, wise-acres, and wizards,

All hope for the future's in one thing alone
No power to a Faction; but Power to a Throne.
The rest of the book gives a so-so idea
Of the aims of Japan and the hopes of Korea.

LATE IRISH INCIDENTS

A CONTRIBUTOR to the London Sunday Times describes a public meeting in Belfast, which was addressed by Sir James Craig, the new Premier. In the midst of his cautious remarks this speaker suddenly let slip a sentence which,

leave my cigarette-case to the regiment, my miniature medals to my father, and my watch to the officer who is to execute me, because I believe him to be a gentleman, and mark the fact that I bear him no malice

to be his duty.

this correspondent says, voiced the feeling of all Ireland: "The British Government will let us down to-morrow if they think they can get anything out of it.' As evidencing the religious prejudice for carrying out what he sincerely believes which made the meeting hostile to any agreement with the Southern Irish, a woman speaker is quoted as saying: 'If you go to villages in the South and West, you find magnificent (!) chapels the homes of the priests, but paid for by the people.' A candidate at the recent election concluded his speech with these words: 'I believe that if we win this fight we'll be striking a fatal blow to the Roman Catholic faith.'

Pursuing the same theme, the correspondent reports a conversation with the Principal of a Jesuit College in Belfast: 'We're living in a prison. If I walk down the street the children spit at me. Our letters are censored and our telephone tapped. Religion, not "patriotism," is at the back of it all. We Republicans are idealists. In Ulster they are "practical men.' " Nevertheless, in the opinion of this observer, anti-Republicanism outweighs antiCatholicism in the minds of Ulster Protestants. 'Where, it is pointed out, Roman Catholics are content to do their work without raising political questions peace reigns; for there are at this day between 2,000 and 3,000 Catholics employed by Protestant firms - some even in the dockyards.'

Another phase of the Irish situation is described in a recent article in the New Statesman. Late in April, Major Compton Smith, a British officer who had been captured by the Irish Republican Army, was shot in reprisal for the execution of four Sinn Fein prisoners. In a farewell letter to his wife he

wrote:

I cannot tell you, sweetheart, how much it means to me to leave you alone. I have only the dearest, tenderest love for you, and my sweet little Annie [his child]. I

In the same issue the last message of another British prisoner, District Inspector Potter, to his wife is quoted. It is taken from an entry in his diary under the date of April 23, just before his execution:

About 11 A.M., I was told I was to die this evening. The young men who have been guarding me have been kind all through. Their authorities have made the order and they are sorry. . . . I ask you, dear, to let no bitter words against our enemies escape you. Do not allow hatred to It comes from our Father. dwell in you. I want love in your heart.

The same chivalrous sentiments are also revealed on the other side.

Young Wheelan, who was executed in Easter week as a rebel, bade his father shake hands with his Black-and-Tan guards on the eve of his execution, and himself embraced one of them on his way to the gallows. And other Sinn Fein prisoners have written farewell messages in the same magnanimous mood. It is as if in the presence of death men lost all sense of their differences or, at least, were conscious, amid all their differences, of a new sense of identity.

A REPARATIONS SCANDAL

We recently referred to the arrest of a high Italian officer for alleged corruption in connection with his service as chief of the Italian Armistice Commission in Vienna. The following clipping from a Vienna publication possibly gives a colored account of this episode, but it is largely confirmed by the accounts which have appeared in some Italian papers.

Immediately after the breakdown of former Austria, an Italian general, Mr.

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