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THE LIVING AGE

NUMBER 4020

JULY 23, 1921

A WEEK OF THE WORLD

ITALIAN CABINET CHANGES

WHILE the immediate reason for the defeat of Giolitti's ministry is still obscure, the ultimate cause is public impatience with the slow recovery of the country from its post-bellum embarrassments. The indecisive outcome of the last general election makes probable not only one change of cabinet, but several changes. These will help to perpetuate the existing instability in Southern and Southeastern Europe, because they will add to the uncertainties of Italy's foreign policy. Doubtless the strike of government employees added to the popular discontent, which reflected itself in the action of Parliament. Last year, the railway servants used their superior organization to secure a radical upward revision of wages and salaries, which placed them in a much better position than other government employees. This added to the discontent which already existed in other branches of the government service. As a result, a so-called 'white strike' spread rapidly through the government offices. Employees continued to draw their salaries, but refused to perform more than an irreducible minimum of labor. The public has suffered great inconvenience, especially from sabotage by

postal workers. The government, faced by a deficit of three and one half billions at least, could not consider adding new burdens to its salary list. Italian papers report that telegraph service has at times ceased entirely.

GREECE AND TURKEY

CHARLES VELLAY writes from Athens to L'Europe Nouvelle that, since the overthrow of Venizelos, social and economic crises have convulsed Greece. He describes Gounaris, the new premier, as ‘a man who talks a great deal without conveying a definite idea of what he proposes to do. He thinks he has settled a problem when he has emitted a few sonorous banalities about it.'

This pessimistic observer considers the political impasse in which Greece finds itself, serious as it is, less dangerous than the economic crisis. Before the elections that overthrew Venizelos, the French franc was at a discount of 37 per cent, as compared with the drachma; to-day it is at a premium of 95 per cent, compared with the latter coin. The Greek press, however, insists that the result of the elections last fall had nothing to do with the fall of exchange.

Another correspondent of the same Copyright, 1921, by The Living Age Co.

journal, Paul Brouzon, predicts a renaissance of Ottoman power in Asia Minor, based upon hatred of the white race and dreams of a pan-Turkish empire, and not upon the ancient Islamic religious ideal. Even those Turks who are nominally friendly to the Allies, and owe to them their present political posts in Constantinople, are at heart entirely in sympathy with the Nationalists; and are indeed, if anything, more in sympathy with the ultra-radical Enver Pasha, who is now at Baku, than with the more cautious and moderate, though equally determined, Angora leader, Mustapha Kemal. By driving the Turks out of Europe, the Western powers have made them more intensely Asiatic than ever. Mustapha Kemal is opposed to this 'back to Asia' tendency. Meanwhile Russia is playing its old hand in this region, following the same objects under Lenin that it pursued under the tsars ultimate ascendancy on the Dardanelles.

GOVERNMENT AND INDUSTRY IN

GREAT BRITAIN

A REMARKABLE change is said to have occurred in the attitude of the average business man in Great Britain toward government interference in industry. In old days, Englishmen condemned emphatically what they called 'the continental system of government subvention,' and clung to the dogma that public money should be used only for public ends. Now they seem to have reversed this completely. For instance, the Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom, which have formed a central body for joint action, are appealing to the government for financial aid and encouragement in their campaign for foreign markets, and have recently represented to Lloyd George 'the profound disappointment which the commercial com

munity feels over the continued lack of support which it is receiving from the government.' However, the habits of generations are not so readily amended. When the government appropriated approximately $130,000,000 for advances to exporters, against their bills-of-lading for goods shipped abroad, in order to assist them in financing the long credits which it is now necessary to make foreign customers, the latter took up altogether less than three quarters of a million dollars of the proposed government loans. This was due in part to the deterrent of official red tape, and a more flexible and somewhat less governmental method of financing exporters is under consideration. British business men will probably continue to rely mainly on private initiative. They have formed a powerful Federation of British Industries, a sort of national syndicate embracing 20,000 private establishments, having a capital of nearly $20,000,000,000. This new organization has two main objects: to represent manufacturers in their dealings with the government, and to promote the expansion of British industry and commerce. It maintains representatives in foreign countries, and sends its own agents abroad to investigate trade opportunities and secure orders.

UPPER SILESIA AGAIN

WE recently printed a quotation from the letter of an American lady living in Upper Silesia, describing some of the outrages perpetrated by the Polish insurgents. We can now cap this with the following item, which appeared in Der Kampf, the organ of the Independent Socialists in Munich:

About eleven P.M. day before yesterday, June 7, we entered a tram-car on Line Number One, going in the direction of the Eastern Railway Station, where we over

heard a conversation between two young men, one of whom wore the insignia of a Storming Corps as well as an Edelweiss decoration. This man, who was a member of Free Corps Oberland, said to the other: 'I have just got back from the front Silesia.

That's the place for you! That's the country to recover your health! For instance, I and a few others took 12,000 marks away from a Pole, and shot him afterward.' The other replied: Your wife will be delighted.'

- 'Yes, I brought her some pretty knicknacks.' He had been promoted after the first fighting, and said in the course of his remarks that 'a majority of the Silesian patriots are students.'

This journal added that there were two witnesses to this conversation, whose names the editor had in his possession, and who were ready to give evidence as to these facts. Rather significantly, the night after this article appeared, the proprietor of Der Kampf, Gareis, a Socialist deputy, was assassinated just as he was entering his house. The Münchner Neueste Nachrichten and other independent journals, in deploring this crime, frankly attributed it to political motives.

and understanding of the man on the boulevard. Even when he plays France a sharp turn, the latter merely smiles with amusement and exclaims: 'Ah, l'animal, il nous en joue des tours!' Every Parisan understands that a man must look out first for his own country. He merely says: 'Let our fellows do the same.'

DUELING IN HUNGARY

THE following characteristic incident of political life in Hungary is reported by Pester Lloyd. Edmund Beniczky, a member of Parliament, who had criticized the army in a speech before the House, was challenged to a duel by certain officers. He replied to this by another speech. The officers thereupon renewed their challenge, more insistently than before. It is rumored that Beniczky will refuse to receive the challenge and will bring the whole matter again before Parliament. This body is debating, and will probably enact, a law making dueling a penal offense, even though the Cabinet is not giving the bill official support.

LLOYD GEORGE AND THE PARISIANS

JEAN DE PIERREFEU, the author of G. Q. G., and a man whose judgment of French political sentiment must be treated with respect, insists that Lloyd George is by no means unpopular in Paris. Many newspapers may attack him, but people should not confuse sentiments expressed in the press with the real feeling of the Parisians. The average Paris citizen, whether of the upper or of the middle class, has always had a liking for the British premier. His expressive countenance, his 'artist's hair,' his witty sallies, and even his insistence upon a vacation over the week-end, no matter what happens to Europe, appeal to the sympathy

JAPAN ABROAD

MANY Japanese oppose vigorously the retention of Japanese forces in Siberia. The vacillating policy of the government in regard to this matter is doubtless due to the struggle between the militarists, who would hold Eastern Siberia by force, and the liberals, who believe Japan's interests in that region are more prejudiced than aided by an aggressive policy. Hochi says that 'if we hesitate to withdraw our troops

the foundation of Japan's economic development will be completely undermined. . . . The situation in Siberia has become increasingly adverse to Japan. . . . Siberia should

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