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OUR MUTABLE NAVIES

THE famous British war vessel Dreadnaught, which, according to the Daily Telegraph 'has exercised more influence on the history of the world than any other,' has been sold by the British Admiralty, together with over one hundred other obsolete battleships and smaller naval vessels, to be broken up. She was launched fifteen years ago, and cost about five hundred dollars in gold a ton to build, and has been sold for some twelve dollars a ton 'in a sadly depreciated currency.' The Telegraph consoles itself, however, 'that of all investments which we as a nation have ever made she has unquestionably proved the most profitable.' This opinion is based upon the fact that the Dreadnaught immediately rendered obsolete the fleet which Germany was so rapidly constructing, and gave England an unquestioned superiority in battleship types up to the war.

HYMEN AND MARS

ACCORDING to a Cologne correspondent of the London Morning Post, 'there is considerable friendliness between the British soldiers and the civilians. . Some hundreds of men of the occupying army have married German girls and brought them home, and quite a number of members of the British forces stationed at Dantzic have married girls from that district. The British soldier, it appears, is impressed by the training in housekeeping that German girls have received and by their industry in their homes. The language difficulty is soon overcome. The British soldier, as a rule, shows neither the inclination nor the aptitude for learning German; but the average German girl-being, like most of her compatriots, ready and anxious to learn easily picks up English.'

HISTORIANS VERSUS WARRIORS

ONE of the more entertaining episodes of German post-war polemics is the controversy between the eminent historian, Professor Hans Delbrück and defenders of the Prussian General Staff. Professor Delbrück resents the efforts of the General Staff to write history; but he himself has published 'A History of the Art of War,' in which he argues that it would have been far better for the Prussians to study Frederick the Great than Napoleon as interpreted by Clausewitz. He engaged in a controversy with Bernhardi over this point, in which his opponent described his views as 'epoch-making nonsense.'

Professor Delbrück, after unsheathing his pen repeatedly against Germany's military pundits in Preussische Jahrbücher, has now summarized his side of the debate in a little book entitled, 'Ludendorff, Tirpitz, and Falkenhayn,' in which he disapproves least the strategy of Falkenhayn.

Before the war Professor Delbrück opposed Germany's naval rivalry with Great Britain, and resigned from the Navy League when Admiral Tirpitz embarked on his Dreadnaught programme. He cites evidence to show that during the conflict the admiral was continually wabbling in his views and demands. Delbrück advocated evacuating Belgium, believing that this was the best means to break the 'British home front'; and he asserts that Germany's 'will to victory' disappeared only when the people 'actually could do no more,' - tatsächlich nicht mehr konnte.

GORKY ON RUSSIAN LABOR

MAXIM GORKY has been making some outspoken comments upon labor laxity under Communist rule, in the Petrograd organ of the Soviet govern

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'We even exhibit a sort of mania

for destruction, wasting articles which for destruction, wasting articles which not only would be of great use for our own material comfort, but are irreplaceable as priceless artistic and his torical treasures. For example, goods are being shipped in from the country wrapped in the canvases of magnificent pictures, which have been cut from their frames. In the winter we have heated our houses with sumptuous furniture. Single pieces are often worth several dozen loads of wood. We work with disgraceful carelessness and inefficiency. On every hand we witness burlesque episodes, where stupidity and cruelty are rivals, where men are doing things they do not understand, and

those who know better refuse to instruct them.'

Gorky speaks with some authority on such subjects as the following.

'I saw a party of men loading a wagon. At one end, over a single axle, they piled cement, boxes of lead, and parts of machines, while at the other end, over the other axle, they heaped up pell-mell bentwood chairs, household utensils, a baby carriage, and several other articles of moderate weight. I could see at once that the overloaded axle was going to break, and that the wagon would not reach its destination. I have been a drayman myself. I know the trade. If, back in the days when I was thus employed, I had started to load a wagon like that, my boss would have given me a kick and sent me to the devil; and I should have fully merited such usage for abusing a vehicle in that way.'

AN INDIAN WAR MEMORIAL

WELL toward one-half a million dollars has been contributed in India to ions' as a war memorial. It is proerect and endow a 'Hall of all Religposed that the seat of this institution shall be Benares, India's religious capital, and that it shall serve as an academy for the study of comparative religion and philosophy, a meeting-place for members and leaders of all the great religions and minor religious sects, a place of worship for men of every faith, all religions, and a publishing house to a home for the priests and teachers of supply literature in connection with the movement. It is rather interesting to note that the Parliament of Religions held at Chicago in connection with the Columbian exposition, nearly thirty years ago, is cited as a precedent for this proposal. A pamphlet describing Secretary of the Hall of all Religions' the project issued by the 'Honorary

at the office of Sri Bharat Dharma

Mahamandal, Benares, India, contains letters of approval from a number of eminent scholars and thinkers, including Professor Carpenter of Oxford and Rudolf Eucken and Hermann Keyserling of Germany.

JAPAN AND THE COMING WORLD

CLEAVAGE

YORODZU, whose comments upon Japan's foreign relations are usually conservative and intelligent, says that the disposition of the present American administration to resume coöperation with the Allies will also mean in effect Allied support for America; and that this is a matter which deserves the serious consideration of the Japanese. Some predict a great struggle in the future between Pan-Europeanism and Pan-Americanism. Others believe the coming collision will be between Amer

ica and Europe on the one hand, and Asia on the other; and this seems the more probable contingency. This journal believes that the possibility of the latter cleavage 'has been made somewhat clearer' by the recent action of the American government. Japan is honest in its support of the League of Nations. It seeks to evade a collision of any kind. But the drift of international affairs constantly reminds its people that they may be isolated. 'It is not known what attitude will be taken toward Japan by the various countries who would not hesitate to sacrifice the interests of others to their own. The Japanese should be fully prepared for whatever may occur. They are the only people who are faithfully and justly hoping for the happiness of mankind.'

Yorodzu advocates limitation of armaments in the interest of national economy, and believes that administrative reforms may be introduced in Japan which will render it possible to cut the expenditures for the army by at least one half without seriously decreasing its efficiency.

WELSH TO THE RESCUE

THE author of a series of pen sketches of men prominent at the Peace Conference, now appearing in the London Sunday Times, adds to the already lengthy list of anecdotes in which Welsh saves its speakers from an embarrassing predicament. When in Paris, Lloyd George was in constant telephone communication with London, as this was the speediest and most convenient method of keeping in daily touch with events at home. To his great annoyance it became evident that the line was being tapped. Other distinguished representa

tives at the Peace Conference had a similar experience. However the British Premier triumphed over his inquisitive listeners by stationing a Welshman at the London end of the line and carrying on his conversation entirely in Welsh. The confusion and resentment of the eavesdroppers, according to the authority we quote, 'was manifested in their remonstrances when they discovered that no one could understand this strange tongue.'

GREAT BRITAIN AND THE INTERNATIONAL LABOR CONFERENCE

BRITISH labor is protesting because the Conventions agreed to at the International Conference at Washington have never been submitted to the British Parliament. It seems that the ministry has decided to act on these Conventions on its own authority, without bringing them before the legislative branch; and will refuse to ratify the Conventions relating to the eight-hour day and maternity. The argument for rejecting the eight-hour day is that it is already in force for 'the overwhelming majority of British workers,' and that in the diversified field of industry it is better to leave the matter to be settled by negotiation. The Maternity Convention was rejected as not immediately practicable. The question has been brought to a head by a motion introduced in Parliament by Mr. George Barnes, one of the government's representatives at the Washington Conference, to this effect: 'That, in the opinion of this House, the Conventions adopted at the Washington Labor Conference, under the League of Nations, should be submitted to Parliament as the competent authority.'

A YOUNG PHILOSOPHER OF THE TRENCHES

BY BENEDETTO CROCE

[This account of a very remarkable young mind, prematurely cut off from its promising labors by the war, suggests one of the costs of that conflict which is not included in the usual balance-sheets of our war losses. The fact that this review is by the Italian Minister of Education, one of the most distinguished philosophers and men of letters of Europe, adds to its interest.]

From Il Giornale d'Italia, May 21
(ROME NEUTRAL CONSERVATive Daily)

I BELIEVE that the numerous volumes, pamphlets, and articles recording the letters and diaries of young men who fell in the Great War, manifesting, as they do, noble sentiments, high ideals, and lofty devotion to their families, their country, and humanity, are more than ordinary historical documents. I believe that they offer us precious data upon the spiritual problems and conditions of the modern world. Certainly they serve this purpose better than our novels and poetry, which, when beautiful and elevated, transcend the limitations of our present age, and when coarse and commonplace, exaggerate the transient conventions and fashions of the day. The writings I have in mind are for the most part inspired by an appreciation of the seriousness of life. They reach to the deeper and, therefore, the better depths of the human soul.

I wish here to call the attention of Italian readers to one of the best of these documents. Otto Braun was born in 1897, and entered the war as a volunteer in 1914, when seventeen years old. He was killed on the French front in April, 1918. He was a youth of extraordinary intellectual and moral precocity, disciplined by strenuous study. His parents were Dr. Heinrich Braun and Lily Braun. His mother is known to

Italian readers, at least by repute, through her Memoirs of a Socialist. When he was but twelve years old, he was brought to the attention of the Prussian Ministry of Education by one of his teachers, who petitioned to be relieved of part of his regular duties in order to devote more time to training his remarkable pupil. The volume which I have before me contains extracts from this young man's diary and letters, beginning with January, 1907, when he was nine years old, verses composed after 1913, and original notes upon historical, political, economic, and philosophical themes.

What was the controlling impulse of this boy in his wide range of study, writing, and thinking? We might describe it as seeking for a religious faith, and for the moral discipline demanded by such a faith. When only fourteen years old, in 1911, he felt the misdirection and travail of the modern era, of this 'age of inquiry, rejecting all authority, willfully wandering, undisciplined, chaotic, and yet marvelous — not marvelous as an object of contemplation, but in the very stimulus which its conflicts produce.' The word religion rises to his lips. But what religion? Like other young men of his generation he was an ardent student of Nietzsche, welcoming his thought as a plough that

stirs and upturns the soil of the mind. Although he was anything but a disciple of Nietzsche, he had abandoned Christianity. 'Unless we are obedient to an ideal that we freely comprehend and endorse, life cannot continue. Life and struggle, struggle for a cause; but a cause means dedication, subordination to itself.' A religious conception, therefore, but more pagan than Christian.

The true sentiment of the new culture, tested and purified in the furnace by so many modern souls, will be closely akin to that of ancient culture; and already the prophecy of Gemistos Plethon approaches fulfillment: we shall see a religion which all men shall voluntarily endorse. It will be neither the Christian nor the pagan faith, but more like the latter.

One of his unpublished manuscripts is entitled Anti-Christianity, and has as its argument the conception of a new religion based on courage, self-confidence, and will. In the midst of the war in 1915, he repeated: "The eternal cry: Religion! Not religiosity, but religion, which shall build temples, sacred shrines, and appoint a time for its revelation.' However, he adds as usual; 'But I believe it criminal, a service of the devil, to fancy that an age which has acquired its features under the sway of Socialism and of Nietzsche, and amid the tremendous economic, political, and cultural changes of the latter part of the nineteenth century, should ever return to the still waters of a static Christianity. I am as resolutely anti-Christian as any man ever was.'

And if he was anti-Christian, one can well appreciate his loathing for mysticism and Oriental cults inferior to Christianity, which a morbid fashion was reviving in Europe. In 1909, when twelve years old, he wrote: 'We have neither the right nor the leisure to be mystics. We need men who immerse themselves in life and labor, in order to create

something new. For something new is coming. I know it.' In 1911, he wrote to a friend who sympathized with Buddhism, suicide, and Nirvana:

Do you honestly believe that, when you can live a life of action, you ought to strive to submerge the ego in the All, to seek eternal peace, to regard immaterial existence as our supreme object, our highest happiness? I do not believe in that. Do you honestly believe that the men who have devoted themselves to the highest ideals, to the greatest things within their attainment, men of action constantly struggling, putting forth their utmost effort in a relentless seeking and striving, — . . . do you think that these Titans will ever cast aside their true nature and allow themselves to be captured by that nullity? I do not believe it. And these Titans are our heroes. They are the true products of Europe - laborious, active men, not passive, apathetic men.

In 1912, he protested against 'a philosophy or religion so vague, incorporeal, negative toward life as that of your Chinese teacher'; a religion that can never' take root in a strong and powerful Europe; and if that should happen Europe would perish.'

In the work entitled Anti-Christianity, he stated as an ideal, 'the harmonious union of the spirit and the body,' and formulated twenty articles of faith, or rather commandments, of which the tenth was: 'You should have strong passions, but control them'; and the fifteenth: 'You should leave nothing obscure, but seek light on everything, investigate everything, except art and beauty, which you should enjoy'; and in the fourteenth, he adopted the cry of the German soul in Sturm und Drang: "Thou shalt be a Titan.'

One can easily see how such a mind would welcome the war. This is confirmed by the brief entries in his diary shortly before his admission to the service, which he obtained, though he was under age, through special favor. On the eighteenth of August, 1914, he

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