retention of power. An intense struggle for political control is expected between the parties of the right and of the left. The elections show that the propertied classes in Germany are coming back as a strong factor in politics. They also reveal the weakness of the extreme radical or communist party, which polled a very light vote. Partial returns give the following results:

LONDON CONFERENCE ON TRADE WITH RUSSIA.-The first official discussion between British ministers and the Russian trade delegation headed by Gregory Krassin were held in London on May 31. Krassin was given a favorable reception by London crowds.

According to the French press, the French Government is leaving to Great Britain sole initiative and responsibility for the negotiations with Russia. The French declare Russia has nothing to export, and is seeking to spend gold which belongs rightly to Russia's creditors, to Ukraine, and to Rumania. Russia's eagerness for assistance, they assert, is the outcome of Polish military successes; and England's eagerness to negotiate arises from fear of Russian activities on the Persian frontier.

London, June 3.-Trade negotiations between the Allies and Gregory Krassin, Russian Soviet Minister of Trade and Commerce, have not yet begun, according to a statement by Premier Lloyd George in the House of Commons to-day.

Replying to a flood of insistent queries, the Premier said there were certain questions Great Britain wanted cleared out of the way before it would undertake negotiations at all. Russia must guarantee that there will be no attacks on British interests in the east or at home while negotiations are proceeding, Mr. Lloyd George declared, and must guarantee to release all British prisoners, whether civil or military. Great Britain must clear these questions out of the way herself, after which allied negotiations could proceed.

Representatives of the French and Italian governments were in London, the Premier added.

The Premier was asked whether the negotiations had been sanctioned by France and Italy. The question of M. Krassin's credentials and whom he represented also was raised.

The Premier replied that the decision of the Supreme Council to promote trade with Russia already had been made public. At San Remo the Supreme Council decided to authorize Allied representatives to meet M. Krassin and a Rusian trade delegation, excepting Maxim Litvinoff, in London as soon as possible.

The Premier said M. Krassin was head of the delegation representing the Russian Co-Operative Organization, but he was also Minister of the Soviet Government and as such, no doubt, was acting in the name and under the authority of the Soviet Government.

One of the members asked whether Krassin was not originally a German agent. The Premier said he did not think he was, but that he was associated with a German firm of electricians. He was a Russian.

"I am not aware," said the Premier, "that there is great perturbation in France. The mere fact that some French newspapers are trying to foment trouble between two friendly and allied countries, whose friendliness is essential in the interest of the world, is no proof of the French perturbation."-N. Y. Times, June 4.

ITALY AND SCANDINAVIA REOPEN TRADE.-According to an Italian report of May 21 Italy was about to send 30 million lire's worth of medical supplies to Russia in exchange for grain, the transport to be effected via the Black Sea.

Contracts with Sweden amounting to 100 million Swedish kroner have also been negotiated, and Danish firms have sold large quantities of agricultural machinery, seeds, and medical supplies, including 500,000 kroner's worth of scythes.

HARD FIGHTING WITH POLAND.--During the last two weeks of May the Soviet Government attempted an offensive against Poland on a considerable scale on the north or Beresino front. According to despatches of early June, Poland had held up the Russian advance and was replying with a vigorous counter-offensive.

ITALY

NITTI CABINET Reorganized.-On May 1 the Nitti Cabinet based on a makeshift combination of Socialists and Catholics sustained defeat in Parliament by a vote of 193 to 172. After considerable delay Signor Nitti was asked by the King to attempt the formation of a new ministry.

During his premiership Nitti established friendly relations with Austria, cemented by the visit of the Austrian Chancellor Renner to Rome. Nitti also was successful in imposing severe taxes on property and collected 20 billion lire in subscriptions to the last national loan. In international policy he stands for peace and trade with Russia, and maintenance of the Ottoman Empire. His views on Italy's internal politics are given in the June Current History as follows:

We have three political factors to consider-Nationalism, Socialism and Catholicism. Nationalism is a fictitious movement which will disappear the day the masses understand that, the war being won, we have secured our natural geographical limits, or at least, what has been the legitimate aspiration of many generations in Italy. Fiume is the last page of our patriotic history, which, if we are patient enough, we shall inscribe with the same pride as all the rest.

Socialism will not constitute a menace. Most of those who profess it are statesmen, or, rather, men of practical possibilities, who will before long separate from those agitators who have no practical end in view, while the latter will stand discredited in the eyes of the Italian public, which is supremely realistic.

Political Catholicism is a force of social conservation which is especially useful in Italy at this time. The question of temporal power exists only in form, and even in this respect will soon disappear. There will be no need for a great declaration, nor for pompous renunciation, nor for revisions of the past; it will fall like all decaying things. One fine day, without knowing how, we shall come to an understanding. Cardinals will enter

our Senate, the Pope will send us a Nuncio, and we will reply by sending an Ambassador to the Pope. To the head of this great organization, which is the Catholic Church, we give all due respect and extend to him all the rights and privileges to which history entitles him; and with the fulfillment of that duty he will have no desire to dispute with us the right of having our own country. The Cavournian formula of a Free Church in a Free State will be adopted for mutual convenience.

TURKEY

PEACE TREATY SUBMITTED.-The Peace Treaty with Turkey was presented to the Turkish delegates at Paris on May 11. The terms of the treaty have already been summarized in previous issues of these notes. They provide for American membership, if desired, on the commission to control navigation of the Dardanelles, the other delegates being supplied by France, Italy, Great Britain, Japan, Greece, Rumania, and perhaps later Russia and Bulgaria. The United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, and Russia will have two votes each. The new Turkey in Europe consists of an area 37 miles by 25 miles east of the Enos-Midia line. In Asia Minor Turkey loses Smyrna and its hinterland to Greece, the Armenian republic, and all her former possesions east of the Mediterranean.

TURKISH NATIONALISTS ACTIVE.-According to dispatches of early June, the Nationalist forces under Kemal Pasha had inflicted defeat on most of the Sultan's troops in Asia Minor and occupied positions at Kum Kale, at the mouth of the Dardanelles, and along the Sea of Marmora. Here on June 3 they were bombarded by British naval vessels. French forces in Asia Minor were reported to be withdrawing within the Syrian frontier and concentrating at Aleppo.

In Thrace, Bulgarians joined Turks to resist Greek occupation of the territory assigned Greece by the treaty. It was the American proposal that Bulgaria should receive a part of this territory with an outlet on the Ægean. The new Balkan alignment is likely to be Turkey and Bulgaria against Rumania and Greece.

MEXICO

MURDER OF CARRANZA.-At 4 o'clock on the morning of May 20 President Carranza was murdered at the village of Talxcalantongo in Pueblo, during his flight from Obregon forces. The murder was committed apparently for motives of personal vengeance by General Herrero, to whom Carranza had entrusted himself. The followers of Carranza made some efforts at defense, but were taken by surprise. The body of the expresident was afterward brought to Mexico City. Gen. Herrero was captured and put under arrest.

Officials of the Obregon government made every effort to clear themselves of complicity in the murder of Carranza, which might otherwise influence the United States against recognition of the new régime.

PROVISIONAL PRESIDENT SELECTED.-On May 24 the Mexican National Congress, under Obregon control, elected General Adolfo de la Huerta as provisional president. General Huerta organized a ministry composed of Obregon followers.

REPORT OF MEXICAN SENATE COMMITTEE.-Washington, May 31.-The Sub-Committee of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, which, under the chairmanship of Senator Fall, has carried out an extended inquiry into Mexican affairs, reported to-day to the full Foreign Affairs Committee a recommendation that a new treaty be entered into between this country and Mexico by which "practices now authorized by the Mexican Constitution shall be abandoned and the lives and property of Americans in Mexico shall be safeguarded before the United States recognizes the new government in Mexico.

If such an agreement cannot be reached between the two countries and Americans continue to suffer the committee recommends that we send a police force consisting of the naval and military forces of our government into the Republic of Mexico to open and maintain open every line of communication between the City of Mexico and every seaport and border port in Mexico."

Having obtained the assurances and recognized the government, the Fall Committee favors generous loans to Mexico to meet the public debt and rehabilitate the railroads.-N. Y. Times, June 1.

FAR EAST

RENEWAL OF ANGLO-JAPANESE TREATY.-London, May 31.-The Pall Mall Gazette says to-day that the question of renewal of the Anglo-Japanese alliance has not yet reached the stage in which its consideration by the British Cabinet has become imperative.

The newspaper says it believes Premier Lloyd George favors utilizing the occasion of renewal to help forward the principle of disarmament.

Efforts will be made in the next few weeks to solve the difficulties between the United States and Japan, the Pall Mall Gazette adds, after which the possibility of widening the scope of the treaty to include the United States would be much less remote than appears to-day.

Tokio, May 29.-(Associated Press.)-The Cabinet yesterday_decided to open negotiations for a renewal and revision of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, which Great Britain is said to be willing to maintain with modifications, according to the Yomi-Uri Shimbun to-day. Though some of the covenants will be changed to harmonize with the League of Nations, the newspaper says it believes there will be no alteration of the principle with regard to safeguarding the peace of Eastern Asia and India and the integrity of China and the maintenance of the respective rights and special interests of Japan and Great Britain in the Far East.

Marquis Shigenobu Okuma, former Premier, has issued a statement saying that although the downfall of Russia and Germany has removed the original positive reasons for the alliance, the uncertain conditions in China and Siberia and the agitation on the part of the Mohammedans of Southern Asia make a renewal of the pact desirable as a negative instru- * ment of peace.

A Tokio dispatch of May 28 quoted the Asahi as saying Baron Gonsuke Hayashi, the new Japanese Ambassador to Great Britain, would take up negotiations for a renewal of the Anglo-Japanese alliance immediately upon his arrival in London.-N. Y. Times, June 1.

66

ON

SUBJECTS OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

'The Battle of Jutland." By Commander Carlyon Bellairs, M. P. 303 pages; with maps and diagrams. (Published by Hodder and Stoughton, London; George H. Doran Company, New York.)

The sub-title of Commander Bellairs' book is "The Sowing and the Reaping of the British Navy," which indicates the character of the treatment. Commander Bellairs has been a life-long student of British naval affairs and has written many trenchant articles on naval policy, organization, administration and doctrine as practiced in the British Navy. His book on the Battle of Jutland is a powerful and well-developed arraignment of the mode of thought that was dominant in the years of preparation leading up to the war. in the conduct of naval operations during the war, and in the battle itself. In fact, the conduct of the battle is dealt with as the logical outcome of the control of British naval affairs by what the author refers to as the "material" school. Point is given to his remarks by the fact that he stated in an article, written many years before the war, that the doctrine of war held by the senior officers of the British Navy would result in the next naval battle being indecisive.

The Battle of Jutland and the years leading up to it are subjected to close examination and thorough analysis, the salient incidents thereof being held to show wherein the "material" school failed, as it was forecasted to fail. Admiral Jellicoe and his chief “backer," Lord Fisher, are dealt with as the leading exponents of the "material" school; most of the bases of criticism are drawn from Admiral Jellicoe's own statements. The arraignment of the lack of perspective, ineffective policies, defective measures and indecisive results is very ably done; the statements appear to be correct, the logic sound, and the treatment carries conviction.

The book closes with a forceful plea for a proper war staff"; in fact, the book is inscribed by the author as "dedicated without permission to the man who will give the Royal Navy a real war staff." His presentation of the case for the war staff" is well done and appears to be unanswerable.

The chapter-headings give a good idea of the method of treatment:-Policy and Preparation; The Hush-Hush Policy; The Material and Historical Schools; Tactical Thought-Jellicoe Period; The Offensive: The Command in War; Final Reflections on Preparation; A Summary of the Chief Moves; The Threshold of Battle; Beatty Delivers the High Seas Fleet to His Chief; The Theory of Deployment; The Grand Fleet Nibbles But Does Not Bite; Eleven Destroyers Dismiss Twenty-seven Battleships; The Torpedo at Jutland; The Night Action; Losses At and From Jutland; The War Staff; Conclusion; Appendix Containing Chronology of the Battle.

This critical survey of the British Navy in preparation for war and during the consequent conduct of war, merits the careful attention of every naval officer who ever expects to be present in a fleet action.

E. J. K.