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Raymond-Whitcomb
Cruises

To Cuba, Jamaica, Panama and
Central America

Three luxurious 24-day Cruises
by remarkable special route

Each Cruise includes stops at many wonderful ports in the Caribbean which no traveler would willingly omit and which cannot be and are not combined on any other plan offered to the public without change of steamer.

Exceptional side tripe, offered only on the Raymond-Whitcomb Cruises, including journey through Cuba by railroad and automobile, two days' automobiling in beautiful Jamaica, unique rafting trip down a tropical river, and many other comprehensive trips on the utmost scale of comfort and luxury.

THE ONLY CRUISES THIS WINTER
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Splendid, specially chartered steamships, salling under the Amer-
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Departures from New York,
January 29, February 12 and March 11

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"If there is one volume of verse this year which we might safely recommend to every American man and woman who has not read poetry before, it is James Oppenheim's 'Songs for the New Age'. The volume will prove more and more satisfying with each re-reading. And its message to the American people may not pass unheeded."-Wm. Stanley Braithwaite in his 1914 Anthology of Magazine Verse.

"We Unborn', in Mr. Oppenheim's 'Songs for the New Age', is the title of the greatest modern psalm since Thompson's 'Hound of Heaven' and Whitman's 'Song of Myself'

These songs are filled with an ecstatic discontent -they are battle cries that call to a beautiful conflict, that rouse us against the armies of the torpidly living and the complacently dead."-Louis Untermeyer in The Chicago Evening Post.

SONGS FOR THE NEW AGE

by

JAMES OPPENHEIM Price $1.20 Net

At all bookstores. Published by THE CENTURY CO. New York City

"Unquestionably 'Songs for the New Age' is a creative book and burns with its own flame; indeed, it is all flame, and as compared with the inert and obviously invented work of the vers libre school, it glows with a passionate fire. Mr. Oppenheim has lived, he has much to say, and he says it with unmistakable accent of power."-Jessie B. Rittenhouse, in The New York Times.

"'SONGS FOR THE NEW AGE' IS A MILE-
STONE IN OUR POETIC PROGRESS."

-Boston Transcript.

delectable bits of Carlyle, hoping against hope-as he himself confesses-that the populace will be tempted to the more generous feast that Carlyle himself has spread for it in his twenty-five volumes. Afraid the public would be bored at the book he could write, he sets himself to the business of enticement. Of course the public will promptly mistake this for the last word in higher criticism, and just those evil habits which Professor Perry himself is the first to condemn will be encouraged. What an ironic waste of fine scholarship and sympathetic insight!

HAROLD STEARNS.

The Balkan Tangle Explained

Nationalism and War in the Near East, by a Diplomatist. Published for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. $4.15 net.

IN

N American thinking on international affairs the Balkan problem has always been an impenetrable jungle. We have known that for generations every European statesman has kept an eye on the map of the Balkans, and that the prophecy was long current that if ever a general war oсcurred, it would originate in the Balkans. Every chancellory in Europe was in a state of high tension while the allied Balkan states were engaged in expelling the Turk from Macedonia and Thrace, and when the successful war of coalition was followed by the monstrous war of partition, everyone familiar with European international affairs was apprehensive of a general collapse of European relations. For the time the efforts of the statesmen were successful in shoring up the threatened structure; but every Power proceeded to strengthen its military resources and accumulate financial reserves. Suddenly came the great war, out of a clear sky, according to the prevailing American view.

That it should seem to us that the war came out of a clear sky is sufficient indication that we may profitably make ourselves more familiar with recent Balkan history. What may be of still more importance is an insight into the conditions of an enduring peace. The second Balkan war concluded with a treaty of peace that penalized the aggressor as many of us would like to see Germany penalized. And the outcome of that peace is the present war.

The anonymous diplomat who writes on "Nationalism and War in the Near East" is an Englishman of long experience in the home diplomatic service and in the Balkans. As a clue to the maze of Balkan intrigue and war he traces out the several nationality movements from their inception, and the resultant conflict of ambitions. Greece was conscious of a mission of winning the Aegean littoral and the ancient imperial capital of the race, Constantinople; Bulgaria was bending every effort to recover the boundaries marked out by the treaty of San Stefano; Serbia was forced by Austrian pressure from the northwest to expand into the sphere marked out for herself by Bulgaria; Rumania, prevented by Russia and Austria from extending her boundaries to include her nationals in Bukowina and Bessarabia, sought jealously for predominance in the Balkans. So long as Turkey remained unregenerate, each aspirant could remain quiet, hoping for the greater share in the final reversion. But with the Young Turk movement, nationalism began to animate Turkey herself. It was incumbent upon the Balkan states to dismember Turkey before her reorganization should be completed, or forfeit their claims forever.

But it could easily have been foreseen that with Turkey

driven back to Constantinople, disagreements would arise over the spoils. Optimists of the west, to be sure, hoped that the Balkan coalition would ripen into a confederation, and this would greatly have simplified the problem. But nothing short of coercion from without could have held together states with peoples of such sharply distinct characteristics.

Comparing the Balkan situation of to-day with that of the British Isles in the fifteenth century, our author draws an analogy between the Bulgars and lowland Scotch, the Serbs and Irish, the Albanians and Welsh, the Greeks and English, the Rumanians and French. Without pressing the analogy too far, we can gain from it some light on the difficulties of Balkan confederation.

If harmony was not to be attained through permanent union, there was a possible solution in the action of the great Powers. Each Balkan state was connected with some greater Power by ties that the author distinguishes as "democratic" and "diplomatic." British sympathy with Greece, for example, was a popular or democratic sympathy. British support of Turkey, on the other hand, was diplomatic. The diplomatic relation is purely self-seeking. The extinction of the Turk would have interfered with British imperialistic plans. The democratic relation is altruistic. Grant now this twofold relation of each great Power to some Balkan state, and it becomes plain why the tangle was inextricable. No great Power could give rein to its democratic sympathies without consulting its diplomatic interests, nor without coming into conflict with the diplomatic interests of other Powers. If the selfish diplomatic interests could have been eliminated and the democratic sympathies of the Powers could have been given free play, the Macedonian question could have been settled half a century ago. Turkey would have been expelled to Asia, and her European dominions would have been distributed with a fair degree of equity. The world would not have been shocked by the unending series of Macedonian masThere would have been no First and Second Balkan wars, nor would the present European war have been necessary. But not one of the great Powers has maintained consistently a democratic relation in the Balkans. Each mixed corrupt motives with pure, and helped to make the final conflagration inevitable.

sacres.

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By Edwin M. Borchard, LL.B., Ph.D.
Formerly Assistant Solicitor, Department of State
1018 pages Large Octavo.
Price $8.00

A timely work. Discusses fully the rights of American Citizens and investors abroad, the law of citizenship and of aliens, the legal liability of governments and the right to demand indemnities.

"The publication of Moore's Digest and of Borchard's imposing volume are truly events in the American literature on international law."-E. S. Zeballos, Ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Argentine.

THE BANKS LAW PUBLISHING CO. 23 Park Place, New York City

The Subject of

BIRTH CONTROL

'is discussed

in a unique and helpful manner
in

The work under review is essentially one of analysis, with only so much of matter of fact as is necessary for elucidation of the main theses. The reader at first misses the consecutive quality that serves to convey the impression of reality. Generalization follows generalization bewilderingly, and the means are not at hand for checking their validity. But the final impression left with the reader is an unshakable conviction of the author's competence and reliability. His method of presentation, which at first seems journalistic, proves in the end to be philosophic. The book is not only the most illuminating that has been written on recent Balkan history; it is one of the most stimulating For sale at all bookstores in the general literature of European international relations.

THE NEW MORALITY

By

EDWARD ISAACSON

$1.23 net

MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY

Publishers

New York

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VOLUME V

REPUBLIC

Editorial Notes..

Leading Editorials

A Journal of Opinion

Our Relations with Great Britain.

New York, Saturday, January 22, 1916

Contents

287

290

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S

Walter Bagehot.....

304 306 F. H. 310 P. L. 311

F. H. 312

Harold J. Laski 313

314

IR Edward Grey's evasive note in the Baralong case has raised feeling to a high pitch in Germany, and the dispatches hint at horrible forms of reprisal. At the time of this writing no announcement has been made as to what Germany intends to do in order to wreak vengeance, but it will undoubtedly be an extreme act which will in turn provoke the British to retaliate. When two warring powers go in for reprisals there is no point at which they can be expected to stop. What the American government ought to consider is whether something cannot be done to bring this vicious competition to an end. American interests are directly affected. The whole blockade-submarine-war zone tangle was woven originally around a doctrine of reprisal, a doctrine which means that crime must be committed in order to avenge crime. There are hints from Berlin that Germany may use the Baralong case as a sufficient pretext to renew in its most barbarous form the submarine war against commerce. In short, a spirit of ruthless retaliation may be unloosed which in one way or another will endanger the interests of all neutrals and particularly those of the United

Number 64

States. It is a situation which has in it endless possibilities of evil. We earnestly hope that the President will take a hand in the business and see whether something cannot be done to prevent the spirit of retaliation from becoming inflamed as a result of this incident. Mr. Wilson has two paths before him: to let matters drift until reprisals and counterreprisals have resulted in the injury of American citizens and the destruction of American property, and the belligerents are in a state of mind where nothing can be done with them; or to insist that the essential rights of neutrals are involved, and that the United States should be afforded an opportunity of investigating the merits of the controversy and proposing some plan of adjustment.

P

RECEDENTS established by the administration's policy with respect to Mexico make it difficult for the President to deal with the existing crisis. He has been anxious to avoid armed intervention and to make American interference in Mexican affairs that of a friendly neighbor. But in carrying out this policy he has failed to understand that it would be aided rather than injured by a resolute method of dealing with disorder on or near the border. He has really encouraged Mexicans to believe that no matter what they did short of actually shooting at American citizens on American territory they were safe from molestation, and he has made border Americans fear that he was more interested in protecting Mexicans from interference than he was in safeguarding American life and property. There has been for years a condition of irritation and exasperation along the border which naturally became inflamed on the occasion of the recent massacre. Mr. Wilson should recognize the reality of the exasperation. His method of dealing with these border disturbances is the greatest hindrance and threat to the success of his general Mexican policy. The best service he can do to the cause of Mexican reconstruction is to make it understood on both sides of the border that the administration will not continue to allow anarchy to prevail in Mexican states adjoining the territory of this country.

C

ARRANZA should be given to understand that the murder of eighteen Americans not far from the border has modified the attitude of this country towards his government. He will be tested by his ability to punish the real assassins and to prevent the repetition of such offences, and the penalty for failure should not be the withdrawal of American recognition, but the assumption by the United States of the work of restoring order in the part of Mexico adjacent to this country. Carranza must realize that he is confronted by an unescapable alternative. If he does not or cannot do the work it will not be left undone; it will be done without his consent. In the end it probably will have to be done without his consent, since for him to undertake it would be to strain the resources of the Carranza government and compromise the more profitable work of reconstructing the populous states to the south. The former task will be accomplished, if at all, only after prolonged delay and wholly unnecessary bloodshed. The Carranza government should be glad to turn it over to the American army, but if it is unwilling its refusal should not prevent the American government from acting. The United States should intervene only for the purpose of policing certain border states, and under promise to withdraw as soon as the existing anarchy is stamped out. Difficult and costly as the job would be, it would be more difficult and costly for Carranza than for the government of this country, because the disorderly area is more readily approached from the north than from the south. Its swift and thorough accomplishment is necessary for the peace of the border, for the security of American citizens, and in all probability for the recuperation and ultimate independence of the Mexican nation.

T

HE proverbial ingratitude of republics receives poignant exemplification in the explosion at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on January 15th. Of the fourteen persons who were killed or injured while repairing the E-2, nine were civilians. As the workmen's compensation law covering federal employees provides for neither medical care nor funeral expenses, these necessary outlays must be met by the injured men themselves, by their dependents, or by charity. Moreover, the maximum compensation is one year's wages, so that the widows and totally disabled workmen face the prospect of dependence on the community at the expiration of that period. As the wages of certain of the victims were only two dollars a day, it is probable that in some cases widows will receive no

more than six or seven hundred dollars for the loss of a husband. Such niggardly compensation can be duplicated under none of our state laws, and has earned for the federal statute of 1908 the title, "the worst compensation act in the world." It is high time that the House Judiciary Committee report out the Kern-McGillicuddy measure, drafted three long years ago by the American Association for Labor Legislation. The enactment of this bill would place the United States abreast of other enlightened nations in consideration for civilians killed or injured in its service.

W

HEN Mr. Wilson wrote the Palmer letter, in February, 1913, he did not foresee that President Wilson could ever consider making such an appointment as that of Mr. Joseph Johnson to succeed Mr. Morgan as Postmaster of New York. "It is intolerable," Mr. Wilson said in that letter, "that any President should be permitted to determine who should succeed him-himself or another -by patronage or coercion, or by any sort of control of the machinery by which delegates to the nominating convention are chosen." Mr. Johnson's appointment, if the President really makes it, will be exactly such an attempt to better his chances of a second term by the use of patronage. That will be the real motive, the motive but for whose controlling power the appointment would never even have been considered. Any other explanation which may come from the White House will be an afterthought, a piece of window-dressing, a futile attempt to deceive the public, a bit of self-deception perhaps not so futile. If absolute candor were our national habit in public life President Wilson would say: "I am going to appoint Mr. Johnson because I want Tammany to help me to renomination and reëlection. I regard this help as more important than good administration of the New York post-office." Of course the public would hate such candor. Of course the public would call the President a shocking cynic. But if cynical candor were the inviolable rule, appointments like Mr. Johnson's would never be made.

M

R. WILSON'S enemies are so bitter and vindictive that their intemperate hostilities will certainly react in the President's favor. In their eyes even his achievements become malignant sins. Recently he succeeded in obtaining from Germany a practically complete acknowledgment that the use of the submarine as a commerce destroyer afforded no excuse for a modification of the law of visit and search; and since the acknowledgment there has been a cessation of illegal and murderous submarine activity in the Mediterranean. If the President had not succeeded in obtaining these results he would have been flayed for the supineness of

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