Great Britain
The Week
FRANCO-ITALIAN relations are in the center of the European limelight once again. Just as France and Spain were about to renew their endless discussion of the question of Tangier, Mussolini sent a division of the Italian fleet there, to help the large Italian community celebrate the fifth anniversary of Fascism.
The Week
After leaving Pennsylvania, the next stop is Illinois! The searchlight of investigation is now to be turned on expenditures in the recent Senatorial primary in that state. The Senatorial committee which has been looking into the Pennsylvania orgy decided some time ago that as soon as Congress adjourns it will move to Chicago and continue its activities there. Since then Senator Caraway has made charges on the floor of the Senate which if confirmed will make the stigma attached to Illinois politicians quite as serious as that now clings to the Pennsylvanians.
Correspondence
The Plight of the British Miners Sir: We are enclosing an appeal which has just come to us from the five men whose names are signed to it, with the request that we ask you if you will not give it prominent place in your pages. We gladly ask this of you, first of all because of our confidence in the men whose names are appended to the appeal. Miss Evelyn Preston, who has just come to this country to represent the British Committee of Women for Relief of the Miners’ Wives and Children, was also asked to try to bring this appeal before the churches of the country.
The Comedy of the Great English Strike
The whole truth about the recent general strike in Great Britain has not yet been told; and perhaps it never will be told until the memoirs of the chief actors in the struggle are published. But we know enough of it already to be sure that when it comes it will be a strange story, smacking more of the fencing school than of the duelling ground, of comic opera than of tragedy. The second of these metaphors is the more pertinent, for certainly this “great struggle” belonged rather to the stage than to the world of reality.
The Comedy of the Great English Strike
The miners had an unusually good case. They were being asked to accept, at the point of the sword wages which would have reduced tends of thousands of them down to, or even in some cases below, the level of bare subsistence. And this reduction, as well as an increase of hours, was being demanded by a group of men who are notoriously the most stupid, stubborn and inefficient set of employers in Great Britain. The miners therefore had the sympathy of the greater part of the public and also of the press.
Liberalism and Labor in England
The Great Sugar Mystery
A FEW weeks ago the Department of Commerce issued a newspaper statement about sugar. It was highly statistical and painfully dull in style, but it contained a few words destined to have results sensational enough for anybody. “Production for 1923 only 125,000 tons higher than last year,” said a note at the beginning.
The Hughes Acceptance
Mr. Hughes had complicated work to do last Monday at Carnegie Hall. There was the usual task of the candidate, which is to be all things to sufficiently many men, and added to it the inner necessity, more imperative to Mr. Hughes than to most, of being true to his own instincts. He had to represent the Roosevelt propaganda, the Republican party's desire to win, and his personal relations to American politics. He managed with considerable skill to find the least common denominator of all three. Mr. Roosevelt sat in a box, and scattered through the hall were many who still wanted Teddy.
The Case of Canada
Considering the many ties of business and of association which bind Americans and Canadians together, the American people are culpably obtuse to the present plight of their northern neighbors. The Canadians are passing through a great crisis in their national history. At an unfortunate moment in their economic development, when the work of taking possession of their rich natural heritage was suffering a costly check, they were suddenly compelled to accept their losses and divert their capital and energy to an essentially foreign service.
Editorial Notes
ACCORDING to assurances reaching this country from many sources, the German retort to the last American note will be "conciliatory." Judging by the sinking of the Armenian, the German desire to conciliate the United States must not be allowed to interfere with the practice of killing Americans in the war zone. Discussion of the bearing of the Armenian case upon the controversy, however, must be postponed until a full investigation of the facts has been made. In any event, the tension of American public opinion has been very much relaxed. It is believed that war will be avoided.
