Evening Star Newspaper, January 9, 1927, Page 45

EDITOR NATION SPEC Part 2--16 Page: U. "Washington Diplomac g plomacy i Tacna-Arican and Nicaraguan Dis- putes Is Frankly Criticized. BY FREDERIC WILLIAM WILE. | O secret is made in Latin| American quarters at Wash- | ington that the United States’ | present procedure in Central | and South America is subject ing our prestige in the Western Hemi- sphere to a severe strain. There is no open hostility among the varfous sister republics of the Americas not drectly interested in the Nicaraguan, Mexican and Tacna-Arican crises. But the Coolidge administration’s conduct of those embittered affairs is heing gen- | erally and frankly criticized. Men in Washington intimately ated with | Latin American relations, and cordial 1y in sympathy with the United States | policy of keeping them friendly and pacific, are gravely concerned over the trend of even These are no taking a course, in the judgment of those authorities, which is designed to | heighten our prestige in “Pan-Amer- jea” or make ‘‘the big brother of the North” any more pepular with his sisters to the South. Mexican developments, with their continuing poss:bility of an armed clash, are being watched with par. ticular interest throughout Latin America. The United States special interests in Mexico are recognized. But many Central and South Amer- jcan countries for a long time Mave had such oil and land laws as those the Mexican government is on the verge of enforcing. Therefore Presi- dent Calles’ attitude toward American diplomatic demands is not considered unreasonable in certain Latin Amer- fcan capitals. Subject of Arbitdation. There is an even more important objection in those capitals to the “drastic” attitude assumed by the United States toward Mexico, Latin Americans, broadly speaking, consider the dispute between the United States, and Mexico as an essentially ‘jus- ticiable” question. Laws are involved, it is argued, and American-Mexican differences range around the inter- pretation of those laws. That strikes many Latin American statesmen as a controversy logically and ideally sub- ject to arbitral settiement. That view of our squabble with Mexico also embraces Latin America’s disapproval of the Uplted States’ con- sistent refusal to enter into general and obliggtory arbitration ‘treaties with foreign nations. Once, Latin Americans point out, this country led the world in the realm of interna- tional arbitration. Now we adhere tenaciously to the policy of insisting upon a separate convention of arbi- tration for each arising case. More- over, the United States Senate is so addicted to the program of “reserva- tions” that the other American repub- lics do not consider our arbitration policy as much’ more than a one- sided policy ca! g]gted in advance to assure us the imum’of advantages whenever we consent to submit a dis- pute to justiciable adjustment. Latin America is deeply wedded to the arbitral system. It thinks our present differences with Mexico should be handled under that system. “Cloak” for America., As to Nicaragua, Latin America does not seem disposed to take seri- ously our contention that American warships and Marines are in that country merely for protection of en- dangered foreign lives and property. Especially the dispatch of Marines to Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. as legation guards for the United States, and to % certain extent in behalf of NATIONALISTIC SPIRIT OF CHINA IS RATED AS DEFENSIVE FORCE Social and Economic Life of Country Are Repre- sented as Proceeding Without Serious Disturbance as Whole. BY DR. SAO-KE SZE, Minister from China to the United States. ‘The press and occasionally men in this and other countries make state- ments about China which cannot but create a false impression, for they do not_take Into due account the pecu- liarities of Chinese social, commercial and political life. To give but a single {llustration—the Chinese people to an extent that is greater than in any other considerable group of civilized people, conduct their affairs of life without the guidance and control of litical authority. They are predomi ntly an agricultural people and they live for the most part in small villages. Soclally and economically their wants are not many and their rela- tions with one another are simple and easily regulated. Furthermore, they are, by their social and ethical philosophies, habituated to the prae- tice of adjusting their differences or controversies by informal or arbitral means. They thus are not constantly dependent. as are the people of the western world, upon the agencies of government, nor obliged, except upon the rarest of -occasions, to resort to the technical and mandatory process- es of political laws. No Disruption Seen. It, therefore, results that when there is a failure of these govern- mental agencles and political laws to function efficiently, there is not in China that social and commercial dis- organization and demoralization which Mecessarily is to be expected in the nations of the West which are more highly industrialized and whose domi- nant ethical and political philosophies lace so much greater rellance upon the exercize of governmental author- jty and the application of physical force. "This i not to say the people of China are suffering now from the civil strife which exists within their bor- ders, or from the lack of efficient con- trolling power on the part of their civil authorities; but, taken as a Whole, the social and economic life of the Chinese people is proceeding without serfous disturbance. This is conclusively shown by the fact that, during recent years, and up to the very present tlme, China's foreign trade has increased rather than de- | O%ed, and that the notes of her fucgest public bank, the Bank of munications, circulate every- Cere, except in Manchuria. practical Tiat par. Therefore. ohe cannot 1Y gtie trom what is to be expected to happe S. PRESTIGE STRAINED N PAN-AMERICAN ROWS | South America appear inclined to re. IAL PAGE AL PROBLEMS 1AL FEATURES . EDITORIAL SECTION in Mexican, Great Britain ‘and Italy, is frankly | regarded in many Latin American | countries as a ‘“‘cloak” for some Amer ican purpose not yet disclosed. On the whole, our friends in Central and gard our activities in Nicaragua as obscure and not characterized hy that complete openness which, if we are sincerely disinterested, they believe we ought to exhibit. A& to the necessity to protact a fu- ture American naval hase on Fonseca Ray, or a future canal route through Nicaraguan territory, Latin Americans re saying that nobody, as yet, threatens to menace those paper ights. Tt is recalled, moreover, that the United States Navy has practically abandoned the Fonseca Bay project, nd that there seems no intention, in the measurable future, to lay out an- other American canal in isthmian ter- ritory, either across Nicaragua or elsewhere. The United States’ policy of refusing to recognize anything but a duly con stituted Latin American government | is also seen by our Latin American friends as opening up a wide vista of possibilities. We, here at Washing- ton, may have one conception of what is a constitutional government in Cen- tral America, for instance. Central Americans, on their part, may have | quite a different conception of it. Tacna-Arica Is Thorn. There are thousands of Central Americans at_this moment who think | Sacasa, not Diaz, is the truly ‘“con-/ stitutional” president of Nicaragua, | and. in a court of international justice, | might easily be ahle to establish his| right to rule at Managua. The United | Rtates is not a signatory of the 1922 ‘entral American convention whereby the states party to it agree among themselves not to recognize a revolu- tionary government. But this country sponsored the convention and is more or less morally bound by it. How long | the policy of not recognizing a “revolu tionary” government can be sustained is open, in Latin America opinion, to grave question. It is often recalled on the other side of the Rio Grande and of the Isthmwe of Panama that this country itself sprang into exist- ence on the basis of a “revolutionary” government. o The Tacna-Arica affair has by no means énhanced our prestige in the Western Hemisphere. It is conceded on all hands, even by critics of the way the United States handled the ancient fracas, that we have been actuated at all times by the sole desire to be of service to the hemi- sphere, to the cause of peace every where In it, and_to Chile and Peru. | But our diplomacy, Latin Americans | are asserting. has not heen as gooil | as our intentions. Having unprece- dentedly assumed the dual role of ar- bitrator and enforcer of the arbitral awarg, it is being emphasized that the United States seems unwilling to “see things through.” The President of the United States decreed that there should be a plebiscite under American auspices. There was never anything but an attempt to hold a plebiscite, and the attempt failed. The United States then attempted “good offices.” and these, too, to date, have proved abortive. The net re- sult is a growing conviction in Latin America that we hesitate to carry out the responsibilities we assumed as arbiter. That is not a spectacle which the Latin American temperament re- gards as prestige building for the Colossus of the North. (Covyright. 1927.) ple are contending with politi military difeulties there ":!.l gr‘;‘z and aimost miraculous constructive forces that are operating in the field | of education—forces which are mod- ernizing pedagogical methods, spread- ing scientific truths and rapldly creat- ing an intelligent public opinion re- garding not only matters political but filtm the other concerns of civilized . In one respect, however, the pres- ent situation, which has heen de- scribed by some as the gravest which has existed since the so-called Boxer year of 1800, is a serious one. It is caused by the intense opposition that has grown up among the Chinese to having their own affairs subject to foreign control, and their consequent determination te rid themselves, at the earliest possible moment, of the treaties which provide for it. Serfous as this situation is, it is by no means analogous to the Boxer movement of 1900. The present move- ment {8 a genuine nationalistic one and purely defensive in character, Its purpose is to secure a situation under which China will be allowed to live and develop according to the autonomous dictates of her own ge- ntus and her own national interest. (Copyricht. 1926.) —e London Business Man Organizes Beggars A shrewd business man has formed a syndicate and “taken over” all the London beggars. He pays them a “maintenance allowance” of 30 cents a day, with a percentage on their weekly earnings. Thousands of so- called ex-service men form jazz bands and play on the streets of the residen- tial districts. It is estimated that they earh be- tween $15 and $256 a week. After de |ducting their daily pay headquarters gives them a 25 per cent commission on all receipts over $18 a week. Old women and men are provided with boxes of matches or shoestrings and sent begging in the main thor- |oughfares. "As long as they offer something for sale they are within the law, but detectives say that few passers-by who glve them coppers ever take a box of matches or shoestrings. Their “earnings” are sald to aver- age $4 to $5 a week. After paving them their subsistence allowance of n in American and European tries from a disturbance of politi- gflnéondmnne to what will take place in China under similar disturbed con- I e same tima the Chinsss,pec- $2, the syndicate hands them a 25 per I things, | nis fea The Sunday S WASHINGTON, ) BY H. G. W S all the time-honored fatul- ties that men repeat and ry peat and comfort themsely mysteriously by ting, none surely are more patently absurd that those which assert the wun- changeableness of human life. “Hu- man nature” never alters, we are as sured; man in the Stone Age, any Stone Age, was exactly what he is now or rather more so; he felt the same things, he imagined the same he traveled the same round, his hopes were identical. Save for a few superficialties, human life has always been the same, and will al be the same, and neither ¥ repe |the past nor the future can be al- lowed to cast a reflection by differ- ence upon our satisfaction with the lives we lead today. Life as we know it is, in fact, the cream and the whole of existence. There was nothing very different behind us and nothing better ahead. * ok ok ok Quite similarly we protect our self- esteem by the persuasion that life under all sorts of circumstances and in all social positjons is very much of a muchness. it gratifies our in- herent grudgingness to think that life in a palace differs in' no essen- tial quality trom life in our own cot- tage, that all the. grapes aboye our heads are sour, and it eases our so- cial conscience to reflect over the fire in the evening that the miner cramped in his seam or the out-of-work tramp is =0 qttuned to his level of existence that for all practical purposes he has just as much fun and contentment in life as we do. There is no real inequality, we assure ourselves, just as there is no progress. Our lives are as good as any lives can be. “Riches,” we all say, “cannot buy happiness.” and it seems hardly to touch that statement that there are hundreds of thousands of people in the completest enjoyment of exist- ence who would be cripples -or dead it they had not been able to com- mand the services of expensive sur- geons, undergo costly treatments or taken imperative holidays at this or that crisis in their careers. In an other age, under any available con- ditions, they would be cripples or dead. * ok ok % But it makes us happier to deny that, just as it makes us happy to think that the life of our times will always be regarded with respect and sympathy by posterity. Our heroes will always be the most heroic of heroes; the great men we have made Tal SUNDAY MORNING H. G. WELLS. our symbols will shine ad stars of the first magnitude forever; the art, the literature that delight us will last for “all time. Our Newton is forever; our Shakespeare is forever; Alexander and Caesar and Napoleon are forever; it is almost as if we were forever. This sort of consolation is so nat- ural to most of us, so near to being a necessity, that to run over a few of the facts that make it absurd can rob hardly a soul of the pleasure of it. For everyday purposes we believe what we want to belleve, and If we do not want to belleve the truth we do generally contrive to dispose of it as a sort of extravaganza. In that #pirit most of us contemplate the fact that human life, the tune, the quality, the elements of the human life: le, are changing visibly before our eyes. ** B X Human life, as a matter of fact, and not as a matter of sentiment, is different from what it has ever heen hefore, and it is rapidly becom- ing more different. The scope of it and the feel of it and the spirit of it change. Perhaps never, in the whole history of life before the pres- ent time, has there been a living spe- cles subjected to so flercely urgent, many-sided and comprehensive a process of change as ours today. None, at least,” that has survived. Transformation and Px(l:wnnn have 9, 1927 y been nature's invariable alternatives. Ours is a specles in an intense phase of transition. These papers, of which this is the first, will all consider some aspect or other of this great change that is going on. 1In them we will release our imaginations to the truth that we are things that pass and do not leave our like, and that the ways and experfences of our children and our children's children promise to be profoundly different from the life we lead at the present time. We will give a rest to our practical working belief in the security of things as they are. We will take the rest and refreshment of a few glances at the longer realities. o Man has always been a changing animal. The ealest himan remains of A few Ecore taousans years ago are of creatures so different that they are now regarded as a distinct spectes of homo. Only within twenty or thirty thousand years does man seem to have been truly man. There is a disposi- tion in some quarters to exaggerate the resemblance of the later Stone Age men to modern types, and to minimize the changes that have oc- curred since the onset of civilization. ‘What is called the Cro-Magnon race was a race of big individuals and, as in the case of their brutish predeces- sors, the Neanderthalers (Homo Nean- derthalensis), that bignesd extended to the brain case—in quantity at least their brains were above our pres- ent average—but they were beings of a coarser texture than the average modern, and there has been the most preposterous nonsense written about their artistic gifts and their general intelligence. They drew and carved —about as well as recent bushmen have drawn and carved. They were %o far “modern” in their art that at times it was strikingly obscene. P A brain is known by its fruits, and the total product of this Cro-Magnon brain, of which certain excited an- thropologists have made a marvel, was the precarious life of painted, wandering savages. In build and skull type and general charter this Cro-Magnon people differed frorh any race now flourishing in 'this world. Industrious search may find odd in- dividuals here and there, in central France and the Canary Isles, for ex- ample, rather after the Cro-Magnon type. They are rarely eminent in- dividuals. Throughout the whole historical period the races of men have been (Continued on Fifteenth Page.) BY JAMES COUZENS. Senator From Michigan. “The distinguishing trait of the Twentieth Century seems to be its ability to live beyond its means.” This quotation seems particularly to typify the wild orgy of installment buying now going on. We find many economists and statisticlans em- ploved by concerns and assoclations interested in profiting from install- ment sales making speeches® and fasuing circulars in support of it. These statistics tell only part of the story. There is a very extensive amount of installment buying upon which they are unable to obtain any figures. ‘We are confronted with all sorts of slogans to €ncourage the buyer. We hear, “Why not enjoy it ag we go along?”’, “Installment buying en- courages thrift.” “It has the merit of increasing the cost only to_the time buyer.” What is this cost? It has been pointed out by a dean of the University of Washington that of every $10 spent by the purchaser on the installment basis, $1 goes to finan- cing the plan, and that it is obvious, therefore,, that purchasing power is reduced 10 per cent as a minimum. While this orgy continues, and there is the consequent stampede to in- crease sales, we may be profiting, but it must be apparent to every one that we are reducing the actual purchasing power of the people of this country. Puts Blame on Buyer. The buyer is most at fault. He Is allowing himself to be inveigled into all sorts of installment buying. J. H. Tregoe, executive manager of the National Association of Credit Men, said recently: “When the installment market which is made up of individual human beings is_glutted with con- sumption goods, the law of diminish- ing utility will operate violentl Incomes will be overmortgaged; Tom, Dick and Harry will begin to consider retrenchment, because they will have had too great a feast on the goods, which they have bought on the install- ment basis and they will have less ap- petite for additional goods for some time.” It is this appetite and the tonic which is being administered to create it that T am particularly concerned ahout. Look at some of the adver- tisements. Here is one for example: “Your authorized dealer will put this greater —— machine, complete with dusting tools, in your home today for only $6.25 down and the balance on easy monthly payments.” One electrical refrigerator company issues most beautitul circulars with- out naming the price of their refrig- erator—simply $15 down, balance on easy payments. Tons of such adver. tising matter are circulated, all of which i silent on the matter of price. Why? Simply because they want to leave sufficient opening to add to the factory price of all the additional items they must include for the buyer on the installment basis. This terrific cost, which, in the first place, 18 a minimum of 10 per cent, and runs all the way up to 30 per cent, 18 not much discussed. In the next place, there is much advertising, cir- cularizing, and propaganda going on showing that the loss through this installment buying is only onefifth of 1 per cent. But no mention fis made about the loss to the buyer when the wagon bhcks up to the door and takes his goods out, or when his cent bonus on any sum exceeding $4 The records of this enterprising combine are now being investigated by Yard. & automobile is repossessed. Ev vhere we hear of large profits mnd.c.z; finance companies. These [BUYING ON INSTALLMENT PLAN ATTACKED BY SENATOR COUZENS Actual Purchasing Power of Dollar Reduced By System, He Says—Declares Customer Is Most At Fault. profits and all of the expenses of the organization are maintained by the installment buyer so that he may ‘enjoy as he goes”—and, of course, the finance companies may enjoy the profits on the business. All of this is not to say that there is no sound installment selling. What I am point- ing out is the danger to the individual. The public is too thoughtless in spending its salary and wages before earned and there is too great a volume of credit avaflable for those who are profiting by the system. It will do no good to talk after the catastrophe has happened or after thousands of people have been dispossessed of thelr articles due to sickness, unemploy- ment, etc. The time to lssue the warning is before all of this happens. (Copyright, 1926.) 3 By a new plan operating in Cuba the President may, by holding or re- leasing cane, have control of the size of the sugar output of the island. N his home one evening | talked with a successful business man and he s to me something like this “Each year in business | learn a few more things and each year | discover that a few of the things | learned the year before are not so very true after all, So when | come to strike a ance the annual increa dom isn't anything very great. But of four truths | am entirely sure. Very early in my business career | learned that it is never wi for so and 80, or ‘I will never live in such and such a place. Youth sets out with a good many such prejudices which it regards as convictions. But as time go on, one discovers that ‘no man ever had a point of pride that was not a weakness to him. | will work for any one today who is honest and who has some- thing to glve me in the way of advancement or knowledge that | do not already have, and | will live anywhere that my work calls m A little later | added this sec- ond bit of knowledge. | quit trying to tell other men what they ought to do with their lives A man's career is a matter to be settled by himself, his wife and his Creator. | will help when my help is asked, if | can, but I will not take the presumptuous chance of sticking my finger into the wheels of any other life unless | am specifically Invited. “Later still | concluded never to say to any man, ‘If you don't do so and so, I'll quit'—beca: one day one of them answered e properly, ‘All right, then quit. “Fourth and finally,” he said, “l have learned never to slight a young man. There is a double resson for that, of course. In i KEEP POLITICS OUT OF RADIO LEGISLATION, HARBORD URGES Axiom That Best Governed Nation Is Least Governed Applies to New Industry as Well as Others, He Declares. BY GEN. J. G. HARBORD. The task of framing a bill for the governmental regulation and control of communication by radio is heavy with many problems—with scientific problems vet unsolved in the mind of the sclentist, with technical prob- lems still in the laboratory stage, with industrial problems yet "unstabllized, with public problems of the utmost importance. The axiom that the best governed nation is the Ieast governed nation ap- plies with particular force to legisla- tion for the radio art and the radio industry. Radio is a swiftly moving art and its problems today may not be fte problems tomorrow. The fact is undeniable that the great progress thus far made both in the art and in the industry has taken place during a period of minimum governmental regulation or interference. To permit radio legislation to be- come the vehicle of politics in Con- gress is to trifle with a power and a service not vet fully appreciated. To Oracles Don’t Say. Startling Things BY BRUCE BARTON the first place, it's good religion. Every older man ought to be a kind of unofficial trustee for youth. But in the second place it's good business. It may be an exaggeration to say that any boy can become President of the United States. But it's certain that any office boy may be pur- ing agent or general man- ager or president of his com- pany 10 years from now. And when he arrives, | want him on g very startling in all ay, not a very im- posing array of knowledge for a man to have gathered in thirty-five or forty years. Very true, but the more you listen to successful men, the more you are impressed by the fact that the only bits of truth they value are truths so old that most of us learned them all in Sunday school. Honesty is the best policy; no hard work Is ever lost; what sows, that shall he reap are about all that the average wise man is sure of. And they are enough. The Greeks had an institution which they called an oracle—a place where the voice of the gods might be heard. Usually the utterances of the oracle ran somewhat after this fashiont ,“Go at the enemy as hard 'you can, and if you fight better than he does, you will win.” Millionaires are modern popu- lar oracles; a good many men gather around them, thinking that some day, the great one will give them a tip by means of which they may succeed. | have listened to several Ilionaires, and what they say is usually very sound and true—so sound and true, indeed, that it has been long ago accepted by the race and may be found in any good first reader. (Copyright. 1087.) make inflexible statutes for an art that is as flexible as the air, is to vio- late the- very laws of scientific and technical development. It is to work a public injury, under the guise of governmental regulation. Selfishness Pointed Out. Under the present development of the art thers are only 89 bands of wave lengths available within the con- fines of the United States, or approxi- mately onetenth the number of sta- tions now in operation or projected in the immediate future. On the other hand there is a growing tendency on the part of gsome established stations, as well as many new stations to ar- bitrarily and selfishly appropriate to thelr own use many desired wave lengths regardless of its prior use to the satisfaction of the public. There can be no reasonable objection to the proper regulation of the other, and one court of competent jurisdiction has already spoken against wave- length piracy. Virtually all other problems em- braced in the proposed radio legisla- tion are adequately covered by exist- ing laws. The present scramble for wave lengths sufficlently proves the fact that there are many more persons and interests eager, able and willing to supply the facllities of broadcast transmission than there are wave lengths to accommodate them. With 610 broadcasting stations dotting the country, there are great regions of unserved territories on the radio map. There are still many hundreds of thousands of homes only within whis- pering distance of a good broadcast- ing station. There are still many mil- lions of people whom radio has not reached. = There are existing laws against monopoly which cover all industry, and thers js nefther need nor reason to single out radio for spe- cial legislative treatment in this re- spect. I would not, of course, seek to exempt radio communication or the radlo industry from proper govern- mental regulation. I belleve in fair and wise regulation of utilities and trade practices. To such regulations we offer no objection. The test, how- ever, of such regulation is that it be in° the interest of the public. Regu- lation which would retard or throttle the continued and almost phenomenal development of radio would not be in the interest of the public. Further- more, it weuld menace the greatest inatrumentality for the dissemination of education, news and entertainment since the invention of the printing press. All Not Destructive. Not all the proposed radio legisla- tion now pending is, in my opinion, de- structive. Measures are available in the form of bills also now pending in Congress which provide, among other things, for five-year terms for station licenses, for what they term ‘Just compensation” for use of privately owned stations commandeered by the Government, a more conservative and less expensive radio commission, and which do not provide for handling of commercial business by Government stations or restrictions as to sale prices of stations or operation of ex- perimental stations. My sympathy goes out to those who are honestly animated by a desire to frame radio legislation in the interest of the public good. Hasty or ill- considered legislation will have exactly the gontrary effect. Attempts to regulate other than the immediate t require regulation will defeat the plirposes of legislation. U. S. CRUISER Like Japan, London BY FRANK H. STMONDS. PEECHES by the President, dis- cussions in Congress and in the press, have once more raised the question of mnaval armaments and there has even been the hint of a new Wash- ington conference to.deal with the departments of naval armament, which were left untouched at the earlier conference. But all this dis- }cussion raises problems the extent of which has hardly been perceived. It is, for example, open to question whéther any European state would consent to come to the American capi- tal to a disarmament conference at the present time. This is particularly true of the French, but it is only less true of the British and the Italian: for certain aspects of any such con- ference would- be intensely unwel- come to each of these three peoples. The British, for example, would look with very great hostility upon any proposal to revise downward their strength in cruisers, which would in- evitably be the crux of the whole matter from the American point of view. This would be because, for the British, their present cruiser strength represents a_minimum commensurate with the tasks for which their Navy is maintained. Problem Has Many Aspects. Nothing is more misleading and in- exact in all discussions of proposals to limit armaments than the notion that it is possible to deal with the issue merely on a mathematical basis. Both on sea and on land, natfonal ar- maments are based upon national in- terpretations of the problems which are peculiar to each people and differ as between natio There is, for example, nothing even remotely comparable between the pur- pose of the British cruiser fleet and the American. nearly fifty millions of peo- ple crowded in one narrow island and dependent for all save a few weeks' supply of food in each year upon im- ports must necessarily have other and larger resources in its hands than a country like the United States, which exports food. With the American peo- ple to keep open sea lanes, in this di- rection, is to preserve access to mar- kets, but it is very far from being a question of life or death. Again, while the United States has outlying possessions, the Philippines, Porto Rico and Hawaii, and while it is vitally concerned in keeping the Panama Canal open, it has nothing to compare with that far-flung British system of colonies and associated do- minfons, In peace RBritain draws frim these much of her food supply. In war she obtained from them hun- dreds of thousands of troops who fought in Europe. Britain Needs More Cruisers. But in case of war the United States not only would not draw food from abroad, but would receive no military reinforcements from its insu- lar possessions. Nor can they be com- pared in size or importance with the British. Therefore the question of how many cruisers the British require for their own defense, as they see the necessities of defense, is fundamental- 1y different from the American prob- lem. Not even if the United States should undertake to establish a program of intensive building to overtake the British lead would there be any rea- son for British consent to modify their cruiser strength. This is true because the expansion of American strength to the point of equality with existing British tonnage would have no men- ace, while reduction of British to pres- ent American limits would invite very considerable risks. The relation of the British and American navies is, fortunately, al- ways one of theory and never one of fact. The peoples of both countries are equally aware of the fact that these {navies will never meet in battle and that the strength of either country on the sea carries with it no threat to_the other. The suggestion that the Washing- ton conference of 1921 supplies a precedent is inexact because the con- ditions are totally different. In 1921 America had, potentially, an enarmous superfority in battleships. But it had no desire to bear the financial bur- dens incident to completion of the building program. There was no reason in policy and no warrant in national interests. Effect of Conference Here. But all the Washington conference accomplished in the direction of the limitation of naval armaments, prac- tically, was that, faced with a pro- spective superiority in capital ships which they could not rival, Britain and Japan accepted a permanent sit- uation which was in fact about to be- come a reality. Britain agreed upon equality, because superiority was be- yond her reach, and Japan on a ratio for the same reason. But at the time it was the United States who had something and gave it up, because it did not care enough for it to pay the costs. What we had was prospective naval supremacy based upon a battle fleet. Today the British —and the Japanese — have something of which they not only are willing to bear the financial burdens, but which they find an essential cir- cumstance in national defense—name- Iy, larger cruiser strength than the United States. The fact that we can build an equal, or even superior, cruiser fleet does not in the least influence the British or the Japanese to listen to any American suggestion that they lmit their cruiser strength, that in fact they reduce it. We may bulld if we choose, neither cares, but we have nothing to offer to persuade them to reduce, because our strength is not a menace to them. As for France and Italy, they could not, at the moment of the Washing- ton’ conference, even think of any ex- pansion of their existing tonnage In capital ships by reason of their finan- clal difficulties. On the other hand, both did then and do still see a cer- tain alleviation of their enforced in- feriority resulting from the appear- ance of the submarine arm. Role of Submarines. Both Latin states can bulld subma~ rines; these craft are to a degree an answer to battleship strength. They do constitute an immediate and dan- gerous weapon against the British, for example. Thus there is not the remotest chance that either France or Italy would in their present mood think of scrapping the submarine or reducing their strength in that arm. But such inevitable refusal would at once react upon the British situ ation in the matter of cruisers. This is the case because the cruiser is one of the chiet. weapons-of defanse o STRENGTH NO CONCERN TO BRITAIN Must Maintain Cer- tain Number, Regardless of Other Navies, Says Observer. againat the submarine and a vital detail in the convoy system, which in the end defeated the German sub- marine campaign. To persuade the British to consider the reduction of their crulser strength would then be difficult, im- possible, it it were impossible at the same time to persuade the Itallans and French to reduce their sub- marine strength—and that {s abso- lutely impossible. The prospect of an American cruiser flest equal, even superior, to the British in tonnage would not in the smallest degree affect British decision, for the American fleet is not in this instance a prospective opponent and the Itallan and French are. France May Add Cruisers. Moreover, while both France and Ttaly are at the moment still facing financial problems which make large naval constructions impossible, the time iz perhaps not remote when both will he able to undertake new cruiser programs. For France, with her vast colonial empire and her vital Mediterranean communications, this is almost inevitable. As_a_consequence, neither France nor Italy is likely now to sign away the right to a naval expansion which both rezard as vital to their inter- ests. Neither has, too, any interest in American strength. We may, it we choose, build not 10 but 40 cruls- ers and Rome and Paris will re- main undisturbed. It is not the American fleet which either is watching. The brutal fact of the situation is that we have nothing whatever to offer which would in any way in- fluence any of the European states —or Japan, for that matter—which would either persuade or coerce them into assenting to our views. They are not ready to sacrifice thelr own views to what seems to them no more than an American effort to avold the cost of a naval expan- ston, Again, the very fact that we are a peaceful people and that, as a consequence, no matter how large our fleet may become, it will not in all human probability menace any people or threaten any of their vital interests, makes the size of the American fleet an academic question for all but professional naval minds. The situation for France, for ex- ample, would be far different if Italy were to threaten an expansion of crulser strength. Frange would then have to build ship for ship or agree to mutual limitation. Europe Watched by Britain. All negotiations attempted on the basis of the use of a prospective pro- gram of cruiser expansion will fail because it is an empty threat. For the British, the choice between Amer- ican equality In this branch and Brit- ish inferfority in the presence of continental dangers and world perils to her lines of communication can be foreseen. Of course it is also perfectly true that no European country would be much interested in contributing to the success of any American conference at this moment, in view of American policy with respect of the debts. All, too, would see in the debt issue the possible basis for trading, if in fact, which is doubtful, they could be per- suaded to come here at all. And, in any event, they could bear with utter equanimity the spectacle of the Amer- ican taxpayer compelled to give up millions to create a cruiser fleet which 414 not in the least concern them. In thinking of armaments, general- Iy, the American people are always facing a theory, the European deal- ing with facts. The armament of any European country, whether mii- tary or naval, is based alike upon political and technical eircumstances. It bears a_very direct relation to the future. and the immediate and definite future as each people sees it. The American Army, for example, exists, so far as it exists at all, as a sort of skeleton on which to build a natfonal army in time of confiict. Meantime the American Navy and the width of the two oceans insure a period of time adequate to prepara- tion, to the creation of the national Army. But to any specific question, to any dangers on the side of Canada or Mexico, the American military strength has no relation. French Army Necessities. The French army, on the contrary, is maintained in principle at that minimum strength which will enable it at any moment to cover French frontiers during the time which is re- quired to mobilize the remaining strength of the nation. There must be precisely that number of divisions which would be physically sufficient to cover all the roads, bridges, rail- ways and points of strategic impor- tance, either on the German or the Ttallan boundaries, or on both, if dangers are to be feared from both. ‘When the question of limitation of armaments arises in the French Chamber of Deputles, for example, the mathematical ‘standards have no bearing. No matter what reductions take place in remote nations, the French strength must and will be maintained at the figure which will enable the military machine, at the moment of danger, to undertake to bar access to the soil of France. The British navy is in precisely the same position. Tts businees is to cover the country during the period neces- sary for the country to arm. But cov- ering the country doee not merely mean guarding it against invasion, which is the mission of the French army. It also means insuring the flow of food to Britain. And while the guard of Britain can be under. taken by the grand fleet, the insurance of communications must be the task of the crufsers. French military etrength will not be reduced because of any outside pressure of admonition_save as reduc- tlon still preserves the irreducible minimum necessary for the task of covering French frontiers at the mo- ment of mobilization. The British naval strength will not be reduced be- low the point necessary to protect the sea lines. And neither the French army nor the British navy will be re- duced with relation to American, be- cause neither the American Army nor the American Navy figures in those calcylations which involve immediate problems of national defense. Professional Naval Views. It is perfectly true that prof naval circles in Great Rflh?n l?a’kd:l?tlfl disapprobation upon American equal- ity in battleship strength and rejoice in British supremacy in the cruiser arm. But this is an utterly technical and professional state of mind which finds echo within our own Nav: in rs little rela- on Third Page)