Evening Star Newspaper, May 17, 1931, Page 29

4 4 1 4 - EDITORIAL SECTION The Sunday Star. Part 2—8 Pages WASHINGTON, D. € SUNDAY. MORN G, MAY By 1931. FRENCH EMPIRE IN AFRICA| -+ BLOW TO ITALIAN DREAMS Man Power in Tunis Enables Nation to Meet Rival on Equal Terms and Face BY FRANK H. SIMONDS. ARIS.—As a sort of interlude be- tween the discussions arising out of foreign affairs and the somewhat less acute debates over domestic affairs resulting from a presidential election, France en- Joyed to the full the colonial entertain- ment furnished by the visit of the President of the republic to Tunis. For several days the French press was filled with pictures, verbal and otherwise, of the progress of Doumergue through the scenery and setting of an Arabian Night's Dream. ‘This celebration had, however, two practical aspects. In the first place, it #crves as a sort of grandiose advertise- ment for the great colonial exposition ‘which is to open this month, and is to give both France and the rest of the world a brilliant impression of the im- portance of the French colonial empire. In the second place, this new emphasis upon French North African interests, placed by a presidential tour, must serve to consolidate French public opin- son behind & naval program insuring French communications with Tunis, Al- geria and Morocco. This immediate North African empire, three times as large as metropolitan France, with a population above 12,000.- 000, has become one of the most con- siderable markets for French export, a vast field for investment and a source ©of precisely that number of soldiers which_enables Prance to continue to meet Italy on equal terms and also to face Germany. Moreover, on the eco- nomic side it supplies Prance with ex- actly the things which the nation needs to live as a self-contained state. Trade Makes Development. The other day I was at Marseilles, and visited the magnificent harbor, it- self the work of the years since France began developing its North African em- pire in a big way. There were not less than half a dozen big boats, steam up, about to sail for Tunis, Algiers, Oron, Sona and Casablanca. It is the trade ‘with this Africa, hardly more distant than Philadelphia from Boston, that 2argely explains the great development #f Marseilles, the commercial port, and similarly the expansion of Toulon as the great French naval base. In North Africa France has now more than 1.000,000 Europeans; in Morocco and Algeria the French numbers are greater; in Tunis, on the other hand, the Italians have always had a consid- erable advantage—90,000 Italians to 70,- 000 French at the present moment. But French naturalization laws impose French citizenship upon all children born on French sofl. Thus the Italians have been losing steadily, and if the process continues a little longer will become a minority. It is against this process that Italy is protesting. and the Tunisian - naturalization issue is one of ;h: most acute in Franco-Italian rela- ions. At the same time Italy. which never forgave the French for taking Tunis, 50 years ago—it is the half-century anmi- Yversary that Doumergue has been cele- brating—has been endeavoring to con- struct her own North African empire in “Tripoli, which she took from Turkey in . But Tripoli has neither the eco- momic nor the agricultural possibilities of Tunis, much less of Algeria or Mo- yocco, and although the Italians have literally accomplished marvels, there is from Mellila, a little east of Gibraltar, 1o Tripoli, but its great naval base of Bizerta, the counterpart to Toulon, watches the narrow waters between Bicily and North Africa. And between ‘Toulon and Bizerta is Corsica, with its secondary naval base. Given these po- sitlons and a superior fleet, Prance clearly holds the upper hand in the Mediter- ranean. and means to continue to hold it. Ttaly, on the other hand, just as 3 Clearly means to attain parity with 2 ®rance on water and in the air as well. Old Caravan Routes Cut. Moreover, the rivalry here exist is nccentuated by the fact that not only €oes France hold the hinterland of her ©own colonies but also that of the Italian, thus cutting the old caravan routes which extended from Tripolitan ports to the heart of West Africa, to Timbuktu and Lake Chad. Here Ttaly presses old Turkish claims, and in addition cites French promises of compensation, made during the war. But France naturally refuses to cede territory which would interrupt the continuity of her empire extending from the Mediterranean to the Kongo and froj the Atlantic. At the moment the great French dream, which is, to be sure, very old, is to complete the railway lines now stretching down toward the desert from the Mediterranean and up toward the Niger from the Dahomey-Togo area by bullding the stretch across the great desert. This transaharan line would Germany. rival the Cape-to-Cairo. It would also enable France to move troops from Cen- tral and Western Africa to Algeria and Moroceo, and thus to constitute all her African possessions a self-contained area, even if she lost control of the sea. Meantime both air and automobile lines maintain communication over the desert. Since, too, almost half of the Prench army is permanently stationed in Africa. it is clear how important it is that France should be able to move them swiftly in ease of European war, just as it is vital to keep these colonies, which are the source of recruits. Long the statement was made that the future of France was in Africa, but it is only since the World War that there has been a wide realization of this faet. due to the contribution in men and ;anluflll Africa made during the con- | fict. | Before 1914. or at least before the | great Moroccan quarrel in 1905, the | French colonial empire was pushed for- | ward by a handful of daring and im- ! aginative soldiers, fired with the desire | to win back for France in Africk the rank of a great power which had been lost in Europe after Sedan. Thus ex- plorers and expeditions painfully toiled | up the Senegal, down the Niger and | across the Sahara from Algeria. In this | school ‘were trained some of the great | leaders of the war. Taken by Joffre. Joffre, the victor of the Marne, took | Timbuktu after a first disaster, and later built the Senegal Railway. Gal- lieni, the defender of Paris, won fame alike in West Africa and ascar. Mangin, the Sheridan of the PFrench army, was a colonial, who 10 years be- fore the war argued for the use of black troops. In 1898 the occupation of Fashoda, on the Upper Nile, by Mar- shand nearly brought France and Brit- ain to war. In 1905 the quarrel between France and Germany over MOrocco was equally a menace to European peace. To establish her claim to Morocco with lfiermm:fl consent Hlnéz had to cedle‘ | arge regions the Kongo. But al thise, ‘vasethel wit; Mot of Ggnen | Togo and Kamerun, came to Frarce at the end of the war. Now French public opinion is at least measurably awake to the importance of the colonial empire. Raw materials, laborers, a vast market still hardly touched—all exist within the limits of & single tariff frontier. Last year, when all the rest of the world was buying less from France, Algeria took more. For French steel manufacturers the great railway development provides a market, taking no small part of the production of the new mines and plants acquired in old German Lorraine. For the engineers the opportunity is unmis- takable. For the adventurous the last frontier is the Atlas, where the army year by year reduces the area of the wild tribes. Last of all, a real slice of the Bast in her ha: at the doors of Europe, France has been able to extend her tourist industry, and fine roads and ‘fast automobiles . So_here again the thrifty French turn imperialism into gon and the ancient land of the Bar- boxrx’ pirates is made safe for the pour- e French Proud of Empire. ‘The Prench want to celebrate the fact that they have an empire, to invite the world to admire its wealth and beauty, and to serve notice upon all and sundry, beginning with the Ital- ians that France means to hold this | empire—the North African part before | all others. That is why Doumergue | went to Tunis to finish his administra- tion; that is why there is the colonial exposition, and, finally, that is why France refuses to consider any question of naval parity with Italy or any re- | duction inthe size of her fleet. There are Frenchmen who believe that it would be the policy of wisdom | to cut loose from all the network of | alliances, military and otherwise, by | which France exercises a potent, if pre- carious, influence in Europe; to come to terms with Germany, French security on the Rhine at the | expense of French allies on the Vistula | and the Danube, and relying upon the | British Locarno pledge to reinforce | French military strength at the borders of Lorraine and Alsace; in fact, to be- come colonial rather than Continental. Such a change in historic_policy is | hardly likely to come soon. Neverthe- | less, the colonial detail is year by year Ibecomlnz more pronounced, and the colonial exposition is certain to consti- | m British Sudan to | tute the high-water mark of French | 'Tade unions but not so well under- colonial enthusiasm. cate why the French take their Italian problem almost as seriously as their German. And. conversely, Fascist Italy, feeling itself the Jaeir of Rome, resents to the bone French presence in all the old Roman lands from Carthage to Cesarea. (Copyright, 1931.) Soviet Publications in 76 Tongues Fight Iliteracy of 36 Million People MOSCOW .—Stamping out illiteracy among and educating the “remote na- tionalities” in the vast domain of the Soviet Union by means of the printed word has been and will for some time be a full-time job for the Central Pub- lishing Committee (Centrisdat) of the U. 8. 8. R. It is this organization which has carried the light of the printed word to the dark fastnesses of Central Asia and Siberia. Thanks to its untiring efforts in the past nine years, peoples had a written given one. ces which for- got their written language because it was too difficult to learn have been given a simplified script ‘The efforts of the Central Publishing Committee are best attested by the fact that it has published books and pam- philets in no fewer than 76 languages, of which 70 are “remote.” Works in an additional 13 languages will be is- sued hy the organization during the current year. Alphabet for 30 Million. ired by Lenin's “the object is to these far-off peoples who have no Russian up to our cultural heights,” the pioneers of the Centrisdat marched into the field shortly after the revolu- tion to ascertain what was needed to improve the cultural level of these backward peoples. Thus they found that 20 national- ftiss—nomads and mountain tribes in the Caucasus or Siberia—had no writ- ten language. Scientists were sent to live with them. They learned the words of their spoken languages and wrote them down in Latin script for the publishing group to print. An out- rtanding result was & Latinized alpha- bet for the 30,000,000 people of the “Turkish-Tartar group in the U. 8. 8. R. Another finding was that there were tribes whose written language was in Insp bring 'ho have never ' the difficult Arabic script only one or two men in an entire nation were literate. The scholars studied with them, then rewrote the language in Latin. It was their con- tention that the Arabic script actually encouraged illiteracy; that it was dif- ficult for the children to learn to read and write and that, rather than make the effort, whole generations grew up literate. In Strange Languages. | _The Central Publishing Committee has printed books and pamphlets in | languages that only a few people can | read, as, for instance, Adyghev, Digore, Ingush, Kabardin, Chechen, Ossetin, Bashkir, Kalmuk, Chukot, Tungues, etc. Many of the nationalities had no lit- erature. ‘Their only culture were songs and sagas of bloody battles. These have been captured by the organiza- tion's scholars and written down for posterity. How the work of this organization has grown is seen from the following figures: In 1923 it published 97,300 books, in 31 titles. In 1930 this was increased to 17,500,000 books, in 1,745 titles. ‘The committee specializes in social and political pamphlets, since the win- ning of these peoples to the doctrines of Marx and Lenin is of utmost im- the government. About committee’s entire grou erature, 4.1 per cent; primers, 25.1 per cent; popular science, 64 per cent; agriculture, 158 per cent and fiction, 13.3 per cent. Movie fans of Switzerland are turning from American to Prench and German talkies, because they understand the language better. > .| were still sncring in bed. irchasing | | Sometimes What of Future in Spain? Some of the Forses That Must Be Reckoned With in Any New Adjustment of National Life BY G. K. CHESTERTON. T is a traditional taunt against the | Spaniards that they always talk | about tomorrow. 1t is apparently | founded on the notable fact that the Spanish language contains & word for tomorrow—"manana,” I be- lieve—and a Nordic critic naturally treats it as the keyword of the Spanish lan- guage because it is the only Spanish word he knows. It is supposed to prove that all Spaniards are procrastinating, unpractical, unproductive, futile. It supposed to be a denial of the solid | business maxim, “Never put off till to- | morrow what you can do today.” As I | profoundly disbelieve in this maxim, I | ago | also gravely doubt any international | eriticism found upon it. The maxim seems to me to have been made up b; some wealthy person who never did a | stroke of work; whose days were 50 | blank and empty that he was actually | driven to the dreary frivolity of amus- | | ing himself by writing essays on effort | | and efficiency and work and the way to | succeed. Anybody who has really had a hard day, with a great deal to do in it, knows that the really sensible advice | 15 exactly the opposite: “Never do today | what you can put off till tomorrow.” That is the real motto of the really busy | and businesslike person, and it is but | a variant of the ancient text, “Sufficient | unto the day is the evil thereof.” I| therefore have my doubts about whether the critics have got the right translation of “manana.” They have made a muddle of it somewhere; just as they used to go about saying that the peasants of Spain and Italy never did any work; the simple explanation being that the peasants had done three- quarters of their work while the critics Also, the peasants, being generally peasant proprietors, could take their holidays when they liked; whereas the critics were generally working for a salary and could not stop, anyhow. If the critics will try the experiment cf try- ing to live on a scrap or two of orchard and vineyard, with hardly any hired labor, they will find out whether it requires any work or not, i Future of Nation Seen. But there is a certain irony in the notion, which I am tempted to enter- tain, that the Spaniards are in another sense already talking about tcmorrow. I am not sure they are not talking about it more practically than we are, in the commercial and industrial countries; where it is by no means clear at the moment what is likely to happen tomorrow; and where most of us are worrying about today, and oc- casionally bragging about yesterday. In other words, I venture to advance the paradox that Spain has a future; and that in scme ways the future is more clear and straight and logical than our own. A nation that has not lost its normal basis on the land, its rocts in the historic soil and the per- sonal dignity of its individual citizens, may yet prove to have been actually benefited by a period of a sort of peace that is ml en for tion, and a sort of intensive cultivation that is mistaken for insignificance. Fifty years hence the industrial cities may be still fMunting their newspaper type of news as fresh, when it has long been stale; repeating more and more wearily and weakly the slogans in which nobody believes; producing more | than they want and remaining in want even of the things they produce; liv- ing in the dullest of all periods, the recent or immediate past. It would be | | | and convinced peasants. hurling back the ancient taunt in & shout as ringing 2s a trumpet: “Manana! Tomorrow! It will be well not to exaggerate either way the disturbance of the re- cent revolution in any such funda- mental development. Nobody knows very much about the real meaning of the revolution as yet, but there are at least certain fashionable fallacies that can be avoided. Some of them con- cern that original revolution to which this is in some ways a reaction or a counter-revolution. When a dictator- ship was declared in Spain. following on the dramatic achievement of a dic- tatorship in Italy, it was too easily as- sumed that the two were exactly alike. But there are dictatorships and dicta- torships; just as there are democracies and democracies. The mere name of a republic tells us little about whether a commonwealth is as aristocratic as the 0ld Republic of Venice or as turbulent as the old Republic of Haiti, as social- ist as the Republic of Russia, or as anti- socialist as the Re 4 ¥ And one reason, I think, why the per- sonal rule of Primo de Rivera did not last like the personal rule of Mussolini is that it was.really a very different sort of rule, by a very different sort of person. ‘The average American, or for that matter the average Englishman, would | find Mussolini too revolutionary in one way and too reactionary in another. He is a man of the people; and he is not the son of an old Communist black- smith for nothing. He is even by his amusing indeed if they were startled by an invasion of v hopeful own account a syndicalist; he is very o America. [ {n FKOM A WATER COLOR BY VERNON HOWE BAILEY, FROM “LITTLE | KNOWN TOWNS OF SPAIN.” like & good many people's notion of & Socialist. He is anti-democratic in a specialist and not a normal function; but so were Lenin and Trotsky. He is not anti-democratic in the vague sense of supporting capital inst labor, or being espectally distrustful of the working classes. His rule was not, of course, a dictatorship of the proletariat, but it really is on som points a dictatorship for the proletariat. It was not so with the Spanish dic- | tatorship. It had many great merits; it | gained the support of many good men, it called the bluff of a professional poli- ties pretty corrupt everywhere. But it was really reactionary, in the sense of being old-fashioned, military and aristo- cratic. It was, a5 we say in England, & Tory movement. Mussolini may be & tyrant; but he is certainlly not a ‘Tory. And from this arose what I, for one, suspect of being the real blunder and ruin of the regime. I mean the fact Tories were what we Unionists: “and mis- understood the problem of Catalonia very much as we misunderstood the problem of Ireland. y maze. Torylsm may unduly oppress new and revolution- ary elements in its own people. Union- ism is always tempted to oppress old and conservative elements in another people. - It is true that there were new and rebellious elements in Catalan na- tionalism; that they were mixed up with French radicalism .and anti-clericalism. But the Spanish reactionaries did not the sense that he believes ruling to be | merely repress French radicallsm or anti-clericalism or any new and re- bellious elements. They also repressed things that were older and more tr: ditional than the Kingdom of Spai ancient Catalan songs and dances, against which there was nothing to say except that they were Catalan. We English fell into that sort of folly in the old days, when we were really hanging men and women for wearing of the green, but everywhere and al- ways it is folly; for it means that a already struggling with revolutionists, has aiso to struggle with traditionalists. Futurism to Fear. Also, in dealing with the futuré of which is not knowledge of the future, that sense our own futurists are a ways _talking about tomorrow, they have half forgotten yesterday and entirely forgotten the day before ye terday. Alas, it is our own “Anglo- Saxon” social prophets and progressive novelists who are always “Manana”! It is they who are alw prophesying a good time coming, in de- flance of a bad time obviously and ob- stinately staying. t is intelligible to live in the present; and it is done with great success and satisfaction by pup- pydogs. neopagans, butterflies, human and otherwise, Hedonists, society beau- ties, incurable inebriates and many others. It is idiotic to live in the fu- ture which you cannot study, without rtv“e; studying th> past which you can study. And anybody who knows anything of the past of Spain or of Italy will know that the two dictatorships were not at all likely to run on perfectly parallel lines. There was nothing par- ticularly new or abnormal about Mus- solini, in Itallan history as a whol Italian history has swarmed with Mus- solinis. Ttaly constantly adopted dic- tatorship as a& form of government; we t be tempted to say that it never any other form of govern- | ment. The Roman Empire, which made | the modern world, was a military dic- tatorship, with some soldier or adven- turer as dictator. We might almost say that the Roman rule was one long interregnum, between the last legiti- mate Tarquin and the first king of the new nineteenth century kingdom. All | sorts of men, ranging from Reinje to | Cesare Borgia, have tried to dig up Fasces and use rods and axes for a But there was nothing of this sort. in the history of Spain. The Spanish kings were true medieval kings, chosen out of the chivalry of the crusades, annointed sacramentally by the church; and it was the whole point of that sort of king that he should himself rule and be responsible for ruling. I think, therefore, that the anclent monarchy of Spain could not afford to be over- shadowed like the new monarchy of Italy. If monarchy could not be mon- archy, thmugh various misfortunes, most_of wi were not the fault of the it was useless to offer Spain, we must beware of that futurism | s0 much as ignorance of the past. In | saying | 'GANG REVENUE FROM RUM HELD.- SMALL BY MITCHELL Cites Income Tax Prosecutions as Basis for Statement in National Radio Forum Address. HE text of Attorney General Mitchell's address, delivered last night in the National Radio Forum, arranged by The Wash- ington Star and broadcast over a Nation-wide network of tne Columbia Broadcasting System, follows: x ‘The proper administration of justice has always been a major national prob- lem. In his inaugural address Presi- dent Hoover laid emphasis on the need for more effective agencies, State and Federal, for investigation and prosecu- tion of crime. There was a time when the activities of the Federal Depart- ment of Justice touched a relatively small number of people, but conditions have changed. In the last quarter of a century the enactment by Congress | of penal statutes in new flelds, such as when | the Harrison anti-narcotic act, the Dyer act penalizing the transportation of stolen automobiles, the Mann act deal- | ing ‘with white slave traffic and the national prohibition act, have largely increased the activity of the Federal Government In criminal matters. New forms of tax legislation, such as the income tax law and statutes touching business in commerce and communica- tions, have increased Government litiga- tion. In 1872. 600 civil cases in which the United States was a party were com- menced in the United States courts. In 1914 the number was 4,000, and in 1930, 24,000. In 1872 the Governmept commenced 6,000 criminal prosecutions, in 1914, 18,000, and in 1930, 87,000. How Duties Are Divided. ‘The Department of Justice has charge of all criminal and civil tion for the United States, u of Prisons has charge of leral penal in- stitutions and the administration of the parole and probation . Our Bureau of Investigation is cl with the duty of detecting offenses sgainst 8 varlety of Federal statutes, and the Bureau of Prohibition pefforms the same function under the national pro- hibition act. The department also has the administrative work connected with the Federal courts and the offices of United States attorneys, marshals and clerks of court. The Attorney General is required to give formal legal advice to the President and to the he-‘:_:‘:; stroke at once despotic and democratic. | Part: other departments bring their troubles to us, but we rarely have a chance to unload sny of our own. We examine the qualifications of candidates for ju- dicial office and report the facts to the President, and are required to consider the legal aspects of legislation relating not only to the Department of Justice. but to other branches of the Federal a mueh'.. He | the fered siapy from- o eing ing " ; om . Tt lini is not king; because their cities -| have ‘had all kinds of republicans and military and mercantile princes who were not kings. But Spain in the six- teenth century grew great as a - dom; in the seventeenth century it de- clined as a kingdom, but it could only y a king. It is ber that in A well to remem is much more advanced (Continued on Fourth Page.) TO CALL PA Green, in Wage Slash Warning, an Old Battle C A. F. OF L. LACKS POWER Y CUT STRIKE | | ry That Proved Effective. BY CHESTER M. WRIGHT. When the executive council of the American sessions 1 Federation of Labor in 1u! here last week called upon| workers throughout the country, organ- | ized and unorganized, to “resist to the | utmost’ all wage reductions, it went | to abcut the Jast limit of its authority. | Thereln lies fhe significance of the | utterance. well understood within the stood outside. “Resist to the utmost” was the battle cry sounded by Samuel Gompers in 1921, the last previous period of at- tempted wage cutting. It had its effect at_that time. If the American Federation of Labor is watching with infinite care in any segment of the industrial field, it is in the matter of wages. It is not exactly |® secret that the federation has page and chapter on practically every wage reduction of any consequence, and it , | undoubtedly was this catalogue of hap- | | penings that brought forth the most | | striking pronouncement since William | Green became president. | President Green has in his mind more | than a battle against wage reductions, however. He believes there should be an organized effort to create what he and some others call “balance” in industry and he believes all factors in industry must work together to procure that balance. He looks, through those | | means, for “job security,” which he calls | | paramount | . Meanwhile, putting resistance to re- | { ductions as the fighting issue of the | hour, he puts wage increase and re- | duced- working time in hours per day | and days per week as constructiye meas- | ures = toward ‘“balance” and “job security.” | “While the workers have increased | their output by 50 per cent their real | | wages increased 10 per cent.” he | to this writer. “Instead of bonuses of $1,000,000 a year to chief executives, instead of stock dividends, let the money 20 into real wages. Then we'll be on the road to stopping these recurring depressions. If there is not enough work for five days a week, let there be four, and if there is not enough for four, let there be three. Then men can continue to purchase. It is not fair to thrust the burden of unemployment upon ‘the workers and upon the com- munity. Permanent work is trans- cendent.” o Immediately after the executive council of the federation adjourned, President Green started to Texas, where he will address the railway train- men, whose affliation with the feder- ation 1s hoped for. It can be said that the first matter that will engage his attention upon his return is a check-up on the results of the procl | mation against wage reductions an | the possibility of tional Industrial | Conference that may put under ex- | amination the entire industrial situs- tion, with a view to discovering meth- ods that promote “balance.” By “balance” Mr. Green means some- | thing like parity between consuming ' power and 'Eroduclnl power. Whether an effort will be made to interest the | administration in such a gathering is | at this time a matter of doubt, but it _has been under consideration. ‘Wage reduction reports reveal a sit- uation that has alarmed organized la- bor. And it can be said with entire accuracy that organized labor is not so much alarmed for the sake of indi- vidual wage earners as it is because of the feared cumulative effect of re- duced buying power on the recupera- tive powers of the Nation. As Mr. Green and his assoclates sce it, every dollar cut off in wages is that much shortening of the buying lever that labor looks to for prying the country up out of the trough. ‘The American Federation of Labor is probably as well equipped statistical- ly today as any organization, a fact that has not always been apparent. But today it knows what is going on in wages and buying power and employ- | ment. What it has seen on its charts | and curves has moved it to go as far as it can go toward demanding gen- eral battle against further cutting off of buying power. The American Fed- eration of Labor cannot call a strike. When it demands that all workers “resist to the utmost” it has given the cue and Jald down the issue. Having no power beyond moral suasion, it has put its counsel clearly before the country. (Copyright. 1931 |in AME Chinese Emperor in the Han dynasty ordered the construction of a canal in what is now faraway Shensi Province, in China's great northwest. Today O. J. Todd, American, chief engineer for the China International Famine Relief ‘Commissis which is & $1.000,000 project. the Han Emperor first tackled the work, about the time Christ was born, thousands of construction programs at the same place during the T'ang, Ming and Man- chudynuu‘u.mdp-not the work is being done similarly now. But the most difficult portion is be- ing lceom,‘;!'llhed by American machin- ery, the it time large Western me- chanical apparatus has been used so far in the interior. The shipment of the apparatus, weighing more thah three tons, constitutes an epic in interior travel in this country, for the railway ended several hundred miles from the job and the intervening area is inter- rupted by dangerous mountain passes. A special road had to be built to handle the machine and take it down s lofty hill to the sit f the river. Road re- pair gangs hi precede the machine to enable it to get to the site. The ancient canal system, which its entirety, extends forty-eight miles, in its main portion is nar- row enough for a deer to leap across, Rome Renews Campaign Against Flies, Using Sprays on ROME.—A campaign started last year against files in Rome and the Cam- pagna, with very satisfactory results as a mere experiment, has been resumed this year with systematic efforts on a large scale. The Rdmans have seen for some days an extraordinary kind of light, two- wheeled carts, driven by small motors, scurrying through the city and scatter- ing & mysterious spray along\the houses and in the gutters, against the trees and and all rubbish heaps. o .Dfi:g‘ carts look like old-fashioned fire m'm“.'n?rt’nm red ;nd' with lnre'g tank and two mei 5 Lined up in a depot in the e & they ook like & colicction of u'!x,"m. men are delighted to scurry around with them, and every morning several hundred of these new engines start out on their mission of fly destruc- tion. ‘The files are hunted down r state of evolution they may N eas. Tarvae or winged pests—as - All By-Ways in City Rome and the Campagna from time im- memorial have been infested with them. ‘Tourists who visit the Alban hills find them in myriads even in the highest villages, and they have been g pest to horses, mules and donkeys ever since the Roman Campagna was inhabited. In some places it is impossible in the Summer season for open-air restaurants to exist, as the flles gather in such swarms as to cover the walls, trees and s A marked diminution of the pest was noticed last year wherever the spraying Hope. that the.fies Wil ‘o thoraghls e ly eradicated in time. i e B e sugary ul ire or e 3 which they u:km:lth eagerness and which kills them almost instantly. It A warning has been posted eve: 10 wilow “the “aniihy squads® 4o low “antifiy P gardens, ards and any places' where files are (Gopyright, 1931.) 'where ts PEIPING.—About 32,000 years ago a | on, is completing the job, | RICAN TO COMPLETE 2,000-YEAR-OLD CANAL Repeats Threé Tons of Apparatus Sent to Quaint Chinese Section in Interest of Trade Development. but is abysmally deep in solid rock. The series of canals give an impression of being Chinese curios on an enormous scale, and are about as useful in mod- ern life as Han dynasty bronzes and Sung metal mirrors. ‘The intense interest in the site, from a historical viewpoint, is increased by A number of sturdy old bridges dating back 500 and more years. Their arches are engraved with dragons and other mythological animals in relief in stone. be made to retain one of ‘The canal work is being done where the yellow rapids of the King River pour angrily from a bed sunk ly in & massive mountain gorge. The slippery sides of the immense boulders and the lime conglomerate formation of much of the stone reveal how deeply the river has cut its bed during the ages. ‘The failure of the various canals dur- ing the last 2,000 years to be of use for more than a few hundred years at a time was for the same reason in all the dynasties. The system of construc- tion was to build a dam to divert water into a canal cut into the rock, and thereby to bring it to the plains, where canal extensions irrigated thousands of acres. But while the canal bed decreased during the years due to silt and falling stones, the river sunk deeper into the earth. The time came, therefore, when the river bed was lower than the bot- tom of the canal, and water ceased to flow to the flelds. Then it was necessary to build a dam higher up the river to extend the canal to this point, and then to wait for the process of nature to force the experiment to be repeated. Todd Building New Dam. A dam, four new miles of tunnel and C?n;lu “fi'l the extension and wldedl;l:.lel o old waterways are being A and 90,000 acres of farmland will re- ceive the benefit. A striking example of the expense incurred as the nzu:ho( t:: l:c:o:l! 2 highway system e cost of 5 There are numerous coal mines Shensi Province, and the fuel can be purchased at the pit of the mines for $10 and $15 a ton. But in the lands the price is $75! on the beings over roundabout routes is the zxg_!ha:nuon Standard Oil Corporation in 1914 went to large expense to investigaté“the oil resources of the province, and & cflncuul:n !WI"I .gbu.ln;d from the m; ernment. But although a large amount of ofl is said to have been located, the cost of getting it out of the province was forbidding and the project was Mr. Todd this month will resume work on another ation ject. ‘This is in Suiyuan vince and is in- itribute toward conve also destroys the larvae and the eggs. | dropped. Sorrow," into “China’s Blessing.” b | | | systems needed improvement. Since March 4, 1929, there have heen estab- lished, or provided for, an independent parole board; new penal institutions: Federal prison camps; = hospital for defective delinquents; diversified em- ployment of Federal prisoners; medical service in the Federal prisons by the Public Health Service; the reorganiza- tion of the probation system: a prison bureau in the department with new personnel; a training school for prison guards; an educational system for pris- oners; a scientific analysis of the food in the prisons, and a farm system for outdoor employment of prisoners. The work of acquisition of sites and con- struction of new institutions is well under way. Nothing visionary is being done, but 98 per cent of all Federal prisoners are released and returned to society, and the public welfare requires that as many of them as pessible shall be rehabilitated for that purpose. Dur- ing this administration the Federal Government has taken the lead in prison reform. Complete in Two Years. During the next two years this york Baen Studving, 1n comoperation, with the , in co-operation President’s Commission on Law Ob- servance and Enforcement, the method of dealing with - juvenile delinquents. During the six months ending Decem- ber 31, 1930, 2.243 boys and girls, 18 years of age and under, were taken into custody by the Federal authorities for alleged violation of Federal statutes. ‘The training of juvenile delinquents should be left more to State authori- ties. That burden properly belongs on the communities from which they come, and from the standpoint of the welfare of the children they are better off under the control of local magistrates and agencies in their own communities. The Federal Government is not in a posi- tion to perform ‘that service well. It has not enough of that work to justify Avincies Tor that pocpres. 1a Has with a or ] President Hoover’s well known interest in child welfare we expect to devise methods by which many juveniles ar- rested by Federal authorities may be returned to their home States for de- tention, and'to improve the methods of Aealing with those retained in Federal custody. . 2, In connection with the problem of efficient law enforcement, delays and ort resulting from the in | United oon! erting the “Yellow River,” known as “China’s cles & co business-like, satisfactory results are attainable even with a poor system to- work with, and no matter how perfect the sysf may be, if the officers sre d it and public sentiment is mat aroused, delay and inefficlency result. D. C. Supreme Court Jam. mh nlun{-u what m‘: done . in s way, two years ago Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, which - is a trial court, was a year and a half behind in disposing of its criminal busi- ness. Two additional judges have been provided by law, but without further legislation or fundamental changes in | procedure, the court, working in co-op- | eration with a committee of the bar, | and with increased activity in the Dis- trict attorney's office, and conferences with officials of this department super- vising the work, has brought its erim- inal docket up to date, is able to try every criminal case within a few weeks after it is begun, has disposed of ali | pending abatement cases under the na- tional prohibition act. and in another year should be able to make its civil docket current. These methods will be urged in other districts where congestion exists. Dur- ing the next three months officials of this department will visit those Federal districts in which serious congestion is found, gnd by consultation with the judges and co-operation from the local | bar and increased activity on the part | of district attorneys' offices, without fundamental changes in the methods of administration of criminal justice, we should succeed, in a r ible time, in removing delay in criminal trials, and opening the way for prompt disposition of private litigation. ¢ 3. Another exceptional task for the department has been the transfer from the Treasury to the Department of Jus- tice of - the, prohil unit, having charge of the detection and prosecution of offenses under the national prohibi- tion act. That transfer was made on July 1, 1930. The Prohibition Burean has now been in this department for 10 months. It has been considerably been placed at the of it. His work is being done with sin- cerity and earnestness. A well organ- ized force has been established for ths training of prohibition agents in proper and intelligent methods. ¢ Dry Enforcement Policy. When the eighteenth amendment was adopted it was not intended that the Federal Government should undertake the whole task of enforcement. ! E g 4 i ¥ i z_gggi we Federal forces are required to perform that share properly belongs to the Federal Gov- ernment. In connection with the genersl prob- lem of law enforcement, the extent to which the Federal Government should deal with gangsters and racketeers has been considered. Racketee! prevails in the larger cities as part the ac- tivities of criminal gangs. In onecom- munity, we know of 48 different kinds of rackets. Wherever there is inef- clency or corruption on the part of State authorities, demands are made on the Federal Government to inter- vene, and to invoke the income tax laws, the anti-trust laws, the nationa! prohibition act or what not, to sup~ press organized crime. Dealing with organized crime s largely a local problem. These criminal gangs commit 10 violations of State law ;.‘o ]‘“v,l'l;htb'l;‘ ll“&‘ hdel:.lhm. eve ess partment has 2 ible way to help break &7: these criminal organizations. the foundation of cases b) 3 work of spect of nobor s recently have been sentencet to the Federal penitentiaries. We are not through, and there will be othérs to go the same road, but the fact that primary Guty and esposatbiity of pan- uty and res) pum- ishing them upon the Mml’am- ment, and until State istrates, stimulated by public opinion, fiw‘ of this problem, it will not be Gangs Not Dependent on Liquor. v,hnp.fln l:l‘;:lflon has Ilmn de nn;: e source of ga 3 the profit derived from menmm traffic and that the elimination, by some means, of this source of revenuc would put an end to criminal gangs and racketeering. In the recent in- come tax prosecutions against a num- ber of these organized gangsters, it was developed that on an average not over 20 per cent of their revenue came from liquor tr: s dimin- of sefieul conditions, the removal of illieft liquor traffic as a source of rev- enue would not end gangsterism and 8. In the enforcement of Federal penal statutes, including the national - bition act, the Department of Justice does not intend to rest on its ears. ‘While substantial progress has been made in the past two years, our efforts will be unremitting. : the next three months regional conferences attended by assistant at- torneys general will be held with m; of United States attorneysand p: A tion admi tors to take stock of our present situation.and complete the co-ordinal between _the prosecuting atforneys and the Prohibition Bureau which was the purpose of the transfer of the unit to this department, and in respects to continue effective enforcement of (Continued on