Evening Star Newspaper, May 21, 1933, Page 21

Part 2—8 Pages WORLD TENSION LIFTED, BUT FUTURE IS OBSCURE Speedy Agreements at Both Geneva and London Unlikely Despite Hitler’s Bril- liant Retreat From Arms Stand. BY PAUL SCOTT MOWRER. ARIS—What is the outlook for Have the French the slightest inten- tion to abancon within five years their heavy arms, thus shifting the balance WASH | EDITORIAL SECTION he Sunday She. INGTON, D. C, SUNDAY MORNING, MAY 21, 1933. Will the Railroads Survive? It Is Absolutely Vital That Nation Continue to Be Bound Together by Great Transportation Lines. the Disarmament and World | of 5 : | y power in the sense of weakening | Economic_ Conferences now that | prance and strengthening Germany and | German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, under the pressure of a British threat of sanctions and President Roosevelt's firm but conciliatory ap- peal, has made a brilliant and strategic | Tetreat? | ‘That the tension has greatly eased | is felt everywhere. But that tremendous difficulties remain is equally clear. What the world wants is speedyi agreements at both Geneva and Lon-| d But unless there should be new en sensational developments s today as if what the world is v to get is a secries of exceed- d negotiations, which, by the of various adjournments, s and_technical committees, the holding over of the main issues until the Autumn. By that time what the general situ- ation will be nobody ventures to predict. The American delegation at Geneva is will ) Italy, unless, at the same time, they receive definite mutual aid guaranties from Great Britain and the United | States? ‘ Finally, what will Japan say to all this? | It is possible to assume that by some | miracle the atmosphere will be clear and at least the broad outlines of agree- ment will be reached by the middle of June. But the probabilities are that | the time is too short. T What atpears more likely is a new tension and a crisis about then. under the stress of which the Economic Con- ference will me=t in Lendon. Economic problems appear hardly less stubborn than disarmament. There is not yet the slightest real evidence that the vicious circles paralyzing the economic talks have been broken. | Will Great Britain agree to stabilize | unless there is first some definite, final preparing under President Roosewelt's War-debt settlement? vigorous impetus to make a big fight | Nobody in Europe thinks so. | for a swift agreement, even perhaps | Can the United States stabilize even | if necessary, inviting the heads of states | if it wants to without upsetting the themselves to come and cut the dead- | r-ice level, whieh seems to be the cen- Jock. It has long been felt in some circles that if Hitler and Italian Premier Benito Mussolini could actually meet | and talx with British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonsald and French Pre- mier Edouard Daladier. possibly under American auspices, some good would almost certainly result. Former Secretary of State Henry L. | Stimson had a siniilar idea & year ago. Norman H. Davis, President Roosevelt's personal envoy, utilized it effectively in November to get Germany back into the Disarmament Conference. The time has perhaps come to resort to it once more. The next few days will tell. Meanwhile, nobody knows exactly what the real situation is in the m: ter of disarmament. Some of the ques- tions which must be answered before much progress can be made are these: Is the United States ready to talk a consultative pact and embargo against an aggressor immediately, and even if President Roosevelt is prepared, can he secure the backing of Congress? Does Hitler's Reichstag speech really mean that Germany has abandoned its recent pesition and cause of recent ex- citement, to the effect that, unless the other powers cut promptly to the Ger- man level, Germany will arm up to theirs? If Germany agrees within five years to replace the Reichswehr by a small conscript army, will it insist that the United States and Great Britain also adopt conscript armies, and will it abanden its opposition to the French colonial professional army? Meanwhile, does Germany demand both to keep the Reichswehr and to build up a conscript army? Other Issues Grave. Does Hitler's speech mean that Ger- many wishes to occupy and fortify the demilitarized Rhineland on the grounds that this is a logical consequence of President Roosevelt's plea? Have the British and French aban- dened all intention of forcing an inves- tigation of Germany's real military sit- uation with a view to ascertaining whether the treaty of Versailles is really being broken, and to what ex- tent? |ter of President Roosevelt's economic policy and to which he seems to plan | 10 2-0pt the future value of the dollar? European experts doubt it. Debt Action Unlikely. Is a war-debt settlement in the near future possible? According to the information of Eu- | velt would like to deal drastically and | promptly with this question, but, in view of the opposition in Congress. he feels unable to o so for the present. But if there are no war debt settle- | ment and no British and American stabilization. how can quotas and tariffs be effectively discussed? For, abviously, no country is going to undertake new tariff agreements or remove its quota restrictions in the face of fluctuating currencies. Co-operation to raise and stabilize prices seems also to depend on the stabilization of currencies. As for the United States’ proposals for remonetizing silver, they are looked on with a good deal of disfavor abroad. They are, indeed, wid€ly considered to | be mainly a drive on the part of lead, | copper and silver producers in their own interest. | Such being the outlook, MacDonald's | plan appears to be to try to conduct negotiations simultaneously on = all points. What appears likely is that the Economic Conference will open with a | lot of speeches in favor of international | co-operation, each nation warning the | others of the dangers involved in non- co-operation. Then numerous technical committees will be appointed and, while these comniittees discuss the details throughout the Summer, the main con- ference will be suspended and Great Britair;, France and Italy will endeavor to draw the United States ‘into war debt negotiations with a view to. a dime-for-a-dollar settlement as fore- seen in the Lausanne agreements. Meanwhile, will the world stand still? Will nothing more happen? Will the dollar continue to fluctuate? Will the American price boom hold? Can Swit- | zerland, Holland and France stay on the gold standard? Can Germany get the new foreign loan it needs? Optimism may be justified. Signs of Do they consider Germany still bound | real leadership are indubitably appear- by the Versailles treaty’s military |ing here and there. But even im: ropean chancelleries, President Roose- | BY CLAUDE R. PORTER, Interstate Commerce Commissioner. ILL the railroads survive? In | the main, yes. In their en- | ‘The question as | road situation is a subject | which is before the public eye—the | investing public, the public transport- | ing property. and the wage earner. Speaking of railroads generally, there | is no question as to the need for thc | maintenance of a system of rail trans- portation between the States, not only to bind the country into one common | whole, but also to maintain a means of transportation that may be necessary {in times of military emergency. Such rail lines, if they cannot be main- tained with the traffic that comes to | | them naturally, should receive Govern- | ment suprort when absolutely necessary in a military crisis. i The Railway. Situation. Now, as to the general situation in connection &i.ul’;mlroldasxh"n are faced with g con 3 | (1) ‘The gross tonnage of freight carried by railrcads in 1910 was 1,850,- 000,000 tons. In 1932 it was 1,280,000~ | 000 tons. Gross freight revenue in 1910 was $1,925,000.0 | 00, or ‘a revenue of | | about $1.04 per ton, and in 1932 was | $2,449,000,000 or_a revenue of about | $1:91 per ton. The operating expense | tn 1910 was $1,820,000.000 at a cost of | about $0.98 per ton, and in 1932 was | 32,430.000,00 at a cost of $1.90 per ton. This shows an increase of approximate- |1y 94 per cent in the per ton rate of | | operating expense and 84 per cent in the rate of operating revenue. gers carried in 1910 were 971,000,000, in Passen- (4) Funded indebtedness has in- | creased about 40 per cent since 1910. | | is 10 per cent below that of 1910. | (6) Revenue freight tonnage has de- elzsed approximately 30 per cent since |5 | | (7) Farm products index has de- | creased 60 per cent since 1910. | (8) Methods of transporting freight have increased in efficiency and ca- | p-lcny approximately 35 per cent since | 1910. | Background of Problem. Keeping in mind the above funda- mentals, it might be well now to review certain historical phases of the trans- portation situation. Transportation, like other things in history, and to a smaller extent in our own country, is primarily a subject of evolution. We must realize that railroads replaced and supplanted the oxen, the wagon trains and the canal boats in the transportation field, and that now they have been replaced in certain phases of the transportation to Accept Canc Pledges of C BY FRANK H. SIMONDS. HIS article is written from what is locally known as the Deep South. That contact has re- vealed unmistakably the interest- ing fact that in the regions | l END OF DEBTS QUESTION HELD UP TO PRESIDENT American Public Regarded as Ready ellation Despite ongressmen. | rigid supervision, but if the United States had not in recent years made | bad loans, it would not have collected anything upon either public or private debts and when it stopped making these bad loans it ceased to collect on its theoretically good debts. through which I have traveled there is 2 an Unquestionable Shift i public opIN- | the sonmin nE,.5 EONE to happen a% |ion in the matter of the war debts.|debt problem remains & bone of con- Doubtless it would be easy to exag- | tention. It is possible to dodge the | gerate the extent of the change, yet the | jscue temporarily by & new. ma universal testimony is that the Presi- | but it is not possible to reach any per- dent could, if he chose, enlist & tre- manent decision about currencies or mendous popular support for any policy | tariffs—that is on the questions which of debt revision however drastic which | must be settled if results are to be he might champion, and Congress would | achieved—until final disposition is find it unpopular to oppose Mr. Roose- | reached over the debts. (5) The all-commodity index in 1932 | velt even on that issue. It is, moreover, interesting to me to observe the fashion in which American public opinion in the matter of the debts is following the course of the French about reparations. For more than 10 years both branches of the French Parliament were filled with sen- ators and deputies who found in the | assertion “Germany must pay” | forced by the declaration * can pay” one of the surest ways of ap- | proach to the French voter. Neverthe. less, & year mgo, when Herriot actually | | cancelled the German reparations obli- | gations, so far from encountering popu- | | lar condemnation he met a public opin- | fon already satisfied of the real truth | that Germany would not pay and could | not be made to pay. | On the other hand. no less clear is | the convictfon in the towns I have vis- | ited that unless Mr. Roosevelt himself, | by a direct and frank explanation of the | facts in the case, speaks to the people |as he has on two previous ocgasions, | there is little chance that a decisive | shift in popular opinion will come in | time or to an extent necessary to enable American representatives at the London Economic Conference to act effectively. Exchange of Goods Necessary. | Within recent days it has been my good fortune to be in close contact first with the European view as to debts set forth by the experts and journalists who accompanied MacDonald and Her- riot to Washington, and then with cer- tain fairly detached segments of popu- | lar opinion in this country. A< to the | European view there is no question. | Relatedly, but in the end completely, | European publics as well as politicians have arrived at the perception that the collection of war debts like that reparations is a purely economic prob- lem, so far viewed only politically. | “Economically i was possible for | Germany to pay reparations, at least up |to a certain point. is only if the | nations who insisted upon payment were prepared to open their markets to Ger | man goods and consent to accept Ger. | man services. But from the very outset | the nations which insisted upon- pay- ment—and Great Britain in particular— of | It is of course conceivable that & compromise might be reached by which the debts were first scaled down and then transformed into private accounts by the issuance of a huge lot of bonds by the debtor nations. Those bonds would be sold on the American market and thereafter the United States Gov- ernment would vanish from the case and what would remain would be the problem of the private American in- estor of collecting interest and princi- pal on his new securities. Authority Needed. But while the United States Treasury might profit, the individual investor would still be in trouble unless Con- gress chose to reduce tariffs and en- | courage the sale of foreign goods on | the American market. Only then could | the foreign governments get American | exchange to pay the American bond- | holders. Once more, as in the case of | the making of the debts originally, Eu- | rope would get no money with which to pay. And once more—unless all signs 1—the United States would decline to accept European goods at the cost of | immediate domestic unemployment. | Thus if the President limits his re- quest to Congress to an appeal for a ‘morlwrlum to endure while the Lon- don Conference is in session and con- | tinues to adhere to his plan to carry on debt negotiations parallel and not together with discussions of currency and tariff, he will still at the end have |to “sell” the people what amounts to | a complete cancellation along with such tariff and monetary agreements as he | may make. And if he lacks authority | to deal definitively with debts he is un- likely to make progress on other lines unless the European debtors decide to ;ndl tthe matter decisively by direct de- ault. * Actually that seems to me the sim- plest and the most reasonable method. | The British cabinet. Parliament and people, for example, are all convinced that further debt payments are me- | chanically impossible unless there is a change in American tariff policy. They | are aware such a change is improbable. | They have gambled in the recent past, |as in case of the December | ment. that Americ | fleld by the advent of the automobiles, | sought by every known device to prevent | would become xm‘{l‘;fl _ tricks, pipe lines and airplanes. ‘The interurban ejectric railways have come into existence and are disappear- | ing—a victim of evolution and the | march of time. The electric railways are not at this time a part of any major necessary transportation struce ture, and to that extent they became cconomically parasitic, as are the un- necessary and needless main and branch lines. The electric interurban railways, therefore, are disappearing from the transportation field. Having nothing to feed on but themselves, they are, there- fore, dying. Reviewing the facts shown above, we are confronted with the inevitable con- |the inflow of German goods which | might compete with domestic. [~ For a certain time Germany was able to-pay in gold because she turned back [into reparations what she borrowed | from the United States through the sale | of German securities both public and private. Thus the reparations creditors | received their payments without the necessity of absorbing German goods. And in turn the United States received these same payments from the war debtors without having to absorb their goods. Europe is now fully aware of the fact that when we stopped lending to Ger- | many. Germany stopped paying them | That gamble has proven thus far & | miscalculation. The only question that remains open in the British mind does not concern continued payments, but only whether one more payment might keep the | American Congress quiet while the American people were educated to debt Tealities. They have no intention”of paying more, they have no idea that such payments could be continu physically for any length of time. Bu today the present British Government | could default without costing any mem- | ber of Parliament his job, since publi sentiment is against payment. | 1932 were 483,000,000. (2) Wages have increased since 1910, | | clusion that our transvortation facili= |in goid or exchange. But then it was | Cancellation Unlikely. | fies are not only oversupplied, but fool= | less ready than before to take German ¥ In the American Congress, however clauses, and, if so, does Germany admit | diately the future is still obscure. this? (Copsright. 1933.) | U. S. and Britain Ti ed in Scoring As Leading Powers of the World ROME, Italy.—The United States and Great Britain are tied for first place as the world’s greatest powers, France 1s second, Japan third and Italy fourth, according to an ingenious scoring sys- tem devised by a writer here. The nations with the scores they his system are Germany Russia .. last place to first and Italy from eighth to fourth. . France, which in 1871 was surpassed only by Great Britain, yielded place also to America. The United States has been slipping badly since 1025, the author of the scoring system thinks, although he does not explain his reason for believing so, whereas Great Britain has been gaining. France has entered into a decline, Japan is just holding its own and Italy, Germany and Russia are all increasing in importance. Rank of United States. The rank which the United States gets in each category is as follows Rank Third Ninth 8eventh Stcond Flrst Seventh e scores are based on 14 factors e which, the writer con- ine the greatness of a se are total population, . army, navy, le marine, n, farm production, production -of en- (railroads, roads banking activity, tourist trade and colonies. population v of population production Production of energ | 146 per cent—they are approximately 63 ‘per cent of operating expenses. Taxes | have increased since 1910 211 per cent. | Funded indebtedness has increased from | £10.300,000.000 1n 1910 to $14,260.000.000 | in 1931, This shows that the total rail- road exvenses have increased Approxi- | mately 85 per cent, and have kept pace with the increase in rates. (3) In 1910 the transportation system of the country contained 240.000 road miles of railroad and _approximately 200,000 mijes of hard-surfaced roads. We have no definite figure on pipe lines, but there were perhaps 30,000 miles. There were no airways. This makes a total of 470.000 miles. In 1930 the | transportation system contained ap- | proximately 260,000 miles of railroad, | 700,000 miles of hard-surfaced roads.| 106,000 miles of crude oil and 2800 miles of gasoline pipe lines, and 30,000 miles of airways, making a ‘total of 1.080,000 miles. ‘In 1910 there were 458500 automobiles, and in 1930. 23.- 042.000. Therc were in 1910, 10,000 | trucks, and in 1930, 3,480,939, | (4) In 1920 the water-porne domestic | traffic of our coast ports was 47,262,000 | tons, and in 1920 it was 117,821,000 tons. or an increase of 149 per cent in | the 10 years. The Ohio River carried 9.382,000 tons of freight in 1920 and Rise Is Shown. gives the scores for the 1901 and 1931. During this the United States arose from ‘The write years 187 i Banking activity.... Tourist _trad ? Transportatio Colonies .. Sixth (Copyright. 1 Conver Into Home S when British scrvice in tne it during the World Wat g to the Belgian authorities ve a few of the remaining con- boxes there as reminders of the grim_struggle in that hectic national interest here has be- aroused over the threatened con- At a time cho_saw ion of Waterloo Battlefiel d ites Brings Protests They are 25 to 30 feet high and have walls nearly 10 feet thick. Five of them which lately have been sold for conver- sion into residences are located in the Countles of Essex, Suffolk, Kent and Sussex at every high tide, was split open oy the heavy seas during a storm this Winter. (Copyright, 1933 Another one which is buffeted | | n of the battlefield of Waterloo, | ‘I from Brussels, into housing | 25,337,000 tons in 1930. an increase of 138 per cent in 10 years. On the War- rior and Tombigbee Rivers there were carried 600,000 tons in 1920 and 1.582.- | 000 tons in 1930, & gain of 164 per cent in 10 years. There were carried on the Mississippi between Vicksburg and New Orieans in 1920, 2.874,000 tons, and in 1930, 9,178,000 tons, an increase of 219 per cent in the 10 yeafs. Two decades ago this freight was all enjoyed by the railroads (5) Since 1910 rail equipment has in- creased in tractive power approximately 50 per cent, the number of freight-train cars per fright train has increased ap- proximately 50 per cent. the average capacity of all types of freight cars| has increased approximately 15 per cent. Basic Facts in Problem. Summarizing briefly the basic general situation, we have the following: In the transportation field generally: (1) The railroad was practically the ddly enough, s number of Martello 0 pillboxes,” constructed along sh coast during the Napoleonic Prench invaston of have been sold for de residences. members of have introduced 1 a law passed on Ma h insured the preservatfon of he battlefield of W: 100. Its enact- ment followed a strong agitation in this country to keep it intact as a historical monument. Pressure the a tations to the Belgian government to prevent the building over of the famous battle site. It is asserted by Belgian supporters of the building project that the site now is urgently required ‘or dwellings. on it will not be touched Thene has been no outery here against the conversion of the Martello “pill- boxes” into Summer homes. a tower at Cape Martella, in Corsica which withstood the almost pointblank bombardment of three English frigates Most of them were erected | Association has arranged to hire story- along the Channel coast, although sev- | tellers for daily programs in the hos- | eral more were placed at strategic points | pitals. Meanwhile, the writers' guilds um:finthe coast of Ireland, particularly | of Peiping have issued & strong de- Dublin Ba. ddhists’ runnq in 1793 y. The Martello towers are young lon: rompared with World War “pillboxes. but that the historic farms supply Buddhists Condemn Modern Literature FEIPING.—Pious Chinese Buddhists, secking methods for comforting and entertaining wounded Chinese soldi=rs, ruled out the modern Chinese novel in favor of the professional story-teller. “There is no spiritual uplift in the your corre- is being exerted on the spondent was told by the abbot secre- government to make friendly represen- | tary of the Chu Shih Lin Buddhist | “It was originally | | our idea to supply wounded soldiers in e various hospitals of Peiping with ht literature, but a scrutiny of the available on the local market modern Chinese novel,” | Association here. | thy lg shows few works of wholesome nature. Modern Chinese writers emphasize that ual side of life far too much, and it They are is better for the soldiers to hear from said to have derived their names [rom | the lips of story-tellers the tales of ex- ploits of China’s national heroes great in our history.” Accordingly, nunciation of the i‘l’lfllfl their works. (Copyright, 1033 " |only means of transportation for pas- sengers and freight in 1910. (2) Our transportation system has in- | creased in extent an indefinite amount, | probably not less than 25 per cent nor more than 50 per cent (3) At the present time automobiles and busses carry approximately the same number of passcngers as the rail- roads. (4) Means of transportation have in- creased perhaps 25 per cent since 1910 (5) Miles of way that transportation may use increased approximately 130 per cent since 1910. Divisions of Transportation. As to the transportation field, the fol- | lowing fundamentals are true: 1 (1) The transportation of freight by land, both bulk and light, between dis- tant centers should be the exclusive railroad field. (2) The transportation of liquid freight bctween centers is partly rail- road and partly pie line field. (3) The transportation of freight from transportation - centers to nearby | | the Peiping Buddhist points of consumption should be ex- clusively the automobile and truck ficid. (4) The transportation of passengers is divided between rall automo- | biles, busses and aeroplanes. (5) The rallroads h:-nmde;med great Inlnfl per unit t- carrying fleld. i CLAUDE R. PORTER, INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSIONER. (6) Water-borne craft is an impor- tant factor for the transportation of bulk freight for long distances, but rc- | auires the aid of the railroad or truck to reach the inland In the railroad field: (1) Operating revenues have in- SHOALS AT LAST ON VER OF PEACE AFTER 15 YEARS| creased approximately 84 per cent per ton_since 1910. (2) Operating expenses have in- creased approximately 94 per cent per ton_since 1910, (3) The cost of labor has increased 146 per cent since 1910 GE ‘Mammoth Project, White Elephant of Army, Proposed as Keystone in Huge National Development Program. BY FRANK J. CARMODY. ORN of a Nation's need for ni- trates to make munitions of war, and surviving for 15 bar- ren but spectacular years in the newspaper headlines, the gigan- tic Government project at Muscle Shoals stands on the verge of a use- ful. peaceful life Under the sympathetic auspices of the Roosevelt administration, the Ten- nessee Valley property becomes the key- stone in a huge national development program. The frowning destiny which the enormous scheme encountered until now scems about to turn upon it an- other and more pleasant face. Entering upon a new phase, this huge project concludes as stormy a career as, ever marked the growth of a Federal enterprise. A wild child sprung from the loins of Mars, orphaned almost at birth, adopted and reared in that in- harmonious, common home of Republic- ans and Democrats on Capitol Hill, it is small wonder that Muscle Shoals still is much of a mystery to the aver- age American Its case history, which constitutes as vivid a document as one is likel come across anywhere, strips the pro of the aura of confusion which has sur- rounded it 2 It was started. One goes bac: to the early days of the World War for the opening curtain in the drama of Muscle Shoals. Among the most harrassing war supply issues confronting those at the head ot the American military machine was the question of nitrates. They are indis- pensable to the production of explosives, the very basis of munitions of war. The United States had a source of supply in Chile, but there always existed the pos- sibility of an enemy blockade, which, even though overestimated, suggested the wisdom of a domestic supply of the procuct. * Requires Cheap Power. Nitrates exist in the atmosphere in the form of nitrogen, but the process of conversion requires special facilities and, above all, a cheap scurce of power. Hydroelectric power immediately popped into the worried minds of those charged with making the United States self-sufficient in respect to nitrates. Three specifications of the source to be selected were adequacy of power, & rea- sonable location from the standpoint of transportation and a location far enough inland to be secure from moles- » tation by actual or potential enemy | orces. | " The eyes of military engineers scanned the broad map of the United States in quest of a site that measured up to these specifications. When they stopped | at a sleepy little spot in Northern Ala. bama, the moment marked the begi ning of one of th~ most vivid power dramas in American history. Thereto- fore unknown except locally, Muscle Sheals immediately leaped into a prom- inent position at the top of page 1 of the newspapers, a place it has surren- dered only intermittently ever since. What is Muscle Shoals? Briefly this: A 37-mile s nessee River, in the course of which the water drops 137 feet in a series of falls and rapids. “Flashy” is an engineer’s colorful descriptive adjective. It is ap- plied to streams of water which vary greatly in volume and rate of flow. Just how apt the term is as applied to | the Tennessee River is demonstrated in the fact that its discharge has been known to vary from 7.350 cubic feet per second to 500,000 cubic feet. trickle to a torrent! 600,000-Hersepower Capacity. Just what this mea ment of ‘hydroelectric power is indi- cated in the fact that the Muscle Shoals project is capable cf generating §00.007 horsenower of current When the Government decided to go into the nitrate business for the sake of national security, this area of the temperamental and tempestuous little | river was being utilized by the Ala- bama Power Co. The development, de- signed to supplement the steam plants | of the utility company, was infintesimal, | of course, as compared with that visual- ized by the military representatives of Uncle Sam. The genesls of the gigantic project is to be found in the national defense act passed June 3, 1916, 10 months be- fore the United States entered the World War. Section 124 of that act reads: “The President of the United Stetes * * * is further authorized to | construct, maintain, and operate, at or on any site or sites so designated, dams, locks, improvements to navigation, | power houses, and other plants and |equipment or other means than water | power as in his judgment is the best and cheapest necessary or convenient for the generation of electrical or other power and for the production of nit- (Continued on Fourth Page.) From a lishly so, and to disregard this con=|goods and so it did the only other , | clusion is to indicate a blindness to the | economical possibilities of the- situs= tion. When we take into condera- tion the general efficiency of the new | system over the old it but accentuates the picture. To maintain all the new means of transportation the people must pay ine creased charges or some of the old | transportation facilities must be cur- tafled or discarded. If railroads or por- | | tions of railroads have been supplanted, | either through their own efficiency or | additional faciities, then to that extent ed through their ‘own efficiency” mean that one line of track in the old days hauled 1,000 tons of traffic & day. they must be discarded. By “supplant-, | possible thing which was to cancel rep- arations by the Lausanne settlement. Today it seems still impossible to make a majority in Congress recognize that the problem of debt payment—war and private alike—is a problem soluble only by opening the American market to foreign competitive goods or cancella- on. Must Open Markets. If we open our markets, sales of goods by our debtors will provide them with the means to discharge their obligations. If we cancel, the issue will be closed. | But 50 long as we sell more abroad than ‘we buy, rather than getting payment on account of governmental or private | debts we shall only have to permit the It now will haul 3,000 tons, due to | purchasers of our goods to add the dif- | larger cars, larger and faster engines, |ference to our bill against them. They | increased automatic devices and heavier | have got to get possession of American rail. The need for the old number of | money to pay the debts and they can tracks has dlsappeared and they should |only get possession of that money as be dispensed with or discarded. If this | they sell us more than they buy from | 1s not done we will have a structure | us. | burdened by parasitic. non-paying rail- The fallacy of the talk about reducing | roads and branches which must inevit- | the sum of ‘the debts lies of course in | ably bring destruction to the whole | the fact that such a step only reduces | structure. An increase in rates may de- | the amount the debtors cannot pay. It | fer the cataclysm a certain time, but | G0es not open the way for any paymefit | ot for long. whatsoever. The familiar claim that | the United States has already reduced | | etch in the flashy Ten- | Functions Have Changed. It is becoming apparent that certain functions of our railroad system have been supplanted and therefore should be abandoned, certain functions have | been curtailed and other functions | increased. The change in personnel | and savings incident with this abandon- ment and curtallment are but a logical sequence and when made in conjunc- tion with the main functions they be- come elemental. It is the maintenance | of the abnormal and unbalanced trans- portation conditions which is the cause of the major trouble in the transporta- tion field. Savings incident to the sal- aries of officials, laborers, trainmen, etc., sink into insignificance when con- sidered in connection with the abnor- mal wastefulness in connection with the major phases. Trying to maintain a railroad trans- | the European debts greatly is true but | Irrelevant because we have also done | nothing to facilitate any payment. Con- | gress has just been passing a bill forbid- ding new foreign investments save under majority of members still seem to be- lieve the country would hold them re- sponsible for cancellation, in the light of their platform . ‘Thus legis- lation agreeing to cancellation is un- likely in any present time and a mora- torium would be of only limited value even if attainable. I think Congress underestimates the present strength of the President with the people and his | power, if he chose, to bring the majority to cancellation. But if the President will not appeal to the country and will (mot or does not view war debts as dead and needing to be buried, the |London conference is hardly likely |to end in a shorter time or have |a more prosperous existence than the | Disarmament Conference now deep in |its second year. It may be that debts will have to be disposed of by degree as reparations had to pass through the stages of the | Dawes plan and the Young plan before the sponge and the clean slate of the Lausanne phase was reached. But in that case economic and financial re- adjustment will be postponed and the moment seems at hand when further postponement can work almost ir- reparable damage. Vaguely the country senses something of this fact. Mani- festly it is ready to trust the President. Practically the problem remains this: What is he going to do to convince & public manifestly ready and even eager to listen to him? (Copyright, | 1933.) Militarization of All Schools Sought to Build China’s Army PEIPING.—Despite the posession of what is numerically the greatest stand- ing army in the world, the Chinese gov- | ernment is -urgently pressing - forward |its campaign for complete “militariza- | tion” of the schools. Compulsory mi | tary training has been introduced now in 178 middle schools and colleges in portation 'system covering all of the |17 provinces, according to a statement phases in the fleld, When certain phases | published by the department of mili- have ceased to exist merely indicatey tary training of the,central government | s in the develop- | a blindness that must lead to a catas- | trophe of a major extent. Take the | passenger-carrying field as an example. To close our eyes to the fact that auto- mobiles and busses carried 127,000,000,- 000 passengers one mile in 1920 and 359,000.000.000 passengers one mile in 1930, while railways carried 47,000,000, 000 passengers one mile in 1320 and 27,000,000,000 passengers one mile in 1930 and airplanes carried practically no pas- sengers in 1929, yet in 1932 over 100,- 000,000 passengers were carried one mile, is blinding ourselves to the fact that the carrying of passengers as a major function of a railroad is over, unless something radical is done and done quickly. Passenger fares must come down. The day of large passenger ter- minals and their attendant ticket offices and personnel is gone and they should be curtailed to meet the conditions that now face them. Take the freight-carrying phase of the railroad transportation. This is generally divided into long hauls and short hauls, heavy and light traffic. The short hauls and light traffic have dis- appeared for the railroads. The only excuse. for stations 5 miles to, 25 miles apart, 18 short-haul freight and passengers. -Trucks and are now performing this function, there- fore the need of stations closer than 25 miles and their attendant at Nanking. Although estimates place the number of men under arms in China at between two and & quarter and two and a half | the establishment of military training, nursing, propaganda and cther courses in the schools. The ministry of edu- | cation at Nanking has now issued an | order requesting the opening of nurs- ‘ing and first-aid courses in educa- ]u.:nal institutions where popular de- | mand for them is sufficiently strong to 2 sty |South Seas Expedition merit the move, (Copyright. Seeks Scientific Facts 1933.) million men, with an additional three million schooled in the use of a rifle, government military authorities are not sutisfied with the caliber of men en- | listed under Chinese colors. “Even if we had a hundred million | soldiers in China of the illiterate coclie type,” Gen. Chiang Kai-shek, highest chieftain of the government forces, re- cently said, “they would be useless un- less led well educated officers schooled in the mechanics of twentieth century warfare. We need men capable of sustaining ideals, of understanding will responsible, under the depart- ment of military training, for the edu- cation of Chinese literate youth in the science of warfare. Officers from Gen. Chiang’s own troops are to be sent to ise the work cf each committee. HONOLULU, Hawaii—One of the most elaborately equipped- parties that | ever “set sail” into the romantic south | seas has just left Honolulu, but its | purpose is not to seek romance but cold scientific facts. The expedition, headed by Templeton Crocker, San | Franciseo capitalist, s ‘on his 116-foot | yacht, the Zaca. Its mission is to cale lect anthropological and ethnological data in the remote Solomon group, | where head hunters and cannibals still | exist much as they have done for | countless centuries. | __En route to the Solomons the party | will call at several south-sea ports made | glamorous by such writers as Zane | Grey, Frederick O'Brien, Beatrice Grim- shaw and Charles Warren Stoddard. But. ine glamour is nothing to these 1cearalists, ethn , cartographers and cntomologists. They are hunting flora and fauna but not human speci- t - poses. One purpose of the trip :u:o trace the migrations of the Pacific races, . which now are in * | (Copyrient. 1033)