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THE VITAL ISSUE 13
German virtues into blemishes, and not to prove a
traitor to the Allies and perhaps see her London royal-
ties stopped under the moratorium-if she has any
coming-she denounces Germany for its beauty, its
enchantments and its science, and pats herself com-
placently on the back for being a patriot.
‘An Intellectual Peccadillo of the
“Globe.”
Great Britain and Labor.
(From the New York “Globe.”) I
What is the matter with Great Britain if measures
such as Lloyd George proposes must be resorted to?
P17 e hear nothing of this sort in Germany. Cannot
British labor be depended upon in a national crisis?
Is the class consciousness of the workers so much
stronger than their patriotism that they are interested
only in their own personal advantage?
Now Great Britain sees what she should have seen
years ago-that her national life depends upon the
efficiency and devotion of her working classes. She
would like to remove the stigma which has long been
attached to labor and make work in these factories as
honorable as service at the front. The demand for
men at the front has greatly depleted the ranks of labor
and has drawn from it a large portion of the better
skilled. She must depend for the equipment of her
armies upon the labor of her disinherited millions, on
the capacity for devotion of her submerged and neg-
lected masses. These masses are acting precisely as
was to be expected. Naturally there is alarm.
There is a grim principle of national retribution at
work. With all her boasted Anglo-Saxon democracy
Great Britain until recently has, compared with Ger-
many, done little for her working people. There is
probably no great nation whose working people have
‘suffered so terribly from the industrial development of
modern times as England, and no place among civilized
nations where such hopeless misery, such masses of
besotted, helpless, poverty-stricken humanity could be
found as in the slums of the great cities of England.
While England has been acting as the missionary of
representative democracy to the heathen and neglect-
ing her poor at home, Germany has been putting into
practice Bismarck’s policy of social legislation. Ger-
many has taken the lead among the great nations in
social justice to her working people.
When the war began Germany had the best fed, best
trained, best cared for working class of Europe, and
to-day Germany, with all her millions of men at the
, front, has arms and ammunition in plenty. Cynics
will say that Prussianmilitarism has had no humani-
tarian motive in developing its working class to be
food for cannon. No one will claim that it has. But
the point is, it has developed them, and that fact alone
enables Germany to hold its own against all Europe.
Great Britain’s present plight is a lesson to govem-
ing bodies everywhere. Life is a struggle for sur-
vival, and the nation which fails to give the very last
man a fair chance to live and make the most of himself
does so at its peril. .
Apparently the 24th of June was something like an
intellectual holiday. The autocratic headline artist of
the ‘'Globe’’ enjoyed himself on the front page, the
editorial slave felt himself unobserved and so a bit of
truth was let out. Now, the holidays are over again.
Is it any wonder that nobody but the Times would
publish such a mess of self-contradiction, involved
reasoning and decadent method of thought?
Oh, that Poultney might marry the widow Gertrude
and start a fiction factory on their joint mental capi-
tal. What a progeny that would be!
RUMANIA IRREDENTA
By the New Anti-Machiavel
Rumania was formed in January, 1859, by the union
of Moldavia and Valachia by Colonel Cusa. In 1866
Prince Carol of Hohenzollem was elected as.Prmce of
Rumania under Turkish suzerainty. Rumania was de-
clared independent by the treaty of Berlin that fol-
lowed the Russo-Turkish war, which was brought. to
a close by the victory of Plevna won by the Rumanian
army, as a reward for her successful assistance to the
Russian army. Rumania was, however, compelled to
cede to her Russian ally that part of Moldavia known
as Bessarabia. In 1881 Rumania was proclaimed a
kingdom.
Transylvania, that part of Hungary bordering on
Rumania and consequently counting among its popu-
lation some people of Rumanian tongue, was con-
quered in 1004 by Stephen l., king of Hungary. In
the XII. century German immigrants settled in the
country; they built seven forts from which Transyl-
vania derives its German name: Siebenburgen. Tran-
sylvania has never belonged to Rumania and since 911
years is a part of what has become the Dual Mon-
archy. From the above it will be seen that the only
former possession which Rumania can rightly claim
is Bessarabia. But Take Jonescu and his consorts
are, like Salandra and Sonnio, accessible to more ma-
terial arguments than right and history.
ONCE A GENIUS, NOW A CAPTAIN.
Pierre Loti Becomes Captain Viaud
Pierre Loti, the famous French author, in his
“Turquic Agonisante” (pp. 16 & 17), has written the
following letter which characterizes Italy’s brutal at-
tack on a peaceful and unprepared country:
“Monsieur: Dccembre, 1911.
“Vous voulez bieu me demander mon avis sur la
Tglorieuse’ entreprise de l’Italie.
“Mais la gloire, ainsie que le bon droit, je ne les
vois que du cote des admirables de'fenseurs du sol
hereditaire, Turcs ou Arabes, qui, surpris par la brus-
querie de l’attaque et n’ayant qu’un armement d’une
inferiorite pitoyable, se font mitrailler quand meme et
massacrer comme des he'ros d’epopee.
“La gloire, du reste, la vraie, la pure, ne saurait
etre jamais du cote des conquerants et des agresseurs.
Je suis assure d’avance que, si vous poursuivez votre
enquete, il se trouvera dans tous les pays d’Europe une
majorite ecrasante pour vous repondre comme moi.
(Signed) P. Loti.”
The French author, who is also :1 captain in the
French navy, did not expect in 1911 that he would in
1915 light at the side of the British, Russians, Italians
and Servians, whose policy of greed he has master-
fully characterized, against Turkey, Germany and
Austria-Hungary. Captain Viaud, F. N., will silence
Pierre Loti, of the Academe Francaise, during the
war, but his opinion of his country’s allies will, if it has
undergone any change, probably have become still
less favorable.