made the wokers suspicious of any plea that a desired social reform is not possible because of the cost. It may be objected that the Labour Party has no definite outlook on national and international policy; but labour is merely a term for crystallising a large quantity of political thought among workers, mental and manual, that aims instinctively at a policy for proletarian objects.

Faced by the war crisis and its results, the leaders of the National Labour Party have deemed it necessary to recast the constitution of the Party and to place a bold social programme before the public to which they appeal. Of this programme I shall only deal with the main proposals. The constitution has been remodelled so as to facilitate the formation of local Labour Parties which shall be definitely the local political group. This involves the relegation of local Trades Councils, who have mostly hitherto been both industrial and political, to the industrial sphere only, though the connection between the two bodies may be very close. It opens the way to admission of many persons to membership who may not be members of trade unions affiliated to the Trades Councils, such as women and professional men. More important is the fact of true individual membership as distinct from affiliated membership through a trade group. This direct membership will undoubtedly form the motive force of local Labour Parties. Its power will be considerable, for apart from its representation on the Committees of the Party, it will often be able strongly to control the election of the representatives from affiliated organisations through active membership of such bodies. On the other hand, the mass power of affiliated unions and other societies will do much to prevent the exploitation of the Party by outside personalities.

The new Labour Party will be compelled to justify itself not only by the opposition of a probable coalition of the financial and landed interests in a new Capitalist Party (of course, it will hide that name under a convenient pseudonym), but also by a constant criticism from Industrial Unionists, Syndicalists, Guild Socialists, and the Ultra Marxians. Syndicalism and ultra-Marxianism are, however, weak in British politics and this will leave the other two as the main critics. The influence of Industrial Unionism is shown in the Labour Party's programme which not only demands a Minimum Standard of Life and the "Right to Work" under the phrase Security of Employment, but also has as a main plank the Democratic Control of Industry. The new school of financial economists are given the item, "Revolution of National Finance," whilst Mr. J. A. Hobson reaps an anonymous victory for his theory of "Social Increment' in the fourth main item, "Surplus Wealth for the Common Good."

The criticism of the Guild Socialists will certainly be that the Labour Party and its programme are Reformist in character instead of Revolutionary. This may be granted. There is no definite recognition of the demand that what is wanted more than the abolition of Poverty is the abolition of the Wage Slave status.

Towards the New Europe

Mr. Austin Harrison, the Editor of the English Review, writing in the December number of his journal, says that in the Allies' triumph, Europe has a new foundation of belief. The old balance of power disappeared with the collapse of Russia and has since passed to America, so that its revival for any protracted periods is conditioned by the democratic will of Britain and secondly by the sanction of America. And the dislocation of the old balance unquestionably militates against the old power theory. With the elimination of the pyramid monarchical state, the power-idea with its territorial or map policy became an anachronism and could hardly be restored. With it there must necessarily go secret diplomacy which is the handmaid of dynastic despotism. The whole Europe starts internationally with a common equation; it will build upwards instead of downwards, and the map becomes a national sanctuary instead of an international potentiality.

As a

What we have overthrown is the pyramid or Monarchical State-henceforth Europe will move on horizontal, not on vertical, lines. And that politically, socially, and economically. The vertical State implied slavery, concentrated all power in the hands of the few, moved above the heads of the peoples egocentrically, in applied and antagonistic isolation. creed of isolation, for the purpose of appropriation. But with the demolition of the vertical order, power isolation, as formerly understood, will be no longer tolerated. In its causal action, the horizontal position is co-operative or utilitarian, the reverse of the system of competition, which again in the modern conditions of war and economics must assume some form of the vertical State, or authority, which conditions because by itself it is the condition. Dynastically, this is no longer the case; our rulers will be wise to learn the lesson economically. A Peace Conference that sought to reimpose the vertical system of society, whether in the form of group or capitalist interest, would find itself at clash with the longitudinal forces of its parts, in a word, with its own dynamics. Europe, in short, cannot be constricted or reconstructed on vertical lines of competitive power system, because the spirit of the whole has become horizontally evened, at least in its corporate stratification of government, and this is a condition diametrically opposed to isolated antagonisms, whether of creed or country or advantage, because democracies move on principle, whereas kings move on system. We have then already the clay of the new order in the equation of popular government, which necessarily implies decentralisation individualism, freedom, as we have the spirit of the, new order out of the accepted failure of the old spirit,

In the second place a father must not forget that example is more efficacious than precept. In India we have a saying, "Words are the daughters of earth and deeds are the sons of heaven." It is amusing to find a father insisting on his son observing certain religious functions, when he himself is quite indifferent to them. This is morally dangerous.

Then thirdly, we must remember that the position of the mother is very important. She must occupy a responsible position at home. As a matter of fact, she is not sufficiently respected. The influence of a mother on the formation of character is profound, especially on the development of the qualities of the heart. The educated father sometimes wrongly feels that, in virtue of his education, he knows everything. Such a father is likely to show disrespect to his wife. Yet if the wife is ignorant, it is surely the husband's duty to enlighten her or at any rate to try to educate her according to his ideas. Nothing can justify him if he, in any way, try to diminish her importance in the eyes of her children.

In the fourth place if a father has many children, he should do his best to bring them up together. If they are brought up separately, brotherly feeling fails to grow. The children. must feel that they are one. Home should be the place where our children should learn the first lessons in self-sacrifice. Indeed the roots of homerule lie deep at home.

In the fifth and the last place parents must try to be loving and sympathetic friends to their children. An attitude of reserve is improper. The children must feel free to communicate to their parents' whatever lieth upon the heart.' There should be a free exchange of ideas. Indeed as our old philosophers tell us, we should fondle our children when they are infants, should punish them (if necessary) till they reach the 16th year and should treat them as friends when they are majors.

The Imperial Population after the War

The United Empire (for November 1918) urges that the British Empire must be made to produce more foodstuffs and to become self-supporting and properly defended in all its parts against enemy attack from without and economic disaster from within. This could only be done by a better distribution of the imperial population within the Empire, man-power being distributed to where it is most needed. Government must help to emigrate not the unemployed criminal and pauper classes alone, but the young and the vigorous also. The following is a summary of the principles to be adopted if the Empire is to be made really strong and self-sufficient.

As the wealth of a nation must be always derived from Labour and the land, and the land can yield nothing without Labour, "Migration is Essential to the Future of the Empire:"

(1) To make the land of the Empire yield her increase.

(2) To maintain the present improved standards of wages and of living at home among the workers, which are due to a temporary emigration of proportion of our former workers, and to adjust the superabundance of population at home due to the War.

(3) To assist the Government at home in abolishing the workhouses and increasing the Old Age Pensions, and yet saving millions of pounds annually now spent on the maintenance of those who ought never to have succumbed to the competition of younger people on the labour market.

(4) To increase our manufactured exports by multiplying oversea customers.

(5) To increase our food supply within the Empire, as the total exports of the Dominions do not equal our home imports.

(6) To facilitate the investment of British capital in the British Empire, as money always follows men. (7) To defend the at present unpeopled lands of the Empire by settling them with men trained and ready to resist attack.

(8) To improve the vital statistics of the Empire, both overseas and at home, by reduction of the pressure of competition.

(9) To leave the same number of jobs at home for the fewer workers.

(10) To reduce the number to be fed at home, whilst increasing the Empire's food production.

(11) To ensure the wounded and partially disabled soldiers and sailors being able to get situations within their capacity.

(12) To reduce the Labour unrest which is inevitable after demobilisation, and thus to advance contentment and religion.

62

· Afghanistan and the British Power. It is well-known that the present Amir of Afghanistan resisted the attempts which were made in 1914 to involve him in the War, though the pro-Turkish party had won to their side some of his own near relatives. The Amir's notable declaration that he shall be the friend of the British, in the early stages of the war, gave ample evidence of two things: (1) the supreme control exercised by him over his people and (2) the friendly attitude he consistently maintains towards the British power. The political situation in Afghanistan is well summed up by Mr. Ikbal Ali Shah in a recent number of the Edinburgh Review. The Amir's strong personality maintains the balance between the conflicting interests of the various parties. Two chief parties are powerful in Kabul; the one led by Sirdar Nasrullah Khan who is Nationalist and anti-foreign; and the other led by the Amir's step-mother Bibi Halima who is In pronouncedly pro British in sympathies. addition to the confusion caused on the northern frontier of Afghanistan by the collapse of Russia and by the still scarcely subsided threats of German intervention, Afghanistan has troubles, in the North-East from Bokhara, in the West from Herat and in the South-West from Seistan. In all of them there are smouldering antipathies and rivalries resembling those which have created the Balkan problem in Europe. The Heratics, Shia in faith and intriguers by temperament, are a thorn ever prone to cause friction between Persia and Afghanistan. Seistan in the South-West is an extensive and low-lying area, sandwiched between Persia and Afghanistan and divided between those powers as is the Basque country between France and Spain and is likewise a bot-bed of intrigue. The population of the tract includes Armenians, Russian Jewes and Persian traders, many of the latter having been consistently thwarting the Indo-British commercial interests,

The district of Penjdeh, in the fertile valley of the Heri Rud, which was lost to the Afghans in 1885 has given to Russia an immense trading advantage. Merv, with its railway to Penjdeh and to Krasnovodsk, the great trading centre on the East Caspian, has in Central Asia, almost inestimable natural advantages for military and trading purposes. Any Bolshevik force could easily march from Baku to the frontier of Afghanistan. Bokhara is another area of trouble and threat for the Amir; the Khan of that province might easily be induced to produce confusion in the hope of aggrandising himself; he could either threaten Balkh or could work round his eastern border into Chitral and set it in flame.

The

There is a party in Afghanistan, which, taking into consideration the present situation of Turkestan, favours the expansion of their country to the eastern coast of the Caspian; and this expansion is one of the suggested solutions of the Russian Turkestan problem which is already becoming acute. Another suggested solution is the creation of an independent Turkestan which would effectively form a buffer state. existing bonds of friendship between India and Afghanistan should be greatly strengthened and firmly consolidated. Afghan army officers may be trained in the British Military College at Quetta and they would become the missionaries of British friendship in high and influential circles. Trade between India and Afghanistan should be nursed and systematically cultivated. And the natural resources of Afghanistan, its extensive forests, untapped mineral veins, areas useful for cotton and cereal growing, should be made use of; and British engineers and others should help the Afghans in constructing roads and bridges and introducing modern sanitary appliances and principles. The British public should know more about Afghanistan, which, attached by strong to British commercial and sentimental bonds India, will do much to secure permanent peace Central Asia.

in

How Germany Treated the Natives. An article in a recent issue of the Quarterly Review describes the frightfulness adopted by the Germans often in their treatment of their colonies Africa. The and protectorates, especially in Social Democratic Party had always been outspoken in the Reichastag, regarding the methods of colonial policy and the conduct of German officials and officers in the colonies; but criticisms were by no means limited to them. The case of the notorious Dr. Karl Peters, Imperial Commissioner in East Africa, whose own writings reveal him as unscrupulous, and inhuman and who was ultimately tried and dismissed from the service, not for his atrocities, but for having lied to his superiors is one typical illustration of the more than venial methods of German colonial government. The worst thing is that an ex-Governor of German East Africa put the crown on the official disregard of righteousness by declaring that "in Africa it is impossible to get on without cruelty" and by calling Peters' condemnation a judicial murder. From the first to the last, the attitude of government was to turn a deaf ear to abuses, to make light of bad cases. Von Puttkamer, a nephew of Bismarckand the son of a minister of state, a rake and a gambler, who had acquired a bad reputation in the Cameroons was an illustration of the way in which the colonies served as the dumping ground for damaged reputations and unsuitable elements. He took no

attempt to check the immorality of the officials under him, spent public money on his own account, and did not keep his hands clean in regard to the promotion of colonial companies. The missionaries in the colonies were in the main honest men, who, if they ventured to point out the handwriting on the wall, were promptly sup. pressed and not infrequently driven out of the colony. The ever-recurring and indiscriminate flogging of natives, besides being inhuman, displayed a signal proof of the inability of the

Germans to understand native psychology. Flogging their leaders caused out-breaks of anger among the natives; or where the chiefs were not loved, it lowered them still further in the respect of their tribes. Forced labour was another of the evils, with the result that the native crops suffered and their lands remained often uncultivated; and yet climatic conditions made the extension of native culture a matter of prime importance. Prussian un-wisdom set systematically to work to ruin the physique of the natives and take the heart out of them. Villages came to be denuded of the younger men; they took to the bush; the birth-rate sank and land once productive was left untilled. The wages on the European plantations were often of the smallest and the death-rate in these was abnormally high. "Where the whip was not included, the brandy bottle was brought into play." Taught to drink, the natives pledged their farms and sold their freedom for it.

The Herero Rising of 1904 was caused really by the desire of the natives to throw off the intolerable German yoke, the spoliation of their lands for concession companies and plantations, the seizure of their cattle, the heavy and unjust sentences passed upon them etc. The credit system of German traders cunningly forced on the natives, useless articles at fabulous prices. The retribution dealt out to the Hereros made their country one vast graveyard; and only a quarter of the population survived after the atrocities of the Herero War.

Gandhi's Speeches and Writings.-Second Edition considerably enlarged with (1) an introduction by Mr. C. F. Andrews (2) a lengthy biographical sketch of his life and career and an account of the South African Indian Struggle by Mr. H. S. L. Polak (3) with numerous portraits and illustrations, cloth bound, indexed. Price Rs. 3. To Subscribers of " I.R." Rs. 2-8.

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