overthrow the Republic. The Kapp Putsch was indeed a hasty and premature effort; but when the better judgement of the Royalist leaders saw their opportunity—and their opportunity would come at the moment when German industry was seriously shaken by the allied demands-then would come Revolution and perhaps chaos. The death of Rathenau, the minister who attempted to carry out the obligations of Germany towards the Allies, is a sign that the Royalists will shrink from no infamy to destroy the leaders of the Republic. These crimes are perpetrated by organizations; they are not the madness of individuals. It is unfortunate that some writers with a leaning towards Germany have attempted to minimize the significance of the Royalist movement. I have seen, for example, an attempt to represent the Orgesch as an innocent Agricultural Society. That is the mask, and so it is represented to well-meaning visitors to Germany. But these societies with innocent ostensible purposes covering dangerous political plans are modelled on the Freiheitskrieg against Napoleon. The Orgesch is an organization to accomplish the 'freedom' of Germany against her enemies: so an officer forming a society for assassination defined its ends in contradistinction to the narrower purposes of his own group. The Rathenau murder has made clear the political gulf between the bourgeois parties and the Socialists; it has revealed the political instability of the new Germany. But this instability itself depends in large measure upon the economic condition of Germany, from which the Allies are endeavouring to extract what it does not possess. It is the height of folly to allow moral indignation or hate to blind us from the pit before which we stand.

The prime responsibility for this chaos must be laid upon the British Government. In the old days a minister like Castlereagh exacted a reasonable penalty, cut his losses, and tried to restore Europe to ordinary conditions as rapidly as possible. But this Government, in order to win an election, added to the legitimate military indemnity, which Germany could pay, claims for pensions and civil damages not included in the Armistice terms, which Germany cannot pay. This was a folly as well as a breach of faith. If the Entente is dead

to-day, the responsibility lies with those who planned the British general election of 1918. To the French our belated magnanimity seems like perfidity.

What the British now see is the mark moving rapidly to the level of the Austrian crown or the preposterous rouble; they recognize that they have received £46,000,000 in reparations while the cost of the army of occupation to insure the payment of this is £53,000,000,and that a low mark in Germany means a high unemployment rate at home. This is not a mercenary point of view; for on foreign trade depends the well-being and the political stability of the British Isles. So little is this recognized even by leading statesmen that Mr. Austin Chamberlain stated in the House that foreign trade was merely the surplus of domestic trade.

The war and the blockades proved that Europe-nay, the world-was an economic organism in which no member could be cut off from the others without ruin. But the dislocation of currency caused by international indebtedness and reparations is simply a multiplication of blockades, part voluntary, part now beyond our immediate power. The issue then between Great Britain and France deserves the closest attention, because the real question involved is whether the legal rights conferred on the Allies by the Treaty of Versailles shall be used as an instrument for completing the economic disintegration of Europe.

When the mark first made its spectacular fall, it was obvious that the French were shaken. It is true that they immediately proposed a contrôle, that is supervision, of German finances. But Paris did begin to open its mind to a situation which had been grasped much earlier by men whose interests were less desperately involved. It is fair to note the situation of a French Government, pledged to extort the last franc for the rebuilding of Northern France. Behind M. Briand stood M. Poincaré; behind M. Poincaré stands the eager figure of M. Tardieu, the henchman of Clemenceau. Behind the collapse of reparations lurks national bankruptcy. The reparation payments have, like those to the British, been swallowed up by the army of occupation. For the actual reconstruction of Northern France eighty-five milliard francs have been

advanced by the French Government, and as much more will probably be needed.

Unfortunately the British note on international debts clouded the atmosphere in which the London Conference was to be held. It too was perfectly logical. Great Britain owed a vast sum to the United States, largely as security for her allies. It was therefore impossible to consider one part of the question of international indebtedness apart from the nation that held the key to the whole situation. This note ruffled the Americans, quite unnecessarily, and exasperated the French. For it placed Great Britain in the position of asking the French to relax their claims on an enemy, while insisting on her own claims upon her ally up to the amount of her debt to the United States. It might be possible for France to make an arrangement with Germany, but behind that is the spectre of the immense unliquidated debts to Great Britain and the United States, with their territories unravaged, and their resources still great. With this background it is not surprising that Great Britain's proposals, however reasonable in themselves, should be rejected. On the other hand, it was equally impossible for Great Britain to assent to what is practically the exploitation of German resources, and the wide-spread ruin that would follow.

The statesmen of the world are powerless between two facts, public opinion, and economic law. Each nation, burdened under taxes and moved by suspicion or bitterness against its neighbours, is unwilling to forgo its claims by an act of commonsense. The chief creditor sees in Europe a cluster of misbehaving nations that would apply cancelled debts to new armaments. Great Britain is unwilling to act without the United States, and France sees herself crushed between her allies and her enemy. Is there no way out of the

1It is not generally known that in the spring of 1917 the British Government sounded the U.S. Government about 'the liability for sums already lent to Great Britain by America and re-lent by the British Treasury by our Continental Allies for the purpose of financing the common struggle. It was proposed that the United States should substitute itself for us as the immediate creditor of the countries which had actually received and spent the money we had borrowed, and that our liability to the United States should be pro tanto diminished. This proposal was not welcomed, nor was it acted upon.'

circle? Commonsense would suggest that the first and the best thing to be done is to estimate the debts, not by their face value, but by the actual power of any country to make good the waste of five years of war and three years of war in peace. It is no time to wait until all nations have seen light; the crisis is too near. If Great Britain, without waiting for the United States, were to write off debts that she can never hope to see repaid, she might then persuade a France assured of her goodwill that the present allied policy to Germany gains nothing and will entail measureless calamities for Europe. This gesture need not be an offensive act of charity. Great Britain might, as has been suggested, exchange the debt of France, Belgium, and Italy for the C. Bonds issued by Germany. But public opinion, nourished on lies and false promises, is hardly ready for this step. We shall sink deeper into the morass before we are sober. The remainder of this year will be a time of intense and painful interest. Those who have the interest of civilization at heart will do well to watch events, not only in France and Germany, but in Italy.

The Embargo.

Between the recriminations of Grand Trunk shareholders and the exasperation of farmers in Canada over the embargo on cattle, the atmosphere between Great Britain and Canada has not been pleasant of late. During the war promises were a cheap commodity, as the treaties exacted from Great Britain and her allies may easily prove. The embargo of 1896 was imposed solely as a measure of precaution1; it has become an instrument of protection. When in 1917 the Minister of Agriculture promised that it should be removed, he had in mind two facts: that the danger from Canadian herds was slight or non-existent, and that the British stock of cattle was likely to be seriously diminished by the submarine blockade, then at its height. He had of course no power to speak for Scotland without consulting the Scottish authorities, or for. Ireland, which was not under his department. He stated more than

1In the twenty years before the passing of the Act 850,000 animals were affected with foot-and-mouth disease and pleuro-pneumonia; in the twenty years since just over 4,000.

once that he had not consulted the Irish Department. A month later it was announced in the House of Commons that the prohibition rested 'rather on the agricultural policy of the United Kingdom than on the risk of diseases, from which, for many years, Canada herself had been remarkably free.' This statement also added, what was plainly true, that while farmers at home were being asked to reduce their live stock, permission was impossible. In March, 1919, after the Armistice, the Minister told Canadian representatives that the unsettled condition of British agriculture after the war made the moment inopportune to raise the embargo. A year later this conversation was reported to the Canadian House of Commons by Dr. Tolmie.2

It is fair to give these facts in order that the position of the Ministry of Agriculture may be understood. Its policy was protective in the widest sense of that word, and appeared the more urgent because of the depression in British agriculture. These qualifications made, it is evident that all who heard Mr. Prothero at the Conference understood him to make a definite promise, and the delay in fulfilling it caused widespread irritation.

In Great Britain the interests were not unanimous; those not pecuniarily interested have become almost unanimous that a question of good faith is involved. The breeders are

naturally against the invasion of their market-they were not consulted. Graziers in general have taken the opposite view, and the Guildhall meeting showed that the urban interests were strongly for raising the embargo. The Cabinet was, and is, divided. But one effect of the controversy has been to create a mass of public opinion, which no Government can ignore, against a law that Canada resented and expected to be revised. If the advocates of delay had been able to prove to the Royal Commission that the importation of Canadian cattle involved serious risk to British herds or to the pockets of their owners, then there might have been a case for reconsideration. But this was not so. On July 24th, the House of

2These are the dates given by the present British Minister of Agriculture. I cannot now verify them; but is 'March 11, 1920' a mistake for 'March 11, 1919'? It is extraordinary that there should be a delay of a year in reporting this conversation.