George's "revolutionary" scheme. But as a comparatively few people were affected by the tax, Mr. Lloyd George had the nation behind him. The country was appealed to a second time, and the fight ended in a serious curtailment of the prerogative of the House of Lords. One used to hear, however, the bitterest sort of criticism of Lloyd George for years after Limehouse. You cannot touch a man in his pocket-book with impunity.

The statesman in France who faced the unenviable task of Lloyd George in England, devising ways and means to increase the nation's revenue, was Joseph Caillaux. Like Lloyd George, he had a genius for finance, and his worst enemies admit his ability in budgetmaking. No other man in contemporary France has equaled Caillaux's record in handling national finances. He had a harder task than Lloyd George and one that could not win him the favor and approval of the bulk of the electorate, however successful he might be. There are few great fortunes in France of any kind, and none at all in land. Capital is widely distributed. Hundreds of thousands have income from investments. Taxing wealth, whether by an inheritance tax or an income tax, hits the entire nation, and not a class. Caillaux's proposal of an income tax was not received with joy by millions of dispossessed, who would not have to pay it, as in Great Britain and America. (I am speaking of before the war, when the exemption figure was high.) Love of money and secretiveness in money matters are innate in the French. The proposal of Caillaux would take money from them and would compel them to disclose to vulgar functionaries and to put on record where outsiders could see it the exact statement of their business and their family fortune.

Opposition to the income tax made Caillaux the man in France most hated by the "respectable elements," which include peasants and shopkeepers as well as aristocrats and bourgeois. Press and people determined to resist its application. The onus of proposing and sponsoring the income tax fell upon Caillaux and not upon the Radical Socialist party as a whole. The party

was divided in fiscal policy and was able to shift the responsibility for the unpopular measure to Caillaux, who accepted it. He defended the income tax with great skill, using every argument he could lay his hands on. He condemned increasing and widening the scope of indirect taxes (dear to the French, because they were being taxed without having the pain of handing money outright to the Government) on the ground of the great uncertainty in estimating them, the fear that levying additional taxation might lead to restriction of use of the thing taxed and thus deceive the hopes of budget-makers, and the injustice of increasing the burden upon the small wage-earners and parents of large families. Then, as is the case always where a man becomes the embodiment of a principle that is difficult to combat in itself, the opponents of Caillaux's income tax began to seek to discredit the man in order to defeat the principle.

There was of course much that could

be used against Caillaux. He was véreux, as the French say. But questionable honesty in political methods and in the stock market is unfortunately the weakness of politicians as a class. And in France corruption in private morals is also common among political leaders. If Mme. Caillaux had refrained from shooting Gaston Calmette, editor of the "Figaro," the world at large would have known little of Caillaux's private life. The enemies of Caillaux knew well enough that if the scandal brought out at the trial of Mme. Caillaux was simply a querelle de maîtresses, Caillaux would not be permanently ruined. Too many of them were tarred with the same brush. So they sought to pierce the armor of Caillaux at the one politically vulnerable point his attitude, as président du conseil, toward Germany. It was planned to make the assault upon the author of the income tax at the closing session of his wife's trial for murder, but the war clouds broke with dramatic suddenness. There were no sensational disclosures. Mme. Caillaux was quitted. President Poincaré appealed to political leaders to form l'union sacrée to repel the invader.

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Had the war been averted, had Great Britain failed to join France, had Germany won or pulled out with a draw, had the United States not given financial aid to France, Caillaux would have been the wise and far-seeing statesman to whom France ought to have listened. Until victory was assured, all his political opponents and the bourgeoisie at large feared the return of Caillaux to power. They may deny it now, but it is none the less true. Fortunately, Caillaux was not called from his cell in La Santé to be a second Jules Favre. American intervention brought victory to the Entente. But whether the cards have fallen definitely against Caillaux depends upon the aftermath of the war. Is the menace of Germany removed? Is France going to be able to afford the price of victory? Standing alone, no. Protected by a military alliance with Great Britain and the United States, and aided by the Anglo-Saxon world during the period of reconstruction, yes. The judgment of history on the foreign policy of Joseph Caillaux depends upon the attitude of the British and ourselves toward France.

As minister of finance and président du conseil, Caillaux realized that the fiscal difficulties of France were largely due to the bad relations between France and Germany. Increasing sums had to be added to every budget for military equipment, for strengthening land fortifications, for the navy, and for the maintenance of a larger standing army. The population of Germany and the wealth of Germany were increasing by leaps and bounds. Public opinion in France supported the prolongation of compulsory military service from two years to three years; but the nation's treasurer had to insist upon the unpalatable truth that the additional sacrifice involved money as well as one more year of a young man's life. You had to pay and feed and equip the extra soldiers and the extra officers required to train and command them. If public opinion insisted upon keeping pace with Germany, it must accept the income tax. The alternative was trying to come to an understanding with Germany.

The limits of a magazine article forbid going into the Anglo-French agreement

of 1904 and the resultant difficulties between France and Germany over the status of Morocco. The Algeciras Convention was differently interpreted by France and Germany and led to the sending of the German gunboat Panther to Agadir in 1911 "to protect German rights." It was Germany's way of forcing concessions from France elsewhere in Africa in return for German recognition of France's special position in Morocco. Former Premier Clemenceau and former Foreign Secretary Delcassé had advocated the settlement of colonial problems by an understanding with Great Britain and looked to the British to aid France in case the conflict over African colonies led to German aggression in Europe. Caillaux (and he was by no means alone among French statesmen and publicists) believed that the friendship of Great Britain was not a sufficient guaranty for France against Germany, and that the wisest course for France was to compound colonial rivalries and ambitions with Germany by mutual concessions, as had been done with Great Britain in the agreement of 1904. Despite opposition that never died out even after the fait accompli, Caillaux negotiated and signed an agreement transferring to Germany sovereignty over a large part of the French Congo.

The anti-Caillautists and Anglophiles, of whom Clemenceau was one of the most able spokesmen, declared that France had been humiliated and betrayed. They argued that Germany's threat of war was a bluff, and that Great Britain would have stood behind France to the bitter end if the Caillaux cabinet had said non possumus to the German demands. Caillaux was accused of using the Agadir incident to play the stock market.

In defense of his policy, Caillaux set forth the divergence of French and British foreign policy. He claimed that the British were of course willing to make the agreement of 1904 in order to secure advantages and remove opposition in Africa and Asia. But British interests were extra-European. France, on the other hand, was primarily interested in Europe. She was a Continental power, in juxtaposition with

Germany. For the sake of colonial aspirations, no matter how fully she could rely upon British backing, it was folly for France to keep alive the hostility of Germany when there was a possibility of establishing better relations with Germany. France had neither the money nor the man-power to continue indefinitely to be the enemy of her more populous Continental neighbor. If no war came, the weight of armaments would eventually crush France. If war came, it must be remembered that Great Britain had specifically limited her promise of aid to the protection of the Atlantic coast of France against naval aggression, and that only in return for French naval protection of British interests in the Mediterranean.

All who were in Paris from August 1 to August 4, 1914, remember how nervous and uncertain French public opinion was in regard to British intervention. Sir Edward Grey told the House of Commons that Great Britain was not bound to give France military aid. The violation of Belgian neutrality precipitated British intervention. None doubts that the British would have come to the aid of the French even if the Germans had not committed this act of criminal folly; but it would not have been a simple matter to overcome the opposition of the Haldanes and Morleys and the strongly pacifist labor elements.

After the outbreak of the war Caillaux would not admit that he had been wrong in his estimate of the British and in his belief that the war was an unqualified disaster to his country. Without actually committing himself to i opinion as to the military outcome, he still maintained that France and Germany had a common interest in terminating the war as soon as possible and in reconciling their conflicting extra-European colonial ambitions. He remained stubbornly under the spell of his anti-bellum theories. With amazing egoism he conceived himself as the instrument for remaking Europe on the foundation of a rapprochement between France and Germany. I am not concerned here with the question of Caillaux's guilt or abuse of his position either before or during

the war. The accusations against him of treason or of intelligence with the enemy are still unproved. But Caillaux himself, in his writings and in his speeches, notably his book on "Agadir: Ma Politique Extérieure," and his last speech in the Chamber of Deputies before his arrest, confessed to holding the opinions and following the policy outlined above. The opinions may have been well grounded and sincere, the policy may have been wise; but France could not possibly have followed Caillaux.

Adverse judgment has been passed upon Caillaux by his fellow-countrymen because he sinned against the national consciousness of France. In this sense he betrayed France. A man who has been placed by the people in the highest position of trust is under the obligation of representing them. As an individual man Joseph Caillaux had the right of such in a free country to think and act as he pleased to bring about a rapprochement with Germany. As premier he abused his delegated authority, and later, as former premier, the influence derived from having been premier, to bring about the triumph of a policy antipathetic to the instincts of the people who had entrusted him with leadership. Whether or not his policy was, or might have been, in accord with the permanent interests of France does not enter into the question.

Two years ago I had the privilege of explaining to readers of THE CENTURY how the French felt about Alsace and Lorraine. The loss of these two provir ces affected vitally the life and thought of the generation coming to manhood and the generation born in the Third Republic. It was a question of honor, of justice, of patriotism. Bygones could not be bygones. Alsace and Lorraine were part of the living flesh of France. It was inconceivable that a Frenchman could attempt to advocate or negotiate any sort of rapprochement between the aggressor and the victim of aggression that did not have as its preliminary condition, before bases of compromise and mutual concession in other moot questions were

agreed upon, the restoration of Alsace and Lorraine to France. In entertaining the thought that he could bridge the chasm between France and Germany without taking up first the Alsace-Lorraine question Caillaux misjudged the sentiment of national honor. This is where Caillaux went wrong before the war.

During the war he showed equal disregard of the traditions and sense of honor of his race. Perhaps he was obsessed. Perhaps the process of pure reasoning or the study of the material factors and advantages of the problem of France's Continental policy blinded him to moral and psychological considerations. Perhaps he mistook the mental attitude of thinkers au-dessus de la mêlée or of Socialists who regarded every problem in the light of class instead of national interest for the feeling of the majority in France. He came to grief in forgetting the old dictum that "France does not treat with the enemy upon the soil of la patrie." More than once France had been compelled to do so, and with the same enemy. But it had been only when the knife was at her throat and when she stood alone without allies. This war was the last straw on the camel's back. Once more the Germans had invaded France, bringing death and destruction, and treating hapless civilians with a barbarity more ruthless than ever before. They were held on the Marne and driven back to the Aisne in one of the most costly, but most glorious, battles of French history. And yet a former président du conseil dared to advocate in France, in neutral countries, and in Italy, cessation of hostilities before the task was completed, and reconciliation with Germany, the aggressor, the invader, the assassin, the pillager. When they found

out what Caillaux had been doing, the French revolted against the insult of it all. "Bravo!" they cried at the news of Caillaux's arrest.

But now that the war is over and the Germans have been beaten and humiliated, and especially since Alsace and Lorraine have returned to France, the attitude toward Germans is being modified. Your hatred of the man you have whipped cannot remain as intense as your hatred of the bully. The thief who has been made to disgorge stolen property is in a different relation toward you. The French have paid off old scores with a vengeance, but their superiority over Germany is due to the fact that they are not alone in imposing their will upon Germany. The victory could not have been won without the aid of AngloSaxondom. The peace cannot be assured without the coöperation of AngloSaxondom. The French have paid a fearful price for victory. The excitement and uncertainty and necessity of straining every nerve are over. A more dangerous period of moral depression is being entered upon than at any time during the war. The French are beginning to realize for the first time what the victory has cost them. If it proves to be a real victory, with tangible and beneficial results, all right. If not

The unthinkable alternative is possible only if the British and we withdraw or gradually lessen our military support of France. Is it true that Anglo-Saxondom considers its interests wholly extra-European, and that the Continental position of France will compel her to come to a rapprochement with Germany after all? This is the significance of the Caillaux case. Are we going to give Joseph Caillaux the chance to say, "I told you so?"

NE was a poet, another was a college professor in philosophy, the third was a hungry man. It was the morning of the fifth day since they had put off from the sinking tank-ship Salvarak, her decks being then already awash, to watch in silence as she went down. Eight biscuits, a three-pound tin of corned beef, a gallon of water, had comprised their stores, of which three biscuits and less than a pint of water remained. The poet found himself sinking into reverie, the philosopher was beginning to lose his sense of humor, and Jerry, the hungry deck-hand, was growing hungrier.

Where their craft floated on the listless sea, ripples appeared in a surface of green enamel, as faintly green as the broken edge of thick, clear glass, and smooth with the heavy, viscous, lukewarm calm of liquid in a vat. At a distance the sea was blue, and far off along the horizon it merged with little tufts of unaccountable, smoke-like, gentian blue, which seemed deeper than mist, more substantial than mere cloud stuff, unvarying in their size and shape. These clouds had the contour of low-lying hills. Above there were no clouds. For more than an hour the sea had wrinkled coquettishly along the water-line of the life-boat, and the sound of waves had not been heard lapping ever so gently against the planks. Under the static conditions prevailing

in this inverted bowl of a world, the boat seemed stanchly competent and for three men as roomy as an ark. The wind was dead. The sun burned steadily in an unmisted, shimmering course a little more than half-way toward noon; with a saffron glare flaming through its thin veil of white brilliance, it seemed to the hungry man in the stern, as his eyes peeled slowly open, not so much unlike the significant center of a poached egg. The sea itself seemed as parched and still as an unwinnowed desert. The ribs and planks of the boat inside were as dry as a skeleton bleaching in the sands. Dust that had gathered when the boat was swinging from the davits of the old Salvarak lay on the gunwales, where the professor, as he removed his hand to draw a soiled handkerchief across his brow, left the print of his fingers. He cleared his throat.

"The trouble is," he observed in dry, monotonous tones, from his location amidships, "there is nothing to do."

Indisputatiously, without heat, with the smile of a pleasant, half-dreaming consciousness on his lips, the poet, who sprawled in the fork of the gunwales at the bow, said a moment later:

"No, that is not the trouble."

A voice of bitterness, anger, reproach, something just short of blasphemy, came from the stern, where Jerry, awakened from his lounging coma, glared with red-rimmed eyes far beyond this controversial disturbance.