Board of Control to make a survey, full and impartial, of the entire Japanese situation. Upon it Governor Stephens based a strong presentation of California's case to the Government at Washington in a way that should result in satisfactory diplomatic action.

California's legislation is well within her legal rights, and in conformity with the Constitution of the United States, the Federal statutes, and the Treaty with Japan. A Federal statute of 1887, in force to-day, makes it unlawful for any person not a citizen of the United States or who has not declared his intention to become a citizen to hold or acquire real estate. The Anti-Alien Land Law of California goes no farther. The Federal statute preserves the right of aliens ineligible to citizenship to acquire, own, and possess real estate granted by the terms of any treaty of the United States and the Governments of which such aliens are subjects. The California law preserves the same right. Delaware, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, and Arizona have laws substantially like California's, and in New York, aliens not eligible to citizenship may not own real estate for six years.

Few persons not lawyers know where the phrase "ineligible to citizenship" came into use; many think it was coined in California's legislation. The control of naturalization is among the powers delegated to the Congress by the Constitution of the United States. The first act adopted in exercise of the power was in 1790, when the right or privilege of naturalization was limited to free white persons, continuing as the fundamental prerequisite of citizenship ever since, except for the amendment of 1870, which included the words "and persons of African descent." With that one exception, resulting from the Civil War, the belief of our fathers that only "free white persons" should be granted citizenship has continued unbroken in statute form for one hundred and thirty years.

The so-called Japanese question which constitutes the friction in our relations with the Imperial Government is this, simply stated: Japanese laborers have entered California in such numbers that, with their steady and well erined policy of becoming landowners, they constitute a danger economically, socially, and politically. The Japanese race is prolific beyond belief, and the addition of offspring born here will greatly increase our Japanese population. The problem is this: Can we Americanize the Japanese now here and those to be born here?

It is reasonably certain that there are 100,000 Japanese in California. Between April 15, 1910, and December 31, 1919, this alien population increased 25,592. In all the other States it decreased 10,873. The Japanese in California have applied their energies to the acquisition and control of agricultural lands, with standards and methods different from those of Americans, working under The co-operative system which distinishes the Japanese in team-work, and

willing to work, if necessary, fifteen and even eighteen hours a day, women and children included, under the poorest of living conditions. It is not strange that Americans cannot and will not compete with them. Neither is it surprising that Japanese proudly claimed, according to an estimate made early in 1918, that they produced in California at that time from fifty to ninety per cent of the principal vegetable crops raised in the State. Their ultimate control of important food products is probable.

In 1909 the total acreage owned and leased by Japanese in California was 83,252, and in 1919, 458,056 acres, an increase of 412.9 per cent since the agreement. In 1909 they marketed $6,235,858 worth of produce; in 1919, $67,145,730-an increase of 976.8 per

cent.

The Japanese also present a social problem. The 125,000 Japanese in California are not widely scattered throughout the wide domains of the State, but are concentrated in comparatively restricted areas. Japanese secure certain agricultural holdings limited in acreage. Others follow. The nearest white farmers or orchardists move, perhaps selling to Japanese in order to facilitate their leaving. Japanese continue to come in and whites to su out, and in a very short space of time a large Japanese colony results.

California claims that the Japanese are not assimilable; and that is true. Once a Japanese, always a Japanese, is essentially a fact. Other nationalities have nothing to offer them; Japan's Government and national life-as they view them are the best; and they would not transfer their allegiance to the Emperor to become citizens of any other country. There may be a few Japanese with a different concept, but they are in a decided minority.

The Japanese in California have transplanted their own civilization, manners, and customs to America. As to government, wherever there is a sufficient number of Japanese, they have their own, and, under a membership fee in one or another of the Japanese associations, levy a tax on males and families.

There is a Japanese Association under control of the Consul-General in San Francisco, another under charge of the Consul at Los Angeles. There are numerous district associations under control of these two Consuls. Councilmen are elected by the Japanese who exercise the right of franchise by the payment of their tax-dues; the councilmen appoint the other officers. The manager corresponds to the business manager of a municipality.

An assembly is held annually composed of delegates elected by the local associations; another is composed of the managers-the two forming a sort of legislature, with a lower and upper house. All the Japanese in the United States, including native-born as well as subjects of Japan, must report births, marriages, and deaths, and all family movements, to the Japanese Government. The information is conveyed by the association to the Government, imposing a fee-tax for the service. The fees collected aggregate a large sum annually, which, it is said, is expended for propaganda. This of course is an intolerable, un-American situation.

A Japanese school is usually established and maintained by each association. The majority of Japanese children are the bliged to ..... To schools.

first the American public school, and afterward the Japanese, where the studies are the same as in Japan. These schools are controlled by a Board of Education of Japanese members, and are conducted with strict Japanese official formality. Japanese children are mentally keen, but the amount of study required must be injurious physically, while the contrasting codes of morality and divided allegiance can scarcely be considered to promote assimilibility or develop Americanism.

The Japanese have their temples in California. There are about fourteen Buddhist temples in the State. It cannot be said that all Japanese worship Buddha. There are a number who are Christians.

Well-informed Californians know that the Japanese in California maintain a very close sort of corporation in their

associations, but it remained for Professor Yoshi S. Kuno, of the University of California, to give the details of this quasi-Japanese government. It is from his report the brief details here given are taken.

When it is borne in mind that the Japanese as a race are extraordinarily prolific, and without the entry into the State of another subject of Japan during the next decade the population will have been doubled, it will be realized what a problem confronts the State. 'rofessor Kuno has given the biologica! hase of the Japanese problem close tudy, and it his conclusion that the Japanese population will be doubled in the next ten years, and then there will be approximately 200,000 in the State. Given the Japanese standard of living, the contribution of the entire familyfather, mother, and children (where the offspring are old enough)-to agricultural toil, we have an economic condition with which the American farmer cannot compete. Unless, therefore, a curb was placed upon land ownership by Japanese, Californians felt that a time would come when the increasing number of Japanese and their hunger for land would crowd out the native farmer.

That is a condition not to be thought of in the interests of both the United States and Japan. No other State in the Union would permit it, and Japan would not tolerate it any longer than it would take her to end it. Japan barred Chinese labor after the RussoJapanese War, and it was necessary for her protection economically to do so. Japan does not allow foreigners to own or lease an acre of agricultural land, and no foreign nation protests. Under her laws it is also so difficult for an alien to become naturalized as to be almost impossible. The United States has gone to greater lengths than any other nation in receiving her nationals and extending them rights, but the dan ger of following any different course than Japan herself pursues in regard to non-ownership or leasing of agricultural lands by aliens has become apparent to a large majority of our citizens.

anese birth rate. We cannot deport, and cannot regulate the birth rate. Furthermore, there must be no attempt by further legislation at confiscation directly or indirectly, although Japan has an Imperial Ordinance which, if enforced, would amount to what would practically be the confiscation of the property of foreigners under the condi tions imposed, according to those familiar with life in Japan. An American commonwealth must and will treat Japanese on a higher plane.

The citizens of California, destined to be the richest in material resources and greatest in population in the coming years, cannot afford to lose sight of spiritual values in the midst of their material riches. This is a professed Christian Nation (sometimes questioned), and it is our duty to treat the Japanese in California as we would desire our nationals to be treated by Japan under similar conditions. It is our task to Americanize the Japanese

Much will depend upon the Japanese themselves and not a little upon the Government of Japan, whose long Imperial arm extends across the Pacific from the Orient to the Occident in protection and guidance of her subjects.

MY HUSBAND'S FRENCH

W

BRIDE

HAT the World War did to me is soon told. The man whose name

I bear, and whose child is mine, enlisted in the service of his country, although he was years past the draft age. I took my place in the schoolroom, and thought my service as loyal as any. The pride I felt in the bravery of this man can only be imagined. With thousands of others he sailed to France.

Oh, well, you all have heard of the attraction the American soldier had for the French girl. At my husband's urgent request, I obtained a divorce. The agony of those bitter days was a Gethsemane where every pleasure and joy was forgotten and only the blackness of hopeless night was before me. His last communication to me will be the last thing I shall remember, save my Saviour's name, when it's all over and I am slipping out. He wrote: "No man, and few women, would do what you have done."

As music director I had to lead the songs in the war programmes and peace celebrations. I have stood before crowds and led the people in "Till We Meet Again," "There's a Long, Long Trail," "Keep the Home Fires Burning," and my heart was lead and hot tears burned my cheeks.

Was not this enough? It was, but it

A

FEW weeks ago The Outlook asked its readers to tell what the World War did to them. From among hundreds of letters which came in reply, we have selected the group which here appears. A first selection consisting of those that won the prizes, which The Outlook offered for the best, appeared in our issue for May 11, 1921. The present group quite equals those in human interest. They differ from that group in expressing a common experience under strangely dissimilar circumstances. In each case the individual has emerged from the ordeal by fire with a broader vision and sympathy. Other authentic documents of war experiences will appear in subsequent issues.-THE EDITORS.

was not all. In July, after the war was over, a friend mailed me a clipping from the paper in our home town. My husband and his French bride had gone to housekeeping in the white house under the hill, where he and I spent our honeymoon years ago.

A mechanical subconsciousness of certain facts keeps me going; my boy must have an education; other women, those in Europe, have suffered more than I can ever suffer; God is in his heaven.

My country! May she ever be right,
But right or wrong, my country!
A KANSAS SCHOOL-TEACHER.

WIFELESS AND DIS

ABLED

HE war cost me a wife, gave me a crippled body, and is now paying for these by furnishing me with a technical education. Is it a fair exchange? My answer is the result of several years' meditation. It is!

When the war broke out, I had been married a month. I was happy and contented, but something stronger was calling, so I enlisted. In just four months I was in the trenches.

And then I learned what it is to be afraid. I know what it is to lie in mudcaked clothes behind a Hotchkiss for half a night, shivering with cold, peering into the darkness, listening, fearing. and always tensefully expectant of the future. I know what it is to see freshfaced boys, young in years-but, oh, what men!-go to their graves with a laugh or snarled-out jest on their lips. Show me a man who can see his superiors give their lives cheerfully for a principle and not be changed! The very bigness of the whole thing taught me patience, forgiveness, and the futility of human judgment.

When I came home-via the Walter Reed Hospital-I expected to take up life where I left off. Instead, I found that my wife was gone, and was forever lost to me.

At first I thought I was treated un

fairly. What a mistake! I lost a wife, a couple of years' time, and was partially disabled. To balance that I have gained a sense of understanding and of peace and contentment that nothing else would ever have given me.

I have learned patience a patience seared in by the white-hot brand of the trenches. I believe in my fellow-man, for I have seen him die, and I know that he is better than I. I have learned charity, for I have had it bred into me by thousands of examples; not the kind of charity that gives what it thinks it can afford, but the kind that gives its very best and then shares the remainder with the next comer. I have learned not to judge by external appearances, for, as the boys say, "You never can tell." But the biggest lesson, and the hardest one to learn, that the war taught me was forgiveness. It is easy to preach; but to you who do not know what it is to be really wronged, what do you know of forgiveness, anyway? After the St. Mihiel drive I saw a chap from my home town dying from shrapnel wounds. One of his buddies, in halting words, was trying to frame an apology for some previous unkindness. Only twenty minutes from the grave, yet the lad turned around with a wan smile "That's aw right, Ed. Say, we sure gave 'em hell, didn't we?"

Who can see these things and still decline forgiveness? Oh, I don't claim that the war made me perfect. I haven't quit smoking, nor playing cards, nor attending theaters. I still shoot pool, and I'd go to a baseball game on Sunday if I had the opportunity. I'm not a church member, and I don't lead a life that a minister would think is right. But I have confidence in my fellow-man; I know his trials, and I can sympathize without tingeing it with unjust criticism. If he does me a wrong, I can look on the act with understanding tolerance and not think too harshly of him. If he errs, I can understand; or, if I cannot understand, I can at least refuse to criticise and attempt to pass judgment. For I have learned that most of the trouble is with ourselves; the other fellow is generally right. Hats off to him! MARTIN K. JAMES.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

A MAN WITH A NEED

I`

N the war I lost myself and God, and found manhood and a greater Light. 1 played poker in the box car which carried me to the front, and read my Testament on the hospital train which took me to the rear.

To-day I am in love with life. Ambitions have become obscured in the keen pursuit of the pleasures of the present. Thank God the war is over! Ahead is life and love. Let me enjoy myself today, for yesterday was hell and tomorrow may be cloudy. And so, at least for the moment, the war has killed for me ambition.

And in the discard, too, is the fear of leath. To me, up there at the front,

lacking food at times for days, casting precious sleep aside in the feverish preparations for the next assault, the idea of death seemed the mere stepping forward over an imaginary line drawn upon the sand. Life ended and death began at some unknown mark, and in my fatigue and exhaustion I felt the transition was not a fearful thing. To-day the thought continues. I look forward across the line at death, unafraid. I shall cross the line, and glance back at life with pity for my ignorance to-day, perhaps, but I do not fear the crossing.

But the greatest red-inked item in my ledger of life is my loss of belief in the traditional conceptions of religion. Having my pew near the front of the cathedral, wearing my fanciest clothes to church, public demonstrations by voice or action of my belief in His doctrines, are to me hypocrisy.

And so the war has brought me a need. I crave a religion, simple and unaffected, quiet and strong.

I hear a minister in whom I can find little to respect or follow, who has little in common with us "buck privates" in His army, and who knows practically nothing of our troubles and the things we knock against, reading words from his pulpit that hundreds of other ministers have monotonously recited, and I feel no urge. I find the need for a potent religion for strong men.

The war has left me kneeling by my bed, a better man, with a need. Denver, Colorado.

D. B. ROBERTS.

A FORTY-YEAR-OLD FRESHMAN

BE

EFORE the war I was a steel-worker, making over $200 a month. I was on the shady side of forty and had a family. When I tell you that I served under Fighting Bob Evans and Dewey in the old Navy you will not ask me why I "shipped over." I talked about ten minutes with my faithful wife (one arm around her and the other around the boy) and both, remembering the Lusitania, said "Go!"

The next day I went down to the steel mills for a settlement. At noon I enlisted and took out a $10,000 policy from the Bureau of War Risk and at 4 P.M. was on my way to Philadelphia.

I came back from overseas disabled for the rest of my life. The prospect of returning to the mills on a rolling job at about $500 per month was gone for

ever.

The Bureau of War Risk granted me a "permanent partial" disability and turned me over to the Federal Board for Vocational Training. The F. B. asked me what I wanted to take up.

Now comes the queer part of it all. I have always wanted to write; to buckle on the harness and go up against the magazines. Of course it is a far cry from the steel mills to the author of one of the "six best sellers"-you can rest assured that the representatives of the Federal Board tried to get that to soak into me, but I persisted that I was

game enough to try anything once. I won their approval to a liberal course in short-story and magazine writing at one of the best institutions in the United States Washington University.

Eliminating all the trials of a fortyyear-old freshman who had run away from an eighth-grade school in his 'teens and gone to sea, I will say that a few weeks ago I finished my first year under the jurisdiction of the Federal Board for Vocational Training. Furthermore, I have sold nearly every article or story that I have submitted to editors during that period-some of them were New York editors, at that. Some of my staid instructors want to know "how do you do it?" I tell them this: That I entered Washington University, handicapped as I was physically and otherwise, with the same determination that I had shown the day I stood with my arms about my loved ones and decided to risk all for them and the honor of our beloved country.

The war took away my ability to follow my old trade in the steel mills, but the misfortune (or fortune) of war, whatever you may wish to call it, gave me an opportunity to study for a career in the most fascinating game in the world, something that I have always wanted to study ever since I was a boy.

As a general summary I will say that, though disabled for life, I am happy in the thought that I helped to avenge the Lusitania and did my part to uphold the honor of the old flag; that I am permitted through the liberality of the Government to study the art of writing; that I may in time use this accomplishment in defense of my comrades of the war, if need be, and perhaps help mold the future of our country; and by the grace of an all-wise God was allowed to return and live in peace and happiness with my brave wife and boy, who really suffered more than I during those months of anxiety.

In conclusion let me add that my creed is optimism, always with a bright outlook to the future, and the dawning of a universal peace.

VERNE VICTOR BARNES.

Maplewood, Missouri.

PUBLICANS AND

SINNERS

EFORE the war my attitude on ques

BO

tions of morality was of a very Puritanical, uncharitable sort. To me a man who drank was wholly base; profanity condemned both men and women in my sight; even cigarette smoking lowered a man considerably in my estimation, while a smoking woman was hardly a human being to me; the idea that loose women could possibly possess any sense of right and wrong or be in any way worth while was never given lodgment for a moment in my brain. To me certain things were wrong and people who indulged in them for any cause whatsoever thereby forfeited any claim they might have to respect or to affection. The gambler,

the rounder, the lying beggar, the woman of the streets, the hot-tempered brawler, were all in the same category of the despicable lost to me.

Now I see things differently, and the change has been wholly due to my experiences and associations in the war. In the Army I found that hard drinkers and fast livers and profane-tongued men often proved to be the kindest-hearted, squarest friends one could ever have. I remember that our old supply sergeant was perhaps the most profane man I ever knew. He gambled immoderately and spent considerable time and money with fast women. Yet he it was who fathered the company war orphan whom we adopted. He it was who gave up his rest and sleep many a time to minister to our wants or to attend to the details of our comfort. He it was whose last cent was always the property of the man

who needed it as much as it was his own. He it is who is the most faithful friend I have ever had or ever will have.

Similarly, I knew women whom we would call "fallen" and indecent who nevertheless still sustained in their hearts all the kindness and loyalty and straightforwardness a woman can possess. More than one cocotte was ready to give her life for France or in the service of those who fought for France. And so I came to change my idea of the good and the bad, until the ultimate result is that my test of man and woman is simply whether or not they are "on the square," loyal, kind, and ready to do unselfish service. For myself I do not care to indulge in the so-called vices, but the war has made me believe that these, after all, are not the true test of character. The drunkard is my brother and my friend if his heart is good. A

square gambler whose heart is kind and who can be a true, unselfish friend is as good as the best to me. No woman who has still the great ideals of loyalty and unselfish kindness will ever meet condemnation at my hands for our most condemned sin.

Whether to say that the war broadened my code or whether to say it burned out the inessentials and gave me a vision of the really worth while qualities of character I do not know, but that I am glad of the change goes without saying. Perhaps I am mistaken, but this change in me has, I believe, been one of the great things in my life. It has given me a vision of the meaning of the brotherhood of man that could have come from no other source than the associations thrust upon me in the S. OMAR BARKER.

war.

East Las Vegas, New Mexico.

(C) Paul Thompson

SIE HORACE PLUNKETT, SPONSOR FOR THE DOMINION RULE PLAN

F all the states of western Europe which I have visited since the war none was so prosperous the summer following the armistice as Ireland. In the south the farmers had reaped enormous war profits from the sale of their produce, and the fishermen in the previous year alone had cleared $5,000,000. In the north her great industries, including the largest shipyards, linen mills, tobacco factory, and rope and cable works in the world, were running at maximum capacity.

There was on deposit in the banks and post offices of Ireland $625,000,000. They were exporting more than they were importing.

With all these evidences of prosperity before them, Irishmen in a material way had little of which to complain. Politically there was a spirit of compromise

BY ELEANOR MARKELL

in the air, at least in southern Ireland, which was encouraging. All the leaders -Sir Horace Plunkett, sponsor for the Dominion Rule Plan; Stephen Gwynn, of the Center party; Arthur Griffith, the directing force of the Sinn Fein movement; and Ian MacPherson, then Chief Secretary for Ireland-were all honestly seeking grounds for agreement.

And if I found in the north, at Belfast, the same old determination to take no part in a unified government for Ireland with a Catholic majority, the same old cry that Home Rule would be Rome Rule, still labor in the north was cooperating with labor in the south, farmers from the north and south were working together in the co-operative societies, and a considerable Unionist block in Dublin was co-operating in business and municipal politics with Nationalists and Sinn Feiners, irrespective of party. It is true, everything was tentative. There was an atmosphere of apprehension; Home Rule was in the committee stage. What form would it take? The indications were that Ulster was to be favored above the rest of Ireland. Sinn Fein was openly rebellious; the other groups-the Nationalists, the Center party, and particularly Sir Horace Plunkett's party-were trying to bring pressure to bear on the Government to bring forward a compromise bill which could be agreed to by all.

But on the whole conditions in Ireland in 1919 were better, economically, politically, and the feeling was better than perhaps at any time in the English occupation of seven centuries; yet probably never worse than in 1920.

Contrast the prosperity of that year with the economic strangulation of the country resulting from the threatened paralysis of the transportation system brought about by the refusal of the railway men to run trains carrying soldiers and munitions. Contrast a week of my

Wide World Photos ARTHUR GRIFFITH, THE DIRECTING FORCE OF THE SINN FEIN MOVEMENT stay in Dublin in 1919 with the closing week of November, 1920, when fortyeight persons were killed and seventy were injured in one forty-eight-hour period and the seventh day found Arthur Griffith, the moderate Sinn Fein leader, in jail along with other leaders of the republican movement. Ambushes, raids, reprisals, and street fighting complete the week's history. The larger places-Dublin, Belfast, Londonderrywere the scenes of mob violence, and the smaller towns in terror as a result of the vengeance taken by the police force, the Black and Tans.

The history of that designation, Black and Tan, throws a light on the situation. Mindful of the disastrous experience of 1913, when British regulars refused to fire on Irish rebels in Ulster, the British Government has not sent its cr

regiments into Ireland. The force is largely made up of demobilized soldiers recruited into the Royal Irish Constabulary. Lacking complete uniforms, they wore black caps with their khaki suitshence the Black and Tan.

In one place during that bloody week in November thirteen buildings were systematically burned under the direction of a uniformed officer, even co-operative creameries erected under the Irish Agricultural Organization Society being burned, as Sir Horace Plunkett indignantly testified in London recently.

But assassination of British officers in their beds, the kidnapping and assassination of a Galway priest, the turning of gunfire on a football crowd, the killing of prisoners in Cork and Clare, are not the real things. They are appalling incidents, but they are result, not cause. They spring from a political situation.

The withdrawal of seventy-three members from the British Parliament in 1918 was notice to England and the world that Sinn Fein Ireland was no longer a part of the United Kingdom. The Sinn Feiners, representing at that time seventy-five per cent of the people, and at the recent elections even more, have armed themselves to resist being forced to return to the Union. Great Britain has armed to keep them in the Empire. Meantime the Home Rule Bill was put before Parliament and added fuel to the fire, being satisfactory to no one. Then came, last August, the Restoration to Order Act enacted by Parilament, which put the greater part of the people of Ireland outside of the workings of the ordinary processes of civil law. The military establishments were strengthened. The courts martial were given the power over life and death, fine or imprisonment. Sinn Fein answered this policy by becoming a law unto itself.

There are six major forces operative in Ireland to-day, all striving for mastery-Sinn Fein, the British Government, Ulster, the Church, labor, and the party of conciliation and compromise, whose most noteworthy representative is Sir Horace Plunkett.

To commence with the Sinn Feinfor any discussion of Ireland these days must commence with Sinn Fein. We laughed at Sinn Fein when we first heard of the movement-a handful of Gaelic enthusiasts proclaiming Ireland for "ourselves alone." We do not laugh any more, for we have come to realize that in Sinn Fein we have a great national movement, similar to the other national movements that we have been applauding.

To understand Sinn Fein we must go back to the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, when Erin came perilously near being the only country of western Europe upholding the light of learning and scholars flocked to her schools from the Continent; when Armagh, the religious capital of Christian Ireland, was recognized as a great metropolis of civilization and when her missionaries carried the higher learning all over western Europe. No wonder that Irish

en look back to that period with

yearning and strive to bring it back. And there lies the inspiration for Sinn Fein.

There is another period in Ireland largely responsible for the growth of the dominant party of to-day: the time of the great famine of 1846-9, when Ire land was insane with starvation, scarred with poverty-pitted and scarred with it, repulsive with it, unclean with it. It seared the souls of Irishmen; it exiled many of their best and youngest to America. And then began the IrishAmerican movement, and, although England cannot be held entirely responsible by any fair-minded person, it bred in Irishmen an ingrained hatred of England which no amount of reasoning can ever explain away.

It is upon these two pillars, love of Ireland and hatred of England, that the Sinn Fein edifice has been builded.

Sinn Fein is not a new movement, as Arthur Griffith explained to me. It is but the latest and the most successful of the many attempts that have been made through the centuries to throw off English rule. Its essence is contained in those two words-Sinn Fein (For Ourselves Alone). For the object of the Sinn Fein since it became a political body has been complete separation from England. Theoretically there is nothing that can be said against that aim. Theoretically there is no reason why, if a majority of the people of Ireland want to become an independent state, it should not be done. But practically it is impossible-impossible for two rea

sons.

First, because England for strategic reasons could not and would not allow it, and because even if England were to agree to it Ireland is too weak a state to defend either herself from attack or England from attacks which would be made on her through Ireland.

But Sinn Fein has had a career of suc cess from its inception, culminating in its phenomenal success in the elections of December, 1918, and the setting up of a separate republic (on paper) in January, 1919. It received its first definite setback last summer when neither the American Republican Convention in June nor the Democratic Convention in July allowed an indorsement of the Irish Republic to be made. Eamon de Valera had failed in his task. Without American support Sinn Fein would be doomed to failure. He had failed at the moment of greatest opportunity to get the Nation-wide indorsement Sinn Fein sought and needed.

Sinn Fein is under the control of a secret organization which directs the campaign of murder and mob violence at present operative in Ireland, but there are indications that certain organizations within Sinn Fein are getting beyond its control.

Such an organization is the Transport Union, which includes practically all the labor element. The aims of the Union and Sinn Fein are extremely divergent. Labor in Ireland is Bolshevist. Its aim is a soviet republic. Sinn Fein aims at a democracy in the

form of a republic. Labor includes about one-third of the population of Ireland. It was the general impression last summer in Europe that Lloyd George lost a great opportunity when he failed to take advantage of this division in the ranks of Sinn Fein and skillfully to widen the breach between the central organization and the large labor element, at present for reasons of its own co-operating with it.

Another group fast sliding beyond the control of Sinn Fein is the farmers' sons-the most restless and uncontrolled factor in Ireland. They make up what is known as the Agrarian Movement. They own no land, but are determined to get it. There are roughly 500,000 in the movement, about half of whom, I was told, were well-drilled soldiers. It is these men in this Agrarian Movement who have been seizing the land from the owners. No one is safe, no one is im mune; landlords and large farmers are forced to surrender their holdings under mob intimidation, but holders of small plots, even priests holding land, have been subjected to the same treatment. So threatening, indeed, has this movement become that the Sinn Fein government has been obliged to step in and attempt to put a stop to it. A Sinn Fein bank under the able administration of Mr. Smith-Gordon is loaning to these would-be landowners on very liberal terms in the effort to induce them to acquire the land by lawful instead of violent measures-an effort not yet wholly successful, for these young men are determined to have the land. They are not particular as to the means employed in getting it, and the legal restraints are distasteful to them. As a result the dispossession of owners has gone on with its horrible accompaniment. of murder.

These Sinn Fein banks represent but one of the many administrative branches carried on by that government. Courts have been established where dispossessed landowners can obtain redress and justice can be obtained-at least, a superficial order restored in disturbed communities.

The Sinn Fein organization has fast been bringing about a condition where it is the de facto government, while the lawfully constituted government is still nominally in force. Such a state of things could not continue, and was and is constantly growing worse.

During the passage of the Home Rule Bill through the House of Commons the consistent aim of the Sinn Fein was to destroy respect for the Government, break down its moral force, make its decrees worthless; and to that end atrocity has been piled on atrocity, murder upon murder, and Terence MacSwineys have died to prove their faith to the world.

Is it civil war that we are seeing in Ireland to-day? That, as was said in the House of Lords the other day, is the only thing that would in any way justify the British Government for the methods by which it has met murder and arson and hunger strikes. For it has met mur