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American and British Relations

ECENTLY two documents have appeared which shed an interesting sidelight upon our relations with Great Britain. The first is the famous Bernstorff note concerning the $50,000 to be used for influencing Congress. It read as follows:

I request authority to pay out up to $50,000, (fifty thousand dollars) in order, as on former occasions, to influence Congress through the organization you know of, which can perhaps prevent war. I am beginning in the meantime to act accordingly. In the above circumstances a public official German declaration in favor of Ireland is highly desirable, in order to gain the support of Irish influence here.

The second document is from the Von Igel papers captured by the Secret Service men and published by the State Department. In it Justice Cohalan gives an example of the kind of Irish influence Bernstorff wanted:

No. 335-16.

Very secret.

New York, April 17, 1916. Judge Cohalan requests the transmission of the following remarks:

"The revolution in Ireland can only be successful if supported from Germany, otherwise England will be able to suppress it, even though it be only after hard struggles. Therefore help is necessary. This should consist, primarily, of aërial attacks in England and a diversion of the fleet simultaneously with Irish revolution. Then, if possible, a landing of troops, arms, and ammunition in Ireland, and possibly some officers from Zeppelins. This would enable the Irish ports to be closed against England and the establishment of stations for submarines on the Irish coast and the cutting off of the supply of food for England. The services of the revolution may therefore decide the war."

rupture will hurt England, and perhaps help Ireland. Neither cares for the United States or its interests. This variety of Irish wish us to help them in a war of secession from England, and the Germans wish to use us as a catspaw in their game of conquering the world. Unfortunately their propaganda has not been without effect. They pictured England as a grasping, tyrannical, and entirely commercialized monster, who had pounced on Germany because Germany was making progress in trade, and would do the same to us. But the fact is that Great Britain is the only country in the world that does not discriminate against other people's commerce by a tariff and that until the war German merchants did far more business in British colonies than in their own. The anti-British propaganda also made telling use of the insinuation that friendship with England would mean something akin to putting our 100 million people back into a state of dependency on the British 45 million, and that the only way to maintain independence was to hate England. This idea of a daily morning hate is as peculiarly German as the perpetuation of a grievance is Irish, and neither can appeal much to any real American. Moreover, a close view of the Irish organizations in politics in New York and Boston will furnish any one with a partial clue to the cause of the so-called British tyranny shown by the failure to govern Ireland successfully.

British rule exists in every climate and on every continent. In the last half century it has been generally successful everywhere but It has not succeeded in in two instances. making the Catholic part of Ireland happy, and it has not succeeded in amalgamating the Catholic part of Canada-the French Canadians. British rule has gotten along well with

5132 To his Excellency,

Washington, D. C.

8167

0230

COUNT VON BERNSTORFF, Imperial Ambassador.

Reading these things over reminds one of what was pretty well known before, that a large number of people in this country are perpetually trying to disturb the friendly relations between this country and Great Britain, the German-Americans in the hope that a rupture between the two will help Germany, and the Irish-Americans in the hope that such a

the world except in the two places in the British Empire where there is a solid body of people who owe religious allegiance to Rome.

II

The persistent attacks of the Germans and anti-English Irish among us on Great Britain since the beginning of the war have also been directed toward making France, Canada, the United States, and every one else possible dissatisfied with Great Britain's share in the war. The facts do not substantiate this charge either.

Great Britain has 45 million population, in

contrast with 39 million for France, 36 million for Italy, 175 million for Russia, and somewhat more than 100 million for us.

This 45 million has furnished a far larger proportion of the naval strength and shipping than any other nation and has done this from the beginning of the war. This has also necessitated bearing most of the odium attached to the blockade which was for the general benefit of all the Allies as well as England.

From the beginning, also, they have furnished more money than any other nation.

In the first two years of the war they did not furnish as many men as either France or Russia, but at present the British army in France is about as large as the French. The British have besides an army in Egypt, another at Saloniki (as have also the French) and another in Mesopotamia. Moreover, the British Isles have furnished as many men in proportion and suffered as great losses as any of their colonies, besides putting forth an extraordinary industrial effort.

The comparison of the efforts of the various Allies was instigated by the Irish and Germans for the express purpose of arousing jealousy, and it was to an extent successful. This insidious attack on the British is entirely unjustified by the facts, for no 45 million people engaged in the war have made greater efforts to use their strength and improve their weaknesses than have the British. They are subject to only two honest criticisms. They were blind to the danger that threatened them and therefore unready to meet it. They talked a good deal in the early part of the war on the basis of their plans for the future. Other people, perhaps, can voice these criticisms-if the British have not atoned for their deficiencies in blood-but without losing our sense of humor we cannot point to either their unpreparedness nor their proneness to discuss their influence on the war before that influence reached the front.

III

But it is much more important for us to realize the positive reasons for our friendship with Great Britain than merely to realize the misinformation propagated amongst us by certain Irish and Germans with the intent to benefit Germany and Ireland at the expense of Great Britain and the United States.

The war has awakened us to the realization that the most important thing to us in the progress of the world is the spread of free insti

tutions the growth of democracy. The same is true of the British, and of all the nations in Europe the British have been the most persistent and consistent defenders of political freedom as well as being the originators of it. The article elsewhere in this magazine, entitled, "The British-American Adventures Toward Liberty," gives some exceedingly interesting details of the British attitude on this allimportant question during the last 150 years. During that time we have differed with Great Britain on all manner of less important subjects. On the one subject of transcending importance both nations have consistently. upheld the spread of political liberty and have very often coöperated in so doing. This cooperation has been of the utmost importance to us, to the British, and to the cause of political liberty in the past, as it is at present and must be in the future.

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No Basis For Peace

HE German Government has never credited its enemies with any different motives than it feels itself. That was the basis of their mistake in supposing that England would keep out of the war, and also the basis for the same mistake about us. The Germans had studied the material situation and left out the moral forces entirely.

The German Government is following the same tactics in its campaign for peace. It presumes that on our side as well as on theirs the war is only about land and money and trade and military advantages. With this idea in their heads the Germans offer to give up Belgium, except for special trading rights. This would, they hoped, open the bargain. As it has failed they will continue to give out suggestions of one kind or another in the belief that if they offer land and money and military advantages enough we will all-France, England, Russia, the United States-join them in a peace conference, frankly cast aside the moral issues, and divide up the spoils with only such consideration for the lesser allies on either side as their future usefulness would dictate. This was the custom at the end of most continental wars in the past, and the German Military Government seems to look upon the world with about the same moral perceptions as Frederick the Great and Prince Metternich, not to mention Prince Bismarck.

If the German military who govern the

country should believe that their enemies really intended to act upon decent motives themselves and to force the Germans to do likewise, the military would probably prefer to take the chance of complete defeat and extermination to any such solution, but we shall probably never even get this idea into their heads while they are in power. It is, then, not worth while to examine the various peace "feelers" which originate with the present Government of Germany, except as an indication of their military strength or weakness. As bases for the peace that is to come they are valueless, completely valueless, even if they offer great territorial concessions, for they are founded on the same kind of reasoning which started the war, and until the German Government is filled with men with different ideas there is no use of making peace with it.

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More "Willy" and "Nicky"

Correspondence

RADUALLY out of the European archives are coming the documents that enable us to reconstruct the history of the last twenty years, and which shed the brightest possible light upon the sort of diplomacy which has precipitated the present war. The collapse of the Russian autocracy has now made public property the secret archives of the Czar. They contain papers whose existence even the Czar's closest ministers had not suspected. Irrespective of their very interesting contents, these documents give a most illuminating insight into that governmental system which has been best exemplified in the rule of the present Kaiser and the now vanished Autocrat of All the Russias. They show us that, in addition to the ostensible government of both nations, there has existed a kind of holy of holies, an inside organization, composed exclusively of two persons, the Kaiser and the Czar, who, without the knowledge of their people, their representative chambers, or even their own selected advisers, have presumed to put their heads together and plan the future of Europe. That two men, one of notoriously unstable and irresponsible character, lacking in judgment, honor, or statesmanship, and actuated solely by personal vanity and a desire for "glory," and the other commonly regarded as mentally feeble, if not actually deficient, could secretly manufacture plots that involved the lives of millions of human beings, and their

happiness and civilization, is probably the greatest anachronism of these troublous times.

The present Russian authorities have recently given a specimen of this correspondence to the press. As in the case of the famous telegrams preceding the war, the Czar signs himself "Nicky" and the Kaiser puts himself down as "Willy." From the telegrams so far issued we cannot make a detailed and connected story, but the main points stand out distinctly enough, and they reveal a narration of duplicity and treachery that we find only in these exalted quarters. In 1904, as to-day, Russia and France were allies — an alliance of defense against Germany and Austria. France had not only poured untold millions into the imperial Russian coffers, but had staked her future as a nation upon the stability of this alliance. Yet these telegrams disclose the Czar conspiring with the Kaiser to form an alliance, which, if it had been successful, would have destroyed not only France, but Great Britain. Primarily their purpose was to organize a Russian-German compact for an attack on England. England, Russia, and France were joining hands for the purpose of protecting themselves and the world against German aggression and France and Russia were actually allied by the most solemn treaty. Yet the Czar, in the secrecy of his palace, was plotting with the Kaiser against his allies. The two men planned to make a formal written treaty, and, after this had been signed, to enlighten France, the idea being that the Republic, once her ally had deserted her for the German camp, would be obliged to follow. Ultimately, therefore, there was to be a Russo-Franco-Austro-German alliance against Great Britain.

The valiant French armies were to assist in the work of securing world domination for the despoilers of Alsace-Lorraine.

"As soon as it is accepted by us, France is bound to join her ally," says "Willy" to "Nicky." "Nicky." "No third power must hear even a whisper of our intentions." For some reason, however, the imperial "deal" did not go through. Possibly the wretched showing made by Russia in the Japanese war explains this failure. Very likely there is more secret correspondence which will definitely settle that point. But, even though nothing else is ever forthcoming, these documents will have an historic importance, for the illustration they furnish of the kind of government which precipitated the greatest calamity in history.

S

Price-Fixing and Production

OME of the anti-war agitators and politicians have recently tried to arouse dissatisfaction from the fact that the regulation of food prices does not reduce the cost of food, and that the coal dictator does not dictate a low price for the consumer's coal. To abuse the Government for the high cost of living when it presses heavily upon us is an obvious method of arousing discontent. But its obviousness will not make it largely successful, because it is equally obvious that while price-regulation does not relieve us of the high cost of living it does help toward the vastly more important end of winning the war.

For the winning of the war the amount of production of food and other products is far more important than the price at which they are sold. It would not help win the war to sell wheat at a dollar a bushel if there was not enough wheat. And if there is enough wheat, paying two, three, or even four dollars a bushel would not lose the war. It is easier to raise more money-as hard as that is-than it is to raise more wheat, and wheat is the more important-likewise coal, steel, etc., etc. The main problem confronting the Government regulators, then, is to get the utmost possible production of every useful kind from the country. They are production stimulators in object much more than price regulators. Their price regulation is a means to an end.

When this problem first began to unfold itself to us, most people concurred in the idea expressed by the President that it would not be necessary to bribe a patriotic American by abnormal prices to give his utmost production. The development of the situation convinces us, however, that abnormal prices are necessary to abnormal production. Let us take wheat as an example. A wheat farmer sees an opportunity to make a good profit on his usual acreage, and he thinks that probably he will be able to get labor enough to harvest it. The country, however, wants him to grow more than usual. It wants him to go to more expense than usual in planting more land and to run a greater risk of high wages and a shortage of labor. But the farmer sees a possible catastrophe staring him in the face if he extends his credit, enlarges his operations to include poorer land, and runs greater risks at harvest time, unless he is assured of a sufficiently high price to make all this extra work and risk prof

itable. From patriotic reasons he would probably do his best on his usual acreage, but patriotism without an assurance of profit would hardly induce him to risk increasing his operations so that he might lose as much on his extra work as he made on his regular effort. The same is true of coal mining. There are many coal mines in which the cost of mining is prohibitive at normal prices. But once make the prices abnormal and guarantee them, and these mines that are ordinarily idle will become active and swell the total production.

Likewise, men will build steel mills, airplane factories, and start other industry to swell production if they are assured of prices that will give them a quick profit on the operation. They are afraid to wait for their profit for fear that after the war their extra product will not be saleable. And to get a quick profit these people must get abnormal prices.

Patriotism will usually make a man do his utmost with what he has, but it will not usually induce a man to volunteer to go into bankruptcy by over-extending himself. To induce the extra effort that we need, the producers need some kind of guarantee of high prices.

That is why Mr. Hoover has fixed the price of wheat at $2.20 a bushel when in normal times one dollar is a high price; and why copper is 23 cents a pound, although a short while ago several large companies agreed to furnish the Government at 163 cents a pound.

The Government has tried to fix the price high enough to stimulate the maximum production, but no higher; for, once that production is reached, any further rise in price would be a useless expense to the public.

It is, of course, impossible to tell accurately just what the maximum abnormal production can be, not to mention what price will produce it. There is little or no precedent to go on. Conditions constantly change. Industries compete with each other for labor and the cost of production varies with the scarcity of producers in one field or another. The price fixers must learn as they go and rectify their errors in calculation according to the progress of events. And with the best human foresight, hindsight will show mistakes which foresight is now unable to obviate.

Nevertheless, it is abundantly clear that the price regulation helps to stimulate the production of the commodities we most need to win the war; that the men who are engaged in the regulation are intelligent, industrious, and