The result of two centuries of war and diplomacy was the victory of the "freedom of the Straits" under international guarantee. As such it was a significant, progressive step in the recognition of community of interests throughout the world. Today this settlement as a whole has been wrecked. It remains to be seen whether this particular section of the treaty is to be salvaged and if so whether any alterations are needed.

This proposal of the treaty of Sèvres was not agreed upon in 1920 until many other plans had been debated and rejected. It would be useless now to review all the various projects which were considered during 1918-20. Many of them are now rendered impossible by changes in the political situation. In any case it is essential to bear in mind that any settlement for the Straits is first of all a political rather than a purely legal matter. Practical aspects rather than moral or abstract considerations must determine the adoption of any particular solution.

This the United States has already indicated by statements made regarding ultimate Russian interest in any permanent settlement of both Far Eastern and Near Eastern questions. Thus Mr. Polk wrote to the Allies on March 24, 1920:

This Government is convinced that no arrangement that is now made concerning the government and control of Constantinople and the Straits can have any element of permanency unless the vital interests of Russia in these problems are carefully provided for and protected, and unless it is understood that Russia, when it has a government recognized by the civilized world, may assert its right to be heard in regard to the decisions now made.

It is noted with pleasure that the questions of passage of warships and the régime of the Straits in war-time are still under advisement, as this Government is convinced that no final decision should or can be made without the consent of Russia.

With regard to the Siberian question Secretary Hughes on September 19, 1921, maintained in advance of the meeting of the Washington Conference that

in the absence of a single recognized Russian Government the protection of legitimate Russian interests must devolve as a moral trusteeship upon the whole Conference.

Both of these statements are similar in nature and both range ahead of immediate and probably temporary conditions.

It is important in any case to consider particularly the relation of the present Russian Government to the problem in hand. The Soviet authorities by the publication in 1918 of the secret treaties of the Czar's Government showed that they did not adhere to the programme proposed by the secret agreement of 1915. That agreement had assigned Constantinople and the real control of the Straits to Russia. The Revolutionary Government however, has not failed to assert Russian interest with regard to the Straits and the Black Sea. In treaties with the Angora Turks in 1921 and 1922 the Soviet authorities declare that "international regulation concerning the Black Sea and the Dardanelles" must be entrusted to a future conference composed exclusively of delegates of the riverain states and that Turkey must retain complete sovereignty over Constantinople. In other words the future regulation of the Straits, though neither Russian nor Turkish exclusively, must become a local concern and in principle revert to the status of the early nineteenth century.

In similar fashion the Moscow Government by a note of September 14, 1922, asserted that Russia would not "consent to the Straits being opened to the battleships of any country" and that "Russia, Turkey, The Ukraine, and Georgia, to whom belongs practically the whole Black Sea coast, cannot admit the right of any other government to interfere in the settlement of the question of the Straits." This position is of course in line with principles of Russian policy which were asserted in the days of the Czars Paul I, Alexander I, and Nicholas I. Against these views stand the development of European diplomacy throughout the nineteenth century, the progressive tendencies of international law as indicated in the Treaty of Sèvres, and the views of American statesmen as quoted earlier in this article. The fact that Russian "Whites" are reported as rallying to the support of the views of the Soviet authorities on this question is not surprising. It marks the survival of Russian nationalist, imperial interests in Near Eastern affairs.

On the other hand the idea that Great Britain or any combination of the Allies can attempt, at this stage of the world's affairs, to make the Straits a special naval preserve is equally dangerous. Gallipoli should never be another Gibraltar for England or for any

other Power. The future peace of the world would be endangered if any programme for the fortification or control of the Straits by any single state were now permitted. To allow this would be to set back the hands of the international clock.

Furthermore, merely to label the Black Sea a "sea of peace" would not disguise the significance of an attempt to treat the Black Sea as a special marine area barred to all naval forces. This Russian idea is also opposed to international interest. It would tend to propagate essentially local and possibly selfish aims. For the Black Sea States now to arrogate to themselves the exclusive regulation of waters which in the course of centuries have finally become thoroughly international is equally dangerous. If this plan were adopted it would mean that these waters would be barred forever even to the righteous and peaceable errands of the American navy. With due appreciation of our love and respect for peace such a plan might limit the usefulness of our naval power as an instrument of justice and of national policy.

It would be futile to anticipate events which may take place before the publication of this article. Circumstances may alter the particulars of the situation. The general elements, however, stand out clearly as they have developed in historical fashion. The solution which may be adopted will fail of its proper purpose unless these elements are duly considered. What is needed is a broad international settlement based on adequate international responsibility. Any other arrangement will merely prepare the way for further trouble.

In this connection the process and methods of the solution to be arrived at are also important. Unless care is taken precedents may be developed which might be used to threaten our naval and military position in the Panama Canal Zone. Even the Erie Canal is in one sense a waterway connecting the ocean with inland seas which are in international use. The details or tactics of the negotiations at Lausanne will therefore affect our national strategy in the conclusions to be secured. This result requires careful coördination of all the elements involved to protect American policies.

ALFRED L. P. DENNIS.

THE LITERARY DISCIPLINE-II

BY JOHN ERSKINE

ORIGINALITY IN LITERATURE

I

If we accept the doctrine of criticism today, originality is a great virtue in a writer, and if we believe the book advertisements, all the new writers as they appear, and as they reappear, have this virtue to a striking, even to an explosive extent. But with all their originality, some of the new books turn out to be dull, and if we reconsider for a moment the books men have finally judged great, we observe that they were rather destitute of the kind of originality we talk of nowadays.

"In poetry, a new cadence means a new idea," wrote the imagist some time ago, defending the use of free verse. The doctrine was in the interest of the cadence, but it implied something larger and more significant, that in poetry newness of ideas is desirable. More recently, an American critic remarked, in effect, that what Lytton Strachey has accomplished in his literary portraits is nothing but what Gamaliel Bradford accomplished in his, and since Mr. Bradford's portraits came first, they should have the credit and the praise which an undiscriminating world bestows on Mr. Strachey's. If the question of priority is raised in this kind of writing, perhaps something should be said for Plutarch; but are we sure we should raise the question of priority? What arrests us in the remark of the American critic is the undebated assumption that literary excellence derives from doing something before somebody else does it. Is it the business of art to discover new ideas, or indeed to busy itself much with any ideas, as separated from emotion and the other elements of complete experience? Is it the originality of genius in art to say something no one has ever thought of before, or to say something we all recognize as important and true? As for the mere question of

priority, even stupid things have been said for a first time; do we wear the laurel for being the first to say them?

One suspects that the new cadence will persist in poetry only if we like it, and that Mr. Bradford's reputation will outstrip Mr. Strachey's only if we prefer what he wrote, and if by chance we care for neither, then both will be neglected, though one preceded the other by a hundred years. Excellence is the only originality that art considers. They understand these things better in France. There the young poet even of the most radical school will respect the bias of art towards continuity rather than toward novelty, toward the climax of a tradition rather than its beginning; his formula of self-confidence will be, "Victor Hugo was a great poet, Alfred de Musset was a great poet, and now at last I'm here." But in America the parallel gospel is, "Poor Tennyson couldn't write, nor Longfellow, of course; now for the first time let's have some poetry."

The writers finally judged great, so far from sharing our present concern for originality, would probably not even understand it. What is the object of literature? they would ask. Of course, if it is to portray the individual rather than human nature, or those aspects of life which stand apart from life in general, then each book may have something queer in it, something not in any other book and in that sense original; but then the reader, before long, will be looking for peculiarity in every book he buys-it must be, not better, but "different", to use an American term in æsthetics; and the writer then who would meet this demand for the peculiar must make a fresh start with every book. What bad luck, they would say, to be forever a primitive, to be condemned, after every success, to produce something in another vein, the first of its kind. Originality in this sense will be continually undermined by fame, for the more an author is read, and the more people become accustomed to his world, the less he will seem original. On the other hand, if the reader looks for originality, there will be no fame, for no matter how popular an author is, we shall read his book only once, and then be ready for his next novelty.

But if the object of literature is still, as it was for the great writers, to portray human nature, then the only new thing the