sary to set down in writing the well-understood condition that the Egyptian Government must demonstrate the disposition and the capacity to protect foreign lives and property pending fulfillment of the conditions named. About the first of August, Field Marshal Lord Allenby, Lord High Commissioner of Great Britain in Egypt, handed the Egyptian Premier a note from the British Government to the effect that, unless the Egyptian Government should at once take order effectively to protect foreign lives and property, the British Government would resume its former degree of control in the land of the Nile. The news from Egypt since the delivery of that note has been most meagre. Between Lord Allenby, on the one hand, who insists that the conditions of the gift of his royal honors shall be fulfilled, and the Levantine scum of Cairo, on the other, who insist that they shall not, King Fuad is hard put to it. 'Tis a pity he should be unking'd, for never did a king so enjoy kinging it; but, since he assumed the crown, the great British riverine works have been neglected, the desert has begun to encroach upon the sown, and in Upper Egypt the bandits hold full sway. So much for Self Determination, which in Egypt means the turning over of the fellaheen to the tender mercies of the most rapacious and cruel set of landlords and officials in the world, and the renunciation of that unexampled material prosperity which has been built up since 1882 under British direction.

In India the experiment of the "Dyarchy", that is, of a largely increased measure of self-government, is passing through its first critical stage. The joint Hindu-Mohammedan agitation reached its height in the spring. In March, the Viceroy of India, Lord Reading, apparently in a blue funk, sent his famous Delhi telegram to Mr. Montagu, British Secretary of State for India, urging on behalf of the Indian Moslems "evacuation of Constantinople, sovereignty of the Sultan over the Holy Places, and restoration of the Turk in Thrace and Smyrna". Note, please, that the telegram demanded more for the Turk than Mustapha Kemal Pasha himself had demanded up to that time. The final sentence of the telegram requested authority from Mr. Montagu for its publication. Mr. Montagu cabled the authority without consulting the British Premier, and thereby of course lost his

official head. The result was happy for the British Raj. Mr. Montagu's successor, Lord Peel, being in the right line of British imperial tradition, instructed Lord Reading to deal firmly with sedition, of whatever religious or racial complexion. Lord Reading obeyed, and clapped into quod the most important agitators, including Mahatma Gandhi, St. Gandhi, the leader of the Hindu "non-violent non-coöperation" movement. Now the Hindu masses expected some manifestation of divine displeasure when Gandhi was incarcerated; none such appearing, Gandhi has lost "kudos", and his Hindu movement has subsided. The Mohammedans likewise reacted, as was to be expected, to firm treatment. The British Raj is more secure than it was a year ago, thanks largely to the Delhi telegram. It is to be remarked that the Moslem leaders of India were not particularly concerned about the Caliph. Their objective was Indian and national-to destroy the British Raj and establish a Mohammedan State in India (involving the subjection of 220,000,000 Indians to 60,000,000 Mohammedans). They were using the Turkish question for propaganda purposes, arousing the wrath of the Mohammedan masses against the British by the charge that the latter had desecrated the Holy Places and contemplated the destruction of Islam; and St. Gandhi was their tool. Now they have no logical leg to stand on, but doubtless will continue to agitate upon their stumps. If you have an Empire and propose to keep it, you must be imperial-minded and act imperiously.

Lack of space compels me to omit discussion of many important matters, such as: the internal political situation in Britain, culminating in the disruption of the Coalition, the fall of Lloyd George, and the dissolution of Parliament; the formal establishment of British mandate rule in Palestine; and the developments of British policy with reference to Mesopotamia or the Kingdom of Irak, which policy has received definition in a recent treaty, and the prospect of which kingdom is clouded by the fact that the Turkish National Pact lays claim to the Mosul oil regions.

The statement made by a British publicist in August that "certainly one-fifth and possibly one-quarter of the British people are economically not only unproductive, but a first charge

and heavy burden on the industry of the remainder," is still very nearly true. There is steady improvement, but very, very gradual. Yet, marvel of marvels, the sovereign is almost back to the equivalent of $4.84.

Italy has had a year of political vicissitudes, culminating in the most remarkable of revolutions; practically bloodless, for not more than fifty lives were lost in connection therewith. Towards the end of October Mussolini, the Fascista leader, demanded that control of the Government be given to the Fascisti. Armed Fascista detachments marched on Rome and encamped just without the city. Premier Facta submitted to the King a decree proclaiming a state of siege throughout the kingdom. The king refused to sign, and sent for Mussolini. Mussolini formed a Government, giving the chief portfolios to Fascisti, himself taking Foreign Affairs and the Interior.

The Fascismo movement was started to rid Italy of the Communist menace. It has grown to represent the will of the Italian middle class, tired of shuffling and inefficiency in Government. But irregular methods of justice are apt to corrupt the justicers; and power achieved by extra-legal means is held by a dubious tenure. It is highly flattering to the genius of the Italian people that one inclines to expect happy consequences from the revolution. The Chamber reconvened on November 16. Much depends on its temper. If it refuses to coöperate in carrying through the Fascismo programme of domestic reforms, including important changes in the electoral law, it is possible that further extra-legal measures will be required to consummate the revolution.

The world is watching for the unfolding of Mussolini's foreign policy; Jugoslavia, at least, not without a certain trepidation. But whereas the other day, being in opposition, the Fascista leaders talked in 'Ercles' vein, already, being in power, they talk of "dignity and expansion within the limits of our possibilities, and of equilibrium"; which is another sort of speech.

A review of the year which omits detailed consideration of events in France, Germany and Russia, is, to put it mildly, incomplete; but such omission is necessary. The most important

German matter is the reparations problem; which calls for subtle analysis. The situation in Russia is of an extreme dubiety and vagueness, enhanced by the deliberate mendacities of Moscow. The dilucidation of recent French history would be a complicated affair, concerning itself chiefly with the reparations problem, the French policy in the Near East, and the French participation in the Washington Conference, so greatly misunderstood and so unjustly condemned.

The German reparations problem cannot be said to be much farther advanced towards a solution than it was a year ago. The most serious element in the situation is the German temper. The Germans obviously lack the will to set their house in order. The French Government has incurred a domestic debt of the equivalent of $8,000,000,000 for reconstruction, and proposes to expend $4,000,000,000 more; yet has received from Germany no reparations cash and not much in kind. Under the circumstances the French temper is admirable.

Whether that blood-stained crew at Moscow are more or less firmly intrenched in power than they were a year ago, is a question I cannot undertake to answer. According to American reports, the deaths from famine in Russia have not exceeded 500,000. This happy falsification of early estimates was largely due to the work of the American Relief Administration, which for a considerable period fed daily over eight million mouths, and which did an immense medical and sanitary work. The A. R. A. is continuing its mercies, for the famine is not over and disease stalks the land. It expects to feed over two million persons through the coming winter.

Romance is pale beside the true story of events in the Near East since late August. The sudden Turkish thrust at the Greek line at Afium-Karahissar; its success; the retreat of the main Greek forces to Smyrna, of the Greek left wing to Mudania on the Sea of Marmora; the incredible rapidity of the Greek retreat to Smyrna, over most difficult ground; the very skilful conduct of the Greek retreat to Mudania; the skilful embarkations of the Greek forces, chiefly at Smyrna, Cheshme and Mudania; the Turkish occupation of Smyrna on September 9, scarcely two

weeks after the first blow was struck; the destruction of Smyrna by fire on the 14th; the tragedy of the Christian refugees; the herding of the men of military age into the interior and the seizure of the girls suitable for the harem; the evacuation of the rest of the surviving refugees (some 230,000), largely through the efforts of American relief workers; the mutiny of the Greek soldiers at Mitylene; its swift spread to the entire Greek army and navy; the abdication of King Constantine; how the Turks imagined that they had licked the world, and how they proposed to pursue the Greeks into Europe; how they were thwarted by the British commander, General Sir Charles Harington, who reminded them of the neutral Straits zones established under the armistice treaty of October 30, 1918, which was still in force; how the British rushed military and naval reinforcements to the Straits and dug in on the Asiatic side; how the Turk saw a light and consented to negotiation; of the Mudania military convention, signed on October 10, under the terms of which the Greek military forces were required to evacuate Eastern Thrace by October 30, following which the civil administration of the province should be handed over to the Kemalists-the which evacuation was duly carried out; how the Christian civilian population of Eastern Thrace rushed in pell-mell flight westward, northward, southward to the ports, so that now there is scarce a Christian left in Eastern Thrace. All in the space of two months.

On November 20 a conference on the Near East opened at Lausanne. The Turk went thither as a conqueror. Four years ago, beaten and cowed, he abjectly sued for an armistice. The little difference is due to the stupidities and silly jealousies of the Western Powers.

By act of the Angora Assembly the Sultanate has been abolished. Mohammed VI is deposed both as Sultan and as Caliph, and hereafter Caliphs are to be appointed, as required, by the Angora Assembly. There's some consolation in that Act. It may divide Islam and save the Franks in their own despite.

HENRY W. BUNN.