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natural action.

consequences of their own The fault is deplorable, but it is natural, pardonable, and, above

The Times.

all, not past the repair which the sense and the sentiment of the nation demand.

THE CREATOR OF GERMAN SOCIALISM.

It is no exaggeration to say that with August Bebel there has gone from European politics their strongest personality and their most powerful will. Few statesmen wield to-day an appreciable influence outside their own country. Of politicians whose thoughts and words had wings to carry them beyond their own frontier, we can name only two. One is Jaurès, and the other was Bebel. If Jaurès is the more sympathetic figure, the greater thinker, and the more eloquent voice, there is nothing in his record which stirs the veneration that Bebel inspired. His leadership was creative. Every other leader in modern Europe inherited his party. There was not a man among them who did not receive his mantle from some older prophet, and assume the control of an organization which generations of predecessors built up. Bebel made his party, and made it virtually out of nothing. He had to create, not merely its machine, but its habit of thought, and to create it in the face of repression and persecution. The fruit of his work is a party, the most disciplined, the most self-reliant, the most potent for education as well as for combat, of any in modern Europe. Our British parties, with the wealth of our middleclass behind them, their great newspapers, and their enormous power of social pressure are formidable engines of public opinion. But they are not, in the same sense as German Socialism, an intellectual force which acts upon millions of working-men with the combined power of a university, a church, and a trade union. Allow

what one will to the speculative genius of Karl Marx, to the imaginative impulse of Lassalle, to the ardent idealism of Liebknecht, this formidable regimented phalanx is Bebel's creation and his monument. The man who achieved this feat in a country which values above all else the trained intelligence and the academic mind, was a self-educated artisan.

It is a common criticism on German Socialism to say that it has been barren of positive political results. To have supplied the working classes with an elaborate education in a country where they were, as they were not in Britain and France, politically nonexistent and unconscious, is itself a sufficiently large achievement. But the criticism ignores the indirect effects of German Socialism. Νο one who knows the facts would deny that the impulse behind the whole series of German Social Reforms has been the necessity of combating Bebel's party. Bismarck derived from Las salle his first notions of social amelioration, and admitted the debt frankly. The pressure that carried him and his successors into their schemes of insurance was without a doubt the sheer necessity of proving that the plight of the working classes could be rendered tolerable more simply and smoothly than by the triumph of Social Democracy.

But the real peculiarity of Bebel's policy and career was rather that instead of furnishing Liberalism with ideas, as Socialism has done in our own country, it seemed to sap its virtue and to place it on the defensive

as a narrowly middle-class party. It is a nice question how far the aggressiveness and deliberate isolation of social democracy is to blame for this result. The fact is, we suspect, that under German conditions there is no natural place for a constructive Liberalism. It is debarred from office and power; it cannot put in practice a policy of evolutionary adjustment; nor is it fitted to extort reforms by mass agitation. Bebel's policy of no compromise would be sterile in this country, and the influence of its example has probably been mischievous in France. But a powerful argument could be piled up to prove that it was in the main, and until recent years, the only policy which a working-class party could hopefully adopt against a bureaucratic Government in a State dominated by its army, over-governed by its police, and controlled by the

The Nation.

most retrograde and the most formidable Conservative class that exists in any European country save Russia. Against this tremendous reactionary force Bebel fought a continual battle, which was always for the enemy a rear-guard action. He won liberty of meeting and association, and nothing is now wanted but the reform of the Prussian franchise to sap the whole structure at its foundations. The day has not come as yet to estimate his work by results. But this at least is certain. The lonely pioneer who went to prison for his protest against the annexation of Alsace, will take his place in history with Bright and Cobden and Jaurès as the man whose lifework contributed the most to build across guarded frontiers and conscript barrack-rooms the hope of international brotherhood and enduring peace.

THE PEACE.

It seems certain that none of the Great Powers desires changes in the Treaty of Bucharest strongly enough to force a revision at the risk of provoking a new war. We may assume, therefore, that the Treaty will be accepted as it is, and, with the sanction of the Powers, will take the place of the Treaty of Berlin. Only one Great Power is seriously and conspicuously restless, and that is Austria-Hungary. But as Germany wears shining armor with quite as much insouciance when she helps to coerce Bulgaria in violation of all Austrian wishes as when she threatened Russia in order to gratify Austrian sentiment against Servia, we imagine that the Austrian Foreign Office will have to fall into line with the rest of Europe. Of course, Count Berchtold, if he does not resign his office, will make his new

line of march sufficiently circuitous to avoid the appearance of a sudden retreat. The important fact is that the Bucharest Treaty, contrary to all expectations, unites the Great Powers nearly enough for them to give it their sanction as the form of peace approved of by the Concert. We have said from the beginning that the final peace would not be a peace of any durability or in any sense worthy of its name unless it carried the authority and prestige of the whole Concert. What, then, are we to say of this peace of Bucharest? Simply that if it unites the Powers, as no other arrangement could unite them, it is a settlement that satisfies the main condition and must be accepted.

It satisfies the main condition, even though on countless minor points it courts criticism. On the face of it,

the settlement of the boundary lines is not the one we should have wished. Distinctively Bulgarian towns in Macedonia-distinctively Bulgarian, at least, if the ethnographic argument is to be allowed any weight at all— pass into non-Bulgarian ownership; the withdrawal of Macedonian territory is indeed a monstrous disappointment to Bulgaria; and Greece has successfully pressed her claim to an unduly large slice of the Thracian coast. Because Bulgaria was helpless before her combined foes she has been deprived of rewards which were properly hers by right of the enormous sacrifices she made in the war against Turkey. We call this a bad arrangement in itself, because it is one which is bound to leave Bulgaria permanently sore, and therefore a worse neighbor to Servia and Greece than she otherwise would have been. If Servia and Greece were able in their exultation to take a larger view of the future they would recognize that it would have been to their own interest to be satisfied with a little less than their pound of flesh. Bulgarian discontent may be a source of much expense and anxiety to them in the years to come. No doubt Bulgaria deserved a hard rap over the knuckles, but she did not deserve one so hard as this. We cannot help remarking that the secrecy which Bulgaria made a point of maintaining throughout the war was one of the causes of her undoing. She baffled Europe by a deliberately contrived system of misleading information, and, still following the policy of secrecy, she sprang a surprise attack on Greece and Servia which appears to have been a soldier's policy hatched apart from all the restraining influences of criticism at home and the sober warnings of onlookers abroad. The frankest publicity would have served her cause better. Thus we see how secrecy, in excessive

or morbid forms, may defeat the very military ends which it was intended to serve. This is a lesson for everybody, however, and Bulgaria should not have been made to learn it alone. Sir Edward Grey, in his statement in the House of Commons on Tuesday, most wisely refused to single out any Balkan State for particular censure in the recent war of brothers.

The next important fact to notice about the Treaty of Bucharest is that it depends upon the observance of the Treaty of London. It is necessary to understand clearly what this means. If the Treaty of London which created the Enos-Midia line were successfully torn up by the Turks, Bulgaria would get even less-much less in the material value of territory-than she gets by the Treaty of Bucharest. It is essential, therefore, to remember that the acceptance of the Treaty of Bucharest by the Powers postulates the accomplishment of the Treaty of London. Otherwise the Treaty of Bucharest would not be defensible. Those who believe themselves to be acting as the friends of Turkey in this country ask why, if Greece and Servia were allowed to acquire new territory by conquest after the between the Balkan Alliance and Turkey had been brought formally to an end, Turkey should not also be allowed to keep the territory she has reconquered. Besides, it is argued, Turkey has not really violated a treaty at all, as the Treaty of London had not been ratified. "You make one law for the Christian," it is said, "but another for the Turk. It is evident that the Turks would be allowed to remain wherever they are at the moment the men in possession-if only they were not Turks!" Superficially, of course, there is undoubted logic in such an argument. But if we recognize that the Treaty of Bucharest is tolerable only because it assumes the

war

operation of the Treaty of Londonthat is to say, the virtual retirement of the Turks from Europe-the logic crumbles to pieces. Permission to the Turks to stay at Adrianople and in the surrounding towns might be compatible with some scheme which has never come into existence; it is not compatible with the scheme that holds the field. Mr. Asquith said that the Balkan States could not conceivably be deprived of what they had won from the Turks, and we agree with him. We cannot contemplate the possibility of going back on that decision simply because a series of unforseen events allowed the Turks, practically unopposed, to reoccupy territory from which they had been driven. This is not a question of serving Bulgarian interests so much as of releasing a portion of Europe from Turkish rule in the interests of everybody. It will be said, of course, that the stories of atrocities prove that Bulgarians (Greeks and Servians, too, for that matter, if all the rumors are to be believed) are not more desirable rulers on the score of humanity than the Turks themselves. We cannot hope to test the conflicting stories of atrocities, but whatever the truth may be we take the general difference between Christian and Turkish atrocities to be this: that though the Christian peasants of the Balkan Peninsula may all be capable of cruelty when their blood is up, and the provocation has been great, no Christian Balkan State has ever exalted massacre into a policy in time of peace, whereas the Turks have notoriously done so. This is only too painfully proved by the Adana massacre and all the massacres of Armenians and Bulgarians in the past.

Turkey has been fairly warned that it will be in her own interest to retire behind the Enos-Midia line. If she does not do so she will forfeit the con

sideration of the Powers in all the financial arrangements which have yet to be made in connection with her lost territories. She will also lose the support and sympathy of the Powers in her reconstruction of her Asiatic empire. It is not to be supposed that reforms in Armenia are going to be wholly forgotten by Europe. Unless we are mistaken we shall hear a good deal about this question in the future. Europe will watch what happens with close concern. But if Turkey retained Adrianople and an important part of Thrace there would be very little prospect of Armenian reforms, or, indeed, of any solid progress in Asia Minor. Turkey would continue looking West instead of looking East. If troubles broke out in her Asiatic or Arabian territories the Powers could not be expected to exercise patience or lend her money. It would be much more likely that, all patience being exhausted, they would join in a scramble for partition. Great Britain has no interest in a partition of the Turkish Empire, and we should be very sorry to see it happen, but it is useless to disguise the fact that the possibility would be brought appreciably nearer if Turkey remained recalcitrantly at Adrianople. We are inclined to think on the whole that Turkey will give way. But it is to be remembered that if the coercion of Turkey by force actually became necessary it would be easy enough. Foreign ships could close the Dardanelles, and Turkey would probably lose her fleet, and perhaps her foothold in Europe altogether.

We need not go into the question of Albania and the Egean islands, as these present no obvious difficulties. Albania is to pass through a transitional stage under the rule of a Commission into an independent principality, and as to the possession of the islands the Great Powers have passed

a self-denying ordinance. Even Italy makes no claim to the islands she temporarily occupies. It should not be forgotten that if a friendly revision of the Treaty of Bucharest in minor respects should be found possible after all, the Powers have several islands to "play with." Greece as a naval power is much attracted to islands, not to mention the compelling force of the ancient Greek sentiments and glories which are bound up with the islands. It might therefore be possible, without in any serious sense reopening the questions settled at Bucharest, to enable Bulgaria to get a more valuable portion of the Thracian coast by setting off against it islands of disputable attachment that will naturally be coveted by the Greeks. This matter if properly handled would concern Bulgaria and Greece alone, and need not provoke the jealousy of other nations.

We cannot end without offering a word of congratulation to Sir Edward Grey, to whom more than to any other man Europe Owes her deliverance The Spectator.

from the peril of general war. A Balkan war used to be spoken of as a kind of synonym for Armageddon. Yet two distinct Balkan wars have come and gone and the harmony of the Great Powers is a much more solid fact now than it was at the beginning. The machinery of discussion which has kept the Great Powers in touch, and sufficiently at one for the general purpose of peace, was the Ambassadors' Conference in London. And this was the creation of Sir Edward Grey. We doubt whether any other Minister of Foreign Affairs would have been allowed to summon it, or whether any place but London would have been agreed upon as its meeting-place. The peace concluded by the Treaty of London was Sir Edward Grey's peace. Almost the same may be said of the new peace among the Balkan States. It is in numerous respects far short of a perfect peace, but it may serve. That it is accepted by Europe as a whole is a fact to the good that once seemed beyond the dreams of optimism.

PRESIDENT WILSON'S MEXICAN DILEMMA.

President Wilson is not happy in his method of dealing with Mexican affairs, and now his last chance of coming to a colorable compromise with the Huerta régime has been swept away. We never believed that the Mexican Dictator would publicly acknowledge his position to be illegal and abandon it to please the United States. Even if President Huerta had consented to resign and accept a new election, he would certainly have been re-elected, and then President Wilson could not have declined to recognize him. But this would not have saved Mr. Wilson from the dilemma in which he has landed him

self. If the refusal to recognize Huerta was due to outraged morality, it is hard to see how this is bettered by his re-election. If Huerta is distasteful because he owes his position to force, he is not really any the better because he has been put back by the nominal popular vote. President Wilson has landed himself in an impasse for which he alone is responsible. We do not for a moment believe that he is amenable to the sinister influences that would be only too ready to pull the wires in this matter, but he is rapidly blundering into a state of affairs from which he can hardly escape in the end save by sacrificing

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