The most natural explanation of the trip, and the one universally adopted, was that Mr. Hoover wished to slip away from the swarm of too urgent advisers and office-seekers that normally clouds the atmosphere about a newly elected Chief Executive. But if he had merely planned to get well out of reach of importunate friends for a few weeks, he would have accomplished little beyond a postponement of his trials. As a matter of fact, however, it is probable that he went away with the character and qualifications of the men who had surrounded him during the campaign clearly fixed in his memory; that he consulted with himself in the silence of the open sea; and that he returned with his mind so clearly made up concerning the men he would have to choose to help him, and those whose choice he would have to approve, that he could face blandishments and all-too-willing advice with an equanimity which other incoming presidents have not been privileged to enjoy.

There is no doubt, also, that the President-Elect, who had notably notably avoided exaggerated promises during the

sound and fury which preceded the election, wished to make a gesture which would indicate that he believed in deeds rather than words. The unexpected announcement of his trip to Latin America, coming just four days after the election itself, was nicely timed; it succeeded in impressing the public with the fact that Mr. Hoover, now that the busy days of promises had passed, was losing not a moment in making a constructive move to further the interests of American foreign trade and, with it, American prosperity.

Much concerning the good will which the Hoover trip has fostered in the minds and hearts of Latin Americans has been written most of it by American correspondents who accompanied the Hoover party. It is true that a generally cordial welcome was extended the President-Elect throughout his course trifle cooler than the average in Argentina, a trifle warmer in Brazil. The American press was filled with reports of friendly demonstrations and quotations from speeches of welcome, perfunctory in the main, as such speeches must be.

a

This was to be expected. The larger Latin-American journals also were unanimously favorable toward the trip; though it must be admitted that the larger Latin-American journals are seldom impolite. Good will is an exceedingly difficult sentiment to evaluate, particularly in the case of nations. The most that can be said at present concerning the effect of the Hoover trip on the traditionally suspicious attitude of Latin America toward the United States is that those who know the countries to the south and the character of their people are unanimous in saying that such a formal visit by a President-Elect of the United States is certain to appeal to Latin America's natural pride, and to do much to overcome the feeling of the Latin-American peoples that, for geographical or other reasons, they have been neglected among the nations.

Mr. Hoover in American public office has been largely identified with the promotion of the foreign commerce of the United States, and it was therefore natural that a desire to promote the expansion of American commercial relations with the Latin-American nations should have been assigned as the most practical motive of his voyage. How much of a practical nature he could accomplish when his stay in each South American capital was limited to a few hours is more than questionable; and it was notable that no member of the Department of Commerce was chosen to accompany him. That his trip has constituted an effective gesture of interest, whose result will be felt in future trade relations between the two continents of the Western Hemisphere, however, is not to be doubted. But only as the foreign trade policies of Mr. Hoover's administration develop, and as the import and export figures come in at the ends of the coming business years, can we know how successful the President-Elect has been in solidifying the position of the United States in South America, and thus forging an increasingly necessary weapon for commercial wars to come.

The dangerous disagreement over exactly how this new ‘reparations inquisition' is to be conducted has been ended. The new commission to examine the burden and liquidation of reparations, promised Germany under the sixpower agreement reached during the September Assembly of the League, has taken form at last. Germany's insistence upon a thoroughly independent body of experts, as fully competent to test out the economics of the Dawes Plan as the earlier commission was to formulate it, no longer is denied. France's demand that the more or less moribund Reparations Commission be empowered formally to 'designate' the new international committee of experts (after the Allied Governments concerned have concerned have previously selected their delegates) has not been disputed; and Germany, on her side, retains the right directly to appoint her own experts, who are to enjoy exactly the same status as the Allied investigators.

The United States has been approached

THE WORLD OVER

Siamese twins who may be taught dip lomatically to ignore one another but who cannot physically be severed.

Certain things are clear. By reviving the importance of the Reparations Commission, eclipsed in the past by the Dawes Plan machinery, Poincaré enables France to preserve the legalities of the Versailles Treaty; yet the Reparations Commission, whose memory is so distasteful to the Germans, is not made unduly prominent. Then again, everthoughtful French diplomacy, mindful that governments may reject the findings of the experts transmitted through the medium of the Reparations Commission, has provided in this way for a buffer upon which can fall the shock of any breakdown in the new efforts to put the reparations provisions of the Treaty of Versailles into terms of workable economics.

409

of friendly relations seemed slight. Though negotiations opened in Nanking itself at the end of November seemed at first on the way to success, they finally broke down. Japan steadfastly refused to withdraw her forces from China's 'Sacred Province' until the dispute over the "Tsinan Incident' was settled; China remained adamant in her demands for evacuation. The Chinese determination to press the issue of tariff autonomy, feared by Nippon's industrial leaders, loomed as an even greater difficulty.

Until the very moment in December when the British envoy suddenly left the fastness of His Majesty's Peking Legation and hastened to Nanking, Great Britain seemed to figure in the situation only in connection with the rumored revival of an Anglo-Japanese alliance. Even here, official circles in London would go no further than the admission that an understanding - known to Washington and other powers - existed, by which the British and the Japanese agreed to collaborate in their respective WENTY-ONE guns were fired by Chinese policies; but attention was

TWENTY-ONE GUNS AT NANKING

ernments through the ranking diplomatic representative in Washington, Sir Esme Howard of Great Britain. President Coolidge has expressed himself as unwilling to consider any official American participation in the new commission of experts, but has given his consent to the participation of two American citizens as private individuals a move which was headlined across the Atlantic as 'America's Christmas Present to Europe.' At this writing, the two men who will lend American impartiality and good humor to what promises to be the largest undertaking in international politics in 1929 have not definitely been selected. Parker Gilbert, the American who is now acting as Agent General of Reparations in Berlin, is on his way back to Washington to lend his counsel to the choice, which promises to centre about two former members of the Dawes Commission - Owen D. Young and VicePresident Dawes himself— and a third who has not yet been called upon to turn his judicial talents upon this particular problem - Charles Evans Hughes.

We have now reached the point where the main outlines of the major diplomatic issue since the Treaty of Versailles stand out with fair sharpness. The direct issue is the alteration of reparations arrangements to permit a final settlement, possibly through the 'commercialization so far as possible of the financial burden which rests upon the shoulders of a rejuvenated Germany. The question of War debts and Washington's attitude toward them has been drawn into the reparations negotiations; the two are

It was two years since the boom of British cannon had last reverberated over China's 'South Metropolis,' sprawled along the lazily flowing Yangtze River. Then the guns spat defiantly at uncontrolled Nationalist troops who threatened to annihilate terrorized foreign refugees at Socony Hill; and Americans likewise were laying down a barrage from quickfirers to save their countrymen. This present British salvo, however, was a salute to the triumphant Nationalists, who now constitute in the world's judgment the Government of the Republic of China, and marked the climax of a campaign of pacific diplomacy. There were no echoing American salutes to match this swift manœuvre of British statesmanship that was designed to recapture Chinese good will, and with it primacy among the powers in the Orient.

To those at a distance, however, it was the deadlock between Japan and China, rather than the prospect of an AngloChinese settlement, that seemed to loom largest on the Eastern horizon during the closing days of 1928. Japan's foreign policy toward her East Asiatic neighbor was apparently all-important in Pacific diplomacy. The Mikado's Land, like Britain, had been at loggerheads with the Nationalists since 1927. Japan's part in the Nanking tragedy was but one factor. From the moment the Nationalists clashed with Japanese troops who had intervened in Shantung when the Northern militarists weakened during the spring onslaught of 1928, until early winter, the prospects for the resumption

focused on the prospects of more extended coöperation. The possibility of the reappearance of an alliance between London and Tokio alarmed not only Soviet Russia, but China as well; the Chinese Foreign Minister went out of his way to tell British interests in Shanghai how keenly apprehensive the Nanking Government was at the prospect of an entente that would once more bind the Japanese and British Empires in the Far East.

Downing Street, too, carefully covered up British plans for the sudden recognition of the Nanking Government in full and formal diplomatic terms. The day before Sir Miles Lampson signed the now doubly significant customs agreement, an act which seemingly only followed the earlier American lead toward recognition in July, the United States had reopened the looted Nanking American Consulate. Only the dispute over the ceremonial order of salutes between China and America delayed Washington's final move. But England moved too fast. The day following the British diplomat's midnight signature of the customs agreement came the twentyone gun salute which constituted formal recognition of the Nationalist Government a move which must now be regarded as a coup de main deliberately planned to offset the hitherto unquestioned leadership of the United States in the reconstitution of relations between China and the Powers.

The net effect of this inauguration of a new era in Anglo-Chinese relations, unless one expects further surprises of

a Machiavellian nature from the British Foreign Office, will be to embarrass Japan at the worst psychological moment. The Tanaka Government, which is responsible to Japan's first 'manhood suffrage' parliament, has commanded but a slender majority; and Tokio's seeming failure to maintain Japanese prestige in the Chinese negotiations has aroused bitter denunciation. Across the Yellow Sea, Japan's diplomatic adversary, Dr. C. T. Wang, is secure in the knowledge that he has obtained British recognition at the end of the long Nationalist struggle to curtail foreign treaty rights. With the abolition of tariff and extraterritorial privileges in sight for every Great Power save Japan, the Mikado's Land stands isolated, and once again is threatened with the consequences of shortsighted statesmanship in dealing with New China.

THE KING OF
ENGLAND

NOW

OW that King George V is well on the road to recovery from his recent critical illness, it is perhaps interesting to know the constitutional procedure whereby English Kings are made and persons are delegated to act for the King when he is incapacitated. Surely many Americans wondered, as they read their daily papers, what a Regency Commission was and who appointed it. In the United States if the President is seriously ill there is no machinery sanctified by precedent

influence in this, as in most matters, was exercised behind the scenes. Indeed, the English King to-day is merely the symbol of the people, hedged round, not with divinity, but with restrictions on his liberty of action.

The famous Bill of Rights of 1688 finally confirmed the actual supremacy of Parliament over King. Before that, the kingship was a mysterious power which was considered independent of the individual who was King. There had always to be a King. When one died, his nearest heir immediately assumed this mysterious sanctity, whether the people desired it or not. The Bill of Rights destroyed this conception of the monarchy by boldly declaring that the

the machinery of government. Probably the most important of these is the approval of bills of Parliament, which is constitutionally necessary to make these bills acts.

It was in connection with this function of the King that, in the thirtythird year of the reign of Henry VIII, there was inserted into the famous Act for the Attainder of Queen Catherine Howard a clause which forms the precedent for the appointment of Royal Commissions. This clause read:

That the King's royal assent by his letters patent under his great seal and signed with his hand and declared and notified in his absence to the Lords Spiritual and temporal and to the Commons assembled together in

which relieves him of the duties or burdens of his office; of course, if he dies, the Vice President becomes President; if he becomes insane, the Constitution provides for similar action. But the possibility of serious illness is not allowed for in the American governmental system.

In England, the King has a somewhat peculiar position. Historically, he is sovereign of the English people and calls Parliament together to consult with him and to lend him financial support. In fact, the King has very little direct power, though his influence over events may be tremendous; King Edward VII had as much to do with the formation of the Anglo-French entente before the War as any statesman, but King Edward's

throne was vacant.' It then proceeded to determine the succession according to the tastes of the Parliament, then sitting, and it finally set certain conditions to which the sovereign would have to conform or cease to be sovereign. The main condition was that the King of England must be a Protestant.

This at once established the supremacy of Parliament; it determined that the King is King only by sufferance of Parliament. It robbed of all real meaning the old exclamation with which the death of a king was traditionally announced: The King is dead! Long live the King!'

The King has, nevertheless, certain formal functions which are essential to

the high house, is and ever was of as good strength and force as though the King's person had been there personally present and had assented openly and publicly to the same.

This provision has been more and more extended in force through the centuries until, in 1811, when King George III was definitely declared insane, Parliament passed a Regency Bill which named a regent, and then authorized the Lord Chancellor to place the Great Seal on the Royal Commission which would give the King's assent to the bill, without consulting George III at all in the matter. When George V was recently taken ill, he simply appointed a Commission of men whom he empowered to act for him in his illness.

When the King dies, Parliament immediately assembles, and the next in succession according to the terms of the Act of Succession of 1711 automatically becomes King. No one knows what would happen if Parliament should be dissolved before a King's death and no Writs should have been issued calling for an election. It is probable that the new King would be advised to sign the new Writs and the new Parliament would confirm his action as soon as it met.

All of this is typical of that peculiar body of written law, precedent, and common sense which make up the British Constitution. In many ways it is an admirably workable system, and yet it must be a sore trial to the men

responsible when an unusual situation arises and they have nothing to guide them except their own native sense of what is fitting.

IMPROVEMENT ALTHOUGH it is too soon to

IN THE

BALKANS

express the view that affairs have permanently altered for the better in the Balkan Peninsula, the events of the last two months give reason for believing that there has been an encouraging increase in stability.

Bulgaria, in spite of the efforts of Communist propagandists to interfere by spreading alarmist stories of internal disorder, has had the gratification of seeing her $25,000,000 loan oversubscribed. As this money will be applied to domestic reconstruction, internal concord seems for the present assured-especially as the League of Nations is now interesting itself in the grievances of the Macedonian autonomists. In Yugoslavia, although the old tension between Croat and Serb still continues, and political disputes have recently become bitter, there appears a prospect of peaceful adjustment under a royal dictatorship.

In Rumania, there seems every reason to believe that the cabinet of Iuliu Maniu, whose career was described in last month's LIVING AGE, will be able to continue with its reforms. When M. Maniu came to power in November, it was freely predicted that Vintila Brătianu and his Liberal Party - whom M. Maniu and the National Peasant Party displaced - would soon be strong enough to overthrow him. But the sweeping victory which the National Peasant Party won at the polls in December soon showed how greatly the present power of M. Brătianu had been exaggerated. It now seems certain that M. Maniu and his cabinet will remain in office for some months at least; that, if hard pressed by M. Brătianu and his followers,

they will probably be able to maintain themselves by coalition with other parties; and that they will be able to carry out a large part of their proposed programme.

THE KELLOGG TREATY

PASSAGE of the Senate's resolu

tion ratifying the Kellogg Treaty will probably be regarded as rendering practically certain ratification by the other signatory powers. Made wary by the failure of the Versailles Treaty to secure ratification nine years ago, the European powers have almost ostentatiously refrained from ratification until they could see what action the United States would take. But when the United States has ratified, the other powers are not likely to be far behind, since there is no powerful body of opinion against the Treaty anywhere in the world. True, there is much skepticism. But the Treaty's foreign advocates are quite as ardent as those in the United States, and those who are not enthusiastic for the Treaty regard it as being, at worst, futile. It will have no such gauntlet to run in foreign parliaments as it has had in the United States. Unanimous ratification is therefore to be anticipated; and the Kellogg Treaty, renouncing war as an instrument of national policy, may be regarded thereafter as a part of that vague and unenforcible body of treaties and customs and international understandings known as international law.

Secretary Kellogg's explanations before the Foreign Relations Committee have clarified a number of matters about which doubt had been expressed. It is now clearly understood that the Russian signature to the Kellogg Treaty does not imply recognition by the United States of the Soviet Government; that the reservations of the various nations are not considered by the United States State Department to impair

the obligations or limit the effect of the Pact, the instrument standing on its text alone; and that even should one of the signatory nations in future violate the treaty, the United States, though released from its renunciation, will be under no obligation to go to war.

That so much explanation was necessary, further emphasizes the fact that the Kellogg Treaty is not a very specific document. In brevity it is unusual. Stripped of preamble and signatures, it consists of only three articles, totaling two hundred words. In volume it is in striking contrast with the extremely detailed Versailles Treaty, the text of which required a large book. Yet many profess the hope that these three modest paragraphs will put an end once for all to the chief scourge of humanity, war. Actually there is good reason to doubt this.

But, however much skepticism of the treaty's immediate or ultimate value diplomatic considerations may compel, there is no doubt of the enthusiasm with which the war-weary citizens of almost every nation regard it. Especially is this true in the United States, where letters from individuals and resolutions from organizations acclaiming it have poured by hundreds into the White House and the State Department. The campaign of the Scripps-Howard newspapers for ratification by Christmas Day though unsuccessful in its immediate object was nevertheless an aid to the Treaty's friends in the Senate and afforded a fair index of the favor with which it is regarded by the American people.

The Kellogg Treaty may not be a final solution of the war problem - may not, indeed, be even a temporary solution; but it is at least a formal statement of a great and high hope, which may point the way to a lessening of the frequency of war or possibly even to its ultimate elimination.

Ꭱ

ARGENTINA: BUENOS AIRES

ARGENTINA

beauty of its public buildings.

ESIDENTS of colder countries who have been

in the habit of doing their 'hibernation' in the summer sun of Argentina, which shines when it is winter in the north, have wondered why it was that the residents of Buenos Aires, however high the mercury, scorned to adopt tropical clothes. It has sometimes been suspected that these patriotic citizens have never been willing to admit that their capital ever suffered from the heat. As a result, American and European visitors have been the only people in the city whose clothing was suited to the temperature. But, during the present 'summer' season, when intense heat set in earlier than usual, even patriotic Argentinians have doffed their woolens and donned Palm Beach suits. As responsibility for most new things is amiably laid at the door of visitors from a distance, this change is said to have been due to the efforts of a courageous American haberdasher, who last summer dared display a complete line of light fabric clothing, in spite of the failure of many previous attempts to break down the native custom of wearing oppressive summer apparel.

FRANCE

Wor New York? Offhand, we should say New York, which we think affords noise in greater variety and volume than any other city in the world. Other cities have their noises, but they are more restrained and subdued. London goes to sleep earlier than does New York, and sleeps more soundly. The same is true of Paris, except the Montmartre section, in which the cabarets rival, but do not exceed, the festive noises of New York's 'Great White Way.' Recently, the Paris Prefect of Police has reduced the number of noises which interfere with sleep by forbidding motor-horns after one o'clock in the morning. Other noises, more difficult to moderate, remain the tramways, which begin at five in the morning to sound their gongs as they reach the corners and screech as they grind the rails in turning them; the early activities of the road sweepers and cleaners; the market carts, which

WHICH is the noisiest city - London, Paris,

are

now motor-lorries, on their way from suburban gardens to the Halles; the sirens on the river, if you are near the quays; the church bells striking the hours and quarters a cus

tom to which some nervous and irreligious tourists especially object.

WE

GERMANY

E CALLED attention in a previous 'Tour' to the joviality of the Berlin of the present as compared to the Berlin of the period immediately succeeding the War. The last war restriction in Berlin was recently removed when it was officially proclaimed that the front doors of tenement houses might remain open until ten o'clock in the evening.

Until this change, they had been rigorously locked at eight o'clock, and unhappy members of a household who had no latchkey were generally obliged to wait in the street until somebody else living in the house appeared and let them in. Only in the case of exceedingly luxurious houses did the concierge after the 'closing hour' appear at the sound of a bell officially intended to arouse him. It had therefore become the custom for a guest invited to dinner whose arrival might be delayed after the eight o'clock curfew hour to telephone when he left home, so that his host, watching from the