WHERE "moonshine" comes from is a secret still.-Tampa Tribune.

TRUTH lies at the bottom of oil-wells. Promoters lie at the top.-Tampa Tribune.

FREEDOM of speech is for those who know the speech of freedom.-Washington Post.

THE Democrats regard the rift in the Republican ranks as a breach of promise.-Norfolk Virginian-Pilot.

ONE Swimming instructor down on the Long Island coast, for some reason, advertises that he will guarantee to teach all men pupils to swim three

miles. New York American.

"NEW YORK has grown up," says a British visitor, after fifteen years' absence. That's the only way it can grow, old egg. -Brooklyn Eagle.

PRIVATE radio messages have been made possible. Now if something could be done to make the phonograph more private.-Chicago American Lumberman.

IF it strains the neck of an ordinary man to gaze at the top of a fifteen-story building, wonder how the neck of a German mark feels as it looks up at the American dollar.Des Moines Register.

SOME So-called open minds should be closed for repairs.Asheville (N. C.) Times.

THE accent in the fresh proposals of Germany is on th "fresh."-Asheville Times.

EVEN if we make Mars an outlaw he may act just like in-law.-Cleveland Times and Commercial.

"AMERICAN currency hoarded in Europe." That's more tha we can do with it here.-Washington Post.

IT must be comforting to the monkey to learn from the anti-evolutionists that he is now absolved of all responsibility for the human race.-Asherie Times.

for the bones of Pocahontas. But it's all right to dig up Tutankh-Amen, you know.-Cleveland Plain Dealer.

THE indemnity Germany is willing to pay, in round numbers, is 00,000,000,000 marks.- New York American.

AUTOMOBILES will keep this country from ever going back to whiskers as one of its staple crops.-Toledo Blade.

ONE German institution that doesn't go on strike when the French invade Germany is the stork.-Tacoma Ledger.

ALL this advertisement of religion by the controversialists may make it more popular with the masses.-Dallas Journal.

ONCE we kicked against taxation without representation. Now we get too much of each.-New Orleans Times-Picayune.

ALL candidates have two hats in their wardrobes; one to toss into the ring and another to talk through.-North Adams Herald.

A CHICAGO business man died in a taxicab. If you have a weak heart, it doesn't do to watch the meter.-American Lumberman.

THE Russian people are said to be inordinately fond of moving pictures. Now we know what is the matter with them.-New York Tribune.

To "catch 'em comin' and goin,'" the Democrats might make the ticket Bryan and Smith or Smith and Bryan.-Muncie Evening Press.

EVERYBODY says this country has too many laws, and yet every man thinks he knows of a law that ought to be passed.Detroit Free Press.

THE European nations hav not yet learned that the dogs of war will not chase the wolf from the door. Asheville Times.

AN Englishman says that Americans know very little geography. That's because the Europeans are always changing it.-Arkansas Gazette.

IT is announced that the country has a surplus of $200.000,000. Unfortunate that the news can not be concealed from Congress.-St. Joseph News

Press.

WE may yet learn that it was a mistake to liberate the prisoners of those Chinese bandits without exacting a pledge that none of them would go on the lecture platform.Cleveland Times and Commer cial.

"WHAT will become of our young people?" wails an Ohio editor. We suppose they'll grow old and worry about the

young people, too.-Florence Herald

BERLIN is beginning to realize that any shooting in Europe is pretty liable to hit the mark.-Manila Daily Bulletin.

THAT shop where they are making artificial lightning must be an aggregation of bolts and nuts.-New York Tribune.

WE presume President Harding soon will be writing back. "What is so rare as a day in Juneau?"-Arkansas Gazette.

SCIENTIST says the next war will be fought by radio. Way our radio sounds, it's going on now.-Columbia (S. C.) Record. THE Committee of 48 has indorsed Senator Borah for Presi dent. That makes 49 in favor of his nomination.-Cleveland Times.

ONE of the best ways to keep a permanent wave permanent is to get it permanented about eight times a year.-Charleston Gazette.

It is not surprizing that Russia distrusts America. We sent her Trotzky, Emma Goldman and Big Bill Haywood.-New York Tribune.

EUROPEAN Countries are inviting American tourists to visit them, but the invitation is not so pressing as it was in 1917.New York Tribune.

DIPLOMACY failed to prevent the war and now it is unable to arrange the peace. Apart from that it is all right.-Boston Shoe and Leather Reporter.

STOCKBROKERS in "Wall" Street are not so gleeful these days over the kind of "clean-up" toward which they are headed.Birmingham Age-Herald.

can continue the payments under the clearing system and the other payments to the amount of perhaps half a billion gold marks, and in addition thereto it can, perhaps, make deliveries in kind to the amount of another half-billion. During the next few years Germany will hardly be able to pay more than one billion a year, unless economic conditions change substantially. In order again to be able to make substantial deliveries even upon reparations accounts it requires a longer moratorium. This moratorium should be extended over five to seven years. During this time the payments to France to the extent of one billion gold marks per annum must be provided for by a loan, which should amount from five to fifteen billion gold marks. Whether this loan should be granted in one sum or in instalments, the future has to show. . . . This will give rise to the hope that the mark will actually depreciate no further, in consequence of

overcoming the world crisis. That will happen in a few year time and then it will be seen that Germany will be able to pa the three billions interest on the reduced reparations debt of fift billion gold marks. But with respect to the intervening period it is safe to say that Germany will be able to pay one to two l lion gold marks yearly in the near future. For this reason Ger many also would give desired guaranties to insure paymen The gold value hidden in the securities will become evident one again the stabilization of the mark permits of gold mortgage being offered and taken up. Besides the natural resources Germany are worth considering. The only condition is tha these securities must be calculated at a fixt, stabilized value." So much for the German side. The French view of the situation is altogether different, as will be seen by the following official French statement:

AS GERMANY SEES GERMANY

"As M. Theunis pointed out during the discus sion of the Belgian budget, at the end of 192 Germany has no foreign debt and on account the collapse in the value of the mark she is free, i fact, of all internal debt.

"An American economist, Mr. Moody, clear! emphasized that situation: Germany's bankrupt is an accomplished fact; the Germans who o government bonds own a thing of no value. E Germany decided upon starting on a new basis with a well-guaranteed monetary system, it would take her only a short time to reach an economi situation without peer in Europe. Such a situation would be strengthened by the fact that the Ger man Government has continuously enriched the individual while ruining the treasury. The con sequences are that the taxable assets of Germany have not ceased to increase since the war; not only have the taxes been paid with delay or not at al but sums used for the improvement of industry and agriculture were exempt from taxes. The owners of real estate property have thus been able to buy off at ridiculously low prices the mortgages on the properties.

"As has been remarked by the English writer. Mr. Ellis Barker, the real value of the chief resources which create Germany's wealth is greate than before. The owners of mines, manufactures, etc., have increased to a supreme degree the value of their properties. Such establishments have been increased and modernized throughout Germany: surpluses and savings have been invested in the safest and most profitable way, owing to those improvements.

which foreign countries will be able to base their calculations upon a stable Germany."

Ex-Minister Bernhard Dernburg, who lectured extensively in this country in the early days of the war, explains that the loss of the German export trade renders payment of the reparations impossible. He writes:

"Opponents and neutrals surround themselves by unheard-of trade obstructions. Thus anti-dumping duties in England, stringent customs measures in other countries, import prohibitions, form links of the vicious circle drawn around the economic world. The consequence is decline in production and exports everywhere, diminished purchasing power everywhere and emigration of entire industries to other countries."

The German official journal Wirtschaft und Statistik informs us that before the war imports exceeded exports by 10 to 15 per cent. Now this excess has risen to 30 per cent. Exports of pig-iron in 1922 were one-third the pre-war figure. Exports of chemicals showed a similar drop, while exports of dyes were less than one-half. Exports of fertilizer slumped to a negligible figure, and the same was true of sugar, formerly a large article of export. "German agriculture on account of its decline is unable to export anything."

That this situation can be very well changed and that Germany will be able to pay, "Parvus" admits in a very comprehensive statement about "The Reconstruction of the German State Finances." He surprizes us with the confession that "Germany is safe for fifty billion gold marks," let alone the smaller sum at present under discussion.

"The reconstruction of German industry depends upon

"The same Mr. Barker concludes that the German population has not suffered from the monetary crisis which seems to weigh in such a terrible manner on the country. Not only does the mortality rate decrease in Germany but the excess of births over deaths is constantly increasing; this excess has passed from 282,120 in 1919 to 666,358 in 1920 and 686,655 in 1921. The population has been increased by one million' immigrants, while emigration is very low, contrary to the case before the war.

"A Government which has neither an exterior nor an interior debt, which enjoys full economic prosperity, which has neither a war budget nor a navy budget, can, without any doubt, rapidly reconstitute its financial situation. The theoretical sum to be demanded from Germany according to the award of the Reparations_Commission, was to be 132 billion marks. It does not seem that it will be actually exacted; but if it were, it would not load Germany, having no other debt, with a heavier burden than that carried by England, whose debt amounts to 7,500,000,000 pounds sterling, equivalent to 135 billion gold marks.

"The French Government knows perfectly well that German destructions, deliberate in a very large measure, have been so enormous that complete compensation for the losses incurred may prove impossible: to that extent, tho vanquished, Germany may triumph and rejoice, having inflicted wounds which she will, perhaps, not be called upon to heal.

"France, who has granted successive diminutions, is certainly not at all bent, in spite of all that has been said, on exacting more than Germany can actually pay. But unable to trust any more mere promises, she will demand guaranties, to be relinquished, in the same way as the Germans acted in 1871, by degrees and in proportion to the payments made.

"To what extent the Germans can pay has been made as doubtful as possible by themselves. The chief profits made by

their industrialists and traders are left abroad so as to avoid taxation. In an article published by the Review of Reviews, Mr. Charles R. Hook, Vice-President and General Manager of the American Rolling Mill Company, of Middletown, Ohio, writes: 'In Italy we had opportunity to secure startling facts, and by reading letters from German manufacturers to Italian consumers we discovered that, without exception, quotation was made in dollars, and it was provided that payment was to be made by deposit of dollars in a bank designated by the German manufacturers-a bank located not in Germany, but where the goods were sold.'

"The wealth of those manufacturers is being still increased by the way in which they pay their workmen. The same Mr. Hook found that his chief German competitor paid common labor the equivalent of one dollar per week and skilled labor the equivalent of two dollars.

"Sources of revenue seem to have been studiously discarded, and causes of expense welcomed. In an article in The North American Review for March last, Mr. Lawrence Adler writes: According to authoritative reports, Germany has been spending more money recently on internal improvements than any other European Power, and there seems to be conclusive evidence that this policy has been adopted deliberately to inflate the already inflated currency and make it apparently impossible to pay the reparation bill. Munich is to have one of the largest railway stations in the world, Koenigsberg is building a costly new municipal opera house.' (Page 339.) In the same article is quoted a report by Mr. The wall, commercial attaché to the British Embassy at Berlin, who says: 'There has been speculation and enormous investment on the part of the wealthy German industrialists and business men in foreign holdings. The same class consistently avoids paying its taxes.' (Page 340.) "Such statements by Americans of standing and other nonFrench experts are numerous. The most recent are due to Mr. Garet Garrett and have appeared in The Saturday Evening Post of April 21st and 28th. According to this writer, just returned to the United States, German poverty, German famine, German incapacity to make good for their destructions are so many 'hoaxes.'

"This judgment is confirmed by information from different and quite reliable sources. René Pinon, a French economist, honorably known, calculates that by the end of 1922 German manufacturers had in various banks in England, the United States, Holland, etc., at least 500 million pounds sterling, that is, 13 billion gold francs. The deposits in Switzerland amount to 5 billion gold francs. There are some in Denmark of unprecedented importance. The Hamburg-Amerika line announced the other day a dividend of 30%, which does not give the idea of an overtaxed company.

"If it is difficult, owing to so much concealment and lack of good-will, to reach absolute certitude as to the amount the Germans could, if so disposed, devote to reparations, a comparison can, however, be instituted with another country, France, whose figures are public and certain, and which would cast light on the problem.

"In the French budget of 1922, the receipts amount to 24 billion, 691 million francs. This is exclusive of all borrowing. "In the same budget, expenditures are calculated as follows: Public debt, 13 billion, 191 million; military expenditures, 4 billion, 910 million; civil services expenditures, 7 billion, 35 million; a total of 25 billion, 136 million.

"The expenditures exceed the receipts by about 445 million. "To the expenditures should be added the amount of recoverable expenses which ought to be paid by Germany, but are not. They amount to 23 billion, 84 million, and are covered by the proceeds of loans.

"If France had no devastated regions to rehabilitate, no interest to pay on her debt, and no military expenses, all her other expenditures, including the cost of a police force, would not exceed 8 billion franes, i. e., one-third of her normal income. She would then have a surplus of 16 billion francs a year, equivalent to more than 4 billion gold marks.

"Germany, through the depreciation of her money, has no longer any public debt, she has no military expenses, properly so-called, she has no devastated districts to reconstruct. While the productive power of ten of the French Departments is very much reduced, and in some parts inexistent, Germany's industrial plants and productive strength are intact. She has a population of 65 million, while France's population is less than 40. "Therefore, if Germany was administered as France is, if the German paid taxes equal to the taxes paid by the French, she could dispose, yearly, for payments of reparations, of a minimum amount of 6 billion and a half gold marks

66

RUSSIAN PAPERS-RED, BUT NOT READ

W

E HAVE NO PRESS," say the Bolshevists in Russia; "all we have is an elaborate machinery for spoiling paper," and the correspondent who quotes this confession adds that most of the Soviet journals are "printed on paper which even the Russian worker's modest taste does not allow him to use for rolling up his cigarets." It was easy to exterminate the non-Communist press, we are told. Even tho the Petrograd Day "changed its name consecutively to Midday, Evening, Midnight, and Night," it "finally succumbed" to the "unequal game of hide and seek. All private publi

cations were finally supprest. But it has been impossible, so far, to replace them with interesting, readable, and influential Soviet papers. In the New Statesman (London) the correspondent observes,

"Large sums of money were assigned for the upkeep of these papers, but the difficulties became manifest from the outset. The intelligentsia, with few exceptions, stubbornly refused to lend itself to the work of writing for the new papers, and so the press was not only reduced to a mere mouthpiece of a small despotic group, but came to be produced by men who had neither the aptitude nor the necessary training for their task. Had brightness and talent not forsaken the new press, the reading public, failing anything else, might still have found some interest in it.

"It should be borne in mind that the Russian people have never known an entirely free press. The history of the Russian press is, after all, to a great extent, the history of its censorship. But the dulness and crudeness of the Soviet press were so palpable that the people turned away from it in disgust. If the papers of Petrograd and Moscow are of a higher standard, it is because they are in the hands of Bolsheviks, who in exile abroad or in secret in Russia had trained their pen to some degree of proficiency. But such men are rare, and the provincial press is left to men of low intelligence and inferior education. The Moscow Pravda itself gave a not untrue description of its contemporaries: The provincial papers,' it said, are as like as two drops of water. Their very appearance, uniform and gray, inspires one with a sense of dulness. On opening such a paper

one finds in it some 'high politics,' a few foreign wireless messages and a couple of articles. The articles are regularly written by the same one or two writers, and the same stereotyped phrases and the same ideas are repeated ad

nauseam."

"Beneath criticism" is the phrase applied to "an overwhelming majority of the provincial papers" by a circular in which the Russian Communist party urges that "energetic measures be taken to raise the status of the press." Russia's New Economic Policy, the compromise between Communism and Capitalism, has not had that effect, for

"Like many other State industries, on the advent of the New Economic Policy, the press had to be thrown on its own resources. Its fate was in the hands of the reading public, and the consequences did not take long to tell, for it still remained what it had always been-a colorless instrument of distasteful propaganda. It was not, however, totally forsaken by the Soviet Government. In many districts compulsory subscriptions were forced from small traders and Communist party members; but evasions were wholesale, and the futility of the order soon became apparent. A measure which allowed

the insertion of advertisements, altho slightly more efficacious for a time, proved after a while equally useless. The losses of the papers began to increase at a tremendous rate. This decline was rapid and general; papers closed down one after another, not merely in outlying districts but in the large centers.

"At a meeting last autumn of the Central Bureau of Press Workers, a report was read showing the position of the Soviet On January 1, 1922, it was stated, there had been 803 press. newspapers; in a space of seven months this number had been reduced to 299. The daily number of papers printed had been 2,661,000 in January; in August it was 993,000.

"A slight revival was brought about in the winter months by the allocation of further subsidies. The total circulation of the Soviet press was raised to 1,300,000. What this expresses can be best judged by the fact that the circulation of one paper in pre-revolutionary days, the Moscow Ruskoije Slovo, exceeded 1,200,000. New endeavors were made to interest the provincial and industrial workers and the Communists. Factory hands, for instance, were asked to send character sketches of their directors, the best sketch to receive a money prize. The same principle was applied in the villages where Communists were to write of the doings of the peasants. But this practise had to be abandoned; for the murders of these factory and village correspondents became a regular occurrence, and the outrages extended to other Soviet journalists, two of the Pravda's prominent correspondents losing their lives."

Many bombastic speeches enlivened last February's congress of Soviet journalists in the Moscow Kremlin, yet, as the New Statesman's correspondent affirms, "the deepest pessimism prevailed." The congress "clearly realized that, whatever resolutions were passed, they could not gain the ear of the Russian people." Meanwhile

"It is interesting to note that, parallel with the decline of the Government press, tentative efforts were made to produce non-Communist papers, taking advantage of the New Economic Policy: and despite the always increasing cost of production, this enterprise has begun to show signs of fruitful development. In the Government of Saratoff, of the total number of twenty Soviet newspapers only two or three had survived the autumn months, but the Voljanine at Khvalinsk, the Lutch at Volsk, and several others published on a cooperative basis, began to assert themselves. These papers devote their pages almost exclusively to local matters of economic or social import and are eagerly read by the people.

"Difficulties are constantly being put in the way of such papers, yet those which avoid a conflict by refraining from dealing with political subjects are surviving. The extremists are urging the Government to put an end to the New Economic Policy and to sweep away the new independent press, which they maintain is a dangerous weapon secretly directed against the dictatorship of the Communist party. The Government, reluctant to throw over the New Economic Policy, has not satisfied the extremists' demands with regard to the press. Unable to instil a new lease of life into its dying press it has so far contented itself with inflicting pin-pricks on the distasteful, if unaggressive, rival."

T

SPAIN DISCARDING BULL-FIGHTS

HE BULL-FIGHT is fast losing its popularity in Spain observe the Spanish magazines, and thus we find fu filled the prediction of a Spanish writer whose remarks on bull-fighting were reproduced in these pages several years ago. The sport was declining then. It has since declined more rapidly. As the Madrid Blanco y Negro tells us―

"In 1915 there were 685 first-class bull-fights during ta season; three years later, the number had fallen to 421; las year it was only 257, and the time is fast approaching wher bull-fighting will be only a memory."

To account for this, Blanco y Negro recalls the moralizing campaign waged by Spanish writers, and adds that the hig cost of living has helped the campaign. "Since the matadors came to demand exorbitant salaries, their popularity has dwin dled." Then, too, commercialism has killed romance.

"A few decades ago, a torero was almost a national hero admiring crowds followed him and the glory attached to h name was more important than money. Nowadays, the bullfight is a business proposition, and retired bull-fighters have made short-lived reappearances for the sake of a little money banking on the fame acquired during their youth, but the public has become aware of this practise and the number of corridas is constantly decreasing."

Moreover, Alfonso has an English queen and shows a great liking for English ways. "Yachting, polo and horse-racing have been his chief delights, and this has had a good deal to do with the decline of bull-fighting, as the aristocracy always follows the fashions decreed by the sovereign." The King's popularity does not seem to have suffered from the change. inasmuch as he endeavored to transform the fashionable resort of San Sebastian into a world-known place by fostering horseracing and instituting a purse of one million pesetas, the highest prize race in the world, to be disputed yearly in August.

Shorn of its heroic aspects, bull-fighting is being exported, according to the Nuevo Mundo of Madrid, and a New York paper informs us that in Vienna a large arena is under construction, while "in Rome a few weeks ago a crowd of severa thousand persons clamored for the death of the bulls in a fight in which it was said that the bulls 'almost had a good time,' the Humane Society having taken a hand in the affair." As regards the situation in Spain, the Nuevo Mundi observes:

"From a drama, bull-fight is falling to vaudeville. But as the Spanish people can not stand it and prefer to do without it rather than to see their fallen idols made ridiculous, bullfight parodies are being staged everywhere, in Italy, France Cuba, South America, and even in the United States. Pantomime imitators of Charlie Chaplin have supplanted real toreros, the bulls have their horns carefully covered so as to do no harm and not a drop of blood is allowed to wound the spectators sensibilities."

A new fad seems to be gaining ground-baseball. From ancient times, Spaniards have been enthusiastic players of jayalai, a ball game played between two teams, requiring great strength and dexterity, but the game requires elaborate arrangements, such as two great walls, against which one of the teams throws the ball that the other must catch; baseball appeals to the popular sentiment because anybody can play it with little expense, and the Nuevo Mundo remarks:

"We can not foresee the influence that baseball will have on Spanish character. We even doubt that it will survive very long, but it can be noted as one of the many consequences of American participation in the World War. While opposed in principle to the sanguinary sport of bull-fighting, we mourn the passing of a popular manifestation of Spain's fighting spirit, thinking of the times when instead of mastering wild beasts the Conquistadores mastered a New World."